2:00PM Water Cooler 9/4/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

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Bird Song of the Day

Gray Catbird, Heckscher SP, East Islip, Suffolk, New York, United States. “Singing from a small wooded area near a marsh.”

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Kamala’s Democrat prep.
2. Collard greens and code switching..
3. Clean air in the schools? Lol no..
4. H5N1 reassortment in Cambodia.

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

2024

Less than one hundred days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

The good news for Trump is that Kamala’s post-convention “bounce” seems to have been slight. The good news for Kamala is Trump’s continued deterioration in North Carolina, plus taking a slight lead in Pennsylvania. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.

The Debate (September 10)

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris goes to ‘debate camp’: Insiders reveal where VP’s preparation is already going ‘sideways’ as she gets ready for primetime Trump showdown” [Daily Mail]. “Sources close to the Harris team tell NOTUS that Harris is a little rusty on the debate stage as ‘strategy sessions have careened sideways’ when Harris ‘focused too narrowly on minute details, effectively trailing the sessions.’… Despite her willingness to debate, Harris and her team are still trying to negotiate the rules of the debate with ABC News, according to a Harris campaign source speaking to NBC News.” Still?! More: “Trump and his team anticipate that Harris is preparing to interrupt him to try and ‘fact check’ his statements. The former president, however, is aware of Harris and her propensity to get lost into so-called ‘word salads’ while speaking publicly. ‘She has bad moments. The way she talks,’ Trump told broadcaster Tucker Carlson in a recent interview, imitating comments the vice president made about school buses. ‘It’s weird. The whole thing is weird.’” • Harris: “Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus? Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right? It’s part of our experience growing up. It’s part of a nostalgia, a memory of the excitement and joy of going to school to be with your favorite teacher, to be with your best friends and to learn. The school bus takes us there.” It’s true that “It’s part of a nostalgia” isn’t something a native English speaker would say, but it’s the condescension of “Raise your hands” that gets me. Here’s the video:

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The audience, presumably, is adult. Also, the hand gestures.

Kamala (D): “How Kamala Harris Plans to Lock In for Debate Prep in Pennsylvania” [NOTUS]. “In conversations with nearly a dozen people involved with or aware of the preparations, a set of goals emerged for the next week. The campaign is planning to tune out as much of the outside noise as possible to lock her in, aware of Harris’ relative rust as a debater and her tendency to overprepare and fixate on the details.” And: “[S]he’s once again using notecards as part of her prep, a second person familiar with the preparations told NOTUS, a habit they believe she picked up during her law school days.” I would say the habit came from college debate, in which Harris participated. More: “Allies say Harris has had to defend her ideas inside the White House over the last three years, preparing her in some ways for this moment. But Harris is, for all intents and purposes, an out-of-practice debater with people who aren’t her colleagues. Next week’s debate will come just a month shy of four years since she debated Vice President Mike Pence in Utah. For that, aides holed up in a hotel in Salt Lake City days before the debate, as she used index cards to work through talking points — including the now-famous “I’m speaking” line, which one person involved in the session said was a crowdsourced suggestion.” • Hmm. She recycled “I’m speaking,” then. That didn’t go so well. Interestingly, in neither of these two articles to we see any suggestion that Kamala would play the prosecutor (“Why am I debating a felon?”). Which seems a very obvious thing for her to do. Why go to all the trouble of doing the lawfare if you’re not going to use it in debate?

Kamala (D): “The White House wants you to know that Harris was on the call” [Politico]. “Name-checking Harris — or any vice president, for that matter — is unusual and suggests an attempt to buttress her credentials as she faces questions about her ability to manage international affairs and confronts an experienced opponent in former President Donald Trump. POLITICO’s review of pool reports, readouts, transcripts of administration briefings and comments by the nation’s top diplomats and military officials found that the administration increased its mentions of Harris in public statements about foreign engagements since July, when Biden announced he would drop out of the presidential election and endorsed his vice president.” • The previous NOTUS article includes this sentence: “[T]he Biden administration is in what they hope to be the last stretch of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that might require Harris’ presence in the Situation Room.” Her mere presence…. I know that Harris doing debate prep while a ceasefire deal was being consummated would look bad, but avoiding a bad look seems to be the only reason for her presence.

Kamala (D): “Cooking Collard Greens The Caribbean Way” [Caribbean Pot]. “Collard Green or collards is not native to the Caribbean, so it’s not something we would refer to as being traditional. However, with our love for dasheen bush, spinach, Jamaican callaloo (chorai), Bok Choi and just about every other green there is, it’s natural that collards will find a loving home in my kitchen.” • So, wherever Kamala learned to cook collard greens — Montreal? Her sorority? — it’s unlikely to be a family tradition (not on her Jamaican father’s side, and certainly not on her Indian mother’s side).

