Re: Check Ins, Reassurances, and Concerns, 11/17

1

I've been weirdly spacey for a couple weeks. Clean forgetting appointments and assignments. No concentration.

I predicted a fall-apart after Biden was elected, but I thought it'd take until the inauguration to take hold.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 4:03 PM
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I may go offline for a while starting today, due to RSI (or whatever you'd call it). I finally sat down to play my guitar again a few days ago, after a long dry spell, and it now seems to make my arms hurt like crazy. I'm going to try a couple of mitigations including not using my laptop more than the unavoidable minimum. I'm so dejected.


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 4:09 PM
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Three high school students have committed suicide so far this semester at Jammies' school. That is so insane and awful.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 5:35 PM
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O God, heebie. That's just awful.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 5:59 PM
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Damn, ease up on the homework, Mr. Jammies.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 6:04 PM
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Separate question: Neighbor has covid. Usually veggie pot pie or chicken pot pie is my go-to drop-off dish. They're vegan. What's a super quick/easy to reheat vegan/general appeal dish?


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 6:49 PM
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Is vegetarian chili -- tomatoes and beans -- possible in Texas?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:01 PM
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Minestrone made with vegetable stock.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:03 PM
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What makes a veggie pot pie not vegan?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:08 PM
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Actually, how hard is vegan pot pie? I don't know your recipe, but I wouldn't be surprised if storebought pie crust was vegan, then vegetables, gravy made from veggie stock, boom.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:09 PM
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Good point. I've been using cream of celery or whatever, but veggie gravy is easy enough.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:12 PM
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9: Cream of whatever.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:13 PM
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My office just downsized. I didn't get fired. Four of my seven former teammates did, including the team leader, and I was next in line. I've been the team leader for two days and I'm dealing with both impostor syndrome and survivor's guilt. And of course I shouldn't complain because I'm one of the people who still has a job.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:16 PM
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8: good idea too!


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:16 PM
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13: ugh, I'm sorry though.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:23 PM
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13: Sorry to hear that. Let me be the first to suggest using the fact that you survived to rationalize away the imposter syndrome and the fact that you worry enough about your position to feel imposter syndrome to rationalize away the survivor guilt.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:29 PM
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I made vegan chili with seitan, which also lets you make all kinds of jokes about accepting Satan. It's expensive in stores but you can buy gluten powder cheap on Amazon (4lb powder for $14) and make it yourself in about an hour. It's a pretty good ground meat substitute. Too bad about the eternal damnation.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:30 PM
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What about gluten free seitan?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:39 PM
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You have to make it with dehydrated water.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:43 PM
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This thread made me want a chicken pot pie for lunch tomorrow. Which makes it fortunate that we have one in the refrigerator.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 7:53 PM
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6 - mujadara is my go-to - my first google result seems like a reasonable recipe: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/lebanese-lentils-rice-and-caramelized-onions-mujadara-recipe-1925439

If you make it with brown rice you can just throw the rice in straight with the lentils as the cooking time is the same.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:16 PM
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My oldest has a job at Panera now. She reports that the tip you can add on the credit card machines does not go to the workers. It goes to the company.


Posted by: Rob Helpy-Chalk | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:22 PM
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That's like an actual crime in most states.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:26 PM
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I think my brother's job used to be suing people for doing that.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:33 PM
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It's prohibited under FLSA.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:45 PM
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There isn't a physical tip box for actual money at Panera so I didn't think it was possible to add a tip on an order either.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:50 PM
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Also, their new salad dressing suck.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 8:57 PM
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22: Not surprising but still eeeeevil.

Your state almost certainly has an anonymous tipline for wage and hour violations, rob, if she wants to go that route.

Or there's these folks, if she wants to talk informally to activisty types. My experience of their DC staff is that they were pretty disorganized, but that was years ago.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 9:13 PM
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Today I overheard a woman talking about how her boyfriend had driven the two hours from our local slum down to Boston to make some money off of Grubhub down there, because apparently you can make a whole lot more delivering in covid-ridden Boston than in somewhat less covid-ridden western New Hampshire.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 10:11 PM
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Anyway I hope he didn't bring any more of that covid back.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 10:13 PM
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There is no way it could function as that sentence implies

I suppose if there were a post with no comments at all, future archaeologists of the internet would know when the last unfoggedteer was got.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 10:37 PM
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Gavin Newsom getting in trouble at the French Laundry.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-17-20 11:33 PM
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Damn, ease up on the homework, Mr. Jammies.

5: spending that social capital a little breezily aren't we ogged?

3: very sorry for the kids at Jammies school - I hope the rest of them are getting love and support.

