Friday Forum
Everybody's chatting for the weekend.
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, March 13, 2020
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85 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Someone came into the office Wednesday and announced, at lunchtime, that he had been feeling under the weather. One of my colleagues told him forcefully, “You need to go home. Now.”
I’m repeating this incident because the person in question isn’t a Trump-supporting COVID-19 denier. I don’t know what his motives were, but he was behaving like a reckless, thoughtless goon.
Which is why I’m all for strong, simple steps to combat the spread of this virus. Some people will always not get the message. When I was traveling last week, I saw a significant number of men in public restrooms, including at the airport, fail to was their hands adequately. Or, in a couple of instances, at all. If you have vague or loose guidelines, a lot of people will ignore them. Even harder measures aren’t a sure barrier against misbehavior, but at least it’s a lot lower in frequency.
This administration is just malignant.
And not serious.
Trump administration blocks states from using Medicaid to respond to coronavirus crisis
‘You ruined my premiere!’: Beckinsale recalls Weinstein’s obscenity-filled rant
“Well gee Harvey, there wasn’t room for any more pussy with you on the red carpet.”
I’ve never been very good at the snappy comeback (with a very few notable only to me exceptions) but I’ll bet something like this is what she wishes she had said.
From the go figure department
Professional sports are suspending or cancelling events now because of Coronavirus concerns. Enclosed buildings with thousands of people watching young sports athletes could cause the disease to spread further.
Then here in a Florida 55+ age community, people who are supposed to be higher risk for the disease, gathered for weekly bingo last Monday night. 111 of them, the biggest crowd of this bingo season (October to May. When the snowbirds return up north, Bingo is stopped from June to September). So far as I know Bingo is still on for next Monday night. For those of you keeping score, I got to call Bingo! and won $18.
Because of my cancer, I have a weakened immune system. The wife still expects me to do the errand running. I was out to Walmart, Winn-Dixie, and to the gas station by 7:30 and run laundry after all that was done. So far today.
On the writing front, I got excellent news yesterday. My editor, LA for short, returned to me all but the closing three chapters of my Japanese gangster epic*. A story that has been a work in progress for 13 years should be ready for publication in the latter half of this year. LA has been invaluable to me (Like coming up with how to resolve the tale’s love triangle. The main character who is in love with a man and woman who both also love her) with this story. Her father has dementia, and LA has had to deal with that. So her work for me has been slow at times. The story set between 2007-11 has Robert Mueller in it as an important minor character. I’ll never know if the story had been ready two years earlier, if all the Mueller news would have helped my book sales.
*- Kristopher or someone else may say “You write some form of LGBT scifi and have Japanese gangsters in a story?” Yes I do. My muse can be very twisted or unique. Don’t forget the dung beetle story……
A link to Fox news just showed up in my Google news suggestions.
I really ought to drop politics and just take up like painting or macramé or something. I can’t handle how fucking stupid so many people are.
Local reports say that the President of Brazil has COVID-19.
And Trump was sitting right next to him at dinner. Even if that %$^@&#!!! fails to catch it, I sincerely hope he has several weeks of sleepless nights panicking. It’s his government’s stupidity that has got us into this mess.
So personal news…
Today is my last day with Measures for Justice (https://measuresforjustice.org/). I’ve spend the last year and eleven months (to the day) coming up to speed on our criminal justice system and how broken it is from a data perspective.
Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be joining Code For America and working on their Clear My Record project: https://www.codeforamerica.org/programs/clear-my-record helping lay a state by state framework for helping people expunge (remove from their record) qualifying criminal history aspects (like marijuana convictions) making it easier for them to do things like get jobs and find housing.
The local office just instituted “voluntary” WFH until further notice as of today. You can go into the office but better have a good reason. I had to leave early yesterday to take family to an appointment and only grabbed the basics (laptop, charger, mouse, etc) and nothing I would have taken if I’d known this was for the foreseeable future (binders, paper-only docs, etc). I appreciate that they are taking measures to combat the spread of this but is a little warning too much to ask? I mean, not everything is digital and god knows what somebody left on their desk thinking they’ll be back in the morning to clean out the mug. I dread what the main kitchen will look like in a week…..
