1/ It's beyond serious.....
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
It’s a thought experiment, I know, but bear with me: Imagine a situation where a president has been elected on a platform of nationalism laced with xenophobia and is supported by a base of cultish authoritarianism. He’s helped accelerate a profound shift in which the American right has the solid backing of more ordinary people than ever, and the opposition party remains captured by an elite that refuses to shift toward the center on cultural issues. Imagine that with a national election looming, this president is told about a dangerous and infectious virus that has most likely emerged from the wet markets of China, probably from people eating pangolins or bats. And all his populist instincts kick in.
https://nymag.com/
2/ A wonderful example of comedic reporting - Trevor Noah interviews Dr. Fauci....
3/ Frank Rich....
Lloyd Blankfein has a dissenting view on coronavirus. Photo: Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today, the argument, both from the White House and supposed centrists outside of it, that America should prioritize the economy.
Though coronavirus cases continue to climb in the U.S., a number of businesspeople and commentators have begun to talk about “restarting” the economy, even at the cost of American lives. If even non-Trumpists are in part echoing Trump’s views on this, should we take them seriously?
A society reveals a lot about itself, heroic and not, when confronting a plague. But we didn’t need a plague to tell us that Trump places zero value on any life except his own, and it’s no surprise that many of his zealots are willing to blindly follow his example
4/ John Oliver with more excellent comedic reporting....he summarises the Government's and Trump's handling of the coronavirus as of this weekend...
Nineteen minutes, and well worth watching...
5/ If you're on a cruise right now, you're in trouble. Update - as of today [Monday] the Zaandam was turned away from Ft. Lauderdale....
Ports around the globe are turning cruise ships away en masse amid the coronavirus pandemic, leaving thousands of passengers stranded even as some make desperate pleas for help while sickness spreads aboard.
Four passengers have died aboard one such vessel, the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam, which has been stranded for days after Chile refused to allow the ship to dock in its original destination of San Antonio on 21 March.
The Zaandam is one of at least 10 ships around the world – carrying nearly 10,000 passengers – still stuck at sea after having been turned away from their destination ports in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Guardian analysis. Some of the ships are facing increasingly desperate medical situations.
6/ Here is the final Obama White House Correspondent's dinner, and it's hilarious. He has such great timing, and watching this and comparing this wonderful, intelligent man to the dangerous buffoon we have now is poignant...
If you have 32 minutes [and of course you do] watch it....
7/ How a potential pandemic got started, and how at every step of the way our government failed....
Photo: John Paraskevas/Newsday via Getty Images
A bit before midnight on January 20, a Harvard epidemiologist named Eric Feigl-Ding posted a long, terrifying Twitter thread mostly summarizing, and in a few places contextualizing, a new, pre-publication paper on the infectiousness of the novel coronavirus that had, at the time, forced Wuhan into a total lockdown but had not yet been detected outside of China. The context he added was, mostly, alarmism.
“Holy mother of god,” the thread began, “the new coronavirus is a 3.8!!!”
8/ An Israeli mom rants about lockdown with 4 kids.....a most amusing 2 minutes....
9/ "How the pandemic will end", from the Atlantic....
Three months ago, no one knew that SARS-CoV-2 existed. Now the virus has spread to almost every country, infecting at least 446,000 people whom we know about, and many more whom we do not. It has crashed economies and broken health-care systems, filled hospitals and emptied public spaces. It has separated people from their workplaces and their friends. It has disrupted modern society on a scale that most living people have never witnessed. Soon, most everyone in the United States will know someone who has been infected. Like World War II or the 9/11 attacks, this pandemic has already imprinted itself upon the nation’s psyche.
A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable.
10/ Seth Meyers from home.....funny! It's 16 minutes - it's 90 degrees outside and you have the time, don't you!
11/ Does this story about Boris Johnson remind you of anyone?
Boris Johnson has spent decades preparing for his lead role, honing his adopted character, perfecting his mannerisms, gauging the reactions to his performance and adjusting it for maximum effect. Now he has the national stage and the rapt audience he always craved. His speech this week announcing a lockdown drew the biggest television audience in Britain in this century.