13: and Cyrus, so sorry! that sounds objectively traumatic - go easy on yourself if you can find a way.


Posted by: simulated annealing | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 12:39 AM
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To add to the excellent ideas for your neighbor: maybe a lentil soup with garlic, onion, and celery sweated for about half an hour or more, soft roasted sweet potatoes, greens, and herbs (rosemary or thyme) or a roasted butternut squash soup with ginger, garlic, and onion, and some coconut milk. All wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.


Posted by: pomianne | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:47 AM
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16, 33: Thanks.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 5:10 AM
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31: It's funny that the person who identified as ADHD-opposite and compulsively driven towards care for details and finishing things is the one who noticed when I tweaked the paragraph!


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 6:22 AM
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36: Das Mouseover bleibt aber unverändert.


Posted by: Opinionated Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 6:27 AM
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I'm finally getting a little active again after becoming almost completely sedentary since Pola left a couple of months ago. A couple of days ago went with a good friend and cow-orker to a local gallery housed in an old brutalist fire station that has a nice restaurant where you can eat outdoors and followed by a 2 mile long walk and today we both went to one of the largest museums here to see a new exhibition of the collections of one of the foundational art and natural history collectors here who passed away a few years ago followed by a nice lunch outside in a garden at a good Italian restaurant.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 7:22 AM
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Taking one's restauranteur with one into the hereafter is the mark of the true connoisseur.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 8:41 AM
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So, checking in, I'm starting my new job next month - not the one that gave me ludicrous numbers of interviews, because that one still hasn't decided whether or not to make me an offer - but a different one, which is possibly more short-term but a) at least as well-paid and b) far more rewarding, in the sense of actually helping to save lives. And, c), will still allow me to work part of the week from home.
All I need now is reassurance that I will be able to travel home to Heroinopolis at Christmas. Other than that, life is good.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 9:10 AM
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I had to go the ER yesterday to get checked for heart issues. No big drama, I have occasional episodes of palpitations that have previously been identified (by wearing a monitor for a few days) as 'benign' SVTs. I've also had regular ECGs and cardiac echoes over the past few years, and cardiologists are all, "Exercise all you like, do whatever, you'll live till you're 100, maybe lower your caffeine intake." But they've been a bit worse recently, so I wanted to get my GP to book me in for another period with a monitor, and maybe get a repeat prescription for some medication.

But ... my GP practice is horrendous, and covid has licensed them to be even worse. Their practice is a ghost town with no-one in it, and it's impossible to even get through on the phone to book a phone or video consultation. I tried for several hours. So, I phoned NHS 111 (which is the public health telephone service in the UK), and after a series of questions, a nice Dr phoned me back and told me to go to the ER _right now_, since I needed immediate monitoring. This was a total over-reaction, of course, but she was being cautious.

5 hours later, I left the ER, and ... it was exactly as I expected. All the tests are normal, ECG is fine, bloods are fine. I probably need to get fitted for a monitor again for a bit.

So, now I need to try to find a way to get hold of my GP. Again.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 11:40 AM
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Please don't share that story with anyone conservative in the US.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 11:49 AM
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42: He went to the ER and doesn't owe anyone a penny. I think it's ok to share.

41: Glad you're ok, ttaM!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 11:52 AM
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re: 42 / 43.1

Yeah, the care in the hospital was slow, and there was a fair bit of waiting about, but I had no complaints about the quality of it. They were very thorough, and very friendly. It didn't cost me a penny, also, which is nice.

My specific GP is really not very good, they've far too many patients, so they go to great lengths to make it really quite hard to see them, and, I just don't think the GP who is head of the practice is any good. COVID has given them a license to stop pretty much all in person appointments, but also to make it almost impossible to get video appointments, because whereas with in person appointments you could always physically walk in and basically wait until someone saw you. Having all the gate keeping functions be online or via phone make it quite easy to just shut you out entirely. So, it's a win for them.

On the other hand, my experience with GPs in general, over the past 30 years gave generally been good. I wouldn't necessarily want to generalise further than: i) specific GP is not very good, ii) austerity and shrinking budgets mean that even good GPs have too much work, iii) COVID.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 12:15 PM
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The whole point of the NHS is that you can get not-very-good healthcare for really cheap! And you don't need to worry about billing nightmares. If you want the healthcare to actually be good, then you also need to spend more money.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 12:24 PM
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Not very good should be read to mean "not the best in the world, but on a population-wide basis, much better than what we get in the US", right?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 12:46 PM
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My Dad died on Sunday. We had not been in touch for quite a while, because he had been kind of abusive in the last few years.

