Proof that this is a stupid, stupid country comes with an emerging theme of the Trump campaign: Asking if you’re better off than you were four years ago.
I can answer that one instantly and unequivocally: Yes. Hell yes. Take all the yes under the sun, pile it high, double it and double it again. Yes.
The Washington Post, being cognizant of its liberal media presence, added a qualifier to its headline: Trump asked if U.S. was better off in his last year. In many ways, the answer is no. The “in many ways” is perhaps justified by the subhead: A look at the third week of March 2020 reveals a nation that was plunging into a pandemic, and a leader exhibiting the erratic characteristics that his supporters love and his detractors revile
Hmm. Well, OK, maybe some people found those daily Covid briefings entertaining. But the story (gift link) lays out what we all remember:
Four years ago this week, the stock market was collapsing — hitting its worst week since the Great Recession of 2008 — as the country spiraled into a years-long pandemic that claimed more than 1 million American lives, cratered the economy, upended daily life and, arguably, helped cost Trump a second term in the White House.
…Reported covid cases exploded that week, growing from 588 to 3,659, and covid deaths more than tripled, from 16 on Sunday the 15th to 52 the following Saturday. Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump regularly indulged in his most combative and erratic impulses, alienating large swaths of the public along the way.
During that seven-day stretch, Trump promised the country had “tremendous control” over the virus and that “we’re winning it.” In fact, the opposite was true.
Yep. That’s how it went. When I read stuff like this, I sometimes go back to my photos from that period. I don’t take as many pix as I probably should, but I take a few. Many of these images will be familiar to you, and they suggest that no goddamn WAY was the country better off in March 2020.
It was a bad time to run out of toilet paper, or “bath tissue,” as the sign suggests.
It was a good time to be making sanitizers of all sorts. This was for a story I did for Deadline Detroit. I think this guy was getting something like $50 a tub for these alcohol wipes.
My boxing workout briefly moved outdoors, socially distanced by the yard markers.
I look about as excited to be at this Zoom cocktail hour as anybody would be. “You are the only one here.” Solo drinkers should look more hangdog, if you ask me:
A closed bar in Grosse Pointe. Cardboard Conor McGregor was probably left over from St. Patrick’s Day, a couple weeks previous.
I got a tip that certain bars were opening on the DL, reviving the city’s grand tradition of speakeasies. I was using a jukebox app to try to find them, but never connected with one. I did capture this image of the neon installation on the modern art museum in Detroit, with Woodward Avenue empty of everything but my Subaru:
A friend did have a small speakeasy group with three friends, one of whom owned a bar. They’d go there, sit several stools apart, and drink together. Was it fun, I asked. “Not at all. Kinda depressing, actually.”
A socially distanced teen hang in an empty middle-school parking lot. Note all the late-model cars. Rich kids, but at least they were being responsible:
Then the Unlock Michigan movement got moving, whipped along by social media. They insisted the shutdowns and restrictions were all either a hoax or overblown or not worth the economic damage. Many of the ringleaders looked like this:
I just looked up Kevin Skinner. It appears he’s now pushing the ballot initiative to do away with property tax in Michigan. Of course.
I have to say, though, that there were moments of calm, happiness and beauty. Kate and I went down to the lakefront to try to catch a flyover of the Blue Angels, who were saluting health-care workers all over the country. It was a lovely day.
I had two cameras that day, my phone and my Nikon SLR, loaded with Tri-X pushed to 1600. A friend saw this and remarked, “Man, even Wendy looks hard.”
We were looking out at the water, thinking that’s where the planes would be. But suddenly we heard them, and saw them only a few seconds later, behind us. I swung around, raised my camera and took a hail-mary, and whadday know, it turned out great. High-contrast, but I like it.
So. Better off? You better believe it, even if the Blue Angels aren’t flying around. My 401K recovered, I now see friends face-to-face and when I want to wipe my bum, I have the t.p. to get the job done.
Happy Sunday/Monday. A busy week ahead, but afterward, all downhill.
David C said on March 24, 2024 at 2:25 pm
I like my personal space. The only habit from those awful times that seems to have held is leaving more space when queueing up. It’s down to four feet instead of six, but I can live with that. As nice as that is, no more early morning, insomnia induced doom scrolling to find out what that idiot did overnight is the best.
