newyorker--2020-05-04--The End of the Beginning: Seattle Braces for the Next Phase of the Coronavirus Fight

We ’ d reached that moment in the plot where the bad thing has set in , when the characters , while not yet embracing the new reality , have resigned themselves to it .
A collective sigh .
A pensive scratch of the beard , if you could still safely scratch beards .
We were quarantining just like everywhere else in the country ; the difference in Seattle was we ’ d been doing it half a month longer , maybe more .
In the first region with a confirmed case , the first to log a death , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retreat from the world .
The walls of our homes flickered from the light on our screens .
During the day , those screens filled with images of our co-workers ’ laundry piles , and , at night , with the stories we binged , like the one about the man who imprisons cats and plots the death of his rival .
You could still go to the grocery store , and when you did you marvelled at what you saw , mostly because here , at last , things transpired somewhere other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because there was more kindness out there than you recalled .
The employee at the entrance who offered to wipe down the handle of your shopping cart .
The cashier who stage-managed the line of customers so no one stood too close .
Except for emergencies , hospitals were off limits , but you had your memory and imagination .
You could take all the times you ’ d been near an E.R .
or I.C.U.—the intensity , the texture of a crisis , its sounds and smells—and imprint upon them the news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things up , turn up the dials .
It wasn ’ t hard to picture a hundred acts of heroism .
After all , this was why we ’ d so abruptly upended our lives .
We knew we must slow the spread of the coronavirus to grant health-care workers some relief , to flatten the curve , make sure enough ventilators and empty beds remained .
So when it was all finally , demonstrably shown to be effective , the joy was palpable .
On March 30th , at the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Seattle ’ s history , the data company that supplied many of the models upon which the region ’ s leaders had weighed decisions made an announcement .
“ Social distancing and mobility reductions have reduced COVID-19 transmission in King County , WA , ” the Institute for Disease Modeling stated in a publicly distributed summary paper .
I.D.M.
’ s calculations showed that , between the end of February and mid-March , the spread rate had been cut by nearly half : before , each infected Seattleite passed the virus on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March 18th it was 1.4 .
Two weeks later , I.D.M .
had even better news : someone with COVID-19 in late March could be expected to infect just one other individual .
Maintaining an invisible six-foot barrier between yourself and others .
Washing your hands with obsessive frequency .
So much time spent indoors that you ’ d practically committed to memory the ceiling ’ s cartography of cracks and bumps .
After a while , these measures could feel like spells , charms to ward off supernatural forces .
You believed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and men of science , but you ’ d be lying if you said you weren ’ t also running on something like blind faith .
Now there was the confirmation .
What we did was working .
To calculate the rate of the virus ’ s spread , the I.D.M .
researchers measured public epidemiological data—including tests , diagnoses , and reported deaths—against mobility data gathered from anonymous Facebook users .
The latter showed that Seattleites were indeed avoiding big gatherings and staying home ; the scientists noted a twenty-seven-per-cent increase in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social-distancing policies began , and a forty-three-per-cent decrease in occupancy in mixed-use places like downtown .
There were other signs : King County Metro reported its bus ridership down forty-five per cent .
Traffic on Interstate 5 fell by more than half .
By April 5th , we appeared to have avoided one of the more dreaded outcomes : another research group , the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation , at the University of Washington , lowered its projection of deaths .
It also reported a surplus rather than a deficit of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beds .
Governor Jay Inslee was so confident in the numbers , he sent back more than four hundred of the ventilators that the Strategic National Stockpile had loaned the state ; New York , in more dire need , could put them to use instead .
Of course , every bit of promising news came with big caveats .
We were far from in the clear , officials warned .
We still are .
Any time now the high spread rate could come roaring back , especially if we relax social-distance measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every day , as do high death tolls .
People on the front line still lack proper personal protective equipment .
But decelerating the virus did more than provide much-needed relief to the region ’ s health-care system .
It offered some time , however brief , to reflect on how we ’ d done it .
As my colleague Chargles Duhigg recently wrote in the magazine , the largest factor was relatively simple : state and local leaders here listened to the advice of scientists .
Officials quickly shuttered schools and issued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have helped as well .
Every city has its contradictions .
Seattle ’ s may be trickier to parse than most .
Inexplicably , its residents are both civically dutiful and unfriendly .
That ’ s according to the statistics provided by the National Conference on Citizenship , which combines census data and survey results to create its Civic Health Index .
In 2017 , when measured against fifty other cities , Seattle came in either first or second in philanthropy , group participation , and the boycotting of products for ethical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high for voter turnout .
Yet , when it comes to talking to neighbors , residents ranked an abysmal thirty-fifth ; though that ’ s up from three years earlier , when the rank was forty-eighth .
Could these two characteristics—civic duty and aloofness—help explain the city ’ s success with social distancing ?
Diane Douglas , a former executive director of Seattle City Club , which co-sponsors the index , thinks so .
At least the civic-duty aspect .
She ’ s more circumspect when it comes to the Seattle Freeze , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s reputation for unfriendliness is known .
( Duhigg briefly touched on this as well . )
When we spoke , Douglas emphasized the jump in the city ’ s rank in friendliness ( presumably because of the influx of outsiders moving here ) .
Since at least the nineteen-forties , the city has taken hits for its alleged icy treatment of newcomers , as observed in archival letters to the editor from newspaper readers confessing to toils like “ nearly dying of sheer loneliness for months.
” Such missives led the Seattle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1946 editorial , “ that newcomers do not always find us altogether perfect ; that we sometimes are neglectful of the stranger in our midst ; that we seem unduly preoccupied with our own local concerns.
” Nearly sixty years later , the same newspaper , in a 2005 article about the Seattle Freeze—likely the first time the term was committed to print—characterized the phenomenon this way : locals are “ polite but distant , ” or , put another way , “ Have a nice day .
Somewhere else.
” What makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other cities ?
Explanations are frustratingly few and largely unsatisfying .
Some posit the influence of long-timers who hail from stereotypically stoic parts of the world .
( Such hypotheses unsubtly implicate the region ’ s large Nordic and Asian communities . )
Some explanations blame the preponderance of socially inept tech workers ( which hardly accounts for why the phenomenon has lingered since the pre-tech-boom forties ) .
Still others blame the melancholy brought on by constant overcast skies .
( Constant overcast skies get blamed for a lot in the Pacific @ @ @

