Masks and transfers

Good morning from The Anarchist Jurisdiction of Tacoma where we (Washington) currently enjoy the third lowest rate of COVID spread in the USA. Ok third-ish. It was reported yesterday that we were third, we have since jumped up a bit since then. The point is that we are in a sort of lock-down and (almost all) wearing masks in public because we care about the welfare and safety of other people.

I have seen a few people who are out there “challenging” the rules. I went to Whole Foods (I know, “die yuppie scum!”) the other day and there was a couple who were not masked up. They were confronted by store employees and told to leave. I think the woman tried to show one of those cards that say she’s medically exempt or something but the store just went and got like the biggest cashier I have ever seen and the couple left the store.

There’s no doubt in my mind that these people went out looking for a confrontation. Whole Foods will deliver to your home for free. So, the only reason to go to the store without a mask is because you want a confrontation. Maybe that was their entertainment for the evening? “Hey babe, let’s go to Whole Foods and make everyone uncomfortable, while we pick a fight with some cashier making minimum wage!”

It’s not taking away your freedom to wear a mask. Or if it is then every rule is taking away your freedom. You can’t drive 100mph in a school zone, freedom crushed!

Actually, you can but if you get caught, you get a huge fine. Or if you kill someone, you go to jail. That’s kinda how all this works: you have the freedom to do whatever you want but you also have consequences. In this case the consequences are really light: you just need to leave the store.

The anti-mask people are odd to me. I wear a mask because I care about the health and safety of my fellow human beings. I know! That makes me weird. I guess I’m just a communist. But seriously, isn’t that the patriotic thing? Isn’t that what society is all about? We need each other. Haven’t we learned this lesson? Isn’t this throwing that into stark relief? That the only way to go forward is to work together?

Maybe you think masks don’t work: ok, next time you get an operation, go ahead and demand that the doctors all take their masks off. But here’s the even bigger picture: if you don’t wear masks, the hospitals are gonna get full and then we gotta shut the economy down again. That’s no good!

Look around the world, man. It’s a pretty simple equation. The virus is killing people in countries where “they value freedom” and people aren’t taking precautions. You know where they aren’t dying in huge numbers? China. They had huge parties on New Years, thousands of people gathered. So, who has more freedom?

Lockdowns, masks, and track-trace-isolate, works.

And the vaccine rollout is yet another disaster. While Trump is either busy playing golf, holding death-cult rallies, or trying to overthrow our democracy by demanding that the secretary of the state of Georgia “find” him 11,780 votes, the vaccine is being rolled out in dribs and drabs. We should be mobilizing the nation to vaccinate healthcare workers and vulnerable people. And in the mean-time, we should have a lottery or something like it so that people will know their vaccination date. As it stands, we have the worst rollout of a vaccine in human history.

We have spoken about this before on here and the issue is that we live in one world but we seem to have two competing visions of that world, based solely on political ideology. Actually, ideology isn’t correct: it’s membership. We see the world more like different fans of sports teams see a foul in the penalty box: if it’s your team, it’s a foul and if the ref doesn’t give it, he’s cheating and biased against your club. Of course if it’s the other team’s fans then it was a dive and your player is a cheat and if the referee awards the penalty it’s because he’s biased against your club. Also, everyone hates Man U.

I know.. I’m inviting criticism and anger. Someone out there is going to be mad at me because I’m not on their team. I get it. And of course, because I’m not on their team I’m biased and I hate freedom and I’m also stupid and uninformed and oh what else? Part of the great conspiracy to overthrow the government? Or something?

Look, if you disagree with me, cool. Please, if you want, make your objections known in the comments. I can’t guarantee I will agree with you or that I will read them but if they are (mostly) respectful or written with logic, then I will (mostly) listen. But I do ask that maybe you listen as well. That’s the key. You have to be willing to change your mind. If not, skip it! No need to say anything, right? Just go on squawking about how your team is being brutally beaten down by the imaginary communists or whatever.

Me? I say: wear a mask! Love your neighbor! It’s the least you can do.

Transfers

So, this week we have had a few actual transfer stories. Sead Kolasinac is going back to der Bundesliga on loan and William Saliba is going back to l’France on loan. Let me see if I can sum these up: Kola loan = GOOD, Saliba loan = BAD.

When I say Saliba bad I don’t mean it’s bad for him, it’s bad for the club. And I’m not actually saying it’s bad, that’s just the sentiment I’m getting from Twitter.

No one knows what’s going on at Arsenal with this guy. I do know that this may be the worst transfer deal since… Park? Or maybe one of those MFers who joined us with a broken back? The player seems to be angry (and posting it on social media), his friends seem to be angry, I know a LOT of people on twitter are angry. Why has it turned out this way? We don’t know. But it seems to me like every step so far has been big and wrong. Anyway, I hope he goes there and has a great few months and that we then either sell him for money or that we bring him into the first team at Arsenal. Either way is fine by me. I feel like I’m getting past the point of caring about this nonsense. Has the club acted poorly? Maybe. I guess we will know his side of the story when and if he’s transferred out.

Ok, so what about incoming? Well, Draxler is being reported. And so are Isco and Julian Brandt. Oh and Buendia.

