From the opinion pages
“If members of Congress had grasped that they were facing an entirely novel sort of crisis, we’d have gotten a better relief bill, and much sooner than we actually did. One that could have kept many of those people in work.
“Congress could have done what governments in other countries have done, notably Denmark and Britain: offered to pay employers to furlough workers, rather than laying them off. Britain is promising to replace 80 percent of the salary of those workers, through grants employers will get from the treasury. Denmark is offering to pay 90 percent of the wages of hourly workers who have been sent home, and 75 percent of the pay of salaried workers. There are also other forms of assistance to help employers cover fixed expenses as their revenue drops.
By keeping workers attached to their employers, and keeping employers solvent, these countries will make it easier for the economy to restart when the epidemic is under control. Our Congress, unfortunately, seems to be struggling with the idea that this is not your standard recession.”
Megan McArdle,
Washington Post
“There’s a new introspection coming into the world. … Everybody I talk to these days seems eager to have deeper conversations and ask more fundamental questions:
Are you ready to die? If your lungs filled with fluid a week from Tuesday would you be content with the life you’ve lived?
What would you do if a loved one died? Do you know where your most trusted spiritual and relational resources lie?
What role do you play in this crisis? What is the specific way you are situated to serve?
We are all assigned the task of confronting our own fear. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a pit of fear in my stomach since this started that hasn’t gone away. But gradually you discover that you have the resources to cope as you fight the fear with conversation and direct action. A stronger self emerges out of the death throes of the anxiety.”
David Brooks
New York Times
“While we applaud recent federal and state efforts to help pass small business loan relief and offset the pain felt by many of our employees who are simply not able to work now, we would like to recommend simple steps that could provide a small but necessary boost to restaurant viability: Relax state regulations and allow restaurants to offer limited alcohol sales as part of their meal takeout and deliveries. A bill introduced this week by Baker would allow just that.
“As even casual observers know, sales of beer, wine, and spirits are a large driver of restaurant revenue on a dine-in basis — between 30 and 50 percent. Alcohol sales boost check sizes and gratuities for our staff as our guests enjoy wine, beer, and cocktails. Easing regulations on takeout of the packaged beer and wine that restaurants have on hand would allow them to accrue precious incremental revenue so they can stay in business longer and recover faster as this crisis winds down.”
Jody Adams and Jeff Klineman
The Boston Globe
Jody Adams is a James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef and Boston-area restaurateur. Jeff Klineman is the editor in chief of BevNET, a media company that covers food and beverage entrepreneurialism.
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The New Yorker magazine is known for allowing its writers basically to take as much time and space as they need to tell stories the editors deem important (an entire issue on Hiroshima post the bomb; Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” a seminal inspection of humanity’s devastation of our environment) or interesting (John Updike on Ted Williams’s last at-bat) or valued for the writer’s names (Edmund Wilson’s notebooks and diaries). Occasionally, the New Yorker’s editors post online articles written years and decades ago that seem relevant to the times at hand.
One such this week was Richard Preston’s October 1992 article, “Crisis in the Hot Zone: Lessons from an outbreak of Ebola.” The editor’s introduction to the lengthy article notes that “the heroes of Preston’s tale are the doctors on the front lines and the scientists at the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, at Fort Detrick, in Maryland” and the Preston’s reporting and prose affirm their heroism. It is quite the tale.
For all that, what I gained from reading it this particular week was how that prose laid out what a virus is and does:
“A virus is a small capsule consisting of membranes and proteins. The capsule holds one or more strands of RNA or DNA that contain the software program for making a copy of the virus. The virus penetrates a cell wall, and the capsule breaks apart inside the cell, releasing the strands of genetic material, which take over the cell and force it to make copies of the virus.
Eventually, the cell gets pigged with virus, and pops. Or viruses can bud through a cell wall like sweat coming off a drip hose.
“In either case, viruses tend to kill cells. If they kill enough cells, or if they kill a class of cell that the host needs for survival, then the host dies. Viruses that kill their hosts do not themselves survive. It is in the virus’s best interest to let the host live, but accidents happen. Some biologists classify viruses as “life forms”—ambiguously alive. Bacteria and cells are always humming with activity, enzymatic processes. Viruses that are outside cells merely sit there; nothing happens. But when they get inside a cell they switch on and begin to replicate. Viruses can seem alive when they multiply, but in another sense they are molecular machines—obviously non-living, strictly mechanical, no more alive than a jackhammer. Compact, logical, hard, engineered by the forces of evolution, and totally selfish, the viral machinery is dedicated to making copies of itself—which it can do on occasion with radiant speed.
