A New Front In The Culture Wars

Trump made news by shaking hands in Tennessee despite the coronavirus scare and his own history as a germaphobe. By way of contrast, Pence is going with what is described as an elbow bump but looks to me like a forearm shiver.

 

I like the forearm shiver. It's cloth on cloth during cold/flu season and there is less twisting than with a full elbow bump (that is my sore shoulder typing).

But on to the emerging culture war! Oldsters, especially those of a conservative temperament, will not be inclined to let go of the handshake. Youngsters, especially young Democrats, will see a double play here. They can show off their hipness AND take a shot at Trump by switching too... well, something. But what?

My free and excellent advice to DNC strategerists is to get in front of this. Teams Biden and Sanders should agree on a handshake substitute and promote it on center stage of their next debate. Message: Our party is united for change, positive leadership and a healthier America. Possibly regrettable subtext - Our party is nominating two geezers in the highest risk group for COVID19. DNC spin doctors (and maybe some real doctors) will want to manage that.

As to the substitute, I see three main candidates. First up (and off) is the Wuhan Shuffle, aka the "fistshake". Mutual foot taps? Please. Youngsters, especially in soccer mad countries, will love the Wuhan Shuffle. But c'mon - how will that work at a cocktail party? After two hip replacement and two drinks, I won't be doing a successful foot tap with anyone. Totally NOT recommended for old timers like me, Joe or Bernie. (Joe was a good HS/college athlete though; he might be tempted. Bernie would be nuts to try. (Yes, I'd pay to watch if they pre-announced it as a PPV event.)

The fist bump was studied in Britain during the Ebola scare in 2014 (during which I introduced my Ebola air kiss. More on that in a bit, with the emphasis on "moron"). Only ten to twenty percent of the bug transmission associated with a conventional handshake. Its better and don't be a science denier! 

Joe Biden should push for the fist bump, aka the terrorist fist jab, as a reminder of his Obama legacy. Bernie will spot this problem and will no doubt be asking his advisers "What did Che do?".

The next entrant is the Ebola Elbow, which the WHO was out first with in 2014. It hasn't caught on but the Pence variation seems more manageable.

Ebola was a poor disease for the roll out of a handshake alternative. The disease was not THAT contagious and it was pretty easy for folks to know if they'd been kn close contact with a dead African while in Africa. Consequently it didn't break out in the West, or really anywhere other than where it originated.

Obviously the coronavirus is a different story. Politically, the media is hyping every little thing in an attempt to derail Trump and its hard to trust them (although life is full of surprises). Some on the right have tried the opposite, minimizing everything as Democratic fear-mongering. Others on the right have pointed out that a crisis is an opportunity to show leadership.

Well. Where are not in a good place to have a calm national conversation and I'm pretty sure we'll end up with Republicans wearing flag lapels and Democrats doing fist bumps. Too bad - I'm not a handshake fan myself.

ABOUT THAT EBOLA AIR KISS: Back in 2014 I would greet the ladies at cocktail parties with my Oh-So-Euro "Ebola air kiss". Har de har. Time moved on and I had to update it to the "Ebola/Zika air kiss". Now I deploy the "Ebola/Zika/Coronavirus air kiss" on the increasingly rare occasions I am invited to a social event. I should note it has been effective as an auto-quarantine tactic; surprisingly few people at a cocktail party want to chat with the weirdo in the corner mumbling about Ebola and Zika.

So, no air kisses for Joe and Bernie. NOT on my recommended list.

Comments

[D]

First!

[D]

CH:
I will meet you halfway downtown and you can bring any food you don’t want.
We can donate it to the hunger center or I will see if my boys want it.
They will eat anything.
Keep me posted on events around town you will attend.
I might meet you in passing
Going on April 19th to Severance Hall to hear Dvorak’s New World symphony for my husband’s birthday.

[Jack Lillywhite]

I wonder if they tested the England and Wales Rugby teams before today’s 6 Nations match because there is a whole lot of touching going on.

[Extraneus]

.

[Narciso]

How is a fist bump better than a handshake?

[clarice]

Heh, TM.
https://www.nysun.com/national/look-closely-and-bloomberg-ran-on-trumps-platform/91044/

[Porchlight]

Volleyball players hardest hit.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Re ZH, speaking as one who for a time placed a moratorium on linking anything from there, I find it useful if I put a stout filter on.
The Tyler Durdens are several different people and they aggregate a lot of stuff I wouldn't see otherwise. Some of it is commie crazy, some of it is paleo-con crazy, some Russkie disinformation but some of it is very good, both the political and the economic.
Anytime you mine you end up with a lot more tailings than you do nuggets.