Draxler is funny. His name comes up every transfer window now. I don’t know what to think about Drax. His data is ok, I guess, but I don’t see him play. I vaguely recall some pretty meh performances in the Champions League.

Julian Brandt is another guy who is supposedly high on Arsenal’s list. He fits the profile that I like, 24 years old, technically gifted. He’s also been on the outs at Borussia Dortmund which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because he’s very smooth and silky with the ball. He usually plays on the left-ish in the AM-ish role. He’s a shot creator but I think his best quality is that he’s incredible with short pass and move type actions.

Isco is the third name I’ve seen and the rumor is that we want him on loan. Another one of these players who are right-footed but plays mostly left-ish. I know you probably won’t believe me so go look up his heatmaps on Sofascore. Here’s my unvarnished opinion on Isco: extremely talented player who has been given tons of chances by Zidane at Real Madrid and by every account (except his own) has basically thrown them all away. I get why we would be interested (because good lord he’s incredibly talented when he wants to be) and since it’s just a loan it wouldn’t cost us much (other than playing time for Arsenal youth which is something I value) but (and this is the key thing for me!) why would we want to bring such a negative influence into the dressing room? By most accounts we have three players already who provide dressing room discord, why add another?

The hope is that he wants to come to Arsenal to rebuild his image so he can get one last big contract. Maybe that would be good? Especially if it doesn’t cost us a bunch and if he helps us get top four. Hey! Anything is possible!

The loan might be not a bad thing too if the ultimate goal is to get Buendia in the summer. Look, folks, I know that a lot of people think that Norwich will just sell us this guy in January but let’s look at this logically: they are in a title race where the payout is something like 200m and he’s the key component in that title race. I suspect that any club who wants to buy him would have to offer something absurd, 60m+, to tickle their interests and even then it feels like it would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg. And all they have to do is promise him a move this summer to keep him happy. Heck, if I’m them I would even talk to Arsenal about the deal now. Get it out on the table.

Not sure if any of these deals will happen but the good news is that we are at least being linked with some top-quality MFers.

Qq

61 comments

  1. Draxler is the new Kalou. Linked every window to a chorus of “meh,” and nothing comes of it (though I was really keen on Draxler when he was at Schalke).

    Only in the US could mask-wearing be so politically divisive. I suppose, though, healthcare itself was already heavily politicized, so you throw a pandemic into this mix and it’s a recipe for disaster.

    1. Masks are just so uncomfortable to yell my pro Trump slogans through.
      And the surgical ones clash with my camo full tactical gear.

  2. First, I wear a mask every time I will encounter the masses, banks and grocery stores etc…! I can’t afford to instacart everything like many, yes, whole foods shipping may be free, but the prices of their food surely is not.

    Believe masks work, if they are the correct ones, if not, not sure they truly protect oneself, but may protect others.

    Now, if I am surfing alone, which is hard to do in this pandemic world, think sharky waters, had a acquaitance die this year as a result of an attack, or hiking alone, and do not wear a mask, I will maintain social distancing X10.

    Political ideology be damned, I do not trust the Chinese government about anything. It is not beyond the scope of reason to believe they were f*cking around with that virus in a lab, and that $h*t got out, they murdered anyone who reported that it got out, and here we are. If you do not believe this, that is fine, however, per Forbes, just one source of many who state similar theories, “There’s no previous presence of the disease in animals. Although similar coronaviruses are present in bats, this particular coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has not yet been recovered from bats.  There’s evidence of deliberate genetic manipulation. Still, adding fuel to the debate is the revelation that scientists from the Wuhan lab published articles that described manipulating coronaviruses (so called “gain of function” experiments).” Recorded history and “China’s Cultural Revolution” support my assertions about China’s governmental and organizational systems of disinformation, as they murdered anywhere from 15-45 million of their own people, not 360 thousand like the Corona virus has in the US so far. And we are supposed to trust any information that comes out of a 100% media censored country? I, for one, do not believe any of the numbers that come out of that country about covid-19.

    You saying “China. They had huge parties on New Years, thousands of people gathered” as an example of perfect lockdowns, contact tracing etc.. is rich. The newly mutated strains of covid are 50-70% more contagious, yet you think it ok to party like it is 1999 in close contact with others. The idea that the Chinese people have this virus beat and are impervious is not logical. Can anyone trust the Chinese vaccines? Without clinical trials? You sir, are the one in denial.

    No, I am not being beaten down by the “communists,” but you find humor in relating something that is just as serious, and had over a hundred million people perish as a result of communist political agendas. Yet, you are up in arms about some dip$h*ts who ignore science, at their own and other’s peril. If you and other’s do not want to die, do not go around the maskless, simple really.

    Onto less serious ideas. Go cheap, local and forget about those older, slower and more expensive toys.

    1. the point about the free delivery from whole foods is that they were shopping at whole foods so they could afford the prices at whole foods.

      as for deaths caused by the Chinese government, yes. I also am aware of the deaths caused by the US government. The Genocide of the First People, using germ warfare, being one of the most horrific examples.

      China is just one example, there are hundreds of countries which implemented lockdown, trace, test, and isolate which are very free to go about their business.

