If that guy's career survives this, I'll…

…be glad I don't live in Rancho Mirage.

One suspects his career will continue unimpeded.

(From Kelly's podcast with Hughes and Loury)

Professor Glenn Loury on the NYT, Nikole Hannah-Jones & the 1619 Project:

The narrative about the American story, the American project is fundamentally important. Is this a good country? Or is this a country that is founded on genocide and slavery? The impact of European settlement in the Western Hemisphere on the native population was devastating. There's not any doubt about that. And the commoners and chattel which was Trans-Atlantic slavery was of a huge scale -- mostly going to the Caribbean and South America -- and was monumental in the foundation of the events that led to the American nation-state. There's not any doubt about that.

But the founding of the country: 1776 ... 1787 -- the creation of the United States of America -- was a world historic event in which the Enlightenment ideals got instantiated in government institutions. And as a matter of fact within a century, slavery was gone. And you know what? The people who had been African chattel became citizens of the United States of America. Not equal citizens, not at first - it took another century. But they became, in the fullness of time, equal citizens of the United States of America. The United States of America fought fascism in the Pacific and fought fascism in Europe and saved the world! American democracy became a beacon to the free world.

We stood down, under threat of nuclear annihilation, the horror which was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We have had the greatest transformation in the social status of a serfdom people -- which was what the Emancipation effected -- in the creation of the Negro, of the African American, probably than you could find anywhere in history. Forty million strong, the richest people of African descent on the planet by far. This is a question of narrative. Are you going to look through the lens of the United States as a racist, genocidal, white supremacist, illegitimate force? Or are you going to see it for what it is? Which in the last 300 years is the greatest force for human liberty on the planet? That's worth fighting about. That these people at the New York Times laid down to a latter day woke ideology and debased their country is despicable.

Remember when they told us that "we're all in this together"?

Good times.

How many months was it to 'flatten the curve'?

We should lobby Hawaii to quarantine them all until summer. Then if they go to court and win, they will create precedents we can use against their own lockdown orders.

Don't they have recall elections in California?

If you know the basic parameter of the Juicero debacle a few years ago, you'll enjoy this video.

Stumbled on this, online. Wow.

The Ditchdigger's Daughters: A Black Family's Astonishing Success Story (1995)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/905621.The_Ditchdigger_s_Daughters

From a black reader:

"I got to read this book some years back and it was one of the most inspiring books I have read in some time. I wish I had kept it because I probably would have gone the distance now. Nevertheless, it's about a regular laborer who had six daughters, no boys in the plan whatsoever. Yet, he would tell his coworkers that though he wished he had a boy, he still wanted the best for his daughters and told them that they ALL would be doctors. They didn't believe him, but astonishingly, they all became professional women, which goes to show you that you can come from humble beginnings and be the very best. So many folks have shown us that and pursue the American Dream. Great to read while pursuing yours and when life sends tough."

Well, this post isn't delightful enough. Here's a picture for you:

"I used to be the vanilla element in the Manhattan Rollers (it was about 20 black guys, a Finnish girl and me -- we skated from Prospect Park to Central Park...a pal of mine named Pisces carried a huge boom box the whole way). I also went to Washington in a van with Sunny and Pisces and skated around the capital with rollerpeople from Washington."

I bet that was fun. Guess who!

This guy comes up to me and says that he can't wear a mask in the stores because he has this huge, gigantic nose that gets in the way.

So, I said, "That's not an excuse! I still wear underwear!"