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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: When he says it’s not about the money… it’s about the money
By
Published: Apr 16, 2020
Category:
Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
I try not to turn the beginning of these pandemic Butlers into a Facebook diary, but I have to say that yesterday was the best in a while. Good call with my 103-year-old mother, who was lucid, pissed off, determined to see her grandchildren again. Good weekly call with KB, which reminded me again of the Updike line: “An analyst talking is like playing golf on the moon — even a chip shot carries for miles.” This brought a smile: When my mechanic checked out the car, he added air-conditioning fluid, because in August, I just might like to drive somewhere. My daughter won every single hand at poker, and I asked: “Sure you want to go to college?” I took notes for my book until midnight. I prayed, even for people I don’t like.
I don’t remember my dreams. But this one woke me up. I had been detained, ordered to go home, ordered to return. No reason given. In my dream, I remember the opening line of “The Trial,” Kafka’s scariest book: “Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” That is: I knew if I followed orders, I wouldn’t return home. Ever. In my dream, I moved my “In case of…” folder to my desk and dashed off an email to my stepson, a lawyer-and-a-half.
Why this dream? Why now? Because today the President plans to unveil his “plan” to ease lockdown rules — he says we have “passed the peak” on new cases and that has “put us in a very strong position.” No scientist and responsible CEO has encouraged him. They say: invest in the testing and health infrastructure that would make work safe. He’s deaf. He’s going to open the country, and his base will cheer. And people will die. Probably in large numbers.
The $1,200 Trump-inscribed checks? A cynical head fake. I give you money, you give me your life.
Forcing people to choose between their health and their jobs — there’s never been a President who’d ask us to make that choice. For Trump, it’s not even a close call.
Trump’s First (and only) Law: Donald Trump never gives. He only takes.
Below, I follow the money. First: news you can use – and some joy from Tom Hanks.
“PRONING” CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE
from the Times:
Instead of quickly sedating people who had shockingly low levels of oxygen and then putting them on mechanical ventilators, many doctors are now keeping patients conscious, having them roll over in bed, recline in chairs and continue to breathe on their own — with additional oxygen — for as long as possible. The idea is to get them off their backs and thereby make more lung available.
Some patients, by taking oxygen and rolling onto their sides or on their bellies, have quickly returned to normal levels. The tactic is called proning.
At Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, Dr. Nicholas Caputo followed 50 patients who arrived with low oxygen levels between 69 and 85 percent (95 is normal). After five minutes of proning, they had improved to a mean of 94 percent. Over the next 24 hours, nearly three-quarters were able to avoid intubation; 13 needed ventilators. Proning does not seem to work as well in older patients, a number of doctors said.
No one knows yet if this will be a lasting remedy, Dr. Caputo said, but if he could go back to early March, he would advise himself and others: “Don’t jump to intubation.”
DO NOT WALK JUST 6’ BEHIND SOMEONE
from Belgium:
When someone during a run breathes, sneezes or coughs, those particles stay behind in the air. The person running behind you in the so-called slip-stream goes through this cloud of droplets.
TODAY’S HEROES
SNL’s Michael Che pays one month’s rent for the 160 apartments in the NYCHA building his late grandmother, who died of COVID19, lived in.
Sean Penn, coordinating with the mayor, is personally setting up virus testing sites around Los Angeles.
14 MINUTES OF JOY WITH TOM HANKS
Behind the scenes of “That Thing You Do.”
To stream the movie from Amazon, click here.
From the Times review: Forfeiting the chance to make a long and self-serving historical pageant, Tom Hanks has taken something other than the standard movie-star route to directorial distinction. Mr. Hanks’s debut feature, written and directed with delightful good cheer, is rock-and-roll nostalgia presented as pure fizz. Lightweight and undemandingly likable, ”That Thing You Do!” asks its audience to do nothing but recall the days when the clock radio was a hot appliance and the cast of ”Bonanza” might be spotted signing autographs. That, and go home humming this film’s bouncy theme song.
BOTTOM LINE: TRUMP NEEDS MONEY — HERE’S WHY, AND HOW HE’LL GET IT BACK
HIS BUSINESSES ARE BLEEDING
From the Washington Post
Six of Trump’s top seven revenue-producing clubs and hotels, bringing in about $174 million total per year, are closed. That works out to $478,000 per day — revenue that is likely to be sharply reduced with the clubs shuttered. Another of Trump’s golf clubs, in Aberdeen, Scotland, appeared likely to shut down soon.
