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feysandfeels · 2 years

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What would be your top 5 dream acting roles? And also on a more serious note, are you ever worried about your career? I have a couple friends in creative fields like acting, directing, comedy and writing and they all have like 10 side jobs each and are all constantly worried about whether or not they’ll ever be able to fully live off their art. Do you feel the same pressure?

Hey Love,

Truthfully I am constantly worried about not being able to achieve the economical stability I wish to have from acting. It is an ongoing worry I have because there is nothing that fills my soul the way acting does, but I also know that this business is nepotism and connections, which I do not have since birth given that my parents are not part of the industry. When you don't have those the work become much harder and it demands a different focus, it demands that you understand the business side of it as well as the artistic. It asks that you not only train for your craft (as any serious actor should) but that you network your little heart out and find comfort in the long stretches of silence that make up the career of an artist. Sometimes it is not rejection the thing that we must learn to endure, but the silence of it all.

To this pressure we add the fact that there is a time variant. You need to make it before x age because after then roles become scarce and since you are no longer young you don't have a certain value that makes you "more attractive to the masses". At the age that I am at I am considered old to just getting started... well generally speaking I am old, I know of a few exceptions that started later or got their break later. But I constantly have this ticking that does not cease to walk with me.

It is tough on my mental health and sometimes I have periods where it does become too much and there are others in which I barely feel it. So it truly depends on the day.

As for the dream rolls... well shall we go with book characters that I know will have adaptations?

Feyre Archeorn. I'm not even going to be shy about it I have a solid list of why I should be Feyre.

Felicia Hardy. I have loved her since I first met her, she will fulfill my Femme Fatale needs.

Evelyn Hugo. I would kill it as Evelyn Hugo. There's this green dress I wore to my friend's wedding and trust me that is the Evelyn you want on screen.

Circe. Am I just naming characters from the books I love? Yes, yes I am but I am so confident that I could bring to life Circe's internal journey that I don't understand why I haven't been casted.

Alex Stern. Miss Galaxy Stern because she has such distinct physicality from my own I would relish the challenge of being her. She is also just so fucking cool

And since I don't do top 5 because I am unable to choose I will add a Bonuuuussss

Parisa Kamali. I will sell my liver to be her. This is my character. God I would be such a good Parisa.

I would have also been a stellar Camila Dune. Rip to Camila Morrone but I am Camila Dune. Morrone better do my baby justice or there will be blood.

Anywho yeah

Besos

#FeysandfeelsAsks #Luisa Rambles

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fatefulfindings · 3 years

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Some choice highlights from Dominic Cummings' evidence today (context: Dominic Cummings was the prime minister's chief advisor through 2020, he's now apparently developed a conscience overnight and is revealing how the UK government mismanaged the pandemic) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-57245479

Asked what lessons should be learned from the crisis, Cummings says there should be more transparency over advice given to ministers and more competition for roles in the Civil Service.

He also says the pandemic posed an "obvious question" about who is "actually in charge of things" within the system of government.

Confusion over responsibility proved "completely fatal" in situations like the pandemic, he says.

He says there is a "culture" within Whitehall that encourages officials to "keep their head down" and where there is an effort not to "embarrass" people.

Cummings says it is "inarguable" that there are many other people who could have done his job better.

Cummings says "you have to try and get the best talent this country has to offer" as the leading team for the country, "you need people who can make decisions effectively," he adds.

Asked about his departure from Downing Street late last year, Cummings says it was "definitely connected to the fact that the prime minister's girlfriend was trying to change a whole bunch of different appointments in No 10 and appoint her friends to particular jobs".

"In particular, she was trying to overturn the outcome of an official process about hiring a particular job in a way which was not only completely unethical but which was also clearly illegal".

"The British state is set up almost by design to create a dysfunctional system because you have to go out and potentially resign over things that have been done and you can't fire a single person except for your spads [special advisers] or assistant," he says.

The press is going to ignore this important part of Cummings' evidence.

No. 10 Civil service roles are recruited through nepotism. So instead of people getting government jobs based on merit, they get them through who they know. We've known this forever, but now one of the middle-age white english men has actually admitted that they weren't as good at their job as others would have been. That maybe the way he was hired wasn't right. That the people who work in civil service are bad at their jobs and not managed. There's no accountability on any level. Nobody can be fired. There's no incentive for anyone to do a good job. Just kiss as many arses as possible and you'll be fine. If you do anything wrong we'll just cover it up.

It's no way to run a workplace, let alone a government responsible for handling a pandemic.

