Psycho Chess Cat

The Chess World’s New Villain: A Cat Named Mittens
A ruthless bot with an innocuous avatar is driving chess players crazy

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-mittens-cat-bot-11674018529?st=joee0rhfj7i05sz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson
Jan. 18, 2023

The heels of the chess world have included Soviet grandmasters, alleged cheaters, and faceless supercomputers. But the game’s latest villain is a fearsome genius who quotes French cinema and has played millions of games in just a couple of weeks.

She also happens to be a mean cat.

Mittens—or technically the chess bot known as Mittens—might look cute. Her listed chess rating of a single point seems innocuous. But her play over the past few weeks, which has bedeviled regular pawn-pushers, grandmasters, and champions who could play for the world title, is downright terrifying. And as it turns out, people are gluttons for punishment.

Since Chess.com introduced this bot with the avatar of a cuddly, big-eyed kitten on Jan. 1, the obsession with playing her has been astonishing. Mittens has crashed the website through its sheer popularity and helped drive more people to play chess than even “The Queen’s Gambit.” Chess.com has averaged 27.5 million games played per day in January and is on track for more than 850 million games this month—40% more than any month in the company’s history. A video that American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura posted to YouTube titled “Mittens The Chess Bot Will Make You Quit Chess” has already racked up more than three million views.

“This bot is a psycho,” the streamer and International Master Levy Rozman tweeted after a vicious checkmate this month. A day later, he added, “The chess world has to unite against Mittens.” He was joking, mostly.

Mittens is a meme, a piece of artificial intelligence and a super grandmaster who also happens to reflect the broader evolution in modern chess. The game is no longer old, stuffy and dominated by theoretical conversations about different lines of a d5 opening. It’s young, buzzy and proof that cats still rule the internet.

The past few months have seen yet another surge in the worldwide appeal of chess. The viral image from the World Cup was a Louis Vuitton advertisement showing Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi poring over a board.

https://futballnews.com/how-louis-vuitton-pulled-off-cristiano-ronaldo-and-lionel-messis-picture-that-broke-the-internet/

The picture that summed up the college football national championship was of a TCU fan playing chess on her phone in the stadium while the Horned Frogs got demolished by Georgia. When Slovenian NBA superstar Luka Doncic was asked for his thoughts about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, he shrugged it off and said he uses his phone to play chess.

None of those moments have driven people to virtual chess boards quite like a cat named Mittens who likes to taunt her opponents while she destroys them.

“I am inevitable. I am forever. Meow. Hehehehe,” Mittens tells her opponents in the chat function of games.

Chess.com, the popular platform where both grandmasters and millions of everyday chess lovers play, has a number of bots ranging in skill level and styles for users to challenge. Some are designed to play poorly and be beatable even by a crummy player. Others, in an age when the computers dominate humans, can topple the chess elite.

This particular bot was the brainchild of a Hamilton College student named Will Whalen who moonlights as a creative strategy lead. He had a crazy idea. What if they put an incredibly strong bot behind some devastatingly cute eyes?

“Then Mittens was born,” Whalen says.

But Mittens didn’t become a brutal troll until a Chess.com writer named Sean Becker led a team that developed Mittens’s personality to become the evil genius tormenting chess players everywhere. Part of why Mittens has become such a notorious villain is because she acts like one.

Mittens doesn’t purr. She references ominous lines from Robert Oppenheimer, Van Gogh, and even a 1960s Franco-Italian film called “Le Samourai.”

“Meow. Gaze into the long abyss. Hehehehe,” Mittens says, quoting German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Even her approach to the game is menacing. Mittens is designed to be skillful enough to beat the best chess players on the planet but uses particularly grueling tactics. Becker thought it would be “way more demoralizing and funny” if, instead of simply smashing opponents, Mittens grinded down opponents through painstaking positional battles, similar to the tactics Russian grandmaster Anatoly Karpov used to become world champion.

It hasn’t been difficult for Becker to see the reactions to his masterpiece. Nakamura, who could manage only a draw against Mittens, bluntly said in a video, “This cat is extremely patient, which is kind of annoying. I’m not going to lie.”

Becker has also seen it when he rides the subway and notices someone on their phone getting crushed by Mittens.

“You can see their eyes be kind of afraid,” Becker says.

Getting absolutely creamed by Mittens might get old. But her surprising popularity speaks to an underlying current in the chess world as freshly minted fans flow in: People are endlessly curious about new ways to engage with the ancient game. Facing novelty bots is just one of them. There has also been a new wave of interest in previously obscure chess variants.