[Narciso]

Well bloomberg did say health care was a right, and complained about how many no longer had insurance.

[rse]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8086485/New-York-Governor-Cuomo-declares-state-emergency-coronavirus-number-cases-skyrockets.html

40 doctors and nurses being quarantined after infected taxi driver walks into queens hospital.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Lenny Breau, Bluesette.

[Extraneus]

Good background on the Ron Johnson subpoena.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/07/senate-gop-investigation-into-burisma-biden-heats-up-with-subpoena-planned-next-week

[Jack Lillywhite]

Clinton added: “Politics should be the art of addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division. ”

I wonder how much she had to pay the Mad Man who came up with that.

[hrtshpdbox]

From rse's 1:39:
76 people in the state have now tested positive for coronavirus; up from the 44 confirmed on Friday

OMG, this flu is contagious, statewide curfew is the only sane response.

[hrtshpdbox]

Besides selling stocks, I mean.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

What is Hip? by a very talented all girl Japanese band.
The bass player is a bit scrumptious. :)

[Manuel Transmission]

Solar noon. When we first started spending our summers out here on the rock over 25 yrs ago I rediscovered an astronomy/navigation principle that I doubt 1:100k people have a clue about. Sitting on our front deck looking East at lunchtime, I started wondering whether the house was precisely square with the world. We happen to be right on the 123rd Meridian so that (head math) works out to be exactly 8 hrs and 12 minutes behind Greenwich time. So, with DST I waited to see the sun cast a shadow across the deck at 1:12 pm. There was a little sliver of a shadow, so I calculated that angle. Flash forward to several other attempts at checking that around the year and I started getting quite different answers. So I fired up my recently acquired theodolite (with military base circle!) and refined my observations down to a few seconds accuracy. Whaa??? The answers were all over the map.

Voila! I discovered the Analemma curve. Ok, why did I drag you through all that? To remind you that all those years ago when you dabbled with the globe down in the school library and probably wondered what that funny figure 8 curve they put in the South Pacific was all about. That’s the Analemma curve. And it shows that Solar Noon swings +/- about 20 minutes throughout the year.

The small gift that it brings us in the Northern hemisphere is that starting about the winter solstice as the days start to get imperceptibly longer, all the extra daylight is added to the evening. Small favors in the north country where we get down to about 8 hrs of daylight.

[KevlarKid]

rainy day in BRKLY today. the kind that drove Grant to drink. ;)

[Captain Hate]

The small gift that it brings us in the Northern hemisphere is that starting about the winter solstice as the days start to get imperceptibly longer, all the extra daylight is added to the evening.

I noticed that looking at the sunrise and setting times.

Driving Teddy to various parks in the late afternoon/early evening is a good way to tell just how far the sun moves related to the tilt of the earth north and south. Right now I'm looking almost directly into it when driving west as it's setting.

[KevlarKid]

POTUS is funny.

"While speaking to the press at the White House on Friday morning, Trump briefly touched on the topic of Elizabeth Warren’s shocking exit from the 2020 Democratic presidential race and dismissed the notion that her failure to clinch the nomination had anything to do with her gender. “I think lack of talent was her problem. She had a tremendous lack of talent,” the president explained. “She was a good debater, she destroyed Mike Bloomberg very quickly like it was nothing, it was easy for her. But people don’t like her."

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/03/06/trump-leaves-press-hanging-with-triggering-take-on-warren-shes-very-mean-people-like-a-person-like-me-not-mean-894638

[Jane]

TM,

I had no idea you had 2 hip replacements and suffered thru us the whole time! Many thanks!

[Captain Hate]

maryrose any time you're available around town I'll meet up with you for coffee or lunch.

[KevlarKid]

lyle to the white courtesy phone.

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/03/07/red-wine-pumps-from-italian-towns-water-pipes-into-homes-for-3-hours-due-to-malfunction-894981

[mike in houston]

Kute Korner Krack Dealers: They’re Baaaaaaack!

Who let them out? Why are they everywhere? On the corners, by the entrances to supermarkets, at the crossings, and all over the place. They swoop into the neighborhood in massive SUVs driven by classic MILFs. They pull in, tumble out giggling, and yank their card tables and their boxes of contraband from the back. Then they set up their offerings in stacks, and slap crude handmade signs with a heavy helping of glitter on the tables. Then they don their gang colors and get to work on you.

