Welcome!
Greetings Gnusies, Gnewbies, lurkers, and drop-ins! Come into our cozy space where we share good news and cheer while keeping a safe distance and wearing our snazzy homemade masks. [See photo below. And feel free to share your own!]
This is a pot luck, so please bring something to share in the comments, which we’re proud to claim as The Best Comment Section on the Internet™.
Insights, compassion, and wit are welcome. But although we encourage you to share your personal feelings honestly, please don’t add to the general gloom by boosting disaster stories from the media.
Thanks!
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Finding good news in bad times
This is a time when bad news has a legitimate claim on our attention. It’s not the same old “if it bleeds, it leads” media playbook. We actually need to pay sufficient attention to the news each day to know what the medical experts are recommending and what our local officials are requesting. This makes it unusually difficult to focus on finding good news. But good news there is, in abundance, and I’ve managed to find more than enough to fill today’s roundup.
Political news
Jeez, even W understood this!
I don’t feel like adding much political content today, but this piece by Eric Levitz is terrific. I recommend you open the link and read the whole piece.
Coronavirus Is Forcing the GOP to (Tacitly) Admit Its Ideology Is Delusional
From New York Magazine:
As the coronavirus pandemic shutters America’s storefronts and fills its ICUs, the GOP is camouflaging a whispered confession beneath a cough. The party’s admission is so quiet most Republicans can’t even make it out themselves. But listen carefully to recent directives from the Trump administration and its allies and you’ll hear unmistakably: Our theory of governance is a lie.
The modern conservative movement holds these truths to be self-evident:
1. Undocumented immigrants are a scourge of American society...
2. Uncle Sam has grown badly bloated and could govern more effectively if a wide swath of federal agencies were gutted.
3. The market is (a largely) apolitical sphere ruled by the impartial dictates of an invisible hand. Thus the superrich do not owe their astronomical market incomes to any set of politically ordained laws or institutions; rather, they earn their gains... By the same token, the working poor cannot blame their low pay on political powerlessness but the objectively low value of their contributions to society. Thus mandating a higher wage floor would only condemn workers with skills that are objectively worth only $7.25 an hour to permanent unemployment.
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...the pandemic has brought the tension between the verities of CPAC and exigencies of governance to such vertiginous heights Republicans have been forced to (tacitly, quietly) make three startling admissions:
1. Undocumented immigrants are among the most indispensable contributors to the American economy.
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2. The administrative state needs to be reconstructed.
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3. The “free market” is a big government program.
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Coping with the pandemic
A brilliant illustration of the effectiveness of social distancing
Italian hermit living alone on an island says self-isolation is the ultimate journey
From CNN:
For more than 30 years, Mauro Morandi has been the sole inhabitant of a beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea. For the past few weeks his hermit's hut has been an aptly isolated location from which to watch the global coronavirus crisis unfold.
And, after being alone with his own thoughts for so much of his life, he's got some insight into the isolation that many of us now face in the weeks and months ahead.
Morandi, a former teacher, arrived on the island of Budelli, off the coast of Sardinia, by accident while attempting to sail from Italy to Polynesia 31 years ago. He fell in love with the pristine atoll's crystal-clear waters, coral sands and beautiful sunsets -- and decided to stay.
He took over from the previous caretaker shortly afterward and, at the age of 81, he's still there, having earned himself a reputation as Italy's Robinson Crusoe.
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He keeps up with the news though, learning first of mainland Italy's shutdown against the spread of coronavirus, and then the rest of the world's.
In his solitary world, he says he currently feels like he's in the "safest place on Earth." He's also eager to share a few tips on how to best face self-isolation.
"I am fine, I'm not scared," he tells CNN Travel via the mobile phone that is his link to the outside world. "I feel safe here. This island offers total protection. No risks at all. Nobody lands, not even a single boat can be seen sailing by."
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Morandi has a few tips for people now forced into solitude in Italy and elsewhere by the pandemic. He says a few weeks holed up inside is nothing to get upset about but is instead an opportunity to practice some soul searching.
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This introspection can, he says, ultimately be highly rewarding. Morandi recounts his own transformation from an inveterate wanderer who traveled across Europe each year to a solitary islander.
"I just didn't feel like traveling anymore -- no interest," he says. "I understood that the most beautiful, dangerous, adventurous and gratifying journey of all is the one inside yourself, whether you're sitting in the living room or under a canopy here in Budelli."
