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synchronousemma · 3 years

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15th March: Emma calls on Mrs. Elton

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Read: Vol. 2, ch. 14; pp. 175–176 (“Emma had feelings” through to “‘How delightful!’”)

Context

Emma and Harriet pay Mrs. Elton a call on the occasion of her introduction to the neighborhood.

We are told that Emma’s strategy to gain entrance into the vicarage in mid-December (vol. 1, ch. 10) occurred “three months ago” (vol. 2, ch. 14; p. 175).

Readings and Interpretations

Pride and Propriety

We are told that Emma “had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety,” that cause her promptly to pay the requisite formal call on Mrs. Elton upon her marriage and entrance into the community. Toby Tanner writes regarding this description that we should “beware of thinking that [Austen] had a simple unproblematic notion of […] propriety” (p. 19); it “may be mixed with — or indistinguishable from — related but more egotistical (and thus potentially socially less constructive and cohesive) motives or characteristics”:

It is a mark of Jane Austen’s scrupulous awareness of such fine distinctions and necessary differentiations that we are made to recognise the importance of a tireless vigilance over the nuances of motivation and intention. Jane Austen knew as well as anyone that feelings do not come pure and motives unmixed. But as far as possible we should be aware of which feeling or motive is dominant. Pride — or propriety? Which? It matters — even if any final and conclusive disentanglement is impossible. No more than Emma should we allow ourselves to act in a motivational mist or an emotional blur. (pp. 19–20)

For Tanner, then, Austen’s novels are at least in part didactic, intended to inculcate in their readers the same qualities that they value in their characters.

Handsome—Enough

Clause Rawson tries to separate anticipation from reality as regards descriptions of Mrs. Elton, seeing in Austen’s method a similarity to that of Henry Fielding:

Emma is shown shallowly jumping to conclusions when she decides that Mrs Elton is bound to be plainer than Harriet. Actually, though we won’t know this for another ten chapters, after ‘Mrs. Elton was first seen at church’ and then more fully examined at ‘the visits in form which were then to be paid’, Emma is not far wrong. ‘Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty; but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma thought at least it would turn out so’ [vol. 2, ch. 14 [32]; p. 175]. And it does, as the evidence of ‘visits’ confirms [ibid., p. 175ff]. Ten chapters earlier, Emma predicted that Augusta would be ‘handsome enough’, but plain beside Harriet [vol. 2, ch. 4 [22]; p. 118]. An old fictional trick of using physical charms or the lack of them to reflect character is being activated, but in an unillusioned mode on which Austen evidently prided herself. Augusta Elton is no ogress or hag, ‘not unpretty’, but not ‘elegant’, like a Sophia Western in reverse, who is as superlatively beautiful as any heroine, ‘but rather inclining to tall’ (Tom Jones, IV. ii). (pp. 350–1)

Rawson points out that this account of Mrs. Elton contrasts with an earlier description of Jane Fairfax:

A more direct parallel to Fielding, with richer and more intricate modulations, occurs in a description of Jane Fairfax, a few chapters earlier […]: [Quotes from “Jane Fairfax was very elegant” to “distinction, and merit,” vol. 2, ch. 2 [20]; p. 107].

Whether or not the contrast with Mrs Elton’s lack of elegance comes over as pointedly, across an interval of a dozen chapters, as it might seem to do in this juxtaposition, it is at least subliminally sustained by the use of the words ‘elegant’, ‘vulgar’, ‘merit’, ringing their ironic changes, whose varying inflections would repay study in their own right, through the accounts of both women. And both accounts enact versions of Fielding’s balancing act between the atavistic romance of a heroine’s perfect beauty and the refreshing effects of minor imperfections which are a tribute to the reality principle […]. (pp. 351–2)

As for Mr. Elton, Emma’s thoughts about him in this section are another example of narration in Emma showing a character’s contemplations as they evolve in real time (see also Deresiewicz, p. 49): “his manners did not appear—but no, she would not permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners” (p. 175). This breaking off also explicitly reveals the device of free indirect style that the previous paragraph shades into (“Her person was rather good…”); we are reminded that the past tense here may only be grammatical convention, that these thoughts are being expressed as they occur and thus may be broken off and reframed. Of the thoughts themselves, Linda Bree writes that they evidence in Emma “a high degree of intellectual generosity, even a sense of humor strong enough to empathize with people she dislikes” (p. 138).

A Pretty Fortune

Emma repeatedly emphasizes what she believes to be the mercenary motives underlying the Eltons’ marriage on both sides, and Harriet repeatedly refuses to understand:

“I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love.”

“Oh! no—there is nothing to surprize one at all.—A pretty fortune; and she came in his way.”

“I dare say,” returned Harriet, sighing again, “I dare say she was very much attached to him.”

“Perhaps she might; but it is not every man’s fate to marry the woman who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this the best offer she was likely to have.”

“Yes,” said Harriet earnestly, “and well she might, nobody could ever have a better.” (p. 176)

Emma, in the new pragmatic attitude that the Elton débâcle seems to have lent to her (Hughes, p. 72), ironically reframes Harriet’s discourse about “love” in repeating its terms (“surprized,” “surprize”); Harriet, for her part, probably unintentionally reframes Emma’s logic about what constitutes a ‘good’ offer of marriage in repeating her terms (“best,” “better”).

Discussion Questions

What is Austen’s (or the narrator’s) approach to propriety and to emotion? Are Austen’s novels intended to be didactic?

How do Emma’s thoughts and speeches in this section characterize her? How is the conversation between her and Harriet used to reveal the preoccupations of each?

Why is this first meeting recounted through Emma’s contemplation, rather than through direct description?

Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Emma (Norton Critical Edition). 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, [1815] 2000.

Bree, Linda. “Emma: Word Games and Secret Histories.” In A Companion to Jane Austen, ed. Claudia Johnson and Clara Tuite. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell (2009), pp. 133–142.