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LAMary said on March 24, 2024 at 2:44 pm
I was unemployed for the first five months of the pandemic. The outpatient eye surgery clinic where I worked closed down all but one of its 20 locations. They didn’t need a staff recruiter. For most of the pandemic I bounced from one short term contract job to another, hustling for a new one between gigs. I had problems paying my mortgage with a sleazy mortgage servicing company that Chase had handed me off to. So no, I was not better off for those first months of the pandemic. I had the time to watch trump’s daily appearances with Fauci and that other doc with the impressive scarf collection. The moronic crap he was spouting did nothing to improve my outlook on the future. Did you know he had an uncle who taught at MIT and that trump inherited a natural wisdom of science from him? Seriously.
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Dorothy said on March 24, 2024 at 3:08 pm
I do not have a lot of fond, happy memories of four years ago. Not at first. Now is DEFINITELY better but a few fun things do still make me smile from 2020. First it was when Mike and I hadn’t had a haircut in a few months. I wear my hair really short so I could get away with it and not feel too odd with my hair the way it looked. We didn’t own clippers, so one Saturday in May 2020 we stopped at a Walmart in Xenia and I dashed in, masked, and picked up what I thought were hair trimmers. Turns out it was really for beards and mustaches so we did the best we could. We went out on the front porch and put towels around our necks and cut each other’s hair. But I was tempted to try a pass myself and ended up taking a huge chunk of hair out of my own head. And we laughed ourselves almost sick over how dumb I looked. It was like we were drunk, we were laughing so hard!
Then fast forward to early fall when my Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild had a virtual weekend retreat. I thought this would be so dumb. I’d convinced myself it would be pathetic and the opposite of what a retreat was supposed to do to your mood. Well I’m happy I was wrong. We had almost day long Zoom set ups and could sit and b.s. with each other and sew what we wanted, and we did show & tell, and told each other stuff that felt revealing but also important, nothing too serious but we laid bare our feelings about stuff. I think we had 20 women participating at varying levels (I don’t have little kids, some did, so they could not sit and sew and b.s. at length like I could). The day before the retreat started the president of the guild drove around to homes and dropped off goodie bags on our front porches, and it just ended up to be a lovely and wonderful time. And the quilt I made that weekend hangs on my bedroom wall, and every time I gaze at it I feel happy again that I made it when and how I did.
Other than that, though, 2020 was pretty shitty!
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alex said on March 24, 2024 at 3:21 pm
Well, those who read the WaPo will remember what a sucky time it really was while those who confine their news consumption to Trump’s cheering squad will see things through rose-colored glasses. Still, though, that was about the dumbest fucking question Trump could have asked.
The stock market is doing so well, in fact, that I bumped up my monthly take from my mutual fund and notified healthcare.gov so I’ll be paying $100 more a month for my marketplace premium, still way the hell less than COBRA was. And netting more than I did when working.
The one thing that’s no better than four years ago is mainstream media coverage of politics, and NBC’s hiring of Ronna McDaniel is example one-thousand, five-hundred and twenty-three-jillion. The Fourth Estate is a fucking Fifth Column!
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FDChief said on March 24, 2024 at 4:41 pm
That Tubby can even say that and not get booed off the stage just lays out how clearly we’re dealing with a goddamn cult.
Better off than March 2020? WTAF? If you even have to think about that for a nanosecond you’ve been huffing Tubby’s tangerine taint aroma.
Sadly, millions of “people”’are, so here the rest of us are…
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Mark P said on March 24, 2024 at 5:49 pm
The Trumpoids are going to remember the pandemic as having been during Biden’s administration. All the stupidity coming from the White House, all the closings, the job losses, the deaths will all be blamed on Biden.
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Little Bird said on March 24, 2024 at 5:54 pm
I remember going to the grocery store and literally crying because the place looked empty of a lot of products. No toilet paper, paper towels, paper napkins or facial tissue. The pasta was mostly gone and there were signs everywhere about rationing stuff. It was honestly terrifying. To this day, when I open a new package of toilet paper, it’s time to buy a new one. I won’t hoard it, but I do not want to run out.
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Dorothy said on March 24, 2024 at 6:38 pm
Julie I remember we went to Costco the first weekend in March, just before everything shut down, so we were lucky to have plenty on hand. I never once felt like I was missing anything I needed. What I really needed was elastic to make masks, and I asked the theatre program director if there was any available in the costume classroom. She told me to take whatever I needed. And eventually Amazon had it again and I bought large spools of it. I still have plenty in my plastic storage box in my sewing studio.
