Day: March 19, 2020

Chloroquine Chat

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Three hours ago I got in touch with my UCLA-affiliated primary care giver.

HE: What about giving me a prescription for hydroxy chloroquine? An antiviral malaria medication known by the CDC to be effective as treatment and prevention for SARS, with three new studies allegedly showing strong anti-Covid19 effects.

UCLA doctor/primary caregiver: I’m aware of this. We’re not recommending it.

HE: May I ask why? It’s an “old” malaria preventative. Been around forever. Trump is no medical authority, but he did mention it today. Why not?

UCLA doctor/primary caregiver: There is not actually data that it works. I discussed it extensively with a top expert in the field today who said absolutely not. The only time they may consider it in the future is for hospitalized patients with recent diagnosis. It is not a benign medication and may end up doing more harm than good. Also, it is bad for the community as it may mask symptoms. The idea is isolation. I appreciate your strong your desire to want to take action. Believe me, I wish there was something I could do besides educating people. But really there is exactly one way to prevent getting this virus and it is to socially isolate. Which works EXTREMELY well.

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An Order, Not A Request

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During a Thursday press conference, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a “Safer At Home” Emergency Order. All L.A. residents are hereby ordered to stay inside their homes, and immediately limit all movement beyond what is absolutely necessary to take care of essential needs (i.e., visits to the market and CVS and the gas station). He described “Safer At Home” as a “more rigorous form of social distancing.”

Quote: “Los Angeles, this is our moment to lead with love and protect those lives that mean everything to us. This is not a request, this is an order.”

Absence of “Deconstructing Harry”

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I’d forgotten how shrill and angry this Deconstructing Harry scene between Judy Davis and Woody Allen is. I’d forgotten how scalding it is, the constant currents of rage and self-loathing and hand-wringing. The truth is that I’ve forgotten much of this film, period. I mainly recall Allen’s visit to hell.

The reason it’s not spoken about all that much, I gather, is because of the harsh, abrasive and unpleasant tone throughout much of the film. Right?

I was seized with an impulse to watch it, of course, especially with my life having been pathetically reduced to stuff I can do at home. So I went to Amazon and found instant disappointment. Quote: “Our agreements with the content provider don’t allow purchases of this title at this time.” Terrific.

“Some Would Say An Act of God…”

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In fact COVID-19 was an act of bats. An act of live animal (or “wet”) markets in Wuhan, which is to say an act of the culture that supported their existence. It pains me to acknowledge that on this one point Trump is more or less correct.

Spike Lee, quoted by Variety: “I would like to say this: I wish he would stop saying ‘the Chinese virus’. The president of the United States needs to stop calling this the Chinese virus. Please stop doing that. He’s putting Asian Americans in this country in danger. Stop saying Chinese virus. There’s nobody around him to say, ‘You can’t say this anymore’? That isn’t helping at all. Hopefully his base will understand. You just can’t say that.”

HE to Lee: Calling it COVID-19 should suffice all around, but the corona virus did originate in Wuhan, China. That’s a fact.

Did you speak out against the use of the term West Nile virus, which stigmatized Eastern Africa (and was first identified in 1937 in Uganda)? Did you warn against using the term Ebola virus when it first came into use in 2014, the disease hgving begun in West Africa? What about the stigmatizing that the citizens of Old Lyme, Connecticut, have had to deal with since Lyme disease was diagnosed as having originated in that town in 1975?

“The Mysterians”

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Yesterday I asked a local CVS manager when the next toilet-paper shipment would arrive. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Very early in the morning, but the shelves won’t be stacked until 9 or 10 am.”

I showed up this morning at 9:30 am, and discovered that employees hadn’t even attempted to put paper products on the shelves. Several large open boxes were just sitting on the floor, and customers were emptying them willy nilly — ripping the tops, lunging, grabbing — savage wolves tearing a sheep into shreds.

I didn’t want to be a hog so I just grabbed a single package of four rolls, which turned out to be the limit anyway.

I’ve decided that whatever the risks, face masks have to be worn just below the nostrils. You can breathe better that way, and it looks better besides.

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Lars von Trier’s “The Idiots”

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In November 2016 Timothee Chalamet reportedly participated in a reading of a John Patrick Shanley play called “Tennessee.” (This is apparently not to be confused with Chalamet’s performance in Shanley’s Prodigal Son, which opened at the Manhattan Theatre Club on 2.9.16. Or is it?) One of his character’s lines included the word “dyke,” which Chalamet naturally read with whatever gusto was required.

A tape of this reading got around a couple of days ago, and a twitter community of LGBTQ wokester lunatics, offended by the “d” slur, decided that Chalamet needed to be cancelled for using a bigoted term. Again, having failed to grasp that he was reading lines from a play.

I show you the times. I show you the insanity. I show you the rabid mob. You can’t make this stuff up.

HE doesn’t believe in cancel culture, but Chalamet needed to be caned — sternly chastised — for blindly throwing Woody Allen under the bus.