Comedian Rob Delaney lost his 3-year-old son to a brain tumor in January 2018. 3 years later, he reflects on this, and how it's changed his relationship with death, in a brief segment for BBC Radio 4's Grief Awareness Week.
If you, like me, have dealt with a lot of loss in your life, it might resonate. It strikes that strange tone that blends darkness and hope, mining the melancholy to find something so deeply human that it can't help but inspire in its own bleak way.
We've been hearing from artists and writers about moments in their lives that brought comfort, while the world is a bit bleak. For Grief Awareness Week, we heard from actor, comedian and writer @robdelaney, about how his perspective on hope changed, after losing his son #R4Todaypic.twitter.com/6iWmyXuh2l
Jacob Wake Up! is the bass player in my rock band, the Roland High Life, as well as the guitarist in the Boston-based ska band the New Limits. But since the music world is, well, pretty slow right now, he decided to spend his downtime pursuing his true life goals: writing cheeky holiday power-pop songs.
And, as you can see and hear in the video, he has succeeded.
Jacob is the child of an interfaith marriage, and while he's always embraced his Jewish faith, he was also raised with a healthy love for corny Christmas tunes. "I avoided writing Hanukkah songs for a long time because I've always been careful not to let this minor holiday become 'Jewish Christmas.'" he says. 'I eventually reached a point where I just wanted more songs for me, my friends and my family to listen to.'
Of course, I'm biased; he's my bandmate, my friend, and I gave him early notes to help punch up the song. But now I can't get it out of my head, and neither can you.
On Sunday, December 4, 2020, the New York Times published an expose about the dangerous consequences of PornHub's user-generated content:
Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it's impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.
Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded directly from its website. So even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.
"Pornhub became my trafficker," a woman named Cali told me. She says she was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there, she said.
"I'm still getting sold, even though I'm five years out of that life," Cali said. Now 23, she is studying in a university and hoping to become a lawyer — but those old videos hang over her.
The problem here isn't the porn itself; it's the non-consensual videos, often depicting non-consensual activity, that other people profit from. And it's not a small problem either. Some studies have placed MindGeek, Pornhub's parent company, as the third most influential technology company in the world, behind Facebook and Google but ahead of Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. In the article, the Times cites statistics the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that show a similar impact on child trafficking. Facebook removed 12.4 million posts earlier this year dealing with the sexual exploitation of children, and Twitter closed 264,000 accounts last year for similar reasons. But those numbers pale in comparison to the growth of such content. The Center received 6.5 million complaints about videos of files in 2015; by 2019, they were receiving more than ten times as many complaints.
PornHub helped to enable that growth. And, as an unfortunate byproduct of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which is largely good, actually), there's not really any consequence for it, because, well, it's not PornHub's fault that someone used their technology to do something shitty. Or, in this case, a lot of someones used their technology to repeatedly violate other people for profit. (As far as I'm aware, PornHub has generally complied with the law when it comes to removing illegal content; and certainly, those violating videos would still exist even if they couldn't be as easily distributed.)
Four days after the Times expose, PornHub announced a new "Commitment to Trust and Safety" — the end result of internal auditing process that they swear began earlier this year, back when we were all still giggling at their offers of free premium service for people in coronavirus quarantine (oh, how quaint the world was back then). Here's a summary:
In April 2020, we retained outside experts to independently review our compliance program and make recommendations that focus on eliminating all illegal content and achieving a "best-in-class" program that sets the standard for the technology industry.
Today, we are taking major steps to further protect our community. Going forward, we will only allow properly identified users to upload content. We have banned downloads. We have made some key expansions to our moderation process, and we recently launched a Trusted Flagger Program with dozens of non-profit organizations. Earlier this year, we also partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and next year we will issue our first transparency report. Full details on our expanded policies can be found below.
The link includes more specific details on these changes. I'm not sure how this compares to content moderation practices on other platforms, which are not without their flaws either. At first glance, it seems like a largely positive move—though it could also lead to censoring some legitimate sexual content, like when Facebook took down anarchist content alongside white supremacists.
For now, I look forward to seeing the joint report from PornHub and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children when it's released next year.
"Take off your mask so I know how much to tip you" is a new report from One Fair Wage, a national organization that works to improve wages and working conditions for service industry employees. The data is based on surveys 1,675 food service workers from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, as well as Washington, D.C., and was conducted between October 20 and November 10 — when coronavirus numbers were definitely on the upswing.
