Not merely because of their masks:<\/p>\n
Nurses in a Taiwan Hospital protecting babies during Earthquake pic.twitter.com\/I66wVRdMME
\u2014 Bonjour (@imromec) April 3, 2024<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of \u201cHelpers\u201d there. In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of \u201cthe communism of everyday life\u201d are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza). <\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Politics<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.\u201d \u2013Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
2024<\/p>\n
Less than a year to go!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
RCP Poll Averages, March 29<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/rcp_polls.png\")
<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019ll leave this up until this coming Friday, so I can at least mumble something about trends. Nationally, Trump is up 2.4% in the Five-Way, same as last week, give or take. Trump is still up in all the Swing States (more here). I\u2019ve highlighted PA, (1) because Trump is actually down there, and (2) it\u2019s an outlier, has been for weeks. Why isn\u2019t Trump doing well there?<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Trump (R): \u201cWhy have Trump\u2019s bond documents been rejected \u2013 and what does this mean for his legal troubles?\u201d [Independent]. \u201cDocuments for Donald Trump\u2019s $175m bond in his New York civil fraud case have been rejected and \u2018returned for correction\u2019 to the former president due to missing financial information. A docket appeared on the New York County Supreme Court website on Wednesday, detailing that a \u2018Bond\/Undertaking\u2019 had been \u2018returned for correction.\u2019 The court said that the reason for the rejection was that some of the documentation filed on behalf of the Republican presidential candidate failed to include a current financial statement, power of attorney or list an attorney-in-fact\u2026 Mr Trump will now have an opportunity to resubmit the documents with the proper information in order for his bond to be accepted. This means the former president being forced to share his recent financial records.\u201d And on the calendar: \u201cWhat the $175m bond really buys the candidate is time \u2013 several months in fact, as his appeal against the fraud judgement will not take place until September at the earliest, when the court\u2019s autumn term commences. That, however, does bring the matter uncomfortably close to Election Day on 5 November \u2013 a period when many of the candidate\u2019s other legal entanglements likewise threaten to come to a head.\u201d \u2022 Accident? Or for a purpose greater than trolling?<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Biden (D): \u201cJoe Biden can\u2019t get out of the hole he\u2019s already dug for himself\u201d [New York Post]. \u201cBut you\u2019d much rather be where Trump is in the polls right now than where Biden is. Trump was never in this strong a position at any point in the 2016 or 2020 elections. At this stage in 2020, Biden was up 4 points in Michigan, 3 in Wisconsin and North Carolina and 2 in Pennsylvania. At this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was up 10 in Michigan and Wisconsin, 9 in Pennsylvania and 2 in North Carolina \u2014 and she lost all four states.\u201d And: \u201cYet Biden refuses to change course or change his message: The economy is good, Trump is a threat to democracy, and abortion, abortion, abortion. Those campaign tactics helped Democrats avoid what should have been a much worse loss in 2022, but they still lost the national popular vote in House races [they did] \u2014 and a repeat of that showing would mean President Trump: The Sequel. But don\u2019t expect an old dog to learn new tricks.\u201d \u2022 Just so long as he doesn\u2019t bite anybody!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cHow Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Could Doom Joe Biden\u201d [Politico]. \u201cBut his campaign and an allied super PAC, American Values 2024, announced in the last month they have collected more than enough signatures to make the ballot in the critical Southwestern battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada, where roughly one in five voters are Latino. Those signatures are still subject to challenge, but if Kennedy does appear on the ballot, it could create dire complications for the Biden campaign. Latino Democrats are now taking the threat of Kennedy\u2019s campaign deadly seriously after national and state leaders were briefed on a previously unreported poll in mid-February by Democratic group Equis Research, which showed Kennedy performing surprisingly well among Latino voters in a dozen battleground states, effectively splintering Biden\u2019s Hispanic coalition from 2020, when he garnered 59 percent Hispanic support. Kennedy\u2019s popularity appears to be a function of name recognition and a general lack of enthusiasm for President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, not to mention voters brushing their views onto the somewhat empty canvas of his candidacy. The poll of 2,010 registered Latino voters found Kennedy winning one in five young Latino voters, and also reported him capturing a sizable 17 percent Latino support in Arizona and an even more robust 21 percent in Nevada\u2014 the highest number among the battleground states polled. The drag on Biden\u2019s Latino support was so great in the survey that Trump was winning among Hispanics overall in 12 battleground states, 41 percent to Biden\u2019s 34 percent.