Chess960, for instance, is a version of the game where all the non-pawn pieces are lined up in random order on the back rank. Also known as Fischer Random, for its inventor Bobby Fischer, it has gained traction among elite players as a high-purity test of chess skill and vision, because the random setup makes openings nearly impossible to prepare ahead of time.

In an unprecedented move, chess world governing body FIDE recognized Chess960 and gave it a world championship in 2019. The tournament was closely watched in 2022 when the final featured two of the best players on the planet: Nakamura and Ian Nepomniachtchi, the runner-up at the 2021 world championship of normal chess. (World champion Magnus Carlsen finished third.)

Other variants include: “Fog of War,” where players have a limited view of their opponents’ pieces; “Bughouse Chess,” which is played across two boards with captured pieces potentially moving from one to the other; and “Three Check,” where the objective is simply to put the opposing king in check three times.

The wackiest of all is the chess variant known as Duck Chess. It looks mostly like regular chess—64 squares and 32 pieces. But it also has one rubber ducky on the board.

After every move in Duck Chess, the player moves the titular object to a new square of the board where it blocks pieces in its path. Good luck moving your bishop when there’s a duck squatting on its diagonal.

There are also other cat bots. One is Mr. Grumpers. Another is Catspurrov, which bears a curious resemblance to former world champion Garry Kasparov. None have become a sensation quite like the chess terrorist called Mittens.

“While I still think chess is a symbol of the highest level of strategic thinking,” said Chess.com chief chess officer Danny Rensch, “it’s also a game that is just incredibly fun and enjoyable.”

Just not when you play Mittens.

Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com and Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 19, 2023, print edition as ‘Chess World’s New Villain: A Cat Named Mittens’.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chess-mittens-cat-bot-11674018529?st=joee0rhfj7i05sz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Herschel Walker is the Punchline

Back in the day this writer spent his second decade playing some kind of ball at a Boys Club. Many of my fondest memories are of attending Baseball games at Ponce de Leon Ballpark, home of the Atlanta Crackers, which featured a giant magnolia tree in center field,

https://www.mlb.com/cut4/seven-of-baseballs-weirdest-ballpark-features/c-144747404

and the Rose Bowl field,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Chandler_Stadium

home of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Baseball team.

https://ramblinwreck.com/sports/genrel/facilities/mac-nease-baseball-park-at-russ-chandler-stadium/

Then there was Alexander Memorial Coliseum,

Alexander Memorial Coliseum
The Thrillerdome (http://basketball.ballparks.com/NCAA/ACC/GeorgiaTech/)

home of the Georgia Tech basketball team. The football team played their home games at Grant Field, which is currently called the Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field.

https://history.library.gatech.edu/exhibits/show/bldg/item/1741

I lived to play ball. Baseball was king until the fans became enthralled with football, which I now think of as “maimball,” for obvious reasons. Like most, if not all who played maimball I have a bad disc in my back to show for the time spent on the field of battle. I went up to catch a ball and was speared in the lower back by the helmet on the head of a defensive player. The blow flipped me over and I landed helmet first, but held onto the ball.

One of the greatest ball players who ever played died recently. His name was Charley Trippi. The headline at the New York Times says it all:

Charley Trippi, Versatile Football Hall of Famer, Dies at 100

A star on offense and defense, he took Georgia to a Rose Bowl victory and the Chicago Cardinals to an N.F.L. title. “The greatest football player I’ve ever seen,” Jim Thorpe said. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/sports/ncaafootball/charley-trippi-dead.html)

Many have said Jim Thorpe was not only the best football player they had ever seen, but the best ball player, period.

Jim Thorpe, Major League Baseball Player, two-time gold medalist, and Football Hall of Famer, Portrait, New York Giants, New York City, New York, USA, Bain News Service, 1913. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) (https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/jim-thorpe-today)

I mention this because another former football player, Herschel Walker, is running for a seat in the United States Senate. Hershel (pronounced “Huschel” down South) Walker was one of the greatest college football running backs in the history of the sport of maimball. Huschel did not graduate from the UGA, even though he said he did graduate. Politicians, and those who play at politics, say many things, some of which turn out to be true, believe it or not. Huschel was chosen by former President of the United States of America, Donald John Trump, aka, the Trumpster, to run for the office of Senator. The election has been a media circus here in the Great State of Georgia. Frankly, Hushel has as much business being a Senator as I have of being in the operating room with a scalpel in my hands. Hushel gradurated from the UGA with a degree in MAIMBALL. As a Georgian it has been embarrassing watching, and listening, to the man make a fool of himself and the state of Georgia. Huschel has become a laughing stock all over the country. Seeing Huschel leading in the polls makes me want to cry, and/or puke. I do not like it when fellow citizens in other states laugh at my state, but who can blame them?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/herschel-walker-tooning-out-the-news_n_6350fe6ce4b08e0e608af1a5

Huschel is running against Senator Raphael Warnock.