They are the most ruthless retail agents known to man. They are virtually irresistible in their peddling of their wares. They do it with cutting edge cute, and they have no scruples concerning your desperate attempt to diet away the winter flab.

They are the Girl Scouts and no matter how I try I cannot avoid them...

http://americandigest.org/kute-korner-krack-dealers-theyre-baaaaaaack/#more-4942

[KevlarKid]

#SuckIt

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8086165/Melania-Trump-snaps-online-trolls-accuse-Marie-Antoinette-moment-Coronavirus.html

[Jane]

Devon Nunes sent me a mug today. On thr back it says;

“ MUELLER’S MOSCOW MULE!
1. Part Schiff
2 parts Mueller
3 parts fake news
Deep state to taste.

Trump also sent me a $1000 gold bill.

I really better check my bank account.

[Captain Hate]

Remember how everyone claimed Truman was a straight talker as he inflicted his daughter's horrible singing on the country like Ted Mack running The Gong Show? The Golden Scalpweasel could blow that henpecked hack out of the water.

[KevlarKid]

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/06/abortion-industry-to-supreme-court-women-dont-need-safety-standards-when-their-wombs-are-being-scraped-out/

[clarice]

Just a damn minute, CH--I was a kid, and loved Truman for threatening to punch Hume in the nose.
And while we're at it, may I say your affection for Teddy belies your screen name?

[Captain Hate]

Marie Antoinette was unfairly maligned by the predecessors to our unfree presstitutes, the pamphleteer vermin; so it's appropriate that our contemporary dumbasses make the comparison and continue to reveal their lack of understanding of history.

[KevlarKid]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-senator-claims-chief-justice-has-zero-credibility-implies-that-80-recent-scotus-decisions-are-illegitimate/

[KevlarKid]

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/connected-cows/

[KevlarKid]

The Big Lie of Obama Biden

Let's Review

[Extraneus]

Hillary Clinton Says Epstein Assassination Was To 'Manage Anxiety'

[Narciso]

Dewey was a top man, trumam hated the marines and the big banks

[henry]

From Mel

See new Tweets
Tweet

Emma “protect Ed Markey at all costs” Friend
·
2h
Here is my #1 hot take as a newly-free Warren staffer:

THE FUCKING CO-AUTHOR OF THE GODDAMN GREEN NEW DEAL MIGHT LOSE HIS SEAT IN THE SENATE TO A MODERATE AND YOU’RE ALL JUST SLEEPING ON IT

[Marlene]

Good afternoon! Jane,did you hear about the shooting on I-75 southbound in Northport in the early hours this morning? The exits between Sumter Blvd. and Kings Highway just reopened. Someone was shot and killed driving along that stretch of I-75. Yikes! If it was random or road rage or whatever,very scary.

[Extraneus]

Sorry, not sorry: Hillary Clinton retracts apology for using private email server, breaking gov't rules

"As I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts. That was a mistake. I'm sorry about that. I take responsibility," she told ABC News in Sept. 2015.

However, Clinton now admits she regrets offering the apology.

In a new Hulu documentary about her life that released Friday, Clinton said she regret the apology because it failed to quiet critics and hurt her 2016 presidential campaign.

"We'll just say what you did was a mistake. It was dumb. It's over. And that will end it. I wasn't convinced of that. But I understood the frustration of my campaign," Clinton explained. "So against my better judgment, I said, 'OK, fine.'"

"It turned out to be a mistake because look at all the oxygen it was sucking out of my campaign. But it didn't end it," she continued. "It didn't end it at all. And it never ended, it never ended."

Gee, why are these people all of a sudden in the news?

[Buckeye]

Iggy

Juna Serita is definitely a “badass bass babe”:)

[Captain Hate]

Truman was a machine hack who got elevated when Henry Wallace went too far commie for even Saint Delano. He wouldn't have to had re integrate the military but for Woodrow Wilson's racism, about which public schools don't teach.

[Buckeye]

Brandi Carlisle is not someone I would go out of my way to listen to, Grammys or no, but when she teamed up with these gals, pretty impressive.

One of my audiophile friends sent this to get my attention. Very well recorded.

https://youtu.be/jVLNB3d-2cA

[peter]

One of the original Supremes has died in the past week.

[lyle]

Wine flowing from faucets? Mon Dieu.

