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Dayton Innovation: How this law firm is using technology to help seniors – Dayton Daily News

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Describe what your business does: We are a boutique law firm devoted exclusively to estate and retirement planning, tax services and elder care.

What inspired you to start this business? After helping my father go through Alzheimers, I decided I wanted to help other families going through similar issues. Therefore, I decided to focus my law practice on helping seniors by becoming a board certified specialist in estate planning, trust and probate law.

How has your business embraced innovation? In addition to our physical offices in Dayton, Centerville and Troy, we have become a virtual law firm and regularly conduct business through Zoom, Microsoft Teams and WebEx. In addition, we now regularly host webinars to educate prospects about our unique seven-step planning process.

What is your biggest challenge right now? Our biggest challenge is helping our senior clients embrace virtual technology.

What is your biggest opportunity right now? We have expanded our service offerings to include advanced strategies involving tax planning, asset protection and retirement planning. In addition, our service area has expanded into Indiana and Kentucky.

What do you want readers to know about your business today? As board certified attorneys, we are experts who can provide comfort and clarity to help clients protect assets and preserve their independence. We would like to invite your readers to visit our website, https://www.daytonestateplanninglaw.com/ to access our library of helpful blogs or to schedule a free, no-obligation estate planning consultation.

Insight Honored as 2019 Dell Technologies North America Transformational Partner of the Year – Business Wire

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

TEMPE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Insight Enterprises (NASDAQ:NSIT), the global integrator of Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions for organizations of all sizes, has been named the 2019 Dell Technologies North America Transformational Partner of the Year, recognizing Insight as a partner solution provider that has shown notable growth in year-over-year aligned business revenue for Dell Technologies, VMware and VMware Carbon Black.

Insight, a Dell Technologies Titanium Black partner, architects and delivers advanced end-to-end cloud solutions and device management services that draw from many of the technologies from Dells portfolio. This includes accelerating clients IT service delivery and developing future-ready data centers that streamline deployment, provisioning, scaling and ongoing administration for physical, virtual and cloud environments.

Intelligent use of technology provides better services to customers, boosts worker productivity, and keeps information secure while getting the most out of data, said Bob Kane, senior vice president and general manager of U.S. enterprise sales and partner marketing, Insight. Our partnership with Dell addresses client-specific challenges for todays norms, helping them keep their ever-changing environment up to speed while getting the best use out of existing systems.

Through its Cloud + Data Center Transformation and Connected Workforce solutions and services, Insight takes a cost-effective, hybrid-cloud approach to modernizing and managing IT environments powered by Dell Technologies. Upgrades to the latest Dell devices occur via Insights Supply Chain Optimization resources.

Committed to protecting clients and the planet, Insight and Dell Technologies also have partnered to create a sustainable IT asset disposal program intended to protect the planet from electronic waste. This ensures outdated equipment filled with sensitive data is recycled securely and responsibly.

To see how Dell Technologies integrates with Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions, visit our Dell partner page. For more information on Insight, go to http://www.insight.com or call 800-INSIGHT.

About Insight

Today, every business is a technology business. Insight Enterprises Inc. empowers organizations of all sizes with Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions and services to maximize the business value of IT. As a Fortune 500-ranked global provider of Digital Innovation, Cloud + Data Center Transformation, Connected Workforce, and Supply Chain Optimization solutions and services, we help clients successfully manage their IT today while transforming for tomorrow. From IT strategy and design to implementation and management, our 11,000 teammates help clients innovate and optimize their operations to run business smarter. Discover more atwww.insight.com. NSIT-M

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Insight Honored as 2019 Dell Technologies North America Transformational Partner of the Year - Business Wire

Creative Management Platforms Market Technology Growth and Development 2020 to 2026 – Market Research Posts

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Creative Management Platforms Market Scenarios and Brief Analysis with size, status and forecast 2020-2026

The global research report titled Creative Management Platforms Market has recently published by The Research Insights which helps to provide guidelines for the businesses. It has been aggregated on the basis of different key pillars of businesses such as drivers, restraints and global opportunities. This research report has been compiled by using primary and secondary research techniques. While curating this research report several dynamic aspects of businesses such as definition, classification, application, and industrial chain structure have been studied in detail. It sheds light on dynamic aspects of the businesses such as the clients needs and feedback of the various customers. Finally, researchers direct its focus on some significant points to give a gist about investment, profit margin, and revenue.

Creative Management Platforms Market is growing at a High CAGR during the forecast period 2020-2026. The increasing interest of the individuals in this industry is that the major reason for the expansion of this Market.

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The report presents the market competitive landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendor/key players in the market. Top Companies in the Global Creative Management Platforms Market: Adacado, Adzymic, Adobe, Bannersnack, Clinch, Clipcentric, InMobi, Jivox, RevJet, RhythmOne, Spongecell, Celtra, Sizmek, Media Optimizer, SteelHouse, Flashtalking, Balihoo, Bannerflow, Bonzai, Flite, Mixpo, Thunder, Google, Adform, Snapchat (Flite), Mediawide, Netsertive (Mixpo), Others

This report segments the global Creative Management Platforms Market on the basis of Types are:

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Large Enterprises

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Creative Management Platforms Market Technology Growth and Development 2020 to 2026 - Market Research Posts

Dallas sports technology duo created a robotic quarterback. The NFL is catching on – WFAA.com

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Igor Karlicic and Bhargav Maganti are the co-founders of Monarc, a Dallas-based sports technology company.

While developing the worlds first robotic quarterback, Igor Karlicic and Bhargav Maganti never anticipated their invention would be sidelined by a pandemic, virtually shutting down practice time.

They are finding that NFL players are using their technology as a way to practice at home while socially distancing.

Karlicic and Maganti are the co-founders of Monarc, a Dallas-based sports technology company. After years of development, Monarc released The Seeker, a robotic training device with the capabilities of a quarterback.

The Seeker uses a tracking device to throw the football, creating realistic drills for wide receivers, Karlicic said.

Click here for a gallery of more photos of the device in action.

We say (robotic) quarterback because it allows people to train alone for the first time ever, Karlicic said.

Current NFL players such as tight ends George Kittle, Hunter Henry, T.J. Hockenson, and Eric Ebron as well as wide receiver Mohamed Sanu are all using The Seeker.

Another potential NFL connection for the device is James Proche, a Dallas native who was the leading receiver for Southern Methodist University last season, and a sixth-round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens.

Proche said he first used The Seeker while playing for SMU. He likes the device because it creates game-like situations, and it can be programmed to create certain throws with the football that arent possible on normal machines.

For more on this story,click here.

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Dallas sports technology duo created a robotic quarterback. The NFL is catching on - WFAA.com

Point of care technologies in focus – Health Europa

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

The response of healthcare systems and policymakers to the COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened focus on infection prevention and control at the point of care (POC), a key concern within healthcare environments. HEQ explores developments in point of care technologies and practices which may help protect patients and staff from the spread of disease.

A 2019 study focusing on the use of digital technology to support point of care diagnostics and treatment in rural and resource-limited areas found that the integration of novel digital technology solutions into clinical and ambulatory settings improved the ability of care practitioners to reach an initial diagnosis. The research, which was conducted in rural West Virginia, analysed the use of technology first assessment protocols in diagnosing and determining treatment for common acute and chronic cardiovascular conditions. Physicians participating in the study reported that the use of digital solutions, including wireless vital sign monitors and smartphone-compatible pocket ultrasound devices, improved their ability to make prompt, accurate diagnoses of conditions such as atrial defibrillation and heart failure.

Six NHS hospital trusts across the UK have implemented the Scan4Safety initiative, a point of care barcode scanning programme overseen by NHSX. Scan4Safety equips patients with a unique barcode on a wristband, which is then scanned at each stage of the care pathway, in order to document their treatment, the equipment used which is also scanned and the corresponding patient and location data recorded and the staff members responsible for their care. The process offers evident benefits in terms of inventory management and oversight, as well as reducing the amount of staff hours spent on stock management, with up to 140,000 clinical hours returned to patient care across the six trusts. Trusts which have adopted the programme report observing measurable improvements to patient safety through accurate recall and full traceability; decreased risk of drug error; and improvements to routine patient observations.

Lord David Prior, chair of NHS England, said: Barcodes are commonplace in most industries and been around for a long time. It is time they became commonplace in the NHS. They offer traceability, efficiency savings and greater patient safety. We live in a world in which digital technology has already fundamentally changed the banking industry, the retail industry, and many others. It offers a similar opportunity in healthcare. Barcodes are a small but essential part of that revolution. We need to embrace it, now.

The healthcare sector has recorded significant improvements to patient management, particularly in terms of access to diagnostic services, following the implementation and digitalisation of point of care testing facilities; with the most drastic improvements reported in areas with limited clinical resources or minimal access to laboratory infrastructure.

When left unsupported by digital innovation, increasing the implementation of infection testing at the point of care while it appears to be the optimal solution for patients, in principle risks placing undue strain on healthcare services which are already wildly overstretched and underfunded. Analogue testing protocols intensify the demand for supply management and quality assurance, while necessitating additional staff training. It is therefore imperative to integrate digital technologies into point of care testing systems to alleviate the burden on frontline staff and maintain high quality standards in addition to the benefits digital innovation can offer for staff welfare and morale, the safety of both frontline workers and patients can be shored up through the provision of remote testing and diagnosis facilities, where these are feasible.

The ongoing shift towards digitalisation in healthcare systems has had documented advantages both in terms of data collection and in terms of the storage and analysis of patient data and test results. The implementation of connected diagnostics through algorithms, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and machine learning systems has enabled healthcare professionals to benefit from standardised analysis and interpretation of test results, meaning treatment and care pathways become more consistent and the risk of human error is minimised. Connected point of care devices can be monitored remotely and programmed to issue alerts in the event of data trends which may indicate outbreaks of disease or infection.

In addition to streamlining the flow of data, the integration of digital technologies within the health and care sectors has had a significant impact on the security and reliability of data storage. More and more healthcare providers around the world are adopting Electronic Health Records (EHRs), which digitally store patient and population data and can be shared within the bounds of data protection and anonymity between services. The ability to view a patients medical history instantly has proved valuable for emergency services, as well as care providers, with immediate access to patient data allowing for better preparation on the part of the receiving hospital; hospitals which have implemented EHRs also report smoother transition of patients between departments and a reduced need for extraneous tests. Meanwhile, EHRs enable the streamlined sharing of anonymised and disaggregated data in research settings, thereby facilitating data collection and analysis in clinical research.

In principle, EHRs minimise the siloing of clinical data however, this is only truly the case if they are widely integrated in healthcare systems. The Finnish health sector can boast 100% EHR coverage across hospitals and other clinical settings, with a single centralised archive storing patient records from around the country; however, many other EU Member States operate EHR programmes at a regional level, meaning essential patient data may not be compatible or transferrable between states or municipalities.

This article is from issue 14 of Health Europa. Clickhere to get your free subscription today.

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Point of care technologies in focus - Health Europa

Buchanan and Anarchism | Mises Wire – The Shepherd of the Hills Gazette

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

The economist James Buchanan, who along with Gordon Tullock founded the public choice school of economics, shares with Murray Rothbard a trait rare among his fellow economists. Like Rothbard, he is interested in political philosophy. He doesnt agree with Rothbards anarchism, and Id like to discuss one of his arguments on this issue. Buchanan rests his case on an odd view of ethics, and this leads him astray.

According to Rothbard, each person is a self-owner and can acquire unowned property through Lockean appropriation. Persons, if they wish, can hire agencies to protect themselves, but a monopoly state cannot justly seize control of defense and protective services and tax people to pay for these services.