I have to go out later for errands and am seriously considering popping in to grab stuff I’ll need next week. Thing is, I’m not sure if there’d be anyone on site and my card doesn’t deactivate all the security if locked up proper. Don’t want to end up explaining to the cops why yes, I do work and am technically allowed in but don’t have actual keys for a potentially empty building. What do you think are the odds?
@Kingdaddy:
To be fair, handling one’s junk is a lot safer (in terms of transmission probabilities) than handling the doorknob or the sink. You need them to wash their hands before entering the restroom, so as not to contaminate the surfaces that everyone touches.
@grumpy realist:
In all fairness…CONVID-19 was always going to come here.
It’s his Governments stupidity that has made it worse than it had to be.
What’s the long term societal and psychological impact of Covid-19?
Let’s say it’s 3 or 4 years down the line, and 80% of the population have had it and 98-99% of those have recovered. There’s a vaccine which many but not all people have, but most have immunity. It’s now just another endemic flu. Great.
But.. for most of 2020, people cancelled their vacations, people worked from home more, saw their family and friends in person less. They took and taught classes online instead of in person for several weeks. They Facetimed instead of visited grandma. The cool cafe round the corner went broke, and so did the community theatre. Sports shut down for 6 months.
Is the world a bit more agoraphobic and a bit less social? Does society feel less cohesive? This is clearly less important than the short term health disaster, but medium to long term, even when we’re not in the throes of Pandemic anymore, this might make our lives a bit more dull and gray…?
Or maybe I’m wrong and people will be desperate to party and get out in 2021
Pz myers:
About all those stock buy backs companies engaged in with their tax cut windfall, have they actually lost value compared to the money required to acquire them?
@mattbernius: Doing the good work.
@KM:
Are you black, brown, yellow, or white?
Emily Blunt:
@Archway: I think it’s going to depend on a number of things, most important is each person’s tolerance for reduced interaction.
I am a freelance writer. I’ve worked from home alone for almost a decade, and we live in a fairly rural area. When my husband travels for work, I can go the entire week without actually talking to another person, and I only notice it around the 4th or 5th day. Bottom line, social isolation isn’t jarring to me. We do make an effort to see friends around 1-2 times a month.
Contrast that with a former work acquaintance of mine, who is already climbing the walls after being asked to work from home for the last 2 days. I’m not quite sure how he is going to fare mentally, and I’m not saying that in jest. He thrives on/needs interaction to function.
We’ll probably return to normal faster than people expect.
At this point, my greatest fear is that my aging parents who are the entire way across the country are going to get this, and I won’t be able to see them before they die. That isn’t something that I spent a great deal of time thinking about prior to this outbreak.
The 2020 Masters* golf tournament, which was to begin on April 9th, has been postponed. This comes one day after the PGA Tour halted its flagship event- The Players Championship – after its first round and cancelled the next three events on the tour’s schedule.
IMHO the PGA was incredibly tone deaf in regards to the Coronavirus. I could write a long comment but instead I will point to Geoff Schakelford’s excellent commentary on the PGA Tour’s misguided adventures in the last few days. If Pro golf interests you, Geoff’s blog post is worth reading and I almost totally concur with what he wrote.
With all these cancelled sporting events, what are television networks going to fill air time with? I will personally keep busy writing, playing Strat-O-Matic baseball on the computer, and watch old television shows I enjoy from The West Wing to the original Hawaii Five-0 to The Nanny, Get Smart or F Troop. My DVD player, Amazon Prime or Netflix accounts will seldom rest…..**
*- The Masters is run by the Augusta National Golf Club not PGA Tour. In fact none of the four men’s major golf championship are run by the PGA Tour.
** Twelve years of have malignant melanoma related brain metastasis hasn’t helped my memory. So watching these old shows I have only watched 2 or 3 times before is almost like new. I’m even reading books, Henry Kissinger’s White House Memoirs (all three volumes) John LeCarre’s The Perfect Spy and Stephen Ambrose’s biography of Dwight Eisenhower when was President, for the second time.
