Obsidian Wings

Theme, with Variations

by JanieM

Thanks to Anne Laurie's amazing reporting at Balloon-Juice, the novel coronavirus has been on my radar since late January.

Because of Anne’s posts, I started backing up my food and household supplies a few weeks ago – just a little at a time, not trying to prepare for six months or a year in a bunker, but just adding an extra package of toilet paper here, a few extra packages of rice cakes and flour there. Even before this happened I probably could have eaten (boringly) for several weeks on the long untouched pasta and other staples in my cupboards and fridge.

For a couple of weeks I went to the store and bought a little more than usual with each trip. Then other people started to get a clue, and the following week the toilet paper aisle was cleaned out. I haven’t been to town since last Weds., and for the foreseeable future my son will be doing my shopping for me. He’s going today – we’ll see what he has to say about supplies of various things when he gets back.

Whatcha doin'?

by liberal japonicus

This deserves a separate post. In answer to the post's question, the Berlin Phil streaming site/app is giving free access to their catalog for 30 days because of coronavirus

https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/

Hope other can share what they are doing in this time of social distancing. And maybe no politics, if you please.

Tech and Korea part 2 of 3: the internet and computers

TLDR: This meandering installment has me crawl further out on a limb by talking about two subjects that I don't know much about, economics and Windows. Enjoy.

A nudge is as good as a wink...

by liberal japonicus

This Guardian piece is quite interesting.

With an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 coronavirus cases now present in the UK, the government has eschewed social distancing measures such as closing schools and banning large sporting events. Instead, it has opted for behavioural “nudges”: wash your hands, don’t touch your face, don’t shake hands with others, stay at home if you feel ill, and self-isolate if you have a continuous cough.

This approach differs starkly from the quarantine measures taken in China, South Korea, Italy and Iran. But it also marks the UK out as different from countries such as Ireland, Norway and Denmark, which have implemented school closures despite seeing only a relatively small number of coronavirus cases. Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has explained that part of the reason for not embracing bans is to encourage “herd immunity”. Allow enough of those who can survive coronavirus disease to get infected, and the virus won’t have new people to infect, meaning new cases will dry up. Other European countries seem to have judged this too bold an approach. Immunity will probably be temporary, so later outbreaks are to be expected, and dealt with by heightened contact tracing when they occur.

I don't know if it is just because I'm going a little stir crazy, like one of those extras in a war movie who can't take it any more and charges the pillbox because he just doesn't care anymore (as opposed to the one who does it because he's not going to get killed so the audience knows that he's going to be around until the end of the movie), but I've wondered about this. It's a bit like the parent of a brood of kids who just wants them all to get chickenpox at the same time. Understandable but...

Of course, given all the unknowns, probably a pretty stupid idea on the whole. But more cheerfully there is this

Patients treated outdoors were less likely to be exposed to the infectious germs that are often present in conventional hospital wards. They were breathing clean air in what must have been a largely sterile environment. We know this because, in the 1960s, Ministry of Defence scientists proved that fresh air is a natural disinfectant.[5] Something in it, which they called the Open Air Factor, is far more harmful to airborne bacteria — and the influenza virus — than indoor air. They couldn’t identify exactly what the Open Air Factor is. But they found it was effective both at night and during the daytime.

Am now looking for restaurants that have outside tables. You, me and the moon. Wear a tie so I can tell you apart...

electability and all that jazz

by liberal japonicus

Thought I'd post something, the wuhan thread is creaking at the seams. A couple of grafs from here

Sanders promised to show up at the debate on Sunday in Arizona to face Biden one-on-one, and basically offered him a cheat sheet: "Let me be very frank as to the questions that I will be asking Joe."

Sanders listed off issues central to his campaign, which he says are very important to younger progressives: health care costs, climate change, income inequality, student debt, racial disparities in criminal justice, immigration and housing affordability.

and

But Biden opened the door in his own speech on Tuesday night.