Three of Trump’s hotels have outstanding loans from Deutsche Bank that originally totaled more than $300 million. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, all three reported lagging behind their peers in occupancy and revenue, struggles that the company’s representatives blamed, in one way or another, on Trump’s political rise.
TRUMP AND KUSHNER COULD REAP A PANDEMIC WINDFALL
from the Washington Post:
As the dust settles on the $2.2 trillion legislation, it has become clear that one of its largest provisions, a $170 billion tax giveaway, appears to be tailor-made for the benefit real estate investors like Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is running one of Trump’s coronavirus task forces.
The giveaway, primarily to real estate investors and hedge funds, is larger than the total amount in the legislation for hospitals ($100 billion) and for relief for all state and local governments ($150 billion). Worse, the bonanza for these millionaires and billionaires has little to do with the coronavirus: It lets them offset losses not just from 2020 but from 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic.
HE BUYS THE SILENCE OF THE RICH
from the Washington Post:
Republicans snuck in a tax change into the $2 trillion Coronavirus relief package. Over 80% of the benefits will go to those who earn more than $1M a year, while less than 3% will go to who earn less than $100K a year The provision would cost taxpayers approximately $90 billion in 2020.
WHO MIGHT BE GETTING A KICKBACK?
from the Washington Post:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded a $55 million contract for N95s this month to Panthera Worldwide LLC, which is in the business of tactical training. One of its owners said last year that Panthera’s parent company had not had any employees since May 2018, according to sworn testimony. It also has no history of manufacturing or procuring medical equipment
The price that FEMA is paying Panthera per mask, about $5.50, is significantly higher than what the government pays companies such as 3M, which charges as little as 63 cents per N95 mask, with an average cost of about $1.50 for more advanced models, according to a price index. Prestige Ameritech, the largest domestic mask manufacturer, is charging FEMA about 80 cents per mask for the government’s order of 12 million N95 respirators, part of a $9.5 million contract that started April 7.
BOUGHT AND PAID FOR
from Newstalk:
The governor of Florida just deemed World Wrestling Entertainment an “essential business.” The McMahons gave $5 million to the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which made them its biggest donors up to 2014. Linda McMahon currently serves as chair of America First Action, a PAC whose aim is Trump’s re-election in November of this year. The super PAC is hoping to raise $300 million for Trump’s campaign. According to Politico, it raised $17.8 million in the first half of 2019.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Brandon Levine, owner of Mercy Wellness in Cotati, California, said when he received an alert on his mobile phone that cannabis stores will be limited to curbside delivery, he and his employees wasted no time getting to work designing a drive-through store in the parking lot. They stayed up until 1 AM to set it up. “Our industry, the people in it are resilient and open-minded. We’re talking about cannabis here, so you have to be a little bit open-minded,” he said.
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: FREE
Tomorrow, for 2 days. Click here.
THE WORLD’S RICHEST PERSON JUST GOT RICHER — BUYING THE POSTAL SERVICE WOULD NOW BE A DROP IN THE TIP JAR
From the Guardian:
Jeff Bezos has grown his vast fortune by a further $24 billion so far during the pandemic, a roughly 20% increase over the last four months to $138b.
TODAY’S ART
A smart tour of “Eye to I: Self Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery,” at the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
MELISSA HAMILTON’S MARINARA
from the Canal House newsletter:
Sauté the meat from 4 sweet Italian sausages slipped out of the casings, in a skillet, breaking it up with the back of a wooden spoon. Add 1 jar of Rao’s Homemade Marinara Sauce, salt and pepper, and a splash of good olive oil and simmer for about 15 minutes. While the sauce cooks, boil a pound of rigatoni. Toss the drained pasta in the hot sauce. Shave a lot of Parmigiano over everything. Lunch or Dinner in 20 minutes and there are always leftovers. And what’s better than cold tomatoey pasta right out of the fridge for breakfast.
LATE NIGHT LULLABY
Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor, “You Can Close Your Eyes”
ESSENTIALS AND DISPATCHES
Everything, all in one place. Click here.