Why does Buchanan reject this? The basic problem he finds with this view is that people wouldnt agree on the boundaries of rights. A Rothbardian world, he thinks, would be chaotic. In A Contractarian Perspective on Anarchy (Nomos, vol. 19, Anarchism, (1978)), he says:

I stated earlier that the primary value premise of individualism is the moral equality of men as men, that no man counts as more than another.The libertarian anarchist accepts this framework, but in a much more restricted application than others who also fall within the individualistic set. The libertarian anarchist applies the moral equality norm in holding that each and every man is equally entitled to have the natural boundaries of his rights respected, regardless of the fact that, among persons, these boundaries may vary widely. If such natural boundaries exist, the contractarian may also use the individual units defined by such limits as the starting point for the complex contractual arrangements that emerge finally in observed, or conceptually observed, political structures.

Buchanan doesnt write in an easy-to-understand style, so Id like to pause and explain his comment. (You might object that I dont write in an easy-to-understand style either.) Buchanan is saying that libertarians believe that everybody has the same rights but are willing to accept large inequalities in property and income. Contractarians like Buchanan could agree with this libertarian starting point, so long as there are objective ways of figuring out the boundaries of rights.

And this is exactly what he denies. In his opinion, objective boundaries of rights dont exist. He says,

What is the ultimate test for the existence of natural boundaries? This must lie in the observed attitudes of individuals themselves.In rejecting the extreme claims of the individualist anarchists, we should not overlook the important fact that a great deal of social interaction does proceed without formalized rules. For large areas of human intercourse, anarchy prevails and it works.In the larger context, however, the evidence seems to indicate that persons do not mutually and simultaneously agree on dividing lines among separate rights.

Buchanan thinks that people wouldnt agree about rights boundaries. For this reason, we need to have a state to settle these boundaries. He relies in this argument on a questionable conception of moral theory. Rothbard thinks that there is an objectively correct libertarian legal code that specifies the rights people have. Whether this code is correct does not depend on peoples agreeing to it. If they dont acknowlege it, they should. The code doesnt settle all disputed questions, but if you accept what Rothbard says, Buchanans argument for a state fails. Buchanans argument for a state depends on substantial disagreements about rights that people couldnt settle under anarchism, and he hasnt shown that there would be this level of disagreement if Rothbards system were in place.

Now we come to the heart of the dispute between Buchanan and Rothbard, and this is where I think that Buchanan has a mistaken notion of moral theory. In what is for him an expression of passion, he says of people who claim to judge on behalf or others what is in their interest, If God, in fact, did exist as a superhuman entity, an alternative source of authority might be acknowledged. But, failing this, the only conceivable authority must be some selected individual or group of individuals, some man who presumes to be God, or some group that claims godlike qualities.) Those who act in such capacities and make such claims behave immorally in a fundamental sense; they deny the moral autonomy of other members of the species and relegate them to a moral status little different from that of animals. Its clear that he would extend this condemnation to cover claims to know the moral truth about what people should do apart from their consent.

In other words, if you say that there is an objective law code that should prevail, regardless of whether people agree to it, you are immorally claiming to be better than other people. But in what way are you claiming to be better than other people any more than, say, an economist who advances a theory of how to analyze government is claiming to be objectively better than other economists who disagree with his theory? Buchanan would answer that this response misses the fundamental point. There are objective standards in science, but morality isnt a science. There is nothing beyond peoples value judgments.

But that is a view of morality that needs to be defended by argument. It cannot simply be taken as given. That doesnt show Rothbard is correct, but to refute him you would need to look at his reasons in defense of his view of libertarian rights and their proper boundaries. Its isnt enough to aver that if you claim to know moral truth you are claiming godlike powers.

There is a further problem with Buchanans view. From the vehemence with which he asserts the value of individual autonomy, it would seem that he takes this to be more than a personal preference. Is he claiming godlike powers or claiming to be morally better than others who interpret autonomy differently from him, or deny its value altogether? (Rothbard would be in the first group.) Buchanan would appear to grant himself immunity for behavior like that for which he indicts others.

You can learn a lot from reading Buchanan, but you wont find in his work a good reason to reject libertarian anarchism.

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Buchanan and Anarchism | Mises Wire - The Shepherd of the Hills Gazette

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: School administration in Middletown is dysfunctional – The Providence Journal

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

School administration in Middletown is dysfunctional

The Middletown Town Council and Administrator prepared, discussed, and approved a FY21 budget, mindful of local hardships caused by the pandemic.

Their goals were safety, affordability for Middletown residents, and education. Its commendable that they accomplished their goals with no tax increase for residents.

Diligent fiscal planning and analysis, thoughtful discussions, and adherence to high ethical standards are the reasons for their success.

Budget discussions between the Middletown Town Council and school administration presented a clear picture of the school administrations dysfunctional technology planning and operations, and financial reporting. The council asked thoughtful questions but the school administrations equivocating answers were wearing.

In the end, the council appropriated additional money for the school department; it was to help correct the school administrations failures, and also pay for teachers in FY21. The school administrations failures have been previously flagged by the council and teachers union.

In 2019, the council uncovered "hidden" bonuses to school administrators, and the teachers union proclaimed "no-confidence" in the superintendents leadership resulting in years of mistrust and strained relations.

The strengths of the council are their fairness, ethical behavior, and their control over appropriations to the Middletown school department the towns most expensive department. The town and school department will start to combine their finance, technology and maintenance functions in FY21.

The state labor relations board recently found that the Middletown school administration retaliated against its maintenance employees, for actions by the town council. For the sake of our students, school department employees, and tax-payers, the Middletown Town Council must continue its vigilant oversight of the school administrations management and operation of Middletowns public schools.

Paul Mankofsky, Middletown

Democrats infringed on Attorney General Barrs freedom of speech

On Tuesday, July 28, 2020, William Barr, Attorney General of the United States of America, was relentlessly questioned by Democrats on the House Judicial Committee for 5 hours.

Attorney General Barr, when trying to testify, was demeaned by his Democrat accusers in various ways, a constant interrupting, for the purpose of stopping his testimony. And, when he tried to reply, was stopped by their statement ... "I am reclaiming my time." This would then not allow him his time to testify and give evidence. This was a fiasco and terrible for a law-abiding citizen to observe in our country.

Over the years America has fought for freedom, liberty and the pursuit of justice. On July 28, 2020, the Democrats took away William Barr's freedom ... the freedom of speech.

What happened in these chambers was a disgrace. The rule of law was not upheld and the Honorable Attorney General Barr's freedom of speech was totally disregarded during this chaotic fiasco.

Those that vote Democrat are enablers to this disgusting behavior by their elected officials, and should be ashamed of themselves.

Terry Lorenz, Portsmouth

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: School administration in Middletown is dysfunctional - The Providence Journal

Making sure US military remains the best – The Highland County Press

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

By U.S. Sen. Mike RoundsR-South Dakota

This year marks the 60th consecutive year that the U.S. Senate has passed a bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA. The NDAA is one of the most important pieces of legislation we pass each year, as it authorizes funding for the Department of Defense.

The bill we recently passed authorizes funding to support our armed forces and their families throughout fiscal year 2021.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairman of that committees Cybersecurity Subcommittee, Ive been working with my colleagues on this legislation to make sure it provides the resources necessary to keep our troops safe, strengthen our national security and support military families. This is especially important as our adversaries, especially China, seek to gain strategic dominance over the United States as they grow their militaries in quality and quantity.

Of all our near-peer competitors, China is continuing to strengthen its powerful grip on its own people as well as expand its influence across the globe.

This year, weve seen China perform an ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims, many of whom are being held against their will in concentration camps. While imposing this abuse of Uighur Muslims, the Chinese Communist Party, which governs China, has meanwhile issued a new law on Hong Kong that would strictly punish anyone who opposes the Chinese government, in effect the Chinese Communist Party. These profound violations of human rights are painted by the Partys state-run news service in the best light possible while hiding and distorting the truth from its citizens.

On an international level, China has unlawfully claimed most of the South China Sea a major shipping channel as its own sovereign territory. This, despite the fact that many of our Southeast Asian allies have legitimate claims to islands and areas in the South China Sea.

Weve recently seen an escalation of aggressive actions by Chinas maritime forces against U.S. ships in the South China Sea, which are there to maintain freedom of navigation and make sure free trade can continue within this critical artery for international commerce. This type of aggression is a prime example of why our armed forces need to remain the strongest in the world. We can fulfill that requirement by giving our armed forces all they need through the NDAA that we have passed every year for over half a century.

The fiscal year 2021 NDAA that we just passed was designed to support the National Defense Strategy. The National Defense Strategy provides clear direction for restoring our militarys competitive edge in an era of re-emerging, long-term great power competition.

As our near-peer competitors like China and Russia continue to advance their own weapon systems and strategies, we must make sure our armed forces have the tools and capabilities to deter aggression by these adversaries against the United States, our allies and partners. We never want our service men and women to go into a fair fight U.S. troops must always have the advantage.

The B-21 Raider bombers coming to Ellsworth Air Force Base in the near future will be a critical part of maintaining that deterrent. The B-21s will play a crucial role in neutralizing Chinas threat because the long-range strike bomber will put them at risk if they choose to act out.

International threats against U.S. interests will continue to grow, but we have the best military in the world. It isnt just weapons systems that make our armed forces strong, though they are indispensable - its the men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform.

At the end of the day, the NDAA is about making sure they have everything they need to do their job, keep us safe and protect freedom. Im glad we were able to pass this important legislation and show that, in Congress, we can work together when we share a common interest.

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Making sure US military remains the best - The Highland County Press

2020 European Hospital Register Online Database for the Specialities and Equipment Sector – PRNewswire

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

DUBLIN, July 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "European Hospital Register - Specialities & Equipment" directory has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The European Hospital Register is a comprehensive on-line hospital database for the specialities and equipment sector. The database covers 19,000+ hospitals in Europe across 23 countries

In the 23 countries, it includes:

The European Hospital Register provides:

The on-line database is updated continuously to ensure it contains the latest accurate information.

With a few clicks, the easy-to-use search engine enables users to:

a. Create unlimited mailing labels, lists, Excel exports and ASCII files.b. Find all the hospitals in Switzerland and Austria with ophthalmic surgery and create a mailing list.c. Identify all the public psychiatric hospitals in Germany and categorize them by size.d. Discover how many hospitals in the United Kingdom use alternative medicine and create a telephone list.e. Ascertain all the hospitals with dermatology wards in Italy and export the contact data to Excel.

For more information about this directory visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/k81wpa

About ResearchAndMarkets.comResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [emailprotected]

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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2020 European Hospital Register Online Database for the Specialities and Equipment Sector - PRNewswire

Merck to start pivotal study of controversial remdesivir alternative in September – BGR

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

As promising as vaccines may seem right now, they cant help patients who are already infected with the novel coronavirus. The world still lacks a COVID-19 cure that can speed up recovery, prevent complications, and reduce the risk of death. Remdesivir helps in some cases, but its expensive, scarce, and difficult to make. Dexamethasone is cheap, but isnt enough to save every patients life either. Blood thinners can reduce the risk of coagulation and eliminate some complications, but theyre not a COVID-19 cure by themselves.

Several other promising antibody therapies are in the works, and some of them are already being studied in human trials. Merck has an antiviral drug in testing, and the company is expected to start large pivotal studies in September for an oral medicine to rival remdesivir. However, theres some controversy around this potential coronavirus treatment.

We will be embarking, probably in September, on very large pivotal studies, and so those are going to be the important ones, Merck president Roger Perlmutter said during the companys Q2 earnings call, via CNBC. The drug is known as MK-4482, and its being developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. The report notes that Merck doesnt want to dribble out data on the drugs performance in Phase 2 trials, according to Perlmutter. Thats certainly strange.