Kamala (D): And code switching:

One of my favorite accounts, on Twitter since 2011. In general, very level-headed.

Trump (R): “Donald Trump Interview” (video) [Lex Fridman, YouTube (outside observer)]. • Smart move by Trump campaign staff:

[embedded content]

Trump (R): “Questions surrounding Trump’s mental acuity are a real 2024 story” [MSNBC]. “The words below were taken verbatim from a campaign speech” [and they’re an especially dense example of free-form riffing]. “Trump’s asides stack atop each other with such density that it’s dizzying for even professional political observers to discern what he’s trying to get at…. Trump’s speeches seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day. Those speeches are making it hard, if not impossible, for people listening to them to understand what he wants to do with his power in office, and they’re reportedly turning off voters. They’re also raising questions over whether the chaos he would sow in office would be even less intentional than it was last time. Trump’s deteriorating [asserted, not shown] ability to clearly communicate is a consequential feature of his 2024 candidacy. That deterioration may not have been as salient when Trump, 78, had 81-year-old President Joe Biden as an opponent. But it’s all the more clear as he now faces off against 59-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris. Questions about Biden’s mental acuity were rightly raised in this election cycle. Questions about Trump’s mental acuity should be raised, too.” • I doubt this will stick, though of course the Democrats are trying it. Trump did fine in debate when he knocked Biden out of the race. Is there any sign of “deterioration” in the hour-long interview with Fridman? I don’t have time to listen to it, but I’m guessing no, because otherwise the memes would already be out.

MI: “CAIR 2024 Election Survey 0f Muslim Voters” [CAIR]. “As the 2024 national general election approaches, America’s estimated 2.5 million Muslim voters are positioned to once again play a crucial role in shaping the political landscape. With their significant presence in key swing states, Muslim voters have the potential to influence the outcomes of not only the presidential race but also numerous congressional, state, and local elections.” • Handy chart:

PA: “Taking the pulse of Pennsylvania’s Trump country, from Amish region to Gettysburg” [USA Today]. “While the election may be decided in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where the majority of the state’s residents live, central Pennsylvania plays a role. It is traditionally red, with small pockets of blue in the cities, but the votes that come from the small businesspeople and churchgoers of the middle of the state – often referred to derisively as [deplorable] ‘Pennsyltucky’ – could make a difference in a state where the final results could be decided by a few thousand votes.” • Worth a read. And from the York Daily Record, so kudos to USA Today. (Pennsylvania still has a lot of smallish newspapers, as we saw with the reporting from Butler.)

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 (dashboard); 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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Airborne Transmission: Covid

“Kids Are Headed Back to School. Are They Breathing Clean Air?” [Scientific American]. Lol no. “Across the U.S., kids are headed back to their classrooms—just as COVID nears a fresh, late-summer peak. Somehow, four years into a viral pandemic that everyone now knows spreads through the air, most schools have done little to nothing to make sure their students will breathe safely. We—and especially our children—should be able to walk into a store or a gym or a school and assume the air is clean to breathe. Like water from the faucet, regulations should ensure our air is safe. ‘Air is tricky. You can choose to not partake of the water or the snacks on the table, but you can’t just abstain from breathing,’ notes Gigi Gronvall, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an author of a 2021 report on the benefits of improving ventilation in schools.” • Somehow. Some schools are doing just fine, though!

Transmission: H5N1

“Cambodia’s recent H5N1 case involved novel reassortant” [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy]. “Sequencing of the patient’s virus sample at the Pasteur Institute in Cambodia found that the hemagglutinin gene from the 2.3.2.1c clade that has been circulating in Cambodia and Southeast Asia since 2013. The internal genes, however, belonged to the newer 2.3.4.4b, which is circulating globally. ‘This novel reassortant influenza A(H5N1) virus has been detected in human cases reported in Cambodia since late 2023,’ the WHO said. Cambodian health officials have tracked and monitored the [patient’s] contacts, and no related cases have been found. The country has reported an uptick in human H5N1 infections since 2023, reporting 6 cases last year and 10 this year, of which 2 were fatal. In April, animal health officials in Vietnam and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of the new reassortant circulating in chickens and muscovy ducks. The scientists said the virus has been circulating in the Greater Mekong subregion since 2022. Also, they noted that the reassortant had been linked to recent human cases and that the development shows the adaptive capacity of the virus and the risk of new, potentially more virulent strains.” • Musical interlude.