Social-distancing measures have helped Seattle, but officials warn that a sense of complacency could bring the virus roaring back. Photograph by Chona Kasinger
We’d reached that moment in the plot where the bad thing has set in, when the characters, while not yet embracing the new reality, have resigned themselves to it. A collective sigh. A pensive scratch of the beard, if you could still safely scratch beards. We were quarantining just like everywhere else in the country; the difference in Seattle was we’d been doing it half a month longer, maybe more. In the first region with a confirmed case, the first to log a death, we’d grown used to this retreat from the world. The walls of our homes flickered from the light on our screens. During the day, those screens filled with images of our co-workers’ laundry piles, and, at night, with the stories we binged, like the one about the man who imprisons cats and plots the death of his rival.
You could still go to the grocery store, and when you did you marvelled at what you saw, mostly because here, at last, things transpired somewhere other than on a screen, but also because there was more kindness out there than you recalled. The employee at the entrance who offered to wipe down the handle of your shopping cart. The cashier who stage-managed the line of customers so no one stood too close. Except for emergencies, hospitals were off limits, but you had your memory and imagination. You could take all the times you’d been near an E.R. or I.C.U.—the intensity, the texture of a crisis, its sounds and smells—and imprint upon them the news of the day, then just speed things up, turn up the dials. It wasn’t hard to picture a hundred acts of heroism.
After all, this was why we’d so abruptly upended our lives. We knew we must slow the spread of the coronavirus to grant health-care workers some relief, to flatten the curve, make sure enough ventilators and empty beds remained. So when it was all finally, demonstrably shown to be effective, the joy was palpable. On March 30th, at the end of what was certainly among the strangest months in Seattle’s history, the data company that supplied many of the models upon which the region’s leaders had weighed decisions made an announcement. “Social distancing and mobility reductions have reduced COVID-19 transmission in King County, WA,” the Institute for Disease Modeling stated in a publicly distributed summary paper. I.D.M.’s calculations showed that, between the end of February and mid-March, the spread rate had been cut by nearly half: before, each infected Seattleite passed the virus on to an estimated 2.7 people; on March 18th it was 1.4. Two weeks later, I.D.M. had even better news: someone with COVID-19 in late March could be expected to infect just one other individual.
Maintaining an invisible six-foot barrier between yourself and others. Washing your hands with obsessive frequency. So much time spent indoors that you’d practically committed to memory the ceiling’s cartography of cracks and bumps. After a while, these measures could feel like spells, charms to ward off supernatural forces. You believed in them because they came from women and men of science, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t also running on something like blind faith.
Now there was the confirmation. What we did was working. To calculate the rate of the virus’s spread, the I.D.M. researchers measured public epidemiological data—including tests, diagnoses, and reported deaths—against mobility data gathered from anonymous Facebook users. The latter showed that Seattleites were indeed avoiding big gatherings and staying home; the scientists noted a twenty-seven-per-cent increase in daytime residential occupancy compared to before the social-distancing policies began, and a forty-three-per-cent decrease in occupancy in mixed-use places like downtown. There were other signs: King County Metro reported its bus ridership down forty-five per cent. Traffic on Interstate 5 fell by more than half. By April 5th, we appeared to have avoided one of the more dreaded outcomes: another research group, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, at the University of Washington, lowered its projection of deaths. It also reported a surplus rather than a deficit of available hospital beds, including I.C.U. beds. Governor Jay Inslee was so confident in the numbers, he sent back more than four hundred of the ventilators that the Strategic National Stockpile had loaned the state; New York, in more dire need, could put them to use instead.
Of course, every bit of promising news came with big caveats. We were far from in the clear, officials warned. We still are. Any time now the high spread rate could come roaring back, especially if we relax social-distance measures too soon. New confirmed cases emerge every day, as do high death tolls. People on the front line still lack proper personal protective equipment. But decelerating the virus did more than provide much-needed relief to the region’s health-care system. It offered some time, however brief, to reflect on how we’d done it.
As my colleague Charles Duhigg recently wrote in the magazine, the largest factor was relatively simple: state and local leaders here listened to the advice of scientists. Officials quickly shuttered schools and issued shelter-in-place orders. Other, harder-to-quantify factors may have helped as well. Every city has its contradictions. Seattle’s may be trickier to parse than most. Inexplicably, its residents are both civically dutiful and unfriendly. That’s according to the statistics provided by the National Conference on Citizenship, which combines census data and survey results to create its Civic Health Index.
In 2017, when measured against fifty other cities, Seattle came in either first or second in philanthropy, group participation, and the boycotting of products for ethical or political purposes. Seattleites also rank high for voter turnout. Yet, when it comes to talking to neighbors, residents ranked an abysmal thirty-fifth; though that’s up from three years earlier, when the rank was forty-eighth.
Could these two characteristics—civic duty and aloofness—help explain the city’s success with social distancing? Diane Douglas, a former executive director of Seattle City Club, which co-sponsors the index, thinks so. At least the civic-duty aspect. She’s more circumspect when it comes to the Seattle Freeze, the sobriquet by which the city’s reputation for unfriendliness is known. (Duhigg briefly touched on this as well.) When we spoke, Douglas emphasized the jump in the city’s rank in friendliness (presumably because of the influx of outsiders moving here).
Since at least the nineteen-forties, the city has taken hits for its alleged icy treatment of newcomers, as observed in archival letters to the editor from newspaper readers confessing to toils like “nearly dying of sheer loneliness for months.” Such missives led the Seattle Daily Times to aver, in a 1946 editorial, “that newcomers do not always find us altogether perfect; that we sometimes are neglectful of the stranger in our midst; that we seem unduly preoccupied with our own local concerns.” Nearly sixty years later, the same newspaper, in a 2005 article about the Seattle Freeze—likely the first time the term was committed to print—characterized the phenomenon this way: locals are “polite but distant,” or, put another way, “Have a nice day. Somewhere else.”
What makes Seattle dwellers less sociable than those in other cities? Explanations are frustratingly few and largely unsatisfying. Some posit the influence of long-timers who hail from stereotypically stoic parts of the world. (Such hypotheses unsubtly implicate the region’s large Nordic and Asian communities.) Some explanations blame the preponderance of socially inept tech workers (which hardly accounts for why the phenomenon has lingered since the pre-tech-boom forties). Still others blame the melancholy brought on by constant overcast skies. (Constant overcast skies get blamed for a lot in the Pacific Northwest.)
Regardless of the origin, did the Freeze give the city an advantage when it came time to social-distance in the winter and spring of 2020? Weren’t we already prone to avoid each other? “I suppose,” Douglas, the former City Club executive, told me, “but there’s so many things I’d want to know before I even ventured to make a guess. . . . I mean, it’s sort of a facile assumption, but I don’t know.”
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan told me that the city’s curve-flattening success stems from her constituents’ sense of accountability. “I don’t think it’s just my parochial pride to believe that Seattle is the kind of city that steps up,” the Obama-appointed former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington said. “We’re a city that, when we need to exercise our individual responsibility, we do it.” As an example, she pointed to Seattle as the leader in the nation’s slow march toward separating recycling and compost. But, she warned, “We can’t forget we definitely have a rebellious streak, and that’s the part we have to temper in the coming weeks. Because it’s too early for us to rebel.”
At times, it feels as though Governor Inslee approaches the lectern at his almost-daily public briefing just to temper that rebellion. Since the start of the outbreak, the former 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate has emerged as the gruff avatar of our region’s fight for survival. He was one of the first leaders in the country to ban large public gatherings, before implementing incremental orders that closed restaurants, bars, most nonessential businesses, and schools. Before the crisis, Inslee seemed every bit a politician—persuading himself, as a virtual unknown nationally, to take a run at the Oval Office, and to do so with a twin charm offensive: bespectacled bookishness and plainspoken Western swagger. Now he’s unflinching in his rebukes of Washingtonians (and potential voters in his bid for a third term as governor) who won’t get on board. Take this representative exchange:
Reporter: “What are the penalties exactly for not abiding by the ban?”
Inslee: “The penalties are you might be killing your granddad.”
Other times he approaches the mike, glasses slightly askew, with the manner of a veteran coach at the end of the third quarter. Keep it up, he offers. It’s working. His returning the four hundred ventilators isn’t the only encouraging sign. Based on the same promising data he recommended that the two-hundred-and-fifty-bed Army field hospital set up next to CenturyLink Field, where the Seahawks play, be disassembled and returned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
When I spoke with Inslee a few weeks back, soon after the models first indicated that the spread of the virus had slowed, he wasn’t taking victory laps. It was a Friday, the start of a warm spring weekend. “Today’s the hardest moment,” he warned, “because it’s a moment where we’ve had some relatively early success, and it is the moment that needs the most inspiration and, to some degree, diligence and discipline to keep that effort going.” The danger is that people will become complacent, he told me, that the slowing of the spread will spur a rush back to former lives, the ones where we didn’t live like recluses.
To help explain why we’d made progress, Inslee cited the state’s scientific literacy. Washingtonians “make decisions looking at data and science, so we’re not afraid of it. We’ve done that on our views of climate change. We’ve done that in building a high-tech economy.” He gave a nod to the region’s two tech giants. During the first full week of the outbreak, days before any government orders to do so, Microsoft and Amazon directed their employees to work from home. Other companies quickly followed suit. Overnight, that took tens of thousands of commuters off our streets and out of our office towers.
Finally, proving that his inner politician remained, Inslee tossed some credit his own way. “I think I’ve been able to help the state at the right moment making some tough decisions.” He was speaking to me by phone from the Governor’s Mansion, in Olympia, as he looked out the window. The sun was out. The temperature would soon reach the lower sixties. Daffodils glowed in the midmorning light. He knew the season’s dangerous allure. “We’re all humans, and, as such, it’s just easy to backslide when you think the job is done.”
Looking ahead, the verb tense is important. Social distancing didn’t work. Social distancing is working. All the public officials and researchers I spoke to agreed. “It’s not ‘Oh, great . . . now the problem has gone,’ ” Mike Famulare, a scientist at I.D.M. and a co-leader of the study that calculated COVID-19’s slowing spread, told me. Scott Lindquist, Washington State’s epidemiologist for communicable diseases, warned that if we relax too soon the coronavirus may proliferate again. “We could set ourselves up for another increase in positives,” he said. But Lindquist is encouraged by how responsive elected officials have been to the science. If the data show that the orders need to be extended, he believes they will be.
On Friday, Inslee did just that, extending the social-distancing and business-shutdown orders, set to expire on May 4th, to May 31st. He also announced an incremental approach to reopening the state, starting with retail stores being allowed to offer curbside pickup, and permitting car washes, auto sales, and drive-through spiritual services, all within a couple of weeks. That, combined with other recent announcements—easing restrictions on construction, elective surgeries, and some outdoor recreation—may signal some optimism. But there’s also potential cause for alarm. Washington has surpassed fifteen thousand confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than eight hundred deaths. A recent I.D.M. report found that the rate of the decline had, for the first time in weeks, begun to lag—suggesting that if officials relax social-distancing measures too soon, there could be a surge in cases.
Durkan, the Seattle mayor, relishes the day when we can roll back all the restrictions. “But we’re not there yet,” she told me last month. She’d just signed a one-time order closing fifteen of the city’s largest parks for the upcoming weekend. Defying the social-distancing orders, some people had been showing up at beaches and on tennis and basketball courts. The mayor needed the civically dutiful ones, the unfriendly and chilly ones, and especially rebellious ones to know: “We can’t go and have our social gatherings and barbecues . . . and picnics.”
For now, we stay at home and wait. And we watch other regions that are in the position we were in weeks before. The wave of casualties and economic destruction that first hit Seattle has long since rolled across the country, every city a replica of our empty, boarded-up own. But here, in the first U.S. state with a confirmed case, the first to log a death, there is cause, however modest, for optimism. We showed that there’s a way to slow the spread. That it could, in fact, be done. At the beginning of all this, at the start of March, as the death count climbed, and we stopped shaking hands and sitting in the same rooms together, I thought of Seattle as living in the laboratory of the nation’s future. I hoped I was wrong. Now I hope I’m right.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-05-04--Was Quarantine Made for Cannabis?

