Departing the Sensory

 [Below is a lightly edited email I sent to a friend recently. We were discussing journalism generally, and particularly the major print and Internet houses. I was trying to make the point that fair & objective reporting doesn't require journalists to treat all political statements as potentially valid -- being "fair" doesn't require ignoring truth or falsity. -- Ed.] * * * I'm so old I remember when HRC said "you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," and everyone flipped the fuck out. HRC's own internal expert concluded , for example, that that particular comment caused the biggest shift in undecided voters of the election. (Sidenote. While I buy the comment induced a big swing in undecided voters aspect, I don't buy related analysis that the comment was what got Trump elected. The EMAILZ!!!1! non-scandal and the late Comey letter were much more important in that regard, because the election ...

In an effort to put more down on (digital) paper, just in case there are still historians in the future, I'm going to make a couple observations about C-19 and the economy.  [ - ] As of today, near the end of April 2020, government officials at most levels -- municipal, state, and federal -- are talking about "reopening" the economy. Setting aside for a moment whether the economy is something that can be opened (or closed in the first place),* and setting aside the obvious problems with treating the economy as some sort of device that has an on/off switch, the reopening talk is insane. It's insane because, as far as I can tell, no one has a plan to make the so-called reopening work. For one thing, the polling data we have suggests that a shockingly high percentage of Americans support social isolation. So as an initial matter, it's not at all clear that people will actually go out and use the reopened economy. Will people work from the office more than from ...

I went to my physical therapy appointment today as scheduled four weeks ago, the day after I had surgery to repair a fractured tibia plateau & torn meniscus. My PT folks are at a local clinic that does urgent care, but is not in any way a hospital. I decided to go even though I generally think we should all be acting like we're on house arrest, because there's a non-zero chance that I'll walk with a limp for the rest of my life if I don't get this recovery right. Driving in to park I saw for the first time an actual drive-thru testing setup. The clinic has put up a big tent like you'd see for a wedding or event, and the tent covers five parking spaces. Apparently, people who have been prescreened can drive up and park, and clinicians in hazmat gear do the nasal swab thing thru the window. (I don't know what prescreening looks like in Utah right now -- it's still very difficult at best to get tested -- and I assume the test is the swab, though I didn...