Dominic Cummings knows he's going down and he's trying to bring the entire structure of the british state down with him. If he manages anything like that, it might go some small way to redeeming himself (although he'll always be a shitbag). The system is utterly rancid.

#politics #uk politics #im sorry lol #long post #dominic cummings

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polygon-streams · 5 years

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April 23, 2019 - Mortal Kombat 11 Story Time

Pat played Mortal Kombat 11 on his channel, major content warnings for blood, gore, graphic violence.

Link to VOD, starts at 00:09:45.

He’s got cyberpunk lighting, oh shit he’s HACKED IN [Watch Clip]

Thanks his new subs at the beginning of the stream (including Faith)

Has not played game beforehand, runs tutorial at beginning

One beverage of the night is a watermelon ale

“One small step for scorpion, giant leap for gamer-kind”

Pat says it’s the third game in mortal Kombat series, starts w #9; everyone was in a fighting ring and it went so bad someone time traveled and reset it

He got 1000 coin $$

Has played Mortal kombat X (second one); says game is relatively similar

He brutally stabbed a guy in the tutorial and said “oops”

He says that thick blood is “thick jelly” for the game

Plays multiple rounds in the tutorial to be more familiar with the game

Got more coins after his second round $$$. Capital Pat $

Fiddles w the setting before going back into gameplay

Says game requires people to memorize combo functions to play and if they don’t get it right, they can get punished (like Dragon Ball Z)

Gets hit with a massive combo and goes “mmMM IM FINE”

“This is some Looney Tunes shit”

Chooses to stay in tutorial; hears about “fatal blow”– which the cpu gave him last round

Requires more timing for fatal blows than previous mortal kombat; used to be able to hold down a button and give a fatality, apparently

“It was an accident; it was fucking cool tho”

Pat uses a character whose main weapon is a chain they can use to grapple on the enemy; is still figuring out the mechanics of the character

He referred to his stream as the pizza party

He entered the customize menu babey

Every menu option MUST start w a K instead of a C in the spirit of the game

Chat feels good about input controls

Chat plays caught and compromised when the boss of the game is revealed [Watch Clip]

Piss clip interrupts dramatic intro scene

Content warning: “everything in the game is NASTY”

BIG kw on this one (stands for “kontent warning”)

Military girl gets promoted to commander bc nepotism, but still needs to duel person promoting her: “I need to kick YOUR ass ma'am”

“My mom kicked my ass”

Looks up special moves bc he can’t beat his mom (also the mom is Sonya, which I think is a char from a previous MK game??)

Mom continues to kick his ass

“RIP mommy” (i detest this man)

“Damn, mom with the MIX UPS”

Finally beats the mom after three or so tries

Kung Lao can do hat decapitations

Pat wants to direct mortal kombat

An intense laser went off in the story and someone played the piss clip at the same time [Watch Clip]

Gives more shoutouts

Thinks the notion of guns in mortal kombat is funny bc guns are never used in the fights

Pat says memeshart should run the streams

*Pat, mocking the storyline* “The BONE temple”

Faith is responsible for many of the piss button presses in this stream

Wants to play as Jackie in the game; doesn’t want to play as Cassie (probably bc she’s not in previous games?)

Hour mark goes by, chat presses h to hydrate

Character says “fuck you!” after a long battle; Pat agrees

Mom is buried by some rocks, Pat: “she could get out if she were a little boulder” (chat proceeds to yell at Pat)

LincolnCarpenter used all of their piss bucks 😔

After the dad realized his wife had died, someone in the chat played the Donkey Kong has Died music; Pat erupts in laughter, “I’m sweaty” [Watch Clip]

Prisoner has a colosseum fight. Pat: “this is so fuckin stupid”

Characters (and Pat) react to time travel element of the plot. Pat remembers some, but not all of the characters. Chat (and Pat) makes memes about characters seeing different versions of themselves

Some of the gore freaked out Pat

Gets new fighting avatar, checks out moves, butchers one of them: “huEHhe”

“I’m just gonna mash the buttons”

Roleplays as his new avatar to himself

I think this game calculates points in decimal?? Why

An assassin appeared out of a cloud of blood from a previously killed enemy. Pat called her his “blood wife,” then sipped on some ale

He has a brief cowboy noise discussion; “they all sound like McCree” (character from Overwatch)

Calls the blood of his enemies “gamer fuel” while still fighting the cowboy

Calls a character “our anti-imperialist bae” (eat the rich)

(sing-song voice) “Gamer fuuuueeeeeeel in my mouth”

“D’vorah” apparently means “da fuq” in mortal kombat (to Pat, during his entrance)