I recently had a problem with the government and needed help, so contacted Senator Warnock’s office, and assistance was offered. Another problem again caused me to contact Senator Warnock’s office, and the problem is being addressed by one of Senator’s staffers. I mention this because after contacting a Republican Congressman all I received was a solicitation for money. Senator Warnock’s office has asked me for nothing, and they do not know I am writing this post, but you can be sure they will be notified.

Almost everyone in Georgia is talking about the election. Huschel Walker has led a charmed life and people will tell you all about their part in it, given the chance. An example would be the Senior gentleman with whom I talked while waiting for the bus taking me home after attending the recent Decatur Book Festival. The gentleman was wearing a Viet Nam type Army baseball hat and all it took was my mentioning my father was a radioman in the Navy during World War II. The conversation moved to Huschel almost immediately. The gentleman told me a story of the time Huschel was given an automobile by a dealership, “because he was bringing MILLIONS OF DOLLARS into the University of Georgia.” The owner of the dealership had graduated from UGA. A Georgia State Trooper stopped Huschel almost immediately on Interstate 20 because he was doing over one hundred miles per hour. Pressure was put on the Georgia State Trooper to APOLOGIZE TO HUSCHEL! I kid you not. The speeding ticket vanished. The gentleman had more stories and informed me he intended on spending twenty thousand dollars to be filmed telling some of the stories so Huschel would not be elected Senator. “It cannot be good for the state to have someone like him as Senator,” he said. If the bus had not arrived I may have listened to the man for an hour, when the bus came again to the station, but living here has brought more stories than I can possibly recall.

The Racial Divide Herschel Walker Couldn’t Outrun (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/us/politics/herschel-walker-georgia-senate-race.html)

Although many talk about how it cannot be good for the country for so many politicians to be lawyers, and I agree, at least they were educated politicians. The jury is out on whether those from football should become Senators and Congressmen, as did former football coach Tommy Tuberville. Unfortunately, Tommy, like most politicians who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like the Trumpster, immediately set about correcting his lack of money, as can be found all over the internet with a search. What follows was the first thing that popped up after a quick search:

(https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-stock-act-violations-senate-house-trading-2021-9?op=1#sen-tommy-tuberville-a-republican-from-alabama-2)

Tuberville was weeks or months late in disclosing nearly 130 separate stock trades from January to May. The man has traded stocks like a maniac while enriching himself at the expense of We The People.

One of the reasons Huschel has been leading in the polls is that politics has devolved into voting for the party, not the man, or woman, especially where the Republicans are concerned. If it were not so serious it would be laughable. What is it, maybe 45% vote for one party or the other, and the other 10% decide who will be elected. If this does not change it will be

https://www.tumblarhouse.com/

The Georgia Guidestones

The world famous Georgia Guidestones in Elberton, Georgia, were destroyed earlier this summer.

The Georgia Guidestones Explained
9 February 2021

The origin of this strange monument is shrouded in mystery because no one knows the true identity of the man, or men, who commissioned its construction in Elbert County, Georgia, in the United States.

All that is known for certain is that in June 1979, a well-dressed, articulate stranger visited the office of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company and announced that he wanted to build an edifice to transmit a message to mankind.
The Message of The Georgia Guidestones

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.

Unite humanity with a living new language.

Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

What is the true significance of the American Stonehenge, and why is its covert message important? Because it confirms the fact that there is a covert group intent on:

(1) Dramatically reducing the population of the world – Eugenics, chemtrails, GMO food, etc, etc
(2) Promoting environmentalism.
(3) Establishing a one world government, one world economy and one world religion lead by the Antichrist, DEAD pope John Paul ll..
(4) Promoting a new spirituality – “New Age” and “religions” not Biblical Truth that is found only in the King James bible.

