"Florida college students test positive for coronavirus after going on spring break": www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-florida-spring-break-test-positive-covid-19-college-students-not-social-distancing-university-of-tampa/

TicketChamp

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Marc Brownstein here from the Disco Biscuits and HeadCount. Strange times call for creative measures. Earlier this week I made a post on Twitter and Facebook offering one on one online bass lessons to my fans. The response was so overwhelming that I immediately realized I needed a system to streamline. I also heard one of oldest friend Peter Shapiro’s voice in my head saying “how’s does it scale, Brownstein, how does it scale?” At the end of the week I called my friend Alicia Karlin from AEG. We proceeded to spend every hour of the weekend on zoom together building and trouble shooting a platform that we launched at 10 am PDT this morning. It’s called Live Lesson Masters (LiveLessonMasters.com) and it streamlines the whole process of scheduling, taking payments, and integrates the zoom platform into the website. We added yogis and chefs onto the platform and already have interest in many other fields that touch our community. We also added an option for non-musician fans to interact directly with their favorite artists which we call “Chill.”

Of course we are giving a portion of proceeds to charity and are exploring a equity share concept to make sure that this platform is for creators by creators.

I’ve always appreciated your support in the past and thought you might be interested in checking out one of the ways that live musicians are pivoting in the new reality.

Marc

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Thanks for the shout-out for Twitter’s usefulness in a crisis. I work on the iOS app as well as TweetDeck for Mac and Twitter for Mac. Since you mentioned the lack of a desktop app, there actually is now a new desktop Twitter app for macOS, but you have to be running the latest version (Catalina). It’s in the Mac App Store.

Re: tracking important info about COVID-19, Lists on Twitter are great. There’s several you can subscribe to and even pin as alternate timelines. Two I’ve found that are interesting are:
“Coronavirus experts” via @EpiEllie (twitter.com/i/lists/1220869298631200769)
“Epidemic Science & Health” via @joshtpm (twitter.com/i/lists/1233998285779632128)

Thanks for all you do. Stay healthy,

dave LaMacchia

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As painful as it is to shut down an event that has sold some 100,000 hard tickets (per festival) we were able to provide some light in this world of darkness. The reaction of adding a 4th day to Louder Than Life and having Metallica headline this new 4th day has been met with so much positivity. Real positivity. THAT is what people need. Just a burst of hope. And for all who currently holding a weekend Louder Than Life 3 ticket….4th day is FREE. And if you want a Louder Than Life 4-day pass? $1 down. One buck through April. Not the fake or ‘everything is gonna be beautiful' crap these wanna-be daily Oval Office briefings are shoveling. Shameful. Finally, to Bernie and all of his die-hards. UNITE. Join in with Biden already, team up and lets beat lies, evil and bring maturity and real solutions to what clearly is a once in a lifetime crisis. World War 3? You bet. All hands on deck. We can do this….as long as we don’t have The Emperor Has No Clothes controlling the airwaves. And for all reading please light a candle for my son who is currently self quarantining in Frankfurt, Germany as he’s been diagnosed with CV. He’s stable, being strong but he’s lonely and his Mom and Dad just want our beautiful 23-year child home…WITH US. Be Safe and heed the rules. This is real. The “leader” squatting on Penn Ave is NOT"

Gary Spivack
DWP-Head of Talent

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And then there are the people who say to trust God, I kid you not. Did someone actually say this? Oh me, of little faith.

"Some of (us) believe in prayer. Relying on the media and politicians is not going to help. God never fails.
Be well."

When I was a boy in seminary school, the prophet Jim Morrison told me you could not petition the Lord with prayer. Petition the Lord prayer? WTF. If there is a god, Steve, he or she or it has and is failing you me and ours, so don't give us that pie in the sky when you die rubbish. Like Patti Smith, rock n roll hall of famer once sang, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." But we're all gonna pay the price...

Chip Lovitt

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Is this even possible...