Maskstravaganza

“”Perfect storm” of criminalization: Analyzing mask bans” [The Sick Times]. State by state list. “Most media coverage fails to connect the new wave of mask bans to the ongoing political efforts to minimize COVID-19. Overblown concerns about facial recognition and protestors are only possible with a concurrent effort to downplay the threat of COVID-19 and erase signs of it from public life — now a priority for most mainstream politicians. While the conversation around mask bans has focused on new laws and bills, 21 states and many municipalities have laws banning masks and/or disguises in different settings, which is more than other organizations have reported. Even where these bans have apparent limitations or exemptions, the finer language of the laws leaves all COVID-conscious people vulnerable. And the historic practices of police endanger people even in states with no legal bans…. Historically, mask bans tend to come in waves. This current wave has been led by Republicans, with Democrats following closely behind. While Democrats tend to pay slightly more lip service to health needs, their actions undermine their promises.” Excellent read. But then there’s this: “More broadly, activists need to build solidarity among all of the groups affected by mask bans, including disabled people, pro-Palestine protesters, religious minorities, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.” • AND THE ENTIRE WORKING CLASS, FSS. You can’t even talk about, say, unionized HCWs betrayed by their nationals using idpol as a framework. Get a grip, people!

Vaccines: Covid

“Trying to time your vaccines just right? There are no easy answers, but here are some factors to consider” [Helen Branswell, STAT]. “The standard advice — get your shots, get them at the same time, don’t wait too long to roll up your sleeves — is designed to maximize convenience and compliance, in a way that is manageable for the delivery enterprise, say experts familiar with the enormous effort it takes to turn vaccines into vaccinations. But is it the right approach for you? Possibly not, though unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Because while we talk about cold and flu season, in reality these viruses strike at different times in different years, and they do not give us advance notice of their plans. The immunity we develop from the available vaccines — at least those for Covid and flu — erodes in the months after we get them. If flu season takes off in January, a shot administered in August won’t have the impact of a shot received in late October.” • This is CDC’s advice, and the assumption is that Covid is seasonal, when in fact it’s driven by people sharing air: Social Relations. Trivially, this means not “Summer” but “Vacation Travel” season, not “Fall,” but “Back to School” season, and not “Winter,” but “Holiday” season. Less trivial, “Mobility” (especially air travel) is constant and year-round, and that’s what got us the first time, as Taleb et al. presciently showed in January 2020.

Denial and Cope

“As COVID Surges, the High Price of Viral Denial” [The Tyee]. Canada. “The subject of how to respond to a slow burn pandemic remains taboo because most public health officials have already declared the emergency over. They’ve also stopped collecting critical data. COVID-19 deaths in Canada are not reported in a readily publicly accessible fashion. And most of the media pretends that an immune-destabilizing virus that can harm the functioning of your organs including your brain has little more import than a benign cold. As a consequence, authorities can’t now turn around and admit to the breadth of their mistake, let alone acknowledge the growing disorder in public health. Nor do they dare collect critical data documenting the scale of their errors including the relentless march of long COVID…. Here, then, is where we’ve arrived. We’ve entered a vicious cycle where more infections generate more COVID variants. The new variants have become more immune evasive. At the same time society has generally abandoned masks, testing and basic public health messages. We could slow and suppress the cycle by facing the challenge squarely. For example, by cleaning dirty air the way we once tackled the disease-ridden spectre of cholera-infested water. But public health officials are afraid to talk about clean air let alone the obvious: avoiding infection. Beating back COVID requires hard work, communal wisdom and clear policies that markedly reduce the level of infection in society. To date we have chosen viral denial, dirty air and a triumphant reign for long COVID.” • Excellent article, worth reading in full.

Prevention

“Newly Discovered Antibody Protects Against All COVID-19 Variants” (press release) [University of Texas at Austin]. “As part of a new study on hybrid immunity to the virus, the large, multi-institution research team led by The University of Texas at Austin discovered and isolated a broadly neutralizing plasma antibody, called SC27, from a single patient. Using technology developed over several years of research into antibody response, the team led by UT engineers and scientists obtained the exact molecular sequence of the antibody, opening the possibility of manufacturing it on a larger scale for future treatments… During the more than four years since the discovery of COVID-19, the virus that causes it has rapidly evolved. Each new variant has displayed different characteristics, many of which made them more resistant to vaccines and other treatments. Protective antibodies bind to a part of the virus called the spike protein that acts as an anchor point for the virus to attach to and infect the cells in the body. By blocking the spike protein, the antibodies prevent this interaction and, therefore, also prevent infection. SC27 recognized the different characteristics of the spike proteins in the many COVID variants. Fellow UT researchers, who were the first to decode the structure of the original spike protein and paved the way for vaccines and other treatments, verified SC27’s capabilities.” • Funded by the NIH and the Gates Foundation, among others. Here is the article from which the press release is derived–

“Hybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 arises from serological recall of IgG antibodies distinctly imprinted by infection or vaccination” [Cell]. “Our findings provide a detailed molecular definition of immunological imprinting and show that vaccination can produce class 1/4 (SC27-like) IgG antibodies circulating in the blood.” • That’s the best I can do, sorry; the rest of the article might as well be written in Martian, for me. Perhaps some kind reader will translate. I do note, however, that the article is based on data from 6 (six) donors; the Ns seem to be for lineages, not donors.