Deresiewicz, William. “Emma: Ambiguous Relationships.” In Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets. New York: Columbia University Press (2004), pp. 86–126.

Hughes, R. E. “The Education of Emma Woodhouse.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 16.1 (June 1961), pp. 69–74.

Rawson, Claude. “Showing, Telling, and Money in Emma.” Essays in Criticism 61.4 (2011), pp. 338–64. DOI: 10.1093/escrit/cgr018.

Tanner, Tony. Jane Austen. London: Macmillan Education (1986), pp. 176–207. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18432-3_6.

#Emma #Jane Austen #Emma Woodhouse #Harriet Smith #Mr. Elton #Mrs. Elton #e

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dykehaus · 5 years

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link round-up 9/26

Special Journey to Our Bottom Line - on hazing and counterinsurgency

I Am Telling You What Happened To Me - “I keep coming back to the violence before the violence, the moment of narrative rupture.“

Who Would I Be Without Instagram? An investigation. - Tati Gevinson or growing up and growing rich insta-style

Susan Sontag and the Unholy Practice of Biography - A new book is as unillusioned about the writer as she was about herself.

Regarding the Interpretation of Others - When attempting to write a review of the official Susan Sontag biography, our reviewer finds himself on shaky ground after learning new information about the author.

Cindy Crawford, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan: An ’80s Fashion Mystery - Thousands of slides tossed in the garbage a decade ago capture the golden age of New York fashion.

A Very Short List of Very Short Novels with Very Short Commentary - “The wonderful thing about teaching the short novel is that structure is everything, and often more apparent than in a long and winding five-hundred-pager.” - Alice Dermott

How TikTok Holds Our Attention - On the popular short-video app, young people are churning through images and sounds at warp speed, repurposing reality into ironic, bite-size content.

What Edith Wharton Knew, a Century Ago, About Women and Fame in America - If Undine Spragg, the heroine of Wharton’s novel “The Custom of the Country,” were alive today, she would have a million followers on Instagram and be a Page Six legend.

Re-Covered: Margaret Drabble’s 1977 Brexit Novel

#r #link

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sunlightpike · 6 years

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Disguise self isn’t concentration, so if Dairon had been knocked unconscious she would’ve been okay but...

Dairon’s a monk. Which raises the question of how she can use it? Matt is largely unspecific, he just says the “image shifts and fades” when Dairon becomes unillusioned. Is it an item? Is she multiclassed? Is this a skill that maybe can be taught to Beau even though it’s not part of the Cobalt Soul class or a Monk ability? Is this Matt’s way of possibly giving Beau a way to join in on being able to be disguised, maybe a once-per-day thing like magic initiate with disguise self as the spell? Or is it just an ability that Dairon has that we’ll never really find out details about?

#c2e53 #critical role #critical role spoilers #i have so many questions matthew #m9 #dairon #m9 npcs #give us answers #xhorhas arc

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storykeeper-wra · 6 years

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If they had a kid for Keeper and Lam

Name: Lyrei and Orist Malrae

Gender: Female and male, perspectively.

General Appearance: This pair both have the fair skin of their mother, but the dark hair of their father. At a young they would always want to dress alike even if one or the other of their parents offered different options. Typically Lyrei would have her hair in a ponytail while her brother Orist’s hair was kept at the length of his shoulders. Both their eyes lack the fel-green taint of Sin’dorei and for some reason take heavily after their mother’s own unillusioned color.

Personality:

Lyrei: This young girl holds a quiet intelligence that is reflected in her pale eyes. She is slow to anger and seems to choose her words carefully.

Orist: He shares his mother’s love for stories and is always asking Sanguine for stories about itself or trying to help with any experiments (sometimes to his mother’s horror and his father’s chuckling).

Special Talents:

Lyrei: Despite her bright mind she has no connection with the arcane magics like her mother so she began trying to learn at her Father’s knee. His skills and crafts.

Orist: While having the talent he takes more of a care to writing his own stories and drawing for them. His room holds many of his own stories and some in his mother’s book.

Who they like better:

Lyrei: Gravitates towards her father, she loves her mother and if hurt or upset this is who she goes to for comfort. She tells children that her mother will make them into cats if they bully her (The Keeper probably would).

Orist: He sometimes is called his mother’s shadow. Despite his bright nature he gets shy easily and seeks the shelter his mother provides always stepping out of his shell at her urging.

Who they take after more: The twins share features from both and it is obvious who their parents.

Personal Head canon: Blood magic was an odd thing. Lam and his Keeper had been together for some time and the man had managed to talk her into beginning a family. But instead of one child they were blessed with two. She calls them affectionately her little miracles.

Face Claim:

Lyrei Malrae

Orist Malrae

@lamaiyn

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r1ch-ln4mst3r · 5 years

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my brain on idle mode: 🎶unillusion. unillusion. unillusion. unillusion. (higher voice) unillusion. unillusion. unillusion. unillusion. (starts rapping in french gibberish) 👏🏾par 👏🏾fait

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izatrini · 6 years

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A Wounded Animal – Pt 2

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe August 26, 2018 PART 2 Reporting the world and its past, the past as a wound, the present as loss, has been Naipaul’s dedication and business, a sort of unillusioned mourning” (Frank Kermode, London Review of Books, 4 May 1989). It was a Saturday evening in the fall of 1988. […] http://dlvr.it/QhB3Sw

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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OUR PLAGUE YEAR.... We must heed the logic of rationality and science—but also the logic captured by artists, poets, and storytellers.