Even in a time of isolation, love conquers all obstacles, as usual.
Finding love during the coronavirus outbreak
From Steve Hartman’s “On the Road,” CBS Nightly News:
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Some music that feels right for this moment
This one goes out to the homicidal maniac in the WH and his malevolent toadies. Stevie always managed to put together the most brutal truth-telling with the most joyful funk music. BTW, the catchy background vocals are by the Jackson 5.
And Paul Simon has given us a new performance of “American Tune.” The lyrics hit especially hard right now, so skip this if you’re feeling fragile. I get tears every time I watch it, but for me the catharsis feels good.
And now something sweeter and more heartening. There’s nothing more comforting than a perennial oldie but goodie.
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Good news from Portland
This is one of those stories you just have to read – editing it down would leave too much good stuff on the cutting room floor. My favorite quotes include a 13-year-old’s response to the question “What has quarantine taught you about yourself?” (“I am insufferable”), and Trail Blazer shooting guard CJ McCollum’s unexpected response to the question “What's your secret to staying sane?” (“Meditation, perspective and enjoying stillness.”).
In Every Room in Portland, There’s a Story of Life During Quarantine. Here Are 10.
From Willamette Week:
Social isolation got you feeling like the walls are closing in? You're not alone. OK, you are alone—but so are your fellow Portlanders, and everybody has a quarantine story to tell.
Over the past week, we asked citizens of this city to describe how life has changed while everyone stays home to slow the spread of COVID-19. Dozens of people filled out WW's survey, which asked nine questions about coping while cooped up in a pandemic.
Some of the people who responded are household names. Others we met for the first time. Everyone told us a lot more than we expected—stories that made us cry, laugh and mutter, "Oh my God!" Portlanders have packed a lot of living in between watching episodes of Tiger King. If there's one lesson that emerges from these diaries, it's that a virus is no match for this city's idiosyncrasy, vitality and courage.
Virtual Club Nights...You Can Literally Dance Like No One Is Watching.
From Willamette Week:
Last Friday, Holocene held its first dance party since the coronavirus pandemic shut down Portland's live music industry.
In many ways, it was like any other DJ night at the Buckman nightclub. Resident DJ Ben Tactic and Nathan Detroit bumped house music from the venue's stage, cloaked under a layer of psychedelic lighting.
There was one major difference, though. Other than the DJs and staff, the club was completely empty.
Unable to host an audience in real life, Holocene decided to livestream the event on YouTube. It drew close to 700 viewers—more than twice the club's capacity.
"For us, it's like, if you miss being able to come out and go to our dance nights, we want you to be able to have that opportunity at home with your roommate or your pet," says Gina Altamura, the club's head curator.
In lieu of a cover charge, the venue posted an optional donation link in the YouTube stream's description box. The first livestream raised enough money to cover the cost of developing and running the stream, plus extra revenue for a fund that goes toward Holocene's staff.
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Good news from Oregon
World’s oldest coronavirus survivor? Oregon veteran lives to celebrate 104th birthday
From the Oregonian:
An Oregon veteran who celebrated his 104th birthday Wednesday could be one of the oldest people in the world to survive the new coronavirus.
William Lapschies, among the first Oregonians known to have the disease, has been declared free of the virus, said daughter Carolee Brown.
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Lapschies lived through another pandemic – he was born at Salem Hospital in 1916 and was 2 when influenza infected a third of the world’s population
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Good news from around the nation
Dolly Parton is a National Living Treasure, no question.
Dolly Parton says she'll donate $1 million for coronavirus research at Vanderbilt
From the Tennessean:
Country legend Dolly Parton has announced she'll donate $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund research of the coronavirus.
Parton made the announcement on social media Wednesday.
"My longtime friend Dr. Naji Abumrad, who’s been involved in research at Vanderbilt for many years, informed me that they were making some exciting advancements towards research of the coronavirus for a cure. I am making a donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt towards that research and to encourage people that can afford it to make donations."
On Monday, Parton announced plans for "Goodnight With Dolly," a weekly web series where she'll read a bedtime story from her international book donation program Imagination Library.
“I think it is pretty clear that now is the time to share a story and to share some love," she said.