I think my sister had lost my number, because she went through one aunt I'm not in touch with who contacted the aunt I am in touch with by text, and then I got a call that he had died. It was only critical that day. He had a long list of ailments, and his body was slowly falling apart. He had been in the hospital for a week, because he had gotten malnourished from having trouble swallowing. They thought they were going to need to put in a feeding tube which would have required a trip a couple of hours away. They did the nose version instead and were planning to send him to a Rehab hospital, but then his heart stopped. They were able to revive him, and my mother and sister and her boyfriend went and spent the day there.

I almost posted this in the North Dakota thread, because my father lived in denial of so many things, but I'm quite sure he would have taken the virus seriously. He used to talk about the summer the kids weren't allowed to play outside because it was particularly bad for polio.

My Mom and sister are in Maine. My father's wishes were to be cremated, and the local Episcopal priest has been kind enough to let them store the ashes at the church until the COVID situation changes. I do feel bad that my sister is on her own as far as family goes. I would need a COVID test to go, and I'm unsure of how I could be helpful. I'm still in shock, not surprised but shocked. It was always crazy for them to leave Boston, and I'm amazed really that he lived this long. I think this qualifies as maximally complicated grief. My sister told me that he had kept some of his health issues from her, and she didn't understand how he treatments for some harmed the others. Her realization that he might have been misrepresenting some things gives me a tiny bit of hope that we might be able to have a bit more of a relationship than we have had for the past several years now that he is gone. Even though I lost him a long time ago, this is still painful.

I'm taking a couple of days off to recharge, since we get paid bereavement time that you have to use right when somebody dies. Yesterday I needed to get fried seafood, just like the day before I had needed a "Mexican Sundae" (vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and oeanuts), because somehow those were tied to my childhood, so Tim and I drove to the shore. I walked along a beach we had gone to when i was a kid which felt right.

Anyway, I'm going to head out for a walk before it gets dark.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:10 PM
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Oh BG. I'm so very sorry.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:15 PM
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49

I'm so sorry for your loss.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:25 PM
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Take care of yourself, BG. These things can be confusing and difficult.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:25 PM
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My condolences. I'm sorry to hear that and now is such a hard time for family support.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:26 PM
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BG, I'm so sorry for your loss.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:27 PM
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I'm very sorry, BG.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:32 PM
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oh bostonienne, i am so sorry. thinking of you, and sending you my very warmest regards. take care of yourself, and let tim take care of you. warm hugs from sf to boston.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 1:49 PM
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Thank you, all.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:01 PM
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So sorry, BG!


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:12 PM
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So sorry to hear your news, BG. Maximally complicated grief can suck an egg. Here's hoping you allow yourself to feel and the feels that happen.


Posted by: Rance | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:16 PM
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My Abbott rapid test came back negative. Am I ok to sneeze on people?


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:17 PM
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Make this vegan chili.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:19 PM
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Oh, BG, I'm so sorry.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:20 PM
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Very sorry, BG. Please accept my condolences.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:35 PM
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Very sorry, BG. Please accept my condolences.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:35 PM
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58: Charley! Think of all the other contagious diseases you may have!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 2:36 PM
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Really sorry to hear that, BG.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 3:53 PM
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I'm so sorry, BG. That's a big, complex, loss.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 4:49 PM
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That is really rough BG; I hope you get through it and rebuild your relationship with your sister.


Posted by: Mooseking | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 4:54 PM
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Very sorry for your loss BG


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 5:15 PM
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Pokey just explained to Ace that Dad jokes are bad jokes, and they're called that because Moms are usually the funny ones.

My work here is done.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 5:38 PM
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Sorry, BG. Do remember to take care of yourself.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 5:57 PM
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Congrats on the new job, ajay.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 6:45 PM
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Sorry for your loss BG.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 6:47 PM
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68. I'm so proud of you guys.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 6:55 PM
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So sorry, BG.


Posted by: chill | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 7:34 PM
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Congrats ajay! Moving on from the job where they tried to make you redundant (and couldn't, HA!) must feel good.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 8:08 PM
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We've been watching season 4 of The Crown, and are about halfway through. It's quite a bit more of a slog than it was before. I can't decide whether it's because I don't care much for the people being portrayed in real life, or because the story itself is just so much less interesting. Maybe it'll get a little better as we go, but it's hard to be optimistic.

Someday, there will be a similar series about the Trump family. At least the older Trump kids will each come off worse that this season's portrayal of Charles -- which finally must be what Trump was talking about when he promised us 'so much winning.'

So, Brits: is the pathetic (so far -- but isn't it just going to get worse?) portrayal of the PoW fair? Why isn't there more of a popular movement to abolish the monarchy after the Queen passes on?


