Round 'em up and quarantine them in one place; so much easier to keep track of the disease

In you go, honey; watch your step

Minnesota nursing homes, site of 81% of COVID-1984 deaths, continue taking in infected patients

Funny that blue state politicians, so ready to condemn reopening proponents as compassionless granny killers, are herding granny and her friends into death camps. The usual defense of these people is that “it’s for their own good” and the economic ruination resulting from their orders is worth it “if it saves one life”. Good intentions or claimed good intentions, do not justify bad endings.

First world problems

Venezuela: First World or Third World country? Apparently, you can transition from one to the other, with perhaps a brief stop in the second. Ocasio, are you listening?

The luxury of still having a home and a coffee pot allows me, occasionally, to sit at the table early in the morning and ponder some of the mysteries of life. For instance, if there’s a “First World”, and a “Third World” (currently falling deeper in the abyss during this global shutdown, I read this morning), what’s the Second World? I’ve wondered about that from time to time but finally Googled it and by gum, there is such a thing: the former communist countries. Matt Soniak at Mental Floss explains:

Today, people use the terms First or Third World to rank the development of countries or the strength of their economy. This is a pretty recent development, and veers away from the original usage of the terms, which were coined during the Cold War as part of a rough—and now outdated—model of geopolitical alliances.

The Cold War and the creation of NATO (a military and collective defense alliance formed by the U.S. and its western allies) and the Warsaw Pact (a defense treaty between several communist states in Eastern Europe) roughly divided the major world powers into two spheres with differing political and economic structures—east versus west, communist versus capitalist, the U.S. versus the USSR—with the Iron Curtain in between them.

In 1952, the French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the term “Third World” to refer to everyone else, the countries unaligned and uninvolved with either side of the Cold War division. With the naming of the Third World, it followed that the Cold War blocs should get numbered, too. The democratic, capitalist countries within the Western sphere of influence became the “First World." The communist-socialist states that were part of or allied with the USSR became the "Second World."

At the end of the Cold War, the three worlds model (not to be confused with Mao Zedong’s differently structured Three Worlds Theory) took on more of an economic context, rather than a geopolitical one. The First World now usually refers to Western, industrialized states, while the Second World consists of the communist and former communist states. The Third World still encompasses “everybody else,” mostly in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and tends to be a catchall for “developing nations” that are poor, less technologically advanced, dependent on the “developed countries,” or have unstable governments, high rates of population growth, illiteracy and disease, a lack of a middle class, a lot of foreign debt, or some combination thereof.

(Most of) the readers of this blog are smarter than me, so y’all probably already knew this. Now that I do, however, I can turn my attention to other weighty matters, such as how a thermos bottle knows whether to keep a liquid hot, or cold.

Sure it's a money pit, but it'd be a lot of fun

318 Taconic Road, built in 1785 and still retaining 37 acres (32 of which are in Stamford) is for sale at $4.795 million. Having once owned an antique home, I shudder at the cost of maintaining all these structures; it’d be nice to be a summer visitor, though, so long as I could direct all invoices to my host.

COVID testing on Parsonage road

The owners of 48 Parsonage Road have placed it on the market at $6.5 million, exactly one-million more than they paid for it in June 2016. Still no pool, but there are some new color schemes, sure to be changed by the next owners, because what else is there to do, and the shrubbery is a bit older and more mature. Otherwise …?

I suspect they’re testing just how much Kung Flu has panicked New Yorkers, and why the hell not? Though this now makes 101 $6 million+ homes on the market, surely there are at least that many city folks with cash to burn and nowhere else to go.

Pending in Riverside

3 Owenoke Way, $2.695 million. Very nicely decorated house, a one-car garage and no yard to speak of, though the latter is of less significance than otherwise, because Riverside School’s enormous playground is across the street. Traffic’s a bit of a bother at school drop-off and pick-up times, but the new owner can take pleasure reflecting on the irony that so many families move to Riverside precisely because their kids can walk to school, and then drive them there anyway.

Long time residents may recall that when the unlamented builder Richard Harris bought this house in 1999, his blowing it up to 4,000 sq. ft. was one of the main contributing factors to the anti-development FAR movement (Ed McCulloch’s hideous pink prefab crammed sideways on a similarly narrow lot on the corner of Lockwood and Riverside Avenue was the other). Years later, driving Leatrice past Harris’s house, my dear sweet Mama exclaimed, “now that’s a properly sized home — why can’t other builders do that?” I reminded her that she used to complain about the same damn house back when it was new; her perspective had changed as Riverside houses had grown ever larger.

She laughed.

Price cuts + Panicdemic = perma-inventory heave

78 & Cedar Cliff Road, Riverside, currently priced at $9.250 million, is reported pending. That’s a lot of money for a teardown on what is potentially two-lot waterfront parcel, but it’s a lot less money than the $17.5 million it started at in March 2016.

Old and in the way? Be afraid, be very afraid

Garcia, Vassar, and John Kalin are dead, Grissman and Rowan are still hanging on, at least until Emanuel discovers their whereabouts.

