"Over the past 10 years, hundreds of thousands of men have traveled to Qatar to build these structures. Migrants from all over the world — from Mozambique to Nepal, from Egypt to the Philippines..."

"... worked hard 10-hour days, six days a week, to raise stadia out of the desert, but also to build luxury residential developments, construct museums and cultural spaces, and lay down new geometric islands in Qatar’s glistening bay. Day after hot day, scaffolders hauled tons of scaffolding pipes, planks and clamps up the lattice structures they fixed together. Cladders and rope artists craned huge panes of aluminum and glass into the air and then balanced off the edges of buildings to attach the panels. Welders torched metal to create the curved joints of buildings, wrapping their workspaces in fire retardant tarps against the desert wind and enclosing themselves in an excruciating whirlwind of fire and sparks. Workers tore up the ground to excavate deep foundations for towering high-rises or to bore tunnels for Doha’s new metro network, which aims to be the fastest driverless system in the world.... I know because I spent a year on construction projects in Qatar interviewing them and shadowing them on-site. They described the fear that stalked them as they scaled the skeletons of buildings. They spoke about the way the extreme heat — averaging highs of more than 105 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months — seemed to melt the air and made them feel as if they were drowning. They recounted the rage they swallowed at being asked, under threat of deportation, to do things that violated their company’s safety regulations and that they knew would put them at risk of injury...."

From "Opinion: In Qatar’s glittery World Cup, the poor toil for the thrill of the rich" by Natasha Iskander (WaPo).

That tab was open in my browser, and it was open, unread, when, earlier today, writing a post about the new Supreme Court nomination, I needed to see the percentage of women in the American population — it's 50.5 — and I ended up on this World Bank site that shows the percentage of women in all the countries of the world. I clicked to sort the countries from the smallest to the largest percentage. How low do you imagine that percentage goes and what country do you think is at the top of this column? The country is Qatar and the percentage is 24.8.

24.8?! What could possibly be happening? Are they killing their women? Is there an insane rate of death in childbirth? The abortion of females? No, I thought, it is most likely the importation of extra men, used for work, and, seeing this article now, I think that was the right guess.

Qatar has, by far, the lowest percentage of women, and it's the only country with a number in the 20s. There are a few countries in the 30s: United Arab Emirates (30.9%), Oman (34.0%), Bahrain (35.3%), Maldives (36.6%), and Kuwait (38.8%).

"Hours after the Fulton County district attorney announced felony murder and other charges against the former Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks... a number of Atlanta police officers called in sick just before a shift change Wednesday evening."

"The city was left scrambling to cover absences as the Atlanta Police Department tried to tamp down rumors of a mass police walkout that spread widely on social media.... 'We do have enough officers to cover us through the night,' Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) told CNN. 'Our streets won’t be any less safe because of the number of officers who called out.'... 'This is not an organized thing, it’s not a blue flu, it’s not a strike, it’s nothing like that,' Vince Champion, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, told NBC News. 'What it actually is is officers protesting that they’ve had enough and they don’t want to deal with it any longer.'... Champion added that many officers felt prosecutors had not publicly shared sufficient evidence to back up the charges leveled against Rolfe, in part because the district attorney only released a video still that appears to show the former officer kick Brooks rather than the full video itself.... Although the quick action in Atlanta has been praised by civil rights advocates and hailed as a victory for activists, some in the police department have decried the quick process. Bottoms said that morale in Atlanta’s police department was at a low.... 'The thing that I’m most concerned about is how we repair the morale in our police department,” Bottoms.... 'and how do we ensure our communities are safe as they interact with our police officers.'"

WaPo reports.

In the comments over there, somebody says:

They harassed the guy for 45 minutes and when he panicked and grabbed their taser, they shot him when he was running away. Then kicked him. Sorry guys, if you think that's what policing is, you should be calling in sick.