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LAMary said on March 24, 2024 at 6:43 pm
We got toilet paper from a restaurant that was closing. The owner had a case of it that he wasn’t going to use so he sold it to my son for ten bucks.
I caught the last five minutes of Ronna McDaniel on MSNBC followed by Chuck Todd complaining that MSNBC should not have hired her. He’s an ass but she was really full of shit, ducking questions, sort of answering sometimes…
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Suzanne said on March 24, 2024 at 7:25 pm
Well, 4 years ago, I didn’t have cancer so I guess I WAS better off! If I was a MAGA, I’d blame Biden.
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Jim G said on March 24, 2024 at 7:29 pm
“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” has a conservative bias, since it’s the sort of question that invites fond recollections of the “good old days.” It’s also a very selfish question. Are poor people, people of color, and GLTBA+ people better off now than they were four years ago? Are women who need abortions better off? Is the world in a better place? Screw all that. Are you better off?
2024 is a really stupid time to ask that question. But exactly four years ago is an odd time. It was that glorious moment at the start of the pandemic where most of us thought that if we all just hunkered down, socially distanced, and disinfected the hell out of everything, this whole Covid thing would blow over and we could get back to normal pretty soon. Yes, people were dying, and the Trump administration was doing everything it could to pretend that there wasn’t a pandemic going on, but there also seemed to be a sense of everyone being in this together that hadn’t been seen since 9/11.
Then the vaccines came, and with them the vaccine deniers, and that’s when everything really started to go to hell.
For me, I’d say I was happier in March 2020 than I am today. I was still married, had two great cats, and several friends and family were still alive who are gone today. But it’s not Biden’s fault that any of that changed.
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Deborah said on March 24, 2024 at 9:34 pm
I remember my brain roiling a mile a minute coming up with plans for how to deal with everything. There were the drives back and forth from Chicago to NM without stopping at public bathrooms, which I can hardly believe now. I had a whole process figured out of what to do if toilet paper became impossible to obtain that involved using the fireplace to burn torn up sheets. When I think about it all now it is sobering.
I cried when I finally got my first vaccine I was so relieved.
I will never forget watching Trump talk about bleach and light and motioning to the scarf lady for her concurrence.
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Dexter Friend said on March 25, 2024 at 6:27 am
NBC is my source for news. I am deflated and mad, sad and incredulous that Ronna McDaniel has been hired. That election denier and Trump toadie belongs at Fox.
The NCAA men’s tournament provided some games that were just crazy. The best was last, Aggies v. Cougars. Holy shit.
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Dexter Friend said on March 25, 2024 at 6:47 am
I was so surprised and delighted when I saw on TV that a vaccine was rolling out of a lab in Sturgis, Michigan as I recall. I am late for everything but I was early for my first vaccine. I was disappointed the vaccine came after Carla Lee’s death but was able to process it as a great thing for humanity.
I never ran out of TP, but was down to one roll. Now I, like others, buy a package of Charmin mega-rolls the day I open my last pack. Don’t you love the Charmin bears? Some don’t.
New York City, Manhattan, Midtown…walking, alone…strange clicking noise…was surveillance in action? No, it was so quiet at noon, no cars, no people, he heard the clicking of traffic signals. Ron Bennington of Sirius/XM reported this. Then he left Manhattan for Brooklyn, then moved up to The Hudson Valley. A few people left civilization and moved to the several desert communities like Slab City, CA. Through YouTube, I have learned there are more of these encampments in the USA western desert.
Sherri, thanks for ‘splainin’ Trump’s Truth Social money grab attempts. Today it is being bandied that bankruptcy is an option. Eric Trump went on Fox complaining how unfair the Big Bond is…tough shit you fucking weasel bastard!
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Jeff Gill said on March 25, 2024 at 7:32 am
Square glasses, Nancy? I know they take up less shelf space, but I hate drinking from them.
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Jeff Gill said on March 25, 2024 at 7:44 am
Oh, sorry to double post, but — check out Joe Biden’s congrats to Donald on Xwitter. Well played, Mr. President: well played.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1772084227200164325
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ROGirl said on March 25, 2024 at 7:58 am
I worked for a Japanese company at the time, and we started learning about travel restrictions and city shutdowns in China in January. And a guy whose wife was Chinese said people were collapsing and dying in the streets, which didn’t seem believable at the time.
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Peter said on March 25, 2024 at 8:28 am
Dexter, I like the Charmin Bears, but my toilet drain just adores them! It hoards them and holds on to them so tight that it plugs the drain, and I have to get a plunger and do an intervention. I switched to Scott.
