When this thing first hit, I hoped (in vain) that the media—most notably the 24-hour cable news networks—wouldn’t turn it into a Telethon of Death. I could see it immediately, the somber talking head, with the Death Ticker over his/her shoulder, reciting the numbers ad infinitum. “The death toll now stands at 24,673…oh wait, as I was reciting that number, our ticker clicked up a couple spots, so now the death toll stands at 24,675…oh wait…” Joseph Stalin, not normally remembered as much of a philosopher, had it right when he said, “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million men is a statistic.” It has definitely turned into a numbers game.
This is probably horrible of me to say, but if this pandemic had hit in the 1970s (before the 24-hour news cycle became a thing), the world wouldn’t have shut down. We, as a species, would have taken our ghastly lumps, reached herd immunity, and moved on. But with today’s chicken-and-egg pattern of news event, followed by breathless reportage of the event, followed inevitably by reportage becoming one with the event, everything is BREAKING NEWS!, all the time.
Bill Maher came up with the perfect phrase for how the media are failing us in this important time—panic porn. The press is stoking the flames of hysteria while displaying a stunning inability to focus on what’s really important. And they allow so many outright lies to go unchallenged.
I do know this: I would gladly go the rest of my life without ever again hearing the phrases “flatten the curve” and “new normal.” The latter really bothers me. I will consider it a testament to the resilience of people when you see how quickly we get back to the Old Normal. Until then, every time I hear one of those things, it’s like Nosferatu dragging his nails across a brand-new chalkboard with the volume turned up to 12.
A friend of mine who used to be a Republican (he claims that he still is but that claim is specious, seeing as how he absolutely worships at the altar of the Orange Demon) challenged me to say something positive about Donald Trump. After some thought, I said that Trump is a master at making everything about himself. That’s a skill that few of us have, and even fewer of us want to have. After screwing up as badly as he did at the beginning of the pandemic, you would have thought that he would have run away from the topic. Instead, he turned things around and began making daily campaign rally-style appearances that, with the help of a pathetically compliant media, actually boosted Trump’s poll numbers (if only briefly).
The media should be fair, but they don’t have to be overly so. After a month of daily public buffoonery in which Trump verbally assaults women of color, lies through his ass, and plays games with American lives, the media still broadcast the travesties live. They should film them, edit out the campaign shenanigans to be used later in political reporting, and then show the actual pandemic updates featuring the scientists and doctors.
Even then, media members need to ask better questions. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the little bulldog of an epidemiologist who achieved temporary rock star status, has also let us down. He’s great at what he does, but what he does is, by definition, narrow and needs to be reported as such. He cares about lives, but I’m not so sure that he understands people. When he casually talks about the lockdown lasting into the fall, even the most caring and civic-minded individual is going to say, “Oh, hell no!” Eventually, we’re all going to grow weary of being “another two weeks”-ed to death.
So far, it’s only the lunatic fringe that is spilling into the streets—brain-dead redneck gun nuts wearing Trump hats and waving racist Confederate flags. They have been ordered by Trump to gather by the dozens in state capitals to protest the social distancing guidelines instituted by…Trump. (That sound you hear is the final nail being driven into the coffin that contains Irony.) They gather and wait for the aforementioned compliant media to show up. As soon as the camera lights go on, the Trumpistas start honking their horns and waving their Bring Back Slavery flags. And if they’re asked a question, they try their darnedest to get the word “Constitution” in the response. (Although, damn it, there are a lot of syllables in “Constitution.”)
I was wondering what had happened to the Tea Party, that gaggle of good Americans who had joined together to protest rising budget deficits following the Great Recession. It was budget deficits, right? It couldn’t have had anything to do with the color of Barack Obama’s skin. Donald Trump has been adding a trillion dollars per year to the national debt with nary a word of protest from the Tea Party. I guess they were saving themselves for something important.
Today is the last day of April, the day when restrictions are supposed to expire in many states, including ours. Everybody from Regina Romero up to Doug Ducey will be walking a tightrope. If they’re crazy enough to utter “May 31,” they’d better be ready for some serious crosswinds.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2020.
So censorship is ok with Tom if he disagrees with what someone else says. That is today’s media and democratic party. But who then censors them? We watch as they froth at the mouth over somebody opposed to their own personal agenda. Courses on our Constitution are still available. Take one.
The thing about at least trying to be a rational human being is the ability to practice critical thinking. Any person of even moderate intelligence SHOULD be able to sift thru the dross of ‘news’ out there and take the kernels of truth that lurk within. Likewise, streaming news is exactly that, streaming news. Yes it is tedious and boring at times, actually a lot of the time, but again, the idea behind it, at least as I have always thought, is that you can dip in every so often and get an update. No need to sit wide-eyed and gullible to swallow all the crap being thrown in your gullet. Even pelicans regurgitate the stuff they cannot digest.
Too many people take too much they are fed as gospel, and this is what truly worries me. The lack of critical thought in our society is something we need to address… I’ll work on that and get back to you.
