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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Hi! I mean: Wow! High! (It’s April 20). Plus: why Vitamin D can help, and other reality-based Good News
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Published: Apr 20, 2020
Category:
Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
CAPTION: Hospital workers who have been treating COVID patients for weeks stand in traffic in Denver to block cars of open-the-country protesters. Comment on Twitter: “Those people will show up on the hospital’s doorstep in a few weeks demanding to have everything done for them in the midst of the breakout they created.”
It won’t top 60 degrees in New York today, but the kids don’t care. As soon as school ends, they’ll be heading to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. They’ll drop backpacks. They’ll extract joints and vapes and bongs. And at 4:20, a cloud will appear, a cloud so thick that people going to the Apple store and Bergdorf’s and Whole Foods will start to grin, a cloud so thick it will be visible to passengers in the window seats of the afternoon Jet Blue flight to LA.
Sorry. Just a little high here. No need to apologize: It’s April 20.
For those who missed the party where this all got explained: “420” started as a secret code among high school kids in the early 1970s. A group of friends at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California would meet at 4:20 PM near a statue of Louis Pasteur to get high. “420” gradually spread from there across California and beyond. Now April 20 is widely celebrated as “National Weed Day” — though as we know, “National Weed Day” is really celebrated every day.
Before the pandemic, the U.S cannabis industry was on track to pump $80 billion on an annual basis into the nation’s economy. That is larger and faster growth than even the dot-com era. And getting larger every day. Samuel Johnson, on liquor: “A man who makes a beast of himself at least rids himself of the pain of being a man.” True, that. Weed, on the other hand…
In honor of the day:
MOST EXPENSIVE WEED MEAL EVER
with, 2 Chainz, Hannibal Buress, and Tommy Chong.
BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS
My appreciation here.
I see 10,000 chariots
They’re coming without horses
The riders they cover their faces
so you cannot make them out in smoky places
PETER TOSH: “LEGALIZE IT”
My appreciation here.
MARY MEYER SMOKES WITH JACK KENNEDY
It’s been widely reported that Mary smoked with JFK one night in the White House. In my novel, I re-imagine that encounter.
JULY 17, 1962
Marijuana with Jack last night.
The source: TC. Who will never know. Not very powerful stuff; we smoked two joints before Jack said he felt anything. He got hungry, so he called for soup and chocolate mousse.
How did we get to playing an absurd word game — oxymorons?
Jack won: “Catholic President.” I had to admit: That couldn’t be topped.
We went to bed.
AND NOW… BACK IN REALITY
IN CASE YOU THOUGHT “THUGS” WAS TOO HARSH A DESCRIPTION OF THE WHITE HOUSE GANG
The White House Has Erected A Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE
From New York: This was published in the sober and authoritative New England Journal of Medicine. The author is a doctor who lives and works in Massachusetts.
Our supply-chain group has worked around the clock to secure gowns, gloves, face masks, goggles, face shields, and N95 respirators. These employees have adapted to a new normal, exploring every lead, no matter how unusual. Deals, some bizarre and convoluted, and many involving large sums of money, have dissolved at the last minute when we were outbid or outmuscled, sometimes by the federal government. Then we got lucky, but getting the supplies was not easy.
A lead came from an acquaintance of a friend of a team member. After several hours of vetting, we grew confident of the broker’s professional pedigree and the potential to secure a large shipment of three-ply face masks and N95 respirators. The latter were KN95 respirators, N95s that were made in China. We received samples to confirm that they could be successfully fit-tested. Despite having cleared this hurdle, we remained concerned that the samples might not be representative of the bulk of the products that we would be buying.
Having acquired the requisite funds — more than five times the amount we would normally pay for a similar shipment, but still less than what was being requested by other brokers — we set the plan in motion. Three members of the supply-chain team and a fit tester were flown to a small airport near an industrial warehouse in the mid-Atlantic region. I arrived by car to make the final call on whether to execute the deal. Two semi-trailer trucks, cleverly marked as food-service vehicles, met us at the warehouse. When fully loaded, the trucks would take two distinct routes back to Massachusetts to minimize the chances that their contents would be detained or redirected.