The good news about MK-4482 is that because its an oral drug given in capsules, it can be easily administered from the time that people have symptoms, Perlmutter said. Its unclear whether theres any bad news. The executive didnt say how effective the drug is, but revealed that the goal of future studies would be to prove that the drug can reduce the recovery time and prevent complications.

The company also has a couple of vaccines in the works that will hit clinical trials in the near future.

MK-4482 was the most advanced COVID-19 therapy from Merck, per a C&EN report in late May. But MK-4482 wasnt always known as, well, MK-4482. BioSpace says the antiviral candidate was known as EIDD-2801 before being renamed under Merck. CNBC makes no mention of the compounds controversial history.

Getting back to C&EN, the May report said that Ridgeback was testing EIDD-2801 at the time in Phase 1 trials. The origin of the drug is Emory University, however:

The most advanced of Mercks three new programs is EIDD-2801. The small-molecule drug candidate was developed before the pandemic by scientists at Emory University looking for molecules that could inhibit the replication of several viruses. In March, Emory scientists discovered that the compound could also inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in human cells grown in the lab.

Emory licensed it to Ridgeback, which then partnered with Merck.

EIDD-2801 targets a viral enzyme called RNA-dependent RNA polymerase that stops the virus from copying its RNA genome, effectively preventing it from multiplying inside a human cell after infecting it. If effective, that would be a huge step in treating COVID-19. Remdesivir goes after the same enzyme, but Gilead Sciences medicine needs to be administered intravenously. Mercks drug can be taken orally.

This brings us to the controversy around the drug as explained by C&EN (emphasis ours):

EIDD-2801 has been viewed as a potential competitor to remdesivir, although a contentious one, because similar compounds are mutagenic in animal studies, meaning they produce birth defects. Rick Bright, who was removed from his position as head of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in April, was reluctant to provide funding for the drug for this reason, according to an 89-page whistleblower complaint Bright filed after being fired. Mercks investment in EIDD-2801 can be seen as a vote of confidence in the compound.

Brights concerns began in November 2019, more than one month before China disclosed the first COVID-19 cases in Wuhan ScienceMag has that story:

Raymond Schinazi, an Emory University chemist who has extensively studied the active ingredient in EIDD-2801 but has no connection to DRIVE, notes that his former pharmaceutical company, Pharmasset, abandoned it in 2003 after discovering its mutagenic properties. Schinazi says the small chemical tweaks made to increase the ingredients bioavailability and transform it into EIDD-2801 are unlikely to change its mutagenicity. Thank goodness someone is raising the red flag, about EIDD-2801, Schinazi says. You dont develop a drug thats mutagenic. Period.

Before a drug is approved, regulators have to see that its effective and safe after passing Phase 3 testing. The same applies to MK-4482. Rick Bright may have had concerns about the drug, but that doesnt make it unsafe for use. That said, the lack of Phase 1 results from Merck and the name change do seem strange. All the other promising drugs and vaccines that are in testing produced results for the public early during their human trails.

Emory did produce results in early April for preclinical trials that showed when used as a prophylactic, EIDD-2801 can prevent severe lung injury in infected mice. That study is available at this link.

Chris Smith started writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it he was sharing his views on tech stuff with readers around the world. Whenever he's not writing about gadgets he miserably fails to stay away from them, although he desperately tries. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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Merck to start pivotal study of controversial remdesivir alternative in September - BGR

Capitalism is the Parasite; Capitalism is the Virus – The Bullet – Socialist Project

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Culture/Media July 26, 2020 Matthew Flisfeder

With hindsight, a few years from now, it may well appear to us that the year 2020, the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century, marked the dawn of a new parasitic age. We can tell this much even by looking at one of the years most popular films. Bong Joon Hos Parasite (2019) tells the story of the poor Kim family living in a basement apartment of a decrepit house (a banjiha) in a Seoul ghetto. Both parents, Ki-taek and Chung-sook, as well as their young adult children, Ki-woo and Ki-jung, are all precarious gig workers. They scramble together to make ends meet, taking on every and any odd job they can find.

The apartment sits mostly below ground, but a window pane in the kitchen breaches the surface somewhat, giving them a ground level perspective of the outside world. The space, in this way, is an apt metaphor for the subordination (sub-ordination) of the poor, festering below the surface of ordinary life.

One day, the family is visited by Ki-woos friend, Min-hyuk, a university student who is about to go abroad for a study trip. Min works as a tutor for the daughter of the wealthy Park family and he invites Ki (who also goes by the name Kevin) to take over in his absence. But in order to work as a tutor, Ki must forge documents proving his credibility. After being accepted as a legitimate tutor and gaining the trust of the Park family, Ki recommends his sister as an art therapy tutor for the young son of the Park family. Jung, however, must also hide her identity and forge her credentials. The Kims further encroach upon the Park family as the children recommend their parents (again, hiding their real identities) to work for the household to replace the current chauffer and the trusted family housekeeper, whom the children frame in order to have them fired and replaced. Far from a dubious act, their scam is seen more as a necessary strategy of subsistence for precarious workers, an effect of the entrepreneurialization of labour and new competitive struggles of workers amongst each other over scarce temporary jobs. Meanwhile, Mr. Park, the patriarch of the family, works in the field of legitimate/capitalist scamming, otherwise known as high finance. The contrast between the Kims and Parks in this way evokes the vast cleavages between the precariat class and the wealthy, in whose favour the system is undoubtedly rigged.

The film is stunning in its visual depiction of the class differences between the families, especially through the juxtaposition of the two homes, particularly the kitchen and living spaces of each. Both homes have kitchens and living areas that have a window that looks out upon the world outside. For the Kims living in the banjiha, the window only breaches slightly above ground, where they are able to see the largely grungy slums of the inner city. The family witnesses a drunken man urinating in front of their kitchen window, apparently a regular occurrence as they recount to each other. Inside, the claustrophobic space of the kitchen is grimy and confining, an apt visual portrayal of the constraints of the poor.

This contrasts well with the home of the Parks, whose kitchen and living areas are spacious and pristine, appearing in some ways quite sterile, a perception augmented by the distanced engagement between the members of the Park family, who appear largely separate from each other, the children escaping into their own separate bedrooms, with Mrs. Park spending most of her time alone, while Mr. Park is off at work, in comparison with the very close and tight-knit family relationship of the Kims, a trope not uncommon in the depiction of the individuality and independence of the wealthy. The living area in the Parks home backs onto a large window expanding the size of one wall of the entire room. Through the window, the family gazes onto the fresh green space of the backyard, a stark departure from infested streets of the inner city. The class distinction between the two families couldnt be more apparent.

One night, while the Parks are on a family camping trip, the Kims (now all employed by the Park family) decide to enjoy the luxuries of the empty house together. In the middle of their festivities, late at night, the doorbell rings. They see on the external security camera that it is the old housekeeper, Moon-gwang, waiting there in the rain. She tells them that in her haste to leave the house after being fired she forgot to take something with her. She is let into the house and quickly runs to the basement where she uncovers a secret bunker below the house. Her husband has been hiding in the bunker from loan sharks and shes come to rescue him. However, amidst the commotion, she discovers the Kims secret, that theyve fooled the Park family, and threatens to turn them in. Ultimately, the two families struggle and fight with each other over who will maintain access to and feed off of the wealthy Park family, hence the title of the film, parasite.

The title, of course, seems appropriate given that the two families struggle over who will be able to devour and thrive off of the wealthy living of the Park family. The visual metaphor of the underground bunker, and the basement apartment reflect the parasitic portrayal of the poor feeding off of the rich. But things are surely not so clear cut. While the poor families battle against each other like vermin, beneath the surface of the shiny veneer of the rich, we might do well to turn things around and to ask what in fact is the source of their poverty in the first place?

Popular opinion is sure to read the parasite from the gaze of the elite, in which case it is the poor who are parasitic upon the wealthy. This, after all, is the leading practice of perceiving the abject and the excluded. The poor are typically portrayed as scum; vultures living off of the remainders and shreds of life of the rich. But by asking about the source of the wealth of the elite we are able to understand the reverse. Doing so lets us connect the film to a great number of issues facing us today, which intersect in the capitalist system. As Marx famously put it in Capital, Volume 1, Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. From the perspective of capital, then, Marx notes, the labour-power that it has paid for is its property and it is its right to so consume it during the time in which it has paid for the labour commodity. If the worker consumes his [own] disposable time for himself, [it appears to capital that] he robs the capitalist. As in a camera obscura, Marxs words describe here the inverted form with which the capitalist parasite is commonly misperceived or kept hidden by the very form of its own crises.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us have had to limit and self-regulate our everyday lives, going into lockdown and quarantine. While millions of people are laid off of work as businesses have ceased operations and are no longer making any profit, the worlds wealthiest few, including big tech giants like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk, have increased their wealth substantially. As the old socialist saying goes, during times of prosperity, profits are privatized and rise to the top, whereas during times of crisis, risk, debt, and loss are socialized, and endured by the expanding bottom. The neoliberal myth of trickle down, it would seem, is only true in the case of socializing losses. It is loss that trickles down while the parasitic capitalists appropriate the worlds wealth, especially and even during a time of great crisis for many. What we see all too often is that the capitalist system, much like a parasite, exhausts and devours global resources, leaving the majority to scramble and fight amongst ourselves for access to basic needs. In this sense, we should see the Park family, not the Kims, as the real parasites of the movie.

We should think about the coronavirus in these terms, as well. The virus, not unlike a parasite, infects and replicates, and eats away at all forms of life confronting it. The culprit of the pandemic seems to be the virus itself, this nonhuman force of nature; but what we have been seeing is that, as another popular meme has put it, the real virus is capitalism that is, the capitalist system that erects further barriers to our collective treatment of the virus. The true crisis is not simply the virus itself, but the limited capacities in the public health care system to meet the needs for treatment amongst the population. This is a system, we should add, that has become relatively starved due to decades of neoliberal austerity measures and cutbacks to social and public services, benefits, and institutions that subsidize the costs of life and living, and that provide access to needs. In this sense, capitalism is very much the real virus, indeed.

Systemic crises are all around us, and not least as we are also currently seeing with the mass Black Lives Matter protests against racism, police violence, and police murders of African Americans, like George Floyd, in the United States. The police, Donald Trump, and much of the Right Wing media all want to make the protesters look parasitic upon society. Trump has referred to the protesters as thugs, while Fox News personality, Tucker Carlson has said that debates about racism are driven by hysteria that is spreading like a disease. But we must remember that, while the corporate media creates the illusion that the people are the robber-looters of society just as it appears to the capitalist that workers use of their own disposable time robs the capitalist from consuming the labour commodity it is in fact the capitalist, neoliberal and very much white supremacist system that continues to be the true vampire-like parasite, sucking the lifeblood out of the people.

Viewed from this angle, we can see how truly topsy-turvy is the parasite metaphor when it originates in the ruling ideology that deflects attention from the parasitic system of capital and projects its own contradictions onto false enemies. This practice is even deployed in much of the critical literature on climate change and the environment. For instance, we should even be hesitant deploying concepts like the Anthropocene and subscribing the fashionable idea that there is an Anthropocentrism at the core of our environmental troubles, for this merely abstracts from the historical relations of empire, capital, and class, as Jason W. Moore describes, displacing environmental and ecological crises onto an ill-conceived notion of humanity as a collective actor, and ignoring the class disparities so well represented in films like Parasite. Also unhelpful are the Object-Oriented Ontology and New Materialist thinkers, like Timothy Morton, who are on the brink of declaring that humans are the real parasite of the Earth. As Morton himself puts it, In symbiosis, its unclear which is the top symbiont Am I simply a vehicle for the numerous bacteria that inhabit my microbiome? Or are they hosting me? Who is the host and who is the parasite?