Why do these cops think someone like Dylann Roof should be gently apprehended (and given a cheeseburger) but a black guy should be harassed? And that he isn't expected to panic? And that those cops couldn't let him run, and go after him later?

That draws this sarcasm:

Cops should wait until 0.1 milliseconds before the stun gun barb pierces the cornea of the eyeball before shooting the perpetrator in the kneecap of their non-dominant leg to slow him down and then snuggle him into compliance.

"Millions of people across the nation are cloistered inside their homes.... Amazon is already struggling to meet demand, and some employees feel..."

"... they’re being unfairly endangered by working in warehouses filled with other workers. It’s unclear how deliveries could continue if the workers who sort, pack, and ship Americans’ goods start getting sick in droves.... [T]his is the first confirmed case of the disease among the company’s hourly warehouse employees in the United States. These workers make up the majority of Amazon’s 600,000-strong workforce.... The incident rattled some of the warehouse workers, who already feel they are being underpaid for a risky job.... On Monday, Amazon announced plans to hire 100,000 more warehouse workers to meet the growing demand, and the company added $2 to American warehouse workers’ hourly pay.... One worker told me that she wished she could just stay at home with pay, like so many white-collar Americans are doing now.... 'We’re putting our lives in danger.'"

From "Amazon Confirms First Known Coronavirus Case in an American Warehouse/Workers at the Queens, New York, facility say employees were expected to come in for their night shift after the case was identified. Amazon denies this" (in The Atlantic).

I wonder how many people will walk away from jobs like that (especially if they get enough money and protection from eviction from the government). At the same time, there are people who have lost jobs — notably, servers in restaurants and bars. Amazon is hiring. Will those jobs go unfilled or will newly out of work people snap them up?

Keeping Amazon going is enormously important to the millions of Americans who are sheltering in place. I have not set foot in any store since March 2d, but we have received orders from Amazon (including an order from Whole Foods Prime Delivery). If Amazon stopped working, we would look at our dwindling supplies with much more anxiety and alarm.

"Stepping into a Wing location feels a little like being sealed inside a pop-feminist Biodome."

"It is pitched as a social experiment: what the world would look like if it were designed by and for women, or at least millennial women with meaningful employment and a cultivated Instagram aesthetic. The Wing looks beautiful and expensive, with curvy pink interiors that recall the womb. The thermostat hovers around 72 degrees, to satisfy women’s higher temperature needs. A color-coded library features books by female authors only. There are well-appointed pump rooms, as well as private phone booths named after Lisa Simpson, Anita Hill and Lady Macbeth. There is an in-house cafe, the Perch, serving wines sourced from female vintners, and an in-house babysitting annex, the Little Wing, where members’ children may be looked after. The vibe is a fusion of sisterly inclusion and exclusive luxury: Private memberships run up to $3,000 per year, and the wait-list is 9,000 names long."

From "The Wing Is a Women’s Utopia. Unless You Work There/The social club’s employees have a story to tell about the company that sold the world Instagram-ready feminism" by Amanda Hess (NYT).

This sounds really funny, like something in a movie. Lisa Simpson, Anita Hill and Lady Macbeth — that got a big laugh from my imaginary movie-theater audience.

Anyway, what's the problem with the staff?

Most Wing employees I spoke with had ambitions bigger than their starting positions... Some staff members hired to work the front desk or run events saw their job duties inflated to include scrubbing toilets, washing dishes and lint-rolling couches.... When staff members tried to exercise their membership privileges, on breaks or after their shifts, members would hand them dirty dishes or barge in on them in the phone booth. Some screamed at employees about crowding in the space and cried over insufficient swag. A common member refrain was that it was anti-feminist not to give her whatever perk she desired....

This is all so pre-coronavirus. But it's interesting to get a nudge to remember what would could be fretting about if we didn't have this plague infesting our consciousness.

And the name of that in-house babysitting annex, the Little Wing, makes me think of a circus mind that's running wild — butterflies and zebras and moonbeams... and fairy tales....