When I was a tween — a very long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — I used to amuse myself with reading the daily horoscope in the newspaper. The attempts to provide clues, hints and guidance for they day was entertaining since, as a tween, my life was controlled by my parents, the school and the considerable amount of peer pressure in middle school.
Years later, after I learned the history of astrology and similar arts, I realized that it is human nature to try to control things that we cannot.
Now, as we watch the 24/7 media circus surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, with the sideshow featuring a political clown car full of, well…clowns, I am reminded of those old horoscopes.
There are a lot of people making statements based on truth, half-truths, conspiracy theories, scientific theories, history, statistics, economics, and on and on. Nature is not the only thing that abhors a vacuum. Apparently, both the media and politicians cannot stand the silence of a vacuum and will try to fill it with anything — helpful or not.
Now, we are being rushed to make a decision that is a macabre version of “Would You Rather” that is asking us to decide between a “return to normal” and death.
The false assumption here — or is it really wishful thinking — is that those that die will be unknown to us. However, the past few months have shown that this virus can take anyone, regardless of demographics.
I submit that a good economy cannot take priority over human life; After all, we fought a civil war in this nation over that very idea, and ironically, this time it may be up to individual states to protect lives in the face of a Federal government that would see people die to protect the wealth and positions of a very, very small minority.
“While there’s life, there’s hope.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
“While there’s life, there’s hope.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
He’s dead isn’t he?
On one hand the media and the public trash government for not enough information. So they go out and give some and they get trashed for “hogging the airwaves.”
A lot of this is our own fault, but if you simply stay home until everybody feels good about themselves it will be too late.
“We have to find a balance….”-Dr Phil
I’m not sure if Tom’s message this week is that “it’s time get back to work,” or “only right-wing wacko’s want to end the distancing policies.”
We got to get millenials back to work. Don’t want Social Security checks to stop coming in. It pays for my new RV.
My God, what whiny, childish claptrap. Danehy has always been a smug, un-self aware, though sometimes witty columnist, especially regarding local sports news. But Ducey’s election and then Trump’s has sent him into total thumb sucking, stamp his feet on the ground, load in the pants psychosis. He cannot even articulate what’s wrong with the current situation except that we were once tougher or something AND “Orange Demon,” “brain-dead redneck gun nuts”, etc. Cheer up Tom. Biden is going to choose a woman named Tara Reade as his running mate — and if you don’t believe her you are a lying dog-faced pony soldier. All the way with Joey in 2020!
Wait until Tom hears how many in the Obama administration will be tried for treason. Comet and some in the FBI framed Michael Flynn in an attempt to prove their fraudulent Russia hoax. The house of cards is about to come crashing down. Hillary better switch from pantsuit to jogging suit because she should be included along with her campaign violations.
Tom went from a few fresh insights back into the same old boring “blame Trump” meme. I almost got halfway through one of his columns.
Wow. I think the enforced sheltering in place has really put the zap on Lying Tom Danehy’s brain.
This post is one of his nastiest, unorganized, and most unhinged screeds ever, and that says a lot.
Lying Tom Danehy is back at it again with his lies:
“So far, it’s only the lunatic fringe that is spilling into the streets—brain-dead redneck gun nuts wearing Trump hats and waving racist Confederate flags.”
Just this last week there have been protests in Michigan, Utah, Ohio, New York State, Wisconsin, Boston, Concord NH, and other places that are hardly bastions of the Redneck Confederacy. Go ahead google those protests and click images, nary a confederate flag in sight. Even in the Raleigh North Carolina protest, no Confederate flags, lots of American flags. Just another example of Lying Tom doing what he does best, lie.
Lying Tom also mentioned what he thought President Trump was a master of, but as TT mentioned above, Lying Tom Danehy is a master of self-unawareness.
Here are two recent examples Lying Tom Danehy’s colossal self-unawareness:
April 30 – Lying Tom Danehy: “Trump verbally assaults women of color”.
Less than six weeks ago Lying Racist Tom Danehy verbally assaulted two women of color with pernicious racial slurs:
Feb 27 – Lying Racist Tom Danehy” “Token African-American Fox News talker Harris Faulkner…”
Feb 13 – Lying Racist Tom Danehy ”I can see Trump going after Mitch McConnell’s mail-order bride, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.”
He then went on to objectify them by denigrating their looks based upon his own standard of what women should look like.
The self-unawareness on display by Lying Racist Tom Danehy is breathtaking. I think the sheltering in place and the brazen cognitive dissonance has created psychological stress in Lying Tom Danehy which has resulted in a psychotic break.
Get some professional help Lying Tom, for your sake and your family’s. Get some help.
What may be even sicker are the people that defend him.
“You will be known by the company you keep.”
Tom, grow up.