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 10:29 PM
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75: Have to say I'm liking S4. It goes all in on the Charles & Diana marriage, something I'd previously ignored, now more resonant not least because I'm halfway through a divorce myself. Anyway, in its soapy way - although the actors are good - seems to show their marriage as yet worse than usually represented. Gives an interpretive framing also for your rewatching of real TV interviews of the couple: 'yes, we wanted a house in Gloucestershire, conveniently close to people, that sort of thing'. This was in the _engagement_ interview.

Also, being HRH is its own punishment?


Posted by: Charlie W | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 11:49 PM
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47: I just read back in the thread. I'm sorry to hear this; wishing you the best.


Posted by: Charlie W | Link to this comment | 11-18-20 11:53 PM
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46: The gaps in the NHS are to do with waiting times and 'cosmetic', elective treatments, stuff like that. They have their clinical priorities; if you fall under them you should get best practice, prompt care, in an unglamorous setting. If you don't, you might get nothing. I have a hunch this might be for the best in some cases, since you won't get over treated; you'll get what demonstrably works for most. On the downside ... when I got knocked off my bike by a driver and needed reconstructive dental work, the NHS wouldn't fund implants: had to pay. (They did offer something much less good.)


Posted by: Charlie W | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 12:01 AM
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Very sorry to hear that BG - the whole tangle surrounding it must make it even harder to deal with. I hope the time off helps.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 2:28 AM
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Seconding 79


Posted by: NW | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 3:27 AM
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Very sorry to hear about your loss BG. Seconding 79 as well.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 4:30 AM
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BG, I'm very sorry for your loss. Hard enough to say goodbye to a loved one, harder to say goodbye to even the slimmest hopes for a better relationship. I hope you find peace. I know you were a good daughter to him. Please take care.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 5:52 AM
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BG I'm so very sorry to hear about your loss, and it sounds as if the situation must be even more emotionally difficult than is usual in some ways, please keep getting yourself mexican sundaes.
ajay: sounds like good news on the job! helping people and earning money are generally inversely proportional.
and, ttam, I am feeling particularly close to your experience...which is bad, because heart problems are bad. I'm sorry you had such a shitty experience and hope they get it together soon. girl x had some crazy svt etc. as well. it then turned out that she had lyme disease, which separately was revealing an unknown heart problem (at odds with the heart problem the lyme was causing.) now she has a bad case of lyme and a new heart problem. she's got "brain fog" and she's so sleepy/confused/forgetful etc that she's had to withdraw from her first term at college. it is so sad and I can't go be with her because I won't be let back into narnia, because the us is a "shithole country." this is all sad and unfair; she's missed a whole year of school sick from genetic causes, and now she's supposed to miss school again because of a combination of a communicable disease and some dumb heart problem? I've always been with her when she was sick, I slept in the bed with her when she was in the hospital here in february. she's never even been to a doctor's appointment alone until now. I can't do anything but talk to her on the phone (up to 1.5 hours a day) and order her things on amazon. I hate it.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:09 AM
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on a more cheerful note, she is staying on campus past thanksgiving (to dec 1) and they stop serving any food the day before thanksgiving. she has a fridge and a microwave. she can make one trip to the store because she's in a sketchy neighborhood and wants to avoid doing it. I try to tell her that being raised in the safest place in the world will make her paranoid, but eh. she's supposed to adhere to a separate, lowFODMAP diet, but I can't with that. what could she eat? I mean, ramen, yes. any former college students have ideas?


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:15 AM
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Leaving the FODMAP thing to one side because I don't know what her specific restrictions are, that sounds like a job for frozen dinners. They've gotten so much better than they were when we were growing up, she should be able to buy a stack in any grocery store, and they're meant to be microwaved.

And I am so sorry she's having a hard time. I haven't seen my big girl since Christmas, and while she's doing fine now, she had a hard spring and it was tough on me worrying about her.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:23 AM
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I hope she feels better. I'm sorry you can't be there more directly.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:25 AM
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79-81: Yes. He had managed to get himself appointed my mother's guardian even though he was completely unsuited to that. Last time I saw him, he accused me of trying to hit my mother. He also tried to get my mother to tell a judge that my sister was working at the time. My mother was not about to lie about me. The judge didn't want to intervene and would have needed a proper legal proceeding to do anything - even though my Dad had left me off the list of interested persons - these things are all very informal until they're not - but she tried to stop my Dad from talking so that he wouldn't perjure himself. Their supervision was suboptimal for guardianship of adults. The probate court never really tracked my Dad down when he failed to file reports. My mom doesn't actually have any assets she owns - small trusts but nothing in her name. I think they are secretly hoping that my sister or I will apply so that there will be someone who can force my mother to take antipsychotic medications, which she most definitely should be doing, but that's not something I'm really able or willing to do. I probably should have gotten guardianship in MA but was advised not to if I had HCP, durable power of attorney, and hipaa release and there weren't assets to speak of because if the expense. In Maine, it's cheap - especially if the State has hospitalized the ward / protected person.