Certainly the group that commissioned the Georgia Guidestones is one of many similar groups working together toward a New World Order, a new world economic system, and a new world spirituality. Behind those groups, however, are dark spiritual forces, spiritual wickedness in high places. Without understanding the nature of those dark forces it is impossible to understand the unfolding of world events in these Bible times.

The fact that most Americans have never heard of the Georgia Guidestones or their message to humanity reflects the degree of control that exists today over what the American people think. We ignore that message at our peril.
https://www.thevoid.uk/void-post/the-georgia-guidestones-explained/

The Guidestones were a curiosity for four decades, and from the above, obviously thought provoking. Here at the Armchair Warrior blog all almost all viewpoints are given, even if only short shrift. They were a tourist attraction, bringing people from all over the world to visit the Great State of Georgia. The Georgia Guidestones have been featured in countless television shows, and talked about on myriad radio stations. Much has been written about the Guidestones. I would like to see them replaced. For them to be removed for all time would mean the destroyers got what they wanted and could be considered “winners,” when they are, in fact, LOSERS! This is their “hero”:

King of the LOSERS

Granite megaliths with cryptic inscriptions drew 20,000 visitors a year and inspired a Yoko Ono song but riled some on far right/The Georgia Guidestones in happier times, in Elberton, Georgia. Photograph: Harrison Mcclary/Reuters
(https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/07/georgia-guidestones-destruction-satanic-standing-stones)

Elberton is located east of Athens, Georgia, home of the University of Georgia, and near the state line of the Great State of South Carolina. It is south of Interstate 85, virtually in the middle of farm land. The nearest city would be the small town of Bowman, due south of Royston, Georgia, home of one of the most famous Georgians of all time, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer, Ty Cobb.

http://mytravelswithtycobb.blogspot.com/2015/05/my-friendship-with-detroit-tigers-begins.html

The Great State of Georgia

Some years ago I lived in Lavonia, Georgia, which is north of Royston, and it is on Interstate 85. Politically speaking, most of the people in the area are very conservative. They do not ‘lean’ Republican, they are the very backbone of the Republican political party. Most of the folks in the area do not “cotton to change” as can be heard from the locals. Coming from the Atlanta area meant I already had one strike against me. When spoken about it was invariably said, “He’s from Atlanta, you know.” Those listening would nod in agreement. To the locals someone like me brought the dreaded word, “change.” The last thing most of those people wanted was change in any form, which is the problem with conservatism, and the Republican party, because change is a part of life. Things change every second; nothing remains the same, yet there are those who wish only to stop change, as if that is ever going to happen. An example would be what happened at the local grocery store after first moving to Lavonia. The Presidential election, stolen by the Trumpster by using information provided by the nefarious Russians (How, exactly, did the Trumpster return the favor?), was only a few months away. A fellow Senior began talking to me and thinking I was “one of them” invited me outside to show me something. I had promised Patricia not to discuss politics with anyone, so as we walked toward his vehicle covered in Trumpster I thought about what she had said. The dude tried to recruit me, but stopped in his tracks when informed I was a Democrat. Dude looked like he had just been punched in the gut… To the people there I was about as out of place as the Georgia Guidestones. The nicest person to me was the local librarian, who oversaw not only the Lavonia library, but the one in Royston as well. We talked about my teaching a class on Chess for the children. She was honest enough to inform me that the parents did not want my “Putting new ideas into the heads of their children,” so there was no Chess for the area. Therefore I kept to myself and we traveled to other cities to shop, like Royston, where long time friends of Patricia lived, and the much larger Anderson, South Carolina.

I thought about this recently after being transported to Emory Hospital in an ambulance, as I was unable to walk, or even stand, without extreme pain. The young female doctor who admitted me was talking with the ambulance drivers and when I mentioned having been transported by ambulance to the hospital, St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital,

https://www.stmaryshealthcaresystem.org/locations/st-marys-sacred-heart-hospital

in Lavonia, some years before, she said, “Really? That’s where I live. Where did you live?” After telling her about Gus Whiting Road she said, “I know exactly where that is! Were you near the red house?” The answer was, “Yeah, I lived in that house.” She exclaimed, “I don’t believe it! It was the talk of the town when improvements were being made.”

