Optimism and Hope

 If there is a day that people look to the future with optimism and hope, it's January 1st of every year.  No matter how the previous year turned out, most of us look to the future with optimism and hope.  And why not?  2020 has brought more challenges to the entire planet than perhaps any year in recent history.  I say recent because there have been a lot worse years than 2020 in human history, but this year has been fundamentally challenging to most.  I don't need to detail all those challenges, but I bet every person has felt a sense of despair at one time or another .  But the arrival of a new year brings with it a natural desire for a fresh start.  And no matter what your circumstances, looking forward with hope, optimism, and a determination that things will be better in the future is only good for your soul...and your psyche,

As for me, I'm walking into 2021 with a clear heart and mind.  If you owe me, don't worry about it.  If you wronged me, it's all good, lesson learned.  If you're angry with me you won.  I've let it go.  If you feel I've wronged you, I apologize.  It wasn't intentional.  I'm grateful for every experience that I've received.  Life is too short for pent-up anger, holding of grudges and extra stress or pain.  Here's to 2021 and remember, forgiving someone is for you so you don't block your blessings.  Make 2021 a year of positivity and a season of forgiveness.  HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Loser

 I was generally a supporter of Trump and his policies over the past 4 years.  Sometimes it was very difficult as his arrogant personality and gigantic ego frequently blurred the good that he was doing. And not only was there good, the other side was bad.  As in Socialist bad.  So I hoped he would would be reelected.  But at some point as the election drew near, it became obvious that he had alienated too many people and was in great danger.  People just grew tired of his abrasiveness, his focus on himself, and his chaotic administration.  When he lost, I wasn't surprised.  A good example is the Philadelphia area.  He lost the city last time but won the suburbs.  This time he lost the city by even more and lost the suburbs.  Normal, middle of the road people, especially women, were just fed up and wanted a change.  

I'm sure he has people around him and in the Republican Party that provided this analysis, but he wasn't listening.  I guess it's not a big surprise that he has acted the way he has.  He has denied reality, surrounded himself with sycophants and village idiots, and resisted any notion that he lost.  His "team" has filed untold lawsuits and they've all been thrown out for lack of evidence.  And these are sometimes judges he appointed.  So it's over.

I thought at some point he would act like a President and concede graciously.  But I don't think that is to be.  He will pout and blame and threaten to the end.  It's a sad day and like nothing I've ever seen.  And it is exhausting.  Three weeks to go.  It will get worse as Jan 20 gets closer.  

Masks and Social Distancing

 If you've read at all you know I live in Southern California.  And if you're breathing and even partially aware of what's going on in the world, you know that California is an epicenter for the COVID19 pandemic.  The infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are pretty eye opening.  People are frightened and the ICU's are filling up.  People with small businesses like restaurants and other service businesses are getting killed by being shut down by the governmental lockdown.  The State government in my opinion hasn't responded very well to the problem because they've adopted a "one size fits all" solution. And that solution is to close everything down.  But that is a whole other story,

Since my wife and I are of...ahem...a certain age, we've been very careful about our activities outside our home.  We've worn masks and kept a social distance when going out to stores, restaurants (when we could), stayed outside when possible, and limiting our interactions with others.  We've spent most of our time walking our two precious Labs, reading, playing games, doing chores around the house, and really just watching everything we do.  I continue to play golf, ride my new eBike, and partake of Rotary via Zoom but personal experiences are few and far between.  The exception is our interactions with our daughter, her husband and our three granddaughters.  They have been very careful and I think they are conducting their lives somewhat so that they can interact with us, which is so appreciated.  Seeing them really gives us a boost.  And seeing our son and his family on the East coast is just out of the question.  Thank goodness for Zoom and FaceTime.  Like everyone, we look forward to the day when we can be vaccinated and life can start to return to normal.  But I think that will be a while, so in the meantime we continue to do what we need to do to protect ourselves and others.  

When the pandemic was gaining momentum, the conventional wisdom was that only the elderly with co-morbidities were in danger.  Those in senior centers and older people with other health problems were doomed if they got the virus.  But as time has evolved, the stories of the virus killing people of all ages seems to be more common.  So now we know that the virus can be deadly for anyone and it isn't really very predictable how someone will be affected.  One person may not even know they have it, the next person will get mildly ill, the next will struggle and the next will die.  And it's difficult to predict how it will impact each individual.  

Having said all that, I continue to be amazed by number of idiots surrounding me.  I continue to be amazed at people discounting the wearing of masks and social distancing.  I've heard people say that wearing a mask takes away our freedoms.  WHAT?!?  Once again that is just idiotic.  If it does nothing else, it offers some basic protection.  You can read just one of a million articles on why to wear a mask here.  That someone would object to wearing a mask and practicing social distancing is just disrespectful to everyone around them.  It's infuriating and idiotic.  But don't get me started! :)  So please...when you go out, wear a fucking mask and practice social distancing.  It's not that hard.  It's not an abridge to your freedoms.  Have some respect for others.  Don't be an idiot.

Giving Thanks

Year after year Thanksgiving is a special day.  It's a day to pause, reflect and give thanks.  In these troubled times that is sometimes difficult.  After all, 2020 is a year like no other that most of us have experienced.  The pandemic has brought with it a level of trauma and angst that is just not a normal part of life.  The death, isolation and fear is with us all every day.  And it's difficult to escape as it's invaded almost every facet of life.  

Adding to the trauma caused by a virus, the fabric of our culture seems torn.  After the last election, and really the last four years, we are clearly a country divided down the middle in how we view almost every aspect of our government, our people, and how we live our lives.  Whole sections of the country view other sections with disdain.  Many government decisions that impact us every day seem arbitrary, capricious and designed to favor a few over the many.  Frustration abounds.  

We are told constantly that there are large portions of the population who are racist, hateful, prejudiced against those not like them, and mysogynistic that want to turn back the clock and throw many of their fellow citizens in chains.  Or that there are whole sections of the country who are weak, socialistic, unappreciative, lazy, corrupt takers who want to destroy the country.  Instead of working together to solve problems we seem to have let our differences dominate our thinking about each other.  Instead of looking ahead we tend to look backwards.  And the historical perspective can be used in many devious ways by those ascribing to the validity of our ills.

And yet....we are all still Americans.  We all come together to overcome trials and tribulations.  It's been proven to be the case over and over.  December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 come to mind.  But it's also present in every day life.  Visit an area that's just been hit by a natural disaster be it hurricane, tornado, or wild fire.  You'll see an incredible coming together of people helping other people.  Often people they don't even know.  Or visit a place offering help, shelter and food to the homeless and disadvantaged.  Chat with a volunteer about why they are there.  You'll find the dominant answer is because helping people is what we should all be doing.  