Questioned how Raiden is pronounced (Raid-en in MK, Ry-den in Metal Gear)

Game: “There are two eras” Pat: “Aaaah yes that’s how time works”

Doubts the game’s explanation of how immortals don’t have duplicates, but mortals do. Laughs at plot holes

Tfw you accidentally call your general mom, “General Mommy” [Watch Clip]

Pat has to fight a baby scorpion (the character)

A character the chat calls Hat Man invented dabbing (bc game takes place 20 yrs before dabbing was a thing)

Plays as the Hat Man during a fight, spends first couple seconds figuring out how to throw the hat

“I’m dead. He’s gonna rip my spine out of my ass”

He did a cool combo and said “Good.” with so much authority

Poses question to the chat: “if you and your best friend are on a mystical quest and run into evil, double versions of yourself, do you fight your evil double, or your friend’s evil double?”

Chat is making Christmas Carol memes bc the time travel discussion

Hat Man runs into his evil double “Same hat”

Characters made decision to fight their own evil doubles

Pat remembers cyber machines

Pat smiles in a :D way and does a little dance [Watch Clip]

Sub-Zero is introduced, “Hey Boy” soundbit plays

Pat mocks robot death bc no feelings “my dreeeeams” [Watch Clip]

Characters walk by heads floating in tanks, dismembered body pieces, “NASTY, this game is gross”

character gets sawed in half; pat makes a loud, grossed-out noise

“God damn you Cipher!” sound bit plays while an evil ice lady is revealing plans

Pat fights a character named “Noob Saibot” (chat reacts as you’d expect)

“Caught and compromised” soundbit plays again

Stream wraps up, Pat is sleeby and does a Big Yawn, thanks the mods

Raids Thomas “Strawbiery” Biery

#pat gill #patrick gill #polygon #mortal kombat #mortal kombat 11 #twitch #maddie #mori

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eisforeidolon · 6 years

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Bring ‘Em Back Alive

So basically, this episode was worse than pointless – most of the characters acted like they had a problem with their brains being missing and the writers all but spit in the face of the audience by having Gabriel quip about getting a redemption arc right after they retconned the fuck out of his actual redemption arc.

Bucklemming really do have a very special kind of talent.

At the end of last episode, Dean decided to jump through the portal with no real planning and have Sam stay behind ostensibly to mount a potential rescue mission but really to cram as many side characters into as many different plots as possible. Also, okay, since they opened the damn thing right smack in their own home, somebody should probably also make sure nobody else comes through from Apocaworld, like homicidal angels or monsters or what-have-you. While it does seem like a bit of a transparent excuse, who else could do it? Cas? Oh, yeah, it's a great idea to rely on him not to change his mind/get brainwashed/be captured after the last several seasons! Expecting him to come through would be almost as stupid as him talking down to the Winchesters about dumbass plans …

Still, the Winchesters know that this other world is a different Earth which means, shock of shocks, it’s Earth-sized. Which is why it's utterly bizarre Dean and Sam both seem to believe one 24 hour trip to yet another random location is going to be enough to save Mary and Jack. It's not like they even know the two of them are together! Even if the portals geographically correspond between worlds, which they don’t know, and if Mary had stayed near the one she went through - that one at the cabin was in North Cove Washington and Dean left from the bunker in Kansas. Google tells me this is a twenty six hour drive. Which doesn’t even account for the part where they knew Michael had captured her and moved her who-knows-where, including potentially even further away. Yet they assume Dean will not only find some way of finding her - and Jack wherever he is - but actually manage to get to those possibly separate locations and bring them back to the tear in Kansas ... in twenty four hours. Riiight.

So naturally only the powers of a black hole of Mary-suedom could orchestrate Dean and Ketch directly running into not only a dead “fan favorite” from the real world that Dean “failed” but one who just happens to be likely to know where Jack and Mary are! A circumstance Disposable Angel #5 helpfully exposits out loud randomly to the landscape about! After which, Dean and Ketch just go tromping on through the wilderness when they're in a world where angels still have their wings. The angel camp could be on the literal other side of the fuckin' world! Hell, even if it was a couple states away that's still too far to go on fucking foot, especially when you don't even have a goddamn direction! C'mon!

If they'd been willing to skip tongue bathing a certain character's ass by adding that scene so she could be “badass” as many times as possible and just had the second scene with the trapper angel guy, it actually wouldn't have felt like such an absurd level of convenience. Clearly Jack has been making some waves for the angel to refer to him specifically, so I can believe there would be an increase overall in patrols. Considering all of Earth is a battleground there, even that excuse isn't necessary for a little serendipity to allow them run into Flunky #75 looking for rogue humans. It would be perfectly reasonable with Angel Radio for him to be that inconsequential and still know Jack and Mary are together involved with the resistance, and resistance members are being taken to the angel camp, as well as where that camp is.