Was Quarantine Made for Cannabis?

Late last month , while President Trump flirted with solutions to the coronavirus—sunbathing with a “ very powerful light , ” injecting Lysol to clean the lungs—others elected to smoke pot .
In Los Angeles , as a queue of cars crept slowly in a two-hour In-N-Out Burger drive-through line , in Hollywood , a string of people , standing six feet apart , snaked down the block outside the MMD cannabis dispensary .
Mishka Ashbel , who co-owns the dispensary with his brother , Slava , said , “ We get to provide a little relief to a stressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its beaches and hiking trails , has deemed weed an essential service , critical to residents ’ health and well-being .
“ On 4/20 , a lot of people used coming to a dispensary as an excuse to get out of the house , to feel normal again , ” Ashbel said .
“ To stand in that line was like a special occasion .
People placed online orders for delivery starting at 4 A.M. ” ( Seniors get their gummies , organic pre-rolled joints , and edibles delivered free . )
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liquor business , do well during recessions and crises ; in the first days of the shutdown , marijuana stocks outperformed the crashing S. & P. Ashbel does not consider cannabis a vice product .
“ This is a health product , ” he said .
“ You feel this responsibility to the public here—we ’ re on the front lines .
It ’ s uncharted territory.
” A former N.F.L .
player was reprimanded by the F.D.A .
for advocating cannabis as a cure for COVID-19 , but many have found it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ David Lonsdale , the C.E.O .
of a hemp-cultivation company called CanaFarma , weighed in by phone from his Manhattan apartment .
“ People are looking at an over-all wellness program , ” he said .
“ Cannabis becomes part of your daily routine , like blood-pressure medicine.
” “ People are used to self-medicating , and it ’ s medical , yeah , ” a Broadway actor who works part time as a budtender said .
“ But people are also just bored.
” Rudy Schreier , a cannabis consultant , said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a good breakfast , you maybe take some vitamins , you do work , you have lunch , do more work , smoke a joint , eat an edible .
It ’ s becoming the norm since we ’ ve been on lockdown.
” Schreier works with dispensaries to help them secure licenses .
“ A lot of people working from home have more time on their hands now , ” he said .
“ In a world that ’ s so hectic , everyone ’ s wish was to have more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been granted people are , like , ‘ I don ’ t know what to do.
’ That ’ s where cannabis comes into play.
” He went on , “ I live in a house with seven other people , and during the quarantine we ’ ve had a couple of girlfriends here , too , so it ’ s like twelve of us , and pretty much everyone is smoking every day .
People finish whatever they have to do for their job at , like , 2 P.M. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ What are we going to do for the rest of the day ?
’ ” Schreier rushed out to two dispensaries the day that L.A. ’ s mayor , Eric Garcetti , advised residents to begin staying home .
Since then , he ’ s put two cloned baby cannabis plants in his back yard .
“ I think that Lowe ’ s and Home Depot have a surge in sales , and I assume that part of that is gardening supplies , ” he said .
“ We expect home-grows to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a side benefit to the boom : the process of extracting cannabis oil requires ethanol , so manufacturers have started producing hand sanitizer in bulk to supply the dispensaries , for customers to use .
“ At first , it was like a back-yard drug deal for hand sanitizers , ” Ashbel said .
Ashbel thinks that smoking pot is the ideal quarantine activity .
“ It ’ s conducive to isolation , and it turns off the sensory overload from the news right now , ” he said .
His brother , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has helped people stay inside for generations !
” He added , “ I didn ’ t realize I ’ ve been quarantined full time since 2006.
” Mark Haskell Smith , a novelist who has written about the marijuana industry , agrees .
“ How else are you going to play eight hours of video games ?
” he said .
He celebrated 4/20 by smoking a joint during a special holiday Pilates class on Zoom .
Mishka Ashbel makes a point of educating his customers about safe smoking during the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ‘ Don ’ t pass the doob around , ’ ” he said .
One dispensary ’ s Web site offers a guide for hygienic toking : “ Use protection .
.
.
.
Bong condoms slip right into the top of a bong so you don ’ t have to put your mouth where someone else ’ s was.
” Another thing to watch out for , Ashbel noted : “ You might end up eating all of your quarantine food supplies.
” ♦

Illustration by João Fazenda
Late last month, while President Trump flirted with solutions to the coronavirus—sunbathing with a “very powerful light,” injecting Lysol to clean the lungs—others elected to smoke pot. In Los Angeles, as a queue of cars crept slowly in a two-hour In-N-Out Burger drive-through line, in Hollywood, a string of people, standing six feet apart, snaked down the block outside the MMD cannabis dispensary.
Mishka Ashbel, who co-owns the dispensary with his brother, Slava, said, “We get to provide a little relief to a stressed society.” Los Angeles, which shuttered its beaches and hiking trails, has deemed weed an essential service, critical to residents’ health and well-being. “On 4/20, a lot of people used coming to a dispensary as an excuse to get out of the house, to feel normal again,” Ashbel said. “To stand in that line was like a special occasion. People placed online orders for delivery starting at 4 A.M.” (Seniors get their gummies, organic pre-rolled joints, and edibles delivered free.)
“Vice industries,” such as the liquor business, do well during recessions and crises; in the first days of the shutdown, marijuana stocks outperformed the crashing S. & P. Ashbel does not consider cannabis a vice product. “This is a health product,” he said. “You feel this responsibility to the public here—we’re on the front lines. It’s uncharted territory.”
A former N.F.L. player was reprimanded by the F.D.A. for advocating cannabis as a cure for COVID-19, but many have found it crucial in coping with the pandemic. David Lonsdale, the C.E.O. of a hemp-cultivation company called CanaFarma, weighed in by phone from his Manhattan apartment. “People are looking at an over-all wellness program,” he said. “Cannabis becomes part of your daily routine, like blood-pressure medicine.”
“People are used to self-medicating, and it’s medical, yeah,” a Broadway actor who works part time as a budtender said. “But people are also just bored.”
Rudy Schreier, a cannabis consultant, said, “You wake up, you have a good breakfast, you maybe take some vitamins, you do work, you have lunch, do more work, smoke a joint, eat an edible. It’s becoming the norm since we’ve been on lockdown.” Schreier works with dispensaries to help them secure licenses. “A lot of people working from home have more time on their hands now,” he said. “In a world that’s so hectic, everyone’s wish was to have more time, and now that that wish has been granted people are, like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ That’s where cannabis comes into play.” He went on, “I live in a house with seven other people, and during the quarantine we’ve had a couple of girlfriends here, too, so it’s like twelve of us, and pretty much everyone is smoking every day. People finish whatever they have to do for their job at, like, 2 P.M., and they’re, like, ‘What are we going to do for the rest of the day?’ ”
Schreier rushed out to two dispensaries the day that L.A.’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, advised residents to begin staying home. Since then, he’s put two cloned baby cannabis plants in his back yard. “I think that Lowe’s and Home Depot have a surge in sales, and I assume that part of that is gardening supplies,” he said. “We expect home-grows to go way up.”
There’s a side benefit to the boom: the process of extracting cannabis oil requires ethanol, so manufacturers have started producing hand sanitizer in bulk to supply the dispensaries, for customers to use. “At first, it was like a back-yard drug deal for hand sanitizers,” Ashbel said.
Ashbel thinks that smoking pot is the ideal quarantine activity. “It’s conducive to isolation, and it turns off the sensory overload from the news right now,” he said. His brother, Slava, said, “Smoking cannabis has helped people stay inside for generations!” He added, “I didn’t realize I’ve been quarantined full time since 2006.”
Mark Haskell Smith, a novelist who has written about the marijuana industry, agrees. “How else are you going to play eight hours of video games?” he said. He celebrated 4/20 by smoking a joint during a special holiday Pilates class on Zoom.
Mishka Ashbel makes a point of educating his customers about safe smoking during the pandemic. “We’re telling people, ‘Don’t pass the doob around,’ ” he said. One dispensary’s Web site offers a guide for hygienic toking: “Use protection. . . . Bong condoms slip right into the top of a bong so you don’t have to put your mouth where someone else’s was.” Another thing to watch out for, Ashbel noted: “You might end up eating all of your quarantine food supplies.” ♦
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-05-04--“Sand,” by Ed Roberson

