Coronavirus distance tattling?
Is it a “Brave New World?” Or Orwell’s 1984, where neighbors are supposed to rat on neighbors? Or a life-saving tactic in the frontline in the war against COVID-19?
Madison/Dane County Public Health is encouraging residents to report gatherings of more than 10 persons. Public Health posted a form on-line Wednesday (03-18-2020).
Matt Kittle at Empower Wisconsin is calling it “Brave New World.” Here at the Stately Manor, the Lovely Lisa says “I don’t like it.”
Then again, citizens were designated as air raid wardens to roam the streets of America looking for violators of the “Lights Out” blackouts during World War 2. The President has assumed war powers. We are at war with a virus that can kill. Young people think they’ll never die. You’ve seen pictures congregating on southern beaches. New C.D.C. data shows that nearly 40% of patients sick enough to be hospitalized were aged 20 to 54. The risk of dying was significantly higher in older people. So it is a matter of life and death.
“We don’t want to give citations initially but if people don’t want to follow what we ask, we will issue citations,” Public Health Department spokesman Jarrett Jones told Blaska Policy Werkes.
Jones said the department had an enforcement team but did knot know how many members. He said the department had already received some reports but did not know how many.
“We have the authority to limit mass gatherings and we can work with the police department to enforce this ordinance.”
Distance coffee klatsching
Held our bi-weekly wise old guys (as opposed to old wise guys) breakfast on-line this morning because the old Squire is sheltering in place. Three of us hooked up via an application (app) called “Zoom.” You can sign up for free and host up to 100 participants; there’s a 40-minute limit on session length. One of our group signed up for $15/month for more features. Meetings can even be recorded, good for government use.
It’s great to be able to see friends on the screen but have to say the breakfast service at the Manor suffered in comparison to My Sisters’ Place in Middleton. (We hope to return soon.)
This source tells us that The number of Zoom users has grown rapidly surrounding concerns for coronavirus (COVID-19). It’s estimated that the company has added 2.22 million monthly active users so far in 2020, while in all of 2019 it added 1.99 million users. Zoom meetings will be the new normal.
The Policy Werkes received this inquiry: “Who else thinks the anti-Trump virus was manufactured in a bio-weapons laboratory?” We referred it to our minister of paranoia (shown at left). That conspiracy theory is refuted here.
Have you noticed? Is there a slight downtick in partisanship? The “we’re all in this together” mood? Is Trump being forced to act all “Presidential”? Will the Presidency make the man (at long last)? Standing up there with Doctors Birx and Fauci and the Surgeon General helps the old image. Are fireside chats next? Via Zoom?
Blaska Policy Werkes 
24 responses to “Don’t make us report you”
Where is this new CDC data about young people being hospitalized? Conflicts with everything else I have read, though admittedly any hard data is difficult to find.
What is the punishment for large gatherings?
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Dayam! One lousy Commie runs for office and now we have Block Captains.
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Anyone needing to do any business downtown (CCB or Dane County Courthouse), now’s the time; parking galore!
Found a place within spittin’ distance of the DDC and dropped two quarters in for 15 minutes. Entered through security, went to the wrong room, went to the right room, filed my Dear late Father’s will in Probate, and was back in the car in 6 minutes.
Got in-n-out of Costco, (WITH over-priced TP [at the behest of the lovely and long suffering Mrs. Gotch]/without Quinoa & Garbanzo Beans) in ~ 25 minutes; long lines but they moved pretty gosh darn quickly.
The Gotch
The Gotch
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Sorry to hear about your father, Gootch. You’ve spoken of him often. Sympathies to you and your family.
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Banning gatherings is as laughable as it is unenforceable (just shot archery league with my buds last night as a matter of fact). Highly doubtful any court would uphold such extreme directives. I’m bummed more people aren’t pushing back harder.
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Just announced groups of 10 or more may gather. As long as they are Kung Flu Fighting.
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Oh-hoh-hoh-hoah
Everybody was Kung Flu Fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact, it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing
There were funky China men from funky Chinatown
They were chopping them up
They were chopping them down
It’s an ancient Chinese art
And everybody knew their part
From a feigning to a slip
And a kickin’ from the hip
Everybody was Kung Fu fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing
and so on and so forth. Anti Malaria Drug, ramp up production and kick this Virus in the Arse!!!!
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Seems like18th century France revisited. Or an edict by the Gestapo. What next? A REWARD??
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Ah, the utter reliability of “Science”!! Nothing can ever go wrong with “Science” After all, 90% of the world’s scientists believe in
coolingwarming. Or maybe “change.” They’ll get back to us on the question and answer. Because bio-weapons labs are……..so 20th Century and stuff.By the way, there are rumors midst the yout’s that the National Guard has been put on alert to patrol the streets of Wisconsin looking for criminals caught walking outside, or some-such. Reliably advised of such by a young fellow in a gas station near Poynette. To back this up, there are pictures of military vehicles loaded on train-cars!!! Allegedly near Milwaukee!!!