The danger in Mortons contrasting of innocent and alive but nonhuman nature with the guilty and parasitical human species, is that it has the potential to devolve into nihilistic activism, such as death politics. For example, Patricia MacCormacks The Ahuman Manifesto advocates for the cessation of human reproduction and the death of humans with calls for an end to the human both conceptually as exceptionalized and actually as a species. The risk in seeing humans (as a whole) as the uniform culprit of the global environmental catastrophe is that it misses the systemic forest for the individual trees. While right-wing governments compel and guilt the working class back to work to revivify the coronavirus-slumping economy, and while the anti-racist protesters are labelled thugs when demonstrating against a system that degrades and even murders their comrades, the theory of the Anthropocene ends up portraying the victims of the vampiristic system as themselves virus-like and parasitic. In this way, the theory of the Anthropocene ends up supporting the ruling capitalist ideology by portraying humanity, not the capitalist system, just as so much of the historical portrayals of racialized and colonized peoples, as well as the working class, as viruses and parasites leeching off of the system.

With so much attention being paid to the problems of the Anthropocene, and less to those of the social relations of capitalism, it is no wonder that post-humanism is becoming the dominant ideology of twenty-first century capitalism. Post-humanism, that is, both as a critique of the hubris of previous historical humanisms, and as an ideology of transhumanist technological transcendence of the limitations of corporeal humanity. On both ends, the critique of humanism displaces the cause of our collective inter-species problems from the capitalist system onto humanity as such. Instead, we should focus our critical attention on the capitalist system, and demonstrate how capitalism is incompatible with all life. We need to move from the prism of the Anthropocene to that of the Capitalocene.

Capitalism, rather than the people, is the real virus, the true parasite upon our thriving in the world today. What we need to learn is, not how to be post-human, but how to build and rethink a neo-humanism, in which, as Kate Soper puts it, human beings acknowledge our collective responsibility to each other, to the planet, and to other species a humanism, that is, in which emancipation is both universal and equitably post-capitalist, and in which human agency drives action rather than the objective laws of the market. In other words, if capitalism is the parasite, then perhaps the project of Democratic Socialism, or something like it, is the cure.

Parasite concludes, first with a bloody and violent climax where Ki-taek stabs Mr. Park to death in the middle of the familys backyard party in a burst of violent outrage. Ki-taek then flees the scene and disappears from sight, confusing the police and the media about his whereabouts. Rather than read the films conclusion as an expression of the inevitable violence of the degraded and humiliated working class in the absence of a Socialist alternative, we might instead reflect upon the final moments of the film in which Ki-woo fantasizes about his fathers survival. It is unclear whether or not the final moments of the film are a fantasy scenario that he dreams up about his father. He seems to imagine that his father was able to go back into the bunker, hiding and evading the authorities after killing Mr. Park. Ki-woo imagines that one day he will be able to then earn enough money to buy the house and in that way set his father free.

For some Posthumanist thinkers, such as Donna Haraway, the problem of the Anthropocene is in perceiving a time called the future that prohibits us from being fully present. Futurisms, according to her are what inevitably lead us toward our demise in a kind of dystopian chaos. We need to, as the title of her book claims, stay with the trouble. But can we really imagine telling those suffering from the exploitative and degrading conditions of capitalism, or those suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, or those affected by rampant racism from an integrated system of white supremacy can we really imagine saying to the abject: dont worry, just stay with the trouble? Far from offering this un-sagely advice we should instead reflect upon the strategy of the film. It is not by staying with the trouble, but by imagining emancipated futures that we will be driven to set ourselves free from the capitalist parasite.

Matthew Flisfeder is an associate professor of Rhetoric and Communications at The University of Winnipeg. He is the author of Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (Northwestern University Press, Forthcoming 2021), Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (Bloomsbury, 2017), The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj ieks Theory of Film (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), and co-editor of iek and Media Studies: A Reader (2014). He is currently working on project called The Hysterical Sublime, a critical study of the aesthetics, rhetorics, and ethics of new materialist and posthumanist critical theory, funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.

Capitalism is the Parasite; Capitalism is the Virus - The Bullet - Socialist Project

We Need to Talk about Romanticism – Dissident Voice

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Satire on Romantic Suicide (1839) by Leonardo Alenza y Nieto (18071845)

Introduction

Why do we need to talk about Romanticism? What is Romanticism? And how does it affect us in the 21st century? The fact is that we are so immersed in Romanticism now that we cannot see the proverbial wood for the haunted-looking trees. Romanticism has so saturated our culture that we need to stand back and remind ourselves what it is, and examine how it has seeped into our thinking processes to the extent that we are not even aware of its presence anymore. Or why this is a problem. The Romanticist influence of intense emotion makes up a large part of modern culture, for example, in much pop music, cinema, TV and literature; e.g., genres such as Superheroes, Fantasy, Horror, Magical realism, Saga, Westerns. I will look at the origins of Romanticism, and its negative influence on culture and politics. I will show how Enlightenment ideas originally emerged in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Church and led to the formation of a working class ideology and culture of resistance.

Romanticism and the modern world

The whole exuberance, anarchy and violence of modern art its unrestrained, unsparing exhibitionism, is derived from [Romanticism]. And this subjective, egocentric attitude has become so much a matter of course for us that we find it impossible to reproduce even an abstract train of thought without talking about our own feelings. Arnold Hauser, (18921978), A Social History of Art, Vol. 3, p. 166

Romanticism arose out of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century as a reaction to what was perceived as a rationalisation of life to the point of being anti-nature. The Romantics were against the Industrial Revolution, universalism and empiricism, emphasising instead heroic individualists and artists, and the individual imagination as a critical authority rather than classical ideals.

The Enlightenment itself had developed from the earlier Renaissance with a renewed interest in the classical traditions and ideals of harmony, symmetry, and order based on reason and science. On a political level the Enlightenment promoted republicanism in opposition to monarchy which ultimately led to the French revolution.

The worried conservatives of the time reacted to the ideas of the Enlightenment and reason with a philosophy which was based on religious ideas and glorified the past (especially Medieval times and the Golden Age) times when things were not so threatening to elites. This philosophy became known as Romanticism and emphasised medieval ideas and society over the new ideas of democracy, capitalism and science.

Romanticism originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1890. It was initially marked by innovations in both content and literary style and by a preoccupation with the subconscious, the mystical, and the supernatural. This period was followed by the development of cultural nationalism and a new attention to national origins, an interest in native folklore, folk ballads and poetry, folk dance and music, and even previously ignored medieval and Renaissance works.

The Romantic movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and aweespecially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature. The importance of the medieval lay in the pre-capitalist significance of its individual crafts and tradesmen, as well as its feudal peasants and serfs.

Thus Romanticism was a reaction to the birth of the modern world: urbanisation, secularisation, industrialisation, and consumerism. Romanticism emphasised intense emotion and feelings which over the centuries came to be seen as one of its most important characteristics, in opposition to cold, unfeeling Enlightenment rationalism.

Origins of Enlightenment emotion

Whence this secret Chain between each Person and Mankind? How is my Interest connected with the most distant Parts of it? Francis Hutcheson (16941746), An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Treatise II: An Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, Sect. I.

However, this cold, unfeeling scenario is actually very far from the truth. In fact, the Enlightenment, itself, had its origins in emotion. Enlightenment philosophers of the eighteenth century tried to create a philosophy of feeling that would allow them to solve the problem of the injustice in the unfeeling world they saw all around them.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (16711713) believed that all human beings had a natural affection or natural sociability which bound them together. Francis Hutcheson (16941746) wrote that All Men have the same Affections and Senses, while David Hume (17111776) believed that human beings extend their imaginative identification with the feelings of others when it is required. Similarly, Adam Smith (17231790), the writer of Wealth of Nations, believed in the power of the imagination to inform us and help us understand the suffering of others.

Portrait of Denis Diderot (1713-1784), by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767

For the Enlightenment philosophers the relationship between feeling and reason was of absolute importance. To develop ideas that would progress society for the better, a sense of morality was essential. Denis Diderot (17131784) a prominent French philosopher of the Enlightenment in France, for example, had strong views on the importance of the passions. As Henry Martyn Lloyd writes:

Diderot did believe in the utility of reason in the pursuit of truth but he had an acute enthusiasm for the passions, particularly when it came to morality and aesthetics. With many of the key figures in the Scottish Enlightenment, such as David Hume, he believed that morality was grounded in sense-experience. Ethical judgment was closely aligned with, even indistinguishable from, aesthetic judgments, he claimed. We judge the beauty of a painting, a landscape or our lovers face just as we judge the morality of a character in a novel, a play or our own lives that is, we judge the good and the beautiful directly and without the need of reason. For Diderot, then, eliminating the passions could produce only an abomination. A person without the ability to be affected, either because of the absence of passions or the absence of senses, would be morally monstrous.

Moreover, to remove the passions from science would lead to inhuman approaches and methods that would divert and alienate science from its ultimate goal of serving humanity, as Lloyd writes:

That the Enlightenment celebrated sensibility and feeling didnt entail a rejection of science, however. Quite the opposite: the most sensitive individual the person with the greatest sensibility was considered to be the most acute observer of nature. The archetypical example here was a doctor, attuned to the bodily rhythms of patients and their particular symptoms. Instead, it was the speculative system-builder who was the enemy of scientific progress the Cartesian physician who saw the body as a mere machine, or those who learned medicine by reading Aristotle but not by observing the ill. So the philosophical suspicion of reason was not a rejection of rationality per se; it was only a rejection of reason in isolation from the senses, and alienated from the impassioned body.

Michael L. Frazer describes the importance of Enlightenment justice and sympathy in his book The Enlightenment of Sympathy. He writes:

Reflective sentimentalists recognize our commitment to justice as an outgrowth of our sympathy for others. After our sympathetic sentiments undergo reflective self-correction, the sympathy that emerges for all those who suffer injustice poses no insult to those for whom it is felt. We do not see their suffering as mere pain to be soothed away when and if we happen to share it. Instead under Humes account, we condemn injustice as a violation of rules that are vitally important to us all. And under Smiths account, we condemn the sufferings of the victims of injustice as injustice because we sympathetically share the resentment that they feel toward their oppressors, endorsing such feelings as warranted and acknowledging those who feel them deserve better treatment.

Cooper, Hume and Smith were living in times, not only devoid of empathy, but also even of basic sympathy. Robert C. Solomon writes of society then in A Passion for Justice: There have always been the very rich. And of course there have always been the very poor. But even as late as the civilized and sentimental eighteenth century, this disparity was not yet a cause for public embarrassment or a cry of injustice. [] Poverty was considered just one more act of God, impervious to any solution except mollification through individual charity and government poorhouses to keep the poor off the streets and away from crime.

Enlightenment emotion eventually gave rise to social trends that emphasised humanism and the heightened value of human life. These trends had their complement in art, creating what became known as the sentimental novel. While today sentimentalism evokes maudlin self-pity, in the eighteenth century it was revolutionary as sentimental literature

focused on weaker members of society, such as orphans and condemned criminals, and allowed readers to identify and sympathize with them. This translated to growing sentimentalism within society, and led to social movements calling for change, such as the abolition of the death penalty and of slavery. Instead of the death penalty, popular sentiment called for the rehabilitation of criminals, rather than harsh punishment. Frederick Douglass himself was inspired to stand against his own bondage and slavery in general in his famous Narrative by the speech by the sentimentalist playwright Sheridan in The Columbian Orator detailing a fictional dialogue between a master and slave.