\u201d \u2022 Yikes!<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cColumn: Trump\u2019s vice presidential show and Kennedy\u2019s kamikaze mission\u201d [Los Angeles Times]. On Kennedy\u2019s chances of winning: \u201cI would say slim to none \u2014 but slim was last seen paddling as far and fast as possible away from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. (Much of Kennedy\u2019s family fervently oppose his bid and support Biden\u2019s reelection.) So I would venture to say there is absolutely no chance.\u201d Who gains and who loses with Kennedy running: \u201cThat\u2019s unclear. His platform \u2014 a farrago of liberal and conservative views mashed up with a mess of conspiracy-laden pottage, isn\u2019t easily categorized. He could appeal to both disaffected Democrats and Republicans.\u201d \u2022 In the \u201cchange vs. more of the same\u201d framework, however, Kennedy is definitely in \u201cchange,\u201d as is Trump. And Biden is in \u201cmore of the same\u201d (\u201cfundamentally nothing would change\u201c).<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cThe \u2018Traditional Organizing\u2019 Election?\u201d [Campaigns & Elections]. \u201cSdd another voice to the \u201cfield will be crucial in 2024\u2033 discussion: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The independent presidential candidate told CNN this week that his campaign has deployed some 200,000 volunteers to help him gain ballot access in all 50 states. \u2018We have a very, very good volunteer army out there,\u2019 he said. \u2018We already have the biggest field operation of any campaign. We are going to have no problem getting on the ballot in every state.’\u201d Maybe. More: \u201cCurrently, the candidate is only confirmed to be on the ballot in Utah, and while his campaign claims to have the needed signatures for ballot access in North Carolina (and a handful of other states) ballot access for Kennedy remains a very uphill battle. While Kennedy was talking up the strength of his own operation, consultants have also been calling for investment in field organizing, and talking up how necessary it will be for campaigns to boost spending on organizing programs this cycle\u2026. \u2018It\u2019s 67,000 votes,\u2019 [Jeff Roe, founder of Axiom Strategies, recently told C&E] said, referencing the difference between Hillary Clinton and President Trump\u2019s vote totals in deciding states in 2016. \u2018The investment in those six, maybe seven states on the ground motivating people to vote for their party preference is going to be the whole game.\u2019 Part of the reason why that investment is so crucial is because of how hard it is to thread the needle to reach the right people with an effective TV ad. \u2018You have 18 percent of the population that doesn\u2019t watch video, that don\u2019t have any TV in their house,\u2019 he said. \u2018And then you have streaming, which just passed linear TV last year \u2014 and half of that is not ad supported.’\u201d \u2022\u00a0That statistic on video and TV watching is the most encouraging number I\u2019ve seen in some time.<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cRobert F. Kennedy Jr. is not just a \u2018spoiler candidate’\u201d [The Berkshire Edge]. Letter to the Editor from Kennedy\u2019s Berkshire County campaign coordinator. \u201cTeam Kennedy has over 12,000 volunteers and supporters already registered in Massachusetts. And the effort to get the 10,000-plus signatures to get RFK Jr. on the ballot\u2014so that Americans have their democratically protected choices\u2014will be beginning shortly. Anyone interested in volunteering or just learning more about the policies and platform of the Kennedy-Shanahan Ticket can visit kennedy24.com.\u201d \u2022 Good staffwork. Here is the ballot access page for Kennedy\u2019s site; I clicked on \u201cMassachusetts\u201d to double-check the 10,000 figure:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/kennedy_site.png\")
<\/p>\n
Looks informative and professional. Also, July 30 is very far away if Kennedy has the money and catches fire with volunteers; very close if he does not.<\/p>\n
NC: Kennedy (I): \u201cRFK Jr. is officially joining the NC ballot\u201d [CarolinaCoastOnline]. \u201cThe newly formed We The People political party gathered more than 23,000 signatures, far above the requirement to gain ballot access, with over a month to spare and a 60% buffer to protect against invalid signatures. The NC State Board of Elections has yet to verify the signatures.\u201d \u2022 And I\u2019m sure there\u2019s an army of lawyers protecting \u201cour democracy\u201d by disputing those signatures even as we speak. (Also, the 60% margin seems fair, meaning that the 10,000 figure for MA is really 16,000.)<\/p>\n
NC: Kennedy (I): \u201cHow North Carolina\u2019s presidential election changes if RFK Jr. is on the ballot\u201d [Charlotte Observer]. \u201cStill, Kennedy\u2019s presence on the ballot could have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the election, especially in a swing state like North Carolina. While Trump carried North Carolina in the 2020 election, it was his lowest margin of victory in any state. He won it by only a 1.34% margin, and it was the only state in which he won with less than 50% of the vote.<\/p>\n
