What a state of affairs

Hey everyone, hope you had a good week. There’s been a lot going on. The country has been having huge spikes in COVID-19 cases across the United States. The fly over states are being hit pretty hard and hospitals are at max or pretty close. We hear governors speaking about it on the news almost every day.

Here where I live let’s just run some numbers.On Google you can see 1492 cases were reported yesterday. That’s record for the state. Overall we’ve had 63,668 recases recorded. We’ve had 822 people die from COVID-19 in Oregon. In Washington County where I live 221 new cases reported. Multnomah (Portland) right next door on the other side of the hill had a reported 412 new cases.To round out the Portland area you have Clackamas County who had 121 new cases.

That’s pretty nerve wracking when you think about you never know who could be contagious. People could be asymptomatic. Younger people may just not show significant signs of the disease. What’s one to do but wear a mask, social distance and wash your hands.

Podcast

This week I’ve been listening to the standard slate of podcast. I did run across one that kind of rattled me though. I listen to Trump Inc, a great podcast from WYNC and ProPublica. They’re normally talking about Donald Trump’s business and how he’s a crook (my words).

This week I heard their podcast from October 31st. Keep in mind this is before the election and we’re not post election. The podcast shares an excerpt from another WYNC podcast, Radiolab. This episode discusses with Law Professor Rosa Brooks a report that she put out called Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition. Rosa describes a blahze dinner she was attending when they get on the topic of what would happen if Trump refused to leave the Whitehouse.

Someone sitting at the table made a comment about how the military wouldn’t allow that to happen. She couldn’t get that out of her head though. Because she wondered what he meant. She said, she knows military folks and there were just so many open questions with that statement.

So after speaking to Nils Gilman, who works at the Berggruen Institute. They decided to set up a war game scenario with a group of people. A choose your own adventure if you will. They reached out and brought together 67 people to participate in her Mad Lib experiment.

Let’s just say some of those people who participated were rather surprised at the outcome. Brooks and Gilman would give them a scenario and they would play it out with the different groups and the results were alarming to some participating.

Here’s the kicker that freaked me out. Remember this was a podcast before the election. The report that Brooks authored was published August 3, 2020. They come up with a scenario where Trump would go directly to state lawmakers to tip the scales in his favor. HOLY SMOKE! That JUST HAPPENED THIS WEEK!!!

OK take some deep breaths … everything’s going to be OK. You have to admit though that it’s pretty crazy that these people could see this coming. Of course there was nothing anyone could do about it. It’s almost like the Trump legal team listened to the podcast and read the report. Crazy right?

Give the Trump Inc podcast a listen. See what you think.

If you would like to hear the full Radiolab podcast I’ll include it here as well.

What’s on TV?

This week I’ve watched a couple food shows you might be interested in. On Hulu I’ve started watching Eaters Guide to the World. Maya Rudolph narrates this show. The shows covered some great locations and not your typical venues.

They started here in the Pacific Northwest. I thought it was interesting because they started in Portland and the restaurants they covered served Asian cuisine. Don’t get me wrong I love Asian cuisine. That’s now what I think of when it comes to Portland though. They ventured to the Seattle area and again covered a couple more Asian cuisine restaurants.

Afterwards they bounced back to Portland and covered a couple dives and bars. One was in an old school building which really peaked my interest. This is a building that is unmistakably a school. The school had been converted to a hotel. The bar the show visits is, wait for it, named Detention.

Their last stop was this Inn outside Sisters, Oregon. Now Sisters is little off the beaten path. It’s out in a mountainous area of the state. I’ve not been there yet but it’s definitely on the list of places to travel too. This Inn serves a mean fish sandwich. They also have a fellow by the name of Skip who’s a free spirit if you will.

I have to give Maya Rudolph props too. She’s not on screen at any point in time. She’s just narrating along above the story. She is absolutely hilarious. The color commentary is perfect and rich with various types of humor. Huge props to her for taking on a project like that.

The other show is called Ugly Delicious on Netflix. I started this last night and I watched a couple episodes. What a great show. David Chang who’s a famous restaurateur is doing this show which the first episode covers his wonderful news of finding out that he and his wife are expecting their first child.

David speaks to other restaurateurs and discusses with them how they did both run successful restaurants AND were parents. I loved the one story a chef was telling where he had people puree vegetables and put them through a strainer, put them in molds, freeze them and then bring them back to him. Little did they know but he was having them make baby food for his infant.

The second episode discusses Indian food. He discusses how Indian food has just never found a place in the world like other cuisines. He ventures to Mumbai to visit markets and explores the spice trade there. They even have an interesting conversation about bananas. Did you know that India exports Bananas to the United States? Me either!

Check those shows out if they sound interesting. I’ve found they have more than just food in them. So you have a good story and restaurant suggestions from each area they explore.

Another movie I watched this week is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Alien Xmas is a cute little claymation movie about an alien invasion and the alien who’s in charge of the invasion. Not your typical Christmas movie for sure. Give it a try if you just want some mindless cute.

Wrap up

Let’s wrap this up. So all in all it was a good week. Thanksgiving is next week so there will be some good food being dished up. As for everything else. Well, the world will continue to spin and we will all be expected to show up at work.

If you like my blog check out my last post Thanksgiving 2020 is quickly gaining on us. Leave a comment and check out my site for a new post in the future. Till then have a great week and look for the good things in life.

#peace #Thanksgiving #podcast #netflix #hulu