"The pandemic patchwork exists because the U.S. is a patchwork to its core."

A long read but entirely worthwhile. Throughout American history we see the many instances of an unprepared country muddling through a crisis. COVID is the most recent. It's likely we'll continue arguing viciously about symptoms instead of addressing the rotten superstructure. 

America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further, by Ed Yong (The Atlantic)

The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways, making the crisis harder to predict, control, or understand.

There was supposed to be a peak. But the stark turning point, when the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. finally crested and began descending sharply, never happened. Instead, America spent much of April on a disquieting plateau, with every day bringing about 30,000 new cases and about 2,000 new deaths. The graphs were more mesa than Matterhorn—flat-topped, not sharp-peaked. Only this month has the slope started gently heading downward.

This pattern exists because different states have experienced the coronavirus pandemic in very different ways.

The U.S. health system isn't being fixed. As noted occasionally hereabouts, we also can't fix stupid.

This point cannot be overstated: The pandemic patchwork exists because the U.S. is a patchwork to its core. New outbreaks will continue to flare and fester unless the country makes a serious effort to protect its most vulnerable citizens, recognizing that their risk is the result of societal failures, not personal ones. “People say you can’t fix the U.S. health system overnight, but if we’re not fixing these underlying problems, we won’t get out of this,” says Sheila Davis of Partners in Health. “We’ll just keep getting pop-ups.”

And the conclusion ...

The pandemic discourse has been dominated by medical countermeasures like antibody tests (which are currently too unreliable), drugs (which are not cure-alls), and vaccines (which are almost certainly at least a year away). But social solutions like paid sick leave, which two in three low-wage workers do not have, can be implemented immediately. Imagine if the energy that went into debating the merits of hydroxychloroquine went into ensuring hazard pay, or if the president, instead of wondering out loud if disinfectant could be injected into the body, advocated for health care for all? “We have decades of social-science research that tells us these things work,” says Courtney Boen, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s a question of political will, not scientific discovery.”

And while a vaccine will protect against only COVID-19 (if people agree to take it at all), social interventions will protect against the countless diseases that may emerge in the future, along with chronic illnesses, maternal mortality, and other causes of poor health. “This pandemic won’t be the last health crisis the U.S. faces,” Boen says. “If we want to be on better footing the next time, we want to reduce the things that put people at risk of being at risk.”

Of all the threats we know, the COVID-19 pandemic is most like a very rapid version of climate change—global in its scope, erratic in its unfolding, and unequal in its distribution. And like climate change, there is no easy fix. Our choices are to remake society or let it be remade, to smooth the patchworks old and new or let them fray even further.

Another of Adam Dickey's hilarious DemoDisneyDixiecratic shit shows provides timely comic relief.

With barely any time to spare after issuing his daily marching orders to groveling subalterns (Jeff Gahan, NAHA and New Albany's city council), multi-party-hydra-chairman Adam Dickey arrived back at HQ to find the toilet overflowing.

Unable to afford a plumber, he issued this statement instead.

Our ubiquitous Boy Wonder refers to a social media posting by Doug Leatherbury, a superannuated Washington County apparatchik, who without warning decided to publicly praise Donald Trump and condemn anti-Trump protesters. An excerpt provided by an outraged Democrat is below; naturally, Leatherbury's original post seems to have been scrubbed from Facebook. 

It merits only a chuckle to note that given the history of the Democratic Party hereabouts, Leatherbury's comments are by no means removed from the mainstream. He's right there with Ted Heavrin, Dan Coffey and hundreds of Floyd County Democrats still ambulatory and voting today.

The gut laughter begins with Adam's predictably mealy-mouthed conclusion: Leatherbury's viewpoint is completely at odds with everything the party stands for, and so "we have urged him to reconsider his position."

Leatherbury surely is quaking in fear, and LBJ just rotated his coffin, but the funniest part of all?

Leatherbury's not some Rambo-bedecked party-crasher. His name's right there on the masthead. He's Adam's treasurer, for heaven's sake.

Following is a screenshot for posterity, in which activist Julia Adams goes straight for Adam's (and the party's) jugular with a pointed question: If y'all really are about social justice, why the perpetual silence v.v. Jeff Gahan's public housing takeover? 

Crickets chirp, pins drop. Somewhere a lonesome cur barks.

Julia is to be commended for trying to jump-start a progressive dialogue with Adam, one this Human Delete Key typically spends so much time reflexively suppressing that his own party's Dixiecrat wing can sidle up unseen, kneecap him, and be given only a cursory "tsk tsk" as payback. 

Oh, you crazy guys ... now, behave, or you'll get only a half-stuffed envelope next time!

Here's some unsolicited advice for anyone tempted to praise Adam for his bold statement of principle: challenge him to (a) apply it equally across the board, and (b) to do more than just talk a good gesture politics game.

Consider Coffeys instructive experience.