So I'm optimistic for the future.  And I give thanks for many, many people, relationships and things in my life.  But I was thinking about the uniqueness of this year.  We hear every day about the heroes among us going above and beyond to help others.  But my primary thanks this year are the ordinary, every day people just doing their best.  Doing their best to keep it together.  Doing their best to be kind. Doing their best to maintain a sense of normalcy when nothing is normal.  The nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, grocers, truck drivers, small business owners, gym owners, yoga studio owners, restaurant workers, farmers, migrant workers, landscapers, carpenters, electricians, private school teachers and administrators, preachers, and on and on and on.  They are all Indiana Jones!  They all are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, are thrown curveballs by local and state governments, have a dedication to the people who work for them that is incredible and get up in the morning and do it again all while keeping it together for their families.  It really comes down to ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  They didn't ask for this pandemic but they are doing their best.  They are Indiana Jones personified.  And they deserve everyone's thanks.

It's Getting Embarrassing

The election is over.  Done.  Finished.  Determined.  And that Trump won't concede is getting more embarrassing and in fact appalling by the day.  Calling it a rigged election, whining that his observers didn't get to observe, and sulking in your corner is just one more item in the four year history of items that have been embarrassing and cringe worthy.  It's un-American and small.  Period.  

Here's the deal.  Like everything else, you can find info on any website or news site that caters to your beliefs to confirm what you think.  But if you make a half assed attempt to find an unbiased and fair analysis, you can't come to any other conclusion than Biden won.  Fair and square.  And it wasn't that close.  In fact, it'll be just about the margin that Trump won in 2016.  And I've said this before but I believe it more and more with each passing day.  Trump lost to...Trump.  He lost because there were a ton of people who liked his policies but were embarrassed and exhausted by his by his actions, tweets and abrasive manner.  Simple as that.  They held their nose and voted for Biden because they yearned for some form of normalcy.  

Now we need to watch the Senate races in Georgia.  If the Republicans keep control of the Senate then what comes in the next 4 years won't be nearly as bad as it could've been.  So let's see how that goes and then start watching or gnashing our teeth.

The Great Barrington Declaration

Have you read The Great Barrington Declaration?  If not, you need to check it out.  Of all the things I've read since the pandemic descended upon us in March, this might make the most sense.  You can find out more info at the website.  

The Great Barrington Declaration

The Great Barrington Declaration – As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection. 

Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice. 

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza. 

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e.  the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity. 

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection. 

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals. 

Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

On October 4, 2020, this declaration was authored and signed in Great Barrington, United States, by:

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.

Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.

Co-signers

Medical and Public Health Scientists and Medical Practitioners

Dr. Alexander Walker, principal at World Health Information Science Consultants, former Chair of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA

Dr. Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Dr. Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England

Dr. Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England

Dr. Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada

Dr. Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Boris Kotchoubey, Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany

Dr. Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA

Dr. David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA

Dr. David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor, University of East Anglia, England

Dr. Eitan Friedman, professor of medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology, head of the Self-Harm Research Group, University of Nottingham, England

Dr. Eyal Shahar, physician, epidemiologist and professor (emeritus) of public health, University of Arizona, USA

Dr. Florian Limbourg, physician and hypertension researcher, professor at Hannover Medical School, Germany

Dr. Gabriela Gomes, mathematician studying infectious disease epidemiology, professor, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

Dr. Gerhard Krönke, physician and professor of translational immunology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

Dr. Gesine Weckmann, professor of health education and prevention, Europäische Fachhochschule, Rostock, Germany

Dr. Günter Kampf, associate professor, Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Greifswald University, Germany

Dr. Helen Colhoun, professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden

Dr. Karol Sikora, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England

Dr. Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA

Dr. Lisa White, professor of modelling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England

Dr. Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England

Dr. Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in philosophy of mental health, University of York, England

Dr. Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada

Dr. Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Dr. Michael Levitt, biophysicist and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA. Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Dr. Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England

Dr. Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Partha P. Majumder, professor and founder of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, India

Dr. Paul McKeigue, physician, disease modeler and professor of epidemiology and public health, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, physician, epidemiologist and public policy expert at the Veterans Administration, USA

Dr. Rodney Sturdivant, infectious disease scientist and associate professor of biostatistics, Baylor University, USA

Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee, professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Simon Thornley, epidemiologist and biostatistician, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Dr. Simon Wood, biostatistician and professor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr. Stephen Bremner,professor of medical statistics, University of Sussex, England

Dr. Sylvia Fogel, autism provider and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Udi Qimron, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Ulrike Kämmerer, professor and expert in virology, immunology and cell biology, University of Würzburg, Germany

Dr. Uri Gavish, biomedical consultant, Israel

Dr. Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu, professor of finance, director of the Behavioural Finance Working Group, Queen Mary University of London, England

 

Don't Be This Guy

Conspiracy theories about the election are really getting out of control.  Everywhere you turn and depending on the source, you can find a story that fulfills any belief that you have.  I am watching otherwise intelligent adults spout stuff that makes me scratch my head pretty hard.  Of course, we all know  that the election was a doozy.  The run up was full of acrimony and accusations like I'm not sure I've seen previously.  Of course, with Trump that's something you'd expect.  But it was pretty bad.  And then Election Day was pretty anticlimactic.  Everyone, literally everyone, wanted to know the outcome.  But it was not to be.  And that isn't necessarily unique.  There have been plenty of times when it took longer than desired to count the votes.  Of course, the mail in ballot scheme was new and bound to result in problems.  Then you add in the media calling winners at various times when there was still uncertainty.  Stir that all with a bunch of protestors on the streets of major cities causing problems and it was a mess.  

It looked like there were 6 states, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that were slow  in counting...and some are still counting.  Meanwhile the media called Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin for Biden and that put him over the top.  Of course, there is no official announcement until it's done but that didn't dissuade the Biden camp from claiming victory.  And, surprise, surprise, Trump dug in.  So now he has an army of lawyers out looking for shenanigans and filing lawsuits.  Will they go anywhere?  I'm not buying it.  I've looked at the numbers and I don't see how Trump overcomes the lead unless they find major, major irregularities.  Of course, if you want there to be irregularities you can find a source to feed your paranoia.  If that's your schtick, knock yourself out.  But please...stop sending me conspiracy theory videos, memes and stories via email, text, FB Messenger and any other medium you can think of.  I'm not opening them.  I'm deleting them.  So save yourself the effort.  

So I think it's essentially over.  I could be wrong, but I don't see any way that Trump is the President on January 20.  If there's something you want to be passionate about, be passionate about the two Senatorial elections in Georgia.  That's where it's at now.  If the Republicans hold the Senate, the game is very different for the next two years.  So watch that.