Hours before our planned departure, we were told to expect only a quarter of our original order. We went anyway, since we desperately needed any supplies we could get. Upon arrival, we were jubilant to see pallets of KN95 respirators and face masks being unloaded. We opened several boxes, examined their contents, and hoped that this random sample would be representative of the entire shipment. Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. I remained nervous and worried on the long drive back, feelings that did not abate until midnight, when I received the call that the PPE shipment was secured at our warehouse.
VITAMIN D CAN HELP TO KEEP YOUR LUNGS STRONG
Data from 16 clinical trials involving 7,400 people show that taking vitamin D supplements reduces the risk of experiencing at least one respiratory infection including influenza and pneumonia by a third with positive benefits seen within 3 weeks. Risk of acute respiratory infections by 11 per cent compared with placebo. [Source: London Telegraph]
[To buy Vitamin D3 Enhanced with Coconut Oil from Amazon, click here.]
[To buy Vitamin D in Fruit Flavored Gummies from Amazon, click here.]
In his newsletter, a medical intuitive suggests medicated wine and passionflower tincture. If that seems a bridge too far for you, consider this:
Steam inhalation: The 4th chakra (also called the heart chakra) is the energy center that controls the heart, the LUNGS and, according to Chinese medicine, also the skin and the intestines. Spiritually the heart chakra is involved with love, understood as love to others but mainly to ourselves. Do a steam inhalation with baking soda for 5 minutes per day regularly (pour one liter of boiling water into a bowl with one spoon of baking soda: breathe with your head under a towel).
DANNY MEYER: GOOD GUY (AGAIN)
from NBC News:
Shake Shack, one of several large restaurant chains that got federal loans through the coronavirus stimulus law meant to help small businesses, said Sunday night that it is giving all $10 million back.
Danny Meyer, Shake Shack’s founder and CEO of its parent company, Union Square Hospitality Group, and Randy Garutti, Shake Shack’s CEO, said the company pursued the loan because the law stipulated that it was open to any restaurant location with no more than 500 employees — which describes Shake Shack’s 189 individual U.S. restaurants. “The ‘PPP’ came with no user manual and it was extremely confusing,” they wrote. “Our people would benefit from a $10 million PPP loan, but we’re fortunate to now have access to capital that others do not. Until every restaurant that needs it has had the same opportunity to receive assistance, we’re returning ours.”
Looking for a business book that describes eternal verities usually ignored? Danny Meyer wrote it. My review: Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business.
YOU WANT THIS: Some Good News with John Krasinski
NOWHERE TO RUN, NOWHERE TO HIDE? THINK AGAIN
‘We Needed to Go’: Rich Americans Activate Pandemic Escape Plans
from Bloomberg: Interest in New Zealand bunkers has surged.
The destination: New Zealand.
Rising S Co. has planted about 10 private bunkers in New Zealand over the past several years. The average cost is $3 million for a shelter weighing about 150 tons, but it can easily go as high as $8 million with additional features like luxury bathrooms, game rooms, shooting ranges, gyms, theaters and surgical beds.
Why New Zealand? Natural beauty, small population. 70% white. And this: “New Zealand offers an investor visa for about $6 million for three years.” So the Americans fleeing tend to be tech entrepreneurs, the brain trust the world needs.
DEAD TO ME: HOBBY LOBBY
Diane D. writes: “Hobby Lobby was already on my shit list because they force their religious views on their staff (full birth control options are not covered under their health plan), so if I needed something, I would try other stores first. If I couldn’t find it anywhere else I go there but I’d buy 1 thing at a time, so I could use their weekly 40% off one item coupon (figured they couldn’t be making much money off of me), AND I would arrange all the alphabet blocks or alphabet letters in the home furnishing department to say things like Planned Parenthood, Gays Welcomed Here, or whatever I could find the blocks to spell out.”
ESSENTIALS AND DISPATCHES
Everything, all in one place.
UPDATE: EO Hand soap is available again. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08167KP49/?tag=headbutlercom-20
LATE NIGHT
Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78, performed by Stefan Jackiw and Conrad Tao.