83: al- sorry about the Lyme disease. One of the terrible perils of New England. There was a vaccine and a prophylactic in development before COVID hit. I've been afraid to go in woodsy places for a while.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:28 AM
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I did e- mail the Court to let them know he had died and they clerk sent me the forms to apply even though I hadn't asked and don't have access to a physician's report. A giant mess that I can't fix.

Thank you all for your kind words.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:52 AM
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The ability to eat ramen noodles without feeling worse afterward is one of the nice things about youth.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:08 AM
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al, very sorry to hear about girl x's situation - I hope things improve. The BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/food has a large selection of low-FODMAP recipes https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/low_fodmap_recipes and a large selection of microwave recipes https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/search?q=microwave but I can't find an easy way to find the intersection of those two sets.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:52 AM
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Al, that is so hard and I'm so sorry.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:58 AM
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Sympathies alameida.

Went to lunch with my cow-orker friend and then to the marina for a close to 5 mile walk, first time back since Pola left. Weather was very nice and we spotted a lot of wildlife. Unfortunately I have gotten so out of shape that I was too exhausted to go with some other friends to drive-in movie screening here tonight. These are the friends who got COVID a couple of months ago. I was also apprehensive about the COVID situation because there would be a few others there.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 8:00 AM
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Also, it's super weird because two of my friends locally are also having SVT problems. (I think - one calls it Holiday Heart but I think it's the same thing. His is actually the most severe case - it keeps happening, multiple times a year, and is unconnected with drinking or other controllable behavior.) I can't tell if it's just Plate O' Shrimp or if the stress of the year, or something else with Covid is connecting all these cases.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 8:00 AM
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Much sympathies for alameida and daughter. I hope it all improves.

My own situation isn't dramatic. The doctor in the hospital did query quite hard about COVID, as I think there is potentially some connection. Didn't query quite hard enough to order me an antibody test, though, which is a shame, as I'd have liked to have known. I haven't had a big fever at any time this year, but I have had a couple of quite nasty colds with lingering cough, so it's definitely possible I've had it. Recently, even.

The SVTs are annoying, but otherwise, not a big deal, and the care at the hospital (other than being slow) was good. I will have to change my GP, though as the current one just won't do the right things regarding follow-up investigations.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 9:03 AM
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1232 new cases on 7578 tests. Something like 5% of the state population has tested positive over the course of the thing, and the fatality rate is at 1% so far, but there are still plenty of people in that 5% that still have it and haven't died yet.

Our incoming state legislature had meetings where they select leadership. New speaker of the House is a guy named Wylie Galt (his grandfather had been a big deal in Republican politics 40 years ago). Don't we need better scriptwriters? Among the Rs, it was no masks, no distancing, lots of physical contact. Can we double our positive case count before the end of the year? Stay tuned!

(On the D side, it was mostly by zoom.)


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 10:26 AM
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Al, that does sound miserable.


Posted by: NW | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 12:55 PM
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Al, that does sound miserable.


Posted by: NW | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 12:55 PM
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emphatically miserable, indeed.


Posted by: NW | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 12:56 PM
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Governor Sununu just announced a statewide mask mandate, so now NH is finally joining every other state in the northeast. Nice of him to wait until after the election we've had a huge spike in COVID cases to do it.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 2:09 PM
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We've been watching season 4 of The Crown, and are about halfway through. It's quite a bit more of a slog than it was before.

I'm also watching S4, and finding it a bit uneven. I liked the Balmoral episode; and so far my fav is the episode that centres on Michael Fagan's infamous palace break-in.

But I guess I'm just not all that interested in the marital trials and tribulations of Charles and Di. Also: I'm annoyed by that plot device where the young Diana ventriloquizes the later statements/apologia of palace-watchers and royal biographers, who rendered their judgments on the marriage some years after the events depicted. I honestly doubt the 19-year-old Diana was that self-aware.

I suspect the series is being a bit unfair to the Prince of Wales, under cover of artistic license, and in the interest of dramatic interest. I mean, c'mon, Charles couldn't really be that bad? Or, I dunno, maybe he could be?!


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 5:49 PM
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Canadians have a weird relationship to the imperial overlord.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 5:54 PM
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101:

I promise to do my best
to do my duty
to God, the Queen, and my country;
to help other people every day,
especially those at home

is a solemn pledge that I made at the tender age of 5 (I was a Tweenie, hoping to become a Brownie, and then a Girl Guide).

