Trumpolini's bogus pandemic stats and the flowering of the GOP's death cult.

You're entitled to your own opinion, just not your own facts.

Donald Trump rushed to reopen America – now Covid is closing in on him, by Robert Reich (The Guardian)

The surge in cases isn’t because America is doing more tests for the virus, as Trump contends. Cases are rising even where testing is declining. In Wisconsin, cases soared 28% over the past two weeks, as the number of tests decreased by 14%. Hospitals in Texas, Florida and Arizona are filling up with Covid-19 patients. Deaths are expected to resume their gruesome ascent.

The surge is occurring because America reopened before Covid-19 was contained ...

It's the very Nadir of the Know Nothings.

No, President Trump, Testing Is Not Causing Case Counts to Rise. The Virus Is Just Spreading Faster, by Charles Ornstein and Ash Ngu (ProPublica)

The Trump administration has doubled down on its claims that coronavirus case counts are up because the U.S. has increased testing. However, a closer look at graphs of testing numbers and positive cases shows that this isn’t the case for many states.

The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin bears scrutiny, given the bizarre inaccuracy of her analysis v.v. the recently contested Kentucky primary.

However, this home run travels about 535 feet.

This outcome is the triumph of Republicans’ tribal politics, in which identification with the cult and assault on the truth win out over common sense, science and even self-preservation. To be a Republican — at least in the eyes of millions of them — means to adopt illogical, anti-factual beliefs and oppositional conduct. You cannot take seriously the threats of climate change or the novel coronavirus because … well, because that is not what Republicans do, and to do otherwise would be to concede that the dreaded radical left and elites (presumably one can be both) are right. At the extremes, Republicans will engage in objectively destructive conduct to prove their point — hoarding hydroxychloroquine even if the Food and Drug Administration says the drug is ineffective or dangerous, and, of course, going without masks.

Yes, that's it.

"12 Hacks to Turn Your Unfinished Attic Into an Organized Haven."

At Good Housekeeping: Transform your go-to dumping ground into a clutter-free zone.


Is anyone looking?


Good.

PLEASE READ NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU WISH TO CONSIDER A REASONABLE, DISPASSIONATE DISCUSSION ABOUT MULTI-MODAL TRANSIT, ESPECIALLY BICYCLES. THANK YOU.

Now let's talk about the latest greenway extension press release from the municipals, as forwarded by the local chain newspaper: design/article_58768636-b59b-11ea-ac27-fbf8f2c391e9.html" style="font-weight: bold;">New Albany proceeds with next stage of greenway design.

Before you read the pull, know that to have surveyed the goings-on by the municipal higher-ups for the past decade or more is to see that when it comes to their attitude toward bicycles, it's as if none of them have ever been to a place in America or abroad where people use bicycles to commute and achieve actual useful tasks (as they would driving a car), as opposed to using bicycles strictly as recreational conveyances -- often, loading a bike onto a car and TAKING it somewhere else to ride.

In functional bicycle-friendly cities, the idea is to connect one's front door to a safe path to food, drink and a haircut as well as the recreational pathway.

Why do you think almost all the useful bicycle infrastructure was stripped from the Speck plan? The movers and shakers either don't understand, or they do understand and have made the conscious decision not to pursue genuinely multi-modal transport options. I tend to think they simply don't comprehend, because if they did, don't you think reality would reflect just a wee bit of it by now?

Let's read about the Democratic Party's plans for partial modernity.

Basically, the idea is to extend the Greenway to the little pocket park where people can park their cars next to Silver Creek. A quarter-mile, maybe?

It won't serve any constructive purpose as it pertains to people using bikes to connect from neighborhoods to the center, presumably because this would inconvenience drivers.

If there's another reason why they do these things, I wish someone would explain it to me instead of refusing to discuss it.