“Sand,” by Ed Roberson

The sand sticks to me as though it had fallen as snow the silica ’ s wet glitter dry .
@ @ @ @ @ line as if I had lain in water floating like the boats that lie about @ @ @ @ @ the glare— sky and water interchanging their light .
I am uncertain what luminary bears @ @ @ @ @ This beach wasn ’ t here before the hurricane , houses that were here aren @ @ @ @ @ The glaciation of this earth-change planes away the known in the thin curl we feared @ @ @ @ @ off that could be brushed off .

Audio: Read by the author.
The sand sticks to me as though it had fallen
as snow the silica’s wet glitter dry.
I am coated with a line as if I had lain
in water floating like the boats that lie
about what they are on in the glare—
sky and water interchanging their light.
I am uncertain what luminary
bears this sandcastle illusion upright.
This beach wasn’t here before the hurricane,
houses that were here aren’t here either.
The glaciation of this earth-change planes
away the known in the thin curl we feared
it was
something we brush off that could be brushed off.


Cartoon Caption Contest

Each week , we provide a cartoon in need of a caption .
You , the reader , submit your @ @ @ @ @ three finalists , and you vote for your favorite .
Anyone age thirteen or older @ @ @ @ @ To read the complete rules , click here .

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newyorker--2020-05-04--Joe Biden, Tara Reade, and the Democrats’ Unasked-for Dilemma

To all the Democratic voters who decided that they couldn ’ t vote for a woman in the Presidential primaries because other people wouldn ’ t , may this moment be a reckoning .
Elizabeth Warren might have been the presumptive Democratic candidate right now .
Moderates might prefer to imagine Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris in the role .
But none of the women in the race were likely to be accused of sexual harassment .
Instead , here we are , having to parse and assess and judge , with inevitably limited knowledge , another allegation of sexual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats are struggling with the unasked-for moral dilemma of whether it is hypocritical to question the veracity of Joe Biden ’ s accuser , Tara Reade , when so many of them had fully embraced the # MeToo movement ’ s ( always too simplistic ) exhortation to “ believe women.
” Maybe some of those who couldn ’ t bring themselves to vote for Bernie Sanders , because they worried that he was too radical for general-election voters , might want to reappraise their choice , too .
Medicare for All sounds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every day exposes the brutal inequities in our health-care system .
And Sanders , although he is of the same generation as Biden , never seems to have had his retro pol ’ s reputation for handsiness and gaffes .
Last March , Lucy Flores , a former Nevada state legislator , wrote a piece for New York magazine describing how , at a 2014 campaign event , Biden , who was there to support her candidacy for lieutenant governor , leaned in to take a big whiff of her hair and “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the back of my head , ” just before she went onstage .
It didn ’ t sound like a huge deal , but it sounded patronizing and uncomfortable , and it was hard to imagine Biden doing it to a male political colleague .
Nor was it a one-off—seven other women came forward telling similar anecdotes .
Biden is an old-fashioned , shoulder-clasping , up-close-and-personal politician , but he got a little more nuzzly and snuggly with women .
Unlike Donald Trump , Biden hasn ’ t boasted of grabbing women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , there were , to that point , no allegations of sexual assault against him .
But , as Flores wrote , “ Even if his behavior wasn ’ t violent or sexual , it was demeaning and disrespectful .
I wasn ’ t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend ; I was there as the most qualified person for the job.
” Biden issued a video statement , saying that he would be more “ mindful ” in the future : “ The boundaries of protecting personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , I get it.
” That was a pretty good answer—after all , one goal of a movement that aims to transform outdated social norms is to get people to reflect on how they ’ ve unthinkingly perpetuated them and how to avoid doing so in the future .
Biden ’ s two-minute I ’ ll-do-better video was so much more than you ’ d ever expect from Trump that it felt like real progress .
Now , though , Biden faces a much more serious allegation .
In a podcast that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a former staffer in Biden ’ s Senate office , said that , in 1993 , when she went to see him on a work errand , Biden pinned her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers .
In earlier versions of her story , Reade had described less egregious behavior on Biden ’ s part , incidents more along the lines of Lucy Flores ’ s account : “ He used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck , ” Reade told the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I would just kind of freeze and wait for him to stop doing that.
” In interviews with the Associated Press last year , she said , “ I wasn ’ t scared of him , that he was going to take me in a room or anything .
It wasn ’ t that kind of vibe.
” But the fact that her story has expanded does not necessarily mean it ’ s not true .
People can choose to reveal the full contours of a traumatic incident at their own pace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : most convincingly , a former neighbor of Reade ’ s , Lynda LaCasse , told Business Insider last week that she remembered Reade in 1995 or 1996 recounting the story she is telling now .
Biden emphatically denies the charge .
On Friday , in the first appearance in which he directly addressed it ( previously , his campaign had issued statements refuting Reade ) , Biden told Mika Brzezinski , on “ Morning Joe , ” “ I ’ m saying unequivocally it never , never happened.
” Reade says she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s office with her harassment concerns : an aide , Dennis Toner ; Ted Kaufman , who was then Biden ’ s chief of staff ; and Biden ’ s executive assistant , Marianne Baker .
All three say they have no recollection of Reade ’ s having done so .
It may never be possible to know for sure whether Reade ’ s allegation is true , but it is not being ignored .
The Washington Post and the New York Times , among other publications , have run detailed , front-page @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Reade had a television interview scheduled with Fox News over the weekend , which she cancelled , saying she had received threatening messages . )
On Friday , Biden called on the National Archives to search the Senate personnel files for any sexual-harassment complaint against him ; if such a thing existed , he said , that ’ s where it would be , adding , “ I ’ m confident there ’ s nothing.
” ( Over the weekend , the A.P .
reported that Reade says she did not mention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says she filed at the time , and likely did not use the term harassment .
“ I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable , ” Reade said .
“ I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.
” ) Biden could do more .
He could release his Senate papers , which are housed at the University of Delaware , and are not now due to be released until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declined , saying that they would not contain personnel information .
If Biden actually did what Reade says he did , it would be possible , barely , to imagine a scenario in which he admitted it , apologized , and gave a speech that explored gender and power—though that would require the kind of calm eloquence that Biden rarely delivers .
If he didn ’ t do it , then he must keep saying so , without smearing Reade .
( He hasn ’ t so far . )
This is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demeaning an accuser was an acceptable strategy .
Not that people don ’ t do that—in fact , online trolling crowdsources such bullying on an enormous scale—but Democrats , anyway , may at least pay a political price for it .
Biden ’ s potential running mate , who he ’ s promised will be a woman , will have to practice that kind of circumspection as well , and likely answer questions about why she might have found previous accusers of prominent men , such as Christine Blasey Ford , credible , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there is a blunt truth to face : Biden will , in all likelihood , be the Democratic Presidential candidate , and four more years of Trump would be disastrous , not least for women .
He has already appointed nearly as many judges to the federal courts as Obama did in his entire Presidency .
These judges will be in a position to gut reproductive rights , along with voting rights , workers ’ rights , immigrants ’ rights , and environmental protections .
Our last chance to take any real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if Trump won , along with our ability to effectively fight any future pandemic in concert with other countries .
Our democracy would be irreparably damaged .
Lynda LaCasse may have been speaking for many when she described herself as “ a very strong Democrat ” who supported Elizabeth Warren in the primaries but is planning to vote for Biden in the general election .
And she believes Tara Reade ’ s allegation .

