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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Staying Steadfast in Biblical Times
By
Published: Mar 25, 2020
Category:
Beyond Classification
There’s no dancing around it, and I can’t believe I’m typing this: If the President has his way, many New Yorkers will be sick by mid-April and there won’t be enough medical equipment to save us. I can’t believe I’m typing this: Many of my friends and loved ones may die. And I can’t believe I’m typing this: I may die. I’m inhaling stoicism and Buddhism, but only to a point. My mother’s life lesson — “There’s always something you can do” — is more relevant than ever. With better weather, I’ll walk twice a day. I’ll take my meds and vitamins and load up on vegetables. I’ll sleep more. Answer every email. Send love letters. Show up here and hope to be useful. If you have better ideas, bring them: HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com.
TODAY’S MUSIC
François Couperin (1668-1733) – Les Baricades Mistérieuses
DID YOU KNOW?
A sneeze can make droplets that stay in the air 14 minutes.
OF COURSE HE HAS CABIN FEVER
Trump imposed stay-at-home guidelines. Four days later — just four freaking days! — he was bouncing off the walls. From CNN:
He’s sitting through glitchy conference calls, and friends say he’s thinking about his job security. Cabin fever has set in and tensions on the team are brewing. No one quite knows when it will end.
Like everyone working from home, Trump has shown evidence of cabin fever: crashing meetings of his coronavirus task force, inserting himself into planned press conferences and tearing apart daily schedules so his appearances better align with television viewership patterns.
During daily policy sessions, aides said they sometimes don’t know whether Trump will walk through the door, leading to a general level of uncertainty on what to place on the agenda.
DOES VITAMIN C MATTER?
The New York Post reports: Seriously sick coronavirus patients in New York state’s largest hospital system are being given massive doses of vitamin C based on promising reports that it’s helped people in hard-hit China.
Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C.
Identical amounts of the powerful antioxidant are then re-administered three or four times a day, he said.
Each dose is more than 16 times the National Institutes of Health’s daily recommended dietary allowance of vitamin C.
Squeeze oranges? Good idea, but that’s a lot of squeezing: each orange has 70 mg of C. A cup of chopped red bell pepper contains nearly three times more vitamin C than an orange: 190 mg. A cup of green pepper: 120 mg. Let’s hear it for broccoli: an average serving is 30 calories — and 132 mg of C. Other good sources: strawberries, papaya, pineapple, kiwi.
ALL THE BETTER BOOK CLUBS ARE READING THIS
“The Plague,” by Albert Camus. If you read my review as a cheat sheet, you can say you read it. I make all the main points and serve upo the best quote: “We learn in times of pestilence….there are more things to admire in men than to despise.”
FREE CONCERTS
Last night I watched Josh Ritter in his living room. He’ll do it again next Tuesday 8 PM ET. And again, until… Some Butler readers wrote as Josh was singing to ask if I knew. Touching. I replied: I’m sitting right next to you. Okay, 6’ away.
There are so many free concerts. Among them:
– The Music of Miles Davis by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
– The 92nd Street Y
– The Metropolitan Opera
PRESIDENT CUOMO?
It is now clear that the cost of Donald Trump’s insane effort to show Andrew Cuomo he has the bigger dick will be many, many deaths in my city in April/May/June. How Trump will spin that is predictable: He’ll tell Fox about the ventilators New York could have bought cheaply in 2015 (a lie) and blame every death on Andrew Cuomo. The federal government’s failure to send a realistic number of ventilators to NY? Not his decision, they were needed elsewhere, no blame here. Trump will exult. He’ll think he has doomed many who hated him — remember: he lives for revenge — and, just as important, he has ruined Cuomo. But then, I like to think, the plot changes. Cuomo is an actual Christian: he went to Catholic schools and a Catholic college, and he not only believes in the value of every life, he has been to many Catholic funerals. And as he stands on an ever-mounting pile of corpses, he becomes America’s Chief Mourner. Who knew that compassion makes you grow taller? Certainly not Trump. Biden steps aside. A virtual convention nominates Cuomo. In November, he wins by a landslide. Bittersweet. Also: justice. ¿Quién es más macho?
PATRICK STEWART READS SHAKESPEARE
“When I was a child in the 1940s, my mother would cut up slices of fruit for me (there wasn’t much) and as she put it in front of me she would say, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ How about, ‘A sonnet a day keeps the doctor away?’” Click here.