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Loosen. The. Tin. Foil. Dad.
Next you’ll be telling us you don’t believe in vaccines, chlorination of public water supplies or pasteurization.
“Allegedly…!!!” Yeesh.
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AB, you are the very last person from whom I will take ANY advice, but thanks for your attempt.
Ultra-sophisticates believe anything put out by “British Scientists”. They do not KNOW these scientists, of course. And the ultra-sophisticates also “Knew” that MI-5 would never participate in an attempt to bring down a US President.
Until they did.
Red China is an enemy of the US in philosophy, theology, and method of governance. No rational person would peremptorily decree that Red China would NOT loose a weapon from their Level Four bio-weapons lab in Wuhan.
Would they?
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The ORANGE_MAN_BAD theme Lefty feebly attempts to push doesn’t pass the smell test.
In related news, water is wet, heavy things tend to submit to gravity, and Jeffy Esptein didn’t kill himself.
To wit:
“A study published in March indicated that if Chinese authorities had acted three weeks earlier than they did, the number of coronavirus cases COULD_HAVE_BEEN_REDUCED BY_95%_AND_ITS_GEOGRAPHICAL_SPREAD_LIMITED (bolds/caps mine)
“This timeline, compiled from information reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the South China Morning Post and other sources, shows that CHINA’S COVER-UP AND THE DELAY in serious measures to contain the virus lasted about three weeks.” (bolds mine)
The Gotch
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WaPo link
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But Red China CAAAAAAAAAAAAARES about us!! Surely they would not allow a fatal virus to …………..OMG.
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A while back (early 2000’s) a lifelong DEEP Lefty connected (1960’s Crestwood!) Lefty pal/classmate of my Lefty Brother (The Gotch has TWO Lefty Brothers and FOUR Lefty Sisters) predicted the future.
“You see what’s going on in China? That’s going to be the good ol’ U. S. of A. in 100 years.”
The Gotch thought at the time he was talking about the 1 Child policy….now I wonder…..
The Gotch
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My sister is waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy Left, but we made up for it; 7 of the 9 chilluns are Conservative. Not Globaloney “conservative”. Actual ‘Merican Conservative.
Allow me to express sympathy over your family situation, but feel free to stop by if you need reinforcement.
BTW, your reference to Crestwood escapes me.
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Crestwood was Ground Zero for the Progressive takeover of the Democrat party in the late 1940s, 1950s. Gaylord Nelson lived there. Gretchen Pfankuchen. John Patrick Hunter of the Capital Times. Many more.
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The Crestwood Neighborhood was a certified Lefty hotbed back in the day. They weren’t good tippers for yours truly as a young Milwaukee Journal carrier; a Lefty feature is short fingers and long pockets….
Anywho, if you remember the 1979 oscar-winning documentary about the Madison anti-war protests, The War At Home, one of Crestwood’s prominent residents (Betty Boardman) was featured.
The Gotch used to hang out at the Boardman household back in the mid-to-late 60s when all manner of subterfuge was being plotted out of their Dogwood Place abode.
From a small family (only 7 kids) and since my beloved FIL passed just shy of three years ago, I’m the only Conservative in our household’s entire extended family.
The Gotch
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I delivered Hunter’s paper; his son was always a goof and is doing time, now.
And the many more included, but were not limited to, the Zeldons, the Steinbergs, the Orcutts, ad infinitum!
The Gotch
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Oh, by the way……..maybe the report that this is all “BATS!!!” was selectively edited.
The paper is titled “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV Coronvirus”. It is penned by noted Chinese research scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao. Xiao and Xi claim that the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in laboratories to cultivate viruses, including 605 bats.
Wuhan Center for Disease Control, which co-operated with the Level Four bio-weapons lab, also in Wuhan.
https://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/coronavirus-escaped-from-wuhan-bio-warfare-research-lab-whcdc-127257/
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[…] wrote about distance coffee klatsching via the video-conference app, Zoom. The WSJ tells us 275,000 downloads of the app this past […]
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“And the many more included, but were not limited to, the Zeldons, the Steinbergs, the Orcutts, ad infinitum!”
Eric Zeldon was a friend of mine in H.S. We thought of ourselves as anti-establishment radicals and worked on starting a hateful little rag with another radical neighbor friend of mine. Moving away from the Madison ideological bubble was one of the wisest decisions Batman ever made.
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Meant no disrespect to any of those named; the Zeldons were an eclectic lot, swam upstream when most others went with the flow.
Looking back with today’s perspective,The Gotch may not necessarily have agreed with their politics, but would admire their moxey!
We’ve chewed some of the same dirt, Sir; you probably had a JMM class or two with Cal Stone (Arbor Vitae Place), am I right?
The Gotch
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None taken Gotch. We were vehemently anti-Nixon and profoundly against the Vietnam war. That was pretty much the extent of our political awareness at the time.
We definitely noshed some of the same dirt but no memory of Cal Stone.
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