Note the quote from Adam Dickey about connecting bicycles to Clarksville via projected sidewalks. You know, where bicycles are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE in the first place. They're supposed to be on the street ... where we won't make it safe for people outside their cars. And yet Dickey adds that future plans should include provisions for walkers, not bicycles.

Automobile supremacy has us by the gonads, doesn't it?

 ... “This part called Silver Creek Landing not only expands northward up Silver Creek, but it also opens Silver Creek up to recreational use,” (redevelopment's Josh) Staten said.

Commission member Adam Dickey said the Clarksville Town Council has expressed interest in improving sidewalks along Providence Way, which could further improve safety and accessibility to the greenway.

He added that New Albany’s prior work on the greenway allows the city to explore additional connectivity to the pathway in the corridor.

“This is going to put us in a great position because no one else has moved up to Silver Creek, and I think this puts us in a leadership position,” Dickey said.

New Albany City Councilman Jason Applegate, who is also a member of the commission, emphasized the importance of opening up the greenway to other neighborhoods. He said safety is also a vital component of accessibility, and Dickey added the city should ensure that future roadway design centers around complete streets that allow for pedestrian use.

“We see the greenways being used so I think connectivity is so important,” Applegate said.

"Who Are These Protesters In Black And Why Are They Smashing Things?"

“Anarchy doesn’t mean out of control; it means out of their control.” Jim Dodge

Anarchism has been around for a long time. Violence and protests and the breaking of inanimate objects also have a long history. It's always amusing to see the selective outrage depending on which pre-conceived point of view is ascendant, but it's also impetus for a lifted eyebrow to hear anarchists speak of properly manipulating the media.

Who Are These Protesters In Black And Why Are They Smashing Things?, Nathan Tempey (DCist)

Police have arrested more than 90 people so far today in D.C., many of them masked, black-clad hooligans who videos show swarming the streets carrying anarchist flags and smashing bank and Starbucks windows. They also may be responsible for setting a limousine on fire ...

 ... The Sean Hannitys of the world are right in the sense that anarchists oppose Trump, but as protests at a string Republican and Democratic national conventions have shown—not to mention a litany of anti-financial summit gatherings and localized demonstrations against police brutality—anarchists stand apart from their fellow marchers both in tactics and in beliefs.

Make no mistake: Jeff Gahan is the "driving force" behind the Bored of Works' inability to fathom street pianos, public art and modernity itself.

There always are self-assigned community pillars who believe it is their solemn duty to safeguard the community from terroristic threats, such as that posed by a painted piano on a downtown street corner.

In their interior worlds, where Velvet Elvii and Happy Meals define the very extent of artistic aspiration, there is a mortal fear that "respectable" folks will laugh at them for allowing modes of expression that cannot by categorized by dull conformity, and worse yet, expression that resists being linked to the address on the campaign committee flier for the express purpose of gathering the monies necessary for the next campaign, from whence their need to control ultimately derives.

When in reality, these officious guardians of neutered conformity are the ones being laughed at. In fact, they're plain silly, and getting even sillier. That they're Democrats makes me laugh even harder.

Daniel Suddeath explains that in New Albany, surreal small-pond bureaucratic Philistinism is an inexorably expanding universe: New Albany again delays street piano request.

It's been highly instructive to observe the Bored of Works contriving one bumbling excuse after another to cover for its down-low orders to maintain proper channels for expression.

We don't understand this art ... OMG, who'll tune the piano? ... wait, ask the preservation people for their permission, 'cuz, you know, the piano is old ... no, how about Develop New Albany -- yeah, that's right (chortles in corridor afterward), DNA does all that goofy merchant support stuff we see going on even as we're driving out to the Cracker Barrel in Sellersburg.

Earth to the Bored: DNA has, er, WHAT to do with any of this?

What's next, Warren V Nash?

Ask Animal Control?

Jeeves?

The Oracle at Delphi?