By Eliot A. Cohen | Published February 29, 2020 8:00 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted February 29, 2020 |

“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”

Thus Albert Camus in The Plague. We, too, now find ourselves surprised by pestilence, dancing a dance that feels both strange and familiar—the early disquieting cases; the assurances by authority that the initial outbreak has been contained; the spread by individuals who can, however, be tracked and isolated; the imposition of quarantines; the realization that some of the initial statistics were too low because of flawed counting rules; the realization that the ailment may not, in fact, be containable; and the first tremors of public apprehension turning to fear, and in some cases panic.

Anyone in a position of authority—running a school, a business, or an organization—turns to experts at moments like this. We attempt to absorb the information from epidemiologists who know what they are talking about. They speak of morbidity and mortality rates, of R naught (the basic reproduction number, or how many individuals a victim may infect), of the little-known mortality of the annual flu season, and of the futility of face masks as a means of avoiding COVID-19, which is the correct and emotionally neutral term for the disease caused by the virus. The scientists build tracking maps and model future spread; they announce trials of vaccines and make rational recommendations for social distancing and, of course, hand-washing.

Their cool balance, which must inform any decision making, rests on a logic of rationality and science. And one must heed it. Yet one must also heed a very different logic, the one captured by artists, poets, and storytellers.

In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe tells the tale of Prince Prospero, “happy and dauntless and sagacious,” who, as the Red Death sweeps his dominions, gathers his closest friends into his magnificent castle, which he then seals off from the outside world. All manner of supplies have been stockpiled, all manner of entertainments prepared, and, for a time, all is well. The prince stages a masked ball in his eccentrically designed palace; the partying is exuberant, until the guests note that one of their members has made a tasteless joke. “Shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave,” his mask that of a corpse dabbled with blood, he has appeared as the Red Death. The crowd, now a mob, turns on and pursues the figure, who vanishes, leaving only the shroud—as the revelers, Prince Prospero first among them, fall to the plague. “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

The coronavirus will not be as bad as that, we can be quite sure, but what Poe—and, in a different way, Camus and many others—captured is the logic of fear and dread that is also part of an epidemic. And that logic is ignored at our peril too. Walk through crowded airports, and you will see useless masks adorning the faces of people who are undoubtedly quite well. Talk to chief executives, and they will tell you of stockpiling vitamin C and canceling all foreign travel. Meet a cosmopolitan friend, and he will embarrassedly refuse to shake hands, preferring to wa, Thai style (a palm-to-palm salute), or put his right hand to his heart (Arabic style), or simply bump elbows (an American innovation).

The statistics about the relatively low mortality rates of the coronavirus, the more ominous term that normal people use, and the unquestionably more deadly toll to date of the common flu are undoubtedly true, and in some measure beside the point. The technocratic impulse is to damp down unreasoning fear with an antiseptic spray of statistics, or if that fails, simply to shrug one’s shoulders and dismiss the foolish anxieties of ignorant people. Neither will quite do the job.

Why do we fear the coronavirus more than the common flu? Perhaps because even if we fail to get our annual flu shot, we know that such a thing exists. And even if one side of our brain knows that the cocktail that goes into this year’s vaccine is a gamble on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, which may be more or less effective, the other side is saying: The threat is, if not under control, controllable. The coronavirus, like the plague of old, does not feel that way. It does not feel controllable, because it is not. Indeed, the main resort seems to be a centuries-, perhaps millennia-old response: quarantine. And even that proves leaky in an age of ever-expanding travel and human contact.

We live in an era when the masters of Big Data, be they in corporations or political campaigns, know an appallingly large amount about each and every one of us: our tastes, our prejudices, our aversions, our vulnerable points. They spend a great deal of effort on manipulating us, apparently with success. There are social scientists who believe that this data can and indeed should be used to nudge us into healthy or commendable forms of behavior. And in an era of ubiquitous facial-recognition software, we are all, in some measure, perpetually under surveillance.

But somehow, the plague creeps in behind the precisely targeted Facebook ads, and human beings must confront the limits of their ability to control events, and the primordial fear that a friend—or worse, a loved one—could, in an invisible and wholly unintended way, cause our deaths. Governments and businesses that pride themselves on their ability to exert control are at the mercy of individuals who have incentives to misrepresent the truth or temporarily suppress it. Face a population fearful of epidemic, and you face, potentially, an angry and uncontrollable mob.

The coronavirus can bring ugly deaths, and has done so to some of the doctors and nurses attempting to contain it. It is nothing like the real plague, with blackened buboes and excruciating death agonies. But it is scary enough, and if its true that the mortality rate is 2 percent, or even half that, and if the hasty quarantines being thrown up everywhere fail to work, the chances are that many of us will know someone who dies from it.

In our rational, technocratic way, we will of course find countermeasures and even celebrate them as accelerators of progress. Schools and businesses are learning how to exploit teleconferencing in ways that will improve our ability to teach and work together in cyberspace, which is a good thing. We are all learning (the hard way, admittedly) about the vulnerability of global supply chains, and will make them more resilient in the coming months and years. And there is nothing like a good scare to improve one’s institutional contingency planning for the next time, as the British government discovered after the Munich crisis of 1938.

All true, and all necessary. But as we react to this problem with the tools of medical science and dispassionate thought, we should periodically check ourselves—not so much for fever, but for the arrogance of Prince Prospero, and for the illusion of control that set him and his guests up for a ghastly end. The truth is, we live in the midst of multiple plagues—after all, it is considered a good thing when your tweet “goes viral.” We would be wisest if we could react to all those plagues with the unillusioned heroic calm of Camus’ hero Dr. Rieux, who has “no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when all this ends,” and who will simply go about his business of curing those he can, and comforting those he cannot.

_____

ELIOT A. COHEN is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and dean of The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. From 2007 to 2009, he was the Counselor of the Department of State. He is the author most recently of The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force.

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THE PROBLEM WITH TELLING SICK WORKERS TO STAY HOME .... Even with the coronavirus spreading, lax labor laws and little sick leave mean that many people can’t afford to skip work.

