By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, brunch ran disgracefully late today, and so I will try to deliver a not-disgracefully thin Water Cooler, but it won’t be immediately. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves! –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Brown Thrasher, Sully Woodlands, Fairfax, Virginia, United States. I swear I hear an airplane, somewhere in the mix.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Look for the Helpers
CR box makers:
Though it’s amazing we’re still making CR boxes by hand, five years into the pandemic. What a market failure!
They recommend when they should mandate. Nevertheless:
The Maryland Department of Health is re-recommending universal masking among other precautions due to rising hospitalizations for COVID and flu.
If you’re in MD and have trouble with doctors masking you can inform them of this new recommendation. pic.twitter.com/QYsN840epg
— Covid Caution – XEC, KP.3.1.1, LP.8.1, MC.1, LF.7 (@CovidCaution) January 16, 2025
Vaccines
I think[T]hese arrows are moving in the wrong direction (except for Alaska, Connecticut, and Maine, good job):Just incredibly depressing that humans spent so long trying to invent cures to diseases, succeeded against the odds, and that progress is now being erased by a small number of people spreading misinformation. pic.twitter.com/Fq0Jn5AiI3
— Michael Thomas (@curious_founder) January 14, 2025
Measles are the “M” in MMR. In other words, the basics are under assault, not exotics recently added to the schedule.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US rose by 14,000 from the previous week to 217,000 in the period ending January 11th, 2024, firmly above market expectations of 210,000 to mark a sharp bounce from the upwardly revised, 11-month low touched in the first week of January.”
Manufacturing: “United States Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in the US climbed to 44.3 in January 2025, its highest since April 2021, from a revised reading of -10.9 in December and better than market forecasts of -5. This is the index’s largest monthly increase since June 2020….”
Retail: “U.S. Retail Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Retail sales in the US increased 0.4% month-over-month in December 2024, the least in four months, compared to an upwardly revised 0.8% rise in November and below forecasts of 0.6%. Despite the slowdown, the figures continue to point to a robust consumer spending.”
Tech: I guess Boeing’s guy wasn’t available?
Suchir Balaji worked as an engineer for Sam Altman building AI, until he decided that Altman was committing crimes. Balaji became a whistleblower, and soon after was found dead in his apartment. California authorities claim it was suicide. Crime scene photos clearly show a… pic.twitter.com/bVbiP8zShy
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 15, 2025
It’s so hard to find decent help these days!
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 30 Fear (previous close: 29 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 30 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 16 at 1:44:27 PM ET.
Musical Interlude
Prince?!
Prince performing a Led Zeppelin classic, Whole Lotta Love, live At The Aladdin, Las Vegas, in 2002.
He was an incredible musician and a very underrated guitar player! pic.twitter.com/fMhhYkRfQi
— Rock’n Roll of All (@rocknrollofall) January 14, 2025
“The Governance Failures That Fed the Los Angeles Wildfires” [Wall Street Journal]. “There’s no disputing Mother Nature’s primary role in the devastation. The Santa Ana winds responsible for the wildfires begin north and east of Los Angeles in the Great Basin, which includes large sections of Utah and Nevada. As those winds travel south and west, coursing through the canyons and arroyos of Southern California, they drop in elevation and become warmer and dryer. This is nature, not man-made climate change, at work. It’s been happening since long before Los Angeles was settled. What’s changed isn’t the predictability of the fires but rather the priorities and competence of those responsible for keeping people safe. Has the underbrush that fuels the fires been cleared? Have the forests been thinned? Are the reservoirs full and operational?… By Mr. Simon’s estimates, there are two schools of thought on what’s playing out in his state right now. “One is that this was really unusual, and nobody could have foreseen it. And the other school of thought, which I’m a member of, is that you can’t have a whole reservoir that is completely dry in a highly populated area with a long history of fires. There’s a public-policy failure somewhere here. There’s a direct connection between the negligence at the governmental level—state, local, whatever—and a lot of human suffering.” The bigger problem, however, might be the insularity of the state’s political establishment. Mr. Newsom and Ms. Bass are liberal Democrats, as are most of the lawmakers in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in California since 2006″ • Reading this carefully, I can agree with all of it except. This is nature, not man-made climate change. First, the real estate industry, which sites and soecs the houses, isn’t part of “nature” (modulo an extremely holistic definition of nature). Second, I don’t think anything is exempt from “man-made climate change”, which might, for example, cause an out-of-season Santa Ana. But at least we’ve gor some thinking in layers, even if from the son of William Simon (Nixon’s Treasury secretary). This seems not to be paywalled, and it’s worth a read.
“Neil Gaiman denies sexual assault allegations: ‘I don’t accept there was any abuse’” [Los Angeles Times]. “Eight women accused the 64-year-old British scribe of assault, abuse and coercion in an article published Monday” (posted here). Gaiman: ” I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.” • On reconsideration, the angle I came away with from the Monday article was how very badly the rather rich Gaiman and his wife Amanda Palmer treated the servants; withheld payment, prpmises not kept…. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy.”
“Billionaire Robert Miller accused of being secret pedophile who preyed on girls as young as 11” [Daily Mail]. “Robert Miller, 81, allegedly paid minors for sex between 1994 and 2006 and recruited them with the assistance of employees from his company, Future Electronics. This week, Quebec Superior Court Judge Catherine Piché ruled that a class action launched by three of Miller’s alleged victims could proceed. ‘These extremely serious acts allegedly took place over several years, when they were between the ages of 11 and 17,’ she wrote in her decision, according to CBA. ‘The court should not, at this stage, consider the merits of the dispute and it should take the facts as proven, unless they appear improbable or manifestly inaccurate.’ The class action has been launched by three women who allege they were victims of Miller, and also targets Future Electronics. If the class action is successful, Miller could be ordered to hand over up to $150million in damages. Lawyer for the plaintiffs Jeff Orenstein told the court he’d been approached by 51 alleged victims.” • 51? That’s a lot. So is 8.
I am not feeling wired today.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From mrsyk:
Mrsyk writes: “This plum tomato has been frozen through a couple times now. What a color.”
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