Again, once Dean gets shot, the plan to continue walking for hours while recovering from a fatal poison where the antidote is not an instantaneous cure when they only have 24 hours is just stupid. As is Ketch harping on about Dean's connection to Fakename Replacement Goldfish. (Yeah, Dean can't ever say how much she did for them – because if the writers had to actually list specifics it would be even more obviously contrived than it already is.) Ketch was never that perceptive before and as dumb as it is, she is their only lead. So having a big heart-to-heart as if there needs to be another reason is so blatantly manufactured. Worse, it's both not letting an asshole character stay an asshole version I've-fucking-lost-count and it would have been a lot less out of nowfuckingwhere if it had been Sam and Dean dealing with their mutual issues over her and Sam getting to show concern for Dean. But why would we want actual meaningful scenes between the two characters whose relationship underlies the foundation of the show? Bucklemming sure don't know! They're too busy trying to make Ketch cuddly now. Speaking of stupidly trying to make characters cuddly because reasons ...

Meanwhile, back in the regular world, Gabriel is now being treated as the Winchester's long lost bestest buddy. Look, I actually liked Gabriel – but for what he actually was, an antagonist. So the writers having Cas and Sam make sad googly eyes and big speeches about needing him to throw a boner to the shippers … this is the bastard that tortured the Winchesters several times. Him being tortured himself doesn’t magically wipe that slate. It didn’t for Meg, it didn’t for Crowley. It only gets worse when Castiel reads the bullshit retcon exposition written on the walls and they still keep cooing at him. Like, even if they felt he'd redeemed himself by his big sacrifice before, they now know that was complete bullshit! I mean, did Sam even react to that revelation at all? It's just an additional shade of incomprehensible they're so eager to help the giant dick they offer him his grace back even knowing all that – you know, that thing they need to reopen the portal if Dean doesn't come back? The thing that if they give it to Gabriel it could allow him to do whatever the fuck he wants, including leaving them in the lurch again - which they now know he’s even more likely to do than they knew five minutes ago?!? Again, considering what they just found on the walls, before Cas tries to reset his brains or whatever, how do they know he wasn’t just faking until his grace regenerated/they gave it to him/blah blah whatever grace does now, who the fuck knows? If they'd simply given the grace to him after Asmodeus called to threaten them or right when the wards went off, it would have been a justifiable choice with actual logic behind it! Lastly on the subject of Gabriel, you know it's a Bucklemming episode by how tediously they dragged out that skeevy joke about him and porn stars. Ha fucking ha.

Remember when Lucifer was actually scary? It's been so long I'm starting to forget. This is the villain behind the first five seasons – and now he's cringe-y comic relief between the actual plots. Oh, and then there's the part where he voluntarily sits through random angel sidekick #11 sniping at and belittling him at length, then lets her just go on her way because ... nepotism reasons. How utterly fucking embarrassing.

I would find Dean's OTT anger and disappointment and Sam and Cas' quieter disappointment and sad-facing a whole lot more convincing if both Mary and Jack didn't feel like cardboard plot devices. Why are we so attached to them that we're literally risking ripping the fabric of the universe apart again? No, seriously? Everything about the Winchester's emotional rollercoaster with this so-called plotline this season just feels so fake because Mary they barely know and Jack they were half worried was going to destroy the world anyway! Oh, but Michael I guess? Or something? Bah.

The only thing I truly enjoyed about this episode is that at least we should finally be done with Asmodeus' egregious scenery chewing now. At least I sincerely hope so, surely he’s not popular enough for a bullshit resurrection?

#wank for ts #negativity for ts #anti Charile #anti Gabriel #anti Lucifer #anti Castiel #anti Asmodeus #writer incompetence #yeah seriously #this is pretty much all negative #I normally try to at least find a few things I liked #even when I think the ep is terrible #but ... nothing doing here #this one was definitely not for me #spn 13x18

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personalcoachingcenter · 5 years

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Will AI Reduce Gender Bias in Hiring?

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/will-ai-reduce-gender-bias-in-hiring/

Will AI Reduce Gender Bias in Hiring?