28 Gus Whiting Road, Lavonia, Georgia before renovations

Then one of the ambulance drivers, the one I thought maybe had an interest beyond medicine with the young, attractive doctor, spoke up, saying, “You mean you live up there? Why don’t you work there?” She said, “Because they don’t pay enough.” He was incredulous, saying, “You mean you make that drive twice a day?” That is the way it is in Atlanta these daze… A couple of weeks ago someone had to come to the apartment to make repairs. He drove in from Birmingham, Alabama. Atlanta is the engine that drives the Great State of Georgia, yet those who do not live in Atlanta have controlled the state, politically speaking, for far too long, to the detriment of all of the state. Most of the people residing outside of the metropolitan Atlanta area consider Atlanta to be akin to Sodom and Gomorrah. Those that do not change are left behind.

This blog has reached into all but five countries on the planet, all but four countries in the middle of Africa, and North Korea. This has been written in order to give readers at least partial understanding of what could have possibly driven low life people of little intelligence to destroy what has been called ‘America’s Stonehenge’. In order to give you an idea of why some nefarious scumbag(s) would destroy something iconic to Georgia please read this:

“The Georgia Guidestones have been a source of considerable speculation among conspiracy theorists since they were first unveiled in Elberton back in 1980. Created by an anonymous individual, the elaborate monument consists of four stone slabs which feature ten ‘guiding principles’ written in eight different languages and ostensibly aimed at steering humanity towards a better future. While some of these tenets, such as “protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts,” appear to be fairly benign, there are other ‘guidelines’ which have caused some consternation, including a call to keep humanity’s population “under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”

“As one might imagine, that particular ‘suggestion’ has fueled rumors that the Guidestones are the work of nefarious forces associated with the proverbial New World Order and that they wish to enact some kind of population control by any means necessary. The possibly nefarious nature of the moment was in the news earlier this year when Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor pledged to have the piece, which she called Satanic, destroyed if she were elected. While her campaign came to an end when she finished third in the GOP primary back in May, her call to action may have inspired the misguided individuals who targeted the monument on Wednesday morning.” (https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-sizeable-portion-of-georgia-guidestones-destroyed-by-explosion/)

Georgia Guidestones go to EGA museum
By News Staff on Friday, August 12, 2022
by Rose Scoggins

CNI News Service

The remnants of the Georgia Guidestones will have a new home as they were donated to the Elberton Granite Association (EGA) Museum after a vote from the Elbert County Board of Commissioners during Monday night’s meeting. The vote came after hesitancy from the board as they lagged to make a motion. “If we do not donate them, what are we going to do with them?” Chairman Lee Vaughn asked. Commissioner Casey Freeman said the board had previously discussed options on what to do with the stones and said he’d hoped that a foundation would have been created that the remnants could be donated to. “That hasn’t happened yet,” Freeman said. “I’ll make the motion that we go ahead and donate those things to EGA.” After a second from commissioner Kenneth Ashworth, the board voted 4-0 to approve the donation. EGA Executive Vice President Chris Kubas said Tuesday that EGA doesn’t currently have a timeline or specific plan for the pieces, but wanted to make sure that they were properly preserved. “The county was making it clear that they literally did not want them at all and, if left up to them, they could’ve just been destroyed and crushed up into gravel and that would’ve been the end of them,” Kubas said. “From the granite industry perspective, we didn’t want to see that happen. They are a testament to the type of work we do and a lot of people feel really connected to them. It was quite a monumental undertaking to create that. I don’t know if all the pieces are going to be utilized, but there are some larger pieces that could be incorporated into some sort of display at the museum in the future. Until we can study that, we said ‘We’ll take them and take charge of them’ just so they stay preserved until we can figure out what to do with them.’ I will probably talk to Mayor [Daniel] Graves and we’ll [see] how we can best do something in the future that would promote tourism from the Guidestones.” The board added the donation to the agenda after discussing the video surveillance system still at the monument during the Aug. 4 work session. Emergency Services Director Chuck Almond asked the board to consider disconnecting the system in order to use the fiber cables that connect the surveillance system to their emergency operations center on Mahoney Drive for a telephone system connecting the center, the fire administration building and the new fire building. “We’re paying $150 per month for the fiber that runs from our office to Guidestones Road,” Almond said Thursday. “We’ve been monitoring it. We’ve had to send the sheriff’s department out there a couple of times. We saw a couple of people with rakes and shovels. As far as what we’re doing for that property, I think it’s time to disconnect…Those cameras are our property and we’ve been paying a security camera to do maintenance. We should separate from that if its possible.” Elbert County Attorney Bill Daughtry said last week that the county is waiting to hear back from their insurance company before moving forward with reverting the Guidestones property back to its original owner. “Our insurance company has never dealt with the bombing of a monument. It’s taking them a little longer than a normal insurance claim,” Daughtry said. “If we have claims-made policy, we find out there’s coverage and we make a claim but we no longer own the property, that could potentially be grounds for denying our claim. We’re still waiting on an answer from the [Association of Georgia County Commissioners] about insurance coverage. I think that the bulk of the work was donated, but emergency services had a lot of overtime, the sheriff’s office had three or four days of overtime. We’d like to reimburse that through our insurance company if we can.”
https://www.thenortheastgeorgian.com/local-news/georgia-guidestones-go-ega-museum

Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice

The state is about to find out how many people need to lose their lives to shore up the economy.

Amanda Mull
1:02 PM ET

A sign announces that Maui Beach Tanning Salon is reopened for business on April 24 in Marietta, Georgia. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty)

 

At first, Derek Canavaggio thought he would be able to ride out the coronavirus pandemic at home until things were safe. As a bar manager at the Globe in Athens, Georgia, Canavaggio hasn’t been allowed to work for weeks. Local officials in Athens issued Georgia’s first local shelter-in-place order on March 19, canceling the events that usually make spring a busy time for Athens bars and effectively eliminating the city’s rowdy downtown party district built around the University of Georgia. The state’s governor, Brian Kemp, followed in early April with a statewide shutdown.

But then the governor sent Canavaggio into what he calls “spreadsheet hell.” In an announcement last week, Kemp abruptly reversed course on the shutdown, ending many of his own restrictions on businesses and overruling those put in place by mayors throughout the state. On Friday, gyms, churches, hair and nail salons, and tattoo parlors were allowed to reopen, if the owners were willing. Yesterday, restaurants and movie theaters came back. The U-turn has left Georgians scrambling. Canavaggio has spent days crunching the numbers to figure out whether reopening his bar is worth the safety risk, or even feasible in the first place, given how persistent safety concerns could crater demand for a leisurely indoor happy hour. “We can’t figure out a way to make the numbers work to sustain business and pay rent and pay everybody to go back and risk their lives,” he told me. “If we tried to open on Monday, we’d be closed in two weeks, probably for good and with more debt on our hands.”

Kemp’s order shocked people across the country. For weeks, Americans have watched the coronavirus sweep from city to city, overwhelming hospitals, traumatizing health-care workers, and leaving tens of thousands of bodies in makeshift morgues. Georgia has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, and the state’s testing efforts have provided an incomplete look at how far the virus continues to spread. That testing capacity—which public-health leaders consider necessary for safely ending lockdowns—has lagged behind the nation’s for much of the past two months. Kemp’s move to reopen was condemned by scientists, high-ranking Republicans from his own state, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; it even drew a public rebuke from President Donald Trump, who had reportedly approved the measures before distancing himself from the governor amid the backlash.

A bench is taped off to ensure social distancing at a coffee shop in Woodstock, Georgia, on Monday, April 27. (Dustin Chambers / Bloomberg via Getty)

 

Public-health officials broadly agree that reopening businesses—especially those that require close physical contact—in places where the virus has already spread will kill people. Georgia’s brash reopening puts much of the state’s working class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home. In the grips of a pandemic, the approach is a morbid experiment in just how far states can push their people. Georgians are now the largely unwilling canaries in an invisible coal mine, sent to find out just how many individuals need to lose their job or their life for a state to work through a plague.

Estimates vary as to how many businesses might actually reopen now, but none of the Georgians I talked with knew many people who intended to voluntarily head right back to work. That was true in Athens, which has long been one of the Deep South’s most progressive cities, as well as in Blackshear, a small town in the rural southeastern part of the state that tends toward conservatism. Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens, estimated that about 90 percent of the local business owners he had spoken with in the past week had no intention of reopening immediately. “Georgia’s plan simply is not that well designed,” Girtz says. “To call it a ‘plan’ might be overstating the case.”

​(Parris Griffin / Getty)

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georgia-reopening-coronavirus-pandemic/610882/

Anguished Young Woman

The decision was made to publish the entire article because the obviously anguished young woman is from the greater metropolitan Atlanta area and was published in the venerable New York Times.

Surviving Coronavirus as a Broke College Student

We need better options. Our rent is due April 1.

By Sydney Goins

Ms. Goins is a senior English major at the University of Georgia.