By Amanda Mull | Published February 28, 2020 | The Atlantic Magazine | Posted February 29, 2020 |

AS THE CORONAVIRUS that has sickened tens of thousands in China spreads worldwide, it now seems like a virtual inevitability that millions of Americans are going to be infected with the flu-like illness known as COVID-19. Public-health officials in the United States have started preparing for what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling a “significant disruption” to daily life. Because more than 80 percent of cases are mild and many will show no symptoms at all, limiting the disease’s spread rests on the basics of prevention: Wash your hands well and frequently, cover your mouth when you cough, and stay home if you feel ill. But that last thing might prove to be among the biggest Achilles’ heels in efforts to stymie the spread of COVID-19. The culture of the American workplace puts everyone’s health at unnecessary risk.

For all but the independently wealthy in America, the best-case scenario for getting sick is being a person with good health insurance, paid time off, and a reasonable boss who won’t penalize you for taking a few sick days or working from home. For millions of the country’s workers, such a scenario is a nearly inconceivable luxury. “With more than a third of Americans in jobs that offer no sick leave at all, many unfortunately cannot afford to take any days off when they are feeling sick,” Robyn Gershon, an epidemiology professor at the NYU School of Global Public Health, wrote in an email. “People who do not (or cannot) stay home when ill do present a risk to others.” On this count, the United States is a global anomaly, one of only a handful of countries that doesn’t guarantee its workers paid leave of any kind. These jobs are also the kind least likely to supply workers with health insurance, making it difficult for millions of people to get medical proof that they can’t go to work.

They’re also concentrated in the service industry or gig economy, in which workers have contact, directly or indirectly, with large numbers of people. These are the workers who are stocking the shelves of America’s stores, preparing and serving food in its restaurants, driving its Ubers, and manning its checkout counters. Their jobs tend to fall outside the bounds of paid-leave laws, even in states or cities that have them. Gershon emphasizes that having what feels like a head cold or mild flu—which COVID-19 will feel like to most healthy people—often isn’t considered a good reason to miss a shift by those who hold these workers’ livelihood in their hands.

Even if a person in one of these jobs is severely ill—coughing, sneezing, blowing her nose, and propelling droplets of virus-containing bodily fluids into the air and onto the surfaces around her—asking for time off means missing an hourly wage that might be necessary to pay rent or buy groceries. And even asking can be a risk in jobs with few labor protections, because in many states, there’s nothing to stop a company from firing you for being too much trouble. So workers with no good options end up going into work, interacting with customers, swiping the debit cards that go back into their wallets, making the sandwiches they eat for lunch, unpacking the boxes of cereal they take home for their kids, or driving them home from happy hour.

Even for people who have paid sick leave, Gershon noted, the choices are often only marginally better; seven days of sick leave is the American average, but many people get as few as three or four. “Many are hesitant to use [sick days] for something they think is minor just in case they need the days later for something serious,” she wrote. “Parents or other caregivers are also hesitant to use them because their loved ones might need them to stay home and care for them if they become ill.”

For workers with ample sick leave, getting it approved may still be difficult. America’s office culture often rewards those who appear to go above and beyond, even if that requires coughing on an endless stream of people. Some managers believe leadership means forcing their employees into the office at all costs, or at least making it clear that taking a sick day or working from home will be met with suspicion or contempt. In other places, employees bring their bug to work of their own volition, brown-nosing at the expense of their co-workers’ health.

[ Read: The gig economy has never been tested by a pandemic SEE BELOW]

Either way, the result is the same, especially in businesses that serve the public or offices with open plans and lots of communal spaces, which combine to form the majority of American workplaces. Even if your server at dinner isn’t sick, she might share a touch-screen workstation with a server who is. Everyone on your side of the office might be hale and healthy, but you might use a tiny phone booth to take a call right after someone whose throat is starting to feel a little sore. “Doorknobs, coffee makers, toilets, common-use refrigerators, sinks, phones, keyboards [can all] be a source of transmission if contaminated with the agent,” Gershon wrote. She advised that workers stay at least three to six feet away from anyone coughing or sneezing, but in office layouts that put desks directly next to one another with no partition in between—often to save money by giving workers less personal space—that can be impossible. No one knows how long COVID-19 can live on a dry surface, but in the case of SARS, another novel coronavirus, Gershon said it was found to survive for up to a week on inanimate objects.

Work culture isn’t the only structure of American life that might make a COVID-19 outbreak worse than it has to be—the inaccessible, precarious, unpredictable nature of the country’s health-care system could also play an important role. But tasking the workers who make up so much of the infrastructure of daily American life, often for low wages and with few resources, with the lion’s share of prevention in an effort to save thousands of lives is bound to fail, maybe spectacularly. It will certainly exact a cost on them, both mentally and physically, that the country has given them no way to bear.

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The Gig Economy Has Never Been Tested by a Pandemic

Companies such as Uber and Instacart have transformed the urban experience, but would they hold up if the coronavirus spread across America?

By Alexis C. Madrigal | Published February 28, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted February 29, 2020 |

THE SHADOW OF THE new coronavirus finally reached American shores this week, as markets jittered downward and new cases crept up. The scope of any outbreak here is not clear, but experts suspect that the virus will become widespread. While the disease, known as COVID-19, is a global phenomenon, the response to it is necessarily local, and divvied up among more than 2,600 local health departments in the U.S.

Municipal governments have prepared plans and local officials are on high alert, but they have little experience dealing with a new infrastructural fact in a major disease outbreak: the gig economy. In Wuhan, China, where the COVID-19 outbreak originated, delivery drivers have played a major role in keeping the city going during containment efforts. In San Francisco, say, if people begin to shelter in place—or even simply shy away from heading out—it would seem likely that more people would order groceries or dinner rather than put themselves at risk.