      We aren’t a free country in the USA, man. We aren’t even barely a democracy. And I don’t think capitalism is really an example of a system that works much better than communism. It looks good to a lot of northern countries because they benefit from it, but look at what it’s done to Latin America, Africa, Russia, etc. It’s easy to tie X number of deaths to the Russian revolution and The Great Push forward in China and much more difficult to count the number of deaths around the globe caused by massive wealth inequality, hunger, poverty, etc. Just look at what global warming is doing to the earth. That’s capitalism right there. If we don’t put some checks in place – and soon – it’s going to wipe us all out.

      Sadly, there won’t be anyone around to say “oops, uncontrolled consumption for the benefit of a few lucky individuals turned out to be a much worse idea than “communism”.”

      1. Thank you for being civil!

        1) Can only go with what you provided.

        2) Agreed, but what about the Spanish in Mexico, central and south America?
        Would not smallpox have been spread everywhere no matter? I know it was intentional..

        3) True, but with new variant, not even possible for testing to keep up with asymptomatic spreading.

        4) Agreed, but it is really exponential population reproduction, no apex predator or natural predators to keep us in line, other than ourselves, will never happen.

        Our elites will not allow for true checks to be put in place and enforced!

        5) Yes, sadly.

      2. also, whole foods isn’t as pricey as people think. I shop at Safeway, Freds, Whole Foods, Costco and a fancy store here called “Met Market”. Of those the prices go:

        Met Market
        Safeway
        Whole Foods
        Freds
        Costco

        Whole foods carries a lot of “generic” or store brand goods which are excellently priced, often organic, and very high quality.

        1. Safeway is more expensive than Whole Foods? Interesting. I’ve never shopped at Whole Foods.

          1. Safeway is weird. If you ONLY buy their sale items (and you have a card) it’s ok. But if you need like peri peri pickled peppers or something specific I avoid it like the plague.

            Whole foods is also weird. They want you to buy soaps and stuff because the markup is huge but if you normally buy organic (I try to) then the prices are way better than Safeway. Plus, I usually buy their “generic” brands which are really good and almost always organic and reasonably priced.

            That said, Freds is the place.

        2. Have a friend here in Ireland who thought I was fierce fancy because I bought meat at a butcher’s.

          I was like ‘Dude, it’s nicer food and these days it’s pretty much the same price as your average supermarket.’

          To be fair I thought the same until this year. 🙂

    2. ‘Don’t go around the maskless’ isn’t simple unfortunately.

      Even if all of us stay in, they’re going to be out there infecting themselves and others who don’t take it seriously, and endangering their other non mask wearing friends’ parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters.

      And, even if they don’t care about themselves, they’re putting the lives and families of shopkeepers and front line workers etc in danger because those people have no choice but to deal with them.

      I remember a story a month ago in America where 50 people went to a party, 11 caught covid, and 4 people died who didn’t even attend the party.

      If mask skeptics only affected each other…..fine…..that’s their choice..

      But the problem is they’re a danger to everyone else who’s forced to deal with them when they’re out and about.

      None of us like the masks Aaron so at least we agree on that.

      1. Fair enough, but I can only control and educate those that I am around, and will not force someone else to wear a mask. Will you? Tim? Claudeivan? And if you believe you have the power to do so, who made you king and what laws are you following?

        Have already complied with the lockdowns for months at a level that is now mandated, work by myself in a room, only spend time with my partner, and shop 1x/week with a mask, fyi I live in CA with many others who are doing the same. What else can we do? That’s right wear the damn masks, socially distance, get vaccinated, and tell others to do the same. Will it be enough?

        1. You sound like you have a serious case of COVID fatigue. I live in Beijing, we were all maskless from August to December, when a few more cases popped up in a suburban district. In a week, 800k people were tested and the entire district has been shutdown.

          Of course, a sprinkling of cases have spread to the neighbouring province, and now they are under lockdown.

          You are right, no one can fully beat this pandemic, even authoritarian countries like China. But you can surely reduce the impact and r0 of the re-flareups by hanging on and keeping that mask on. It’s a community effort, and yes, the idiots should be shouted at.

          1. They found 30 odd cases in that suburban district after that round of testing, FYI. And they locked all 800 thousand people down. For all your human rights criticism of the PRC government and their media dodginess, when shit hits the fan, their system does work.

  3. I think one of our secret weapons for future is success is Per Mertesacker and the academy. We’ve got some amazing youngsters playing first-team football and a pipeline that is producing top talent. Huge props to the BFG and all involved.

  4. First, since I haven’t dropped by in a while? Nice update. Appreciate the comment box formatting features. Second, lucky you– to live in a predominantly liberal– and socially conscious locale. In Houston, while a well-run Dem city government, the split is 5:3 voter-wise. And similar in the big metros in Texas (DFW, SA, Austin, El Paso). The prob though are literal idiots at the state level trying to dictate to municipalities. During the early months of the pandemic TX locked-down briefly– then ‘re-opened’. Every major holiday after has been followed by a massive spike in both cases and deaths. Yet, you still see people in our condo complex (with an older demographic) interacting maskless. Older myself, with immune deficiency issues, my better half and I have been self-quarantined since last March. I’m fortunate workwise to be able to continue to work remotely– but now see our social exile continuing for several more months. Thanks to mass incompetence and science-denial at the federal level. Fairly sure I would be in line for early vaccination. But it’s going to have to wait until after Jan 20th– before anyone competent will be able to assist us all in finding that out.