My dad hated the British imperial overlord connotations, and used to make fun of Tawny Owl, my pack leader and mentor. My mum thought I looked cute in the Brownie uniform, and also figured there was no downside to learning how to camp and craft and cook... I'm pretty sure my mother was basically right.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:21 PM
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75: There are a lot of reviews and articles (like this longish one in the Grauniad) dumping on the new season of The Crown. Lots of made up stuff, etc. Somewhat detracts from the soap-opera fun.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:31 PM
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Charles couldn't really be that bad? Or, I dunno, maybe he could be?!

How often does it happen that some public figure is less bad than you imagined?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 6:55 PM
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This article both made me feel some sympathy for Charles and understand why people dislike him.

Throughout his uneasy adolescence Charles was subjected, on the one hand, to stinging criticism, from his father and at times from the press, and on the other to the lies and flattery of courtiers and social climbers. Alternately puffed up and slapped down, his temperament developed into a mixture of self-doubt and ambivalence interlaced with short-lived bursts of enthusiasm and fits of petulance. Not naturally empathetic or a particularly good judge of character, he was not saved by friendships or by having any single outstanding ability. At Cambridge, where he read archaeology and anthropology before switching to history, and got a 2:2, his adviser, Rab Butler, told an early biographer that the prince was 'talented - which is a different word from clever, and a different word from bright'. So, not bright and not clever, the consensus about him whether as a student or as a polo player was that he was a hard trier. His twenties were probably the most successful decade in terms of public perception. Young, good-looking and rich in his own right with the income from the Duchy of Cornwall, he could, from a certain point of view, be seen as a prince for the swinging 1960s. After that the biographies chronicle a succession of increasingly difficult milestones. As he faced his 30th birthday he addressed the Cambridge Union in hair-raisingly ingenuous terms: 'My great problem in life is that I do not really know what my role in life is.' None of the journalists he complained about could have said anything more undermining.

Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:29 PM
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Tyler Cowen shows that you need you have to get up pretty early in the morning to have a worst take than a George Mason economist:

Yes, the U.S. has botched its response to Covid-19. At the same time, its experience shows that America as a nation can in fact tolerate casualties, too many in fact. It had long been standard Chinese doctrine that Americans are "soft" and unwilling to take on much risk. If you were a Chinese war game planner, might you now reconsider that assumption?

(Meagan MCardle is trying to top him with a both sides election non-acceptance take which I is too stupid and banal to describe or link, but she's not in his league.)


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:30 PM
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106: The thing that's great about Cowen's argument is that it works equally well if you are randomly lining up liberals and shooting them. That'll really show the Chinese. All of these assholes, every one of them, would be fine with herding people into death camps, and there are a fuck of a lot of them.

Does Cowen take the next step and tell us how China's effective response to the virus shows how weak that country is?


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:44 PM
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How often does it happen that some public figure is less bad than you imagined?

106 suggests: 'probably never.' Holy crap: owning the libs by advocating mass murder: at least that'll show 'em we're 'not soft'!


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 7:53 PM
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Maybe we're just really shitty at Confucianism because of killing the elderly?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-19-20 8:03 PM
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A then friend of mine on the Telegraph got a commission to ghostwrite a book about Charles's gardens in the early Nineties. He was so excited he spent £2,500 on a new Mac to process the requisite words with, confident that this substantial sum would be repaid by his new patron. We went round for pre-Christmas drinks at his house in Spitalfields and all of the other Christmas cards had been removed to the edge of the room to show off the A4 sized card showing Charles and Diana holding hands, signed by both of them. He told us authoritatively that rumours of trouble in the marriage were ill-informed and probably treasonous.

He wrote the book. Charles stiffed him for the Mac, and shortly thereafter the royal divorce was announced.


Posted by: NW | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 12:00 AM
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106: I mean, Cowen is partly right on the uncontroversial part - Chinese strategy in the East China Sea is indeed based on the belief that the US can be deterred from intervention in a future Taiwan crisis. But China is emphatically not relying on a strategy of countervalue deterrence, but one of counterforce deterrence. The plan is not to make America stand back for fear of losing hundreds of thousands of civilians. It is to make America stand back for fear of losing one or more carriers and the bulk of its forward-deployed forces, in particular its air forces, in Okinawa, South Korea, Guam and other bases in the Western Pacific. The US personnel losses in this scenario even if the threat were to be carried out would be in the low tens of thousands and the US has repeatedly shown its willingness to accept such casualties even in non-crucial theatres. The outcome that the PLA is looking for here is that the US is deterred from intervention by the belief that such intervention would be impractical, as Chinese AD weapons would delay or disrupt it long enough for a rapid victory over Taiwan - not that such intervention would involve too high a human cost.