As Solomon notes: What distinguishes us not just from animals but from machines are our passions, and foremost among them our passion for justice. Justice is, in a word, that set of passions, not mere theories, that bind us and make us part of the social world.

The Man of Feeling (Henry Mackenzie)

Writers such as the Scottish author Henry Mackenzie tried to highlight many things that he perceived were wrong during his time and showed how many of the wrongs were ultimately caused by the established pillars of society. In his book, The Man of Feeling, he has no qualms about showing how these pillars of society had, for example, abused an intelligent woman causing her to become a prostitute (p. 44/45.), destroyed a school because it blocked the landowners view (p. 72), and hired assassins to remove a man who had refused to hand over his wife (p. 91.), etc. Mackenzie shows again and again the injustices of British military and colonial policy, and who is responsible. As Marilyn Butler writes:

Henry Mackenzies The Man of Feeling (1771), is pointedly topical when it criticizes the consequences of a war policy press-ganging, conscription, the military punishment of flogging, and inadequate pensions and when, like the same authors Julia de Roubign (1777), it attacks the principle of colonialism. An interest in such causes was the logical outcome of arts frequently reiterated dedication to humanity. It was a period when the cast of villains was drawn from the proud men representing authority, downwards from the House of Lords, the bench of bishops, judges, local magistrates, attorneys, to the stern father; when readers were invited to empathize with lifes victims.

It took a long time for the ideas of sentimentalism (emotions against injustice) to filter down to the Realism (using facts to depict ordinary everyday experiences) that Dickens used in the nineteenth century to finally evoke some kind of empathy for people impoverished by society. As Solomon notes: It wasnt until the late nineteenth century that Dickens shook the conscience of his compatriots with his riveting descriptions of poverty and cruelty in contemporary London, [] that the problem of poverty and resistance to its solutions [e.g. poorhouses] has become the central question of justice.

European literary sentimentalism arose during the Enlightenment, and partly as a response to sentimentalism in philosophy. In England the period 17501798 became known as the Age of Sensibility as the sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility became popular.

Romanticist emotionalism: the opposite of Enlightenment sentimentalism

Classicism is health, romanticism is sickness. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832)

However, sensibility in an Enlightenment sense was very different from the Romanticist understanding, as Butler notes:

It is, in fact, in a key respect almost the opposite of Romanticism. Sensibility, like its near-synonym sentiment, echoes eighteenth-century philosophy and psychology in focusing upon the mental process by which impressions are received by the senses. But the sentimental writers interest in how the mind works and in how people behave is very different from the Romantic writers inwardness.

She writes that neither Neoclassical theory nor contemporary practice in various styles and genres put much emphasis on the individuality of the artist (p. 29). This is a far cry from the apolitical, inward-looking, self-centered Romantic artists who saw themselves outside of a society that they had little interest in participating in, let alone changing for the better. Butler again:

Romantic rebelliousness is more outrageous and total, the individual rejecting not just his own society but the very principle of living in society which means that the Romantic and post Romantic often dismisses political activity of any kind, as external to the self, literal and commonplace. Since it is relatively uncommon for the eighteenth-century artist to complain directly on his own behalf, he seldom achieves such emotional force as his nineteenth-century successor. He is, on the other hand, much more inclined than the Romantic to express sympathy for certain, well-defined social groups. Humanitarian feeling for the real-life underdog is a strong vein from the 1760s to the 1790s, often echoing real-life campaigns for reform.

This movement over time towards the Romanticist inward-looking conception of emotion and feelings has had knock-on negative effects on societys ability to defend itself from elite oppression (through cultural styles of self-absorption, escapism and diversion rather than exposure, criticism and resistance), and retarded arts frequently reiterated dedication to humanity. Solomon describes this process:

What has come about in the past two centuries or so is the dramatic rise of what Robert Stone has called affective individualism, this new celebration of the passions and other feelings of the autonomous individual. Yet, ironically, it is an attitude that has become even further removed from our sense of justice during that same period of time. We seem to have more inner feelings and pay more attention to them, but we seem to have fewer feelings about others and the state of the world and pay less attention to them.

Thus while Enlightenment sentimentalism depicted individuals as social beings whose sensibility was stimulated and defined by their interactions with others, the Romantic movement that followed it tended to privilege individual autonomy and subjectivity over sociability.

Romanticism as a philosophical movement of the nineteenth century had a profound influence on culture which can still be seen right up to today. Its main characteristics are the emphasis on the personal, dramatic contrasts, emotional excess, a focus on the nocturnal, the ghostly and the frightful, spontaneity, and extreme subjectivism. Romanticism in culture implies a turning inward and encourages introspection. Romantic literature put more emphasis on themes of isolation, loneliness, tragic events and the power of nature. A heroic view of history and myth became the basis of much Romantic literature.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, painted by Jean-Jacques-Franois Le Barbier

It was in Germany that Romanticism took shape as a political ideology. The German Romanticists felt threatened by the French Revolution and were forced to move from inward-looking ideas to formulate conservative political answers needed to oppose Enlightenment and republican ideals. According to Eugene N. Anderson:

In the succeeding years the danger became acutely political, and the German Romanticists were compelled to subordinate their preoccupation with the widening of art and the enrichment of individual experience to social and political ideas and actions, particularly as formulated in nationalism and conservatism. These three cultural ideals, Romanticism, nationalism and conservatism, shared qualities evoked by the common situation of crisis. [] The Germans had to maintain against rationalism and the French a culture which in its institutional structure was that of the ancien rgime. German Romanticism accepted it, wished to reform it somewhat, idealized it, and defended the idealization as the supreme culture of the world. This was the German counter-revolution. [] They endowed their culture with universal validity and asserted that it enjoyed the devotion of nature and God, that if it were destroyed humanity would be vitally wounded.

The reactionary nature of German Romanticism was demonstrated in its hierarchical views of society, its chauvinist nationalism, and extreme conservatism which would have serious implications for future generations of the German populace. As Anderson writes:

The low estimate of rationalism and the exaltation of custom, tradition, and feeling, the conception of society as an alliance of the generations, the belief in the abiding character of ideas as contrasted with the ephemeral nature of concepts, these and many other romantic views bolstered up the existing culture. The concern with relations led the Romanticists to praise the hierarchical order of the Stndestaat and to regard everything and every-one as an intermediary. The acceptance of the fact of inequality harmonized with that of the ideals of service, duty, faithfulness, order, sacrifice admirable traits for serf or subject or soldier.

Anderson also believes that the Romanticists remained swinging between individual freedom and initiative and group compulsion and authority and as such could not have brought in fundamental reforms, because: By reverencing tradition, they preserved the power of the backward-looking royalty and aristocracy.

Thus Romanticist self-centredness in philosophy translated into the most conservative forms for maintaining the status quo in politics. Individual freedoms were matched by authoritarianism for the masses. The individual was king all right, as long as you werent a serf or subject or soldier.

Beyond morality: Working Class perspectives on Reason and Sentiment

We have never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servantsthis is up to apostles.Voltaire (16941778)

Around the same time of the early period of Romanticism, Karl Heinrich Marx (18181883) and Friedrich Engels (18201895) were born. They grew up in a very different Germany. Capitalism had become established and was creating an even more polarised society between extremely rich and extremely poor as factory owners pushed their workers to their physical limits. On his way to work at his fathers firm in Manchester, Engels called into the offices of a paper he wrote for in Cologne and met the editor, Marx, for the first time in 1842. They formed a friendship based on shared values and beliefs regarding the working class and socialist ideas. They saw a connection between the earlier Enlightenment ideas and socialism. For example, as Engels writes in Anti-Duhring:

in its theoretical form, modern socialism originally appears ostensibly as a more logical extension of the principles laid down by the great French philosophers of the eighteenth century. Like every new theory, modern socialism had, at first, to connect itself with the intellectual stock-in-trade ready to its hand, however deeply its roots lay in economic facts.

However, once they had connected themselves to the Enlightenment they soon saw the limitations of both Enlightenment concepts of reason and sentiment. They realised that the new bourgeois rulers would be limited by their conceptions of property, justice, and equality, which basically meant they only applied universality to themselves and their own property. The new rulers were buoyed up by the victory of their ideological fight over the aristocracy but incapable of applying the same ideas to the masses who helped them to victory. Thus Marx and Engels viewed the struggle for reason as important but limited to the new ruling class world view, just like the aristocracy before them:

Every form of society and government then existing, every old traditional notion was flung into the lumber room as irrational; the world had hitherto allowed itself to be led solely by prejudices; everything in the past deserved only pity and contempt. Now, for the first time, appeared the light of day, henceforth superstition, injustice, privilege, oppression, were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal Right, equality based on nature and the inalienable rights of man. We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the idealised kingdom of the bourgeoisie; that this eternal Right found its realisation in bourgeois justice; that this equality reduced itself to bourgeois equality before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as one of the essential rights of man; and that the government of reason, the Contrat Social of Rousseau, came into being, and only could come into being, as a democratic bourgeois republic. The great thinkers of the eighteenth century could, no more than their predecessors, go beyond the limits imposed upon them by their epoch.

As for sentiment, they were well aware of the Realist critical nature of modern writers (the Realist movement rejected Romanticism) and indeed praised them (e.g. G. Sand, E. Sue, and Boz [Dickens]), but limited themselves to offering some advice. While recognising that progressive literature had a mainly middle class audience (and were happy enough with these authors just shaking the optimism of their audience), they knew that this was not by any means a socialist literature and were

I think however that the purpose must become manifest from the situation and the action themselves without being expressly pointed out and that the author does not have to serve the reader on a platter the future historical resolution of the social conflicts which he describes. To this must be added that under our conditions novels are mostly addressed to readers from bourgeois circles, i.e., circles which are not directly ours. Thus the socialist problem novel in my opinion fully carries out its mission if by a faithful portrayal of the real conditions it dispels the dominant conventional illusions concerning them, shakes the optimism of the bourgeois world, and inevitably instills doubt as to the eternal validity of that which exists, without itself offering a direct solution of the problem involved, even without at times ostensibly taking sides.

Sentimental literature focused on individual misfortune, and constant repetition of such themes certainly appeared to universalise such suffering, so that, as David Denby writes, In this weeping mother, this suffering father, we are to read also the sufferings of humanity. Thus, individualism and universalism appear to be two sides of the same coin. Sentimental literature gives the reader the spectacle of misfortune and a representation of the reaction of a sentient and sensible observer who tries to help with alms, sympathy or indeed narrative intervention. Furthermore, the literature of sentiment mirrors eighteenth-century theories of sympathy, in which a spontaneous reaction to the spectacle of suffering is gradually developed, by a process of generalisation and combination of ideas, into broader and more abstract notions of humanity, benevolence, justice.

Workers in the fuse factory, Woolwich Arsenal late 1800s

This brings us then to the problem of interpretation, as Denby suggests: should the sentimental portrayal of the poor and of action in their favour be read as an attempt to give a voice to the voiceless, to include the hitherto excluded? Or, alternatively, is the sentimentalisation of the poor to be interpreted, more cynically, as a discursive strategy through which the enlightened bourgeoisie states its commitment to values of humanity and justice, and thereby seeks to strengthen its claims to universal domination?

While such ideas of giving a voice to the voiceless was a far cry from monarchical times, and claims of commitment to humanity and justice were laudable, the concept of universality had a fundamental flaw: The universal claims of the French Revolution are opposed to a [aristocratic] society based on distinctions of birth: it is in the name of humanity that the Revolution challenges the established order. But for Sartre this does not change the fact that the universal is a myth, an ideological construct, and an obfuscation, since it articulates a notion of man which eliminates social conflict and disguises the interests of a class behind a facade of universal reference.

