Monday, May 04, 2020

Star Wars Day - NICHOLAS WHITLAM. Malcolm Turnbull, A Bigger Picture



An object cannot make you good or evil. The temptation of power, forbidden knowledge, even the desire to do good can lead some down that path. But only you can change yourself.
Bendu (Star Wars) #MayThe4 -

 

NICHOLAS WHITLAM. Malcolm Turnbull, A Bigger Picture (Hardy Grant Books, 2020)



When Malcolm Turnbull was dumped as Prime Minister he joined his namesake Captain William Bligh in having been twice removed by his subordinates. Turnbull spends much of this book telling us who betrayed him on both occasions, but he gets the reasons for their insubordination wrong. Continue reading 
The Virus vs The Virus A Trump Twitter Timeline, Self Praise, and American Medicine in Crisis: Dave Pell: “Here’s a look at what the President of the United States was Tweeting as America’s Covid-19 body count continued to mount. The below examples are not exhaustive. But they are certainly exhausting...”
See also The New Yorker – What the Coronavirus Crisis Reveals About American Medicine – Medicine is a system for delivering care and support; it’s also a system of information, quality control, and lab science. All need fixing. “…Every enterprise learns its strengths and weaknesses from an Aisin-fire moment—from a disaster that spirals out of control. What those of us in the medical profession have learned from the COVID-19 crisis has been dismaying, and on several fronts. Medicine isn’t a doctor with a black bag, after all; it’s a complex web of systems and processes…”

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Dying Gives Us a Chance to Confront Truth, by C. Kavin Rowe(Duke University Divinity School; author, Christianity's Surprise: A Sure and Certain Hope(2020))

The data regarding COVID-19 is so bad that “none of us would be able to publish a paper in a third-rate econ or poli sci journal” using it — so, asks Jason Brennan (Georgetown), is the government’s reliance on it for issuing policies & orders a sign of delegitimizing incompetence

WSJ.com: “Employers and legislators are turning their attention to the eventual reopening of workplaces, and in some places it is already happening: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is letting salons, tattoo parlors, gyms and other businesses open as early as Friday, while some South Carolina retailers opened this week with restrictions. But many employees remain nervous about their health, and about how they will make ends meet if they can’t return to work. Meanwhile, many employers are confused by an onslaught of guidelines, rules, executive orders and recommendations from the White House, governors and an array of federal and state agencies. To help make sense of fast-changing rules and norms, The Wall Street Journal consulted a panel of employment lawyers and other experts. While not all of the policies and guidelines referred to here are hard-and-fast requirements, the following answers to some common questions do reflect best practices, the experts say…”