Coronavirus

[Burinn]

The announcement by the President about an hour ago was wildly disheartening.

[SumFaggotPlayTester]

Well, it was the first 70 F day here, and I was just thinking about the veggie garden. This whole mess is a good reason to expand it.

Always a good time to expand the veggie garden. Even better time to plant more potatoes and onions; they go great with carp & or squirrel. Even better if you have opossums for opossum pot pie with a nice mushroom and onion sauce.

[MagicManICT]

Even better if you have opossums for opossum pot pie with a nice mushroom and onion sauce.

Can't say I've ever done opossum. Love me some squirrel stew, though. Also goes good with dumplings. Just not much meat on a single squirrel. Squab is good, too. Not sure I'd want to eat those NYC flying rats, though. Liable to spread some other pandemic from them.

[NeoRed9]

The announcement by the President about an hour ago was wildly disheartening.

I didn't listen to it but I know he made the right decision.

[MagicManICT]

The announcement by the President about an hour ago was wildly disheartening.

I didn't listen to it but I know he made the right decision.

Rome might not be burning (yet), but Nero is definitely in his palace fiddling away.

[NeoRed9]

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php ... me-burned/

[MagicManICT]

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/nero-didnt-fiddle-while-rome-burned/

Sure, Nero might not have been literally "fiddling as Rome burned" but the whole story is about a leader that made all the wrong decisions and indecisions and let the world collapse in upon himself. The exact story still isn't quite all that, as you linked, but the lesson doesn't change just because the story doesn't match up with the facts.

In one article I read today, it said Trump is more worried about the message of what they've been going with and how it conflicts with declaring a national state of emergency, that would actually bring actions that will be worthwhile in helping decrease the spread of the disease or preventing deaths. Whether this is true or not, or just speculation based on observation of the situation, I don't know. Let's also add his comments about the Princess cruise ship quarantine and not wanting it to impact the number of cases in the US. Then there was the NHS crew that wasn't even properly prepared to deal with individuals that were going into quarantine from abroad. I still haven't seen why that was the case when this is supposed to be the agency that knows how to properly deal with this stuff.

The NBA just announced a suspension of the rest of the season. The NCAA said, at this point, games will be held in March Madness, but that there will be no live audience. While these are major events with relatively small economic impacts, many companies are doing everything they can to mitigate their worker's exposure, such as having people work from home and shutting down non-essential operations. Several states have already declared a state of emergency. NY is implementing quarantine measures in some areas... The stock market is pretty much officially in bear territory at this point.

So yeah, Nero is in his palace fiddling. Everyone else with a leadership role around the US is trying to cover for his lack of action.

[NeoRed9]

Yes, irony of disparaging a leader with fake news isn't lost on me.

[VDZ]

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/nero-didnt-fiddle-while-rome-burned/

Yes, irony of disparaging a leader with fake news isn't lost on me.

Nero is painted as an emperor who didn’t care about his people, but it’s likely that he didn’t deserve such a bad reputation.

Nero's rule is usually associated with tyranny and extravagance.[5][6] Most Roman sources, such as Suetonius and Cassius Dio, offer overwhelmingly negative assessments of his personality and reign; Tacitus claims that the Roman people thought him compulsive and corrupt. Suetonius tells that many Romans believed that the Great Fire of Rome was instigated by Nero to clear the way for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea.[7] According to Tacitus he was said to have seized Christians as scapegoats for the fire and burned them alive, seemingly motivated not by public justice but by personal cruelty.[8] Some modern historians question the reliability of the ancient sources on Nero's tyrannical acts.[9]

[...]

However, Nero's "conduct became far more egregious" after his mother's death.[10]:22 Miriam T. Griffins suggests that Nero's decline began as early as 55 ad with the murder of his stepbrother Britannicus, but also notes that "Nero lost all sense of right and wrong and listened to flattery with total credulity" after Agrippina's death.[24]:84 Griffin points out that Tacitus "makes explicit the significance of Agrippina's removal for Nero's conduct".[24]:84[34]