Elite Maleficence

“Simple measures lessen hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections” [Burnet]. Australia. “In a new study published in the Journal of Hospital Infections, Burnet researchers found simple infection control measures could save lives and reduce costs for hospitals. These measures include testing patients for COVID-19 on admission, requiring staff to wear N95 masks in clinical areas and using Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) or Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to prevent transmissions. One of the paper’s lead authors, Burnet Associate Professor Nick Scott, said on average, 15-25% of patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in hospital had contracted the virus after being admitted.” • But HICPAC would prefer that hospitals be death traps so, no N95s. Baggy blues only, if that!

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.

[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flat, that is, no longer down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.

[7] (Walgreens) Big drop, but all those white states showing no change: Labor Day weekend reporting issues?

[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) What the heck is LB.1?

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up. If the United States is like Canada, deaths are several undercounted:

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

“United States Factory Orders” [Trading Economics]. “New orders for US manufactured goods rose by 5% from the previous month to $592.1 billion in July of 2024, rebounding from the 3.3% drop in the previous month, and above market expectations of a 4.7% increase, signaling the resilience of the US economy.”

Tech: Uh oh:

Tech: “Canva says its new AI features justify raising subscription prices by 300%” [Fortune]. “In the U.S., some Canva users will see their Teams subscription price jump in early December from $119.99 per year to $500 per year. The first 12 months will be discounted to $300, but it’s still more than double what users currently pay. Canva Teams will update from $10 per month per person, with a minimum of three people required for that subscription, a Canva spokesperson confirmed. Canva says its price hike is attributable to new features—particularly those that are AI-powered.” • So, lots more AI slop to justify the investment….

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 54 Neutral (previous close: 65 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 56 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 4 at 1:27:54 PM ET.

Gallery

Back when Intel was hot:

Class Warfare

“Thousands of hotel workers continue nationwide strike on Labor Day, demanding higher pay” [NBC]. “Thousands of workers at 25 hotels across the country remained on strike for a second day Monday, demanding higher pay and the reversal of pandemic-era cuts, with members in more cities expected to join the strike. On Sunday, around 10,000 hotel workers walked off the job, kicking off the strike during the busy Labor Day weekend at 25 hotels in eight cities, including San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Honolulu. The workers are represented by the UNITE HERE union and work for the Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotel chains….. Roughly half of those on strike, about 5,000, are from Honolulu, The Associated Press reported…. UNITE HERE says strikes have been authorized and could begin soon in other cities, including Baltimore; New Haven, Connecticut; Oakland, California; and Providence, Rhode Island…. The union said similar strikes led to contracts last year for Los Angeles hotel workers and Detroit casino workers.”

“Our Animals, Ourselves” [Lux Magazine]. “Conservatives are terrified by the prospect of a society that truly values and decommodifies (non-fetal) life, which is why they promote an image of flesh-consuming masculinity. Unfortunately, it seems many socialists are not so different. Leftists rarely engage with the myriad problems of animal agriculture, and are often dismissive or contemptuous of those who do. In this, their views are utterly mainstream. A recent episode of the popular lefty podcast Citations Needed began with an analysis of representations of vegetarian characters in popular culture, and the result was hardly flattering — routinely played by women, they tend to be insufferable. Such gendered stereotyping will come as no surprise to readers of Carol Adam’s 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat, which weaves accounts of 19th century radicalism and examinations of 20th century marketing techniques into a pathbreaking work of ‘feminist vegetarian critical theory’ (after reading Adams, you will never hear a woman say she felt treated as a ‘piece of meat’ in the same way). Today we are often told that the animal rights movement came into being in the 1970s, birthed by the white male philosopher Peter Singer…. In the English-speaking world, many women abolitionists, suffragettes, and pacifists advocated for vegetarianism and made connections across movements and causes long before Singer… came on the scene, including the courageous abolitionist sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who rejected meat in part because they thought it would hasten the ’emancipation of woman from the toil of the kitchen.’ Singer rode roughshod over these intellectual antecedents by distinguishing his supposedly rational arguments from all the emotional — that is, feminine — advocacy that came before it. In the 1800s, there was even a diagnosis, zoophilpsychosis, for the affliction of being overly concerned for animals, from which women were believed to disproportionately suffer.” • Zoophilpsychosis…

News of the Wired

“Raw Milk and the Collapse of Consensus Reality” [Talia Levin, the Sword and the Sandwich]. “Pasteurization changed the dairy game. By 1911, Chicago and New York had mandated milk pasteurization in commercial operations, with other major cities quickly following suit; by 1936, 98% of milk in the United States was pasteurized. This coincided with lots of other medical discoveries and improvements in public hygiene, but the milk-pasteurization push had particularly drastic effects: between 1890 and 1915, infant mortality dropped by