Here are just the key findings:
• Nearly one-half (44%) of workers who responded reported that at least one or more of their co-workers in their restaurant had contracted COVID-19.
• Nearly 9 in 10 workers (88%) reported knowing someone who contracted COVID-19, and of those workers, 42% reported knowing someone who died from the virus.
• Over one-third of responding workers (37%) reported that their employer had not conducted a mandatory training on COVID safety protocols.
• Most workers (84%) report being within six feet of at least one person who is not wearing a mask in every shift, and more than one third (33%) report being within six feet of 30 or more maskless individuals on every shift.
• Nearly 70% of workers (69%) reported that their employer is not consistently following all COVID safety protocols
This isn't just an indictment on the restaurants themselves, nor does it necessarily mean that the management at these restaurants is being malicious or abusive or neglectful. If people are stressed and anxious and struggling to make enough money to keep the lights on, it's not surprising that their behavior might get sloppy.
But the behavior from the clientele certainly doesn't help either:
• Over 80% of workers (83%) report that their tips have declined during COVID-19. This decline is severe: nearly two thirds (66%) report that their tips have declined by at least 50%.
• Over three-quarters of workers (78%) report experiencing or witnessing hostile behavior from customers in response to staff enforcing COVID-19 safety protocols, and nearly 60% (59%) report experiencing such hostility at least weekly.
• Over one-half of workers (58%) report feeling reluctant to enforce COVID-19 protocols out of concern that customers would tip them less. Indeed, two thirds of workers (67%) report having received a lesser than usual tip after enforcing COVID-19 protocols on customers, usually on a frequent basis.
• More than 40% of workers (41%) reported that there has been a noticeable change in the frequency of unwanted sexualized comments from customers, and just over one quarter (25%) report that they have experienced or witnessed a significant change in the frequency of such sexual harassment
So let's review: 1 in 10 restaurant workers — some of whom are only making $2.63 an hour! — have contracted COVID-19. 90% know someone who has contracted COVID-19. The restaurants aren't being meticulous about hygiene protocols because the customers are mostly assholes who are reluctant to open their wallets even as they put other people at risk.
Stop going out to restaurants. I couldn't even go into the doctor's office with my six-month old yesterday because of assholes like these, yet you can still go out with 10 fucking people to a restaurant. Pressure your local governments to support the god damn restaurant industry to keep your favorite restaurants afloat so that they don't have stay open, which encourages situations exactly like the ones that have been reported.
A team of Chinese scientists spent a decade trying to find the answer to the question that has kept so many of us up at night: why do pandas like to roll around in poop?
Specifically, they had noticed a tendency for giant pandas to smear themselves with horse manure. From The New York Times:
It really is something that the charismatic mammals will do in the Qinling Mountains in China. The bears sniff out fresh horse droppings, lay themselves down and roll their bulky bodies in the muck, using their paws to really make sure they are covered from the tip of their fuzzy ears to the bottom of their tails, until their black and white fur is another shade entirely.
[…]
A team of researchers led by Fuwen Wei, a biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, first noticed a panda luxuriating in a pile of horse excrement in 2007. Unsure of whether it was a fluke, they spent years tracking the bears with dozens of camera traps, eventually convincing themselves that the behavior was "definitely frequent and typical," Dr. Wei wrote in an email. Between July 2016 and June 2017 alone, 38 instances were documented, each typically characterized by a series of calculated steps.
Drawn to the irresistible stink of the droppings — the fresher the better — the bears would first take a careful whiff, then initiate a gentle rubbing with a cheek. They would next immerse themselves in an unbridled full-body tussle in the dung, before meticulously slathering themselves with their paws to ensure all their exposed bits were covered.
Plenty of other animals have been recorded fondling feces for a variety of reasons, whether using them to mark their territories or snarfing them as snacks. But it's a bit unusual to pilfer the poop of another species; it's even weirder to lather it up on the regular.
After a decade of research, those scientists have begun to find an answer. But it's still incomplete. As far as they can tell, the pandas are using the horse manure to stay warm — a bear in poop clothing, as it were.