And Bill Gates is stepping up:
Bill Gates is Now Building Factories to Produce 7 of the Most Promising COVID-19 Vaccines
From Good News Network:
Bill Gates has just announced that he and his foundation are accelerating the COVID-19 response effort by building factories for all seven of the most promising vaccines currently in development—even though only one or two of them will likely be produced.
Gates discussed the initiative during his at-home interview with The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah this week.
“Because our foundation has such deep expertise in infectious diseases, we’ve thought about the epidemic, we did fund some things to be more prepared, like a vaccine effort,” Gates said. “Our early money can accelerate things.”
Despite how building factories for all seven vaccines in development will likely waste billions of dollars in construction costs, Gates says that having facilities ready for any one of the treatments will likely end up saving thousands of lives in the long run.
And Chef José Andrés continues to prove that he’s a true hero. If you would like to donate to support his work, use the donation link at the bottom of the quote.
#ChefsForAmerica Update: Week 3
From World Central Kitchen website:
With New York as the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, our teams are working tirelessly to make sure residents in need are fed. We are serving 25,000 meals each day across sites in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Harlem, along with Elizabeth and Newark, New Jersey. Next week we will be ramping up to 40,000 meals every day. Additionally, we have set up a WCK “cafe” at the Mount Sinai field hospital that recently opened in Central Park. We’ll keep the fridge here full of healthy, delicious meals for frontline medical staff to grab and heat up whenever they’re hungry.
WCK is currently providing fresh meals to doctors, nurses, and staff at more than 125 hospitals across the country. We are working with local grassroots initiatives Frontline Foods, Off Their Plate, Feed The Frontline in Los Angeles, and East Bay FeedER, as well as sweetgreen, to support these heroes on the frontlines. In Miami, we are working with Food Rescue US- South Florida and Red Rooster Overtown to prepare meals from restaurants for hospital staff. The idea is simple: Support medical clinicians who are working in wartime-like conditions and support local restaurants who have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
[They’re also providing meals to people in need in DC, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area.]
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Announced by Governor Gavin Newsom this weekend, WCK is partnering with the State of California on Project Roomkey, a coordinated effort to bring individuals experiencing homelessness into hotels and motels to protect them from COVID-19. WCK will be providing 3 meals each day to the people in this program.
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In addition to the locations listed above, WCK is operating in Boston; New Orleans; Orlando; Fairfax and Newport News, Virginia; Little Rock, Arkansas; St. John, USVI; and Columbus, Ohio. This week, Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Apple, launched America’s Food Fund to support WCK and FeedingAmerica. With this support, and the support of so many others, we will get through this, together.
To donate to WCK, click here. For real-time updates, follow us here.
NYC Opens Special Centers for Kids of Healthcare and Other Essential Workers on the Front Lines of COVID-19
From Good News Network:
For the 1.1 million public school students in New York City, life was upended when all classes were closed down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Now, in a never-before-attempted project, children with parents in the medical field have got a place to go during the day, while their parents go to work on the frontlines of the contagion.
The largest school state system in the United States set up “regional enrichment centers” where the 8,000 public school kids can do their school work at spaced-apart desks, eat three hot meals a day, and learn how to protect themselves from COVID-19.
The centers are not only taking in kids of hospital workers, the enrichment centers are helping children whose parents work in essential services, like utility departments, postal services, and grocery stores.
North Texas Food Bank teams up with Shiftsmart to provide jobs and feed families
From CBS News:
Thousands of people in Dallas, Texas, lined up on Thursday for free meals provided by the school district. In many places, there aren't enough helping hands to keep pace with the demand for food. But one program is hiring workers laid off due to the coronavirus pandemic to help feed families in need in Washington D.C., and Texas.
Typically, volunteers at the North Texas Food Bank prepare the 77 million meals the bank distributes each year — but COVID-19 has kept them away. The solution? A partnership between the food bank and Shiftsmart, an online marketplace connecting workers with employers.
One of those workers is Anna Morris, who lost her bartending job a few weeks ago.
"This is great money, and a good opportunity to— to keep my spirits high," Morris said.
'The best thing to do was to match these hospitality workers with the volunteer shifts so those meals could keep getting delivered," said Shiftsmart president Patrick Brandt.
The partnership, called "Get Shift Done," raised more than $2 million in just three days. That money created more than 1,000 jobs paying $10 an hour.