Asking if you’re better off now than you were four years ago has to be the second dumbest campaign strategy of all time, eclipsed only by Trump in 2020 wailing that if you elect Democrats you will have mayhem in the streets, like the riots we’re having right now under MY administration! I can understand that some people will put the memories of 2020 out of their minds as a coping mechanism, but you have to be kidding me. Have people really forgotten what happened four years ago?
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alex said on March 25, 2024 at 8:51 am
Four years ago at this time I was getting a reprieve from a micromanaging and toxic boss at a job that I otherwise still loved. Working from home was ideal. I had time for exercise and eating right and in a few months’ time I had dropped 30 pounds and produced my best lab results in years. And I had enough toilet paper, somehow.
What I remember about that unusual spring — unseasonably warm just like this year — was bonding with others in the neighborhood like never before. People were outdoors walking and chatting and we started having socially distanced outdoor gatherings and forming lasting friendships that might not otherwise have ever taken hold.
I remember Trump’s press briefings on COVID, particularly the day Dr. Fauci was trying to stifle laughter while Trump put his own abject stupidity on full display. Four years later and we have a MAGA gubernatorial candidate using Dr. Fauci’s image in a political ad and voicing over it with the word “corruption.”
That pol is Senator Mike Braun, who’s leaving the Senate to run for governor. And there are some confusing ad buys running back to back for and against his campaign. In one spot he’s boasting about how he “backs the blue” and how he has the endorsements of all sorts of police organizations; in another, there’s an old interview with Tucker Carlson ripping Braun a new asshole over his insufficient loyalty to “Blue Lives Matter.”
I just read this morning that Trump made another utterly stupid move over the weekend by boasting on social media that he has $500M in cash, undercutting his lawyers’ claims that he doesn’t have enough to cover his bond, and that this is campaign money that’s likely to be confiscated if it in fact exists.
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Bitter Scribe said on March 25, 2024 at 9:17 am
I’m convinced that the reason the Righties turned on the vaccine was because it didn’t come along in time to save Trump.
Instead, it started to become effective right at the beginning of Biden’s term, thereby handing Biden a guaranteed economic recovery that made his opponents furious.
They promptly began trashing the vaccine, Trump eventually did the same, and now here we are.
In other words, government by tantrum. Which has become the Republican style.
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FDChief said on March 25, 2024 at 9:21 am
The Charmin marketing utterly baffles me; “enjoy the go”? Seriously? You treasure the moment you’re scraping used food off your backside because…soft paper product? I guess it’s better than a root canal, but…
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Icarus said on March 25, 2024 at 9:22 am
Four years ago this month I was still employed at Big Audit and dealing with a micromanaging and toxic coworker. We knew layoffs were coming and COVID actually delayed them. And I was still in Chicago.
Getting laid offset the table for moving to Mississippi-stan 18 months later. Had we been able to hold out a few more months, the hiring in my industry picked up and I might have found something permanent instead of the contract work I’ve scraped by down here.
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alex said on March 25, 2024 at 9:57 am
FDChief, I think “enjoy the go” (and for that matter the bear theme) is really all about enjoying the naughtiness. It wasn’t so long ago that advertisers were afraid it would taint a brand if it were associated too directly with bodily functions. Today such boldness makes the brand memorable without making people squeamish, if it ever really did.
It wasn’t so long ago that “bath tissue” was used to describe butt wipes and blue liquid to demonstrate the absorbency of tampons and diapers.
Remember the Charmin ads from the 1970s? Customers in the grocery store were being admonished by old Mr. Whipple not to squeeze the “squeezably soft Charmin tissue.” They would respond “But it doesn’t feel like [whispered] toilet paper.”
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FDChief said on March 25, 2024 at 11:30 am
“Naughtiness”? Maybe it’s me. I get “naughty” from stuff like the condom ads. But the idea of “enjoying” taking a dump? That seems more WTF than naughty; who does that?
And I do remember Mister Whipple, and remember thinking “that’s not where you’re gonna be rubbing that stuff, dude…”
The whole bog roll marketing kind of baffles me. It’s asswipe; anything better than newsprint is fine!
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LAMary said on March 25, 2024 at 11:36 am
Other than needing a large space to store it Costco toilet paper is the best. The package is big enough to be a temporary coffee table but the paper doesn’t clog the pipes. Costco paper towels are excellent too.