"I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless energy and their passion. We share a common goal," Biden said. "And together, we'll defeat Donald Trump." He then reiterated, "We'll defeat him together."

And on Wednesday, it seemed as though Sanders was at least in part responding to that call, essentially laying down for Biden a challenge and a road map to secure his support and extend a winning coalition to the left.

A thread for discussing what Dems and the left need to do among themselves rather than how they need to wreak vengance on the Republicans. Thanks.

We write letters

by liberal japonicus

I wrote to Josh Marshall, editor of Talking Points Memo (and he immediately wrote back with a gracious response. I should also add that they are keeping all their COVID reporting outside their paywall, but they are hoping to get more subscribers, so you may want to consider it) about this statement here.

[South Korea's] model is one that should be adaptable to the US, at least from a technological and civil liberties perspective.

I disagreed with that a bit and I thought I would post what I wrote so folks could share what their own communities are or aren't doing.
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The reasons [why this isn't adapatable to the US] I would give are as follows

Reason 1- The surveillance society massively greater than the US as is the Korean populace's acceptance of it. I can't believe that people in the US would even begin to tolerate the level of CCTV, card tracking, etc, that is used in Korea and if what does exist were deployed in some sort of makeshift network, the pushback would be immediate. While Koreans (and Japanese) make vague nods to privacy, it is the form rather than the actual substance, so 'face' can be preserved, but the capacity to track individuals down is still retained. That has allowed Korea to do contract tracking in a way that would be impossible in the US

Reason 2- Koreans respect the elderly in a way that doesn't obtain in the US. I think this drives the much greater acceptance of measures that would be scoffed at in the US. My impression has been that the younger generation, despite the disgust with kkondae, the idea of ignoring the pandemic because it doesn't seem to effect young people to any great extent has not gotten any traction, whereas I get that impression from reading a lot of US reportage. A similar dynamic plays out in China and Japan where they discuss how getting older people to stop going out is more difficult than getting young people to follow suggestions.

Reason 3- Group dynamics in Asian societies are quite different from the West. Most foreigners have realized that despite the fact that masks are not effective except in cases of preventing others getting sick, wearing a mask becomes an indicator that you are socially conscious. Korea and Japan don't have people complaining how everyone is fooled and not doing the right things. A mask becomes more like an 'I gave' sticker you get for doing blood donation, and when it is taken up by a majority of the population, it has a much greater effect than if it is simply done by a small minority.

Reason 4- National health The Korean efforts are based on a foundation of a national health system and its absence in the US makes it impossible to scaffold the intiatives that underlie them

Reasons 4 and 5 Geography and public transport South Korea's geography and highly utilized public transport network provides ways to enforce many of the measures that would be impossible in the US.

This is not simply a 'Korea is different from the US' argument. It is that I think the features of Korea set up a situation where the US would have difficulty adapting a lot of the things that were done in Korea, and they would not get the same mileage. This would create a situation where the measures would seemingly fail, encouraging those who insist that the virus is a hoax and driving that portion of the electorate to ignore or circumvent the measures.
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Josh Marshall was (and always is) quite careful in how he states it so this might be one of those 'small differences make big arguments', but I have a hard time seeing the US adopt much of the South Korean model, even if there were acceptance of the fact of a pandemic (which there isn't). Anyway, a newer thread to talk about COVID-19. Happy happy joy joy...

Tech and Korea part 1 of 3: transport

by liberal japonicus

TLDR:I started writing a post about tech in Korea, but realised it's going to take multiple posts, which will probably be warped by my relative isolation in Japan. Right now, I'm thinking three parts, transport & cashless society, internet and national id. And for those of you hoping to read this to forget about COVID-19, well, sorry about that.

Christianity and Korea

by liberal japonicus

TLDR: While Christianity in Korea may look familiar, it got there in a pretty unique way and who knows where it is going. Supported by tons of random observations that may or may not be related, leading to a conclusion that is pretty weak. More below.