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Good news from around the world
Irish Prime Minister Re-Registers as Medical Practitioner So He Can Join the COVID-19 Response Team
From Good News Network:
Citizens and news outlets around the world are praising Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar for re-registering as a doctor with the national health service in order to offer an extra hand in fighting the novel coronavirus outbreaks.
Prior to going into politics and being removed from the medical register in 2013, Varadkar reportedly spent seven years working as a junior doctor at St. James’s Hospital and Connolly Hospital in Dublin.
Trained as a general practitioner, Varadkar rejoined the medical register in March so he could offer up his services to the country’s Health Service Executive once a week.
According to Irish broadcaster RTE, part of the prime minister’s work will involve conducting phone assessments in order to free up the work load of hospital front line workers.
British manufacturers are cooperating to produce ventilators
From The Guardian:
British manufacturing this month faces perhaps the greatest test in its history. Specialist firms have joined forces with industrial powerhouses such as Airbus and Rolls-Royce in an unprecedented collaborative effort to make medical ventilators to treat Covid-19 patients.
...dozens of companies more used to being rivals for lucrative contracts have pooled resources and shared expertise in the fight against a common enemy.
Martyn Ratcliffe, chairman of the Cambridge-based Science Group, which has one of the largest ventilator orders from the NHS after signing up to provide 10,000 via its subsidiary Sagentia, said: “What has been extremely good about this whole process is that the world-leading Cambridge consultancies have been peer-reviewing each other’s designs in order to accelerate these critical product developments.
“They’ve been adding constructive input into each other’s designs to address a genuine crisis. The co-operation with people we usually compete with every day has produced the best of British engineering.”
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Science news
Key ingredient in coronavirus tests comes from Yellowstone’s lakes
From National Geographic:
MICROBIOLOGIST THOMAS BROCK was tramping through Yellowstone in the 1960s when he stumbled upon a species of bacteria that would transform medical science.
Brock was investigating the tiny life-forms that manage to eke out a living in the superheated waters of the park’s thermal pools. There, he and a student found golden mats of stringy growth in Yellowstone’s Mushroom Spring containing a microbe that produces unusual heat-resistant enzymes.
Today, those enzymes are a key component in polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, a method used widely in labs around the world to study small samples of genetic material by making millions of copies. This technique, which would have been impossible without the discovery of heat-resistant bacteria more than half a century ago, is now being used to boost the signal of viruses in most of the available tests for COVID-19.
In Groundbreaking Find, Three Kinds of Early Humans Unearthed Living Together in South Africa
From Smithsonian Magazine:
Scientists studying the roots of humanity’s family tree have found several branches entangled in and around a South African cave.
Two million years ago, three different early humans—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus—appear to have lived at the same time in the same place, near the Drimolen Paleocave System. How much these different species interacted remains unknown. But their contemporaneous existence suggests our ancient relations were quite diverse during a key transitional period of African prehistory that saw the last days of Australopithecus and the dawn of H. erectus’s nearly two-million-year run.
“We know that the old idea, that when one species occurs another goes extinct and you don’t have much overlap, that’s just not the case,” says study coauthor Andy Herries, a paleoanthropologist at La Trobe University in Australia.
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Musical break
“First take!” Stipe said of this song, posted on YouTube March 28th. “This is the demo track.”
Stipe noted, “No Time for Love Like Now” is a collaboration with the National’s Aaron Dessner.
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We need some humor!
First, some humorous takes on our current situation.
Trump Practicing Distancing from All His Prior Statements About the Coronavirus
From Andy Borowitz’s satire column in the New Yorker:
Issuing a new distancing guideline on Wednesday, Donald Trump said that he was now practicing distancing from all of his previous statements about the coronavirus.
“As of today, I will be keeping a great distance between myself and anything I said about covid-19 in the months of January, February, and March,” he said. “I will be staying at least six feet away from those statements, and probably more like ten thousand feet.”
Quarantine cat
As someone commented, this cat is trying to bury the turd he’s seeing on the screen. Don’t you wish it were that easy!!
17 Pets Who Aren't Used To Their Owners Working From Home
I couldn’t resist stealing this link from a recent comment by Getting1. The ones below are my favorites, but they’re all good for a laugh.
From Buzzfeed:
Okay, this is just the wildest thing I’ve ever seen on the internet, and that’s saying something!!