@Jen:
Same. My mom is 77 and has a lifelong history of respiratory problems. I’m near D. C., she’s in Michigan. It’s a 10-hour drive, so I think I’d be able to get there in time, should the worst happen. Still, I fear for her health in a way I never have until now, because I am certain COVID-19 would kill her if she got it.
@Archway: I expect that this will mostly fall down the memory hole. Think Y2K. Think of the economic meltdown when Bush was leaving office. People will claim that the worst didn’t come to pass, and that whatever measures taken were useless because, you know, the worst didn’t come to pass. Other people will just turn up the crazy with conspiracy nonsense and whatnot.
This could drive out Trump and maybe even give the D’s the Senate, but, again, quickly down the memory hole and 2022 will see that the Right has forgotten nothing and learned nothing. They will be pissed.
Behind the scenes, expect pandemics to be taken more seriously, because the rich don’t want to die from dirty foreign viruses.
There’s a lot of “whataboutism” and the Swine Flu out of the cultists, and I didn’t remember, so I looked it up.
The very first case, patient zero, was identified in Chicago on April 15th…less than 3 months into Obama’s first term, and in the midst of the Bush Contraction.
Obama declared a Public Health Emergency 11 days later, and requested additional funding from Congress two days after that. Within a month after the initial diagnosis over 1M people were tested.
The epidemic lasted about a year; 60 million people were infected, 275K hospitalized, and about 12,000 died, a mortality rate of .02%.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Has she never done live theatre before? No high school play or college theatre?
@Archway: I think a lot of the effect depends heavily on exactly how serious it turns out to be. If we have a Northern Italy result, where basically a sizable chunk of the older/at risk population gets wiped out, there’s going to be much more of a shock and cultural effect then if, say, the Taiwanese death rate occurs.
I suspect also that we’re going to see a reaction from a lot of aging Boomers, who are going to discover that “you’re only as old as you feel!” trope isn’t….quite….true and that they can still get clobbered. (I’m a tail-end Boomer myself and there’s a reason why I headed off to the sports club this morning–take that, coronavirus!)
My significant other found out yesterday that she must work from home for the next two weeks. The kids just learned that there will be no school for the next five weeks. But it was only 30 minutes ago, when I was informed that my gym will be closed for the next three weeks, that the following Simpson’s quotation popped into my head:
With apologies to Country Joe and the Fish:
One, two, three
What are we washin’ for?
Don’t tell me, it don’t mean a shit
The next step is the COVID
Five, six, seven
Open up the pearly gates
I don’t know why we wash and dry
Whoopee we’re all gonna die!
@Mu Yixiao: OMG. That tune has been going around in my head for about 3 days. I was thinking about sitting down and rewriting the lyrics. And you did it. Thanks.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
There’s a peculiar moral licensing with the Cult 45. Put into words, it would be, “Because Obama wasn’t perfect, Trump cannot be judged negatively by any standard.” Or perhaps, “Because Obama did wrong, Trump gets to do worse.”
Mnuchin calls coronavirus pandemic ‘a great investment opportunity’
It’s also a great inheritance opportunity.
A little tone deaf maybe?
I’m really worried about a mindset regarding the COVID epidemic. This seems to have originated with Trump’s politicization of the outbreak. basically it’s that people advocating for active measures to prevent the spread of the virus, are hoping lots of people get infected and die so they cans core political points off the current regime.
In mexico, would-be king Andres Manuel is saying just that. Even while fewer than 1,000 people have been tested, and no measures like closing schools, or theaters, or sporting event, or anything, have been proposed.
The good thing is that many people don’t buy this. the bad thing is that workplaces, subways, public transit, shopping malls, etc. are still crammed with people every day.
I’m doing my own distancing, which for an introvert it’s not hard at all. I still have to go to work every day, but other than that, I limit outings to the grocery store once a week, and I won’t step into a restaurant, movie theater, stadium, mall, etc. for the duration.
@Kent Brockman:..things aren’t as happy as they used to be…
As some Campus guru told me many years before Groening (rhymes with complaining) descended into Hell: “Major in Philosophy. You will be unemployed but you will understand why.”