Back to the topic: My son Pete was in China when they started shutting the whole country down due to covid. He was there visiting his girlfriend and they were desperate to find a flight out before there were no more flights out. They got to a hotel near the airport and were told that only Chinese citizens could check in. She got a room and managed to sneak Pete in. From there they got to an airport the next day and Pete talked a guy from the US State Department into getting him onto his flight to DC. He made it home from there. Getting a call from your child from a place where people are dying in the streets, telling you he might not be able to get out is not easy. So things are a lot better now than they were four years ago.
And Jeff G, I need to share that news about our great athlete and former president. Thank you for sharing.
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Jeff Borden said on March 25, 2024 at 11:50 am
Dammit. The frigging appeals court is slashing the amount of bond Mr. 91 Counts must post…and giving him 10 more days to raise the cash. Who else gets this kind of special treatment?
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David C said on March 25, 2024 at 12:00 pm
As long as the available ass wipe is better than at the state park, I’m OK with it. As my late brother said, “That stuff will wipe the smile off your face”.
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Deborah said on March 25, 2024 at 12:29 pm
Dexter, I have been to Slab city, CA during a Thanksgiving more than 15 years ago. It’s a long story how and why we were there but we were staying in an RV in Nyland which is also near a weird place that a demented Christian guy (now dead) painted the broad surrounding landscape with bible verses etc. Not exactly a tourist attraction but kind of interesting to see.
Who else but Trump has a golf competition and then gives the big prize to himself? Watta weirdo. A+ to Biden’s reaction, Bravo!
Hard to say but I’d give the thread win to David C at #27.
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Jeff Gill said on March 25, 2024 at 12:49 pm
Heard of it, never been to see it (never been to California, actually).
https://www.joshuatree.guide/salvation-mountain
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Jakash said on March 25, 2024 at 12:56 pm
Icarus @ 22,
“Getting laid offset the table…” I’m not familiar with the euphemism “offset the table,” but it sounds like big fun! ; )
Chief,
Ever since I first saw one of those Charmin ads, I’ve thought “Enjoy the Go” was and is about the stupidest catchphrase I’ve ever heard. I don’t know what a *good* phrase for celebrating going to the bathroom might be, but that ain’t it. “Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is” does come to mind, I suppose.
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ROGirl said on March 25, 2024 at 1:24 pm
I was cut loose from the toxic company with the narcissistic blowhard boss that July and got by on unemployment for 2 months until I got my current job.
Speaking of narcissistic blowhards, when will it end?
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alex said on March 25, 2024 at 1:52 pm
Fun coincidence, but the first time I ever heard of Slab City was just two days ago. A friend who’s an artist completed a couple of paintings of Slab City inspired by a recent trip to California. She and her husband say it’s been sort of a squatter’s camp of shanties and trailers ever since the closure of a military base there back in the 1950s, hence the slabs on which people set up their encampments.
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jcburns said on March 25, 2024 at 1:54 pm
I would pay a premium to make my TV not show me commercials with (fake) bears in any context, including a family of TP-consuming ones. Don’t get me started. Do NOT want bears.
For that matter, do NOT want dinosaurs or wolves or giraffes or any damn fake critter-like thing on my TV. Grumble, grumble.
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alex said on March 25, 2024 at 1:59 pm
I suppose “enjoy the go” isn’t for everyone, but I must confess to loving a good cleanse now and then. That’s when I visit a particular pan-Asian place for a dish that guarantees satisfaction every time. I’ve nicknamed it “the Thai colonic.”
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jcburns said on March 25, 2024 at 2:35 pm
The Thai place sounds great, Alex, as long as: no bears.
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Dexter Friend said on March 25, 2024 at 3:06 pm
I have been watching Slab City videos for many years. Lots of art and talent there, lots of Trump banners, lots of hatred for American civilization.
Some are transients and are dirty and wild- like, and some are very wealthy who have bottled water and gourmet food delivered.
The wind blows carcinogenic dust all over the area from the dry shoreline of The Salton Sea. I used to be enamored of the place from afar; now I am tired of seeing the videos.
“Mom? Are you OK in there?”
Mom: “ I’m TEAR- ably fine!”
,,, easy tear Charmin rules. Love those bears. HATE screaming woman who goes hysterical when she sees her new Jacuzzi tub. It constricts my blood vessels.
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jcburns said on March 25, 2024 at 3:32 pm
Pretty sure the Slab City/Salton Sea region is bear-free.