And some random humor I just had to include:
Never Trust a Dog
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We lost a giant to this damned virus
Legendary pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis Jr. died from COVID-19 on Wednesday, March 1, at age 86 in New Orleans. I hope we can all find some time to search out his music and celebrate his talent. Here’s a typically lyrical and swinging performance of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” followed by a lovely obit from the Smithsonian:
Ellis Marsalis Jr.: A Father and Mentor to Jazz Players
Marsalis was a towering figure of modern jazz. Through his teaching, he became the patriarch of a musical family that extended well beyond the four sons who followed in his footsteps, report Janet McConnaughey and Rebecca Santan for the Associated Press.
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The Marsalis family patriarch held teaching positions at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of New Orleans. ...
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Marsalis was known for his talents on the piano—he played alongside such greats as Cannonball Adderley and recorded more than 15 albums—but he was proudest of his legacy as a mentor and educator who carefully shepherded the next generation of musicians, including four of his six sons, reports Andrew Limbong for NPR.
“He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work,” Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s “American Routes” and a Tulane University anthropology professor, tells the AP.
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In 2010, musician Anthony Brown and Ken Kimery, program director of Smithsonian Jazz, interviewed Marsalis for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program. Recounting the conversation now, Kimery says the pianist “afforded us great insight into his family history, life in New Orleans,” favorite musicians and education, among other topics. The full transcript of the interview is available here.
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Things to keep you entertained at home
Photo collections from every state in the Union
The Atlantic has put together a photo album of gorgeous images from every state. Of course, I’m especially drawn to the ones from Oregon, so here are a couple of my favorites. I’ll bet the rest of you will enjoy browsing the photos from your own state.
Bake something!
My favorite place to go online to find reliable and delicious recipes for baked goodies is King Arthur Flour. But I also have a big collection of favorite recipes I’ve gathered from cookbooks and friends. I shared in a comment on Sunday that I baked a loaf of sourdough bread and that it had come out even better than I had hoped. Here’s a photo and the recipe, which I encourage you to try if you have sourdough or can get hold of some. Apparently sourdough is “having a moment” now, so search around to see if anyone near you is sharing theirs.
Don Holm’s Mouse River Homestead Sourdough Bread (from The Complete Sourdough Cookbook, now sadly out of print)
For one 8 ½ ” x 4 ½ ” loaf:
Night before:
In a large bowl (preferably ceramic, first warmed with hot water) combine
1 c. lively sourdough
½ c. warm water
½ c. milk
1¼ c. whole wheat flour.
Mix well and cover with plastic wrap which you push down before sealing to the edges of the bowl, so the expanding gases won’t blow the plastic wrap off the bowl.
Next morning:
Melt
2 tablespoons butter
then add
1 tablespoon honey
1½ to 2 teaspoons salt
½ cup whole wheat flour
about ¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour.
Turn out onto a floured work surface, sprinkle with more a-p flour, and knead lightly, adding flour as needed, until the dough is smooth and shiny. Put in an oiled bowl to rise until doubled. Turn your oven to 350˚ and butter the bottom and sides of an 8½ ” x 4½ ” loaf pan. Punch down the dough (which will be very soft) and form it into a loaf, trying not to add more flour, and lay it in the buttered pan. (Because the dough is soft, you need to work quickly getting it into the pan.) Let rise again until doubled. Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes to one hour, or until the loaf pulls away from the pan and sounds hollow when you tap it lightly. Rub some butter on the top after you take it out of the oven. Cool on a rack.
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Hot lynx
cookieandkate.com/… 50 Pantry-Friendly Recipes & Substitutions That Work, from cooking blog Cookie + Kate. Lots of great suggestions for creating a pandemic pantry and using it to create healthy meals.
www.motherjones.com/… 7 Tips for Making the Most of the Food Already on Your Shelves. These are truly helpful suggestions!
www.theatlantic.com/...Ina Garten’s Quarantine Playbook. Ina’s helpful and charming Instagram posts have become indispensable to an ever larger audience. As the author of the Atlantic article says, “Garten has always managed to occupy a space between authenticity and contentment that inspires rather than irks.”
www.goodnewsnetwork.org/...Music Takes 13 Minutes to ‘Release Sadness’ and 9 to Make You Happy, Says New Study
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And in closing:
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thanks to each and every Gnusie for your smarts, your hearts, and your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd.
❤️💙 RESIST, PERSIST, REBUILD, REJOICE!💙❤️