    As far as creating confrontation? Maybe you’re aware of the Frontier Airlines flight (SeaTac-to-Denver) that was grounded last month thanks to MAGA garb-wearing passengers that refused to fly masked. All passengers had to deplane so the pair of women could be removed. Spewing racial epithets as the passengers left. There’s a pair who better get used to ‘Going Greyhound’ upon release.

    As for the transfers– we knew it was going to take time to ditch the deadwood. Just the pandemic made a bad situ worse. Too many mediocre players on big wages. No one with the money to take them even if we paid some of them. A huge squad– with some great youth players chomping at the bit.

    A pox on the club, Mustafi, has been like five bad pennies. Every year he ends up resurfacing after long-term injuries to Holding, Chambers, Koscielny, et cetera. A great defender (from the neck down).Please Barca– take him– break the curse!

    Drexler is the new Benzema-to-Arsenal annual rumor (preceded by Khedira-to-Arsenal rumor)😉. So, Buendia versus Brandt and Isco then. There’s convo about a January swap of either Nelson or Willock plus cash to entice Norwich. If Arteta is certain on Buendia? Do it now– before Norwich ascends to the PL or other clubs come calling in June. I’d say send Nelson to Norwich. Nelson could make the deal seem worthwhile for Norwich. I just don’t see him leaping over Saka on the right this term. Plus– I vote Reiss most likely to jump ship when he doesn’t get more PL minutes through May. Though, if all this is idle transfer chatter? Isco on loan is still not a bad Plan B.

    Sell Pepe. For pocket change if necessary. Write it off. If he could be a Lukas Podolski-type cannon-footed supersub? I’d keep him in a heartbeat. At times he is like Lukas. More often though– Bambi. In headlights.

    Briefly on William Saliba: Eighteen, now 19yo– he apparently lost his mother a year ago and his father late this last year. Yeah, he’s a pro on big wages– but asking a kid basically, to compartmentalize the deaths of both parents and excel athletically under great pressure– might be a bit much to expect. IMO, there’s no one at fault in this one. A loan to Nice and reassess next Summer.

    Leave this long-winder with a one-off. The Holding-Mari pairing has been solid (once Pablo got past some shakiness vs Chelsea). Would hate to make the change and leave a player like Mari on the bench upon Gabriel’s return. What if? Gabriel were paired with Partey in the ‘2’ of the current 4-2-3-1 as a DCM? Hmm…

    Fingers crossed for a happier new year. 🤞🏼

  5. Saliba’s handling is a f*** up by the club, plain and simple. You only have to follow events, read the explanations, and engage your critical brain. I don’t mean to minimise losing both parents (I still have one), but how does looking out for his best interests square with trying to flog him to Bristol City in the Championship? How does that square with crushing his confidence by not even registering him or playing him for a single minute? I know they play different positions, but is Azeez further along the development curve than Saliba, an ever-present for St Etienne, and the CB partner of Leicester’s Fofana, who is flourishing in the EPL?

    We the fans have to stop swallowing every piece of bull the establishment tries to shovel at us. Not be super-cynical about EVERYTHING, but just try to pick sense from nonsense. We paid 27m — the second highest transfer fee for a defender after Mustafi — and were so keen on rushing him back after his instant loan-back, that we refused to let him play in the French cup final. Now we hear about his bereavement, his injury, his lack of minutes, his love for Milli Vanilli (ok, I made that one up). Arteta has given about three, vague explanations about his situation. It is plain as day that Arteta does not want to work with Saliba, who someone rated so highly, they gave the jersey number of Cesc, Vieira and Mertesacker.

    This is, plain and simple, the result of too many revolving doors in coaching and recruitment, and club that is a shambles when it comes to hirings. Mikel doesn’t fancy Unai’s boys, and Edu doesn’t fancy Sven’s. So we make expensive buys, which the new guys find don’t work for them. If we fire Mikel, then what? The next coach tries to strong-arm Willian out of his contract by not even picking him for Tiddlywinks social evenings?

    ffs. We need to get a grip, on field and off. We will probably not see Saliba in an Arsenal shirt again. And on looking closely at this situation, I don’t buy the bereavement story.

      1. Some confuse calling out Arteta’s bs for not wanting him to succeed.
        To my mind he’s been winging it on so many fronts all across the board.
        Transfers, favoritisms, double talk, half truths and spin.

        Hopefully this was all just because of the pressure he’s been under and not what he’s really like but, I have my doubts.

        1. Exactly, Tom. You got it.

          I hold a number positions simultaneously; and I do not regard them as contradictory.

          I like what Arteta represents — an organically grown coach steeped in Arsenal. The bloke who spoke forthrightly to Wenger in the dressing room. The guy regarded as the next big thing in coaching

          I want him to succeed. Im pragmatic about whether his results are good enough to keep him in his job, but I believe in him, long term, and want him to succeed. I defended him and said this, even in the face of the absolute dross his team served up in November and December.

          Arteta has been often contradictory (and therefore less than candid), most notably on Saliba and Ozil. Folks who do what I did have over-active BS detectors, but still…Fibbing comes with the territory. Arsene delighted in giving elegant fibs, and telling a reporter absolutely nothing, with great finesse and no little wit.