Gig-economy companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Instacart have two distinct features. One, they are particularly popular in large urban centers, where they play a now-crucial role in transportation and the delivery of local goods. Two, California’s recent legislation notwithstanding, the labor platforms don’t have employees as they have traditionally been understood. Uber drivers and Instacart delivery people receive financial incentives to work, but they are not compelled by a set work schedule.

These two factors make for all sorts of possible disruptions to normal life if a large-scale disease outbreak were to strike an American city. What will people who have grown used to DoorDash delivery and Lyft rides do? How will the gig workers respond? What will the labor platforms do? What will local governments allow or attempt to compel?

People’s actions will influence how the outbreak plays out, and these questions have never been answered in practice. There’s no this-worked-last-time playbook to run. The new coronavirus is novel not only in its biological configuration, but in how it will be linked to these new technological systems.

County health officers do have experience preparing for disease outbreaks, with the closest analogue being the variant of H1N1 that arose in the spring of 2009. But back then, the whole set of technologies that underpin the gig economy was not around, Jennifer Vines, the health officer for Multnomah County, Oregon, told me. “We’re having to think differently,” she said. Her county is “just starting to map out a regional summit around these exact questions that would include transportation workers. We’re not going with doomsday, but what are the cascading effects?”

For now, Vines and her team have issued basic guidance with fairly standard advice about washing hands, considering future child-care plans, and lightly stocking up on food. They’ve worked with schools, businesses, and some health clinics. Next will come guidance for cities, correctional institutions, long-term care facilities, and homeless shelters. Then they’ll try to convene other companies, including gig-economy outfits, though precisely what will come out of that meeting is unclear.

Another thing that’s not clear: the extent to which the companies themselves have considered the issues of the disease outbreak deeply. I asked America’s most prominent delivery and ride-hailing services—Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates, Instacart, and Amazon—for comment about their disease-outbreak preparedness planning. Only Postmates and Instacart responded to me.

“Community health and safety is paramount at Postmates, and we have shared precautionary [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance with those carrying out deliveries so that they are aware,” Postmates told me in a statement. “We will continue to encourage employees, merchants, consumers, and everyone to follow preventative measures such as washing hands and staying in if you are sick.”

“We’re actively working with local and national authorities to monitor the situation as it unfolds,” Instacart said in a statement. “We’re adhering to recommendations from public-health officials to ensure we’re operating safely with minimal disruption to our service, while also taking the appropriate precautionary measures to keep teams, shoppers, and customers safe.”

It’s possible to think through some of the basic scenarios that people will face if an outbreak becomes severe. The dilemmas are, in fact, all too easy to imagine in the absence of clear plans. Consider ride-hailing. If public transit comes to be seen as too risky because it’s so filled with people, Ubers and Lyfts could be considered the least risky option. Demand would surge.

[ Read: The servant economy]

In many wealthy urban cores, Uber and Lyft drivers actually come from far outside the center of the metro area. If those drivers decide to quarantine themselves at home as demand goes up, the price of a ride could shoot very high. Conversely, if drivers flood into metro centers from outlying regions, they could become vectors spreading COVID-19 within cities and bringing it to outlying areas.

Conflicting situations such as this pose hard choices for cities and companies alike. Uber and Lyft could limit price increases, or prevent drivers from entering certain areas. Or local public-health officers could determine that ride-hail drivers are a risk to public safety and tell the companies to stop operation within their jurisdictions. Would Uber and Lyft accept an exclusion zone? Would drivers and riders? Such restrictions could leave drivers with precarious finances unable to pay their bills.

One silver lining could be that the tracking the companies do of their drivers and riders can make the work of epidemiologists easier, Vines noted. In recent years, during a measles outbreak, health officials were able to contact drivers who had been exposed to the disease by their riders. Still, it’s hard to find this comforting.

Imagine another not-far-fetched scenario. If people see a public-health crisis unfolding, they might begin to make large orders on Amazon to stock up. But Amazon itself could easily suffer during an outbreak. Given the demanding labor policies of the retail behemoth and its subcontracted delivery companies, workers might be unlikely to want to miss shifts if they’re feeling a little under the weather. It could just be sniffles—but what if it’s COVID-19? An outbreak at one or more key facilities could cause the infrastructure that provides delivery services to falter just as demand surges. Suddenly, the convenience of having all the supplies you need to weather an outbreak arrive at your doorstep would disappear.

For every little thing in modern life, a “servant economy” app exists. If schools are out, will demand at Care.com surge? If people don’t want to run out for dog food, will they turn to Chewy and Pet Plate? The dark side of hitting buttons on a phone and having things happen out there in the world is that other people—humans susceptible to viral infection—have to make all those things happen.

No one knows yet how serious a COVID-19 outbreak will be in America, nor how disruptive it will prove for everyday life in any given place. But even if the virological properties of the disease are less nasty than early reporting implies, some Americans may witness a grim technological future that few imagined. Crossbreeding this disease with the nation’s platform economy might mean that the rich will shelter in place, safe and sound, while the poor troll through the streets, taking their chances for a necessary payday.

*********

WHAT THE DUBIOUS CORONA POLL REVEALS

Americans are desperate to believe the worst about one another.

By Yascha Mounk | Published February 28, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted February 29, 2020 |

HAVE YOU HEARD that 38 percent of Americans won’t drink Corona beer, because they are afraid of contracting the coronavirus?

For the past hours, this finding has spread across the internet like wildfire (or, more apt, a dangerous disease). CNN, the New York Post, and Vice all wrote up the poll.

On Twitter, where “38% of Americans” was the top national trend for parts of the day, many writers with large followings used it as an occasion to condemn their fellow citizens as idiots. “38% of Americans shouldn’t be allowed to roam free,” Benjamin Dreyer, an author, wrote.