Executive Summary

Would women be better off if AI and algorithms were in charge of hiring? There are clearly reasons to be hopeful. One of the big advantages of AI is that, aside from being better at spotting things (i.e., millions of data points), it is also superior at ignoring things. AI can be trained to ignore people’s gender and focus only on the relevant signals of talent or potential. For example, algorithms can be trained to pick up relevant signals of EQ, competence, or communication skills, while being truly blind to gender. This would definitely favor women. If AI is trained to identify the actual drivers of performance – defined broadly as an individual’s contribution to the organization — then we can expect a much fairer, more accurate, and replicable assessment of people’s potential than what humans can do. This, again, should be good for women.

Vlaaka Kocvarová/EyeEm/Getty Images

AI is disrupting every area of life, including how organizations find talent. Companies are generally aware of the ROI that comes from finding the right person for the right job. McKinsey estimated that, for highly complex roles, stars can be expected to produce 800% more than average performers. And a recent Harvard Business School study showed that there are even bigger benefits to avoiding toxic workers.

Despite this crucial role of talent, organizations are still unable to attract the right talent, relying more on intuitive rather than data-driven talent identification practices — especially at the top, where the stake are actually highest. Indeed, too many leaders are hired on the basis of their technical expertise, political influence, or interview performance. As I illustrate in my latest book, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It), most companies focus on the wrong traits, hiring on confidence rather than competence, charisma rather than humility, and narcissistic tendencies rather than integrity, which explains the surplus of incompetent and male leaders. The result is a pathological disconnect between the qualities that seduce us in a leader, and those that are needed to be an effective leader.

An interesting question that arises is to what degree new technologies within the brave new world of AI-based hiring tools could help us reduce error, noise, and bias in our talent identification processes. For example, would women be better off if AI and algorithms were in charge of hiring? Previous research has highlighted a clear inconsistency around gender and leadership. On the one hand, women are often evaluated more negatively by others – even when there are few granular behavioral differences between women and men. On the other hand, large scale meta-analyses suggest that women have a slight advantage when it comes to the soft skills that predispose individuals to be more effective leaders, and that they generally adopt more effective leadership styles than men do. For instance, if leaders were selected on the basis of their emotional intelligence, self-awareness, humility, integrity, and coachability, the majority of leaders would be female rather than male.

And yet there have been salient news stories recently indicating that AI may actually contribute to even more bias and adverse impact against women–and that when algorithms are trained to emulate human recruiters, they may not just reproduce human biases, but also exacerbate them, engaging in a much more efficient form of discrimination.

To be sure, we are much more easily shocked and scandalized by hiring mistakes done by AI, than by human errors or biases. It’s a bit like with self-driving cars: it takes one autonomous car crash to convince us that the technology is flawed, but we are OK with having 1.2 million fatal accidents and 50 million driving injuries per year, courtesy of humans. So, let us start with the important realization that most hiring practices are (a) intuitive and (b) ineffective. For every company that appoints most of its leaders based on objective and meritocratic criteria, there are many more where such appointments are a true rarity — something that may be happening by accident, occasionally, and independently of their intentions. It is also clear that AI cannot be biased in the way humans are: that would require AI to have emotions, feelings, or opinions. AI does not need to engage in unconscious biases to penalize women or other underprivileged groups in order to get a self-esteem boost. Of course, if AI is trained with biased data — for instance, if we teach it to predict which candidates will be rated positively by human interviewers — it will not just emulate, but also exacerbate, human bias: augmenting it and making it far more efficient. But this can be addressed by teaching AI to predict relevant and objective outcomes, rather than mimic human intuition.

In addition, there are reasons to expect AI-talent tools to be more accurate and predictive than humans (not just because humans are generally bad at this):

Our favorite method for screening and vetting candidates — including leaders — is the interview, and large-scale scientific studies have shown that interviews are most predictive when they are highly structured. Whereas in-person/analogue interviews are hard to standardize, video interviews allow us to put people through exactly the same experience, capture millions of data points on their behaviors (e.g., what they say, how they say it, language use, body language, and micro-expressions), and remove prejudiced human observers from the process. It is safe to assume that automating all unstructured and humanly-rated interviews would reduce bias and nepotism while increasing meritocracy and predictive accuracy. This should be good for women (and bad for men).

Of course there are some incredibly smart human interviewers who may generally outperform the algorithms (though watch out for the next Netflix documentary on how AI beats the best human interviewers, much like they beat the greatest chess or AlphaGo players). The main problem, however, is that most people are not as intuitive as they think. And for every brilliant interviewer, there are hundreds or thousands who think they are brilliant, but in reality, are not. We all think highly of our own intuition, especially when we are not intuitive. As one of the founders of the behavioral economics movement — and Nobel laureate — Daniel Kahneman noted: “We’re generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments.” Regardless of AI’s ability to detect talent, we can expect it to be much more aware of its ability than humans are of their own ability. This will also allow AI to improve (more than humans can be expected to do). Consider that the average human interviewer will never even admit to making a hiring mistake, for they will indulge in confirmation bias to see the candidates they personally hired in a positive vein once they are tasked with rating their performance. Humans have skin in the game: accepting mistakes makes them look stupid — AI does not care about looking stupid.