Everyone one has been stressed by this election.  Incredibly stressed.  Add in Covid and it only makes it worse.  So take my advice and give it a break.  Here's the top ten things you can do instead of acting like "this guy" over the election that you can't do one thing about anyway.

10.  Go fishing, or golfing, or running or whatever

9.  Get that project done around the house that you've been putting off

8.  Work on learning a new language or musical instrument

7.  Give your kids more help than they need with their homework.  You'll like it.

6.  Put more effort into your work.  Do something above and beyond.

5.  Take some time to read something that you've been putting off

4.  Volunteer at a local food bank or something similar to help people

3.  Knock on your neighbors door and ask them if they'd like to go for a walk

2.  Play with your kids.  Doesn't matter what.  Just play with them.

1.  Hug your wife, husband or significant other.  The days are short.  And they are limited.  Remember what Budda said..."The trouble is, you think you have time"

Three Days Later

The run up to the 2020 general election was excruciating for most of us.  At least the people I've talked to have been disheartened.  There could be a lot of ways to describe it.  "The gloves came off" might be a good one.  The vitriol, the hate, the low-blows, the wailing and gnashing of teeth were omnipotent on both sides.  Whether it was Trump at his rallies or his surrogates on media or Biden when he raised his head out of his bunker or his surrogates doing the same thing as Trump's, it was ugly, disheartening, and exhausting.  At least it was for me and many others.  At some point I just stopped paying attention and tried to live my life.  But the pervasiveness of it was a big distraction.

I guess the good news is that I recognize that this isn't some unique aspect of this year's election.  It's happened before.  Do a little studying about our history of elections and you can't help but find some really bad behavior.  So in some sense, this is business as usual, especially when there is a candidate that raises as much angst as Trump.

When Tuesday came around I had some amount of hope that the counting would proceed as it always has, and we'd have a winner forthwith.  But alas, it was not to be.  And of course, I knew that.  I just hoped it would be cut and dried.  

So now we're in limbo awaiting the continuing count in 4 or 5 states.  It's looking like, as I write this (Friday at Noon) that Biden has multiple routes to the 270 votes needed for the Presidency and Trump only has one or two.  In other words, it's not looking good for Trump.  However, that doesn't take into account any lawsuits and court decisions.  

It's perplexing to me that there are just a handful of states that are having difficulty.  And of course, that raises suspicion.  The conspiracy theory nuts are crawling out of the woodwork to stir the pot.  And normally I'd discount them.  But this is 2020 and the year of Trump so I'm not so sure.  Hatred drives people to do strange and desperate things.  Some of the stories about ballot irregularities seem credible and are certainly cause for investigation.  But, it's difficult for me to think that whatever they are that they would make a difference.  In any state the margin favoring the winner is usually not just a few votes.  Or even a few hundred.  There is usually a more substantial margin for victory.  But we have to let it play out.  There is a lot of drama, accusations, protests, and weird visual imagery.  It's messy.  But it's also democracy.  Above all else, the integrity of the system needs to be upheld.  And before you say that the one side or the other is to blame for lack of integrity, save it.  Both sides are to blame.  Both sides have tried shenanigans.  Both sides have made outrageous claims.  So the best thing would be for everyone to just calm down and let it play out.

I have some takeaways from this election, and really our whole political atmosphere.  

1. Trump lost to...Trump.  I've said in this blog previously that he is a gigantic jackass and he proved it over and over during the run up to the election.  His tweets and continual half-truths turned a lot of people off.  Not just a few, a lot.  If I were voting for just the two men, I would've voted for Biden.  Because Trump is an obnoxious jerk.  But, and it's a big but, I believe his policies were much more in tune with what the average American wants and needs.  So I stuck with him.  And I have to say I will not be surprised at all if he ultimately doesn't win.
2. There is no mandate.  Not even close.  If Biden prevails at least he won the popular vote.  But no one on either side can claim a mandate.  If this isn't the time to reach across the aisle and and try to work together, I don't know when it would be.  But Biden will have enormous pressure to move farther left.  If that happens, there'll be a Republican sweep in 2024.  The country is simply not there.
3. Trump and the Republicans blew it when they railed against the mail in ballots.  That was clearly going to happen.  Instead of embracing it, they tried to obstruct and denigrate it.  They could have turned it to their advantage, but instead it probably beat them.  
4. Biden isn't the ogre and monster he was made out to be.  Oh he's a swamp dweller and has never really done anything in 47 years in politics, but by most accounts from colleagues over the years, he's a pretty good guy.  The big dust up about his son was clearly political theater.  At least that's how it appeared to me.  
5. Kamala Harris is the most unlikable politician in America.  And that's just not me folks.  She has never done anything substantive.  She has mannerisms that are like nails on a chalkboard.  She blows with the wind.  And when she was climbing to the top in California, that's not all she blew.  We all better hope that Joe's health hangs in for 4 years, because she would be a nightmare.  Unless there is a miracle, I don't see her as a force in 2024
6. The media?  Well, what I can say about the media?  They (all of them) have lost me.  I essentially don't believe them.  A few months ago I started watching several different channels a day for a few minutes to get the flavor of their reporting.  After a very short time I could predict the spin that they would put on their stories.  The most obnoxious (NBC) are now unwatchable for me.  Their smugness turns my stomach.  The vast majority of the media today are telling a story that is aligned with the messaging of their corporate owners.  Figure out who owns them (and that isn't difficult) and you'll know how they are going to spin.  Finding objective, honest reporting is almost impossible.  They should be ashamed of themselves, but of course they aren't.  Most media types on the national stage care about accolades, power, fame and money.  Full stop.
7. The polling companies should be hanging their heads in shame.  And I don't know how they recover.  They were wrong about virtually everything!  At their worst, some of these polls caused people to stay home.  And that is shameful.  They also contributed to media lies.  
8. 2020 (assuming we lose the Presidency) isn't all bad for conservatives.  We picked up members of the House, we picked up state legislatures, and most importantly, I think Senate will not flip or at least wind up 50-50.  In a republic such as ours with checks and balances, that is a huge check.  We'll have to see in the coming months how it plays out (because of runoffs in Georgia) but I'm hopeful.  The other thing to anticipate is 2022.  Assuming Biden screws up enough and tradition of the incumbent party losing seats in the mid-terms, it is likely that the Republicans will pick up seats in both houses in 2022.  So the checks will continue. 
9. There's a story out there that Pelosi may lose her Speaker's job.  Don't count on it.  She is smart and cagey.  She'll likely remain in power at all costs.
10. 2024 should be very interesting.  Kamala will try to be the presumptive Democratic nominee but I just don't see it.  I think Buttigieg will be the favorite.  Maybe Cuomo.  Maybe Booker.  The Republican side will be interesting once again.  I think Nikki Halley, Tim Scott and Marco Rubio will be favorites.  Like Kamala, I don't see Pence as a serious player.  Could Ted Cruz gain traction?  Whoever it is on the Republican side will have a built in difficulty in that they will not be able to whip up the emotions of being an outsider like Trump did.  It's a long way to 2024 but the nature of our political life is that it starts today.  Distressing isn't it?
11. I think (hope) that the last 4 years and 2020 should discourage multi-billionaire businessmen to enter the fray for the Presidency.  Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg embarrassed themselves.  And wasted a lot of money and their message fell flat.  Andrew Yang did okay but wasted a lot of money.  Trump won because he was Trump.  Larger than life and tough as nails.  Don't know that there are any others out there like that.
12. The nuts on the fringes of both parties didn't prevail.  Whether it's Antifa or BLM on the left or the Proud Boys on the right or all the other kooks out there causing division, they just stirred up a lot of trouble and ultimately were not a force.  The 150M Americans that voted were the force.  If we start to move back to some sort of normalcy and civility, my most fervent hope is that both parties will repudiate the radicals, looters and rioters.  