@Kit:
Actually, in many ways Y2K is exactly the opposite of COVID-19. Nobody remembers the Y2K scare precisely because all of the “overblown fear-mongering” led to timely preventative measures that worked. It’s not that the asteroid wasn’t going to hit the earth; it’s that we blew it up in time.
@DrDaveT: :
Plus it forced large corporations and government agencies to upgrade their long neglected IT systems which paid dividends in efficiency going forward.
@Kit:
I’ve been reading The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. He quotes Joan Didion about LA wildfires,
“unthinkable,” “unprecedented,” and “unimaginable.” Wildfires are part of the new normal under global warming. Under warming and globalization, so are pandemics.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks and we’re trying — both organizations. I feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity, not the least of which because a little over six years ago or so I was in the midst of a mental/emotional breakdown and had not worked consistently for about three years.
All I can say to those struggling is that it can get better. Especially when you seek help.
@mattbernius:
At being human, you sorta kick ass.
Just sayin’.
@DrDaveT:
I was actually trying to say something like that. We have Y2K on one extreme, scorned because it worked, and on the other the Götterdämmerung of Bush’s last days, which was… just forgotten. So, COVID-19, ultimately somewhere between the two, probably has no staying power in the American imagination.
@DrDaveT:
I remember weeks of documentation proving that dates were stored properly in a DBMS that required full dates.
Every date column was typed as date or date/time.
I do recall that quite well. We couldn’t do anything but compliance, but there were opportunities
We cadged a DBMS version upgrade. The dba’ s were stoked, I got squat infrastructurally, but what helped them helped me eventually. Improved query response time measurably improves user acceptance.
Re: COVID
Those of you who are hording TP need to know that while toting a couple Costco hay-bales of TP it’s highly likely you’ll be able to out-run me, and that dropping one will render the question moot.
Today is the day: Friday 13th. I did some yard work (warm weather is here), and saw one snake – a small critter that I left alone and it went on its way. I have seen no black cats. I might run out for a milk shake and hot dog.
Some good health news: “Second patient cured of HIV, say doctors (BBC 3/10)” This is big news, and encouraging.
@de stijl:
It suddenly got really dusty in my office…
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Tibbers home bidet. $35 at Amazon.
@Kit:
I mentioned last week a couple of people asked me whether I thought the coronavirus was real. I asked one of them if he didn’t remember the swine flu outbreak in 2009. He said he did, and that nothing happened.
I was just floored. not only did schools close for weeks, as well as restaurants, movie theaters, etc. but there were over 70,000 cases and around 400 deaths. This person recalled none of that.
@Kit:
Since we have all but forgotten the 1919-1920 flue epidemic, which killed 675,000 Americans, I think you are correct. In five years, this won’t be a thing people remember.
@mattbernius:
I feel you.
An overabundance of crunch time is harsh. I worked 80 to 90 hours per week for 8 months on average. Sometimes more.
One time I went to work on a Friday morning and went home Sunday night.
It took months of that but I eventually freaked hard. Crunch kills.
I would stand in the shower willing myself to move.
At the end I broke hard.
I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m having a panic attack. My very first so I think it is a heart attack. On a bus. Everyone sees.
@de stijl:
Everyone’s story is different and everyone’s story, in the end, is the same.
I wish you nothing but hope in finding shelter if you are still in the storm. And if that is past, then congratulations on getting through.
My daughter, who flew in from Madrid (cases doubled in the last 24 hours) to New York yesterday and was not only not screened but not even asked where she’d been, is now voluntarily self-quarantining because she is likely to have been exposed.
And there were probably 300 other passengers on her flight who were also not screened.
This does not inspire confidence in the administration’s response.
@mattbernius:
Out of that bad place now.
Agoraphobia comes and goes. (Actually quite good recently). There is some degree of hope there. Now is actually pretty good.
I am uniquely adapted to self-quarantining and social distancing. Stocking up on groceries and staying away from social contact. I can do that. I did that.
I never would have pegged that as adaptive, but times have changed.
We need happy. Carefree.
It’s a stupid song, but Katrina and the Waves Walking On Sunshine probably in 1985 driving down the street with my dumb ass shitty car crammed full of my crap driving to my new apartment to move in that day.