The Republicans will underfund the stimulus. They will dilly dally on a shutdown and sometime in early to mid-April, they will say it’s time to go back to work (regardless of the number of cases). They will get the Supreme Court (bought and paid for) to override the governors on shut downs.

The economy starts to recover. Many (including enough Democrats) says Trump has proven his brilliance in a time of crisis. Upwards of 30,000 people die of corona virus in 2020 but they are disproportionately poor and uninsured and, with little testing, Fox News will claim they were deaths from flu. The evangelicals say that when one of theirs dies it’s “God’s plan” and since they believe they are all going to heaven none of them really cares.

Americans increasingly believe the virus came from a Chinese lab, a story that will be repeated over and over by Fox News as well as fake Russian and alt-right news sources until it becomes “true”.

Trump wins in 2020 for his masterful handling of a crisis.

Rand Paul doesn’t die.

John Parikhal

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You probably don’t need more of these scary accounts of what is going on. But this is from a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (I don’t want to name him) to my son-in-law. The good news is that if we’re isolating properly (meaning not seeing anyone), we’re ahead of the game. Everyone else, including those who are working in “essential business” are at terrible risk. My governor (in Connecticut) lists among those essential industries: gun shops, pet groomers, gardening supply stores, bicycle repairers, hardware stores, hotels, construction sites, marinas, farmers markets and liquor stores. I’m afraid with these kinds of exceptions he’s asking for trouble. There are only two essentials: total isolation including from family (especially from family); and time - - hoping that a vaccine (in 400 days) or some drug therapy becomes available, and in the meantime, hospitals get the PPE that they so urgently require.

Peter M. Thall

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I'm an at risk senior with an autoimmune disorder who has had a low grade fever and some of the symptoms since last Wednesday and a wife with RA , yet I was denied a test on Friday. The doctor cited a shortage of tests but it appears that they have plenty for asymptomatic Senators who like to go swimming waiting for their test results and the hot-tubbing elite out in the Hamptons who can call Sollis any time for any number of kits. I was told to go home, wash my hands and self-quarantine (what I've been doing for over a week since schools were closed) and let the doctor know in a week if I'm not feeling better.

Since I'm still a teacher in the public school system and typically see 1,500 kids per week, not to mention staff, you'd think they'd be interested in finding out if I have it, if so, where I got it and who I may have given it to. But not even a question came up. In fact, it makes me feel like I'm collateral damage in plausibly deniable targeted depopulation campaign. Now I'm not saying this is all being done on purpose, but as Naomi Klein reminds us, the oligarchs never let a good crisis go to waste; having a buffoon in the White House gives the NPGers a chance to dismiss genocide as the result of "incompetence."

Their lies will make Bush/Cheney WMD balderdash look like harmless childhood fibs when all is said and done.

And that's all I have to say about that for now.

Stay healthy,

Ken Shain

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“Moscow Mitch” was coined by Joe Scarborough (R- Never Trump conservative). Democrats don’t coin catchy phrases nor do they know how to use and drive homes ones invented by others. Chuck Schumer thinks Talmudic questioning techniques work as Tweets.

Disaffected Republicans like Steve Schmidt and Dave Jolly, not to mention Justin Amash are MUCH more adept at attacking Trump and the current GOP than are any Democrats. It’s pathetic. Just yesterday Amash tweeted “Let’s not give Mnuchin a secret slush fund or even a regular slush fund”, which is the big sticking point in the current proposed legislation.

Has Shmendrick Chuck even used the term “slush fund”?

NO! HE’S FUCKING PATHETIC.

Michael Fremer

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My wife is in a real jam. She works in assisted living. They can't order a shelter-in-place for the residents. The state agency that monitors assisted living considers such an order as 'holding them hostage'.