So it is evolving.  I'm pessimistic that Trump will win, but there could be court action that will delay what I think is inevitable.  It would be nice if he would take the high road and concede after a decent amount of time and the outcome becomes obvious.  But...that's not Trump.   Not even close.

The Best Political Ad You Will See

The Closing Argument

 Posted this over on FB.  It’s a collection of a lot of thoughts.  There’s more but I had to stop somewhere!

The clown in the White House just brokered four Middle East Peace Accords, something that 71 years of political intervention and endless war failed to produce.

This naïve idiot moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to its rightful place, Jerusalem, something the last 5 Presidents promised to do. 

The buffoon in the White House is the first president that has not engaged us in a foreign war since Eisenhower.

The imbecile in the White House has wiped out ISIS and has brokered fairer trade agreements with Mexico, Canada and the European Union. Oh, he also made us energy independent and an exported for the first time in over 75 years.

The clown in the White House has had the greatest impact on the economy, bringing jobs, and lowering unemployment to the Black and Latino population of ANY other president. Ever.

The buffoon in the White House has exposed the deep, widespread, and long-standing corruption in the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Republican and Democratic parties.

The buffoon in the White House turned NATO around and had them start paying their dues.

The clown in the White House neutralized the North Koreans, stopped them from developing a further nuclear capability, sending missiles toward Japan, and threatening the West Coast of the US.

The clown in the White House turned our relationship with the Chinese around, brought hundreds of businesses back to the US, and revived the economy. Hello!!!!!!!

The clown in the White House has accomplished the appointing of three Supreme Court Justices and close to 300 Federal Judges.

This same clown in the White House lowered your taxes, increased the standard deduction on your IRS return from $12,500 for Married Filing Joint to $24,400 and caused your stock market to move to record levels over 100 times, positively impacting the retirements of tens of millions of citizens.

The clown in the White House fast-tracked the development of a COVID Vaccine - it will be available within weeks - we still don't have a vaccine for SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, or a host of diseases that arose during previous administration.  This jackass also stopped Chinese from entering the country when everyone was calling him Xenophobic.  He deployed field hospitals and hospital ships where needed, mobilized industry to produce ventilators and PPE, and negotiated unprecedented stimulus packages.

The moron in the White House has kept prescription drugs costs from increasing during his first term. That is also unprecedented.

The clown in the White House rebuilt our military which the Obama administration had crippled and had fired 214 key generals and admirals in his first year of office.

The idiot in the White House has drastically reduced the volume of illegal border crossings during his term in office.

I got it, you don't like him. Many of you utterly hate and despise him. How special of you. He is serving you and ALL the American people. What are you doing besides calling him names and laughing about him catching the China virus ?????

And please educate me again as to what Biden has accomplished for America in his 47 years in office?

I’ll take a ‘clown’ any day versus a fork tongued, smooth talking hypocritical corrupt liar. Please let it be known, I am not sure I would want to have a beer with him (if he drank, which he doesn't) or even be his friend. I don’t care if I even like him. I want a strong leader who isn’t afraid to kick some ass when needed. I don’t need a fatherly figure - I already have one. I don’t need a liar - that's what Hollywood and CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS and the New York Times are for.

I don’t need someone to help me, but I also don’t want an obstacle or a demented, senile washed-up Swamp Monster.

The world is a dangerous place - history has proven that. If the ‘world’ loves our President- its probably since he and our country is a chump for admiration.....

Now get out and VOTE!! 

Two Things

It's been awhile.  Since July 23rd to be exact.  We've been surviving and making the best of this shitty situation that has been handed to us called Covid19.  In truth, other than not being willing or able to visit people at some distance from us, our lives have been okay.  So no big complaints.  I've got some definite thoughts on how the federal, state and local governments have handled the pandemic, but I'm going to save that for another post.  As preview, I think it's pretty simple.  They went down a road they couldn't come back from for a lot of reasons (personal, political, financial, etc) and we are now paying for it.  Plenty of blame to go around.  But like I said, for another day.

I'm not going to write about the election either.  Anything I would say would be redundant, wouldn't matter in the bigger scheme of things, and really is just more noise.  Most have gone to their corners.  So in a few weeks we'll see what the outcome is.  It will be interesting to see responses.  I'm sure there will be plenty to write about then.  If you've read this blog at all in the past you know where I stand.

So the other big, huge, enormous issue is of course race.  Since May 25, 2020 when George Floyd was murdered, that issue has been front and center in almost every social discussion occurring in so many areas be it social media, traditional media, or personal interaction.  There is just so much to unpack that once again it is daunting and whatever I say will be a blip.  But Floyd's death hit most people hard.  It was just so blatant, so deliberate, so heartbreaking to see a person's life snuffed out.  No matter what kind of person he was he didn't deserve that.  So the aftermath has been filled with marches, riots, looting, discussions, introspection, statue toppling, group analysis, and every other thing you can think of to try and shed light on what is called "systemic racism" in the United States.  We have seen the group "Black Lives Matter" rising rapidly to a level of prominence that is surprising.  We have heard demands and claims that on the face of it seem outlandish.  And yet...what to make of it all?

So I will readily admit to being one who took a step back and spent some time reading, talking, studying, watching films, and exploring as many aspects of our racial troubles as I could.  I wanted to try and understand.  If you're interested in a list of resources that I've used, leave me a note in comments and I'll provide it.  I joined a few groups to receive the perspective of different people to try and unpack all of the history and contradictions that keep popping up.  I wanted to really know about what can only be termed the shameful treatment of our fellow citizens, who happen to be black.  