And certainly TV animated-bear-free.
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Julie Robinson said on March 25, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Commercials bug the heck out of me and I do my best to avoid them.
Four years ago no one I knew had died of Covid, so in that way I was better off. But isn’t this whole thing about inflation and the cost of living? I fear that will take Biden down.
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Joe Kobiela said on March 25, 2024 at 4:26 pm
The bear and the rabbit were taking a dump side by side, when they were done the bear asked the rabbit,
Does poop stick to your fur?
The rabbit said why no it doesn’t,
The bear picked up the rabbit and wiped.
Here all week, tip the waiter
Pilot Joe
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FDChief said on March 25, 2024 at 4:43 pm
I get relief; you can’t spend a week in the field eating canned C-rations and not so much “enjoy the go” when you finally get back indoors as be thankful for no longer feeling like you’re carrying around a several-pound internal package.
The “go” involved is seldom enjoyable, however.
I mean, no kink-shaming, but…
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Deborah said on March 25, 2024 at 5:34 pm
The Salton Sea is one of the stinkiest places I’ve ever been. I have no desire to ever go again, same with Nyland, Slab City or Salvation Mountain. A very odd corner of the world indeed.
We go back to NM Sunday (Easter) because the Condo building is being re-stuccoed. I had to be back in Chicago for a bunch of routine medical stuff this week that’s very hard to reschedule. It was back and forth whether I would go back to NM for this next trip because I’m so, so sick of airports right now. But my husband can’t be in NM for the whole time the stuccoing is happening because of business so I’ll be there for the whole process. The good news is that I’ll get to see the blooming of the fruit trees while I’m there but that’s also the bad news because of my allergies. Can’t win.
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LAMary said on March 25, 2024 at 6:58 pm
I am tired of commercials that call something a game changer.
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Sherri said on March 25, 2024 at 6:59 pm
Mike Gallagher, before he just left Congress, led the stupid fight to ban TikTok*. Guess where he’s gone to work now that he’s left Congress? Palantir, Peter Thiel’s digital surveillance company.
*Banning TikTok, or forcing into “American” ownership (which would really be Saudi sovereign wealth fund ownership) is stupid. Doing something to protect people’s privacy rights from digital companies would be good, but Congress isn’t going to do that.
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Dexter Friend said on March 26, 2024 at 1:18 am
My old van, the one only used to haul the shedding Pogo Labbie, sprung a leak and I was in a quandary: junk it or repair it? So with the engine light appearing also, junking it was nigh. But ‘my higher power’ sent a sign, the light went off, so I called my mechanic and was told for $500 I could get repairs done and drive Pogo around carefree for maybe 6 more months…deal.
Not a quandary, but resentfully I am complying with the suggestion of my VA rep to go to Fort Wayne in 7 hours for an outside-the-VA eye exam so my file can be re-sent and applied to my claim of a bump in my disability claim which was denied over a year ago. The rep says my eyes won’t get a bump but other issues I have will get me a few bucks more a month. I have been waiting a whole year for this exam slot to open in Fort Wayne because I refused the Detroit openings. They dilate your eyes and you have to wait a while to drive post-exam. Anyway, it will be over soon and then I will be free of all the QTC calls and emails and texts. Thankfully, for that, I am.
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Jeff Borden said on March 26, 2024 at 11:21 am
The NYT has video of the Baltimore bridge disaster. The cargo ship hit the support structure head on…terrifying to see.
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FDChief said on March 26, 2024 at 12:17 pm
So already my favorite Xhitter take on the Key Bridge is that the shipowner’s company has a DEI component so obvs the crash was caused by anti-white prejudice.
I’m not privy to the design, but I’d be pretty shocked to find that a bridge bent is capable of withstanding the impact of a fully-laden container ship. The real question is why the merchie was out of the dredged channel. Power loss? Steering malfunction? Pilot error? Hard to imagine navigation would be the cause; only one way in or out and surely well marked.
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Bob (not Greene) said on March 26, 2024 at 12:35 pm
FD Chief, saw that the ship put out a mayday call shortly before the crash, saying they’d lost propulsion.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/26/baltimore-bridge-collapse-ship-collision-francis-scott-key-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6602d7f98f08edf580686f04#block-6602d7f98f08edf580686f04
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FDChief said on March 26, 2024 at 12:48 pm
If they’d lost steerage way because of something like a prop shaft failure that’s one thing. But if they completely lost power that’d probably also immobilize the rudder(s) too.
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