One of the big advantages of AI is that, aside from being better at spotting things (i.e., millions of data points), it is also superior at ignoring things. Imagine an ethical, well-meaning, and open-minded human who has every intention of being fair in their hiring practices and is therefore determined to avoid gender bias in his — let’s assume he is male — hiring process. Regardless of how hard he tries, it will be very hard for him to ignore candidates’ gender. Imagine him sitting in front of a female candidate, repeating to himself: “I must not think about the fact that this person is a woman,” or “I must not let this person’s gender interfere with my evaluation.” In fact, the more he tries to suppress this thought, the more prominent it will be in his mind. This will also lead to distraction or over-compensation. In contrast, AI can be trained to ignore people’s gender and focus only on the relevant signals of talent or potential. For example, algorithms can be trained to pick up relevant signals of EQ, competence, or communication skills, while being truly blind to gender. This would definitely favor women.

The critical factor for this to work is that organizations identify real performance data to train the algorithms. If AI is taught to predict or anticipate human preferences — like whether a candidate will be liked by their (human) boss once they are hired — we can expect bias to remain… and be augmented. However, if AI is trained to identify the actual drivers of performance — defined broadly as an individual’s contribution to the organization — then we can expect a much fairer, more accurate, and replicable assessment of people’s potential than what humans can do. This, again, should be good for women.

In sum, for those who are interested in not just helping women to be more represented in the leadership ranks, but also improving the quality of our leaders, there are clearly reasons to be hopeful about AI. However, many of the emerging innovations in this brave new world of technologically-enhanced and data-driven talent identification are still a “work in progress,” and we need to ensure that they are not only accurate, but that they are also ethical and legal alternatives to existing methods. Above all, it is time to admit that most of the practices that are in place are far from effective, and that they have contributed to much of the unfairness and nepotism that governs the average workplace. So, here’s to finding the necessary self-awareness to begin to improve.

Go To Source

#coaching #coaching business #coaching group #coaching life #coaching life style #coaching on line #coaching performance #Coaching Tips #help #Coaching from around the web

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stephenmccull · 4 years

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Must-Reads Of The Week From Brianna Labuskes

The Friday Breeze

Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes, who reads everything on health care to compile our daily Morning Briefing, offers the best and most provocative stories for the weekend.

Hello! I thought I’d shake up the animal news this week and bring you llamas! (You thought I was going to say murder hornets, admit it!)

Will the llamas be the heroes of the coronavirus outbreak? Not really. But they are cute! Why they’re important: They have two different kinds of antibodies, one of which is much smaller than what our bodies produce. The smaller antibodies can do a better job at neutralizing coronaviruses. Which sounds very exciting… until you get to the part where the protection would only last a month or two without another injection.

Once again we have a little bit of non-coronavirus news before we dive into the thick of things. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments — over the phone! — about the Trump administration’s changes to the health law contraception mandate. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has emerged as a crucial vote on the divided court, wondered if the administration was interpreting religious freedom laws “too broadly.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump dug in on his stance that the health law should be overturned even in the midst of a dual pandemic and recession.

The Friday Breeze

Want a roundup of the must-read stories this week chosen by KHN Newsletter Editor Brianna Labuskes? Sign up for The Friday Breeze today.

Please confirm your email address below:

In a world full of uncertainty, one thing’s clear: the path of a pandemic is tricky to predict. An internal administration memo as well as a popular model adjusted the expected forecasts for total number of U.S. deaths this week. The government memo warned that as states begin to relax social distancing guidelines, the daily death toll could jump to 3,000 a day by June 1. The popular University of Washington model was also adjusted to reflect states’ decision to reopen, with a prediction that 134,475 Americans will die by August.

There seems to be a sense that once the country gets over a certain peak that things will go back to normal, but experts say that’s not the case. The pandemic will likely be a soliton wave: a wave that just keeps rolling and rolling, carrying on under its own power for a great distance. We’re in this for the long haul, folks.

Cumulative U.S. deaths as of Friday, May 8 are 76,101, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University researchers.

In related news: The Hill: Models Under Scrutiny As Coronavirus Gets More Politicized

Lots of news out of the administration this week, so buckle up!