Isaac Chiu, a neuroscientist at Harvard University who wasn't involved in the study, praised the team's molecular work, but added that the sesquiterpenes the researchers found in horse manure can do far more than blunt an animal's ability to sense the cold. Other research has found that these same chemicals might also tamp down inflammation and perception of pain.
Still, it's possible that a patina of poo is just what the bears need to feel cozy.
"Maybe it's like Vicks VapoRub, or maybe like Tiger Balm," Dr. McShea said, describing the tingly feeling they cause.
So why aren't the pandas' own fur coats good enough for the cold weather? We don't know, but it sounds like we're going to need more research.
All the mutants are dead, or so the world thinks. So ol' Logan goes into the Barber Shop for a shave. But the wannabe-Sweeney Todd recognizes him, leading to a barbershop quartet's worth of violence.
It's only 10 minutes long, and it's better than that first Wolverine movie.
Last year, my friend Parker Molloy published a pretty comprehensive look at the manufacturing of the fake "War on Christmas" that has driven so much conservative discourse this century. It's at once fascinating, and also incredibly frustrating, when you consider just how effective this repetitive bullshit rage-stoking machine has been.
For 15 years, cable news Don Quixotes have battled these windmills, rejoicing in their victories and basking in their acts of bravery while warning their audiences to remain vigilant. Imaginary culture war issues like the War on Christmas make for good politics, as the people arguing that these are real issues can at any time simply dust off their hands, declare victory, and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Like Lisa Simpson and her tiger-repelling rock, the protectors of Christmas are simply saving the holiday from nonexistent threats.
[…]
With a series of lies, half-truths, and distortions, Fox News and other right-wing media figures have kept the Christmas culture war at the forefront of American politics for 15 years, maintaining a cache of examples they can pull from when they need to distract from an unfavorable news cycle. These stories are almost always framed around the idea that political correctness has gone too far and treat the issues brought up as though they are a development of recent decades.
And then of course, there is the perhaps-unsurprising detail that this fake War on Christmas has — you guessed it! — roots in anti-Semitism:
Claims that Christmas traditions are being threatened date back nearly 100 years, and it's remarkable how little the arguments have changed.
In 1921, industrialist and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford published a piece decrying the secularization of Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter:
Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated Someone's Birth. Easter they will have the same difficulty in finding Easter cards that contain any suggestion that Easter commemorates a certain event. There will be rabbits and eggs and spring flowers, but a hint of the Resurrection will be hard to find.
Ford's sentiment is quite similar to that of O'Reilly in 2004:
All over the country, Christmas is taking flak. In Denver this past weekend, no religious floats were permitted in the holiday parade there. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the holiday tree and no Christian Christmas symbols are allowed in the public schools. Federated Department Stores, [that's] Macy's, have done away with the Christmas greeting, "Merry Christmas."
And of course, the 2020 War on Christmas has already begun. But at least this year, you can buy your own Christmas sweater to show your support for the war that never was.
fox news' christmas light letter outrage is still leading, but fox news' mall santa outrage is picking up ground thanks to a united states senator pic.twitter.com/vIbPs4w4bG
Let's be honest: the first half of the original Dune is weird. Not because of the Bene Gesserit, or the vaguely-alluded-to Butlerian Jihad, or how Baron Harkonnen evilness is uncomfortably correlated with his weight and sexuality (seriously, WTF).
No, it's a curious piece of dramatic writing because you're basically from the start "This is all a setup!," and then you spent the next 200 pages getting to know the world and the characters as they all think either "Well I'm walking into a trap" or "Hooray we're setting a trap!" Don't get me wrong, the political intrigue is fascinating, and Herbert does an excellent job of worldbuilding through in-scene dialogue rather than exposition — an admirable feat in-and-of-itself. But the real dramatic tension of those first few hundred pages comes from the fact that you know there's an inevitable betrayal waiting on the horizon. And when it finally arrives, it plays out almost exactly as expected.
It's in that "almost" that arrives halfway through the book—Paul and a pregnant Lady Jessica surviving the Harkonnen assault, and being taken in the Fremen—where the story really takes off. But of course, you can't start the story there, either; all of that "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" build-up is crucial to the story.
