JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Some of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum. Greece wants them returned.

What is dust? Where does it come from? I clean the house every other day (used to clean daily, but it was taking up my mornings), and the dust is inexhaustible and self-replenishing. The other day I looked up dust online and learned that it’s composed of soil and other fine particles like pollution and bits of concrete hanging in the air or blown by the wind, pollen, textile and paper fibers, human and animal hair, and human skin cells.
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So this is Trump’s vision of America. Policemen killing black people because they are black. Protests against murderous racism brutally dispersed. A peaceful protest action in front of a church violently broken up because Trump wanted to be photographed in front of that church, toting a bible. Trump egging on the violence, promising shooting, vicious dogs, and ominous weapons. When Twitter finds its balls (Facebook is content to have none), Trump threatens to crack down on social media. The successful launch of a crewed Space X vessel means nothing: space travel will only enable humans to create off-world societies riven by the same racism, social injustice, and absurd inequality that plagues this planet.
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Tahani Baakdhah @thepurplelilac

On Monday, June 1, many of the quarantine restrictions will be relaxed. Buses and trains will be allowed to operate at 50 percent capacity. Taxis, tricycles, Grab Cars, but not jeeps will start running again. People above the age of 21 and under the age of 60 can leave the house. Non-essential businesses can reopen. This is happening because the economy has to be restarted and workers have to be able to go to work.

There is still no vaccine for covid, and still no mass testing. The number of covid cases is still rising, though the DOH says this is due to late reporting of data rather than new infections. The only thing that has prevented all of us from getting sick, and the health care system from being overwhelmed, is lockdown, and that is ending. With the easing of lockdown rules, the danger of getting infected by coronavirus is very high. Do not let the last two and a half months of staying indoors go to waste. This is not the time to run out and have a party. Nothing has changed, our cheerful paranoia must continue.
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Noshed on Diary of a Foreigner in Paris by Curzio Malaparte, one of the great bullshitters of the 20th century. Hell of a writer, but you don’t have to believe a word he says. The Italian author was a fascist who was later imprisoned by Mussolini. He says it was because he made fun of the dictator’s ties and/or was really anti-fascist. In fact one of his prison sentences was for embezzling public funds. He also did time for insulting a war hero—whose glowing biography he had written himself. The war hero didn’t like it, so he talked trash about the war hero.
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It turns out that I can live with less: no dining out, no shopping, no hanging out at the mall. A movie a day, three books a week, good writing materials, and cats, to paraphrase Truffaut. And food, of course (I read somewhere that Truffaut did not eat much), and cat supplies. Cleaning products. Skin care. I’m all set to live like a Bronte sister, but without the consumption. (True, if too many of us choose to become low-spending shut-ins for the rest of our lives, that will really hobble the economy, but then capitalism needs an overhaul after this catastrophe.)
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