Striking teamsters battling police on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 1934

Thus for Marx and Engels defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, that is, a universal moral theory, could not be achieved while society is divided into classes:

We maintain [] that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed. That in this process there has on the whole been progress in morality, as in all other branches of human knowledge, no one will doubt. But we have not yet passed beyond class morality. A really human morality which stands above class antagonisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life.

Marx and Engels worked towards that morality through their activism with working class movements and culture. Their critical writing also formed an essential part of working class ideology and culture of resistance and has remained influential in resistance movements the world over.

The culture of resistance today still uses realism, documentary, and histories of oppression to show the harsh realities of globalisation. Like during the Enlightenment, empathy for those suffering injustice forms its foundation. And unlike Romanticism, reason and science are deemed to be important tools in its struggle for social emancipation and progress.

Conclusion: Enlightenment and Romanticism today

When we are asked now: are we now living into an enlightened age? Then the answer is: No, but in an age of Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

There is no doubt that the influence of Romanticism has become ever stronger in twentieth and twenty-first century culture. Romanticist-influenced TV shows on Netflix are watched world wide. Love songs dominate the pop industry and superheroes are now the mainstay of cinema. Even Romanticist nationalism is making a comeback. Now and then calls for a new Enlightenment are heard, but like the original advocates of the Enlightenment, they are limited to the conservative world view of those making the call and whose view of the Enlightenment could be compared to a form of Third Way politics, that is, they avoid the issue of class conflict.

This article was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2020 at 7:27pm and is filed under Art, Enlightenment, Equal Rights, Europe, Human Rights, Literature, Philosophy, Romanticism, Society, Working Class.

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We Need to Talk about Romanticism - Dissident Voice

COVID-19 Daily Update 8-1-2020 – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

The West Virginia Department of Health andHuman Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., on August 1,2020, there have been 287,084 total confirmatorylaboratory results received for COVID-19, with 6,735 totalcases and 116 deaths.

In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (29/0), Berkeley (629/22), Boone (76/0), Braxton (8/0), Brooke(60/1), Cabell (316/9), Calhoun (6/0), Clay (17/0), Doddridge (4/0), Fayette(129/0), Gilmer (16/0), Grant (72/1), Greenbrier (85/0), Hampshire (74/0),Hancock (96/4), Hardy (53/1), Harrison (186/1), Jackson (157/0), Jefferson(282/5), Kanawha (795/13), Lewis (25/1), Lincoln (62/0), Logan (137/0), Marion(168/4), Marshall (122/2), Mason (46/0), McDowell (31/1), Mercer (139/0),Mineral (107/2), Mingo (123/2), Monongalia (893/16), Monroe (18/1), Morgan(25/1), Nicholas (30/1), Ohio (249/0), Pendleton (36/1), Pleasants (7/1),Pocahontas (40/1), Preston (100/23), Putnam (162/1), Raleigh (176/6), Randolph(204/3), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (14/0), Summers (6/0), Taylor (51/1), Tucker(10/0), Tyler (12/0), Upshur (36/2), Wayne (180/2), Webster (3/0), Wetzel(40/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (223/11), Wyoming (21/0).

As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Jefferson County in this report.

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR. Visitthe dashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

On July 24, 2020, Gov. Jim Justiceannounced that DHHR, the agency in charge of reporting the number of COVID-19cases, will transition from providing twice-daily updates to one report every24 hours. This is effective August 1, 2020. The next report will beposted at 10:00 a.m., August 2, 2020.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 8-1-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-30-2020 – 5 PM – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 5:00 p.m., on July 30,2020, there have been 277,343 totalconfirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 6,422 totalcases and 115 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a49-year old female from Ohio County, a59-year old male from Logan County, and an 85-year old female from Logan County.Thepassing of these West Virginians is reported with a heavy heart and we extendour sympathies to their loved ones, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR CabinetSecretary.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (29/0), Berkeley (615/22), Boone (71/0), Braxton (8/0), Brooke(53/1), Cabell (300/9), Calhoun (6/0), Clay (17/0), Doddridge (4/0), Fayette(124/0), Gilmer (16/0), Grant (65/1), Greenbrier (84/0), Hampshire (70/0),Hancock (89/3), Hardy (53/1), Harrison (175/1), Jackson (157/0), Jefferson(281/5), Kanawha (743/13), Lewis (25/1), Lincoln (55/1), Logan (112/0), Marion(166/4), Marshall (119/2), Mason (45/0), McDowell (20/1), Mercer (128/0),Mineral (102/2), Mingo (111/2), Monongalia (853/16), Monroe (18/1), Morgan(24/1), Nicholas (29/1), Ohio (244/0), Pendleton (36/1), Pleasants (6/1),Pocahontas (40/1), Preston (98/22), Putnam (151/1), Raleigh (151/5), Randolph(203/3), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (14/0), Summers (5/0), Taylor (45/1), Tucker(9/0), Tyler (12/0), Upshur (36/2), Wayne (176/2), Webster (3/0), Wetzel(40/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (220/11), Wyoming (19/0).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 7-30-2020 - 5 PM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Five Months Since First Confirmed Covid-19 Case in New York, Governor Cuomo Announces Highest Number of Tests Ever Conducted in the State – ny.gov

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Five months since the first confirmed COVID-19 case in New York,Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the State conducted 82,737 COVID-19 tests yesterday the highest number of tests ever conducted in a single day in the state. 0.91 percent of those test results were positive. The governor also updated New Yorkers on the state's progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available atforward.ny.gov.

"Today is five months since we had our first case, and yesterday we hit a record number of tests 82,737 the most tests ever conducted in a single day in this state, with 0.91 percent of results coming back positive,"Governor Cuomo said."Our future is dependent on what we do, and social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands are useful and effective tools as we combat this virus. New Yorkers should continue practicing those basic behaviors and local governments should enforce state guidance. That's what it means to be New York Tough."

Governor Cuomo also announced the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force visited and observed 1,103 establishments across New York City and Long Islandlast night and found violations at 41 establishments, or 4 percent.

Today's data is summarized briefly below:

Of the 82,737 tests conducted in New York State yesterday, 753, or 0.91 percent, were positive. Each region's percentage of positive tests over the last three days is as follows:

REGION

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

Capital Region

2.1%

1.1%

Central New York

1.1%

0.5%

0.7%

Finger Lakes

0.6%

0.7%

0.9%

Long Island

1.2%

0.9%

1.1%

Mid-Hudson

1.3%

0.9%

1.0%

Mohawk Valley

0.9%

1.0%

1.1%

New York City

1.0%

0.9%

0.8%

North Country

0.3%

0.5%

0.2%

Southern Tier

0.7%

0.6%

0.8%

Western New York

0.5%

1.6%

1.1%

The Governor also confirmed 753 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 415,767 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 415,767 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

County

Total Positive

New Positive

Albany

2,515

Allegany

Broome

1,048

Cattaraugus

158

Cayuga

144

Chautauqua

231

Chemung

163

Chenango

209

Clinton

127

Columbia

519

Cortland

Delaware

103

Dutchess

4,504

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Five Months Since First Confirmed Covid-19 Case in New York, Governor Cuomo Announces Highest Number of Tests Ever Conducted in the State - ny.gov

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-29-2020 – 5 PM – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 5:00 p.m., on July 29,2020, there have been 273,988 totalconfirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 6,326 totalcases and 112 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the death of a 74-yearold female from Mercer County. Tolose yet another West Virginian is truly heartbreaking, said Bill J. Crouch,DHHR Cabinet Secretary.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (29/0), Berkeley (609/22), Boone (69/0), Braxton (8/0), Brooke(53/1), Cabell (288/9), Calhoun (6/0), Clay (17/0), Doddridge (4/0), Fayette(124/0), Gilmer (14/0), Grant (65/1), Greenbrier (83/0), Hampshire (68/0),Hancock (89/3), Hardy (51/1), Harrison (175/1), Jackson (157/0), Jefferson(280/5), Kanawha (716/13), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (54/2), Logan (106/0), Marion(163/4), Marshall (116/2), Mason (45/0), McDowell (19/1), Mercer (126/0),Mineral (100/2), Mingo (109/2), Monongalia (850/16), Monroe (18/1), Morgan(24/1), Nicholas (28/1), Ohio (243/0), Pendleton (35/1), Pleasants (6/1),Pocahontas (40/1), Preston (97/22), Putnam (146/1), Raleigh (148/5), Randolph(203/3), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (14/0), Summers (5/0), Taylor (42/1), Tucker(9/0), Tyler (11/0), Upshur (36/2), Wayne (176/2), Webster (3/0), Wetzel(40/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (219/11), Wyoming (18/0).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

Continued here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-29-2020 - 5 PM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-29-20 – 10 AM – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., on July 29,2020, there have been 271,811 totalconfirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 6,269 totalcases and 111 deaths.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (29/0), Berkeley (609/22), Boone (69/0), Braxton (8/0), Brooke(52/1), Cabell (282/9), Calhoun (6/0), Clay (17/0), Doddridge (3/0), Fayette(122/0), Gilmer (14/0), Grant (65/1), Greenbrier (83/0), Hampshire (67/0),Hancock (88/5), Hardy (51/1), Harrison (170/1), Jackson (157/0), Jefferson (280/5),Kanawha (710/13), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (54/2), Logan (103/0), Marion (158/4),Marshall (114/2), Mason (41/0), McDowell (18/1), Mercer (125/0), Mineral(101/2), Mingo (109/2), Monongalia (839/16), Monroe (18/1), Morgan (24/1),Nicholas (27/1), Ohio (241/0), Pendleton (36/1), Pleasants (6/1), Pocahontas(40/1), Preston (97/22), Putnam (146/1), Raleigh (142/5), Randolph (203/3),Ritchie (3/0), Roane (14/0), Summers (5/0), Taylor (42/1), Tucker (9/0), Tyler(11/0), Upshur (36/2), Wayne (176/2), Webster (3/0), Wetzel (40/0), Wirt (6/0),Wood (218/11), Wyoming (17/0).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

See the original post:

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-29-20 - 10 AM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Covid-19 shuttered more than 1M small businesses. Here’s how 5 survived – Fox Business

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

Stryker CEO Kevin Lobo discusses the state of business amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Eden Park Illumination Inc. had one product to sell beforeCovid-19: an ultraviolet light that distinguished real diamonds from fakes.

The spread of a deadly virus across the globe shifted the focus of the tiny Champaign, Ill., startup to another ultraviolet light application that it had not planned to introduce for at least two years. This one would disinfect crowded spaces.

Within weeks, the 10-person company began shipping prototypes. Eden Park has since deliveredmorethan1,000 of the lights and added a dozen workers, including a head of manufacturing.

"We have pivoted and put all our attention on this," said Eden Park Chief Executive John Yerger, who joined the company in February to help commercialize technology developed at the University of Illinois. "We are now profitable. We are about 10 times bigger in terms of sales."

The coronavirus pandemic is creating new opportunities for somesmallbusinesseseven as it raises costs and devastates sales for others. It is prompting many to re-examine their strategies and make tough decisions about how to adapt.

A store with a "Going out of Business," sign is shown in North Miami Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

One seller of professional and college team sports apparel stuck to what it did best, gambling that gear with logos would still sell during a sports drought.

A decades-old furniture maker ramped up efforts to sell online instead of largely relying on its showrooms. A restaurant supplier boosted production of tamper-evident labels for home deliveries. An insurance brokerage sold smaller policies that are less profitable, but easier to get done.