The new Dune graphic novel from Abram ComicArts covers this first half* of the story. There's an inherent challenge there: comics are a dramatic medium, but a lot of this first half is comprised of people sitting around rooms and talking, taking turns to share their internal monologues. As a result, the adaptation—by Frank Herbert's son, Brian, and his frequent collaborator Kevin J. Anderson, who have written numerous Dunesequels and prequels over the last few decades that expand the universe—trims the story down to its most iconic touchstone scenes. (They choose to focus on a lot of the same scenes as David Lynch did with his gloriously messy film adaptation.)
After a one-page opening of scene setting to juxtapose the planets of Arrakis and Caladan, the graphic novel immediately gets to the iconic Gom Jabbar/Litany Against Fear scene. It's a bold move, though it's certainly satisfying—and a good indication of just how swiftly this story is going to move. We meet Baron Harkonnen; we meet Gurney Halleck with an obligatory shield fight; the Reverend Mother scolds Jessica; Paul and Leto have a nice father-son talk; and bam, we're off to Arrakis.
The downside of this is that there's little time to invest in the characters or world-building. Herbert and Anderson do their best to compensate for this by paying homage to the original book's use of a shifting omniscient narrator. Differently colored caption boxes present inner monologues from different characters like voiceovers so as not to interrupt the scene. It's an effective and economical narrative choice. If you're not already familiar with the story, however, it might seem a bit bizarre. You might find yourself a bit overwhelmed by the rapid flow of exposition (What's a Sardaukar? If these guys are all Dukes and Barons, where is this "Emperor" they're talking about, and why are they changing kingdoms? Who's "Duncan?" Wait, Jessica chose to give birth to a boy? How does that work?) The "voiceovers" in some of those early scenes don't really seem to add much, either. The introduction of Dr. Yueh comes to mind here; while it's ultimately important to establish his character early on, his first appearance feels kind of boring and unnecessary, especially as we've already introduced to so much else to keep track of.
These kinds of hiccups are inevitable when trying to adapt something as dense as Dune into a different medium that has to be more visual and more dramatic. Luckily, Herbert and Anderson are aided in their endeavor by the gorgeous artwork of Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín (the inimitable Bill Sienkiewicz, who drew the 1980s Dune comic book for Marvel, did the cover). The vistas of Arrakis and Caladan make for gorgeous pinups, and the regal attire and settings evoke a perfect blend of medieval fantasy and futuristic worlds, perfectly placing the world somewhere between Game of Thrones and Battlestar Galactica. The carefully chosen color palettes are particularly compelling, conveying the perfect sense of mood in every situation.
Allén and Martín are also careful not to take too much freedom from the descriptions presented in the text. ("We kept a watchful eye on the Dune canon that Frank Herbert laid out, and made certain that the art matched the vision he had for his incredible universe," Herbert and Anderson write in the intro.) The ornithopters, with their feathery wings, are simultaneously alien and also exactly how I never knew that I imagined them to look like (I swear that makes sense to me). Arrakis, with its palm trees and turban-clad denizens, is unashamedly reminiscent of many Middle Eastern cities, complete with a wide range of skin tones. In fact, Allén and Martín seemed to be conscious about racial presentation (or at least complexions) throughout the book; the Caladonians, by contrast are mostly pale white, fitting with their rainy home planet, except for Duncan Idaho, who's presented as black; even Baron Harkonnen is notably less grotesque than he's typical been portrayed in adaptations (fitting with my earlier criticisms of the gross-fat-gay-means-evil shorthand).
For the most part, the panel layouts are fairly simple and straightforward as well—which makes sense, given the Herculean task of trying to adapt such a sprawling novel into a singular cohesive graphic narrative. But that makes it that much more resonant when Allén and Martín do get a chance to cut loose—for example, with the Gom Jabbar, or that stunning first reveal of Shai-Hulud. There are some occasional stiff-looking figures; but, again, there's a lot of talking heads here, and I can't commend Allén and Martín enough for the ways they did manage to spice that up when possible.
This Dune graphic novel is the first of 3 planned adaptations, covering the complete first book. While the characters and political intrigue and world-building might not be as rich as what you get in the original book, I think the creative team here ultimately did a good job of distilling the story down to its essentials. The graphic novel is certainly no replacement for the book, but it's a good gateway into the world of Dune. If you're one of those completionist geeks who insists on reading the book before or after seeing the movie, I wouldn't recommend this as a substitute for the larger Dune experience. But if you or someone you know is intrigued by the world, and feel hesitant about investing in 500ish pages of dense economic treatise disguised as a space opera—well, this graphic novel is a good place to start.