So I left a warning on the last thread about the comments on TWIP? Here’s another one:

https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2020/03/highlights-of-news_7.html

Item 15 has one scary-looking dude. You’ve been warned...😬

[lyle]

RBG is dead, peter?

[Captain Hate]

George Washington Rodham: I take responsibility for that cherry tree someone else chopped down to relieve anxiety.

[lyle]

Speaking of TWIP, can someone explain the picture of the submarine and the emoji? TIA

[Narciso]

Teh horror,

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

OK Boomer, Lyle.

[Narciso]

The one that wasnt diana ross.

[Captain Hate]

Mary Wilson's still alive and Florence Ballard died a long time ago (Detroicided? I don't think Ross liked her).

[lyle]

Ah, yes. Thanks, Steph!

[GUS]

Ext. Little tidbit in the RON JOHNSON Ukraine story.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) reportedly was considering voting against,,,,,blah blah blah......puke

[Narciso]

Barbara martin

[Narciso]

How they handle things elsewhere

https://social.quodverum.com/interact/103783630101921607?type=favourite

[clarice]

I didn't get that one either, lyle.

[GUS]

"it was allowed".

Horseshit Rodham

[Comanche Voter]

Now Slow Joe claims that he was a pretty good high school athlete (as was for that matter The Donald).

So somebody could teach Joe the Wuhan Shuffle and he'd get it quick. The question is when the opportunity to perform the Wuhan Shuffle came up on stage an hour later, could Joe remember it?

I don't think so.

[KevlarKid]

Favorite Supremes tune. Remade by Donnie Elbert.

Where Did Our Love Go?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Buckeye sent me to listen to a cover of Fleetwood Muck without any warning.

This town aint big enough for the both of us anymore, pardner.

[anonamom]

Easy make your own hand sanitizer without touching your booze:

https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/diy-hand-sanitizer/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Forgive me but I think it was lyle who warned against this one and being a terribly contrary person I couldn't resist bringing it over here. I think we're pretty close to the bottom of the page. :)

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Still sorry for that 3:47.
This will help get to the next page faster.;

[KevlarKid]

i'll never forgive you, Ignatz.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

How about another?

[Narciso]

Mick fleetwood already looked ancient in 87 with the running man.

[lyle]

Don’t you date bring Surber’s Item 15 pic over here, Ig! 😉

[Captain Hate]

Old Crone bourbon?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Penance;

[Narciso]

Fair, there was that kelly brook iten from last night.

[GUS]

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2014/05/10/biden-fibs-again-about-having-played-college-football/

Every thing you need to know about Biden.
He's been a liar his entire life.

ATHLETE?? Yeah on the nude swimming team.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

The gene lottery was so unkind to her, lyle, I find myself feeling sympathy, despite her execrable politics.
Imagine toting that burden around your whole life. Oof.

[Narciso]

Adjectives are too strong

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tv/kelly-brook-flaunts-eye-popping-21646197

[KevlarKid]

Biden = Harry Palms

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Did he have a horse-faced, Corn-dog-pop shave his legs for the naked swim team?

[Narciso]

Oracle vp

https://mobile.twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1236378067901153280

[Captain Hate]

Lockhart is near the top of the Arkancide payback list. As should be that turd Goodell for hiring him.

[jimmyk]

Barbara martin

She was the Pete Best of the Supremes--she left the group early on, before any of their big hits. Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross were the group.

Mary Wilson's still alive and Florence Ballard died a long time ago (Detroicided? I don't think Ross liked her).

Ballard maybe never got over being shoved to a supporting role behind Diana Ross (apparently she was a tremendous singer in her own right), became an alcoholic, and was fired in '67, probably drank herself to death in her 30s (though officially a heart attack).

[anonamom]

Worth reading--how MSM covered H1N1

https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/03/07/do-you-remember-the-msm-announcing-the-death-count-every-day-during-h1n1-epidemic-death-by-death-by-death/

[Barbara]

"It turned out to be a mistake because look at all the oxygen it was sucking out of my campaign. But it didn't end it," she continued. "It didn't end it at all. And it never ended, it never ended."

Extraneus,

This is her apo!ogy? "I did it. I broke the silly law — even though I could have gotten away with it because who cares. What was really, really wrong was the big fuss those deplorables made about it. I mean — it hurt MY CAMPAIGN! So what if the leader of every European country, China, Putin, the Taliban, Ghadaffi and their intelligence services were reading documents restricted to eyes only at the highest level of our government. The air was sucked out of MY CAMPAIGN! MY INEVITABLE PRESIDENCY!!!"