To all the Democratic voters who decided that they couldn’t vote for a woman in the Presidential primaries because other people wouldn’t, may this moment be a reckoning. Elizabeth Warren might have been the presumptive Democratic candidate right now. Moderates might prefer to imagine Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris in the role. But none of the women in the race were likely to be accused of sexual harassment. Instead, here we are, having to parse and assess and judge, with inevitably limited knowledge, another allegation of sexual misconduct against another older male politician. Democrats are struggling with the unasked-for moral dilemma of whether it is hypocritical to question the veracity of Joe Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, when so many of them had fully embraced the #MeToo movement’s (always too simplistic) exhortation to “believe women.” Maybe some of those who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Bernie Sanders, because they worried that he was too radical for general-election voters, might want to reappraise their choice, too. Medicare for All sounds better than ever in a pandemic that every day exposes the brutal inequities in our health-care system. And Sanders, although he is of the same generation as Biden, never seems to have had his retro pol’s reputation for handsiness and gaffes.
Last March, Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state legislator, wrote a piece for New York magazine describing how, at a 2014 campaign event, Biden, who was there to support her candidacy for lieutenant governor, leaned in to take a big whiff of her hair and “proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head,” just before she went onstage. It didn’t sound like a huge deal, but it sounded patronizing and uncomfortable, and it was hard to imagine Biden doing it to a male political colleague. Nor was it a one-off—seven other women came forward telling similar anecdotes. Biden is an old-fashioned, shoulder-clasping, up-close-and-personal politician, but he got a little more nuzzly and snuggly with women. Unlike Donald Trump, Biden hasn’t boasted of grabbing women “by the pussy.” Unlike with Trump, there were, to that point, no allegations of sexual assault against him. But, as Flores wrote, “Even if his behavior wasn’t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful. I wasn’t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend; I was there as the most qualified person for the job.”
Biden issued a video statement, saying that he would be more “mindful” in the future: “The boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset and I get it, I get it.” That was a pretty good answer—after all, one goal of a movement that aims to transform outdated social norms is to get people to reflect on how they’ve unthinkingly perpetuated them and how to avoid doing so in the future. Biden’s two-minute I’ll-do-better video was so much more than you’d ever expect from Trump that it felt like real progress.
Now, though, Biden faces a much more serious allegation. In a podcast that aired in March, Tara Reade, a former staffer in Biden’s Senate office, said that, in 1993, when she went to see him on a work errand, Biden pinned her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers. In earlier versions of her story, Reade had described less egregious behavior on Biden’s part, incidents more along the lines of Lucy Flores’s account: “He used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck,” Reade told the Union newspaper in California last April. “I would just kind of freeze and wait for him to stop doing that.” In interviews with the Associated Press last year, she said, “I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe.” But the fact that her story has expanded does not necessarily mean it’s not true. People can choose to reveal the full contours of a traumatic incident at their own pace. And some corroboration has since emerged: most convincingly, a former neighbor of Reade’s, Lynda LaCasse, told Business Insider last week that she remembered Reade in 1995 or 1996 recounting the story she is telling now.
Biden emphatically denies the charge. On Friday, in the first appearance in which he directly addressed it (previously, his campaign had issued statements refuting Reade), Biden told Mika Brzezinski, on “Morning Joe,” “I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.” Reade says she went to three people in Biden’s office with her harassment concerns: an aide, Dennis Toner; Ted Kaufman, who was then Biden’s chief of staff; and Biden’s executive assistant, Marianne Baker. All three say they have no recollection of Reade’s having done so.
It may never be possible to know for sure whether Reade’s allegation is true, but it is not being ignored. The Washington Post and the New York Times, among other publications, have run detailed, front-page stories on Reade’s claims. (Reade had a television interview scheduled with Fox News over the weekend, which she cancelled, saying she had received threatening messages.) On Friday, Biden called on the National Archives to search the Senate personnel files for any sexual-harassment complaint against him; if such a thing existed, he said, that’s where it would be, adding, “I’m confident there’s nothing.” (Over the weekend, the A.P. reported that Reade says she did not mention the alleged assault in the complaint she says she filed at the time, and likely did not use the term harassment. “I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”) Biden could do more. He could release his Senate papers, which are housed at the University of Delaware, and are not now due to be released until after he leaves public life. He declined, saying that they would not contain personnel information.
If Biden actually did what Reade says he did, it would be possible, barely, to imagine a scenario in which he admitted it, apologized, and gave a speech that explored gender and power—though that would require the kind of calm eloquence that Biden rarely delivers. If he didn’t do it, then he must keep saying so, without smearing Reade. (He hasn’t so far.) This is not the Clinton era, when shaming and demeaning an accuser was an acceptable strategy. Not that people don’t do that—in fact, online trolling crowdsources such bullying on an enormous scale—but Democrats, anyway, may at least pay a political price for it. Biden’s potential running mate, who he’s promised will be a woman, will have to practice that kind of circumspection as well, and likely answer questions about why she might have found previous accusers of prominent men, such as Christine Blasey Ford, credible, but not Reade.
In the meantime, there is a blunt truth to face: Biden will, in all likelihood, be the Democratic Presidential candidate, and four more years of Trump would be disastrous, not least for women. He has already appointed nearly as many judges to the federal courts as Obama did in his entire Presidency. These judges will be in a position to gut reproductive rights, along with voting rights, workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, and environmental protections. Our last chance to take any real action on climate change would be lost if Trump won, along with our ability to effectively fight any future pandemic in concert with other countries. Our democracy would be irreparably damaged. Lynda LaCasse may have been speaking for many when she described herself as “a very strong Democrat” who supported Elizabeth Warren in the primaries but is planning to vote for Biden in the general election. And she believes Tara Reade’s allegation.


newyorker--2020-05-04--The Pandemic Is Wreaking Havoc in America’s Prisons and Jails

Three months ago , Kai Wright , the host of WNYC ’ s “ The United States of Anxiety , ” joined David Remnick for a special episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour about the effects of mass incarceration and the movement to end it .
Now , as the coronavirus pandemic puts inmates in acute and disproportionate danger , that effort may be gaining new traction .
Wright and Remnick reconvene to examine the COVID-19 crisis in prison and its political effects .
Remnick also speaks with Phil Murphy , the governor of New Jersey , who has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at-risk inmates from the state ’ s prisons—the sort of measure that would once have been deeply unpopular and risky .
“ I haven ’ t really spent any time on the politics , ” Governor Murphy says .
“ In all the steps we ’ ve taken , we ’ re trying to make the call as best we can , based on the facts , based on the data , based on the science.
” And Wright interviews Udi Ofer , the head of the A.C.L.U.
’ s Justice Division , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the C.D.C .
has told us are most vulnerable to COVID-19 are exactly the communities that are housed in our nation ’ s jails and prisons , ” including a disproportionately older population among inmates .
Given the lack of social distancing in jails and prisons and , in many cases , substandard hygienic conditions , Ofer says that the need to reduce the inmate population “ literally is a life-and-death situation .
”

Photograph by Sandy Huffaker / Getty
Three months ago, Kai Wright, the host of WNYC’s “The United States of Anxiety,” joined David Remnick for a special episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour about the effects of mass incarceration and the movement to end it. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic puts inmates in acute and disproportionate danger, that effort may be gaining new traction. Wright and Remnick reconvene to examine the COVID-19 crisis in prison and its political effects. Remnick also speaks with Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, who has signed an executive order to release certain at-risk inmates from the state’s prisons—the sort of measure that would once have been deeply unpopular and risky. “I haven’t really spent any time on the politics,” Governor Murphy says. “In all the steps we’ve taken, we’re trying to make the call as best we can, based on the facts, based on the data, based on the science.” And Wright interviews Udi Ofer, the head of the A.C.L.U.’s Justice Division, who notes that “the communities that the C.D.C. has told us are most vulnerable to COVID-19 are exactly the communities that are housed in our nation’s jails and prisons,” including a disproportionately older population among inmates. Given the lack of social distancing in jails and prisons and, in many cases, substandard hygienic conditions, Ofer says that the need to reduce the inmate population “literally is a life-and-death situation.”


newyorker--2020-05-04--The New Yorker’s Ben Taub and Barry Blitt Win Pulitzer Prizes

The winners of the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday , recognizing excellence in journalism , letters , music , and drama , and The New Yorker ’ s Ben Taub and Barry Blitt were among the honorees .
Taub won in the feature-writing category for a devastating account of a man who was kidnapped , tortured , and deprived of his liberty for more than a decade at Guantánamo Bay .
Despite this litany of horrors , Mohamedou Salahi survived with his spirit intact and gained a new friend , a former Guantánamo guard with whom he reconnected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citation , the Pulitzer Board praised Taub for “ blending on-the-ground reporting and lyrical prose to offer a nuanced perspective on America 's wider war on terror.
” Blitt won in the editorial-cartooning category for work that included several magazine covers and an array of cartoons published exclusively online .
For nearly three decades in the pages of The New Yorker and , more recently , in a regular series on the magazine ’ s Web site , Blitt ’ s political cartoons have parodied , delighted , and informed .
The Pulitzer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ skewers the personalities and policies emanating from the Trump White House with deceptively sweet watercolor style and seemingly gentle caricatures.
” Taub joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2017 .
He has written for the magazine about a range of subjects related to jihadism , crime , conflict , and human rights , mostly in Africa , Europe , and the Middle East .
Since 1992 , Blitt has contributed illustrations and more than a hundred covers to The New Yorker .
In addition , this year ’ s Pulitzer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Boys , ” by Colson Whitehead , was excerpted in the magazine in March , 2019 .
And Anne Boyer ’ s “ The Undying , ” a winner in the nonfiction category , was excerpted in April , 2019 .
Read Taub ’ s prize-winning piece , and view some of Blitt ’ s prize-winning work below .