I'm still on that journey, but there are a few things I've discovered.  Most prominently there are a lot of things I didn't know, or didn't remember, or didn't want to know, or to my shame, didn't care enough to know.  What are they?  Here's just a few of them:

• The unbelievable treatment of black people during the Jim Crow era from 1865 to 1965.  I guess I intellectually knew it, but it was far removed from me and I certainly didn't empathize with it.  I'm sure I heard about the conditions, the mistreatment, the violence and everything else.  But my only explanation was that it was a system that was far removed and didn't impact me growing up so I tuned it out.  
• The concept of "separate but equal" goes along with Jim Crow.  It doesn't take much digging to discover that it was never separate but equal.  I think that whole thing was a concept that was used to ease the conscious of white people.  I have friends who honestly say that it wasn't a big deal.  They lived in their area and we lived in ours.  Of course, their area was usually a shithole.  But again, most didn't want to see that.
• I sat watching 60 Minutes one night when they did a story on the Tulsa Massacre in 1922.  Essentially, an entire black community was wiped out and no one was held accountable.  No one. I was stunned that I had never heard of it.
• The redlining of housing by our federal government to keep black families out of certain neighborhoods was unknown to me.  The ability to buy a home is the American dream.  And it's so important because it creates generational wealth.  It becomes something that gives your kids and their kids expanded opportunities.  And they were denied this oh so fundamental part of the American dream.
• Similarly the denial of GI Benefits to Vets returning from WWII.  When I heard about this I was truly stunned...and pissed.  Again, it is a deliberate denial of benefits that would become generational.  And this was done to people who fought for the country.  Today it is beyond comprehension
• The amazingly cruel, unfair, and unjust incarceration of young black men that has been going on for decades and decades.  If you're interested in this story read "Just Mercy" or watch the move, "13th".  That this was a system that was built and approved is beyond me.  And it continues today.  When you hear about President Trump enacting prison reform, he's really only scratching the surface.  But at least he's doing something!
• The unbelievable disparity between funding for predominantly white schools and predominantly black schools.  No wonder Charter schools are so popular and important to black families.  These schools are many times the only way black children have a chance.
• There are others but I'll quit this little list with the thing that has perhaps impacted me the most.  I've watched several panel discussions and testimonials that include life as a black man.  At some point during these talks the man will tell the audience about "the talk" he must have with his sons about life as a black man in America.  About how to interact with white people, white police, volatile situations, shopping, and everything else.  It makes me incredibly sad and angry that I didn't have to have that talk.  That a fellow citizen of this great country has to live like that.  And that my friends is bullshit.  

So all of this studying and listening and discussing has helped me to in some small way understand.  It has also stimulated me to try and help.  But as I've had those experiences, I've also been watching what's been happening in society around this issue.  There are a couple of things that are so disturbing that it tends to dilute some of my distress and outrage that was born from learning about the issues I stated above.  Here's another little list:

• As I said above, the group "Black Lives Matter" has risen rapidly in society.  They have gained their prominence after a shooting of a black man by police.  It really didn't matter the circumstances of the shooting because the police were always wrong.  When it came to Floyd, they leaped on the obvious murder.  But here's the thing about BLM.  They were founded by two avowed Marists who openly ascribe to the overthrow of the country.  They have gained a tremendous amount of funding from companies who have donated millions of dollars to remain as woke as possible.  And try as I might, I can't find what they have done for the black community other than stir the pot and increased their coffers.  They also have coined this crazy "defund the police" slogan that has gained traction in certain quarters.  It is nothing but a distraction and how it will help is beyond me. 
• Speaking of the police, they have been increasingly under the gun.  Every time there is any kind of incident involving a white policeman and a black person, expect riots, looting, outlandish rhetoric, and the tension to ratchet up.  They are losing good, honest members in droves and at least in my opinion are the least deserving of the hate piled on them.  Because here's the thing. It's a tough, dangerous, thankless job that has to be done.  Because if we don't have law and order, we don't have a society.  Here's the other thing.  Check any source you want and you'll find the statistics on white officers killing black people are infinitesimal.  The vast majority of black deaths come from black on black crime.  So this piece of the puzzle just doesn't make sense to me.  

The issue of race in this country is complicated.  Very complicated.  These few issues I've touched on really only scratch the surface.  But it's a start.  For good or for bad that so many people, especially white people, see this as an issue that has to be understood and dealt with is a good thing.  But there aren't many quick wins.  These issues took decades and decades to build up and be recognized and it will take policy changes, attitude changes, and changes of the heart for us to achieve some success.  And I don't think we'll ever get to the ideal.  Because, well, we're human.  

I'm of a certain age where I'm not going to see a lot of it.  I hope that I've got enough time so I can see the start of some good things.  And here let me say there are a lot of good things...great things.  We can see it every day if we look hard enough.  And don't believe the naysayers and pessimists that say this country is fundamentally racist.  I call bullshit to that.  We are the country that started with the view that all are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.  Granted that it didn't apply across the board, but it was certainly aspirational.  We had imperfect people with a dream for this country who couldn't achieve the desired equality.  But they had the dream!  People like to talk about slavery being America's original sin.  It's as if we invented it.  The reality is that there has been slavery since the dawn of man.  People have enslaved their fellow man for as long as humans have been around and it is still a huge problem today.  We argued and fussed about slavery for a hundred years before waging a war to end it.  And we lost 600,000 Americans to stop it.  We've had successes and failures but the vast majority of us in 2020 have matured to the point where we hope to achieve "a more perfect union".  There are some outliers and they need to be squashed, but I'm totally convinced in the goodness of our people.

But once again, at a certain age you don't make long range plans.  :). So I think there are two things I can do.  The first is to try and increase my understanding and empathy so that in some small way maybe I can pass on some of it to those in my circle of family and friends who remain.  As I said, there are no quick fixes.  We're only going to achieve equality in a generational manner.  Bit by bit, person by person.

Second, I've come to the conclusion that there are really two things that matter.  You can argue about history all you want and wring your hands about a statue somewhere or the name of a school somewhere or some incident that occurred sometime in the past, but there are only two things that will move the needle in the long run towards achieving equality.  Someone I really admire and is smart as they come told me one time about a business philosophy that he'd seen in a Harvard Business Review article about what makes a successful business. There are 3 things:

1. Revenues before cost
2. Better before cheaper
3. Nothing else matters

This is a fun little model that might be a bit hokey, but if you've ever run a business, it's difficult to argue with it.  So in the same mode, I've come to the conclusion that there are three things that are vitally important in the world of racial equity:

1. Education at all costs
2. Getting and holding a job
3. Nothing else matters

The key to a better life is education.  The key to understanding the world is education.  The key to establishing an attitude of achievement is education.  The key to developing the discipline of personal responsibility is education.  If there is one thing that could help advance the cause of education in the black community it is Charter schools.  Simply put, their record of success is undeniable.  They provide structure, discipline, and optimism.  But they have a very powerful enemy.  The teachers unions hate them and try to destroy them at every turn.  But the battle is engaged across the country and we'll see how it plays out.  Having a job is a close second.  Having a job provides discipline, achievement, self worth, family support, development of generational wealth.  If those two things aren't present, nothing else matters.  Simple as that.  