          In mitigation also, Arteta is a young coach, in his first job. I don’t think that he has the power of final decision over many of the things that many people think that he does.

          For me, it;’s not about Arteta (again, a young rookie coach with everything to prove). It’s about the club. It is dysfunctional, it has lost its soul, and some of that is reflected in him.

    1. Agree with you on the Saliba situation. At the start of the season (before the PL/EL squad registration), we were hoping it will be him and Gabriel in the long term at the centre of defence.

      I’m speculating here – Arteta doesn’t fancy certain personalities like Sokratis (all though in my 2 cents, he was better than Mustafi), Guendouzi, Torriera, etc. Saliba seems to have been added to that list, possibly because he would have fought with all his might to play in the final with his former club (which Arsenal didn’t want due to some financial implications?). To deny him the opportunity to play was the ultimate punishment rather than protection.

      The comments about being fed-up from both sides doesn’t bode well.

      Disappointing.

  6. Tim, you nailed it on masks. No one has the absolute right to harm another person, but if you insist on going so, face the consequences.

    On the Caribbean island where I live, the problem isnt masking up… it’s wearing the darned thing like a chin strap. Im tired of asking folks on the other side of service counters to please cover their noses. The other issue is social distancing. We have comprehensively lost the battle on that one here. And now strangers trying to spoon me in public queues simply refuse to move back when I ask them. Perhaps it’s because, out of sheer exasperation, I’ve long stopped asking nicely.

  7. Tim, your summary of the midfield transfer targets is reassuring.

    In terms of masks though, while there those who wear it and those who don’t. I know which side I’m on. I’m intrigued about those who wear the mask…under their nose, covering only their mouth. I wonder if they know it puts them pretty much in the same group as those who don’t wear masks.

    1. Yeah, and also what claude said about folks wearing the mask below the nose. I feel they’re just aching for a confrontation? I mean, I get it, nobody likes wearing these things (including me, plus I wear glasses and everywhere I go I’m all fogged up most of the time; bloody annoying), but come on, that’s just d*ckish behavior!

      1. I’m so annoyed by fogged up glasses that I’m thinking of laser eye surgery.

        And laser eye surgery scares me.

    2. There is an amount of education about masks involved here. It was happening a lot in India but then there was a lot of campaign on how to wear the masks properly. It definitely improved how people wear the masks. I don’t know the stats but it passes the eye test.

  8. Tim,

    Many thanks for your writing throughout the years, more so now. Your musings on life and Arsenal are great, so thank you for sharing
    regarding the pandemic
    COVID is all over the world including Antarctica. Everyone will eventually get exposed and depending on how bad it is, 80-85% will have relatively mild disease, 10-15% will get sick and between 1-5% mortality depending on location/resources etc.
    The issues are two fold:

    1. unlike bacterial infections, treatment for viral infections are mostly symptomatic. In the past 9 months, a lot has been learnt on how to take care of the sick ones who end up in the ICUs and mortality is going down compared to when we started in March. the morbidity among those hospitalized is high with long term consequences in survivors.
    2. the rate of spread determines how many end up in the hospital at any time-it is simple math– once your bed capacity is exceeded, health care will be rationed/limited resulting in more mortality as can be seen in California. This is the single most important reason for people to be socially responsible not only for their own sake but everyone else’s.
    3. The best ways to limit the rate of spread is by social distancing and wearing a mask when in public(it is spread via droplets/respiratory secretions)- there is sufficient data to support it and it is common sense.
    4. the next best thing to a cure is prevention with vaccination as with other vaccine preventable diseases. So far vaccines have been shown to be highly effective in preventing the more severe form of the disease which is good
    5. eventually, people will become immune either naturally or via vaccinations, thereby limiting the spread of the virus (which will keep mutating like a lot of other viruses-hence you keep getting common colds all the time). The efficacy of the vaccines against the new mutations identified in Europe and now US is not known

    the conspiracy theories aside, does it matter what they are doing in China? the imperative is to control it in the US
    Stay safe

  9. Buendia would be nice but that ship sailed last Summer.

    Please no more loans. We need to get WAY smarter at contract management and additionally, start recouping some transfer dollars.

    1. I’m with you to a point, Matt, but a short-term loan for the remainder of the season may be strategic for pursuing a long-term target / project in the summer, a much better time to buy.

  10. I typically don’t post anything when you get too political, because I feel we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum ideologically, so I just wait until a more “neutral” topic, like Arsenal, to post.

    That said, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian and reader of Hayek, Friedman, Sowell, Richard Epstein et al. “First, do no harm” is rule #1 for libertarians. So, for me wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, are low level violations of personal freedoms when compared to the costs to others. Not just communists can follow rules. But the onus (my opinion) should always be those trying to limit freedoms to prove the costs to society. My struggle with this whole pandemic is that 99% of deaths are over age 65, 94% of deaths have a confirmed co-morbidity and the WHO has said repeatedly that asymptomatic transmission is extremely low. I’ve known five people (middle aged adults) close to me who were sick and over it in less than 2 days. This tells me that we should have been concentrating on firewalling the most vulnerable and letting everyone else get on with life. At one point the mission was to “flatten the curve”, now it seems like people don’t want to even risk getting sick at all.

