Links June 20, 2022

~ Laura

Brutal pictures of the homeless problem in Oregon.

Susan Faludi writes about the problem with celebrity Feminism.

The foster kittens are returning this afternoon, after several days of heavy duty antibiotics. I hope their pipes are working properly.

Dan Drezner is ending his long time WaPo bloggy column. He found it difficult to maintain his irreverent style of writing in that space. It also wasn’t a space, where he felt comfortable giving room to inner cranky-old-man. “We need a more forgiving public discourse, one in which it is possible for mistakes to be made, apologies to be sincere, criticism to be tolerated, and respect to be preserved across genuine ideological disagreements.” I had lunch with an old-time blogger this weekend; we both mourned the open intellectual discourse from that time.

I loved Caitlyn Flanagan’s column about Sheryl Sandberg and the decline of Lean In Feminism. I have a lot more to say about this. Maybe later in the week.

Air travel is only going get worse.

I love the Jiggle, Jiggle rap.

Two local librarians solve an old art heist.

Happy Father’s Day.

Backyard dining time!

Watching: We finished 1883 and have to pick a new show. Not ready to make that tough choice yet. With Ian, we watched Top Gun. At home, when we done with the Kenobi series, we’ll move onto Ms. Marvel.

Published by Laura

26 thoughts on “Links June 20, 2022”

  1. I did feel Schadenfreude on hearing that maybe it’s not possible to “Lean In” without staff. Counting it up, there must have been nannies, a housekeeper, assistant(s), etc. On the other hand, it does feel as if she’s being set up to be the fall guy for whatever hideous things Facebook has done.

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    1. She might be getting setting up for the Facebook errors, but I also think the mood of the country has changed a lot. Even though I wrote about the Type A college grads a few weeks ago, I’m changing my tune after meeting a bunch of young people this weekend, who told me that they don’t care about their career. I’m no longer sure what the hell is going on.

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      1. “Even though I wrote about the Type A college grads a few weeks ago, I’m changing my tune after meeting a bunch of young people this weekend, who told me that they don’t care about their career. I’m no longer sure what the hell is going on.”

        Well, the problem is that you’re trying to generalize from a small sample size. If you were to talk to the same number of college students 20 years ago, you would probably have also found a mix of Type A college grads and disengaged college grads.

        I’ve been kind of skeptical of S’s decision to become an au pair in Germany for a year, but when we were on the train to the airport in Vienna, we started talking with a woman who said that she had been an au pair for a year in Vienna when she was the same age as S. And this woman seemed to be my age or older.

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      2. Wendy said, “I’ve been kind of skeptical of S’s decision to become an au pair in Germany for a year, but when we were on the train to the airport in Vienna, we started talking with a woman who said that she had been an au pair for a year in Vienna when she was the same age as S. And this woman seemed to be my age or older.”

        I think it’s a fantastic idea.

        She can meet people, make connections, and improve her German.

        The only problem is…she might not come back.

        (I have a half-German nephew who has gone back to Germany for college, met a girl, and shows no interest in returning.)

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      4. I’m pretty type A, but it came from my heart. I’d have no problem with my kiddo au pairing after college if her heart wasn’t telling her to do something else.

        I’d prefer it to the placeholder job of trading asian stocks in CT while looking for the healthcare investment opp.

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      5. Yes AmyP my wife worked in London for about a year after college (low wage job but then you could live like a student and make it) and she learned a lot and traveled a good bit too. Definitely better than an expensive study abroad program.

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    2. Cranberry said, “I did feel Schadenfreude on hearing that maybe it’s not possible to “Lean In” without staff.”

      Yeah.

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      1. stories like 182k in debt must have some purpose, right, like attracting the attention of some weird sector of the publishing industry, right? like I have a fantasy and will pay you to let me work for you?

        Not only is she not getting paid, she has a burn rate of 10k/month for her 17 month abroad. I guess you have to pretend it’s education to get the loan. These aren’t government loans, though

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  2. Are you loving Kenobi?
    We’re finding it not up to The Mandolorian levels – though the teen likes it better than I do.

    I’m finding child Leia really, really annoying. And the plot-holes are a bit much to swallow.
    Teen likes the SFX, but finds the use of the Force to be non-canon – he’s explained several times, but it’s gone right over my head 😉

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    1. I am enjoying Kenobi, but mostly because I have a huge crush on Ewan McGregor. I don’t really understand about 80% of the show, but that’s fine, because I have Ewan.

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  4. Skip Dark Winds, the Tony Hillerman adaptation. They ruined it, Chee is no longer someone who has chosen to stay immersed in Navajo culture, instead he’s Janet Pete.

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  5. Interesting contrast between the two student loan stories, the second one titled “Loans got me into journalism, student debt pushed me out” (with a degree he used to do work he’s linked to and the math of why he thinks he has to move on) versus “I am In $182,000 of student loan debt & I think I am okay with that” (because she had a lot of fun with no plans for how she’s going to pay). One is 2017 grad, writing articles for MLK50 another a 2018 grad, writing for Thrillist.

    I do think my kid could live on 46K a year, but, she’s have a backstop, say, not needing to save money for unexpected (or expected) large expenses. And, she wouldn’t have debt, because, I guess, compared to paying for college with debt, she did get a discount.

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  6. I’m on Day 3 of COVID and I’m more or less counting the days until I take the teens to see Top Gun. (The college girl loooooves planes.)

    I saw a hint online that the IMAX people are thinking of doing another run of Top Gun on IMAX, so that’s exciting. We saw Dune on IMAX when it came out, and that was one of my best life choices of the past year, so I would be interested in doing IMAX again for a big screen movie like this.