ANOTHER GIFT FROM PATRICK STEWART: FREE “STAR TREK”
From now until April 23. For details, click here.
MY TWITTER FEED
– “Three days ago, a 28-year old employee of the International Monetary Fund suggested that the cost social distancing is exacting “on the economy” might be more important than “the human aspect of the disease.” Today, he succumbed to CoViD-19.”
– Bill Gates: “It’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because there’s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is what really counts.”
-Bette Midler: “New York is so quiet you can hear the rats having sex.”
DR FAUCI… AND IBSEN: SOUND FAMILIAR?
In Ibsen’s play, “The Enemy of the People,” Dr. Thomas Stockmann is the medical officer of a small town in southern Norway. A spa is opening there. It will be an economic engine — prosperity looms. Then he discovers the spa water is contaminated with bacteria . He believes that sharing the news is a heroic gesture. He is alone in this view; he’s immediately hated. At a town meeting, he condemns the “colossal stupidity of the authorities” and the small-mindedness of “the compact majority” of the people, who may soon “exterminated.” The audience shouts him down — he’s “an enemy of the people!” His home is attacked. But he refuses to leave — he’s determined to make the town understand “that considerations of expediency turn morality and justice upside down.” To read the play — free, online — click here.
EXODUS 11: THE PLAGUE ON THE FIRST BORN
Trump wants the country open for Easter: a rebirth of (his) America, with churches full and the economy revving up. (Question for Christians: How urgently do you want to meet Jesus?) At the same time, the President and his idiot enablers are pitching the proposition that it’s fine for gramps and granny to die if it saves the economy. These “Christians” forget: Passover comes first. This year, on April 8, just as the virus may be peaking. As they say: These are Biblical times. Got one? Click here for the standard version. Here’s Exodus 11:
Now the Lord had said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely. Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.”
So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt — worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any person or animal.’ Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. All these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you!’ After that I will leave.” Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh.
The Lord had said to Moses, “Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you — so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.” Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.
THE MOST POWERFUL TWO WORDS ON THE INTERNET — FREE PORN. AND HOW PORN IS HELPING.
From the press release: Pornhub, the premier online destination for adult entertainment, will offer free Pornhub Premium to the entire world in an effort to encourage the importance of staying home and practicing social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Users can sign up at www.pornhub.com/stayhome to enjoy the high definition (HD), on-demand streaming platform for the next 30 days.
In response to the pandemic, Pornhub is also pledging its support to first responders and medical staff fighting on the front lines against the Coronavirus around the world. Pornhub’s COVID-19 relief efforts worldwide include donations of:
– 15,000 surgical masks to protect first responders from the Local 2507 of New York City, which represents emergency medical technicians (EMTs), paramedics and fire inspectors of the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY).
– 15,000 surgical masks to the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) Local 94 of New York City to protect first responders.
– 20,000 surgical masks to Mount Sinai South Nassau to bolster the safety of nurses, physicians and support staff caring for Coronavirus patients.
– €50,000 to various European organizations to purchase additional masks and medical equipment.
– $25,000 to Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), contributing directly to sex worker relief funds in the SWOP-USA network to meet immediate requests for support from sex workers impacted by COVID-19.
THYME HELPS
In ancient times, thyme has always been associated with courage, bravery and strength. Soldiers in Rome bathed in thyme water before battles while in Grece it was used as a massage oil to boost courage.
Medicated Wine is a preparation obtained by using wine as a solvent to soak out the effective components of herbs.Take 500ml of still red wine with a tea spoon of dry thyme (Thymus vulgaris, often available in supermarkets); bring the mixture to a boil for one minute, then filter, and drink one table spoon.
MARCELLA HAZAN’S PASTA SOURCE
Just four ingredients. Truly. More recipes in her great book.
2 cups tomatoes, in addition to their juices (for example, a 28-ounce can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes)
5 tablespoons butter
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
Salt
Combine the tomatoes, their juices, the butter and the onion halves in a saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt.
Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with a spoon. Add salt as needed.
Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta. This recipe makes enough sauce for a pound of pasta.
THE BEST ROCK MEMOIR EVER
In a list of the top 50, Rolling Stone says this is #1. I thought a lot of it was fiction. But then, consider the source.
A MOVIE TO STREAM
He ran. Far. But in the end, alone, it went wrong. To read my review and stream it, click.
LATE NIGHT