In 62 ad, Nero's adviser Burrus died.[10] That same year Nero called for the first treason trial of his reign (maiestas trial) against Antistius Sosianus.[24]:53[35] He also executed his rivals Cornelius Sulla and Rubellius Plautus.[13] Jürgen Malitz considers this to be a turning point in Nero's relationship with the Roman Senate. Malitz writes that "Nero abandoned the restraint he had previously shown because he believed a course supporting the Senate promised to be less and less profitable."[13]

After Burrus' death, Nero appointed two new Praetorian Prefects: Faenius Rufus and Ofonius Tigellinus. Politically isolated, Seneca was forced to retire.[30]:26 According to Tacitus, Nero divorced Octavia on grounds of infertility, and banished her.[24]:99[36] After public protests over Octavia's exile, Nero accused her of adultery with Anicetus and she was executed.[24]:99[37]

[...]

Tacitus wrote that some ancient accounts described the fire as an accident, while others had claimed that it was a plot of Nero's. Tacitus is the only surviving source which does not blame Nero for starting the fire; he says he is "unsure." Pliny the Elder, Suetonius and Cassius Dio all wrote that Nero was responsible for the fire.

[...]

According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, the people of Rome celebrated the death of Nero.[80][81] Tacitus, though, describes a more complicated political environment. Tacitus mentions that Nero's death was welcomed by Senators, nobility and the upper class.[82] The lower-class, slaves, frequenters of the arena and the theater, and "those who were supported by the famous excesses of Nero", on the other hand, were upset with the news.[82]

While the fiddle myth isn't true,

Suetonius and Cassius Dio alleged that Nero sang the "Sack of Ilium" in stage costume while the city burned.[52][53] The popular legend that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned "is at least partly a literary construct of Flavian propaganda [...] which looked askance on the abortive Neronian attempt to rewrite Augustan models of rule."[18]:2

Nero was most definitely a terrible ruler. Tacitus is the most optimistic source you can get on Nero, and even he wasn't even sure Nero didn't start the fire himself, let alone considering his handling of the situation good.

Had it been as widespread as Tacitus claimed, one would think the likes of Plutarch, Epictetus, or other such famed Roman historians who lived through the fire would have mentioned it.

This feels almost like I'm refuting holocaust denial claims here. The reason there are so few contemporary accounts is very well-known:

The history of Nero's reign is problematic in that no historical sources survived that were contemporary with Nero. These first histories, while they still existed, were described as biased and fantastical, either overly critical or praising of Nero.[109] The original sources were also said to contradict on a number of events.[110] Nonetheless, these lost primary sources were the basis of surviving secondary and tertiary histories on Nero written by the next generations of historians.[111] A few of the contemporary historians are known by name. Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder all wrote condemning histories on Nero that are now lost.[112] There were also pro-Nero histories, but it is unknown who wrote them or for what deeds Nero was praised.[113]

The bulk of what is known of Nero comes from Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who were all of the senatorial class. Tacitus and Suetonius wrote their histories on Nero over fifty years after his death, while Cassius Dio wrote his history over 150 years after Nero's death. These sources contradict one another on a number of events in Nero's life including the death of Claudius, the death of Agrippina, and the Roman fire of 64, but they are consistent in their condemnation of Nero.

The varying historical accounts of the event come from three secondary sources—Cassius Dio, Suetonius and Tacitus. The primary accounts, which possibly included histories written by Fabius Rusticus, Marcus Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder, do not survive.

And, indeed, we see that perhaps it wasn’t that great of a fire from the only other documented first hand account of the scope of the disaster- a letter from Seneca the Younger to Paul the Apostle, where he explicitly stated that only four blocks of insulae were burned (a type of apartment building), along with 132 private houses damaged (about 7% of the private houses in the city and .009% of the insulae). Not anywhere close to as widespread as Tacitus later claimed, though Seneca did say the fire lasted six days, as Tacitus stated.

The letters between Seneca and Paul are widely considered by historians to be forgeries.

[Porterwake]

So yeah, Nero is in his palace fiddling. Everyone else with a leadership role around the US is trying to cover for his lack of action.

Because if Trump does do something like travel ban China, he is called a racist.
https://crooked.com/articles/trump-coro ... pegoating/

But if Trump doesn't cure the corona virus and it spreads, the liberal media calls it his Chernobyl.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... chernobyl/

Because Trump could actually cure cancer tomorrow and the deranged left would find something to kick, cry, and scream about.