Hey folks, happy Friday! Let’s do it.
1. Democrats Fall in Line (Slate)
Biden won Minnesota, considered a toss-up between Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders all the way back on Monday morning. He also won Massachusetts, a state home to one senator in the race and bordering the home state of another’s. That race, as of Tuesday night, was considered a toss-up between those other local senators, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders. Biden, as of this writing, is holding onto a narrow lead in Maine. He didn’t campaign, or advertise, or organize, in any meaningful way or in no way at all, in many of these states. Super Tuesday was as bad a night for “campaigning” as it was a good night for the value of earned media.
Bloomberg had 98 total field offices across 14 Super Tuesday states.— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) March 4, 2020
Sanders had 43 field offices across 10 Super Tuesday states.
Warren had 20 field offices in 9 Super Tuesday states.
Biden had field offices in just 5 Super Tuesday states. https://t.co/aay9n5DZtT pic.twitter.com/mkNvFCDbfQ
I think the one big lesson I've learned these past few years is that "earned media" is a pricelessly valuable commodity in the current age because it's the big-market equivalent of grass-roots guerrilla marketing. Trump won on the power of earned media, and now Biden has as well.
It’s not complicated. Voters understand that paid advertising is, well, paid. They're looking for something that's not blatantly purchased, and here we are.
2. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton likely to miss Opening Day (Pinstripe Alley)
Cashman explained “Right now, more likely than not I don’t see him being ready for Opening Day because of the time frame: 3.5 weeks... Obviously with 3.5 weeks to Opening Day, we would rather be safe than sorry.”
The concerning thing here is that they don’t have a specific diagnosis yet for Aaron Judge. It’s fine if he misses Opening Day -- Hell, it’s fine if he misses the whole month of April, really -- but we’ll need him back by the All-Star break, or it could really hurt the Yankees’ season. For what it’s worth, Judge himself has not yet ruled out Opening Day, though I don’t think athletes can be trusted to figure their own timetables for return from injury.
Personally, I find myself believing that Stanton will be back. That may be irrational exuberance, but I think he at least plays sooner rather than later.
3. COVID-19 Isn’t As Deadly As We Think (Slate)
This is where the Diamond Princess data provides important insight. Of the 3,711 people on board, at least 705 have tested positive for the virus (which, considering the confines, conditions, and how contagious this virus appears to be, is surprisingly low). Of those, more than half are asymptomatic, while very few asymptomatic people were detected in China. This alone suggests a halving of the virus’s true fatality rate.
On the Diamond Princess, six deaths have occurred among the passengers, constituting a case fatality rate of 0.85 percent. Unlike the data from China and elsewhere, where sorting out why a patient died is extremely difficult, we can assume that these are excess fatalities—they wouldn’t have occurred but for SARS-CoV-2. The most important insight is that all six fatalities occurred in patients who are more than 70 years old. Not a single Diamond Princess patient under age 70 has died. If the numbers from reports out of China had held, the expected number of deaths in those under 70 should have been around four.
The stock market panic has sort of served my personal investing interests, but beyond that, I’m not as worried as I could be. Sally and I are supposed to go on vacation at the end of the month, and I’m a bit concerned about some craziness there, but as long we get to go on our trip, I’ll be happy enough.
If you’re reading this at home, well, the sky is falling. Do me a favor and sell all your stocks right now.
4. Purple Rain (Netflix)
Purple Rain is on Netflix, and I finally watched it. I’d never seen it before. I loved it. I’d planned to put it on in the background while I made dinner one night, but I found it captivating. I actually turned it off while I was cooking, so I could give it my full attention later that night.
This, of course, brings up the question -- what is the song Purple Rain about?
Apparently, Prince wrote the song as a kind of personal answer to Bob Seger. He was touring through the Midwest at about the same time Seger was, and he got interested in Seger’s music, and Purple Rain was the result.
Most folks seem to think that the lyrics are a pun indicating a double-meaning. He says “purple rain” but he means “purple reign,” especially since purple is the color of royalty. This fits with the film. Prince makes himself a controlling asshole in the movie, so if you just take the lyrics at face value, he’s (mostly) saying that he wanted to make Apollonia happy by dominating her life. Yikes. Of course, the song itself is written as a lament, so maybe he’s apologizing for being who he is, i.e. “I’m sorry I’m such a controlling dick. I only wanted to make you happy.”
Alas, a close reading of the lyrics doesn’t really support that interpretation.
I never wanted to be your weekend lover
I only wanted to be some kind of friend
Baby, I could never steal you from another
It's such a shame our friendship had to end
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
I only wanted to see you
Underneath the purple rain
Honey, I know, I know
I know times are changing
It's time we all reach out
For something new, that means you too
You say you want a leader
But you can't seem to make up your mind
I think you better close it
And let me guide you to the purple rain
That makes it sound like Prince wanted something casual, but he’s a controlling dick, so of course, it couldn’t just be casual. And anyway, Apollonia is a dumbass who doesn’t know what’s really good for her, so of course she’s going to submit to his control. Alas, that reading is totally supported by the movie, and as I said, Prince pulled no punches in the film as far as his own personality is concerned. The film makes it clear that he is, in fact, not an easy guy to work with or love.
None of that makes it less compelling. It’s a great movie. Totally worth your time. But there’s definitely a reading there that’s kind of a #MeToo cautionary tale, intended or otherwise. Personally, I think it probably was intended, that Prince purposefully made himself a romantic antihero. That doesn’t change the message, but it does change the way we ought to think about its presentation.
5. What We’re Watching (Netflix… mostly)
The Americans. The seasons are all on Amazon Prime. We’ve gotten through two and have really enjoyed them.
Locke & Key. Sally and I took a break from The Americans to watch Locke & Key on Netflix. I loved the books, and the show has been a faithful adaptation, though it seems to move a little faster than the books did. Good stuff.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. My kids won’t watch it with me, which sort of takes the fun out of it. I haven’t finished season two and probably won’t.
Altered Carbon. I liked but didn’t love season one. The book is an all-time favorite, but they expanded it in unfortunate ways. Essentially, all the clever stuff came from the book, and all the stuff that sucked was invented for the show. Alas, I reread the second and third books right before watching the show’s second season, and it’s been a little disorienting. Season two’s story is a kind of amalgamation of the second and third books, but they changed a lot, to the point that it’s really not the same thing at all.
This second season has been better than the first overall, but they could lean a little harder into the action. That’s actually a problem in the third book, too. I find myself wishing that they’d just adapted the second book a little more faithfully. The way they did it makes me think this is the show’s last season (full disclosure: I’ve just seen the first few episodes).
That’s it. What are you guys watching?
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