So in my little corner of the world I'm finding and helping minority kids stay in school.  The tool that I'm using is my Rotary Club because we believe in doing good in the world.  It's not a lot, but it's something.  As Teddy Roosevelt famously said, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are".

Honesty

In the sea of misinformation, hysteria, and incompetence, this is maybe the most honest article you can read summing up the past four months.

Four Months of Unprecedented Government Malfeasance

May/June 2020 • Volume 49, Number 5/6 • Heather Mac Donald

Heather Mac Donald
Manhattan Institute

Heather Mac DonaldHeather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She earned a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She writes for several newspapers and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Criterion, and Public Interest, and is the author of four books, including The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe and The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on June 18, 2020, for a Hillsdale College online symposium, “The Coronavirus and Public Policy.”

Over the last four months, Americans have lived through what is arguably the most consequential period of government malfeasance in U.S. history. Public officials’ overreaction to the novel coronavirus put American cities into a coma; those same officials’ passivity in the face of widespread rioting threatens to deliver the coup de grâce. Together, these back-to-back governmental failures will transform the American polity and cripple urban life for decades.

Before store windows started shattering in the name of racial justice, urban existence was already on life support, thanks to the coronavirus lockdowns. Small businesses—the restaurants and shops that are the lifeblood of cities—were shuttered, many for good, leaving desolate rows of “For Rent” signs on street after street in New York City and elsewhere. Americans huddled in their homes for months on end, believing that if they went outside, death awaited them.

This panic was occasioned by epidemiological models predicting wildly unlikely fatalities from the coronavirus.

On March 30, the infamous Imperial College London model predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. by September 1, absent government action. That prediction was absurd on its face, given the dispersal of the U.S. population and the fact that China’s coronavirus death toll had already levelled off at a few thousand. The authors of that study soon revised it radically downwards.

Too late. It had already become the basis for the exercise of unprecedented government power. California was the first state to lock down its economy and confine its citizens to their homes; eventually almost every other state would follow suit, under enormous media pressure to do so.

Never before had public officials required millions of lawful businesses to shut their doors, throwing tens of millions of people out of work. They did so at the command of one particular group of experts—those in the medical and public health fields—who viewed their mandate as eliminating one particular health risk with every means put at their disposal.

If the politicians who followed their advice weighed a greater set of considerations, balancing the potential harm from the virus against the harm from the shutdowns, they showed no sign of it. Instead, governors and mayors started rolling out one emergency decree after another to terminate economic activity, seemingly heedless of the consequences.

The lockdown mandates employed mind-numbingly arbitrary distinctions. Wine stores and pot dispensaries were deemed “essential” and thus allowed to stay open; medical offices were required to close. Large grocery stores got the green light; small retail establishments with only a few customers each day were out of luck. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer notoriously used her red pen within megastores to bar the sale of seeds, gardening supplies, and paint.

It was already clear when these crushing mandates started pouring forth that shutting down every corner of the country was a reckless overreaction. By mid-March, two weeks before the Imperial College model was published, Italian health data showed that the coronavirus was terribly lethal to a very small subset of the population—the elderly infirm—and a minor health problem to nearly everyone else who was not already severely ill. The median age of coronavirus decedents in Italy was 80, and they died with a median of nearly three comorbidities, such as heart disease and diabetes. The lead author of the Imperial College model has admitted that up to two-thirds of all coronavirus fatalities would have died from their comorbidities by the end of 2020 anyway.

Three months later, this profile of coronavirus casualties still holds true. Public health interventions could have been targeted at that highly vulnerable population without forcing the American economy into a death spiral.

DISINFORMATION

By now it is impossible to attribute the media’s failure to publicize the facts about the coronavirus to mere oversight.

Every story that does not mention, preferably at the top, the vast overrepresentation of nursing home deaths in the coronavirus death count—above 50 percent in many countries and 80 percent in several of our states—is a story that is deliberately concealing the truth. Casual readers and viewers have been left with the false impression that everyone is equally at risk, and thus that draconian measures are justified.

The media have been equally uninterested in the scientific evidence regarding outdoor transmission. Coronavirus infections require what Japan calls the three Cs: confined spaces, crowded places, and close contact. The fleeting encounters on sidewalks and public parks that characterize much of city life simply do not result in transmission. And yet if you briskly approach someone on one of Manhattan’s broad and now empty sidewalks, the oncoming pedestrian may lunge into the street or press up against the closest wall in abject fear if you are not wearing a mask. You may be cursed at.

The public health establishment has been equally complicitous in creating this widespread ignorance. It has failed to stress at every opportunity that for the vast majority of the public, the coronavirus is at most an inconvenience. The public health experts did not disclose that outdoors was the safest place to be and that people should get out of their homes and into the fresh air.

Not coincidentally, the experts’ newfound power over nearly every aspect of American life was dependent on the maintenance of fear.

While the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus has been demographically circumscribed and lower than the previous flu pandemics of 1968, 1956, and 1918 when adjusted for population, the economic toll has cut across every sector of the country and every population group. Whole industries have seen their capital wiped out overnight.

Despite a better than expected employment report in early June, the long-term effects of the shutdowns and the continuing mandates to socially distance will prevent a full economic recovery for years to come. Forty-four million Americans are still out of work. Supply chains have been thrown into chaos. Fresh fruits and vegetables are being plowed under and livestock burned uneaten for lack of access to processing plants and markets. Small businessmen who have put their life savings into creating a service that customers want have seen their hard work go up in smoke. Without rent from their retail tenants, commercial landlords can’t pay their taxes. City budgets have been decimated. The additional $8 trillion in public debt taken on to try to substitute for the private economy will depress opportunity for generations.

And what has been the response to this economic carnage on the part of our ruling class? Branding strategies! Politicians have put cute names on what has been a taking of private property on an unprecedented scale. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo calls the state lockdowns “New York on Pause,” as if commerce can be indefinitely suspended and then magically resuscitated with the flick of a switch.

The politicians’ ignorance about the complexity of economic life was stunning, as was their hypocrisy. To a person, every elected official, every public health expert, and every media pundit who lectured Americans about the need to stay in indefinite lockdown had a secure (“essential”) job. Not one of them feared his employer would go bankrupt. Anyone who warned that the effects of the lockdowns would be more devastating than anything the coronavirus could inflict was accused of being a heartless capitalist who only cared about profits.