Anticipating yet another close race in 2024, both the Biden and Trump campaigns are making North Carolina a priority. It wouldn\u2019t take much to seal the outcome in either candidate\u2019s favor \u2014 and a third-party candidate who could gather even just 2% of the vote could influence whether North Carolina is blue or red in November.\u201d And: \u201cMost polls currently show Trump with a lead over Biden in North Carolina, and that lead grows when third-party candidates like Kennedy are included on the ballot, poll averages show. A new Wall Street Journal poll published this week showed Trump with a six-point lead in North Carolina on a test ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cTerrified Parents, New Age Health Nuts, MAGA Exiles. Meet the R.F.K. Jr. Faithful.\u201d [Michelle Goldberg, New York Times]. \u201c[O]n the ground, I haven\u2019t met many Kennedy-curious voters for whom Biden is a second choice. Instead, Kennedy attracts many of the same sort of alienated political eccentrics who in the past have gravitated to Trump. \u2018They keep saying that he\u2019s pulling from Biden, but most of our people are actually coming from the right,\u2019 said Leigh Merinoff, volunteer chair of the finance committee of American Values. Anecdotes aren\u2019t the same thing as data, and people who go to rallies and volunteer for campaigns aren\u2019t necessarily representative of the electorate, which is full of people who are much more disengaged. Nevertheless, there\u2019s a gap between both Democratic and Republican assumptions about Kennedy\u2019s appeal and the character of his real-life movement. He\u2019s much more of a wild card than left-wing third-party candidates like Stein and Cornel West. There\u2019s something distinctly Trumpy in his campaign\u2019s mix of New Age individualism, social media-fueled paranoia and intense, aching nostalgia for the optimistic America of the early 1960s, when Kennedy\u2019s uncle John F. Kennedy was president and his father, Robert F. Kennedy, served as attorney general. It\u2019s not surprising that some otherwise Trump-leaning voters are picking up on it.\u201d \u2022 So, Kennedy voters are deplorables too?! (As for as <\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cRobert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s running mate and the vaccine wars\u201d [Glenn Kessler, WaPo]. Four Pinocchios: \u201cShanahan does not quite say that vaccines cause autism, but she implies it, demanding a study that is not feasible because it would be unethical. She cites numbers that claim that autism has spiked, without acknowledging the main reason is because the definition of autism has been greatly expanded. This is textbook anti-vaccine rhetoric. The overall effect is to cast doubt on the safety of vaccines. She earns Four Pinocchios.\u201d \u2022 I so, so don\u2019t want to get involved in that discourse; there seems to be a distinct lack of good faith participants, and don\u2019t @ me.<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): That\u2019s the stuff to give the troops:<\/p>\n
Moms are the unsung heroes of our society. They juggle it all without fanfare or accolades. They do it for the love of their children \u2014 a love greater than any other.<\/p>\n
Waking up to the realities of the chronic health epidemic is painful because it is hard to fathom that our\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/4EWTSqVqnm
\u2014 Nicole Shanahan (@NicoleShanahan) April 3, 2024<\/p>\n
If Moms are for us, who can be against us?<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): Shanahan on policy:<\/p>\n
My running mate Nicole Shanahan explains how the Kennedy\/Shanahan ticket will end the chronic disease epidemic:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Bobby is focused on ending the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, I am going to assemble the best technologists and scientists in the world and we\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/v9kqLJKEFb
\u2014 Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) March 30, 2024<\/p>\n
Sounds good \u201cat a high level,\u201d as we say, but there are two problems beyond the Silicon Valley triumphalism: (1) We don\u2019t really have health records databases; we have databases categorizing putative health treatments in medical facilities for payment purposes, contaminated by upcoding, and (2) AI = BS (though I grant some pattern recognition applications aren\u2019t as pernicious as the ChatGPT branch of the field).<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cHow Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s VP Pick, Got So Rich\u201d [Forbes]. \u201cShanahan\u2019s wealth comes from her previous marriage to Sergey Brin, the Google cofounder whose net worth Forbes estimates at more than $120 billion\u2014enough to rank him as the tenth richest person in the world.\u201d And: \u201cDivorce records are not clear on how much Shanahan walked away with, and neither she nor Brin responded to requests for comment, but Brin\u2019s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission offer revealing information. The documents show a decrease in his Class B shares of Alphabet (Google\u2019s parent company) totaling some 2.6 million shares sometime between May and December 2023. During that period, he did not report any share sales or gifts, which would normally be required for Brin, an Alphabet director who owns more than 5% of the company\u2019s shares. In all likelihood, those shares, worth about $390 million at current prices, went to Shanahan: Transfers due to divorce do not need to be disclosed immediately in insider transaction filings, according to four experts contacted by Forbes.