While Trump admitted that there will possibly be more deaths if the country reopens and that people will be affected badly, he urged Americans to think of themselves as “warriors” in this fight and try to return to normalcy. Trump led by example on Tuesday by traveling to Arizona after months at the White house. In Arizona, Trump toured a mask factory — without a mask.

This quote of the week (in Politico) seems to sum up the vibe in the White House: “There’s this mindset that it’s like running a show and you’ve got to keep people tuned in, you’ve got to keep them interested and at some point you’ve got to move on and move on quickly,” said a former senior official at the Health and Human Services Department. “Viewers will get tired of another season of coronavirus.”

The White House also shelved CDC guidelines that it deemed too restrictive even though the CDC has no authority to enforce those suggestions. The move highlighted the fact that an agency that has always been a main player in pandemic responses has been sidelined time and again by the current administration.

Meanwhile, the White House’s early equipment distribution efforts were partly hampered by a group of inexperienced volunteers by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Further complicating matters, those volunteers, who played a key role in vetting and communication leads to FEMA, were also told to prioritize tips from political allies and associates of Trump.

In related news: The Washington Post: 34 Days Of Pandemic: Inside Trump’s Attempts To Reopen America

White House-watchers got a bit of whiplash this week when Trump announced he was disbanding the task force headed up in part by Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. Trump swiftly back-peddled, saying he didn’t realize “how popular” the task force was until he mentioned breaking up the band. After getting that feedback, Trump decided to keep the task force around indefinitely, but may add or subtract members as the focus of the group shifts toward vaccine development and reopening the country.

An official complaint from Dr. Rick Bright revealed the dysfunction inside HHS during the outbreak of the crisis. Not only did Bright accuse officials of targeting him over negative remarks about hydroxychloroquine, but his complaint also contains a number of highly detailed accusations of nepotism within the agency.

Although it’s a bit old now, I’m still going to flag a story that came out in a Friday night news dump from last week: The White House announced that the watchdog who raised concerns about medical shortages at hospitals has been replaced in Trump’s latest move against the officials who are supposed to be checking the government’s behavior.

And, finally, the pandemic hit close to home for Trump after a military aide who he’s had contact with tested positive for COVID-19. The news rattled the White House enough that there will now be daily tests on Trump and his staff.

The New York Times: White House Rattled By A Military Aide’s Positive Coronavirus Test

Some Democrats have a message to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: Put up or shut up on claims that the virus escaped from a lab in China. Pompeo has spent the week talking about the “enormous” amount of evidence that shows the virus may have originated in a lab, but most experts who have seen the “evidence” call it circumstantial at best.

So what do we actually know about the claims? Mainly, most experts widely agree that the virus was not man-made, which means if it did originate in a lab, it’s likely the infection was an accident. An example of the circumstantial evidence: The bats that carry the family of coronaviruses linked to the new strain aren’t found within 100 miles of Wuhan — but they were studied in both labs.

But experts still say that it is far more likely that the outbreak originated in the wet market that has always been thought of as the epicenter. Fauci, meanwhile, dismissed the debate as unimportant, saying that even if it was an accident “that means it was in the wild to begin with. … [That’s] why I don’t spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument.”

In a bygone era, could COVID-19 have been thought of as a preexisting condition? Would insurers be able to deny people coverage based on the possibility they were infected? Would getting COVID automatically brand patients as uninsurable? The questions highlight how important the health law’s protections are in the midst of this unpredictable pandemic.

In further evidence that health insurers are weathering this pandemic storm fairly well, UnitedHealth announced that it would offer premium credits to some customers.

States, meanwhile, are buckling under the financial burden of the outbreak and are eyeing their expensive Medicaid programs for cuts that could provide a bit of relief. The problem is that with millions of Americans losing coverage through their jobs, those programs have never been needed more than they are now.

The Great Reopening Debate of 2020 continues to play out across the country (and will continue to play out in the months and weeks to come). So far, the main players have been the governors and the federal government. But with state legislatures gaveling back in, state lawmakers are entering the fray.

Many of the areas that are rushing to reopen are more rural places that on first glance have avoided devastation the likes of New York City. A deeper dive into per capita data shows that rural America has not emerged unscathed. And cases are continuing to climb. “It’s just gone haywire,” said a funeral home director in rural Georgia. “People dying left and right.”

Even as protesters grab the national spotlight, poll after poll shows that Americans are anxious about reopening too early, and favor restrictions that are based on public health. The weariness could complicate some conservative leaders’ desire to jump-start the economy.