    You say there are two competing ideologies, I think there are two competing human urges; freedom and security, which I analogize to having two baskets and five apples – how do you divide the apples? Nassim Taleb has written about how humans will constantly seek out increasing levels of security, but increasing levels of security lead to increasing levels of stagnation, whether that be economic or cultural. The pandemic is frightening a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum because it looks like we’re putting all our apples in the security basket.

    I find it funny that you laud China, a country that had emphasized both cultural security and economic security (communism) and only in the last 25 years, since it opened to free markets (they have a stock exchange!) and provided more economic freedoms have they come into prominence on the world stage.

    Anyway, I can’t see us signing Buendia, we need immediate help. I know the rumour is we’d send Reiss-Nelson and Willock the other way on loan, but do those two help Norwich get promoted?

    Saliba is the same summer as Pepe and bringing in Luiz, so that whole window is tainted now by Sanhelli’s corruption.

    We can’t sign Isco, my understanding is we can’t have two players on loan from the same club by Premier League rules.

    It’s got to be Brandt or we wait until summer.

    1. China is a good example of covid. Not sure if I would say China is a great country and what they are doing to the Yuighurs is up on the level of the worst things the USA has done down the years.

      I do appreciate you very thoughtful response and analogy.

      Firewalling was a topic we talked about here but it doesn’t work because the elderly are served by the young.

    2. But Jack….It’s not security that governs mask uptake… it’s medical science. Something that, regardless of where we sit on the political spectrum, should depend on what Trump says or Rand Paul thinks.

      Yes, go demand your freedom, and go maskless. The microbe is having a whole other conversation. And oh, btw, how on earth is a demand for mask wearing at my establishment a curb on anyone’s freedom? Every libertarian rock star whose work I have read, comes down on the side of the property owner. And here’s the glaring contradiction… they say that you cant force the baker to bake a cake for a gay couple, yet they’d try to tell him that he can’t tell them to wear masks. Which is it? So, no, it is often about spoiling for fight, rather than reasserting your rights. Nowhere in Libertarian thinking can I find support for individuals usurping the right of the property owner. But yeah, ultimately, the medical science. And that medical science trumps your random, non-expert, engineer’s observation about who recovered and how quickly.

      Here’s what we should do… stop framing everything through partisan political lenses. Sport provides a community through which libertarians, cons and lefties can agree that based on Tim’s statistics, Arsenal had an attack problem. Facts. Facts that don’t depend on where we sit on the political spectrum. If the experts tell us that mask wearing is effective, I dont think it’s the time to wave your party card.

      1. Yeah I agree with those who say that self-described Libertarian thinkers are often more correctly described as Propertarians.

        I sympathize with those looking to maximise liberty, but the way they tend to measure liberty is by the freedom to use or control material resources, i.e. having a legal claim on use of those resources, i.e. property. So property rights, those legal claims, become all-important and everything else is subordinated to them. It’s a naked scam on behalf of those who own a lot of property, the provenance of which is usually pretty dubious (ahem, genocide, colonial theft, slavery, exploitation, corruption etc.) It’s easy to be all about enforcing property rights AFTER you already took your claim by force or power.

        It’s not all their fault. It’s a pretty small step from bog standard liberalism which we westerners are all supposed to believe in, with its insistence that the individual is the only unit that counts, and its frankly weird claims around utility: that all human desires can be ranked and are expressed as revealed preference by how we spend our money, and therefore you can compare preferences (and ultimately maximise utility) using prices. By which logic a heart transplant has the same utility to a dying man as a Lamborghini, because they are the same price.

        But I’m going off on one and I’m not sure any of this is relevant to mask-wearing or Jack’s fairly straightforward point about trade offs in freedoms. (Jack if you read this I wonder if you think that other libertarians care as much as you do about not causing harm).

        I guess I am making a strong plea not to put it all down to political partisanship and tribalism. We are seeing things play out that are rooted in fundamental, basic problems with the way we think about the world, and those are the things we actually have mainstream political consensus on.

        1. Per Locke, property includes one’s labour and the exertion of labour on objects makes those objects that person’s property. Not including one’s labour in the accounting of property is missing the majority of property in existence. And unless slavery is involved (which libertarians vehemently opposed even centuries ago), one cannot steal labour. You sound as though you’ve taken a singular definition of property i.e. land, housing, material possessions.

          Now I’m wishing I hadn’t posted anything.

      2. I had to re-read my post because reading your reply I thought maybe I had mis-stated something, but no, you’ve read way too much into what I wrote. I’m not a mask opponent, nor was I trying to defend mask opponents. I was being honest – I struggle with reconciling the actual medical data (and my wife works for a big pharmaceutical company as immunology rep, so she sees the actual figures) and what is portrayed in the media and by politicians. The media love doomsday porn because it generates excitement/clicks. But, if I’m told that the only way I can go to a store is wear a mask, I’ll do it.

        I’ll float another idea – people’s personalities can be assigned on a matrix. On the one axis is aggressive to non-aggressive and the other access is conformist to non-conformist. We’re in an era where the aggressive conformists, regardless of ideology, are in the ascendance. You either do as you’re told, accede to “experts”, bow to authority, follow the rules, wear the team colours and agree with the consensus opinion or you’re a bad person that needs to be removed from society. C’est la vie.