The winners of the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday, recognizing excellence in journalism, letters, music, and drama, and The New Yorker’s Ben Taub and Barry Blitt were among the honorees.
Taub won in the feature-writing category for a devastating account of a man who was kidnapped, tortured, and deprived of his liberty for more than a decade at Guantánamo Bay. Despite this litany of horrors, Mohamedou Salahi survived with his spirit intact and gained a new friend, a former Guantánamo guard with whom he reconnected after he was released. In its citation, the Pulitzer Board praised Taub for “blending on-the-ground reporting and lyrical prose to offer a nuanced perspective on America’s wider war on terror.”
Blitt won in the editorial-cartooning category for work that included several magazine covers and an array of cartoons published exclusively online. For nearly three decades in the pages of The New Yorker and, more recently, in a regular series on the magazine’s Web site, Blitt’s political cartoons have parodied, delighted, and informed. The Pulitzer judges recognized Blitt “for work that skewers the personalities and policies emanating from the Trump White House with deceptively sweet watercolor style and seemingly gentle caricatures.”
Taub joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2017. He has written for the magazine about a range of subjects related to jihadism, crime, conflict, and human rights, mostly in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Since 1992, Blitt has contributed illustrations and more than a hundred covers to The New Yorker.
In addition, this year’s Pulitzer winner for fiction, “The Nickel Boys,” by Colson Whitehead, was excerpted in the magazine in March, 2019. And Anne Boyer’s “The Undying,” a winner in the nonfiction category, was excerpted in April, 2019.
Read Taub’s prize-winning piece, and view some of Blitt’s prize-winning work below.


newyorker--2020-05-04--Making a Supercut of the Sounds of Quarantine

On April 1st , the musician Drew Daniel tweeted a request for people to send him recordings .
He would take whatever people sent , he wrote , and stitch them together into a single track about daily life in the age of social distancing , cancelled school , and working ( or not ) from home .
Daniel , who , along with his husband , M.C .
Schmidt , makes up the electronic-music duo Matmos , thought that he would get maybe thirty submissions .
In the first week , he got forty-five .
In the second week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eighty .
Files came from all over : Brooklyn , Kentucky , Italy , the Czech Republic , Kenya .
Some were thirty seconds long or less ; some stretched to thirty minutes .
Some had descriptive labels— “ roasting beets , ” “ eating apocalypse snacks ” —and others were more mysterious .
The final result , a fifteen-minute track called “ Quarantine Supercut , ” went live today at the Creative Independent , an arts Web site published by the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter .
The project was originally conceived by Brandon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Creative Independent .
Daniel ’ s résumé made him the track ’ s perfect overseer ( or , in his words , “ stitch witch ” ) .
Multiple Matmos records were quilted together from piles of thematically similar audio samples .
“ Quasi-Objects ” primarily features samples from around Daniel and Schmidt ’ s home .
“ A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure ” is built around recordings of medical procedures .
“ Ultimate Care II ” is composed entirely of sounds made by the couple ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Asking Daniel to take on the sounds of quarantine was almost comically apt , like asking Andy Warhol over to have a stab at painting your soup cans .
When I first spoke to Daniel , he was still working his way through all the submissions , sorting them into like piles—cat sounds here , homeschooling sounds here , coughs here—and formulating his plan of attack .
He was enjoying himself , he told me , feeling like he was travelling without leaving his house in Baltimore , where he teaches English at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t decide on a strategy : should he be aiming for something that would calm listeners down , he asked me rhetorically , or instead for a piece that spoke more fully to the unease and fears of so many isolated lives today ?
In the end , he did a bit of both .
The track ’ s opening movement has a soft , languorous vibe .
Listening to it , I felt cast back to the earliest days of sheltering in place , when , despite the panic in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for those not serving on the front lines , something of the novelty of a snow day or sick day .
Ice clinks against glass .
A drink is poured .
An electric kettle hisses to life .
A cat purrs .
A neighborhood ’ s residents cheer for medical workers , or themselves , or both .
Popcorn pops .
“ We could make bread !
” someone says , excitedly .
Around the five-minute mark , though , the tension spikes .
A yappy little dog yaps louder than anyone wants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A father pesters his daughter about homework ; she tells him that she ’ s not in the mood .
It doesn ’ t sound like their first time discussing the issue .
A Zoom or FaceTime or Google Hangout or Skype meeting glitches .
Listening to the speech distorting beyond the point of intelligibility , I felt my heart tightening .
Quotidian domestic noises that would not have been out of place in the calm opening section start swirling together in a stereo-panned stress cocktail .
“ I don ’ t want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young girl says .
“ And you ’ re not leaving me alone , Sam .
I want a couple seconds just to myself !
” Things get calm again , but it ’ s not the same calm—especially because , in a dynamic that many will recognize , it ’ s hard not to find yourself waiting for everything to get stressful again .
The virus itself only appears once , just before the ten-minute mark , when we hear someone listening online to instructions about how to prepare for a visit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ piece is not about the virus , ” Daniel told me after he ’ d finished putting it together .
“ I ’ m not going to hospitals , and I ’ m not trying to do something vicarious about suffering .
I ’ m more interested in social life , in what it ’ s like for the majority of people—people who aren ’ t sick or working in hospitals—to live through pandemics , which means moments of pleasure and moments of frustration .
I don ’ t think quarantine has one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tragic-comedic swerves.
” I won ’ t say how “ Quarantine Supercut ” ends—how its interplay of calm and claustrophobic disconnection resolves—just that I found myself surprised , on first listen , how much suspense I felt around the question .
It was as if , having entered a simplified miniature model of our new normal , built entirely by snippets of representative sound , I was hoping that it would conclude by showing me the way out or revealing what happened next .
This is , of course , too much to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which in the end can only reveal so much .
“ Sometimes a potato chip crunching is just a potato chip crunching , ” Daniel said .
“ Sometimes a cough is just a cough.
” But sometimes it ’ s more than that .

Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, as the electronica duo Matmos, had quilted together piles of thematically similar audio samples before quarantine. Photograph by Jonathan Hanson / Redux
On April 1st, the musician Drew Daniel tweeted a request for people to send him recordings. He would take whatever people sent, he wrote, and stitch them together into a single track about daily life in the age of social distancing, cancelled school, and working (or not) from home. Daniel, who, along with his husband, M.C. Schmidt, makes up the electronic-music duo Matmos, thought that he would get maybe thirty submissions. In the first week, he got forty-five. In the second week, sixty. In the third, eighty. Files came from all over: Brooklyn, Kentucky, Italy, the Czech Republic, Kenya. Some were thirty seconds long or less; some stretched to thirty minutes. Some had descriptive labels—“roasting beets,” “eating apocalypse snacks”—and others were more mysterious. The final result, a fifteen-minute track called “Quarantine Supercut,” went live today at the Creative Independent, an arts Web site published by the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. The project was originally conceived by Brandon Stosuy, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Creative Independent.
Daniel’s résumé made him the track’s perfect overseer (or, in his words, “stitch witch”). Multiple Matmos records were quilted together from piles of thematically similar audio samples. “Quasi-Objects” primarily features samples from around Daniel and Schmidt’s home. “A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure” is built around recordings of medical procedures. “Ultimate Care II” is composed entirely of sounds made by the couple’s Whirlpool Ultimate Care II laundry machine. Asking Daniel to take on the sounds of quarantine was almost comically apt, like asking Andy Warhol over to have a stab at painting your soup cans.
When I first spoke to Daniel, he was still working his way through all the submissions, sorting them into like piles—cat sounds here, homeschooling sounds here, coughs here—and formulating his plan of attack. He was enjoying himself, he told me, feeling like he was travelling without leaving his house in Baltimore, where he teaches English at Johns Hopkins University. But he couldn’t decide on a strategy: should he be aiming for something that would calm listeners down, he asked me rhetorically, or instead for a piece that spoke more fully to the unease and fears of so many isolated lives today?
In the end, he did a bit of both. The track’s opening movement has a soft, languorous vibe. Listening to it, I felt cast back to the earliest days of sheltering in place, when, despite the panic in the air, the whole thing had, for those not serving on the front lines, something of the novelty of a snow day or sick day. Ice clinks against glass. A drink is poured. An electric kettle hisses to life. A cat purrs. A neighborhood’s residents cheer for medical workers, or themselves, or both. Popcorn pops. “We could make bread!” someone says, excitedly.
Around the five-minute mark, though, the tension spikes. A yappy little dog yaps louder than anyone wants a yappy little dog yapping inside. A father pesters his daughter about homework; she tells him that she’s not in the mood. It doesn’t sound like their first time discussing the issue. A Zoom or FaceTime or Google Hangout or Skype meeting glitches. Listening to the speech distorting beyond the point of intelligibility, I felt my heart tightening. Quotidian domestic noises that would not have been out of place in the calm opening section start swirling together in a stereo-panned stress cocktail. “I don’t want to play monster trucks,” a young girl says. “And you’re not leaving me alone, Sam. I want a couple seconds just to myself!”
Things get calm again, but it’s not the same calm—especially because, in a dynamic that many will recognize, it’s hard not to find yourself waiting for everything to get stressful again. The virus itself only appears once, just before the ten-minute mark, when we hear someone listening online to instructions about how to prepare for a visit to a testing site. “The piece is not about the virus,” Daniel told me after he’d finished putting it together. “I’m not going to hospitals, and I’m not trying to do something vicarious about suffering. I’m more interested in social life, in what it’s like for the majority of people—people who aren’t sick or working in hospitals—to live through pandemics, which means moments of pleasure and moments of frustration. I don’t think quarantine has one mood. I think it has these tragic-comedic swerves.”
I won’t say how “Quarantine Supercut” ends—how its interplay of calm and claustrophobic disconnection resolves—just that I found myself surprised, on first listen, how much suspense I felt around the question. It was as if, having entered a simplified miniature model of our new normal, built entirely by snippets of representative sound, I was hoping that it would conclude by showing me the way out or revealing what happened next. This is, of course, too much to ask from fifteen minutes of sound, which in the end can only reveal so much. “Sometimes a potato chip crunching is just a potato chip crunching,” Daniel said. “Sometimes a cough is just a cough.” But sometimes it’s more than that.


newyorker--2020-05-04--A New York Congressman Says Trump Shows No Malice

Getting the testing going , you said ?
Yeah , I ’ m saying once you got going , it is going .
We were never built to be a national-testing country .
It was always done by private labs and locals .
Anyway , he is mobilizing that , and it was a slow start , but it has been slow all over the world , really , except maybe for South Korea or something , Taiwan .
So you have testing moving along , and , as far as supplying the states , if you could think back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was there wouldn ’ t be enough ventilators , the hospitals would be overrun .
And now you have Cuomo giving away ventilators .
Now , that ’ s what was done as an executive .
And when [ Trump ] gets into fights with reporters , sometimes it confuses the issue .
Again , he has to realize that everything he says , people either take it seriously or they look at it seriously .
I wouldn ’ t have said it if I were him , but , when he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was , Lysol or something , could there be some element in those things that scientists could use ?
You know , just like when you inject chemotherapy into a person , that ’ s poison , but the scientists are able to refine it .
I guess that ’ s what he meant .
Right .
You have to give him the benefit of the doubt .
He ’ s the President .
Yeah .
I would think he would be better advised to just talk about what ’ s positive .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Acosta every week .
It should be strictly science , strictly medicine , and exactly what we ’ re going to do .
I ’ m reading this book on Churchill now .
You realize how many screwups there were .
In the first month after Churchill became Prime Minister , and then after the United States got in the war , how many battles didn ’ t go the right way that we got engaged in ?
[ Trump ] shouldn ’ t let himself get bogged down about what he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation where we look back in four years and we say , “ Look , there were mistakes about testing .
There were mistakes about injecting disinfectants , but , fundamentally , he got the job done.
” Yeah .
When somebody asks him , “ Could the coronavirus come back worse in the fall ?
” Sure , it could .
Instead of saying no , say , “ We hope it doesn ’ t .
But , believe me , we ’ re going to be ready for it .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to have the testing , we ’ re going to be able to spot it early on .
We ’ re going to be able to move our resources very quickly.
” I was reading an interview where you said , “ There ’ s not many Republicans in Congress supporting President Trump on the gut issues .
How many are out there defending him on Russia ?
Defending him on the travel ban ?
So that ’ s why those issues are gut issues I support him on.
” It seems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aspect of Trumpism that you two see eye to eye on , even if you don ’ t agree on every policy .
Yes , definitely .
And the fact is that we ’ re roughly the same age .
I ’ m a couple of years older .
We both grew up in Queens .
And when I see him , even with all his money and all that , he ’ s like guys I knew on the street corner in Queens .
You once said , “ Guys I grew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s like one of the guys on the street corner .
I mean he ’ s like—with all his billions and jets and hotels and golf courses—he ’ s very much the guy they hang out with.
” Yeah .
And I find when I ’ m with him—and it ’ s not that often , I was at the wrestling match with him in the city , he invited me to that , and I ’ ve been with him a number of times—I have to keep reminding myself that this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a regular guy .
I mean , the language , the expressions , the faces , laughing and joking around .
A smart guy , don ’ t get me wrong , but people sense that .
I first noticed this when he announced , in June , 2015 .
I ’ d be at my grandson ’ s Little League games , and there were people there who are level-headed guys , lawyers , accountants—regular middle-class , middle-income people , not overly political .
They ’ re saying , “ This guy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says.
” I never really asked them exactly what it was they liked .
They said , “ He ’ s one of us ” —like that .
That was their tone .
The street-corner talk , or locker-room talk .
That ’ s part of his personality .
Yeah .
And it ’ s genuine .
Again , you have people say he ’ s not a politician , but it goes beyond that .
He ’ s used to the world where you say what you do to get through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you have to almost please the crowd you ’ re in front of .
I remember , in 2016 , when there was several times some excess in what he said , and I was talking to somebody in his headquarters about it .
And they said , “ Well , the thing is that he is at heart an entertainer , a salesman .
Both.
” So when he says something that ’ s funny or something that really strikes a chord with the crowd , his immediate attitude is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll give you a better one .
And he keeps upping the ante .
That can get into trouble with things like “ Lock her up , ” or when you say “ Go back where you came from , ” no ?
Yeah , that ’ s part of it .
There are some of the things he said .
I didn ’ t see any malice in it , any of that .
No , I don ’ t believe any malice .
No , I mean , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I don ’ t see it .
Now , again , others may , but he seems sometimes genuinely surprised when people take offense to everything .
To him , you have an argument , you ’ re back-and-forthing .
You ’ re solid the next day .
Right .
I think , with things like birtherism or Charlottesville , people saw a fair amount of malice in that .
Birtherism , I never really understood that .
First of all , at the time , I guess there was always something in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be born out of the country , who knows ?
I assume—first of all , so what ?
I think because President Obama is the first African-American President and— Oh , I know .
Look , I ’ m saying , “ So what ?
” In that , to me , it never raised any kind of an issue .
I wouldn ’ t have cared .
I mean , if some guy ’ s mother happened to be out of the country the day he was born—in any event , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And I don ’ t know if it was even a racial issue so much as [ Trump ] could go after you on any issue .
But , anyway , that ’ s subject to interpretation .
I wouldn ’ t have raised birthplace , I never did .
And the Charlottesville stuff and the “ Mexican ” judge ?
In Charlottesville , again , this is where he strings things together .
I think he was trying to say there are some people who have legitimate , historical purposes .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down Robert E. Lee ’ s statue , or whatever .
Good people on both sides , right .
Yeah , both sides .
But I think it was really three sides , if you will .
Maybe there ’ s one side who had some historical beliefs that you shouldn ’ t be taking down people like Robert E. Lee , maybe a Jefferson Davis , I don ’ t know , Stonewall Jackson .
But , on the other hand , there were also those who were racists and bigots and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ Trump ] ’ s challenged , he goes off the top .
He says stuff off the top of his head .
That , I think , in his mind was the “ both sides.
” Because I ’ ve never seen him or heard him say anything racist at all .
I mean , in New York , he was—say , one area I would disagree with—he was a friend of Michael Jackson .
I couldn ’ t stand Michael Jackson .
Michael Jackson , he was living in Trump Tower @ @ @ @