Thanks to Holden for passing along this story about Governor Lamont’s appointing his wife’s business partner to his “reopening Connecticut” panel.

Among the “senior advisors” guiding the first-term governor will be Ezekiel Emanuel, “who serves as Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania,” according to Monday’s announcement. Not included in the release from Lamont’s office were Emanuel’s credentials as “a Venture Partner at Oak HC/FT, [who] joined the firm in 2016 and focuses on growth equity and early-stage venture opportunities in Healthcare,” according to the firm’s website. Oak HC/FT is the venture capital firm co-founded by Ann Huntress Lamont, wife of and advisor to Ned Lamont.

According to Emanuel’s profile on the Oak HC/FT website, his spirit animal is Tigger of Winnie the Pooh fame. 

The ethicist Emanuel wrote a controversial 2014 article making the case for death at the age of 75. The piece continues to cause discomfort and may prompt some to question if Emanuel is suited to help lead us out a public health crisis that continues to take a fearsome toll on older people.

Panicked or no, buyers are still selective

11 Hidden Brook Road, Riverside, dropped its price 8.6% today to $3.195 from $3.495 million. When it came on in February I thought it would probably sell quickly, but I was wrong, obviously. Maybe this price cut will do the trick.

I still like the design, but perhaps the architect went too far with the “open concept” layout; looking at the kitchen/living room/sitting room combination, I wonder where one goes for a little quiet privacy? Especially if locked down with three kids.

Too cute? (My father, Yale ‘27, borrowed a similar banner and used it as a floor mat in front of our guest bathroom’s toilet for years, until some offended Harvard Man stole it back. Ha!)

(UPDATE): EOS, I’m still having difficulty posting pictures in the comments section, but in response to yours about license plate frames, here’s mine: Son John pointed out to me, “Dad, 90% of the people who see that won’t get it”. I replied, “yeah, but it’s the 10% who do who are the ones I want to annoy”. He paused, then said, “that’s so efficient”. I miss that boy.

A flu-inspired shot in the arm? I'm cautiously optimistic

New construction at 206 Stanwich Road, $5.950 million, has a contract after just 74 days. For many, many decades, Greenwich was able to distinguish itself to new York residents because of Connecticut’s lack of an income tax and (relatively) sound fiscal management. Those features are gone, but now we have another draw: low density, nice yards, and no subways. Judging from sales activity these past two weeks or so, New Yorkers are rediscovering the benefits of suburban living. Whether that’s a temporary phenomenon that will disappear as the panic ebbs, or a long-term shift, it’s too soon to tell.

But if you’ve been tempted to leave town for more hospitible climes these past years, now might be an excellent time to cash in.

Turns out I'm not the only one speculating that forced vaccination is next up

This won’t hurt a bit

I suggested yesterday that, as the purpose and goal of home confinement evolves from “flattening the curve” into “nobody leaves until we’re all immune”, calls for mandatory Kung Flu shots will start to be heard (herd?) from our betters. That’s exactly what’s happening.

In Britain, they’re comparing the citizenry to mental defectives:

Regarding bodily integrity as beyond reproach, when it comes to vaccinations and treatments for infectious diseases, seems inconsistent with how we treat the body in other domains. Mental health law allows psychiatric patients, including those with full decision-making capacity, to be treated — not merely detained — if they deemed to pose a risk to themselves or others; it allows for interferences with both freedom of movement and association, and bodily integrity.

But the virus is found on these shores too. Here’s Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel — currently presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s chief health-care adviser and a potential Secretary of Health and Human Services:

Two years ago, Emanuel wrote in the New York Times that every child in the United Statesshould be legally required to take a flu shot every year:

The freedom to allow your child to contract and transmit a deadly disease is hardly a real freedom worth protecting. In 1905 the Supreme Court recognized the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination — in that case for smallpox. The court made it clear that the state may be justified in restricting individual liberty when “great dangers” threaten “the safety of the general public.”

But is the flu a “great danger”? Not to children, to be sure. I looked up the stats. In recent years, the annual mortality toll has ranged between 37 in the 2011–12 flu season to a high of 186 in 2017–18. That’s tragic, but hardly a societal catastrophe. Moreover, flu is the eighth leading cause of death in the country, taking about 50,000 of us each year out of a population approaching 350 million. In comparison, heart disease, our leading killer, causes more than 600,000 deaths a year. And since adults aren’t required to submit to flu shots, it’s hard to see the point of such a mandate.

Ah, but Emanuel’s argument reveals the technocratic mindset. I can hear the activists yelling on CNN: “People could die if we aren’t all forced to be inoculated against COVID! And they could infect others!”

Earlier this week Alan Dershowitz defended forced inoculation:

Let me put it very clearly: you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. You have no right not to be vaccinated.… And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.

Dershowitz is currently out of favor with his cohort because of his defense of Trump, and judging from the comments to the linked-to Dershowitz YouTube, liberals still “won’t listen to anything said by this sell-out”. But that will change as quickly as #Metoo collapsed in the Biden moment. Look for him to be reembraced and wecolmed back to the fold just as soon as this opportunity to further expand the power of the government’s control of citizens becomes irresistable.