Tom Quinn

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Richard from England. Just had a weekend were millions were at the sea side and hill walks. They were supposed to self isolate. I am an old guy with normal old man issues. Self isolating with close family. Keep your emails coming. Medical science will win in the end. Remember the old saying 'put your trust in God but tie up your camel'. Your friend Richard Martin

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UK goes into virtual lockdown
Check the news

Alan Pell
Matters Of Vinyl Importance

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Thousands of people are going to die because Trump is corrupt, Trump is ignorant, and Trump is incompetent. Trump denied the seriousness of the virus for almost 2 months. Obama kept Ebola from spreading in our country. Trump has completely failed us.

Bruce Gordon

Long Island City, NY

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Yeah, Cuomo should be the candidate not Biden. The irony is that everyone is crushing on Cuomo as a result of this situation. He mightn’t have wound up in the same light without this real world application.

MAGA people should look up the word exponential

Chris Stein

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Your “speak the truth” admonition is timely. So here’s one:
After 6 years- adding up campaign and term in office- of dividing this country... it simply won’t work for Republicans to now say, “we all need to work together”, and “we’ve got to support the President”.
The only effective things we’ve done are to enact leadership on a more local level, and to ignore the BS coming on a daily basis from the White House. I’ll accept any other effective solutions when and if they actually materialize.

-Mark K. Day

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Well publicized obituaries would help.
Many of us still can’t name a single infected person we know personally.

Robin Bernstein

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Before last night's WestWorld episode on HBO, there was a quick COVID infomercial, wasn't too informative but re-affirmed the stay inside, wash your hands, sneeze and cough into your elbow messaging. Need that everywhere including before Trumps' press conferences.

Best,
Doug Fowler

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Trump’s tweet this morning that the “cure could be worse than the problem” in and of itself is downright frightening. Look at the numbers? The virus is exploding in the U.S., though with heavy concentration in a few states. The virus has no time or space boundaries. It doesn’t care about the economy, the stock market or your 401K. The virus didn’t get the 15 day instructions that Pence touts ad nausea, and rightly so. It cares about one thing. Creating havoc with your lungs, filling them with fluid so you can’t breath, and smiling when you subsequently die. The only opinion I value are from the medical and infectious disease experts. I refuse to listen to Trump grandstanding about an imminent cure, cause he considers himself an authority and the smartest. If he’s the smartest person in the room and every where else, then I thank God every day that I’m fucking dumb!

Stuart K. Marvin

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Also notice dr Anthony Fauci has not been standing on stage in the briefing today and yesterday. I'm sure trump was mad that the dr was upstaging him by answering with facts, and constantly correcting trump. Trump wants to control the narrative....No one has talked about this detail yet, but hopefully you can bring attention to this.

Scott

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... the world is messed up. Canada is 100% watching how things are playing out down south... because it looks terrifying.

Side note...

"Man dies after ingesting chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus:

www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166

"President Donald Trump touted the drug for its potential during a news conference last week; however, the Food and Drug Administration later said that it had not approved chloroquine for the coronavirus and that much more study was needed."

He is not a doctor, nor does he play one on TV.

He tweeted it, and spoke about it during pressers to the American people... but that doesn't mean people should start taking drugs all as they say... "willy nilly".

Someone took his advice... medical advice he got from the internet... and now they are dead... and they didn't even die from COVID-19. They died from COVIDIOT-20.

-Mike Langford

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I’m pissed at how the media framed things to benefit Republicans. For example, look at this from NBC (supposedly an MOR news source:

www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/top-democrats-say-they-re-not-yet-ready-sign-coronavirus-n1166021?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR0V0nH_6uVhSd1OyQknjXobzAB0ZNGf2PvSprzrN3lQFvBsEbIynSTXOB8

Starting with the headline “McConnell cited obstruction”

What about the Dems? That is a one sided headline. Further in the article are a couple of paragraphs (the first I quote is a partial):

"Democrats say the language would allow for corporations to keep bailout money while still firing workers, that the bailout money would have virtually no restraints and that there are very weak stock buyback restrictions.