In related news: The Wall Street Journal: Smart Or Lucky? How Florida Dodged The Worst Of Coronavirus

In this politically fraught era, masks are becoming a visual symbol to signal what side of the divide the wearer is on a la Trump’s red MAGA hats. Tensions over the scraps of cloth boiled over this week leading to violent — and in one case fatal — confrontations.

With all eyes on Gilead after the successful remdesivir study, many wonder if the drugmaker will emerge a hero or a villain. The company has a reputation for charging through the nose for its breakthrough drugs. But if it listens to its better angels, there’s a chance the company could actually help alter the price-gouging narrative that has hounded pharma for the past few years.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is in control of distributing the current supply of the drug, but doctors and hospitals say chaos and confusion have dominated the process. Even hospitals that have seen a surge of COVID patients say they’re being denied the drug without explanation.

In related news: The New York Times: How Remdesivir, New Hope For Covid-19 Patients, Was Resurrected

The global vaccine race is the modern day hunt for a Holy Grail, and with that comes geopolitical intrigue, safety concerns and… a dash of hope. The rewards are potentially great, but so is the potential disappointment of billions of wasted dollars. What’s more, many are worried what will happen to poorer countries if the United States is the first to develop a successful vaccine.

Scientists also worry that chatter about compressing the vaccine development timeline are fueling false hope for Americans. Even if one is proven safe and effective by the fall, that doesn’t mean people will be rolling up their sleeves anytime soon.

How can you not click on a story that posits: “Could the porn industry offer a model for reopening?” But it’s more than just a click-bait headline: Since the late-1990s, the porn industry has been implementing policies to keep its workers safe in environments that could lead to dangerous infections. Among other things, workers have to be tested every 14 days before they can be cleared to work. The industry has also had decades to work through the growing pains of large-scale testing and enforcement that could offer lessons as businesses face the daunting task of bringing employees safely back to work.

Speaking of testing, the FDA just approved a process that relies on CRISPR technology and could provide results within an hour. And the agency is also trying to cut red tape for companies who are developing at-home tests that consumers could then send off to a lab.

The jobless rate hit 14.7% in April — the highest since the Great Depression — meaning that nearly all the job growth achieved during the 11-year recovery from the Great Recession has now been lost in one month. That news came on Friday following Thursday’s unemployment data which found a total of 33 million Americans have sought aid since the pandemic began. Many experts say that even though those numbers are eye-popping in and of themselves, they don’t fully capture the economic devastation the outbreak has wrought.

Democrats are swinging for the fences as they put the finishing touches on their next relief package that is expected to focus on individuals, localities and testing access. Some lawmakers say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to offer a counter point to then-President Bill Clinton’s declaration that the “era for Big Government is over.”

The Navajo Nation has been struggling to contain the growing outbreak on their reservation that reaches into three different states. On Wednesday, the Navajo Nation reported nearly 2,500 confirmed cases and at least 75 deaths — more than in all of Utah. The tribe, and others, have been struggling to get help from the federal government, but after a meeting with Trump this week the Navajo Nation announced it would receive about $600 million in federal funds.

And a 170-year old act of kindness is getting repaid (in a story that, no kidding, left me a little teary). During the potato famine nearly two centuries ago, the Choctaw Nation sent $170 to starving Irish families despite their own hardships. Now, Irish residents are getting a chance to return the favor.

As I’ve said, some of my favorite news from the week is always the scientific developments, so here’s a quick glance at what came out this week: studies find the virus was in France as of December; the lungs may be the battlefield, but the virus attacks the body like it’s a world war; UV lights could help stores reopen safely; yes the virus has mutated, no that doesn’t mean it’s more dangerous; children are being hospitalized with an inflammatory syndrome believed to be linked to Covid; and scientists are befuddled by the geographical riddle that is the spread of Covid.

And here are some good reads for your weekend:

→ Politico: ICE Detention Centers First Brought Jobs To The Rural South. Now, They’re Bringing Covid-19.

→ Reuters: Facebook, YouTube Remove ‘Plandemic’ Video With ‘Unsubstantiated’ Coronavirus Claims

→ The New York Times: The NYPD Arrested 40 People On Social Distancing Violations. 35 Were Black.

→ Undark: Covid-19 Reignites A Contentious Debate Over Bats And Disease

→ ProPublica: How Climate Change Is Contributing To Skyrocketing Rates Of Infectious Disease

→ The New York Times: In Harm’s Way

That’s it from me! Have a safe weekend.

Must-Reads Of The Week From Brianna Labuskes published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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dinafbrownil · 4 years