March 30, 2020

SUWANEE, Ga. — College was supposed to be my ticket to financial security. My parents were the first ones to go to college in their family. My grandpa said to my mom, “You need to go to college, so you don’t have to depend on a man for money.” This same mentality was passed on to me as well.

I had enough money to last until May— $1,625 to be exact — until the coronavirus ruined my finances.

My mom works in human resources. My dad is a project manager for a mattress company. I worked part time at the university’s most popular dining hall and lived in a cramped house with three other students. I don’t have a car. I either walked or biked a mile to attend class. I have student debt and started paying the accrued interest last month.

I was making it work until the coronavirus shut down my college town. At first, spring break was extended by two weeks with the assumption that campus would open again in late March, but a few hours after that email, all 26 colleges in the University System of Georgia canceled in-person classes and closed integral parts of campus.

UGA professors are currently remodeling their courses and revising their syllabuses for online learning. Students were advised to not return to the campus at Athens from their vacations or hometowns. Our May graduation ceremony was even canceled without any hope of rescheduling it for a future date.

After this news, one of my housemates drove for 12 hours to her mom’s house in Chicago. Another gave me a few rolls of toilet paper and left with her boyfriend for a neighboring county.

The dining hall I worked at remained open. UGA allowed to-go meals for those still living in their dorms without a place to go. Student workers who didn’t leave for the break could call in and ask to work their usual shifts, but on many occasions, the staff wouldn’t answer the phone.

So far, an athletics trainer and honors student have tested positive for the coronavirus. They were last on campus on March 6. As of Tuesday, one person has died in the Athens hospital. Some students are asking for the semester to end with a pass-fail grading scale. This would help those without access to Wi-Fi or a distraction-free environment. I didn’t even have a personal laptop to use until a few weeks ago. It broke in November and I couldn’t afford to fix it until recently.

What if I had to do intensive schoolwork on a lagging smartphone? For the last three years, I have relied on the libraries and other on-campus resources like interlibrary loans and the bus system in order to complete my coursework. Now, the university is refunding us around $128 for services that we may need for a semester online.

After three years as an undergrad, I will graduate in May. I had applied to two highly selective creative writing programs with the ambitious hopes of acceptance. Brown University sent me an email to check the portal, and Iowa Writers Workshop sent me a letter through the mail. Both were rejections.

I pivoted my plans. I thought I could find another restaurant job in Athens or hopefully an internship during the summer until I could apply to grad school again. Those odds are not in my favor anymore. Many restaurants here have closed indefinitely or only offer takeout options. They are not hiring anytime soon.

A local coffee shop and bar, Hendershots, has started a GoFundMe for their out-of-work employees with around $10,000 raised so far. Just the Tip: Athens Virtual Tip Jar also allows regular customers to send their favorite servers tip money they would normally leave on a night out. Many service industry workers my age have added their names to this list.

Not all college students are gallivanting across the white sand beaches of Florida without a care in the world. This pandemic affects young people too. Our future depends on the efforts of the national and state governments. Coronavirus testing is extremely limited in Georgia. For its 10.52 million residents, only 100-200 state tests are available each day.

“The state does not have the capacity to test those with mild symptoms,” said Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, in a news conference call last week.

On Thursday night, Athens-Clarke County unanimously passed an ordinance that enforces social distancing and a “shelter in place” rule, eliminating nonessential travel and large gatherings. Over 60 percent of the city’s population — the homeless, elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions — are susceptible to Covid-19.

Local grocery stores had already limited their hours and lacked essential food items like beans, rice and paper goods, showcasing barren shelves. I had a panic attack, looking at items marked “out-of-stock” on the Instacart app and watching peers post photos online. I asked my mom if I could come home.

We drove through the empty Atlanta highway, away from my struggling college town. Now, I am back in Suwanee with dwindling savings, still having to pay rent until the end of my lease in July. I won’t have an income to pay it.

For college students like me, the current solutions are: File for unemployment! Find a job at Kroger or Aldi at the detriment of your physical health! Call your potentially toxic parents! Tax refund! Personal loan! Sell your belongings!

These options are not good enough. College was supposed to give us hope for our financial future, not place us back in our parents’ houses without jobs.

Mortgage and rent payments must be suspended, so further debt and illness can be avoided, especially for restaurant servers, broke college students and those in the working class who cannot afford to escape financial crises. Our rent is due April 1.