Further to this, if Cowen were studying a proper subject at a proper university, rather than being a half-crazed shaman locked in a broom cupboard at an obscure colonial teacher training college, he would know that there is a long history of autocracies saying "oh yeah we can totally do an aggressive war here, yeah they're richer than us but they're soft, they're too keen on money and lack a sense of warrior honour, they won't be able to put up with a proper war", and the people who think this have generally ended up, variatim, writing their mopey memoirs on a guano-encrusted rock in the South Atlantic, being assassinated by their nobles, hanging upside down in a rural petrol station, shooting themselves and their dogs, being bayonetted in a Cyrenaiacan sewer, or having the upper right quadrant of their skulls removed by a debatable number of bearded aspiring memoirists.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 2:12 AM
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I feel that this is a point people miss about deterrence, because it's so often seen through the lens of nuclear deterrence, and specifically nuclear deterrence employing countervalue strategies - the kind of "if you invade West Germany we'll kill a load of your civilians" approach. But deterring someone by making them believe (rightly or wrongly) that an attack would simply not work is by far the commonest sort of deterrence.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 2:48 AM
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Further to this, if Cowen were studying a proper subject at a proper university, rather than being a half-crazed shaman locked in a broom cupboard at an obscure colonial teacher training college,

This is such an amazing sentence beginning that I can't bear to sully it with any defense of George Mason university.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 4:07 AM
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Are we to stand by whilst the majesty of the institution of higher learning that named its law school after noted Twitter egg Antonin Scalia is impugned by some foreign chancer?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 5:51 AM
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113 is right, but I wasn't going to defend it anyway. Still, teacher's colleges gave us LBJ and the Penn educated Trump.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 5:58 AM
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Thank you. In retrospect I shouldn't have used "teacher training college" as an insult; they are worthy institutions who have produced some great people, and I apologise to them and to their graduates. "Diploma mill" would have been far better.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:08 AM
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My dad always used the term "normal school," which I don't think has been used by anybody else since about 1965. The real problems come out of Bible College.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:22 AM
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I'm assuming the implication that learning more than is necessary to teach high school is abnormal was intended by someone, if not my dad.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:30 AM
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Now they're called perpendicular schools.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:32 AM
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Had a long lunch outside with a good friend I haven't seen since early March.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:35 AM
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Cowen and Tabarrok wrote a paper talking up the political economy of John Calhoun -- even though Calhoun defended slavery, which is bad, his thoughts on small government were good. Somehow this fact snapped American libertarianism into focus for me. They like to call themselves "classical liberals", when the actual classical liberals hated people like Calhoun.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:43 AM
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Orthogonal A&M


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:44 AM
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Anyway, I don't know what Cowen is thinking and fortunately I don't have to. I do worry what Trump is thinking and because I think it will get worse if they look at liberals the way Japan looked at the U.S. in 1940.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 6:46 AM
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Anyway, America is so obviously much weaker than it was four years ago. We haven't gained the ability to casually bury 1000+ preventable deaths in a day, we've lost the ability to even define a national interest independent of foreign dictators purchasing hotel rooms.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 7:06 AM
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119: I take that as a sine.


Posted by: Doug | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 7:21 AM
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Of cos you do.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 7:38 AM
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100: Ventriloquy happens in The Crown throughout, almost as fourth wall breaking.

Have found myself wondering if the marriage is fairly portrayed. Went and watched as much of the 1995 Diana interview as is available, and read the transcript of it. She is a convincing witness, but am sure also that she prepared carefully. It looks to me as though a lot of that interview content went verbatim into The Crown's script and scene construction. For example, the meet and greet scenes in Australia, followed by the PoW (described by Diana as a "proud man" in the 1995 interview) showing raging jealousy. I don't think we have a counter interview from the PoW although there's a biography (which I haven't read).

Who screamed at whom at which time is I guess banal: that's what failing marriages are like. A more basic and I guess more meaningful interpretation of things is that Diana was generally a kind person who married by accident into a generally unpleasant family (and institution), and this arrangement could not work, and the UK monarchy could not have developed in a Diana-like direction. The unfairness and loss of it all is poignant.


Posted by: Charlie W | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 7:38 AM
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I suspect the series is being a bit unfair to the Prince of Wales, under cover of artistic license, and in the interest of dramatic interest. I mean, c'mon, Charles couldn't really be that bad? Or, I dunno, maybe he could be?!