Mandingo the cat (not my choice, very racially charged name that was Sarah’s choice not mine edgy and ironic – I called him Dingo) and we were bopping along to Walking On Sunshine.
What’s your favorite stupid happy song?
Just got back from the supermarket. Boy, did I pick a bad time to run low on food. Shelves empty of many items (paper towels, pasta, bread, and more), even though the store is still getting regular shipments. Even the packaged salads were nearly all gone, even though you can’t stockpile them.
There’s not much of a brake on silly behavior right now. I’m sure the press conference today didn’t help.
@Kingdaddy:
You don’t think “Two Very Big Words” was a stroke of genius?
Dingo was an always inside cat.
He did not like outside at all. The ceiling was way too high.
The only time we did it after figuring that out was sorry, dude, but we have to move. And to the vet that one time.
He did like driving in cars. He was fascinated. By the speed, by the stuff to look at. It moves slow if it is far away and fast when it is close.
Dude was intrigued with overpasses. He would stare them down like prey. As they got closer he would track it. When we drove underneath his whole head would just jack up trying to track it. Cracked me up.
It was very cool.
Pour some out for Dingo.
@de stijl:
Walk Like an Egyptian.
Everyone really needs to see this execrable Rick Lowry piece in the National Review, then read the comments. If anyone thought that Americans were immune to Führerbunker levels of insanity, then prepare to be disappointed.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-president-trump-not-acting-like-populist-nationalist/#slide-1
@Kathy:
Good choice.
There is a one second bit in Manic Monday (also great song) where Susanna Hoffs flicks her eyes up, and oh my golly I want to marry her still.
Written by Prince!
Surrender by Cheap Trick always works.
It’s a simple song, but it always makes my heart feel bigger than my chest can contain.
On the positive side, that issue is what got us the expanded US Public Health Service that we have today.
@de stijl:
“Happy Together”, The Turtles
“Good Day Sunshine”, The Beatles
“One Misty Moisty Morning”, Steeleye Span
“Fun Fun Fun”, The Beach Boys
“Feelin’ Groovy”, Simon and Garfunkel
“Up on the Roof”, The Drifters
“The Mary Ellen Carter”, Stan Rogers
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The 1918 H1N1 flu epidemic (aka Spanish Flu) was arguably a major contributor to European adaptation of medical care as a social right freely* available to all.
As well as the elevation of nurses as little more than servants to doctors.
@de stijl:
Born to run- The Boss
Penny Lane-Beatles
In a Big Country-Big Country
@DrDaveT:
Buddy Holly Everyday
—
Super guilty pleasures
Len Steal My Sunshine
Not the bro-ey bits, but the girl – she is bliss
Barbie Girl – My friend Jen could knock it out the park in karaoke, and I got to do the “come on Barbie / let’s go party” bit which is the most fun. Stupid fun awesomeness.
I just lost so much cred.
@Jen:
Big Country?!
That is so cool. Great song, stupid ass video.
HEY!
@Jen:
Born To Run hits me as a melancholy as well as happy.
I am not the gate keeper. If it makes you feel happy, go with it. Lots of folks could say the same about Surrender.
Big ups for In A Big Country. That made my day.
@Mikey: Are you sure that she wasn’t screened? I’m asking because by the time that I had come back to Korea from the US during the last health alarm that they had while I was in country (I think this one was about 2012), they were doing amazing things with mass screening where we simply walked by a check point without queuing up to go through a sensor frame or anything. If you paid attention, you could see your thermoscan on a monitor in front of you off to the side. It was amazing.
I’m not saying that the US may not be neglecting the problem, just that the screening may not be as obvious as it’s been in the past.
@de stijl: I’m a little more twisted than other people I think. The two songs that came to my mind were Don McLean’s “Everybody Loves Me, Baby (what’s the matter with you)” and “Pour Me Another Tequila, Sheila.”
ETA: I also like “If Our Lives Were on Videotape.” And maybe “The Best Damn Country Song That Was Ever Written.”
Tom Tom Club Genius Of Love
Perfect summer party. Fun dancing. My first shandy ever! So refreshing. Good day.
