A COVID-19 victim with a Spielberg connection

One of the best features of Spielberg's early 1980's movies ET, Empire of the Sun and The Color Purple was the pleasing cinematography.   I've noted before that movies at that time often had a warm, glowing look in the cinematography which I think is quite distinctive in retrospect, and still a pleasure to behold.  Cinematography, perhaps because it is mostly digital now*, has a colder, cooler look about it, usually. 

The cinematographer of those 3 films, Alan Daviau, has died aged 77 from COVID complications.

Sad.

* just found this graph from January 2016 that illustrates the change:

Boris not beloved by all

Isn't it a little odd that, at a time when his catching the virus and apparently coming close to death could be enhancing his popularity as (at least in one respect) a "man of the people" who shares their suffering, it is the Sunday Times that gave voice to internal critics of his early low interest in the looming problem of COVID-19?  

Well, I think it odd.  Doesn't bode all that well for his future, too...

Astroturfing for Covid-19

People noticed how protest groups around the country all used printed out signs with the same fonts.  It is an astroturfed movement.

Explanation of astroturfing:

And of course the poisonous, dangerous Fox News would be part of it:

Product endorsement

Send me money, Seahs!  I like your sachet of spices that makes for a super quick meal-in-one if you add some diced capsicum, shallots and chopped up bok choy (eat with rice, of course):

I recommend the gif...

https://twitter.com/TreyCallaway/status/1251273373922897920?s=09

See if I can make that easier...link here.

Amusing...

It's a parody account, so don't go thinking Gerard himself came up with this:

Tells a tale of current society

These are some very sad, topical circumstances ripe for discussion by social critics - or perhaps by a novelist of the Tom Wolfe variety, if there are any of those left: 

An Uber driver has died from Covid-19 after trying to hide his illness for fear that he would be evicted if his landlord found out, a friend has revealed.

Rajesh Jayaseelan, a married father of two who came to London from India about a decade ago, died alone in Northwick Park hospital in Harrow on 11 April, according to Sunil Kumar, a friend of his.

The 44-year-old driver had “starved” for several days in his rented lodgings, telling his wife by phone that he did not want to leave his room because other residents might realise he had Covid-19 and he would be thrown out.

Kumar, 38, an NHS IT worker, said the fear was founded in an experience in March when a previous landlord allegedly ordered him to leave because he thought Jayaseelan, as a minicab driver, would spread the disease to him and his family. Jayaseelan had to sleep in his car for several nights.

By the time he drove himself to hospital earlier this month, his condition was becoming critical and he was placed on a ventilator. He died shortly after his wife and mother in Bangalore saw him unconscious in a final video call arranged by Kumar.

Jayaseelan is the third Uber driver confirmed to have died from Covid-19 in the capital, but there have been reports of several more.

Flippancy as the marker of foolishness

Tim Blair has it in spades; so does James Morrow.  Andrew Bolt tends less to flippancy but more to bloviating outrage - it is truly corrupting to pay a person to have a strong opinion on everything for a living.   They are too "culture war" to call out dangerous, foolish and stupid statements by Trump because (surely this is their true sentiment) "of course he's an offensive idiot, but he's our offensive idiot; and isn't it funny how he upsets the libs!"

Latest example:

Yet here's Gray Connolly's take on the afternoon briefings by Trump which (according to polling) are in fact doing him no favours at all in terms of approval:

Too sealed into their own bubble of foolishness to laugh at

Long the home for aged right wing cranks who are often so unpleasant they boast about how their comments to even Murdoch media (or calls to talk back radio) are banned, I mostly post about Catallaxy with at least some degree of amusement at their obliviousness to reality and wild exaggeration.

But you know, their commentary on COVID-19 has put me off visiting the site for more than the briefest look.   The intensity of the Dunning Kruger effect on this issue there is just so high that it doesn't seem the slightest bit funny.  Perhaps I find it more disturbing than usual because, with an obvious problem that is unfolding over a short time frame (much faster than the time scale of climate change), it becomes just plain offensive that they do not let their bubble of insouciance be interrupted by something even as plain as dead bodies accumulating in foreign countries, foreign leaders skirting close to death, or the extremely worrying death rate amongst doctors and nurses trying to tend to the ill.

There comes a point where stupidity stops being funny and becomes offensive.  That site has reached it.
  
[To clarify:  as would be plain, I have felt disgusted with the site many times before, with its misogyny and racism that has often been let slide through, not to mention its active campaign against political action on climate change.  But on this issue, it feels more directly offensive because of the immediacy of the life or death choices involved.]

So he's always been an idiot. Got it.

Update:  more wisdom from Erin:

She also re-tweeted this:

More fun comments on Gideon:

Update 2:

Gideon rejoins:

Lol - Daisy Cousens?  She's proof that conservatism is the new cos-play for flippant twerps like you, Gideon.

Update 3: 

Top marks for creativity in policing, I suppose

Spotted at the Jakarta Post:

Not sure what the implications of this might be...

...but it sounds an important finding:

Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.

The possibility that the coronavirus spreads in a mostly stealthy mode among a population of largely young, healthy people showing no symptoms could have major implications for U.S. policy-makers, who are considering how and when to reopen the economy.

It also renews questions about the extent to which U.S. testing of just the people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus in the United States and around the world.

The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier - which is about 94% complete - was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.

Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.

“With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.

More tweets of note

Here:

And in response:

Not sure about season 3...

...of Babylon Berlin.  It's still very watchable, but the storyline just seems much more about a few murders than about the hotbed of politics around them, which was what made the first two seasons so intriguing.  And the crimes themselves (and now the occult connection, not to mention how Rath didn't recognise his brother was his, what?,  psychoanalyst/hypnotist?) all seem a tad implausibly theatrical.  

Overall, the first two seasons seemed to have a grander scale, both thematically and visually, and a greater sense of realism.  

Does anyone disagree?

As they say - "wut??"

From the network that spent years denying Russian interference.   Will the breakfast team try to walk back from this slip of the truthful tongue, or just hope Dear Leader didn't notice?