But to care about the economy is to care about human life, since the economy is how life is sustained. It is a source of meaning, as well as sustenance, binding humans to each other in a web of voluntary exchange. To its workers, every business is essential, and to many of its customers as well. Even judged by the narrowest possible definition of public health—lives lost—the toll from the lockdowns will exceed that of the virus, due to the cancellation of elective medical procedures, patients’ unnecessary fear of seeking medical treatment, and the psychological effects of unemployment.

In May, politicians started inviting a few scattered sectors of their state economies to reopen, with blue state governors and mayors being particularly parsimonious with their noblesse oblige. These blue state officials invoked “science” to justify yet another arbitrary set of guidelines to determine which businesses would be allowed to start up again and when. “Science,” we were told, dictated the timetable for reopening, based on rates of hospital bed vacancies and new infections.

In fact, the numerical benchmarks, enforced with draconian punctiliousness, seem to have been drawn out of a hat—they certainly had no evidence behind them. But even with official reopenings, many customers will be long reluctant to resume their normal habits of consumption and travel thanks to the uninterrupted fearmongering on the part of the media, the experts, and elected leaders.

Being fantastically risk averse is now a badge of honor, at least among the professional elites. A young tech columnist for The New York Times wrote an op-ed in May about cancelling a restaurant reservation in Missoula, Montana. Missoula County had been virus-free for weeks, and Montana’s case load had been negligible. Nevertheless, the columnist experienced a panic attack after booking a table, contemplating the allegedly lethal risk that awaited him in the reopened restaurant. Rather than being ashamed of his cowardice, the columnist was proud, he wrote, to have bailed out of his reservation in order to continue sheltering in place.

The absurd social distancing protocols make operating many businesses and much of city life virtually impossible. The six-foot rule is as arbitrary as the “metrics” for reopening. (The World Health Organization recommends three feet of social distance, and many countries have adopted that recommendation.) Keeping customers and employees six feet apart will render a city’s basic institutions unworkable, from restaurants to concert halls. The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled the first half of its 2020-2021 season while it figures out how to maintain social distancing among audience members and on the stage. Every other performing arts organization will face the same almost insuperable dilemma.

My 34-story apartment building in Manhattan, like many others, has imposed a one person per elevator ride rule, even though the elevator interiors are more than six feet across. I invite anyone who may also be waiting for an elevator to share my ride up; no one has ever accepted the offer, even though both I and my invitee are masked. Nor has anyone ever extended such an offer to me. Now translate this hysteria to Manhattan’s massive office towers. If New York City ever fully reopens, a similar social distancing rule for office elevators will lead to lines of workers around every midtown block each morning. As long as this fear lasts, city life is not possible.

FROM COLD WAR TO HOT

Then the cities started burning. What had been a cold war on the economy and civic life became a hot war.

Government officials, having shut down commerce due to unblemished ignorance of how markets work, now enabled the torching and looting of thousands of businesses due to the shirking of their most profound responsibility: protecting civil peace.

On Monday, May 25, a video of the horrific arrest and death of a black man suspected of passing a forged $20 bill in Minneapolis went viral. A police officer kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd begged for help breathing. Floyd was already handcuffed and thus posed a minimal risk. The officer ignored Floyd’s distress even as Floyd stopped talking or moving.

The officer’s behavior was grotesquely callous and contrary to sound tactics, and the officer will be prosecuted and punished under the law. His behavior was not, however, representative of the overwhelming majority of the ten million arrests that the police make each year. Indeed, there is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police. Nevertheless, within 24 hours, the violence had begun.

On the night of Thursday, May 28, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey ordered the city’s Third Police Precinct evacuated as the forces of anarchy descended upon it for a third day in a row. The building was promptly torched, sending a powerful sign that society would not defend its most fundamental institutions of law and order.

Soon cities across the country became scenes of feral savagery. The human lust for violence, the sheer joy of plunder and destruction, were unleashed without check. Police officers were shot at, run over, slashed with knives, and clubbed; two current and former law enforcement officers were killed in cold blood. Police cruisers and station houses were firebombed; courthouses were trashed. Looters drove trucks through storefronts and emptied the stores’ contents into the back of these newly repurposed vehicles of civil war. ATMs were ripped out of walls; pharmacies plundered for drugs.

Blue state governors and mayors ordered law enforcement to stand down or use at most (in New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s words) a “light touch” with the rioters. By the time these progressive public leaders realized that something more forceful needed to be done, it was too late. The fire of sadism and hatred could not be contained, but would have to burn itself out. Belatedly imposed curfews were universally ignored: why should anyone obey an edict from a government that refused to protect human life and livelihoods?

Perversely, the rioting exhibited features of the coronavirus shutdowns in even more literal form. If before, businesses were boarded up due to bankruptcy, now they were boarded up to prevent further theft. Small businesses, lacking the resources to outlast the shutdowns, now saw the final depletion of their inventories. The fortress mentality in residential buildings from coronavirus hysteria was replaced by an actual fortress, as building managements hastily erected plywood barriers over lobby windows and doors. The hyped-up fear of going outside into allegedly virus-infected public spaces became a justified fear of leaving one’s fortress and being sacrificed to the mob. Shelter-in-place became a necessity, not a product of government overreach. The fall of night became a source of terror for ordinary citizens and business owners.

Previously, securely-employed public officials breezily dismissed their constituents’ anguish over unemployment and growing business failures. Now those same officials, safe behind their security details and publicly-owned mansions, foreswore the activation of the National Guard and military. None of those officials owned businesses, so they faced no loss either from economic quarantine or from physical rampage.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

One thing did change markedly between the coronavirus lockdowns and the riot lockdowns, however: elite wisdom regarding social distancing. The politicians, pundits, and health experts who had condescendingly rebuked business owners for reopening without official permission, who had banned funerals and church services of more than ten people, and who had heaped scorn on protesters who had gathered in state capitols to express their economic distress, suddenly became avid cheerleaders for screaming crowds numbering in the thousands.

Most remarkably, public officials overtly admitted to choosing the forms of assembly that would be allowed based on the content of the protesters’ speech. Mayor de Blasio explained that protests over “400 years of American racism” are not the same as a “store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.” While the store owner or worshipper may be “understandably aggrieved,” he conceded, their grievances must still be suppressed in the name of coronavirus safety. Not the grievances of the protesters and rioters, however. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy congratulated the Black Lives Matter activists and distinguished them from mere “nail salon” entrepreneurs protesting their ongoing business stasis. The two are in “different orbits,” Murphy said.

The politicians’ hypocrisy was a mere warm-up for that of the public health establishment. These were the people whose diktats had inspired the lockdowns and whose allegedly supreme knowledge of medical risk was allowed to cancel all other considerations in maintaining a functioning society. Nearly 1,200 of these same experts, including from the CDC, signed a public letter supporting the unsocially distanced protests on the grounds that “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19.”

