The Weekly Sift

Two stories continue to dwarf everything else: the presidential race and the coronavirus. Super Tuesday confirmed the shocking extent of Biden’s South Carolina victory. And so now in a little more than two weeks, the conventional wisdom has flipped from “Bernie can’t be stopped” to “Biden can’t be stopped”. I continue to be amazed how much pundits trust their current opinion, even when it’s the exact reverse of their previous opinion. It’s like “I was wrong before, but that couldn’t possibly happen again.”

The virus continues to advance, and the country’s state of preparedness continues to be worrisome. Complicating matters, our President shows more concern about the short-term effect on his popularity than about the lives of the people he leads. Markets continue to plunge around the world, and now we’re beginning to see some secondary effects, like Saudi Arabia intentionally crashing the oil market. I have to wonder how long we have before this cycle’s version of the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, which started the real panic in 2008.

I think I’m going to break the virus developments out as its own article, which I project to post around 10 EDT. The Biden/Sanders race will get covered in the weekly summary, which I’ll target for noon. (I think it’s premature to write a “What did we learn from this primary campaign?” article, but some lessons are starting to appear.)

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren’s exit from the presidential race hit her supporters particularly hard, particularly women who wonder if the first woman president will ever arrive. Warren attracted a unusually articulate slice of the electorate, so their sorrow has been well chronicled. The summary will link to some of the best articles.

Finally, I’ll close with an 11-minute video showing the complete process of traditional Chinese crafts producing a cotton bedcover.