In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

California Gov Newsom's tone has shifted lately as he confronts the upcoming recall election on September 14. In March, he was assertive and combative , characterizing the recall as a fringe effort: "I am not going to take this recall attempt lying down," he declared. "And let's call it what it is: it's a partisan, Republican recall — backed by the [Republican National Committee], anti-mask and anti-vax extremists, and pro-Trump forces who want to overturn the last election and have opposed much of what we have done to fight the pandemic," Newsom wrote. But last Thursday, he was sounding alarm bells . Newsom predicted that nationwide, Democrats would see “consequences” from his recall effort for “many, many years,” and it might help Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. During the interview with the editorial boards of the McClatchy Newspapers, Newsom also noted that he does not think the Democrats are considering the consequences of h...

A chance mention of the UK's experience with the delta surge sent me to the usual charts on the web, Indeed, the UK experienced a surge in delta-variant COVID cases in late spring, but the surge looks just like every other peak we've had since late 2020. It reaches a summit, and then it falls off steeply on the other side. In contrast, I looked up the graph for UK deaths. As I pretty much expected, unlike the graph for cases above, there was no peak at all in deaths over the same period. This has been the pattern for every geographical area I've checked. It also lends credence to the remark by former FDA commissioiner Dr Scott Gottlieb , "I think we’re further into this Delta wave than we’re picking up . . . I think, you know, in another 2 or 3 weeks we’ll be through this. This new [masking] guidance will have a negligible impact on it.” Other remarks by Gottlieb suggest the CDC is continuing to damage its reputation by spreading panic over the delta variant. ...

I woke up this morning to see new signs -- unusual for a weekend -- that the CDC is losing control of the narrative. A big one is that people there are leaking. As of Thursday, an internal PowerPoint reached the Washington Post : It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures, including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus. . . . The data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be published in full on Friday. However, this didn't happen. Instead, The White House on Friday struggled to explain to reporters why it suddenly stopped holding coronavirus briefings after the Cente...

I've never stopped checking the daily Los Angeles County COVID statistics. The graph above is a screen shot from today's report. While other graphs show sharp increaes in positive tests and hospitalizations, there's been no eqwuivalent rise in deaths. The graph is based on seven-day averages to compensate for daily fluctuation. By early June, the averages reached a floor of about four deaths per day in the county of over 10 million. Since then, they've fluctuated between two and four, with no increase equivalent to those for positive teats and hospitalizations. Among other things, it's hard not to conclude that whatever the reason for an increase in hospitalizations, there are far fewer deaths resulting from them. So I went to find a graph of total COVID deaths in the US. Here it is at right (click on all the images for larger copies). A key takeaway is that, if in the past the public health authorities took cases as a leading indicator of deaths, so far, this do...

I couldn't help but notice a post yesterday at Fr Hunwicke's blog , which reads in its entirety: Like Vatican II, TC has now (after only twelve days!!) sprouted its own ghastly SPIRIT, which can even be directly contrary to the wording of TC, but still has to be as ruthlessly enforced. According to Fr Zed, an American cardinal called Gregory has forbidden an Authentic Form Mass in an American church which ... is NOT a "parish church". Simply a tyranny, isn't it, all this. You have to guess what Hitler or Stalin or that North Korean chappy really want, then you have to enforce it. If you know what's good for you. This is what tyrants and their lackeys always really expect. They don't really take seriously even their own wretched enactments. They just want you to grovel. Several things interest me here. It appears Fr Hunwicke thinks Cdl Gregory forbade a celebration of the Latin mass "directly contrary to the wording of TC". But Article 2 of ...

A visitor sent me the above screen shot from a Facebook thread on one of the ordinariate groups there. The backstory appears to be this, according to the Black Catholic Messenger blog: A planned council of the Knights of Peter Claver & Ladies Auxiliary at an Ordinariate parish in California has been quashed—and likely due to racism, according to the prospective council head. It would have made history both as the first KPC unit at an Ordinariate parish, and also as the first in Orange County (an affluent region in Southern California that is only ~2% Black). Last year, Gunnar Gundersen led the effort at Irvine's St John Henry Newman Catholic Church, a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. The plan was initially approved in December by the parish administrator, Fr Evan Simington, after the POCSP bishop Steven J. Lopes gave the green light in August. The visitor suiggests that Fr Simington's apparent turnaround came about because Mr Gunderse...

My wife and I normally record each night's TV schedule to watch the following night so we can fast-forward through the commercials, but if there's not enough history or animal or true crime stuff, I go looking for a film. The other night, I settled on Die Hard (1988), which neither of us had seen, and for which my expectations were low. After all, it's the dregs of summer season. It turned out not to be High Noon , but it was actually watchable, and remarkably insightful into modern culture very much like the Jason Bourne films that I've already discussed here . The Bourne films carried the strong subtext that the CIA of Allen Dulles, North by Northwest, and Topaz isn't the CIA we have. But I made the point that the Bourne trilogy appeared between 2002 and 2007, long before Donald Trump was anything but a playboy billionaire and reality TV star. Remarkably, Die Hard makes a similar point, that the FBI is no longer the FBI of G-men and J Edgar Hoover. And it s...