The problem is that he has been preparing for the wrong part. The man came to power playing Falstaff, a double-dealing, comically entertaining, shameless rogue; now he is suddenly onstage as Henry V, the wartime king whose solemn judgment, intense focus, charisma and conviction must lead his nation in a time of crisis.
12/ Trump is punishing Governors who aren't grateful....
Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images
This morning, President Trump wrote a pair of tweets belittling two of his antagonists, Mitt Romney and Michael Avenatti. The thread of “humor” running through both jokes was Trump’s mock-hope that neither would contract the coronavirus, teasing the notion that they might get sick and die, and prompting his followers to enjoy the morbid thought along with him, while maintaining plausible deniability. (“Romney’s in isolation? Gee, that’s too bad,” Trump sneered earlier this week.)
This level of indecency is hardly new for Trump. But that fact is itself revealing.
https://nymag.com/
13/ Sam Bee on how the working class is being screwed....7 minutes...
14/ An interesting commentary on [your?] situation...
By some measures, in the short term, COVID-19 will surely reduce inequality of wealth, and probably inequality of income as well. As a purely mechanical matter, the rich have a lot more money to lose when the stock market crashes and most sectors of the economy grind to a halt.
Photo by Free-Photos from Pixabay
At the same time, however, this pandemic is throwing into stark relief how unequal the lives of Americans are today
Todays video - a collection of the funniest commercials ever made.....and some of them are really good! And some aren't.....
I love the library blonde one.....
Todays face lift joke
A woman in her forties went to a plastic surgeon for a face-lift.
The surgeon told her about a new procedure called "The KEY", where a small key is placed on the back of a woman's head and can be turned to tighten up her skin to produce the effect of a brand new face lift.
Of course, the woman wanted "The Key".
Over the course of the years, the woman tightened the key, and the effects were wonderful --the woman remained young looking and vibrant. After fifteen years, the woman returned to the surgeon with two problems.
"All these years, everything has been working just fine. I've had to turn the key and I've always loved the results. But now I've developed two annoying problems:
First, I have these terrible bags under my eyes and the key won't get rid of them."
The doctor looked at her closely and said, "Those aren't bags, those are your breasts."
She said, "No point asking about the beard then ..."
Of course, the woman wanted "The Key".
Over the course of the years, the woman tightened the key, and the effects were wonderful --the woman remained young looking and vibrant. After fifteen years, the woman returned to the surgeon with two problems.
"All these years, everything has been working just fine. I've had to turn the key and I've always loved the results. But now I've developed two annoying problems:
First, I have these terrible bags under my eyes and the key won't get rid of them."
The doctor looked at her closely and said, "Those aren't bags, those are your breasts."
She said, "No point asking about the beard then ..."
Todays little boy joke
A LITTLE THREE YEAR OLD BOY IS SITTING ON THE TOILET.
HIS MOTHER THINKS HE HAS BEEN IN THERE TOO LONG, SO SHE GOES IN TO SEE WHAT'S UP.
THE LITTLE BOY IS SITTING ON THE TOILET READING A BOOK, BUT ABOUT EVERY 15 SECONDS OR SO, HE PUTS THE BOOK DOWN, GRIPS ONTO THE TOILET SEAT WITH HIS LEFT HAND AND HITS HIMSELF ON TOP OF HIS HEAD WITH HIS RIGHT HAND.
HIS MOTHER SAYS: "BILLY, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? YOU'VE BEEN IN HERE FOR A WHILE."
BILLY SAYS: "I'M FINE, MOMMY. I JUST HAVEN'T GONE POTTY YET."
MOTHER SAYS: "OK, YOU CAN STAY HERE A FEW MORE MINUTES, BUT BILLY, WHY ARE YOU HITTING YOURSELF ON THE HEAD?"
BILLY SAYS: "WORKS FOR KETCHUP."
A Trump joke
So a guy walks into a Latino bookstore and asks "Do you have Donald Trump's book about immigration?"
The clerk says "Fuck you! Get the hell out of here!"
The guy says "Yeah, that's it. Do you have it in paperback?"
Todays rueful joke.....
I was always taught to respect my elders, but it's getting a lot harder to find one! 
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