The Berlin Files #87: technotronic beats
Pump up the Jam, Rhythm of the Night, and much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hey all, Eric here. Quick housekeeping note that I'll likely be on an every other week or so schedule with The Files through end of year, and then will look to return to a weekly publishing schedule in 2021.
With that, let's do it!
Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
Vaccine Progress
To try and articulate the Big Picture of where we are at the moment: it's a weird time during a weird time. Things are bad. Really bad.
But there's hope on the horizon, clearly. We just need to hang on and stay safe for a while.
Of course, the devil is in the details of what "a while" means. It's messy. It's complicated. Politico does a nice job of laying out where we are and what's next.
The first phase of the global pandemic will be over by New Year’s Eve.It’s looking increasingly likely that the FDA will issue emergency use authorizations of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid vaccines after meetings scheduled for Dec. 10 and Dec. 17. Operation Warp Speed officials say they’re ready to start vaccinating health care workers within a day or two of the FDA’s official nod.
That’s when the second phase of the global pandemic will start: the year of transition. It took more than two decades after the polio vaccine was approved before the United States eradicated the disease. Covid-19 may be with us in some form or another for years, even if vaccines are very effective and the rollout is perfectly smooth... Still, 2021 should be a year of small victories, each one inching us back toward pre-pandemic life.
One of the reasons I'm a fan of Dr. Anthony Fauci is that he gives "real answers" to questions -- and you can define "real" as both reason-based and information that is digestible to non-experts. Example: when asked...
Having a vaccine that's effective and safe for wide use is great. Truly great, in fact. But there's a long way from the existence of such a vaccine to the ability to produce, ship, safely store, and finally administer the vaccine (in its multiple steps) to everyone, everywhere.
Doing this is its own massive, expensive, and complex endeavor. As Rolling Stone puts it, it's not "a simple solution." The piece details that an estimated 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated before we can declare that we've reached "herd immunity," and advises that if a vaccine, regardless of the manufacturer, becomes available, you should grab it.
In the meantime, a new administration will be in place in a month and a half (and yeah, I get it if that seems like a really long time) that takes public health seriously and is already showing leadership in a forthcoming set of guidelines that includes wearing a mask for 100 days.
In the United Kingdom, the first phase of COVID-19 vaccinations is about to begin, something that the entire world should take a moment to celebrate.
Here's a timeline of how roll out may roughly go in the U.S.
And broadening out the lens a little bit further, getting vaccinations to the global population will obviously be a massive and uneven process. And, yes, the richer countries are going to get there faster than the less rich ones.
Wealthier countries will effectively subsidize access for poorer ones, with an initial wave of distribution intended to reach 3% of each country's population and a second wave bringing that to 20%, potentially by the end of 2021.
What's the deal with the the vaccines that have been developed, and how do they work? Here's a really nice explainer piece.
The COVID-19 vaccines progressed so swiftly because they were built using a new platform: gene-based technology that harnesses messenger RNA (mRNA) to essentially instruct the human body to make the vaccine itself.
It could be quite a new era for vaccines and vaccinology," Brendan Wren, a professor of vaccinology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told USA Today. "We seemed to move ahead in this one year 10 years."
While I'd wager that there's still much to be learned about how vaccinations will work on massive groups of people, the effectiveness rates of the leading vaccines are pretty extraordinary, it seems.
So with the all of the above being said, it seems pretty wise to "hunker down" this winter.
Here's a really nice visual refresher on how coronavirus spreads and how to protect yourself in different scenarios.
Help is on the way. Slowly and unevenly, but it's coming. Stay safe, people.
Quarantining
As you may know, I love checking in on the wacky things people are getting up to on the home front during this long year. And bonus points when those doings show off unique talents and creativity. This one has both of that for days. And as bonus it had me walking around the house singing "pump up the jam" all day long.
Extra bonus: that dog.
And speaking of dogs! I have enormous appreciation for the maximal boredom that prompted this level of stupid adorable genius.
The Music Club
Remember DeBarge? No? Well, I suppose you can be forgiven. While going down a YouTube rabbit hole the other day, I checked out one of their best known songs, "Rhythm of the Night," from 1985.
It's featured in the movie The Last Dragon, which is "a funny, high-energy combination of karate, romance, rock music and sensational special effects," according to Roger Ebert back in the day. I watched it a bunch of times on cable as a kid and dug it greatly.
Here's a clip.
For some reason this put me in the mind of Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time," which is also from the era. Eddie Murphy, if you haven't heard of him, is a pop singer who was popular in the mid-1980s.
Finally, let's go with a little old school Prince. Very old school, in fact, back to 1980's "Dirty Mind," which is rather fantastic.
Politics: What Happened & What’s Coming Next?
This piece, "The Future of the Republican Party," doesn't have the most exciting title ever crafted but is incredible interesting. A must read if you enjoy partaking of the politics.
There's a lot to dig into but this section jumped out at me:
Trumpism has been a political counterculture, unlike anything that has come before it. I can remember a time when people on the right rarely held mass meetings; the witticism was that liberals had rallies and conservatives had jobs. Now, conservatives have tasted the delights of political theater and collective struggle. They have felt the tribal thrill of a united people in glorious cause around a heroic leader. They will not change their minds soon, and will fight to keep the Trumpian Age of Aquarius alive.
It's fascinating to think of MAGA culture as a "counterculture." Counterculture, or "the counterculture," historically meant -- at least in my experience -- Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s, long hair and bell bottoms, burning draft cards (and other clothing items), smoking a plant that nowadays is increasingly legal, getting a generation of pretty amazing music going, and so on.
A MAGA counterculture is obviously very different on the surface but makes a lot of sense as a reaction to modern and prevailing cultural norms. And this also plays into a real geographical split between MAGA Country and the mostly urban/suburban country that formed the bulk of the Biden coalition. Importantly, this is not as simple as "red states" versus "blue states."
And that plays into why people who live in rural parts of Georgia and Michigan and Pennsylvania can't fathom why their states are adding to Biden's Electoral College tally (and are susceptible to misinformation and crazy conspiracy theories about stolen elections).
Biden’s coalition was indeed broad and wide.
Climate Watch
From Axios,"Biden's Day 1: Climate challenge":
Biden is poised to leverage every inch of the federal government — financial rules, environmental regs and unprecedented limits on fossil-fuel leasing on federal lands and waters.
Tweets of the Week
It's a Wrap!
You made it. Now get back to contemplating who, indeed, is holding Donna now.
Also:
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And one last time…