*This decision further supports my long-held theory that the upcoming Dune movie will cover this period, too—ending, like the graphic novel did, on the cliffhanger of Paul and Jessica stranded in the desert of Arrakis.
According to the Jerusalem Post, 87-year-old retired general Haim Eshed, a former space security chief for the Israeli military, says that the country had been in contact with the "Galactic Federation"—but that, unfortunately, the alien government conglomerate decided that humanity "wasn't ready" to get involved in interstellar politics:
Speaking in an interview to Yediot Aharonot, Eshed – who served as the head of Israel's space security program for nearly 30 years and is a three-time recipient of the Israel Security Award – explained that Israel and the US have both been dealing with aliens for years.
And this by no means refers to immigrants, with Eshed clarifying the existence of a "Galactic Federation."
The 87-year-old former space security chief gave further descriptions about exactly what sort of agreements have been made between the aliens and the US, which ostensibly have been made because they wish to research and understand "the fabric of the universe." This cooperation includes a secret underground base on Mars, where there are American and alien representatives.
[…]
Eshed insists that Trump is aware of them, and that he was "on the verge" of disclosing their existence. However, the Galactic Federation reportedly stopped him from doing so, saying they wished to prevent mass hysteria since they felt humanity needed to "evolve and reach a stage where we will… understand what space and spaceships are," Yediot Aharonot reported.
One of the best people I met during the time I lived in Ithaca, New York was John Lennon, an author, musician, and all around great dude whose books are published under the name J. Robert Lennon for what should be fairly obvious reasons.
John has a great weekly SubStack newsletter where he discusses the intersections of writing and music, mostly in terms of creative processes. And in this week's newsletter, John discusses a particularly bizarre vinyl recording he happened upon during the local library sale, created by a man named Dr. Noving Jumand in collaboration with some early Moog employees from nearby Trumansburg, NY:
Jumand was something of an Ithaca legend back when I first moved here in the nineties, though he's mostly forgotten now. He'd come to town for a Cornell PhD in psychology, and was teaching as a lecturer, when he got approval for a controversial study involving the effect of narrative on human behavior. A few of his subjects—students, getting paid five dollars an hour—ended up hospitalized, and one was (and perhaps still is) committed to a mental institution. This created all kinds of paranoid rumors about Jumand's narratives—that they were in some way magical, or had been funded by the defense department—but it turned out that he'd given half of these students an experimental drug cocktail, derived from Phencyclidine, and this is what sent them on their dangerously dissociative journeys.
An investigation followed, during which it was revealed the the subjects knew they might be drugged and had signed release forms saying so; and the ones who were hospitalized already had histories of mental illness and drug addiction that could explain their reaction. As a result, no criminal charges were brought against Jumand—but the University cancelled his research and kicked him off campus.
[…]
One extant artifact of his brief period of notoriety is a series of rare recordings of his narratives, made in collaboration with some former Moog employees he met at a swap meet in Trumansburg.
So to recap: there is a recording of the narratives by this wild academic who ran lots of weird and questionably ethical but undeniable legal psych experiments involving drugs and the impact of narrative on the human mind, recorded with assistance by some electronic music pioneers. And John found one of the rare extant copies of this gem, and decided to rip the audio and upload it to BandCamp:
If this is precisely the kind of wonderfully bizarre shit you're into, I highly recommend subscribing to John's newsletter. You can also check out some of his books — Broken River is his most recent novel, though he has a new novel coming in April 2021, as well as a new short story collection.
I'm not normally one to share acapella covers, but this COVID-19 tribute to Dexy's Midnight Runners by the Boston-based common sound is delightfully silly enough that I am happy to give it a pass.
The most recent mystery monolith appeared in Atascadero's Stadium Park in San Luis Obispo, California … before being promptly torn down by a bunch censorious Christians who almost certainly would have been upset if someone had done something similar to a statue of Jesus or Robert E. Lee.
The grainy video, shared to streaming site DLive.tv by a user identified as CultureWarCriminal, shows a group of young men driving from the Southern California area with the express purpose to tear down the structure and "tell the alien overlords they are not welcome." (The video has since been removed.)
"Thank God we were able to carpool," one of them says at the beginning of the livestream, which was broadcast to a cheerleading audience that numbered more than 600 at one point.