[Captain Hate]

Cousin of Hank Ballard too, jimmyk. I'd never heard of Barbara Martin before this.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Someone should scrape the peanut butter off their lintel, spread it on Hillary's face and stick a Chinese Covid bat on her face, Alien style, and let him start licking the peanut butter.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Relinking that nutrition link amom placed here this morning;
right here.
Seems like a pretty sensible guy who considers the whole of the research more than most, rather than some hobby horse subset of it.

[Captain Hate]

Thanks, Clarice; this is why I'm ignoring every damn thing those lying propagandists say about Coronavirus. I'll take my chances until I hear from my doctor to do something. To hell with the unfree press

[Another Bob]

“Those guys must have lost a bundle short-selling.“

Ext, if you’ve noticed, the more “underground” financial/markets twitter people are the biggest doomsayers re. covid19.

[Extraneus]

Good paraphrase, Barbara.

[lyle]

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2020/03/07/joe-lockhart-wants-to-know-whos-pushing-the-bs-story-of-bidens-cognitive-decline/

These campaign consultants are like herpes.

[Another Bob]

Who is pushing the BS story of Biden’s cognitive decline?

Every honest person who sees him at an appearance.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Attn Joe Lockhart; the fiends pushing that story are the scores of millions of Americans who watch your aphasiac frontrunner flub his lines day after day.

[anonamom]

Who is pushing the BS story of Biden’s cognitive decline?

That is no "BS story"--it's an indisputable fact.
He is absolutely, unquestionably at a MINIMUM cognitively impaired.

I suspect he is demented, but I haven't seen what happens when you ask him to draw a clock face showing 2:40, or give him five objects to remember, then five minutes later, ask him to give them back to you.
But I would not be surprised in the least if he can't do either.

[anonamom]

This is the best they can do?????

When It's so obvious Joe Rogan sees it, you aren't going to be able to hide it:

https://twitter.com/PTabasinejad/status/1236065863628926982

[Narciso]

Then again he endorsed sanders,

https://mobile.twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1236393149632860161

[henry]

Joe campaign team is pushing the story, by trotting Joe out and putting a microphone in front of him.

[henry]

Regular drinkers of hard liquor are better protected from Coronavirus.

https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/2023616/science-may-have-discovered-regular-drinkers-of-hard-liquor-are-better-protected-from-coronavirus

*science for everyone department

[Jack Lillywhite]

On page 221, Biden recalls his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize 2009.

Further on, on pages 330-334 he shares with the readers his recipe for no-raise biscuits that won him an honorable mention in the 1978 Betty Crocker Bake-Off, and further on in the book he recounted his induction to the United Kingdom’s Politician Hall of Fame.

[clarice]

I know people on that restricted diet thing--they look older than I do on it. My guess is that even if you don't live longer eating nothing it seems longer.

[peter]

Iggy @ 1:42, Bluesette is one of my favorite pieces, and I have never heard of Lenny Breau before this; thanks, bro.

[Pinandpuller]

My wife tells me it takes five pairs of gloves to follow proper mask protocol at work. Not the cheap masks, whatever the designation is for the kind that can exclude stuff like Coronavirus and TB. In one way I wish I had kept my mask from the O2 delivery job I had. On the other hand I lied to the dude doing the mask fitting because I was about to have a panic attack with the hood over my head.

@SJimons

Panic buying is a symptom of a dysfunctional society diseased with individualism

To those with litres of soap at home- do you realise that to slow the transmission of COVID-19 you need other people to be cleaning their hands too?!

A fortress of toilet paper will not protect you

https://twitter.com/sjimons/status/1235950178789724168?s=21

[Extraneus]

Who is pushing the BS story of Biden’s cognitive decline?

Isn't Joe Lockhart a Clintonista? I'd say by feigning a Biden defense he's trying to keep the issue front and center, as will other Dems angling for a position with the Hillary campaign and presidency.

Republicans shouldn't push this until after the convention.

[peter]

jimmyk @ 4:19 and cap'n @ 4:19--I once wasted several precious hours of my life reading a book written by a Supremes roady about Flo Ballard and how badly Diana Ross treated her. At Flo's funeral, they played "Some Day We'll be Together" which was really an insult because Flo wasn't even on that record.

[henry]

I don’t understand the run on toilet paper.