Did the Coronavirus Escape From a Lab?

As Shi explained to Scientific American, late in December 2019, she heard from the director of the Wuhan Institute that there was an outbreak of a new disease in the city. Medical samples taken from hospital patients arrived at her lab for analysis. Shi determined that the new virus was related to SARS but even more closely related to a bat disease that her own team had found on a virus-hunting trip: the now-famous RaTG13. Shi was surprised that the outbreak was local, she said: “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” The bat hiding places that she’d been visiting were, after all, as far away as Orlando, Florida, is from New York City. Could this new virus, she wondered, have come from her own laboratory? She checked her records and found no exact matches. “That really took a load off my mind,” she said. “I had not slept a wink for days.” If one of the first thoughts that goes through the head of a lab director at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is that the new coronavirus could have come from her lab, then we are obliged to entertain the scientific possibility that it could indeed have come from her lab. Right then, there should have been a comprehensive, pockets-inside-out, fully public investigation of the Virology Institute, along with the other important virus labs in Wuhan, including the one close by the seafood market, headquarters of the Wuhan CDC. There should have been interviews with scientists, interviews with biosafety teams, close parsings of laboratory notebooks, freezer and plumbing and decontamination systems checks — everything. It didn’t happen.

My Foolish Heart (1949) ***

A tight script and strong supporting cast make this a top soaper.

Emma (TV Movie 1996) ***

Well made for TV version of the Austen tale with a top notch cast.

Emma (1996) ***

Enjoyable version of the Austen rom-com prototype with the lovely Ms. Paltrow and a fine supporting cast. Well directed.

QAnon Woke Up the Real Deep State | by Nicholas Grossman | Jan, 2021 | Arc Digital

The president appoints and the Senate confirms top officials, from the Secretary of State to the five members of the Arctic Research Commission, over 1,200 in total. Every other executive branch employee — over 4 million if you include the military, over 2.7 million if you don’t — is hired or recruited, not elected or appointed. This means that the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement are staffed with people the agencies hired themselves.

Their mandates are broad. For example, the FBI is supposed to “investigate federal crimes and threats to national security.” While there are laws giving the FBI certain powers (e.g. to arrest people) and limits (needing warrants), a lot is open to interpretation, especially regarding national security threats.

It’s fair to say the FBI, CIA, IRS, CDC, and other federal agencies have, to some extent, taken on lives of their own. So has the military, and the larger defense-industrial complex. They’re under control of elected and appointed leaders, but also not, acting according to established laws, established regulations (many of which they wrote themselves), and individual judgment calls. You could call that “the Deep State.”

The Pro-Trump Mob Was Doing It For The Gram

But it was also quickly apparent that this was a very dumb coup. A coup with no plot, no end to achieve, no plan but to pose. Thousands invaded the highest centers of power, and the first thing they did was take selfies and videos. They were making content as spoils to take back to the digital empires where they dwell, where that content is currency.

You can see this most clearly in this photo, where the man in the god-knows-what costume, Jake Angeli, the so-called QAnon Shaman, is posing on the dais of the Senate, his friends carefully framing him to get the perfect shot. It is the Trump supporter equivalent of an Instagram influencer getting a photo beside a perfect mural.

Eternally Yours (1939) **

Lackluster direction and a goofy script waste a fine cast in this attempt at screwball romance.

Enchantment (1948) ***

Terrific ensemble actors, crisply written and directed and some nifty camera work (especially the flashback/forward transitions) from the great Gregg Toland make this a top-notch gothic melodrama.

Holiday (1938) *

Despite Cary's acrobatics (literally), Cukor can't force this faux-populist drivel into screwball tin let alone gold. Just not good at all.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) **

Excellently acted and written but not so much with the direction and photography. Ms. Davis shines.