The problem here is that the poll, published by the PR agency 5WPR, absolutely did not find what the wags on Twitter say it did. Its dissemination, however, does tell us an awful lot about a screwed-up media system that allows unscrupulous companies and individuals to spread misinformation.

The original press release from 5WPR notes that in a survey of 737 beer-drinking Americans, 38 percent said they “would not buy Corona under any circumstances now.” By presenting this finding in the context of other questions that are explicitly about the coronavirus, the press release creates the impression that Americans’ reluctance to drink the beer is due to the coronavirus. “There is no question that Corona beer is suffering because of the coronavirus,” Ronn Torossian, the CEO of 5WPR, says in the press release. “Could one imagine walking into a bar and saying ‘Hey, can I have a Corona?’ or ‘Pass me a Corona.’”

But this connection is manufactured, and Torossian is ignoring far more mundane reasons Americans might not buy a Corona, including that they don’t like the taste. Of those Americans who did report regularly drinking Corona, only 4 percent said they would now stop drinking the beer.

A number of major news outlets appear to have walked right into the trap. Because they did not understand that the original press release was walking a fine line between deeply misleading claims and outright lies, their articles have inadvertently fallen on the side of the lie. As a viral tweet by CNN put it, the survey supposedly found that 38 percent of Americans would not drink Corona, “because of the coronavirus.”

It is one thing for unscrupulous PR agencies to get their name out by trying to mislead the public in a shameless manner. It is quite another for some of the country’s most prestigious and well-known media outlets to let themselves be played.

After repeated phone calls, emails, and tweets to 5WPR and its chief executive, I was finally able to get access to the full questions asked in the poll. These make clear that the survey was a fishing expedition designed to elicit viral stats. The questions asked in the poll include “Is Corona related to the coronavirus?” and “In light of the coronavirus, do you plan to stop drinking Corona?” But my requests for the results to these questions have so far gone unheeded. Maybe, just maybe, that’s because the results show that most Americans get the difference between a disease and a beer.

Ariel Edwards-Levy, the polling editor for HuffPost and one of the first journalists to register skepticism about the poll on Twitter, has also been unable to get access to the actual data. As she told me, “One of the best things a media outlet can do when reporting on polls is to insist on transparency about exactly what questions were asked and whom they were asked of. It’s also important that reporters treat polling as critically as they would any other source—for instance, being wary of ‘shock’ findings, contextualizing results with other available data, and avoiding the tendency to overstate or overinterpret results.”

By all appearances, journalists working for outlets from CNN to the New York Post have failed this test. As a result, they have made themselves unwitting tools of a clever misinformation campaign. (Journalists for CNN, Vice, and the New York Post have not yet responded to messages asking for comment.)

The strange virality of the Corona poll demonstrates that there are ruthless PR flacks who are willing to play fast and loose with the truth. It also shows that there are many journalists at supposedly trustworthy news outlets who are so desperate to rush to publication that they can wind up misinforming their public. (What else is new?)

The real question is why this obscure poll would, even if it had been true, be able to capture the imagination of so many people. And the answer is as obvious as it is saddening: Clearly, a lot of Americans already think that their fellow citizens are stupid. The real reason a fake finding could have spread so far so quickly is that it confirmed prejudices about the world that many have held all along.

_____

YASCHA MOUNK is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a senior adviser at Protect Democracy. He is the author of The People vs. Democracy.

********

How to Think About the Plummeting Stock Market

No one knows exactly how much damage the coronavirus will do to the global economy, but investors have to guess.

By JOE PINSKER | Published February 28, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted February 29, 2020 |

OVER THE PAST WEEK, stock markets around the world plunged as distressing news about the spread of the novel coronavirus continued to accumulate. In the United States, the three major stock indexes—the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite, and the S&P 500—fell more than 10 percent below their recent peaks, a sharp decline that qualifies in Wall Street terminology as a market “correction.” One investor quoted in The Wall Street Journal called it a “bloodbath.”

The global stock market is, theoretically, the distillation of how investors think everything that happens in the world will play out in the economy. Right now, judging by these drops, investors are much less optimistic than they were a week ago. But what they’re predicting is not only how bad the outbreak could be in terms of workers staying home sick, drops in consumer spending, or supply-chain disruptions; it’s also how bad people think it could be. Those might turn out to be two very different things.

Public perception of a crisis can be extremely consequential in financial markets. “The notion of a pandemic is pretty scary to people, and they’re going to hunker down and be careful about how they live their lives” if bleak news continues to roll in, says Richard Sylla, a former professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business. They may, for instance, start to skip vacations or dine out less. Airlines and restaurants, in turn, might lose revenue or even limit service because of what they think their customers will do. All of this combined would carry negative consequences for the economy, regardless of how catastrophic the direct impact of the disease actually turns out to be. “What people are thinking, even if it’s wrong, maybe matters more on a day-to-day basis [in the stock market] than what the truth is,” Sylla said.

What investors think the public is thinking is therefore crucial. Whether the costs of the outbreak turn out to be historically large or not, there is a risk that investors’ worries will snowball during this period of uncertainty, leading them to panic-sell and exacerbate any financial damage. “If in the next 20 years [the economy is] only going to be disrupted for three months, that suggests a very small impact on the market,” says Robert J. Shiller, a Nobel Prize–winning economist and the author of Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events. But the situation could be much worse, and when investors think in “grandiose terms,” Shiller told me, that could “trigger other worrying.”

Predicting the emotional reactions of the entire world population to coronavirus would be a bit easier if investors could turn to the market effects of previous pandemics for guidance. But history provides few indications of what might happen to the economy if the coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes, continue to spread. “This is kind of a new thing,” Shiller said. “It’s too much to ask for the market to get it right.”