He rejected the Democratic Party, touts his pro-Trump, anti-progressive views at every opportunity -- and continues to collect his traditional favors from Adam and the municipal hegemony preservers.

Coffey may be a reactionary quasi-fascist, but he's not an idiot.

It's been 210 days since New Albany had a News and Tribune city beat reporter.

Saturday's and Sunday's e-mail teasers add to New Albany's losing streak. But boy, do we have cooking school.

Dear Bill Hanson: Put down that colander, give NA some equality, or just change the damn name back to Evening News.

Ignis Fatuus: Duggins says "I think we did an excellent job" removing snow.

If the city is serious about being walkable, especially downtown, then snow removal cannot be solely concerned with cars on the major streets. Walkability is about connecting people, parking and businesses via places to walk, often to and from side streets. Otherwise, it is meaningless.

Maybe we spent all the maintenance money on the Main Street project.

Yet again, as if we needed another sad reminder, we're shown that the city's economic development director knows nothing about the needs of independent small business. It has been at least five months since Duggins and his aide-de-camp Tonya Fischer promised merchants a "parking is free at night" sign on the parking garage. It still isn't there. For the love of Jeeebus, how long does it take to make a sign?

It's heartening to know that somewhere, cloistered amid his hologram generator, the mayor has confidence in his minions -- blind, but comforting. It'll just make it easier to change regimes.

Frigid economic climate in Southern Indiana? by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

What role should the government play in supporting businesses when the weather is bad?

David Duggins, director of economic development and redevelopment for New Albany, said the most important thing government can do is to make sure streets are as clear as possible.

“The city of New Albany and the street department worked many hours of overtime to ensure that the roads were clean, but more importantly, safe,” he said. “There’s nothing more important than being able to get to the business. Obviously there’s always room for improvement, but I think we did an excellent job with this once-in-a-year kind of event.”

"Sharrows are popular because they are politically easy," and so in NA, they'll multiply like rabbits.

Psst ... it's almost Tuesday. Someone wake up the Board of Public Works.

This week at the Main Street Disprovement, Deforestation and Semi Trailer Non-Diversion Project, we're seeing the advent of sharrows. Here is a cyclist's testimonial.

Sharrows are worse than useless. True, they make car drivers understand that any marked sharrow is there to share with bikes, but the flipside of that is that it tends to confirm the widely held belief that bikes are NOT allowed anywhere else.

Current law follows the philosophy that EVERY non-freeway road whose speed limit is under 50 is open to bicycles and should be shared with them, whether it’s marked or not. Marking some of these roads with cute bicycle images only serves to make it seem like these roads are the only roads we belong on.

Cyclists have a right to ride on every (below) 50mph road. If automobile drivers don’t understand that, then they need to get off our streets.

In other words, on Main Street, in what was the single best place in the city for bicycle lanes, we've used the space to install decorative medians, which will enable traffic to move more quickly on interstate-width lanes despite comically lowered speed limits, because as we've all learned so many times, speed limits are not enforced, and even the $2 million-plus Main Street redesign still encourages speed, meaning that the heavy truck traffic the city claims is not being diverted to the Spring Street Bypass will continue to use these handy speed chutes, assuming the trucks actually return to Main Street ... upon which have been painted nice, dainty sharrows symbols 'cuz wishing will make it so.

Got all that? In short, we declare victory, get back in our municipal vehicles, and ride off to the suburbs to continue ignoring the Walkable City book on the coffee table.

Have you noticed that City Hall always backs away from any substantive roadway alterations designed to reduce speed by design? Of course, there isn't the first coherent purpose for any street grid reforms that do NOT reduce speed by design ... and that's why we're likely to botch the Speck report, because City Hall conflates speed with congestion reduction, and old white voters demand to pass through town quickly. It's political, and political gonads are non-existent in this city, so you can expect more sharrows:

Basically, sharrows suck, so naturally New Albany plans more of them, so we can be "bike friendly" on the cheap.

Because as we've asked previously ...

Egg, meet face: How many different ways can we botch the Main Street Deforestation Project?

Apparently, we can do it in every possible way. But those flowers ... they'll really look nice. Until they don't.

Sharrows at Grist

Sharrows discussion at the Raleigh News & Observer

I always knew the Bridges Politburo had no intention of conducting an economic impact study.

As Matt pointed out on Twitter, publishing this story on a holiday weekend doesn't seem to be the optimal way for the C-J to assure readership. Speaking for myself, I keep remembering the promise that the Bridges Politburo would not neglect the economic impact of tolls on Hoosier small business. The Green Mouse reiterates: Posterity simply is not going to be very kind when it comes to gauging the performance of this body.

Study of Ohio River bridges' impact stalled; Work would include gauging tolls' effect, by Marcus Green (Courier-Journal).

Authority officials are at a loss now to say if the final study will consider the potential impact of tolls on the region’s economy.