May 23, 2020

NY times front page lists the names of the dead

https://twitter.com/DemocracyInn/status/1264329819187224576

May 23, 2020

crocheted mask wearers... it defeats the purpose (edit, carbon filter inside)

I love Alyssa Milano... hope she knows better.

https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1264248352683646976/photo/1

May 23, 2020

This is now the world's busiest airport... on certain Saturdays

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/anchorage-airport-world-busiest/index.html

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"Saturday's a busy day for cargo operations, which is our bread and butter, but it's also the slowest day for passenger service," explains airport manager Jim Szczesniak over video call.

"So for example, on Saturday, May 2, we in Anchorage had 744 flight operations, whereas Chicago had only 579 and Atlanta had only 529."

Anchorage also briefly snatched the world's busiest title on Saturday, April 25.


Airports Council International's annual report on the world's busiest airports, released earlier this week, makes for sobering reading.
The coronavirus pandemic means that passenger traffic is currently down by more than 90%, according to Angela Gittens, ACI World's director general. "The demand is pretty much gone."

One area that has been on the rise, however, is cargo traffic, which is why Anchorage Airport -- in ordinary times, the world's fifth-busiest cargo airport -- is on the ascendant.

"We're seeing an increased demand for cargo capacity," says Szczesniak. "And that's primarily because a lot of the supplies for the fight against Covid in North America are produced in Asia."
Anchorage is positioned to perfect geographical advantage, at what the airport says is 9.5 hours' flying time from 90% of the industrialized world.
Its location, quite literally at the top of the world, means that planes "fly up and over the top [of the globe] to shorten the distance," says Szczesniak.
"The advantage of Anchorage is airplanes can fly filled with cargo but only half-filled with fuel. They fly into Anchorage and then they re-fuel and then onto their destination."

May 22, 2020

Little sense of shared grief as virus deaths near 100,000

For months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the nation ached together in televised memorials, joining in a collective catharsis of uniformed salutes, bagpiped dirges and President George W. Bush declaring a national day of mourning and remembrance.

The space shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986 turned classrooms into grieving sessions, with President Reagan directly addressing the national wounds. The Japanese attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor in 1941 was a day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said would live in “infamy,” uniting the mainland to enter a world war.

Yet as the nation nears 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 — far more than all those tragic events combined or the entire Vietnam War — there is little sense this Memorial Day weekend that Americans are grieving together or uniting in a sense of purpose.

While Americans have shared undeniable hardships since March — including more than 38 million people forced to file for unemployment, and tens of millions more forced to hunker down at home to avoid the contagion — the carnage is hitting them unevenly.

President Trump, loath to dwell on those dismal figures, is both stoking the polarized response and counting on a fragmented experience to distract the nation from the almost incomprehensible death toll — nearly triple that of any other country — which could tar his presidency and jeopardize his chance for reelection in November.


“I don’t think we’re taking this in,” said David Kessler, an author of six books on grief.

“It’s easy to digest a statistic. It is not easy to digest 12 plane crashes a day,” Kessler said. “Especially when there are no visuals. We aren’t seeing 90,000 caskets. That kind of stuff would shock us. Maybe this is too big for us to comprehend.”

https://progressivepartyusa.com/progressive-news/little-sense-of-shared-grief-as-virus-deaths-near-100000/

May 21, 2020

breaking... shooting in arizona

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8342659/Multiple-people-shot-Arizona-shopping-district-state-senator-says.html

May 21, 2020

FedEx fired two African American drivers today.. after they stood up to abuse

https://twitter.com/Toniob38/status/1263077278294163457

https://twitter.com/Toniob38/status/1263107524703772673

https://twitter.com/Toniob38/status/1263108846119276545

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fedex-workers-fired-after-viral-video?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

May 20, 2020

outrage over this Volkswagen ad.. "massive white hand pushing black man away from" new car

https://twitter.com/FelixEd93/status/1262833851807797249

Germany's Volkswagen has pulled a social media ad for a new car and apologized after an outcry over its racist overtones. The 10-second spot posted on Instagram and Twitter shows a massive white hand pushing a black man away from beside a new yellow Volkswagen Golf parked on the street, then moving him to an open doorway and flicking him inside a French cafe. Commentators on social media also noted that as the German-language slogan "Der Neue Golf" ("The New Golf&quot fades into view, the jumble of letters can be read as a racial slur (the n-word in German, per the Telegraph) for a brief moment. And the cafe's name is Petit Colon, which in French literally means the "Little Colonist."

Volkswagen addressed the outrage on Instagram, reports the Telegraph, writing that the "origin of the people depicted is irrelevant" and that the company was against "all forms of racism, xenophobia, and discrimination. ... As you can imagine, we are surprised and shocked that our Instagram story could be so misunderstood." Volkswagen told the AP on Wednesday that the video had been pulled and that "we can understand the outrage and anger." It continued, "Without question: The video is inappropriate and tasteless. We will clarify how something like this could happen, and there will be consequences." (VW had a similar ad issue in 2013.)

https://www.newser.com/story/291171/a-10-second-volkswagen-ad-spurs-outrage.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_img_b

May 20, 2020

today's google celebrates Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 61st BD. (the "over the rainbow" guy)

https://www.google.com/?mlLightbox=1

May 20, 2020

USA will hit 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in 4 days (this Saturday). Count 93,533

Will Trump pause his tweet grudge matches to note the moment?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

May 19, 2020

Ken Osmond, 'Leave It to Beaver' Star Who Played Eddie Haskell, Dies at 76

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Ken-Osmond-Leave-It-to-Beaver-Star-Who-15278295.php


Ken Osmond, best known for his role as the troublemaker Eddie Haskell on the television comedy “Leave It to Beaver,” died on Monday morning. He was 76.

Sources tell Variety Osmond died at his Los Angeles home surrounded by family members. The cause of death is unknown.