\u201d And but: \u201cAssuming that Brin\u2019s SEC filings show a transfer to Shanahan, she didn\u2019t get close to $1 billion in Class B shares. However, Brin has historically executed parallel transactions for his Alphabet Class C shares\u2014which do not appear in annual ownership filings because they do not have voting rights\u2014selling or gifting similar numbers of Class B and Class C shares at similar times. If he followed his usual pattern and also transferred approximately 2.6 million Class C shares to Shanahan, then taken together, those 5.2 million shares would be worth just under $800 million today. Add in any other assets she may have gotten in the split, like homes they lived in together or some cash from Brin\u2019s $900 million in Alphabet shares he sold during their marriage, and that could put her closer to the $1 billion she wanted. But even if Shanahan only got the Class B shares, a fortune of around $400 million would still make her the wealthiest vice presidential pick in decades\u2014likely since Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford\u2019s VP. The fat fortune would also give her plenty of liquidity to jump-start a longshot presidential bid.\u201d \u2022 The essential point.<\/p>\n
Kennedy (I): \u201cTulsi Gabbard turned down RFK Jr.\u2019s offer to be his running mate, she says\u201d [ABC]. \u201cFormer Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, declined an offer to be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s running mate in his independent presidential bid, she tells ABC News. \u2018I met with Kennedy several times, and we have become good friends,\u2019 she said in a statement. \u2018He asked if I would be his running mate. After careful consideration, I respectfully declined.’\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
PA: \u201cF&M Poll: Pennsylvania Moving in More Positive Direction\u201d [Politics PA]. \u201cThe good news for President Joe Biden comes in the form of a two-horse race against former President Donald Trump. After landing within the margin of error against the 45th president in February, the 46th president has more than doubled the 4.0% margin of error (MOE) in this survey with a 48-38% percent advantage.\u201d However: \u201cWhen two other options were presented to the respondents in the form of Jill Stein (Green) and Robert Kennedy Jr. (Independent), the race moved within the MOE with Biden at 42% and Trump at 40%. Kennedy (9%) and Stein (3%) seemed to take more support from Biden, who was at 42-37% with the same question in February.\u201d<\/p>\n
#COVID19<\/p>\n
\u201cI am in earnest \u2014 I will not equivocate \u2014 I will not excuse \u2014 I will not retreat a single inch \u2014 AND I WILL BE HEARD.\u201d \u2013William Lloyd Garrison<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); \u201cIowa COVID-19 Tracker\u201d (in IA, but national data). \u201cInfection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts\u201d (especially on hospitalization by city).<\/p>\n
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put \u201cCOVID\u201d in the subject line. Thank you!<\/p>\n
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d\u2019Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).<\/p>\n
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).<\/p>\n
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux us\u00e9es); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).<\/p>\n
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3). <\/p>\n
Stay safe out there!<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts<\/p>\n
LEGEND<\/p>\n
1) \u2605 for charts new today; all others are not updated.<\/p>\n
2) For a full-size\/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and \u201copen image in new tab.\u201d<\/p>\n
NOTES<\/p>\n
[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at the level of previous Trump peaks. Not a great victory. Note also the area \u201cunder the curve,\u201d besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.<\/p>\n
[2] (Biobot) Backward revisions, I hate them.<\/p>\n
[3] (CDC Variants) As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.\u201d \u201cBiweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.\u201d Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they\u2019re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.<\/p>\n
[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game\u2026 <\/p>\n
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Looks like a very gradual leveling off to a non-zero baseline, to me.<\/p>\n
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. \u201cMaps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET\u2020\u201d. <\/p>\n
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.<\/p>\n
[8] (Cleveland) Flattening.<\/p>\n
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Now up, albeit in the rear view mirror.<\/p>\n
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly.<\/p>\n
Stats Watch<\/p>\n
