For a few years, we on Whidbey Island have been looking at what’s going on in the rest of the country, wringing our hands and feeling reassured that we live in a place surrounded by rational, well-meaning neighbors. But it’s getting harder to feel that way. Reading Nicholas Kristof in the NYT I am informed of seaside towns of 4,000 people in Oregon with military vehicles in their police fleet, encouraging armed civilians to come help them protect against invaders. Then, something closer to home:

This happened in Forks, WA. OK, they’re all a little nutty over there, that’s where the vampire TV show was shot. But the article makes reference to a gun-store owner protecting his shop with local militia – in Sequim, a quiet tourist town on the Olympic Peninsula that we visit often.

Then there’s this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/10/manuel-ellis-washington-governor-new-investigation-police

Police brutality in Tacoma.

Then, five miles up the road: a few years back, a gun shop opened with little or no comment from the locals. As I walked by the other day, I saw a notice on the door saying they were closed due to the benighted policies of our state governor.

And the giant pickup truck that barrelled by me on Holst Road the other day, flying both a giant “Trump 2020” flag and another I didn’t catch, which caused me to laugh coffee out through my nose at the cliché.

It’s starting to feel like wringing my hands isn’t really the appropriate response.

Update: browsing the comments on the NYT article, many have referenced the Norman Jewison film “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” and speculated on a remake. Mel Brooks or Michael Mann production?

Source: VOA to be run by Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, and Trump CEO pick Michael Pack, so two top VOA directors just quit / Boing Boing

Wow.  This’ll be something if it’s in fact what happens.  Gorka’s a nut, and Bannon’s on the wrong side of the fence.

Source: 2012 Is Bullshit; 2020 Is When We’ll Really Be in Trouble – VICE

Oh oh.  This guy studies the underlying structural factors that lead to instability in societies.  The article was published in 2012.

I went and looked further into his publications, starting with his blog.  He’s moonlighting from his UConn job to do work at something called the Complexity Science Hub in Austria.  Particularly interesting are the slides accompanying a talk at a similar institution in Utrecht, which show the underlying analysis that informs his theory:

• wage stagnation (proxied by increasing societal inequality)
• more and more “elites”, competing for a fixed set of power resources

and the possible outcomes:

• violence
• collapse of the state
• many people dropping out of the “elite” classes

Going to go find a copy of his book and dig a little deeper.

https://eand.co/the-new-leader-of-the-free-world-4c9faa78f9b3

I know it’s sappy, but it makes me proud that I voted for this woman. And that I’m from this place. Sorry to rub it in. The source isn’t part of the mainstream media or anything, but as he points out, this is what he’s hearing from a random sample of people in the park.

https://news.osu.edu/people-try-to-do-right-by-each-other-no-matter-the-motivation-study-finds/

So are bees, and ants. Prosocial behavior fulfils a fitness function, even though it be at the expense of the individual.

As we have been repeatedly reminded, Germany and Austria amongst others have a scheme to supplement employee income during the pandemic without requiring that everyone be laid off, apply for unemployment and receive a supplemented payment when approved.  For example, see How Germany Saved Its Workforce From Unemployment While Spending Less Per Person Than the U.S. — ProPublica

What I didn’t know is that many states in the US have a similar program.  In fact, WA has a workshare program called SharedWork (!) that is almost identical.  Furthermore, the CARES Act passed by the Federal government that set up the idiotic unemployment compensation scheme for the duration of the pandemic also completely funds any state-governed workshare scheme, so WA would be off the hook for financing the increased demand for the program.

The ProPublica article referenced above does a good job comparing the Kurzarbeit and unemployment approach.  What I don’t understand is: why didn’t WA advertise the SharedWork program to all WA businesses, instead of retrofitting its barely-functioning unemployment system?  Why am I just finding out about this now?

And then …

Just Play – The New Inquiry
— Read on thenewinquiry.com/just-play/

Nice tribute to McCoy Tyner

http://Remote and Ready to Fight Coronavirus’s Next Wave https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/health/coronavirus-vashon-washington.html

On Vashon, they instigated their own test-and-trace program because they saw that the cavalry wasn’t coming. Unsurprisingly, here in Island County something similar has been put in place.

The county is doing a crash testing program to try to figure out how many people on the island have the virus. They solicited volunteers from the general public, then attempted to select a representative and statistically significant subset. They contacted me Thursday and asked me to show up Friday at the high school parking lot, where they have set up a drive-through testing system.

Friday, I pulled in with my car; a county employee at the gate checked my name off a list. Maybe coincidentally, he was the only male in the group; I think his job was to discourage people who weren’t supposed to be there from driving in.  I pulled up to an outdoor shelter they’re set up in the parking lot.  Another volunteer had me hold my license and insurance card up to my closed driver side window and she took a picture.  They put a test kit under my windshield wiper, and had me pull forward.

A nurse in full hazmat suit, mask and face shield reconfirmed I was the person on the label (name, birthdate), told me what she was going to do, and had me open the window and lean at just the right angle while she swabbed me. Then they had me pull further forward to take some info, and I was done.  Didn’t get out of the car.

As far as I could tell the whole operation was two nurses and a handful of volunteers.  The drive-in site has been running for a week, and is a replica of one in Coupeville halfway up the island and one in Oak Harbor at the top. The samples are sent to the university in Bellingham.  The local hospital set up a portal for checking results. Very efficient.

The moral of this whole mess in the US is that the local authorities have taken the bit between the teeth and cut the federal authorities out of the picture.  So we are all winging it, mostly borrowing best practices from each other. Some counties are refusing to follow the lead of their state government. Some cities are doing their own thing independent of the counties they’re in, for ideological or rational reasons. The states are taking only what they see as useful from the feds (CDC bulletins, mostly), ignoring the rest, pandering to D.C. as and when needed and otherwise bidding against each other to get their hands on essential supplies. Everyone gets to make up their own mind about who to listen to, and what they should be doing. And 1000 people a day are dying.

Remote and Ready to Fight Coronavirus’s Next Wave https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/health/coronavirus-vashon-washington.html

Vashon Island’s home made testing and teaching solution. Not coincidentally, Island County is doing something similar.