Last November, Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York’s Second Congressional District, on Long Island, announced that he would retire at the end of his current term. King, who is seventy-six, has served in Congress since 1993. He has been known as a leading proponent of the war on terror and one of Washington’s leading supporters of the Irish Republican Army, which allowed him to play a role in the peace process of the nineteen-nineties. When King announced his retirement, he was described by many news outlets as part of a diminishing class of moderates who have been willing to enact bipartisan legislation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that King has been “principled & never let others push him away from his principles.” In recent weeks, King has criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for his unwillingness to extend bailouts to states during the coronavirus crisis, saying, “We’re talking about paying the cops, the firefighters, the doctors, all of the lost revenue also because of the coronavirus.”
In 2016, King was reluctant to support Donald Trump, saying that he would vote for the Republican candidate but would not campaign for him. However, King has more in common with Trump than other Republican moderates who have left Congress do. King, who, like Trump, grew up in Queens, has for decades practiced a brand of politics that combines big-city populism and racial resentment, with a particular focus on crime and foreign threats. After Trump’s election, King urged him to create a program to surveil Muslims, along the lines of the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims after 9/11, which led to multiple legal settlements and no arrests.
King has also rejected complaints and protests of police misconduct. He denied that a New York Police Department officer caused Eric Garner’s death by putting Garner in a choke hold. Referring to Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” King said, “If you can’t breathe, you can’t talk.” And when the New York Jets co-owner Christopher Johnson announced that he would pay the fines of players who kneeled during the national anthem, King asked if Johnson would also pay the fines of players “giving Nazi salutes.” In 2016, King used a racial slur during an MSNBC appearance, saying, of Trump’s views on national security, “I don’t know if he’s thought them through, or if it’s just like the guy at the end of the bar that says, ‘Oh, screw them, bomb them, kill them, pull out, bring them home. You know, why pay for the Japs, why pay for the Koreans?’”
King and I spoke by phone last week about his career in Congress. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed whether President Trump’s leadership is more Churchillian than people realize, King’s problems with the Republican Party, and whether you can be a friend of Michael Jackson and a racist.
You called Mitch McConnell’s rhetoric on bailing out states “a total lie.” How would you define the Republican divide over government spending and the coronavirus right now?
First of all, I would say that it’s not so much a divide on spending, per se—it’s a divide on what kind of spending is going to go to states like New York. From 1993 until 2012, I never saw a division in Congress over natural disasters. As soon as they happened, Congress appropriated the money. I think the first week after Katrina, we voted for sixty-two billion to go to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. When we had Sandy, in 2012, they virtually offered us nothing. And we had to fight like hell.
It was basically a regional opposition—the feeling that New York and New Jersey, we’re blue states, we’re New York, we’re the East. So a lot of these politicians in the South and the Southwest, it’s almost part of the campaign routine to attack New York—to attack big-city New York, unions New York. There’s a whole cultural divide between New York and, they feel, the rural areas that they’re from.
Where do you think President Trump is on this question of aid to states?
You get different signals. I’m hoping he’ll be with us. I don’t know, because apparently he told [New York’s governor, Andrew] Cuomo, when they met last week, that he thought the states should get aid. Then I saw he put out a statement today questioning whether or not states that are run by big-spending Democrats should get the money, which has nothing to do with coronavirus. So I don’t know whether these are bargaining positions or what.
Trump’s a businessman. This could be a negotiating tactic.
That’s what I mean. I put the President and McConnell in two different categories. McConnell’s appealing to the Republican base in the states outside the Northeast, outside California. And that’s his thing. And also getting himself elected.
It seems as if there’s a strain in the Republican Party that is skeptical of big cities and likes to run against the coasts. Donald Trump’s a New Yorker, but, at the same time, it feels like maybe he’s also riled up people along these lines. Do you see what I’m getting at?
Yeah, I do, but I hope he doesn’t believe that. I mean, the fact is that these are the people he has to deal with. When he sits down at a Republican strategy meeting, everyone in the room is anti-New York—this is their thing. They’re more than willing to rip off New York when it comes to tax revenues.
Where do you generally feel that President Trump has been with his handling of the coronavirus?
Basically good.
Basically?
Yeah. No one in the world has really handled this perfectly. I mean, per capita, I would say the U.S. record is better than England, France, Spain, Italy. In all those countries, we have more deaths than they do, but we have far more population than they do. Probably even if you combine Spain, Italy, France, and England, I think we still have more of a population and they have many more deaths than us. So I think we moved quickly. I think the C.D.C. was remiss in not having an adequate testing system. That’s not really the President, even though he is the Chief Executive.
Right. He’s the Chief Executive. He oversees the C.D.C.
I mean, if it had been Obama or Clinton, it would’ve been the same thing. He did not get involved with the doctors and scientists at the C.D.C. And the tests turned out to be faulty. I think they did move past that. I would think that the President should just acknowledge, Hey, the testing wasn’t adequate, but this is something we’d never encountered before. I’d say from March 10th on, March 11th on, I think he’s done an excellent job.
One thing that’s hard to figure out is that you have this businessman, he negotiates, he knows his way around people, and, on another level, you have these comments about injecting disinfectants. I was wondering how these things work in your mind. Do you feel that there are two different sides to Trump?
Yeah, I think, as far as actually making decisions, he’s done a very good job, as far as the getting the testing going.
Getting the testing going, you said?
Yeah, I’m saying once you got going, it is going. We were never built to be a national-testing country. It was always done by private labs and locals. Anyway, he is mobilizing that, and it was a slow start, but it has been slow all over the world, really, except maybe for South Korea or something, Taiwan.
So you have testing moving along, and, as far as supplying the states, if you could think back to a month ago, the feeling was there wouldn’t be enough ventilators, the hospitals would be overrun. And now you have Cuomo giving away ventilators. Now, that’s what was done as an executive. And when [Trump] gets into fights with reporters, sometimes it confuses the issue. Again, he has to realize that everything he says, people either take it seriously or they look at it seriously. I wouldn’t have said it if I were him, but, when he’s talking about Clorox or whatever it was, Lysol or something, could there be some element in those things that scientists could use? You know, just like when you inject chemotherapy into a person, that’s poison, but the scientists are able to refine it. I guess that’s what he meant.


newyorker--2020-05-04--New Claim That Enemies of U.S. Developed Trump in Lab

WASHINGTON , D.C. ( The Borowitz Report ) —Enemies of the United States developed Donald J. Trump in a top-secret biotech lab with the goal of wreaking untold havoc on the nation , a leading conspiracy theorist claimed on Monday .
The theorist , Harland Dorrinson , said that he has “ conclusive evidence ” that Trump was created by enemy scientists as the “ ultimate weapon ” to bring the United States to its knees .
“ Having combed through binders of secret documents , I can say with a hundred per cent confidence that the person we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a recombinant-DNA lab , ” Dorrinson said .
“ It ’ s the only possible explanation , ” he added .
While the organism known as Trump appeared to be little more than a curiosity for the first seven decades of his existence , “ seemingly designed for our amusement , ” in recent days he has become “ fully weaponized , ” the conspiracy theorist asserted .
“ In the past two weeks , he has urged Americans to defy public-health orders , to insert ultraviolet light inside their bodies , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ In a secret lab somewhere , enemy scientists are popping champagne .
”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Borowitz Report)—Enemies of the United States developed Donald J. Trump in a top-secret biotech lab with the goal of wreaking untold havoc on the nation, a leading conspiracy theorist claimed on Monday.
The theorist, Harland Dorrinson, said that he has “conclusive evidence” that Trump was created by enemy scientists as the “ultimate weapon” to bring the United States to its knees.
“Having combed through binders of secret documents, I can say with a hundred per cent confidence that the person we have been calling Donald Trump was grown in a recombinant-DNA lab,” Dorrinson said.
“It’s the only possible explanation,” he added.
While the organism known as Trump appeared to be little more than a curiosity for the first seven decades of his existence, “seemingly designed for our amusement,” in recent days he has become “fully weaponized,” the conspiracy theorist asserted.
“In the past two weeks, he has urged Americans to defy public-health orders, to insert ultraviolet light inside their bodies, and to ingest bleach,” he said. “In a secret lab somewhere, enemy scientists are popping champagne.”


newyorker--2020-05-04--Daily Cartoon: Monday, May 4th

Daily Cartoon: Monday, May 4th

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