Susanna Hoffs triggered a more normal-type happy song that I like. “Mad About You” by Belinda Carlisle. Bananarama did some fun songs, too, but I can’t think of any other than their remake of “Venus.”
And “Vacation,” that was the other one I was trying to remember from the Go-Gos, but “Mad…” is better.
@Kingdaddy: No, I don’t, and I refuse to, also. I’ve already read Dreher and David Brooks’ Atlantic article about the nuclear family today. That’s enough. I quit! I’m right-wing nut balled out!
@mattbernius: Thanks! I sent the link to some relatives.
I now realize I like and am attracted to a lot of sad and melancholy songs.
It’s a burden to come up with unabashedly pure joyful songs.
—
The Hives Hate To Say I Told You So makes me wanna punch Yahweh in the cock cuz that would be awesome. Makes me so hyped.
Hey Ya makes me ridiculously happy
Okay, loosen up a bit and I am not a total gloomy Gus.
Hate To Tell I Told You So was released in 2000 makes it a 21st century song second only to Hey Ya in kick-assery.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
My friends would dare each other to come up with stupid fake lyrics. I’m Your Venus was low hanging fruit. Venus rhymes with ….
Bobcat had a good take of Ring Of Fire. Valiant effort.
I won with [presumes some moderation] Otis Reddings’ Sitting On The C*ck Of The Boy. Things got weirder from there.
Jon barely tried, monkeyed about with Jack & Diane a bit. Not pathetic, but not a worthy entry.
Geno totally blew it off and tried to skate with a slight retake on The Message by Grandmaster Flash.
Boredom induces creativity.
@Kingdaddy: I don’t know about you, but it is beyond old to witness Lowry polishing Trump’s knob on a daily basis…and this article mentioned one disaster without mentioning another disaster…
Sadly, he fails to note something even worse than that…it is America that gave the world Trump…
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Dude! I was gonna go for The Go-Gos. Great minds, etc.
Up the ante with Bow Wow Wow I Want Candy.
Bowling For Soup needs a shout out. Girl All The Bad Guys Want. Great song (BFS did all the music for Phineas & Ferb)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Damn, I thought I was the only person left who remembered that one.
Awesome.
@de stijl:
Absolutely.
A few more:
“Only One”, James Taylor
“Do You Believe in Magic?”, Lovin’ Spoonful
“Saturday in the Park”, Chicago
“Happy”, Pharell Williams
“Bad Day”, Daniel Powter
“Bus Stop”, The Hollies
@de stijl: Flanders & Swann’s “A Happy Song”, of course!
@grumpy realist:
You are very odd.
I like that.
Trump has called for a day of prayer this coming Sunday.
This is a truly difficult exercise for me.
The vast majority of songs I like are not happy. I came up with dozens and dozens in my head, but as I thought them thru, not unabashedly joyful.
A lot of them make me feel happy, but text or subtext would strike a neutral ear as melancholy.
Unabashed joyfulness is a good thing.
We live in dark days where random chance and institutional ineptitude could kill us. Partake of joy and happiness wherever whenever you can. Don’t be too weird about, though. We are adults.
Fuck it, be weird as you want to be.
@ grumpy realist
Topic change:
I know you were a regular commenter at Dreher’s.
Why are there no more comments (which were the only worthwhile part)?
TAC policy?
Dreher decision?
I missed the transition and am curious.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I texted with her literally minutes after she arrived at JFK. She absolutely was not screened. She was not even asked where she had been. Scan passport, get receipt, have a nice day.
@Teve: That is Trump’s entire presidency, encapsulated in a two-second soundbite.
@Jim Brown 32:
your welcome! the program is still in it’s early days and depending on the State they are in, there may not yet be an option.
part of my role in the project is doing the research to figure out how best to engage families and communities in connecting people who are eligible for expungements with the services (because most states sadly don’t make it easy).
@DrDaveT: The lyric you quoted is my second favorite one in the song. My favorite is where he breaks from singing to say “and if war is hell, well, I’m not to blame.”
@Mikey: You’re definitely correct about that not being smart. Yikes!