March 10

Ugo Bardi at Cassandra's Legacy has a post on the effects of the coronavirus in Florence, Italy. The city depends on tourists for a large part of the economy and tourism was drying up before the quarantine was imposed. He notes the even more drastic effects at the lower levels of the economic pyramid which have rarely been mentioned in our coverage of the epidemic. A story on broadcast news this morning noted the hit Chicago's hospitality industry is taking but focused on the restaurants and convention venues that are hurting without mentioning the employees who will not be able to pay rent or buy food. How nice #45 is talking to Repthuglicans in Congress and the Senate about payroll tax cuts. (That is sarcasm, in case you were wondering.) How much benefit will that be for people who have been laid off or whose hours have been cut? And if what ever comes out of the sausage grinder of lawmaking, I would bet, will follow #45's earlier and much trumpeted tax cuts which gave the benefits to the most flush groups and the big companies. How many of those benefits "trickled" down?

On this side of the globe we are bombarded by mixed messages from #45's administration while getting cautious and consistent messages from medical experts. Here we try to ignore the idiot in the White House and his sycophants though we did notice that five legislators who attended that "conservative" conference (including one who flew on Air Force One and the new Chief of Staff are "self-quarantining." I also saw that a number of the talking heads here and in Europe are suggesting that some kind of relief for those on the lower end of the economic ladder should be enacted. We'll see how far that goes with the Repthuglican Scrooges in D.C. Here is a prime example of the current situation.

Oh well, I think I will get back to something more productive than following the news. I just started a new crochet project--a "virus" pattern shawl in lace weight thread. That brings me up to four on the hook again; the reversible Tunisian crochet and the scrap buster piece, both in worsted weight yarns and the Bavarian stitch whatever (I haven't decided exactly what it will be) in lace weight yarn. I checked what floss the cross-stitch table cloth will need and, as usual no matter how much floss I have on hand, I need about a dozen of the two dozen colors. At least I now have the list of what I need and can order it over the next couple of weeks. It isn't a priority since I have several other things on the hoop or on the hook.