Interesting, I've been hearing Americans talk about how the show is surprisingly positive toward Charles and surprisingly depicts Diana as a not very interesting whiner, credited to the writer being a Royalist and Tory. Probably because we don't directly get Royals propaganda in our media so we never heard anything good about Charles in American media, and we heard nothing but positive things about Diana, until the tabloid rumors started after the divorce.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 7:48 AM
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Maybe Tyler Cowen can delete his post and write another one about how China is afraid because it now sees how tough our GOVERNMENT is, that it has no fear of its citizens and can just say "Go about your daily lives, ignore the mass death" with impunity. Not even by appealing to solidarity or patriotism! Just saying they can't afford it!


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 7:52 AM
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Our local teacher-training college takes pride in its Normal roots:

"From Normal to Extraordinary: The History of Rowan University"

https://www.rowan.edu/about/oppaf/history.html



Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 8:18 AM
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125-6: Please let's not go off on this tangent.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 9:06 AM
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I miss the old days when the biggest scandal was Obama wearing a tan suit. Unrelated, but did anyone see that Roblox made an SEC filing to go public? 'Cos it surprised me. Also unrelated, I find myself having to sleep at the office sometimes, so I was wondering if someone could recommend a good brand of cot.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 9:12 AM
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Seek and ye shall find.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 9:24 AM
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Pf is just mad cosecant understand the joke.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 10:23 AM
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I'm trying to make a joke about normal schools, leptokurtosis and Sir Mixalot but it is late on Friday and I cannot brain good.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 10:44 AM
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Interesting, I've been hearing Americans talk about how the show is surprisingly positive toward Charles and surprisingly depicts Diana as a not very interesting whiner, credited to the writer being a Royalist and Tory.

Weird - that's not the impression I got. Someone noted on Twitter how Diana entering one of the royal residences was shot like a horror movie. I got the impression that the show was telling a story of a tragically poor match, both people with significant flaws that also meshed poorly, but Diana getting the short end of every stick and trying a lot harder throughout than Charles ever did. There was one scene where Charles kept odiously complaining (to Anne) at obviously kind things Diana was doing for him, and the juxtaposition between grievance and substance was clearly intentional on the writers' part.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 10:59 AM
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The Toryism showed through more in Ireland barely being mentioned at all except in some montages leading up to the assassination of Mountbatten. And the equivocation on Thatcher's social policy.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 11:28 AM
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Cowen and Tabarrok wrote a paper talking up the political economy of John Calhoun -- even though Calhoun defended slavery, which is bad, his thoughts on small government were good. Somehow this fact snapped American libertarianism into focus for me. They like to call themselves "classical liberals", when the actual classical liberals hated people like Calhoun.

This is also hilarious because Calhoun is one of the best examples of an unscrupulous politician shifting with the winds. He was a huge supporter of big government until he realized it was likely to be bad for slavery/unpopular in South Carolina.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 12:28 PM
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135: I'm trying to make a joke about normal schools, leptokurtosis and Sir Mixalot but it is late on Friday and I cannot brain good too large to be contained in this margin.

Fixt.


Posted by: Opinionated Fermat | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 1:58 PM
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He wrote the book. Charles stiffed him for the Mac...

The perils and pitfalls of becoming a palace lackey!


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 2:51 PM
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111: "We shouldn't be afraid of atomic missiles. No matter what kind of war breaks out, conventional or nuclear, we will win... If the imperialists unleash war on us, we may lose more than 300 million people. So what? War is war. The years will pass and we will get to work making more babies than ever before." Mao Zedong to Nikita Khrushchev, 1957

Now, that was totally a bluff, but still: "Deterrence!"


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 2:57 PM
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We'd only gotten to episode 4 when I mentioned The Crown, and now we've seen 5 and 6. Are you guys telling me that the fairy tale romance might not be saved?


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 4:00 PM
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Are you guys telling me that the fairy tale romance might not be saved?

Sorry, Charley!

But on the plus side: let's talk about Olivia Colman as QEII. She's so good, you don't even notice how good, until you later realize that she actually made you care about the emotional life of the Queen of the UK and the Commonwealth realms. She just elevates any role that she inhabits.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 4:35 PM
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Don Jr. has COVID. That it took this long is a good sign of how close he is to his dad.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 4:50 PM
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And to his girlfriend, who was infected months ago.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-20-20 5:12 PM
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141: that's just an assertion that you refuse to be deterred. (And it is not very believable except as part of a madman strategy.) China didn't have it's own nuclear weapons at that point.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 11-21-20 4:02 AM
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1280 new cases today, 54,542 postives since the beginning. It's a race to see if we can get to 100k by the end of the year. I say we can make it.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-21-20 11:16 AM
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