The closest analogue is the global influenza outbreak of 1918 and ’19, which killed tens of millions of people. In 1918, the stock market actually did fine—the Dow rose a little. In the years after that, Sylla noted, “the stock market didn’t do much, and while its trend was flat, there were fluctuations within that—some ups and downs, just like we see now.”

But drawing any conclusions from 100 years ago is difficult because, among other reasons, a lot of other stuff was happening then—namely, World War I. Because of that, says John Wald, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s College of Business, “it’s really hard to say whether [the 1918 pandemic] was priced correctly or not correctly” by the market.

Perhaps a better parallel is the flu pandemic of 1957 and ’58, which originated in East Asia and killed at least 1 million people, including an estimated 116,000 in the U.S. In the second half of 1957, the Dow fell about 15 percent. “Other things happened over that time period” too, Wald notes, but “at least there was no world war.” More recent outbreaks, such as SARS and MERS, were more contained and didn’t wreak as much global economic havoc.

Although the annual flu season is quite different from a pandemic, it does provide a good amount of data for economists to analyze. When Wald, along with the researchers Brian McTier and Yiuman Tse, examined trading records from 1998 to 2006, they found that in weeks when the flu was more widespread, stock-market returns were lower. They also found that when there was a higher incidence of the flu in the greater New York City area in particular, trading volume decreased, which is usually bad for the market. Here, the idea is that more professional investors might have gotten sick and executed fewer trades—which would not bode well if COVID-19 were to make its way to New York City.

Sylla’s view of all this as a financial historian is pretty zen. “I wouldn’t pay much attention to the day-to-day reports of the newspapers—‘Here’s a good sign,’ ‘Here’s a bad sign,’” he said. In the short run, the stock market isn’t necessarily a good predictor of how bad the pandemic will get, in part because investors are working off the same scant information as everyone else. “What I would say history shows you is that a problem like this takes many months and maybe even a couple of years to play itself out,” he said. But, he went on, “Wall Street’s idea of history is the last 10 minutes.”

*********

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realitista · 6 years

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The United States, Palmer made clear, had allowed itself to become an accomplice in this plunder. His assessment was unsparing. The West could have turned away this stolen cash; it could have stanched the outflow to shell companies and tax havens. Instead, Western banks waved Russian loot into their vaults. Palmer’s anger was intended to provoke a bout of introspection—and to fuel anxiety about the risk that rising kleptocracy posed to the West itself. After all, the Russians would have a strong interest in protecting their relocated assets. They would want to shield this wealth from moralizing American politicians who might clamor to seize it. Eighteen years before Special Counsel Robert Mueller began his investigation into foreign interference in a U.S. election, Palmer warned Congress about Russian “political donations to U.S. politicians and political parties to obtain influence.” What was at stake could well be systemic contagion: Russian values might infect and then weaken the moral defense systems of American politics and business.

This unillusioned spook was a prophet, and he spoke out at hinge moment in the history of global corruption. America could not afford to delude itself into assuming that it would serve as the virtuous model, much less emerge as an untainted bystander. Yet when Yegor Gaidar, a reformist Russian prime minister in the earliest postcommunist days, asked the United States for help hunting down the billions that the KGB had carted away, the White House refused. “Capital flight is capital flight” was how one former CIA official summed up the American rationale for idly standing by. But this was capital flight on an unprecedented scale, and mere prologue to an era of rampant theft. When the Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman studied the problem in 2015, he found that 52 percent of Russia’s wealth resided outside the country.

#kleptocracy #usa #russia #politics #oligarchy #economy

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wwwwubit · 7 years

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listening now

#music #pop #electronic #electropop

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gnarlyjargon · 8 years

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Thanks ‪@unillusion ‬for the picture tonight! He won a shirt from @royalsna @visiblelivechi @visiblemc rules! Stayed tuned for next open mic! (at Visible Music College Chicago)

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storykeeper-wra · 6 years

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"Freedom”

The Storykeeper had set foot in the room that the Knight took residence in, their quiet conversations and sharing of light intimacies led to him revealing a book upon runes that caught her eyes, "This is not one of my most cherished. But, it is fundamentally sound and has been useful..." He explained one of his most useful magical techniques was derived from the runes within the pages, a smirk upon his lips, one of absolute cruelty, the promise in his eyes.

His aura pulsed wildly for a moment, and even in her, that buried feeling from his memories chewed at her, wanting her to know the same; the joy of demolishing ones moral with a sweep of the hand. Of crippling the enemy so effortlessly.

With his influence so deep, he witnessed his visage in her own as those memories and feelings clawed themselves free, her tattooed hand moving to clutch at her chest. It bubbled up, the sadistic glee as her own aura flared to greet his, more of that innate corruption revealing itself.

"You understand this. Even if you hide it... your soul can see the joy such power can bring... tell me... what do you see yourself doing at that moment?" The Dread Father inquired, eyes upon the woman.

"In that moment?" Storykeeper whispers back to him, "Letting go... No longer sitting here and holding back, being what others assume of me. Ice freezing their blood as their screams fill the air until their very hears burst from the slivers of ice and shadow shredding the muscle. I want them to fall one by one as the others watch on in horror and helplessness before they too succumb to this fate..."

Pride nodded his head slowly, eyes drifting shut, "That is not just mere words coming from you. It is settled in your very being. It is part of you. You feel more aware, more alive, having spoken it aloud, no?"

"I do..." She murmurs, "It wasn't part of me until recently, I've never felt such things... these feelings and sensations." Part of her was horrified by the words that had left her lips, a small voice screaming in protest as she continued to speak, "Many view me as glass," There was a pause, choosing her words carefully, "I want them to learn that I am not so fragile."

"Something you should not have to remind them of... you are not fragile, my Keeper. And yet, they believe you to be. To see you as the weak little damsel." He had reached out, taking hold of her wrist and guiding her hand up. "They believe you unable to even defend yourself. Merely the one who holds the book hides behind the mask, listens to the tales. But you see it... deep down, do you not? The power that stretches endlessly within you.." He was calling towards it, seeking that deeply seeded energy within her to come out.