THE SIX PS THAT ARE CRUCIAL IF YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL: DAVE RAMSEY

"Firms that are changing now are making changes to survive," said Jacqueline Kirtley, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. What they do after the pandemic ends, she said, "will tell us whether they pivoted or just fought the fire and survived."

Nearly one-quarter ofsmallbusinesseshave added products or services they believe will sustain long-term growth, according to a June survey for The Wall Street Journal by Vistage Worldwide Inc., an executive coaching firm. Twelve percent said they had pivoted temporarily to produce products and services to meet customer needs, according to the survey ofmorethan720 firms with $1millionto $20millionin revenue.

HOW HARD HAS CORONAVIRUS HIT SMALL BUSINESSES IN YOUR CITY?

The stakes are rising.Morethan150,000 Americans have died fromCovid-19. Its spread has forced manysmallfirms to cease or curb their operations.

As many as 1.4millionsmallbusinessesclosed their doors or temporarily suspended operations in the second quarter, according to Oxxford Information Technology Ltd. in Saratoga, N.Y., which tracksmorethan26millionU.S.businesseswith lessthan$10millionin annual revenue. Oxxford expects that as many as 4millionsmallbusinessescould be lost in 2020.

In this April 27, 2020 photo, a pedestrian passes a storefront available for rent on Broadway south of Canal Street in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Increases inCovid-19cases in much of the country and fears of new outbreaks are dashing hopes of a quick recovery. The damage was evident in data released this week showing the U.S. economy shrank bymorethan9% in the June quarter, the steepest in records dating to 1947.

The number of people working at companies with fewerthan500 employees also fell 10.8% in June from its February peak, according to an analysis of ADP payroll data by Moody's Analytics.

Here is a look at the choices made -- and the lessons learned -- by Eden Park and four othersmallU.S.businessestrying to navigate through the crisis.

When Mr. Yerger joined Eden Park, he believed using UV lights to cure 3-D printing components had the greatest immediate potential to make money. Then, in March, he visited a UV light conference, just as theCovid-19outbreak was making headlines. "The interest in our product was just through the roof," he said.

PPP ROUND 2 PROPOSAL TARGETS SMALL, HARD-HIT BUSINESSES

Ramping up production required shifting the culture of the company, which had operated like a research lab, to focus on commercialization. Eden Park started mapping its production process and adding automation where it could, mostly with equipment developed in-house.

There are also unknowns about how effective the lights are in curbing the spread ofCovid-19. Mr. Yerger, 59, believes the lights will make it easier for people to meet safely in densely-packed areas, though effectiveness diminishes with distance.

UVC G23 fluorescent bulb. (iStock)

"It's part of a combination of solutions. We don't claim to be the only thing the world needs."

Mr. Yerger expects demand for the lights to continue even if a vaccine curbsCovid-19's spread. "This kills any virus, any bacteria," he said. "Right now, we are putting our resources on this product," he added. "We are not going to abandon the others, but we think it will be a lot of years that this will be very viable."

Daniel McGinnis, the 60-year-old co-owner of Bleacher Bums, a retailer of college and team sports apparel, decided to stick to what he knew best, even as government-mandated shutdowns forced him to temporarily shut his five Pennsylvania and Maryland stores.

"It's going to be tough to get through this," said Mr. McGinnis in May, with store reopenings still weeks away. "If there's no in-season, our demand will be significantly less."

WOULD SECOND PPP SAVE COMMERCIAL TENANTS?

Mr. McGinnis stocked up on logoed neck gaiters and bottles of hand sanitizer to sell to fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, Ohio State Buckeyes and other teams. But he mostly stuck with the hats, sweats, jerseys and jackets he's sold for 33 years.

"We are very focused," said Mr. McGinnis, who received a forgivable loan of lessthan$100,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal coronavirus rescue program. "I am a sports team fan shop."

Sales surged when Bleacher Bums stores reopened in June. At one store, the number of transactions jumped 50% versus a year earlier while average transaction size remained the same. Neck gaiters disappeared in a heartbeat.

"You're selling an emotional attachment people have to their team," Mr. McGinnis explained. Sales remain strong as some teams resume play, he added.

Online sales jumped during the store closures, but fell far short of making up for lost revenue. They fell significantly once stores reopened, but remain above last year's levels.

Bleacher Bums has brought back roughly 40 of its 60 employees. Shortened mall hours mean lower payroll costs, boosting profits.

"It was pent-up demand, and it's still continuing," Mr. McGinnis said. "Was I surprised that it happened? Yes."

NEW YORK RESTAURANT OWNER CANCELED FOR FLYING TRUMP FLAG

Mr. McGinnis likens running his business during the pandemic to riding a roller coaster. He'd be thrilled if sales remained at current levels, but has a pit in his stomach because of spikingCovid-19cases in other states. "I am very pessimistic about the next couple of months. I wish I didn't have to be that way."

Dwight Sargent, founder of Pompanoosuc Mills Corp., a 47-year-old contemporary furniture manufacturer and retailer, was skeptical about online retailing when social-distancing restrictions shut his company's eight retail showrooms and its East Thetford, Vt., workshop. Then the company plunged, head first, into digital marketing.

With its survival at stake, in March, Pompanoosuc laid off almost its entire 115-person workforce, including some employees who had been with the company for decades. Almost overnight, it made changes that were long overdue, but would have otherwise taken years.

Showroom managers videotaped rudimentary showroom tours on their iPhones, then posted them on the company's website so customers could shop online. Pompanoosuc sold about $210,000 of deeply-discounted furniture in three weeks and closed the first Facebook Messenger order in its history. Some of the money went to laid-off employees, who had received partial paychecks at the time of the layoffs because money was short.

Woman making online credit card payment (iStock)

Mr. Sargent, 70, photographed dining tables, chairs and desks in his flagship showroom at company headquarters, offering them online with immediate delivery and discounted pricing.

It came as a surprise and delight to Mr. Sargent when one customer snapped up a king-size bed and two night tables he had photographed just two weeks earlier.

Pompanoosuc received an $845,000 forgivable PPP loan and a $10,000 grant and $150,000 loan from theSmallBusiness Administration's disaster relief program. That money helped the company bring back workers, step up advertising and buy a new cutting machine. Pompanoosuc offered all of its workers their jobs back, handing out bonuses to encourage them to return. It plans to hire additional workers to staff the online chat function and someone to photograph furniture for online sale, a task Mr. Sargent would eagerly give up.

The furniture maker added an expanded set of home office desks and built prototypes for lower-priced offerings, such as step stools, coat hooks and lamps to attract first-time online customers.

3 CALIFORNIA FOOD SUPPLIERS ORDERED TO CLOSE AFTER CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAKS GO UNREPORTED

Order volume isn't quite up to last year's levels, but keeps improving. Mr. Sargent still plans to add another store in Philadelphia, but expects online to play a bigger role in the future. "Some of these things are exciting," he said. "We are so far behind."

Dot It Restaurant Fulfillment, an Arlington, Texas, maker of labels and other restaurant industry supplies, struggled for two years to attract interest for one of its newest products, SecureIt, a line of labels that deters tampering with home food deliveries. That changed when the pandemic hit.

Dot It soldmorethan860,000 rolls of the new labels in lessthanfour months, up from just 10,000 in the prior two years. Sales also jumped for social-distancing floor arrows, acrylic dividers and "open for takeout" signs, products that didn't even exist back in January.

"We aresmalland nimble," said Dot It President Keri Smith. "We saw the market need and adapted to it." The business is a division of National Checking Company in St. Paul, Minn., a 115-year-old family-run producer of guest checks to take food orders and register rolls to provide receipts at the end of a meal.

The new offerings allowed Dot It, which mostly works with fast-casual eateries, to add about 15,000 new restaurants to the 38,000 the company normally serves. Some restaurant chains requested help solving other challenges, such as securing gloves and napkins. Ms. Smith hopes they will remain customers even if SecureIt sales dip when the pandemic ends.

Meeting the sudden surge in demand was a challenge for the tiny printing and fulfillment company. "There were many days that myself as president, my executive leadership team, team members from purchasing, sales and customer service were all out on the floor helping move product, pack boxes, prepare orders," said 39-year-old Ms. Smith. "It really was all hands on deck."

The new offerings helped offset a decline in orders for labels for pre-wrapped sandwiches and signs announcing monthly specials. Sales fell 10% in the second quarter, not the 50% they would have otherwise, Ms. Smith said.

Dot It laid off 25 of its 100 workers after the pandemic hit, then brought staffing back up to 90 after receiving a $900,000 PPP loan.

The struggles reinforced the need to diversify. The company is looking at selling signs and other items to plant nurseries and hospitals.

"This has taught us we need to look outside restaurants," Ms. Smith said. "I think we will come out of this a different company."

Georgetown Insurance Service Inc., an insurance agency in Silver Spring, Md., prides itself on selling complex policies to middle-market customers. But the pandemic forced the 30-person company to turn its attention to smaller policies that are easier to close.

"Two weeks ago, I wrote insurance on a bridal shop that was reopening. The premium was $5,000," said Chief Executive Remmie Butchko. "This time last year, I probably would have said, 'Thanks, but no thanks,'" he said. "Right now, we can get it done."

Georgetown's traditional business model faced major challenges due to social distancing. Decisions about complex property and casualty policies often involve in-person meetings and committee approvals. "You really have to get together and look at the exhibits," said the 51-year-old Mr. Butchko. "It's very difficult by Zoom." Some insurers also stopped sending out field inspectors to do safety reviews before they issue a quote, limiting the ability of Georgetown and others to bring in new customers.

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To replace lost business, Georgetown stepped up sales of smaller, commodity-type policies that it can close under its authority, with decisions made by the business owner or a single executive, not a team. The larger,morecomplex policies it typically sells to contractors, manufacturers and wholesalers now account for lessthan10% of new sales, down from as much as 60% last year.

Mr. Butchko's agents typically find new clients by networking at Chamber of Commerce or association meetings or by knocking on doors. Now, they send emails and pick up the telephone. "You can knock on the door all you want, but no one is going to answer," Mr. Butchko said.

The approach is working, at least for now. Sales are up 15% and profits rose 4%. "We're working in the parameters we have," said Mr. Butchko, who didn't apply for federal aid. "Now, everybody's money is green."

Mr. Butchko misses hand-delivering new policies and discussing coverage terms. "We are very eager to do what we were doing before," he said.

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Covid-19 shuttered more than 1M small businesses. Here's how 5 survived - Fox Business

Overcrowded Housing Invites Covid-19, Even in Silicon Valley – The New York Times

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

It was not surprising when three-quarters of the house tested positive. There were 12 people in three bedrooms, with a bathroom whose door frequently required a knock and a kitchen where dinnertime shifts extended from 5 p.m. well into the evening.

Karla Lorenzo, a Guatemalan immigrant who cleaned houses in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, lived in the big room along the driveway. Big is a relative term when a room has five people in it. She and her partner, Abel, slept in a queen-size bed along the wall. There was a crib for the baby at the foot, with the older childrens bunk bed next to that. The other housemates had similar layouts.

Living among many people, as Ms. Lorenzo put it in Spanish, you cannot really avoid your housemates. The sounds, the smells, the moods everyone is pressed against all of it, and they understood that if one of them got the coronavirus, the rest probably would.

That happened in April, and now the house is returning to health. Abel, referred to by his first name because his immigration status is uncertain, is home after three weeks in the hospital, where Ms. Lorenzo feared he would die alone gasping for air. And she is no longer squirreled in the closet where she spent days to avoid giving the virus to the children.