Employment Situation: \u201cUnited States Initial Jobless Claims\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cThe number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US surged by 11,000 from the previous week\u2019s upwardly revised value to 221,000 on the period ending March 30th, the most in two months, and well above market expectations of 214,000. The result suggested a departure from an extended period of low initial claim counts and contrasted against other strong labor reports released this week, suggesting that tightness in the US labor market may be absorbing the delayed impact of elevated interest rates.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Manufacturing: \u201cSen. Tammy Duckworth calls for FAA review of Boeing\u2019s failure to disclose 737 Max flight deck features to pilots\u201d [CBS]. \u201cSenator Tammy Duckworth is urging the Federal Aviation Administration to take a closer look at how it responds to what she says is a pattern by Boeing of failing to disclose flight deck features of the 737 Max to pilots, according to a letter to be sent Thursday and obtained exclusively by CBS News. Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and chair of the Senate\u2019s Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation Subcommittee, is calling on FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker to investigate why Alaska Airlines pilots were unaware the plane\u2019s cockpit door was designed to automatically open during a rapid depressurization \u2014 which is exactly what occurred on flight AS1282 when a door panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out mid-flight in early January. \u2018Boeing\u2019s failure to disclose this feature is chilling given its history of concealing 737 MAX information from pilots,\u2019 Duckworth writes. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters following a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on January 17 that the flight crew should have been told about the feature. \u2018Nobody knew about it. So it was a complete surprise. And the flight crew needs to know,\u2019 she said, adding, \u2018knowing this could occur is pretty key to safety.’\u201d \u2022 Meanwhile, the universal blackout of John Barnett\u2019s assassination continues. How long does it take to write up a police report? Or will we ever get one?<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Fear & Greed Index: 67 Greed (previous close: 61 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 71 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 4 at 1:57:59 PM ET.<\/p>\n
News of the Wired<\/p>\n
\u201c1,2,3,4,5\u201d [The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences\u201c] \u201c\u2018God made the integers; all else is the work of man.\u2019 This famous quotation is a translation of \u2018Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk,\u2019 spoken by Leopold Kronecker in a lecture at the Berliner Naturforscher-Versammlung in 1886. Possibly the first publication of the statement is in Heinrich Weber\u2019s \u2018Leopold Kronecker,\u2019 Jahresberichte D.M.V. 2 (1893) 5-31.\u201d \u2022 I\u2019m amazed that there is such a thing. It certainly passes the random opening test!<\/p>\n
\u201cOur tools shape our selves\u201d [Aeon]. \u201cAccording to [French philosopher Bernard Stiegler], technics \u2013 the making and use of technology, in the broadest sense \u2013 is what makes us human. Our unique way of existing in the world, as distinct from other species, is defined by the experiences and knowledge our tools make possible, whether that is a state-of-the-art brain-computer interface such as Neuralink, or a prehistoric flint axe used to clear a forest. But don\u2019t be mistaken: \u2018technics\u2019 is not simply another word for \u2018technology\u2019. As Martin Heidegger wrote in his essay \u2018The Question Concerning Technology\u2019 (1954), which used the German term Technik instead of Technologie in the original title: the \u2018essence of technology is by no means anything technological.\u2019 This aligns with the history of the word: the etymology of \u2018technics\u2019 leads us back to something like the ancient Greek term for art \u2013 techn\u0113. The essence of technology, then, is not found in a device, such as the one you are using to read this essay. It is an open-ended creative process, a relationship with our tools and the world. This is Stiegler\u2019s legacy. Throughout his life, he took this idea of technics, first explored while he was imprisoned for armed robbery [whoa!], further than anyone else.\u201d And: \u201cIn the late 20th century, Stiegler began applying this idea to new media technologies, such as television, which led to the development of a concept he called pharmacology \u2013 an idea that suggests we don\u2019t simply \u2018use\u2019 our digital tools. Instead, they enter and pharmacologically change us, like medicinal drugs.\u201d \u2022 Hmm.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From SR:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/bark_2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
SR writes: \u201cMore bark.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn\u2019t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I\u2019m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals<\/p>\n
Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/contribution.png\")
<\/p>\n
If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!<\/p>\n
![\"Print](\"https:\/\/cdn.printfriendly.com\/buttons\/print-button-gray.png\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n