“Viruses are not easy to see, even with an electron microscope. Here is a way to imagine the size of a virus. Consider the island of Manhattan, shrunk to this size: ▌
“This shrunken Manhattan could easily hold nine million common-cold viruses.”
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This on Facebook from Leigh Montville, prolific author and longtime sportswriter/columnist for The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated.
An NCAA Tournament story from long ago (or just a little tale to keep us occupied during the sports lockdown):
“The year was 1959. There was a tie for the Ivy League title between Princeton and Dartmouth, so a one-game playoff was held at Yale’s Payne Whitney Gymnasium to decide who would go to the NCAA tournament. I was 13 years old. I was there.
My friend John McDonald and I were rope guards. Our job was to hold a rope so spectators would not step onto the hardwood court before or after games or at halftime. We had done this for the entire Yale season and now did it for the playoff. We could watch the game from very good seats.
Dartmouth was led by Rudy LaRusso, a big guy who later had a solid NBA career with the Lakers. Dave Gavitt, who became the coach at Providence and then the head of the Big East, was a guard. For Princeton, the stars were brothers Carl and Herman Belz, a pair of talented bruisers. It was an even game, a thriller, and with five seconds or so, Princeton had a one-point lead and the ball. Things seemed to be in control as the Tigers dribbled the ball up the floor. McDonald and I were ready to stand up with the rope.
Then a Dartmouth guy pushed the Princeton guard out of bounds right in front of us. McDonald and I both said “foul,” and “automatic,” but the referee said “Out of bounds, Dartmouth ball.” Out of bounds? Dartmouth ball?
The Princeton players protested. The referee gave the ball to the Dartmouth player who immediately threw a long pass to LaRusso. The Princeton players still were protesting. LaRusso dribbled uncontested to sink a lay-up as the horn sounded to end the game. Dartmouth won, 69-68, to go to the tournament. The Princeton players just stood there, dumbfounded and destroyed.
A bunch of years passed. I was grown up, married, kids, the whole deal. Living in Newton, MA. My daughter was eight or nine and her friend was a girl named Emily Belz, whose father was the director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. I never put his name together with the game – his name was Carl Belz and he was quite tall – until one day I saw he had a black and orange striped scarf.
Did you? Were you? Yes, he did. Yes, he was.
I told him my memory of the game, all the Princeton players still arguing while the ball was thrown into LaRusso. He shook his head, yes, true, that was the ending, but he had an important addition: “One player wasn’t arguing,” he said. “That was me. I guarded the in-bound pass.”
He explained that this was the most important game of his life. He was a senior. He was from New Jersey His forever goal in basketball was to play in Madison Square Garden, but he never had. The NCAA first round was in the Garden. That game would complete his career. He rushed right over to guard that pass.
“And I touched the ball when the Dartmouth guy threw it in,” he said, “I did. You know how sometimes you just touch the ball with your fingers and you can feel it, just a brush, but the ball keeps going? That’s what happened….”
He paused. He held up his hand. “All these years later,” he said, “I still wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and I can feel that ball going off my fingers….”
Carl Belz died a few years ago and Rudy LaRusso is dead and Dave Gavitt is dead and I don’t think many people remember this game, but McDonald does and I do and every year around this time we tell each other this story and can feel the ball just brushing past one man’s hand. Eerie and sweet at the same time.
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The “fores!!” go silent
Golf is a game that, history shows, can be played satisfactorily by seasoned toddlers (Tiger Woods) and nonogenarians (John D. Rockefeller). Its legion of adherents point to the health-quotient value of four or so hours of walking out in the fresh air while stretching the body on courses groomed to be challenging. So this week even as Gov. Baker issued his directive closing most places of business and his advisory that all those not involved in essential businesses should stay home from work, golf clubs were looking to get approval to use their fairways as places where they could both play their games and honor safe distancing.
Then late Thursday afternoon came a bulletin from masslive.com’s Christopher Smith reporting that all golf courses, both private and public, are being required to close because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Jesse Menachem of the Massachusetts Golf Association (MGA), said Smith, confirmed that the Massachusetts Emergency Management Authority (MEMA) had informed the MGA of the decision.
“MEMA initially had suggested each facility reach out to their local government officials or departments of health to receive clearance to continue maintenance of the courses, Smith noted. On Tuesday, Gov. Charlie Baker declared course landscaping is an essential service, so Menachem said, facilities can continue to maintain their courses.”