Nashville man's girlfriend warned he was building bombs

Throckmorton [attorney] told The Tennessean that Perry [girlfriend] had fears about her safety, and thought Warner [bomber] may harm her. The attorney was also at the scene that day, and told officers Warner “frequently talks about the military and bomb making,” the police report said. Warner “knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb,” Throckmorton said to responding officers.
Police then went to Warner’s home, located about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from Perry's home, but he didn’t answer the door when they knocked several times. They saw the RV in the backyard, the report said, but the yard was fenced off and officers couldn’t see inside the vehicle.
The report said there also were “several security cameras and wires attached to an alarm sign on the front door” of the home. Officers then notified supervisors and detectives.
“They saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter his home or fenced property,” the police statement said.

So remember kids, don't answer the door and the police will just walk away from your house.

The Uninvited (1944) **

Mild, and mildly amusing, gothic ghost story. Gail Russell shines.

2020 In Review: Music

*** A Girl Called Eddy - Been Around
*** Corner Laughers, The - Temescal Telegraph
*** Country Westerns - Country Westerns
*** Cults - Host
*** Game Theory - Across The Barrier Of Sound Postscript
*** Haim - Women In Music Pt. III
*** Katie Von Schleicher - Consummation
*** Lavender Diamond - Now Is The Time
*** Lemon Twigs, The - Songs for the General Public
*** Nada Surf - Never Not Together
*** Nick Lowe - Lay It On Me
*** Nicole Atkins - Italian Ice
*** OHMME - Fantasize Your Ghost
*** Penny Diving - Big Inhale
*** Phantom Planet - Devastator
*** Pretenders - Hate For Sale
*** Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Sideways to New Italy
*** Sad13 - Haunted Painting
*** Surfer Blood - Carefree Theatre
*** Thao & the Get Down Stay Down - Temple
*** The Asteroid #4 - Northern Songs
*** Tim Heidecker - Fear Of Death
*** Varsity - Fine Forever
*** Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud
*** Woods - Strange to Explain
** Beths, The - Jump Rope Gazers
** Big Believe, The - Juggernaut
** Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways
** Bombay Bicycle Club - Everything Else Has Gone Wrong
** Bye Bye Blackbirds, The - Boxer At Rest
** Deep Sea Diver - Impossible Weight
** Elvis Costello - Hey Clockface
** Everything Everything - Re-Animator
** Gretchen's Wheel - Such Open Sky
** Hinds - The Prettiest Curse
** Jason Isbell - Reunions
** Jenny O. - New Truth
** Laura Veirs - My Echo
** Lisa Loeb - A Simple Trick To Happiness
** Matt Berry - Phantom Birds
** Of Montreal - UR FUN
** Psychedelic Furs, The - Made Of Rain
** Strokes, The - The New Abnormal
** Torres - Silver Tongue
** Yumi Zouma - Truth Or Consequences
** Nation of Language - Introduction, Presence
** Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension

Note: As befitting this awful year, this is the first time I did not rate a film or music release with 4 stars.

2020 In Review: Movies

*** Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
*** Horse Girl
*** I'm Thinking Of Ending Things
*** Palm Springs
** Downhill
** Soul
** The Call Of The Wild
** The Wrong Missy
* Mank
* Onward

Soul (2020) **

A few funny scenes in this blend of genres which goes a long way to basically say "enjoy every sandwich".

John le Carré, author of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, dies aged 89 | The Guardian

Having spent four decades living in Cornwall, married twice and raising a son, Nicholas, who would write novels himself under the name Nick Harkaway, Le Carré conceeded: “I have been neither a model husband nor a model father, and am not interested in appearing that way.” The consistent love of his life was writing, “scribbling away like a man in hiding at a poky desk”. “Out of the secret world I once knew I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit,” he wrote. “First comes the imagining, then the search for reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I’m sitting now.”

The Grass Is Greener (1960) **

Beautifully composed wide screen shots and a quartet of stars in a stagy play adaptation. Watchable.

Mank (2020) *

Aside from being a hatchet job on Orson, this dull flick features fine cinematography and lead performance but little else.

The Silent Partner (1978) ****

Superbly directed noir/heist hybrid with a startling Chris Plummer performance.

The Jigsaw Man (1983) **

If you don't pay too much attention to the plot this is an enjoyable foray into spy v. spy territory. Sir Larry is fun to watch as well as the surprisingly good cast.