Now comes a second struggle: figuring out how to pay rent. Abel is back at work at a home supply store, but Ms. Lorenzos housecleaning jobs dried up and one of the other families moved out increasing the monthly bill by $850. We dont know how we are going to do it, she said.

From the early outbreaks to the economic destruction that has come after, the coronavirus pandemic has mapped itself onto Americas longstanding affordable housing problem and the gaping inequality that underlies it. To offset rising rents in a nation where one in four tenant households spend more than half of their pretax income on shelter, a multitude of low-wage service workers have piled into ever more crowded homes.

Living in overstuffed units subdivided by hinged partitions and tacked-up sheets, these households many of them retail and service workers who are unable to do their jobs from home were acutely susceptible to the viruss spread. With double-digit unemployment projected to persist through next year, the same families face losing the crowded homes that make it so easy to get sick in the first place.

To combat the virus, Americans of every income are being encouraged to wear masks and keep their distance. But for low-income families who crowd together to stretch their budgets, home has its own risks.

For these families, a good amount of the response has included triaging a decades-old shortage of affordable housing. Cities and states are renting hotel rooms for people who normally sleep on the streets. There are trailers to quarantine those whose apartments are too crowded for isolation. Fearing a wave of homelessness, governments have followed up with rental aid and moratoriums on evictions.

Combined with federal stimulus funds, and $600 a week in supplemental unemployment benefits that have just lapsed, these measures have prevented the dire predictions of mass displacement. Congress is working on another emergency package, and property owners and affordable-housing advocates have pressed for direct rental assistance.

But evictions are already ramping back up, and the longer the economic malaise continues, the more housing insecurity there will be. Some of the evicted will become homeless, but if the past is a guide, most are likely to find somewhere else to go, and that somewhere is likely to be overcrowded compounding the conditions that make it so easy to spread the virus.

We have clients struggling to choose between living in an overcrowded home or facing eviction for not being able to make rent, said Nazanin Salehi, a lawyer with the nonprofit group Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. No matter what they decide, the risk is more exposure to this virus.

Visitors to Silicon Valley may take a wrong turn or freeway exit on the way to this or that office park and find themselves in an area like the North Central neighborhood of San Mateo, Calif. That is where Ms. Lorenzo lives on a block of faded homes on small lots, with packed driveways and cars parked liberally on the sidewalk. The scene is one side of the tech economy.

For much of the peninsula stretching south from San Francisco, there is a rough economic split. Cities and neighborhoods to the east, places like East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks and the Belle Haven section of Menlo Park, are more overcrowded and have a larger share of low-income and Black and Latino residents, many of whom have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Towns and neighborhoods to the west, places like Hillsborough and Palo Alto, are whiter and rich.

This geography is as fundamental to how the place operates as the invention of the microchip. Every day, throngs of clerks, landscapers and elder-care workers wake up on the eastern parts and travel to homes on the western parts or to the corporate campuses of tech companies to do subcontracting work. And every night, they return to overcrowded homes.

Ms. Lorenzo was one of them. She immigrated to the United States six years ago from Guatemala with her two children, fleeing a broken relationship and looking for a new start. Now she is a green-card holder with a new partner and a 2-year-old. Until the pandemic hit, she made about $16 an hour mopping floors and vacuuming carpets in homes on the other side of the peninsula.

For a while, her wages and Abels were enough for their own small place a $1,600-a-month studio that had a bed for them and a shared mattress for the children. Then the rent jumped to $2,100. And then to $2,650.

The couple went looking for cheaper housing and roommates, a quest that has become a Bay Area ritual. Since the Great Recession, a growing share of Bay Area movers, from all but the most well-off households, have gone to homes with four or more adults from ones with one or two adults, according to a study by researchers at Stanford University and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

The high-end version is dressed up with a description like co-living or explained as a culturally in-tune couple sacrificing an extra bedroom in the suburbs for a life of less driving closer to the city. The low-end version is poverty. Whatever it is called, the economic calculus is the same.

Wages are higher in coastal California than in inland areas, where housing is cheaper, so all but the very rich have to make a trade-off between a commute and space. It is just that the choices for poorer workers are more extreme, like a three-hour commute from cities like Stockton or huddling together in homes where nearly every space is the site of someones bed.

Researchers define extreme overcrowding as any home that is occupied by more than one person for every room without a toilet. By this measurement, overcrowding has increased nationwide since the mid-2000s, and the problem is particularly acute in California. About 13.4 percent of rental units more than double the national average were considered overcrowded in 2018, according to the Census Bureau. San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, which roughly outline Silicon Valley, have one of the worlds densest concentrations of billionaires as well as some of the countrys most overcrowded homes.

After the studio, Ms. Lorenzo found a $1,250-a-month room in her current home, a blue stucco house at the back of a two-unit lot, with chalk drawings on the driveway and a dirt yard in the back. There were 11 occupants after Ms. Lorenzo moved in, 12 after her younger child was born.

Dividing the rent had benefits, like allowing Ms. Lorenzo to save money and buy her first television. The childrens shared mattress from the studio was replaced with a new bunk bed. More clothes, more shoes for the children, she said, because we were limited in many things.

The catch was living with personalities, rules and understandings. Cooking privileges were on a first-come basis, which meant that the last family to use the kitchen might not eat until 9:30 p.m. There was no official time limit on the bathroom, but people knew to be fast. If anyone got a cold, everyone was exposed.

Crowded homes have been a concern practically as long as public health has been a field. Living with a pile of roommates has long been associated with faster-spreading infections, inescapable stress, irregular sleep and the effects that follow, including higher blood pressure and weakened immune systems.

But those take years to develop. The coronavirus spreads in days. By moving so fast and furiously, the virus has exposed in weeks something doctors have been worried about for generations, said Dr. Margot Kushel, an internist and director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco. Covid has really become a story of essential workers living in crowded housing, she said.

The sickness began, as it does, with worry.

In mid-April, after schools shut down and the children were sent home with worksheets, Abel returned from his job with a report that two of his co-workers had been out sick. He showered with the garden hose and slept in the car that night. But it was too late.

His symptoms were initially mild, before escalating to a 104-degree fever and a shortness of breath that prompted Ms. Lorenzo to take him to the hospital. The county health department, worried that a crowded home would accelerate the spread of what was confirmed to be the coronavirus, dispatched a case worker to test everyone in the house, Ms. Lorenzo said. Eight all except her children were also positive.

Ms. Lorenzo never got more than a headache and a sore throat, which in normal times would not have even prevented her from going to work. Suddenly she had to isolate herself in a house where everything was shared.

She settled on the closet, running a phone charger under the door and sitting there for six to eight hours a day, playing word games on her phone, calling relatives in Guatemala, sometimes just napping. Her 10-year-old son took over cooking meals and changing diapers. All the while, Abel was in the hospital. Improving or worsening, alive or dead, Ms. Lorenzo had no idea.

There was no communication with him, so my head was spinning, she said.

Ms. Lorenzo sprayed down the bathroom whenever she or the children used it. She avoided the kitchen and had her sister, who lives more than a half-hour away in Oakland, deliver food through the bedroom window. One time, the sister brought a thermos of hot coffee that Ms. Lorenzo said might as well have been hot water; the virus had so ruined her sense of taste that she could not tell the difference.

Still, the house got tense. One of the housemates accused Abel of infecting them. She told Ms. Lorenzo that if anyone in her family died, she would figure out a way to sue her. After that came the silent treatment no hablaba and as house relations plummeted, Ms. Lorenzo feared she would be evicted with nowhere to go.

After two weeks, a county health worker returned to test the house again. Ms. Lorenzos children were still negative, which seemed so unlikely, given the crowding, that the county retested them several times. All negative, she said. Worried that this luck would soon run out, the county moved her and the children to an emergency trailer.

They lived there for nine days, leaving only to collect stale salad and sandwiches left on an outdoor table. When they finally went home, Abel was back from the hospital.

Days of deep cleaning ensued. Ms. Lorenzo, back to health, is wondering when the world will return to some semblance of normality. Yet she feels lucky that things are not worse, because she thought her partner was going to die. We are trying to cope with it, she said. Trying to leave everything in the past.

Early in the outbreak, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and some commentators blamed dense housing and public transit for the spread of the virus. The proof seemed as intuitive as New Yorks status as an early epicenter. The recent surge of cases in the more sprawling metropolitan areas of the South and the West has undercut that thesis, and a number of new studies suggest that density, the number of housing units per acre, is less important than crowding, the number of people per bedroom.

One widely cited report was from New York Universitys Furman Center, which found that infections were much more intense in Queens neighborhoods with high rates of overcrowding than in Manhattan neighborhoods with higher density but fewer people per unit. The link between crowding and transmission has since shown up in suburbs, rural America and Native American reservations. There is even some evidence that dense metropolitan counties, while suffering higher raw numbers of infections, have a lower death rate because it is easier to get to a hospital.

San Mateo County has been a bright spot, with a rate of about 700 coronavirus cases per 100,000, about half the rate of the state. Still, the countys cases have been concentrated in low-income households, with most coming lately from front-line workers who live in crowded multigenerational conditions, according to the county health officer.

In Chelsea, Mass., which had one of the nations worst outbreaks, there is a compelling suggestion that less-crowded quarters can help control the spread. Sleeved into the same blocks where buildings were overrun with infection are 375 subsidized apartments owned by The Neighborhood Developers, a housing nonprofit. The 968 tenants are mostly nonwhite, have the same mix of low-paid service jobs as their neighbors, and live in multistory buildings. But their units are subsidized and less crowded and so far, healthier.

The Neighborhood Developers has had eight reported cases of the coronavirus in Chelsea, or 826 per 100,000 people, about a tenth the rate of the surrounding community. Its not how many people you run into on the street but how many people you see when you come home, said Rafael Mares, executive director of The Neighborhood Developers.

The story is tempered by its rarity. The United States has a deficit of seven million apartments available to the lowest-income households, or an average of 36 available affordable units for every 100 extremely low-income family in search of one, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

In April of last year, The Neighborhood Developers opened a five-story building with 34 apartments for homeless and low-income families. It received 3,598 applications.

Stacked against a wall in Ms. Lorenzos living room are three red-and-white coolers that her sister used to fill with ice cream to sell on the street. They are furloughed because of the lack of demand and have become just another obstacle that her cooped-up children have to dodge while zipping around the house.

Abel still gets headaches and a tremor in his left arm, but the virus is gone and he is well enough to work. Ms. Lorenzo has not cleaned a house since March but recently got a new job cleaning offices. The family has also been relying on nonprofit organizations and Christian charities for staples.

Once a week Ms. Lorenzo joins the procession of cars that roll through a parking-lot food bank set up by Samaritan House, a San Mateo-based organization that has seen demand for food double and is spending $200,000 a week on rental assistance. Since April 1, 4,000 families have applied for some $8 million in assistance on rent and utilities and it hasnt even really hit yet, said Bart Charlow, Samaritan Houses chief executive.

Ms. Lorenzos name could soon be on the list. In June, the departure of the angry housemates opened up an extra bedroom, and her family spread out, with the older children moving across the hall the sort of arrangement that the San Mateo County Health Department has been recommending for years, except that it is financially unsustainable.

After taking the extra bedroom, Ms. Lorenzos familys share of the rent jumped to $2,100 from $1,250. Their savings got them through July. Now that money is gone, and August is here.

Liliana Michelena and Ben Casselman contributed reporting.

Overcrowded Housing Invites Covid-19, Even in Silicon Valley - The New York Times

Reports: Cardinals postponed again Saturday as team endures additional positive COVID-19 tests – KMOV.com

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Danzig

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Reports: Cardinals postponed again Saturday as team endures additional positive COVID-19 tests - KMOV.com

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