Tell you what: I'll personally make Hannegan's mandated "Gahan for Mayor" campaign donation FOR HER, even though I'm running against him, if that would somehow help you arrive at a position somewhere proximate to a CLUE.

Jeeebus. It's an art project and a street piano. Exactly what does nuclear physics have to do with it?

Of course, if Hannegan had only let the mayor think it was his idea, then we'd have a street piano on every corner in town -- player pianos, that is, just to make sure no one departed from the chosen street music and the top-down sacred political writ.

Here are previous NAC links to the street piano saga.

Life is like a street piano. What the Bored of Works gets out of it depends on how they "nay" it.

New Albany's new slogan: "Truck Through City" ... Part 95: It's the return of 18-wheeler pinup porn and utter Bored of Works indifference.

Seattle alleys, New Albany street pianos and the overdue purging of bureaucrats.

Wild guess: The newspaperman hasn't attended the Speck forums, either.

In the interest of fairness, I waited three whole weeks before rereading Chris Morris's classic confession of street grid incomprehension, which included quotables like these:

• The squeaky wheel gets the grease or whatever.
• It’s an accident waiting to happen.
• It’s not as easy as just changing a street sign.
• Our streets need to be safe for everyone.

Unfortunately, the editorial is worse than I remember it, and while it might be rebutted point-for-point (how many times must we do this?) while we scratch our heads in amazement over the newspaper's perennial ability to underachieve, let's quote just one passage for posterity, while reminding Morris: HAD YOU BOTHERED READING THE SPECK PROPOSALS PRIOR TO WRITING, YOU'D ALREADY KNOW THAT "THE SAME" IS NOT GOING TO BE DONE TO SPRING STREET.

MORRIS: Two sides to two-way streets

... I really like the improvements, which include a decorative median, made to historic Main Street. It really adds a nice touch to an already beautiful street. But it did narrow the road and make it more difficult for trucks to maneuver in and out of the city. If the same is done to Spring Street, how will Padgett and others be able to get their equipment to jobs in Louisville and beyond?

It's understandable that trucking companies might choose to misrepresent reality, but I thought newspapers were supposed to correct such damage. Why must we settle for uninformed opinion?

Duh: According to Diamond, "Romney Hasn’t Done His Homework."

Are we surprised that Romney's millions distracted him from the non-paying task of reading? Has there ever been a more out-of-touch candidate from a major American political party? GHW Bush springs to mind, but the teetotaling Romney surely distances him when it comes to sheer aloofness from reality. Thanks to JV for the link.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: Romney Hasn’t Done His Homework, by Jared Diamond (New York Times)

... It is not true that my book “Guns, Germs and Steel,” as Mr. Romney described it in a speech in Jerusalem, “basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth.”

That is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it.

Walking is political, as are cigar cutters.

I ran into John Gonder yesterday morning, and he remarked that in the context of an auto-centric New Albany, walking had become a revolutionary act. Bicycling fits that description, too. It needs to change, but the impetus must come from the city's neighborhoods. There must be neighborhood self-determination in the sense of us deciding how we wish our streets to be used: For people, or for cars. Think of it as Occupy Spring Street.

It reminded me of a entering the City County Building a month or so ago, and being told by the sheriff's deputy that I couldn't take my guillotine cigar cutter inside; evidently, it has been classified as a deadly weapon, one conceivably able to slice off the tip of one's middle finger when held aloft to protest stupid rules.

I asked him what could be done with it while I was inside. He told me to put it in my car. When I said my car was at home, and I'd walked down, his eyes went blank and he looked at me as though I'd sprouted antennae. It simply did not compute. Eventually he mumbled that he didn't know, but he was sure I couldn't bring the cutter inside. I hid it behind the trash can outside, roughly ten feet away from where the two deputies stood, and by the time I came back, it was gone.

Will Self: Walking is political (Guardian)

A century ago, 90% of Londoners' journeys under six miles were made on foot. Now we are alienated from the physical reality of our cities.