Storykeeper met his gaze before her eyes drift to her hand, "I choose those things not out of weakness..." The Keeper bows her head in a nod, as it rose from the depths to answer his call. Her eyes drift shut for a moment only to open in their true luster of unillusioned gaze as the power began to collect in her outstretched palm between them.

"No... you do so because you wish them not to see it. You wish to keep the control you have..." He cooed, leaning inward. He wrested her attention, and she could see the flickers. Every so often, no longer did she see the Elven form he chose, but the skeletal monster, the Lich that she cared for so much, before it reverted back. "You can feel it... how easily it responds. How quickly it seeps to the surface. It wants you to allow it to have freedom."

Her eyes met his, there was no revulsion at the sight of the skeletal creature she'd given herself to, "I want to give it freedom..." she whispers to the monster.

"Let it flow through you... like a river. Not like a waterfall. Let it remember the path it is meant to take." He whispered in return to her, slipping his fingers to rest right against her own, still feeling the flow of it.

She relaxed, slowly and bit by bit feeling it grow within her before flowing free, at first it made her nervous, anxious even but then it felt natural. Following the path as it began to spread from her fingers and over his own. Slow and steady like a deep river, it called to him like always, reaching out for his aura. For him.

"You see? You believe you need to restrain it. To contain the very energies within you. But it calls to be let go. To be released into this realm of ours." He called to her, entirely calm, easing her magic so that it flowed more freely. His essence, the tendrils of it that had been left within her purposefully, had latched into her being and slowly twisting and adding to it all.

"But what if I lose control?" She whispers, even as this happened, as she inhaled, embracing it all so eagerly. It almost effortless as the illusions she weaved for herself.

"You will not. You hold a fear ingrained in you. That the loss of control will swallow you whole. That it will consume you... fight it. Make it all understand that you are the conduit, and it listens to you," Pride assures her.

At first, there was nothing but then it felt like an eruption. It pushed at his own aura within the room as her illusions shattered like glass being broken it was audible and made an ear twitch. A swirling mass of shadows and ice danced in her hand so beautifully as she began to smile then grin.

Pulling back slowly, the Lich's expression morphed into one of dark amusement, a look of pride that had been ingrained into him, by her acceptance and actions. Pulling away from her, he had taken hold of her wrist and guided her to stand. "You see it now... when one relinquishes their fear, anything is possible..." Slowly, she felt his weight press against her back, lips brushing the tip of her ear. "You are infinitely more beautiful when you refuse to fear anything."

Her own eyes were aglow up with a pride of her own, barely aware of herself standing or much else until she felt his weight. She was always so acutely aware of him, but wasn't one always aware of Death? Her ear gave a twitch as his lips brush the tip and she exhales, "I am?" She whispers, leaning back into him, relaxing. It felt so natural.

"Yes... They may see you fragile. That you cannot hold your own. I will never see you as such." His hand skimmed along her abdomen.

She gives a faint nod, her breath coming out in pleasured sigh from his delicate touch, "I know... but you saw that in me before even I did..." A small smile on her lips as her eyes drift close.

"The perks, of seeing more than just one world. It allows me to see both sides of things. You need to embrace this side if you ever intend on moving onward. Otherwise, it will cripple you, and never will you continue to grow. Always will you be looked down upon. But you know this. You see this now." The closeness of the woman did not go missed by him.

The Keeper listened to his words, they made sense. Each time they met, more and more sense was made. Clearer. "I want to be free to grow... I don't want to be seen as that creature to be protected. I was fine long before them and I'll be fine after their stories end... I want to embrace it wholly."

He nodded against her. ”We will make this a reality, my Storykeeper..." His hands smoothed along her front, feeling the material of her dress just barely, ending just beneath the swell of her breasts, and then traveled downward. He knew she could feel it akin to his claws running along her very soul, touching the magic that echoed within her being. "... Can you feel me, Keeper? Feel how deep my touch resonates to you?"

A shuddered gasp comes from her lips at the feel of his hands, for all that it mattered she may as well have been nude in his grasp, "Yes..." She nearly purrs out, seeming to just melt against his larger frame tilting her head back to gaze up at him, her eyes swirls of the magic she holds in her.

"This... is what I know of you. I am able to feel this power that wished to be drawn forth. And now, you have. Just like the soul you have promised me." He fell silent, settling against her. If he did anymore, he was certain she'd nearly overload with the power he was drawing from her... not that it would be a horrible sight.

She smiled softly, leaning up to brush her lips along the underside of his jaw, her energy bristling along where her lips had traveled, "Thank you..." Her attention wholly upon him and the power moving beneath her skin. Everything felt alive, that if she wanted entire cities would crumble and it made her chest nearly burst with joy.

"You are more than welcome..." He trailed off. She was pleased, and he had done exactly what he needed, to properly awaken her. She was ready to face the world, and he swore he could almost 'feel' terrible for this damned Hammer. They had sought to chase her first, and then turned their gaze upon him, without realizing that the very woman they wished to save, was utterly devoted to him.

She turned to face him, hands flat against his chest leaving trails of energy as she runs her fingers downward. She'd destroy anyone who tried to even remotely harm him. Friend or foe, they'd cease to be for wanting to harm her Knight, "I owe you so much...." She admits.

"You already have found a way to repay me for such." With a free hand, it touched at her cheek, before he spoke once more. "I intend to continue researching and working through the tomes I have here. If you wish, you are welcome to remain here for the evening."

She leaned in towards his touch that she seemed to constantly crave, eyes closing as she smiles, "I'd like that... To remain here, that is."

Collab with: @ebonconclave

#[Price She Paid]#[The Knight Pride]#[The Keeper of Stories]

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