In the rambling and at times racist and homophobic video, the four young men drive up Interstate 5, loudly singing along to country music.
On the way, they stop to pick up Monster Energy drinks and a homemade wooden cross, while sharing their thoughts on what they alternately called "an alien obelisk" and other times "a pagan monument."
"We're going on a 500-mile roundtrip to steal a f—ing monolith," one dressed in camo says during the video. "That's how much we love Jesus Christ."
At one point, one of the men says they are operating "on direct orders of QAnon and President Trump himself."
After five hours, they finally make it to Stadium Park and turn on night-vision goggles as they trek up the hill to the monolith.
"This is go-time boys," one says just before they begin chanting "Christ is king."
To be fair: these censorious, First Amendment-hating Christian Trump supporters could also be a group of people pretending to be Trump-supporting Christians. Just like the monoliths could be a viral marketing campaign pretending to be a bunch of cool random mysterious monoliths.
Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like an A.I.-generated, deepfake Santa Claus delivering a personalized greeting to your loved ones. At least that's what Synthesia — a synthetic media startup based in the United Kingdom — is hoping for with their new Synthesia Santa tool, which launched last week.
Synthesia Santa allows you to type up a script on Synthesia's website (up to 300 characters or around 100 words), choose a festive holiday background, and press a button. After 15–30 minutes of processing time, you'll receive a link to a realistic video of Santa Claus (well, actually an actor in a Santa costume, but don't tell the children) reading your personalized script, complete with cheerful background music and animated falling snow. The service is free, but Synthesia collects your email address, which they use to send you your completed video.
Before you get too excited, Synthesia has some clear content guidelines:
Please keep your script professional and business related. Political, sexual, personal, criminal and discriminatory content will not be tolerated or approved.
Luckily, the first verse of "Fairytale of New York" got through the censors, as seen above.
The man, a migrant worker from the Philippines, was quarantining in a hotel in Kaohsiung City when he briefly stepped out of his room into the hallway, the city's Department of Health told Taiwan's official Central News Agency (CNA).
The man was caught on CCTV by hotel staff, who contacted the Department of Health, CNA reported. The department fined him 100,000 Taiwan dollars — around $3,500.
Under Taiwan's quarantine rules people are not allowed to leave their rooms, no matter for how long.
If this happened in the United States, the backlash would be catastrophic.
Then again, our coronavirus response has been even more catastrophic, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, compared to the, umm, 7 deaths out of 716 cases in Taiwan. Neither has Taiwan had to enact any large-scale lockdowns — instead, they took action in December 2019 to establish robust contact tracing and testing, with only mandatory quarantines for those travellers or those who might be infected. What a concept. There are also fines for not wearing masks in public places (about $500 USD).
This approach has been largely successful, too; in mid-November (the latest reliable data I can find), Reuters reported that the country had not reported any domestic transmissions of the virus for over 200 days. That being said, they have tightened some restrictions and procedures in the last month as numbers have skyrocketed everywhere, including a requirement that all travellers submit a negative test result within 3 days of arriving in the country (previously, Taiwanese citizens and resident aliens were exempt from the testing and quarantine requirement; foreign visitors, like our fined guy above, are still required to quarantine for 2 weeks).
Of course, here in America, things are different, because of that uniquely native export we have called "freedom."
You know that saying, "The customer is always right?" Which is literally just a nicer way of saying, "We live in capitalism and therefore money talks so sometimes it's best to just appease the person with the cash?"
Noted humorist David Sedaris took this a step further in a recent, very unfunny diatribe that reeks of privilege and disdain for the working class:
During this difficult time when so many Americas are looking for work, I'd like introduce an idea for something I'm calling the "citizen's dismissal."
It's like a citizen's arrest, but instead of detaining someone, you get to fire them!
[…]
I'm not suggesting that we go crazy with this. We all have our off days. Certain people, though, could easily be replaced by go-getters who'd say, "I've got an idea! Let's wrap your pottery in my socks and underwear! Or you could use your own if you have a thing against germs." That's the kind of person I want to deal with! Someone with solutions. The sort who'd say, "If I keep the pool open, could I maybe do my laundry at your house?"
As customers, though, we'd need to keep our end of the bargain. "Of course, you can do your laundry at my place," we'll say. "I just need to throw in some socks and panties I promised to return to someone who, like you, is really good at her job."