      3. Jack, you’re right. I think that Greg has a fairer reading than I did of what you said.

        Greg, superbly stated. Sounds like you killed it on PPE 🙂

        To add to your argument on provenance, I wonder where you place Nozick’s central argument on ownership, which is that taking and tilling wilderness land made it yours, forever. Of course, wilderness land wasn’t really wilderness land… it belonged to someone/some peoples, even if they were not physically there at the time you decided to appropriate it. I love reading libertarian thinkers. You didnt always agree with with their arguments, but they seem fired mostly by unwavering principle. And Im not sure that application of their principles is consistently done, by everyone who self-identifies as a libertarian.

        Glad that we’re saying the same thing in our last paras.

        1. To quote Nassim Taleb again – with my family I am communist, with my community I am socialist, with my city I am Democrat, with my state I am Republican and with my federal government I am libertarian.

          When you say self-identifying libertarians don’t apply their principles, I think you’re correct, only because most libertarians are actually just stating that they’re libertarians on the “big” issues, and they don’t agree with over-arching federalism (or internationalism) and laws and regulations (if needed at all) should be made by the lowest level of government possible.

          I don’t want a high-rise building developed next door to me, so I’m happy to have a local planning authority say no, that’s not appropriate. Conversely, I think it’s absurd to declare a federal minimum wage for the entire country when that could be decided by communities.

          Stephen Covey wrote about our “circle of influence” 30 years ago. If we just tried to work within that circle, we’d all be so much happier. Problem is we have people wanting to change the world who can barely make their bed in the morning. Scale matters.

          1. Jack you are a gentleman and very patient, thanks for taking the time to respond. I agree with quite a lot of your thinking so it’d be interesting to find the points of disagreement. I consider myself bottom left of the quadrant, left anarchist, so we share a lot of the distrust of hierarchy and centralised power.

    3. Jack,

      Appreciate your sharing. I too, never post politically sensitive comments, but really think this is not solely about politics.

      As an aside, I wear my mask over my nose and mouth, and socially distance way more than 6ft when in public, wish to do no harm to others, and will get vaccinated as soon as I am able. (Low level violations to my personal freedoms that I can easily live with, but not forever) May everyone be able to get vaccinated if they desire, knowing if one does not, they are a hazard to the ones they love and themselves.

    4. It’s PRE-symptomatic transmission that’s the biggest issue, since typically people get symptoms on Day 5 after infection, and are most contagious in Days 3-7. So you get about 48 hours of high transmission before you develop symptoms, in which you can infect a lot of other people if you’re in an indoor space that’s not very well ventilated. That’s why the masks are good, to limit that kind of spread and allow you to interact (more) safely with others.

    5. Interesting comment, Jack. I should look into libertarianism more perhaps, because I associate it strongly with an obsession with security – why else all the guns and militias and prepping and property rights?

      Libertarianism also seems in practice to be very willing to sacrifice freedom for greater levels of autonomy and control. Over here you have the example of Brexit, where right-wing libertarians like Farage persuaded people to give up their freedom of movement in order to better control immigration, itself a very illiberal idea.

      I’m not sure I would want Arsenal to make any significant investment right now with the team in this transitional phase, a bloated squad and young players making their mark. Wait until the summer when our priorities should be clearer.

      1. Brexit supporters was a unique Venn diagram of people concerned with economic freedom (un-happy with a trans-national governing body that was producing low, 1 & 2% growth rates) and those worried about cultural security – in a globalist age, what does it mean to be British? Scottish? Irish? But I wouldn’t be colour it as a libertarian vote. Libertarians are free-traders and generally pro-immigration. (One reason I am NOT a Trump fan).

  11. Thanks Tim. A good article, and I agree with pretty much everything.
    I don’t really get the non-mask wearing. It’s a pretty small imposition on freedom, with a potentially lifesaving benefit. Even if it’s not a lot of lives, it’s some. And it helps with not having to give up other things, i.e. more businesses can stay open if everyone wears masks. If anyone cares to argue healthcare stats, I’m happy to do that. I’m between jobs at the moment, but up until Oct, ran the most widely used set of data analytics in the healthcare industry, and had a number of clinicians, data scientists, and epidemiologists working for me, so I have a pretty fair amount of expertise in the area. Otherwise I’m just counting the days until the 20th and we can get this F’d-up administration behind us. Now they can’t even properly help with vaccine distribution.

    As far as the important part, the football analysis, not a fan of trying to get Isco or Draxler. Too much water under the bridge for both. Just seems like another risky decision that might work, but could more likely cost a lot of money and keep our younger players off the pitch. I’d rather just play ESR, Willock, AMN, and even Azeez more.
    If we could find someone in the UK with decent experience at a mid-level, I’d be OK with that. Buendia would be good, but for the reasons discussed, seems unlikely. Externally, Brandt seems a decent option. At least he’s young with upside.

  12. And for those interested in the China side of things, this recent article from the NY Times is pretty good:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html
    It indicates a pretty fair amount of bureaucratic obstruction, particularly at the local level, early on in the pandemic there. Given the Trump administration’s general lack of regard for public health or scientific expertise, maybe a better initial reaction in China wouldn’t have made any difference. But the article doesn’t paint the early Chinese response in a great light.
    One thing is clear…there needs to be a lot more global focus on public health and prevention. It’s far from clear that it will be another 100 years until the next big pandemic. And spending $500B globally on WHO or other orgs could go a long way towards avoiding a repeat of COVID 19, which has caused global economic damage well into the trillions(i.e. even more than Ozil’s wasted salary).

