Saturday, April 18, 2020

The Coronavirus Is Exposing Little Tyrants All Over The Country

“The recurring fantasy of my life (and maybe yours, and yours) is one of perfect continuous travel, this unending hop from one point to another, the pleasures found not in the singular marvels of any destination but in the constancy of serial arrivals and departures, and the comforting companion knowledge that you’ll never quite get intimate enough for any trouble to start brewing, which makes you overflow with a beatific acceptance and love for all manner of humanity.”
UQ Union Finally Kicked Into Gear by Sexy Satire Writers

John Updike's goal is 1,000 words a day. Richard Ford awakes at six so he can begin as soon as possible. Philip Roth follows Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Wolfe in preferring to stand for hours on end. Oh, the discipline and routine needed to be a writer.


Rich And Healthy Vs. Poor And Dead In NYC The American Conservative. “Tom Hanks will thank the food delivery guys for their service on SNL but we still won’t pay them a living wage.” 






JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON: The Coronavirus Is Exposing Little Tyrants All Over The Country. “We’ve now witnessed local and state governments issue decrees about what people can and cannot buy in stores, arrest parents playing with their children in public parks, yank people off public buses at random, remove basketball rims along with private property, ticket churchgoers, and in one case try—and fail—to chase down a lone runner on an empty beach. All of this, we’re told, is for our own good.”

40% of people with severe COVID-19 experience neurological complications

 Joanna Biggs reviews Becoming Beauvoir: A Life, by Kate Kirkpatrick (Bloomsbury), Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Me, a Memoir, by Deirdre Blair (Atlantic), and Diary of a Philosophy Student, Vol. II, by Simone de Beauvoir (Illinois), at the London Review of Books.

 Robert Zaretsky reviews The Plague, by Albert Camus in “Out of a Clear Blue Sky: Camus’ The Plague and Coronavirus”, at the Times Literary Supplement.

  Heather E. Price reviews Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility (Princeton), by Jennifer M. Morton at the Teachers College Record.
Uni Philosopical Satire and Reality Ahead:

 Pavlou said the claims he breached university policies mainly related to his activism. They include satirical social media posts, opposition to the university’s contract with the Confucius Institute, and comments critical of the vice-chancellor, Peter Høj.
University of Queensland takes disciplinary action against pro-Hong Kong student activist
The Guardian
(UQ Senator and occasional good bloke, Drew Pavlou, is in the firing line today, and it’s not just a Facebook comments section that’s grown hostile to his chaotic mix of aggression and tension. Cartoon villain Peter Hoj, fresh from diving into a literal pool filled with gold coins, has reportedly sought to expel Pavlou.
Hong Kong democracy activists arrested
The Canberra Times

 The comments, from the head of China’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Luo Huining, come amid escalating accusations of overreach by Beijing into the city’s legislative council and judiciary.
Luo, a 65-year-old Communist party loyalist appointed in January, was predicted at the time to push back against the pro-democracy movement.
In a speech for China’s national security education day on Wednesday, Luo said Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement was a “major blow” to the rule of law, threatening the one country, two systems principle under which it operates with China, and was influenced by pro-independence and radical violent forces.
Many people have “a rather weak concept of national security”, he said.
“If the anthill eroding the role of rule of law is not cleared, the dam of national security will be destroyed and the wellbeing of all Hong Kong residents will be damaged.”
China’s top official in Hong Kong pushes for national security law

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