Saturday, December 19, 2020

Criminal COVID: Lost Kafka

Almanac: Tom Stoppard on God

“I don’t claim to know that God exists. I only claim that he does without my knowing it.” Tom Stoppard, Jumpers Continue reading Almanac: Tom Stoppard on God 


Santa pause: COVID-19's threat to Christmas


New border restrictions wreaked havoc on the eve of the Christmas break and Prime Minister Scott Morrison conceded he was powerless to stop the states shutting the door to NSW as Sydney's coronavirus outbreak spread on Friday.

With Sydneysiders on a knife edge about whether the virus has spread across the city, the other states and territories have started to reimpose border checkpoints and travel permits.

Travellers from the outbreak’s centre, the northern beaches stretching from Manly to Palm Beach, have been either banned from leaving NSW or must quarantine for 14 days if they do.

Sydneysiders line up to be tested at a pop-up clinic at Frenchs Forest in Sydney. Renee Nowytarger

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian reported 10 new cases, bringing the total to 28, and warned the next 48 hours would be critical as thousands of people lined up to get tested.

Late on Friday, NSW Health issued an alert for people who had visited a swag of businesses around the north shore, eastern suburbs, inner city and Cronulla to get tested and isolate. The department urged everyone in NSW to get tested if suffering from COVID-19 symptoms.




Was Orwell's reputation protected by his early death? He avoided several controversies that would have altered how we see him   oh well 



How did Kurt, feckless Ivy frat boy, became Vonnegut, satirist to the galaxy? His early love letters offer clues  galaxy 


“The difficulty of making out the plain sense of poetry.” Literary studies faces a foundational problem: Making distinctions comes with diminishing returns 


Like a nightmarish accordion, Kafka’s “lost” writings expand, trapping readers in their complexities. They make no easy task for the critic 



Yes, your boss can fire you if you refuse to get a Covid vaccine CNBC


CalPERS Employees Beware: Don’t Fill Out Non-Confidential Survey Jiggered to Falsely Boost Executive Bonuses

Memo to CalPERS employees: If you see staff or vendors profiteering, call a lawyer. You could win a financial award and stop the abuse.


DoorDash Delivery Workers Would Need to Toil for Two Days to Buy a Single Share of Their $60 Billion Company

A look at how DoorDash exploits its workers, and how they and some legislators are seeking to change that


Related:  House Intel Republicans not told about Eric Swalwell’s relationship with Chinese spy.

The press / social media blackout on this is just another reason why a Biden presidency will be widely regarded as illegitimate. Before the election, my column on this subject was spiked because of journalistic ethics or something.

Plus:  Swalwell’s Swill. “The spy not only infiltrated Rep. Eric Swalwell’s network, she may have shared his bed, or so we can infer from Swalwell’s assertion that the response to the question whether she did may be ‘classified.’ Axios seems to have missed that aspect of the story, which the New York Post picked up here.”