  13. I’m a “front line” healthcare worker living in Vermont, so a bit of a walking oxymoron. My hospital now has 14 ventilated patients with Covid, an all time high for us but a tiny fraction of what other similar centers must deal with. I have already received my first Pfizer vaccine, and I’ve gotten to keep my job and my routine with really very little in the way of substantive change during the pandemic. I have access to all the PPE I care to use.

    I’m about as fortunate as it gets. But, the pandemic still touches me and wears on me. My family members have contracted and died from the disease. I cannot travel, I can’t play my favorite sport, I can’t eat at my favorite spots, and I must be forever wary of my fellow humans if they get too close, because what if they spread the disease and the. I spread it to others? Can anyone imagine a worse feeling than to bear a plague to ones patients? And yet the most irritating part of it all that I think the most about, because it actually sometimes blinds me, is the damn mask. I am literally and at times figuratively myopic, despite my great fortune to be where I am and to be who I am. I can only try to imagine the difficulties for those less fortunate ate.

    In a world already struggling for unity, coherence, understanding and human closeness, the plague has hit us where it hurts worst and intensifies the same rifts we already had while opening new wounds in our trust of governments, healthcare institutions, and each other. So, I urge everyone, once more, to simply be kind to your neighbor, especially if you disagree with them. You don’t know what they’re going through, and you never will. But we are all in this together and together is the only way we can beat this.

    1. Written only as someone born to be a doctor could express. Empathy and understanding. From one interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath:

      The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.”

      This was on a wall frame of my Dad’s in his hospital office. But he’d say, “It’s impossible in a medical career to “do no harm”. It’s aspirational, a call to higher purpose but as humans, we ultimately fall short.”
      Not for lack of trying though, right, Doc? Good on you.

  14. Thanks Tim and to everyone for the comments, enlightening and thoughtful reading at 5am

    I think the next couple of years is going to test our resilience so I wish everybody strength and love

  15. A most comprehensive and intelligent piece on masks as a mark of concern. We are social animals and so concern for the autrem is the logical and legitimate way.
    Tim
    Would like your assent to post the part on masks on my WhatsApp groups.
    Regarding COVID and the China connection, it is obvious that it is a genetically engineered virus. All natural organisms have a cycle and nurturing weather and fade off when weather changes. COVID-19 is the only micro organism which is not tallying to natural evolutionary norms, likely because it is man made. A likely theory floating is it inadvertently got into Wuhan market when a young couple scientists working late realised that they had run out of provisions and went to the market without following the full sterilisation protocol. The rest are consequences we see.
    Regarding mortalities, it is unfortunate there is not enough sharing of treatment protocols around the globe. In the USA initially there was unsubstantiated hype regarding chloroquine. For some time at late stages it is oxygenation which is obvious regimen. But in USA procedure followed is by intubation. Inserting a foreign object , particularly with the associated COVID morbidities causes complications of fluid formation in lungs and high level of fatalities . A better arrangement is high flow oxygenation .

    1. Please don’t spread misinformation like this. Multiple experts have said that there is no evidence that it was genetically engineered. If you happen to be a virologist or geneticist and can produce such evidence, I’m happy to listen. Or provide a link to a reputable scientific journal showing this. Otherwise, don’t make dangerous statements such as “It is obvious….”. Not all disease vectors are affected by weather in the same way so basing your statement on that assumption relative to COVID-19 is starting off on the wrong foot to begin with.
      As far as treatment goes, the hype regarding hydroxychloroquine in the US was limited to a relatively small circle. Unfortunately, one person in that circle, the President, has a loud voice on such matters. The clinicians I worked with on COVID data analysis were immediately pretty skeptical. The oxygen treatment is a pretty classic example of how science works. As we gained more experience in treating the condition, it did become clear that high flow oxygen should become a more important part of the treatment pathway(to the extent that there are now oxygen shortages in some areas).

    2. Ah yes, a couple of young scientists, maybe in love, working late at the genetic mutant virus engineering lab- oh no! One of them forgot her phone at the wet market where she went to buy shrimp earlier in the afternoon for her kindly grandmother! She rushes out, forgetting to wash her hands. At the market the fishmonger has her phone and hands it back with a smile. Briefly their fingers touch…

      This is rock solid.

  16. Can I ask, please?

    Is it correct that the actual management of the virus and the vaccine are the responsibility of the governors iof the individual states, rather than the federal government?

    Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, it seems to me that that the appalling bungling and bumbling that the powers that be at the club have shown in recent years with regard to transfers is likely to continue this time as well.

    It makes one wonder whether Wenger was right and that the manager should be in charge of recruiting and yet, bearing in mind the cackhanded way Arteta has managed his resources so far, it is unlikely that he can be trusted either.

    3 wins on the trot, 2 against pretty inferior teams, is not likely to change that.

    1. To your first question, sort of. The feds decided who gets how many doses of vaccines. Washington State literally just received their promised first shipment and a plan for deployment was rolled out yesterday. The feds also fund the deployment of the vaccine.

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