    Our household managed 26-28 (depending how you count) months of not getting COVID, but our luck ran out this month. So far, 4 out of 5 of us have gotten it.

    I feel like the cool kids all got it back in January at the latest…

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    1. We used home tests and only 1 out of 4 of us had any interaction with the health care system, so I’m thinking that case numbers have to be way higher than official numbers:

      However, very gratifyingly, US mortality has been flat for the past two months, despite the bump in case numbers from April to the present.

      I wonder what the winter is going to look like…

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      1. Winter is looking very bad here in NZ. Not because of Covid – the cases and deaths seem to be bumbling along at roughly the same rate, winter or summer. We had a big peak in Feb/Mar when Omicron finally got through the borders, but it’s been around 5K per day, for the last few months.

        What’s hitting us is a combination of winter ‘flu numbers (no ‘flu here in 2020 or 21 due to border closures – so natural immunity is very low) and hospital staff off work, either because of Covid or (more problematically) because they’re isolating for 5 days as a household contact. This isolation can, of course, happen multiple times — we have one staff member at work who’s on her 3rd round of isolation since March – still hasn’t caught Covid (there are some people who are apparently naturally immune)

        While ‘flu for most people is a minor illness, treatable at home (OK, I know it doesn’t feel minor when you have it!) – for some people, especially the elderly, the very young and those with compromised immune systems – it can be deadly – and will involve hospital admission.

        Hospitals are beyond crisis point (though our Minister of Health is still not admitting it) – with people waiting for 12+ hours to be seen in the Emergency Department. Stories are emerging of people dying (from non-Covid related illnesses) because they haven’t been treated by medical staff in a timely manner. Most recent was a man who called the ambulance because of chest pains – when the ambulance arrived *6 hours later* they found him dead on his doorstep.

        To be fair, this isn’t entirely due to Covid – our hospital system was massively stretched before 2020 – but we are entitled to blame the Government for effectively sitting on their hands for the last 2 years, rather than putting practical steps in place. Our Health Minister (I kid you not) has spent the last 2 years working on a massive re-structure of the health system administration! This change is about to be implemented now (7 days time), and has cost massive amounts of money, time and energy. It will not result in a single additional medical professional treating patients.

        It’s not limited to health, fire departments are closing suburban stations – due to the impossibility of staffing them (both Covid and isolation); and pharmacies are struggling to fill prescriptions (partly because of lack of drug supply – virtually everything is imported; and partly due to staff shortages – as above)

        Unsurprisingly, with the stress of working in a dysfunctional crisis situation in hospitals, some nurses and allied health workers are simply leaving. NZ had a national shortage of 2,500 places in our hospital system in March. We’re currently up to 4,000 and it’s accelerating.

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  7. “there are some people who are apparently naturally immune”

    People keep thinking that until they get it. Kiddo, who avoided it for 2+ years with exposures, the most recent of which was her roommates/friends getting it one by one right before the end of the term is on day 5 of her positive test. She’s doing OK, but, I suspect no one is actually “naturally immune”. The rest of the fam, 3 people, still haven’t gotten it, but I am no longer assuming that we won’t. Spouse is currently semi-quarantining because of exposure to kiddo (who is living on her own on the other coast).

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    1. And sometimes people have had an asymptomatic case – and never even realized.
      But it’s beyond frustrating for those people who never seem to catch it, having to quarantine multiple times as a household contact. Once you’ve *had* it, you don’t need to quarantine again for 4 months. The work colleague has now had 3 separate cases in her family (small family house, no real possibility of quarantine, and, as Mum, she does most of the ‘care for the sick’) – but she hasn’t caught it.

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      1. It was like that for me during the swine flu epidemic in 2009. Everyone else in the family got it, except me. I was taking care of everyone else, but did not catch it.

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      2. Yes, I agree that the different rules if you had covid (here it’s 90 days after recovering) are frustrating when there’s the possibility that you had it but just don’t know.

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    2. I was at a small wedding last night, with a dinner out at a popular restaurant afterwards. The whole time in the restaurant I just felt like I was swimming in covid. I will be testing in 48 hours, earlier if i feel sick.

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      1. Testing at 48 hours doesn’t hurt, but you’re supposed to test at 5 days after an exposure (and wear a mask around others in the meantime). Of course, “swimming in covid” isn’t an official exposure; I too am super cautious but seeing exposures around me, I do think that following the guidelines will require significant effort and even I (especially cautious) have limits

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      2. My husband is coming home from a work trip soon, back to a house where the rest of us have been falling (like really slow dominoes) to COVID over the past 3+ weeks. I’m on Day 5 of my positive right now…just like bj’s kid. I’ve been driving my teens places and having them run errands, although I have had some labor unrest on occasion. Apparently, I don’t actually need a Frappuccino mocha from 7-11, I just want a Frappuccino mocha from 7-11…

        My husband is planning on taking some serious measures to avoid getting sick. He’d like to delay exposure to COVID until he gets the Army pan-coronavirus.

        https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/armys-pancoronavirus-vaccine-shows-promise-in-early-trials#:~:text=A%20vaccine%20developed%20by%20the,as%20other%20types%20of%20coronavirus.

        We haven’t figured out exactly what we’re going to do when he gets back. He could get a hotel for a couple of nights, sleep in his office, sleep in a different bedroom?

        I’m really looking forward to being able to go indoor public places in a couple days, even if masked.

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      3. In my limited experience, we’ve gotten home test positives the day after mild symptoms appear.

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