Yes, it is a pain in the ass to be quarantined and have to take elaborate precautions to venture forth and try to find toilet paper at Costco. For Danehy, I’m sure the specter of canceled athletic seasons and empty seats is a nightmare hopefully to dissolve with the next morning’s sunrise. Tom, this is real. People are dying every hour of every day and survivors may be handicapped for life. The US has seen more deaths from Covid 19 than from all wars since Vietnam and the number is rising.
It is convenient and au courant to blame the entire mess on Trump’s mishandling of the epidemic but that ignores the reality of a lack of sustained funding and planning for a pandemic crisis we’ve been warned of for decades including the Obama and GW Bush administrations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigati…
It’s great to be the strongest nation on the face of the earth militarily, but bullets, bombs, and aircraft carriers won’t stop this invasion. Our distinction, our exceptionalism, today can be seen in the wildly disproportionate rates of contagion and death compared with the rest of the world. Yes, we are number one if that offers solace to anyone. Scoring cheap political points on the misery of real people is the most blatant form of stupidity.
Stay home if possible, stay safe, venture out carefully as needed, and try to give a shit about the lives and health of fellow citizens. It’s hard, I know. WWII was harder. The Civil War was harder. The depression was harder.
The US also has seen more deaths from car accidents and other viruses than from all those wars. That is a lame, disingenuous talking point that I’ve seen bandied about online recently. It is not a good idea to give in to hysteria, Rick. Yes, we should take reasonable precautions as we normally would. The loss of people’s income, livelihood, education and freedom is and will be more deadly than this overblown pandemic. BTW there is enough data available now to show that the mortality rate of those who have contracted the virus is about 0.03, a small fraction of one percent. The very elderly and people with existing serious health issues account for the vast majority of those who have died from the Wuhan Flu, not to mention that crowded urban areas like New York are where serious precautions are (or were) required, not southern Arizona and most of the US.
What you’re missing TT is the simple fact that car accidents and other assorted causes of accidental or preventable deaths are not contagious. The annual flu season is and will continue to take a toll but does not overwhelm the healthcare systems. Vaccines are available at little or no cost at the local CVC, Walmart, or primary care physician office. We’re not scrambling for ventilators, PPE, and toilet paper because of the flu season. It’s here to stay for now and will kill tens of thousands just like heart disease and cancer.
This pandemic, in 3 months has killed more US citizens than the soldiers who died in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the past 50 years. I take that seriously. Do whatever you deem appropriate, just don’t cough in my facee.
Rick,
As we now know, there never was a need to scramble for ventilators (very few have been used), and toilet paper!, etc. The lockdown in the first weeks was warranted perhaps. It may still be warranted in specific areas. It no longer is defensible nationally or in Arizona. The facts regarding where the virus is most common and among whom it is most dangerous are clear, and indicate that the federal and most state and local governments have erred on the side of hysteria (and political necessity). Today, the AZ Daily Star reports that less than 100 people have died from the virus in the Tucson Metro Area. It is notable that fatalities attributed to the Chinese Flu may have been the result of other existing health issues, such as cancer or diabetes. The US and the rest of the world has never shut down its economy in the face of serious epidemics. I think we will eventually find that the damage to our physical and mental health created by the long-term lockdown was far worse than the effects of the flu itself.
TT,
Perhaps you should take a remedial arithmetic class at Pima. 254,000 deaths in 3,600,000 cases is 7%. Even if it were “0.03” as you wrote, that is not “small fraction of one percent,” but 3%.
dsimpson,
Thank you for pointing that out. However, the numbers you list are problematic in the sense that we do not know for sure how many cases there are of those of have been infected worldwide, which is probably much greater than the 3.6 million you list. Your source for the information is probably a well-regarded one, and the estimate made in good faith, but there really is no way of knowing what the real “denominator” is at this point. It is known that most people who contract the virus have no or very mild symptoms. And we know that the vast majority of deaths are among older folks, especially those older than 70 and 80 (of course, we should take all measures to protect the most vulnerable). Information on Arizona that I checked recently showed a total of 395 deaths among 9,306 cases recorded. That would be a four percent death rate among the infected. The state’s population is about 7.5 million, so I think the real number of those who have had the virus is much, much greater. Anyway, my main point in the comments above is that we have over-reacted to the threat and done serious damage to our economy, especially to working people and small business owners. Sometimes the cure really is worse than the disease.
TT,
I assume that your extensive experience in epidemiology and infectious diseases lead you to state that “we have over-reacted to the threat.” I can’t help but wonder if you thought we had over-reacted when we invaded Iraq in search of WMDs for which there was scant evidence. We have not over-reacted to this pandemic, and history will harshly judge the lackadaisical approach taken in the United States.
If there are too few deaths in Pima County for your taste, would 500 suit you? 1,000? 5,000? Instead of being proactive, at what number would you suggest we become reactive?
If it bleeds….it leads… expect more of ‘is the head dead yet’? Journalism standards of the current times.
ladderflappy That’s exactly how it works here. I have never seen such a large group of closed minded liberals anywhere in the country. They all seem to read out of the same playbook of groupthink and lack any diversity in thinking. What a sad and miserable existence.