A senior Democratic aide told NBC News that Democrats are concerned that the bill lacks specific provisions to protect people from evictions, foreclosure or forbearance and that it would allow for only three months of unemployment insurance."

Look at the framing: “Democrats say” and “A senior Democratic Aide told NBC”

Including those phrases makes it appear as if what the Dems are saying are opinions, but they are not opinions. As the bill stood when that article was published, those are facts.

These are the kinds of things that suck about the media right now. You have to be able to read through the slant of even the allegedly neutral media to get the facts, and I don’t think most people are aware it’s even there.

Dave Nelson
Nashville, TN

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I’ve had countless conversations with people about the virus, and I’ve found that age defines the complexity of the discourse.

Thirty-somethings don’t want their life complicated by something they were told out of the gates couldn’t hurt them. There is enough misinformation and slippery slope logic being published out there to back their arguments that us old ones are just succumbing to fear tactics. My father is in his late 70s, first in his class from every school he attended, and he hasn’t left his house in three weeks. He’s also a doctor - the only facts he needs are that people are dying, and people his sons and daughter’s age are now getting hit hard. Comparing it to past viruses is irrelevant, this virus and how we combat it is all that matters.

A thirty-something cares what their favorite rapper says. My father’s generation doesn’t give a shit what any celebrity has to say - he loves to remind me how Gene Simmons said that the public shouldn’t be listening to him for political advice. So I explained to him that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West control more of the pubic than the President does, that’s the power of celebrity today. He gets it now. But that’s a hard message to sell to your average senior that isn’t social media savvy.

Which brings us to Trump. The people that do listen to Trump blindly don’t listen because they think he’s the greatest orator in history or the smartest man to fill the Oval Office, they do so because his celebrity speaks to them at a primal level.That’s why he got elected. The Republican base didn’t want him, John Q Public did.

But Presidents shouldn’t speak at a primal level. We need leadership, not press conferences telling us how “amazing" the fast food restaurants are through this crisis because they are staffed by “great, really great" people. McDonalds may be staffed by “great, really great” people, but they hand me a Coke half the time I order a Diet Dr Pepper in the drive thru - if they can’t get that right, do I really trust them to come to work without a temperature and wash their hands more than I do?

This virus is something none of us have seen in our lifetime - and we need it to be treated accordingly. We need a leader who can not only stress the importance of the quarantine, but also sooth the growing concerns that when we come out of this fog, we will be in the darkness of a Great Depression, not just another recession.

Right now it feels like our federal government is playing whack-a-mole. Poorly. I believe we should be leaning on the locals, but there needs to be a strong voice guiding them from D.C. Just when I start to feel like that voice might be coming together, we get an asinine back-and-forth about the potential impact of hydroxychloroquine. On Tuesday you’re telling me to trust Burger King, and Thursday you’re arguing with Anthony Fauci as if you’re the one with Dr before your name and an M.D. after.

I’m not a Gavin Newsom fan, but he’s lapping Trump and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti in his handling of the crisis and he’s winning me over. He and Andrew Cuomo know how to lead. I never had high expectations for Trump’s leadership skills, but I did have false hope that he’d learn from those around him, a la Mark Burnett.

I think Trump is trying too hard to make the coronavirus his 9/11 - but he’s not Rudy Giuliani (sadly, Rudy ism’t even Rudy anymore) - and at this point all I want is for him to stop talking. This country will never get on the same page if the person holding the book keeps glossing over the key plot points.

Again, thanks for your words Bob - it’s like having someone to talk to without my wife having to actually hear me on the phone!

Paul Gargano
(Respecting and honoring the quarantine and doing fine with toilet paper - but my wife ran out of parchment paper baking bread… anyone want to trade? #firstworldproblems)

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Tx Lt Gov Dan Patrick says grandparents would be willing to die to save the economy for their grandchildren
On Tucker Carlson, tonight. Hannity setting table, It's over.

George Drakoulias

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