One could just as easily argue that a global depression, induced by the gratuitous crushing of trade and the hollowing out of capital, is a lethal public health issue of at least equal magnitude. But it turns out that public health is as much about politics as it is about science.

This shameless reversal should have torpedoed the lockdowns once and for all. If it turns out that mass gatherings were now not just allowable but to be encouraged, no rationale remained for preventing restaurants and stores from reopening. But instead, once media attention became a little less monomaniacally focused on the anti-police agitation, the familiar chorus rose up again, directed at everyone else: Stay socially distanced! Wear your outdoor masks! No gatherings of more than a few dozen! No entering “non-essential” stores! The same arbitrary “metrics” for business reopenings were still in place and still being enforced.

By now, the collapse of government legitimacy is complete. For three months, public officials abdicated their responsibility to balance the costs and benefits of any given policy. They put the future of hundreds of millions of Americans in the hands of a narrow set of experts who lack all awareness of the workings of economic and social systems, and whose “science” was built on the ever-shifting sand of speculative models and on extreme risk aversion regarding only one kind of risk.

The public officials who ceded their authority to the so-called experts were deaf to the pleas of law-abiding business owners who saw their life’s efforts snuffed out. They engineered the destruction of trillions of dollars of wealth, through thoroughly arbitrary decision making. And then they stood by as billions more dollars of work burned down. Public order and safety, equal treatment under the law, stability of expectations—all the prerequisites for robust investment have been decimated. The failure to quell the riots means that more are inevitable. Any future business faces possible destruction by another lockdown or by looting—which it will be is anyone’s guess.

The coronavirus lockdowns demonstrated our leaders’ ignorance of economic interdependence. After the riots, that ignorance has been shown to run far deeper. It is an ignorance about government’s most fundamental obligation: to safeguard life, liberty, and property. It is an ignorance about human nature and human striving.

Property and capital are not soulless abstractions, easily replaced by an insurance payout, as the rioters and their apologists maintain. (The Massachusetts Attorney General noted that burning is “how forests grow.”) Capital is accumulated effort and innovation, the sum of human achievement and imagination. Its creation is the aim of civilization. But civilization is everywhere and at all times vulnerable to the darkest human impulses. Government exists to rein in those impulses so that individual initiative can flourish. America’s Founders, schooled in a profound philosophical and literary tradition dating back to classical antiquity, understood the fragility of civil peace and the danger of the lustful, vengeful mob.

Our present leaders, the products of a politicized and failing education system, seem to know nothing of those truths. Pulling the country back from the abyss will require a recalling of our civilizational inheritance.

Down the Drain

I've come to the conclusion that President Trump really doesn't care if he's reelected or not.  And after some of his recent head scratching actions, I almost think he would just as soon retire to his place in Florida and live the good life.  His rhetoric is as divisive as I've ever seen it and he seems tone deaf when it comes to some of the cultural and social upheaval occurring in the country.  His leadership in the pandemic has been very weak and in this like almost everything else he sees everything as a personal attack on him.  It seems like every week there is another "tell all" book that rakes him over the coals.  It's not that these books mean anything, it's that they are a distraction and he gets all wound around the axle over them.  I've just never seen anyone trying so hard to torpedo his own chances.  And the media smells blood in the water every hour of every day and attack him relentlessly.  I really don't know how he takes it and maybe he's decided he doesn't want four more years of this shit.  If the Dems put up almost anyone else but Biden, he'd already be toast.  There's still time I guess but I don't see him changing.  I'm sure that there are a lot of people like me who can't really even imagine voting for Biden, but there are way more that he is making the decision easy for.  I'm not at the "turn out the lights the party's over" stage yet...but I'm close.

What Now?

On May 25, 2020 George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis policeman who kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while others stood by and watched.  On June 13, 2020 Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by an Atlanta policeman as he escaped from being detained and fled through a parking lot after stealing the officer's taser.  There is video of him pointing the taser at the officers before he was shot.  These two events are not related but they sparked widespread protests.

Since then things have deteriorated.  You've seen it.  Rioting and looting have been common.  The Black Lives Matter organization and movement has taken over as a face of the demonstrations.  Unfortunately there are making outrageous demands like defund the police, among others, that tend to drown out any rational thought toward dialog and progress.  There have been "autonomous zones" set up in various cities in which there is no order and police will not venture.  Seattle and New York City seem to be the epicenter of takeovers, defacing and destruction.  Peaceful protest leading to constructive dialog which leads to change seems to have gone away. At least for now.  I keep thinking (hoping) that we will get past this craziness and start talking...but I'm not really sure.

Politicians have become as polarized as I've ever seen them.  Senator Tim Scott, who is black, tried and failed to get some police reform measures implemented.  The Democrats wouldn't even talk about it.  The Democrats also refused to vote for a measure condemning violence and looting.  They are on opposite ends of the spectrum and I'm not sure what reconciles them.  Trump seems to have lost control.  He continues to be his own worst enemy (especially on social media) and his combative, arrogant attitude is not playing well.  The Dems are pulling out all the stops to find and accuse him of everything under the sun.  Because of his personality he takes everything personally and goes high and right.  And that usually only harms him.  I'm not making any predictions because it's impossible to tell, but he better get his shit together or he'll be defeated in November.  And if that happens we'll have the weakest President in history right when, in my opinion, we need steady strength.  But honestly so many people seem just exhausted by the Trump show and may just vote for a change.  Who knows.

Add in the reemergence of Covid 19 at frightening proportions and life can be overwhelming.  We are returning to shutdowns, restrictions, and dramatic impacts on our way of life.  The state and local governments most greatly impacted seem to be a choosing a piecemeal, inconsistent and sometimes incoherent approach.  Closing of bars and beaches makes sense but allowing thousands of protestors in close proximity is okay?  Incoherent.  And I’m not sure what they are doing but the federal government seems to be not very present.  I’ve heard some state officials say that their hospitals are  approaching max capacity and PPE is becoming a problem.  So what have they been doing the last few months?  Wouldn’t it have made sense for state and federal governments to have been working together to ensure they have excess capacity?  Obviously rhetorical questions but pretty relevant.  Don't know where we're going now but in my circle of friends and in my family, it's all about the kids.  How do we ensure that the kids can get back to school and experience school as it's meant to be?  That is our priority.  I hope that the school districts and the teacher's unions are listening...but I'm not sure they are.

But back to the racial issues.  Like so many things I think it comes down to personal action.  You can watch and listen to all the various news accounts, you can be heartened or outraged by the latest actions of those out on the streets, you can write your political representatives til you're blue in the face.  But really it takes each individual taking whatever action they can to really understand the issues and then working to help others and try to impact your little corner of the world.  As I've said before on this blog, I've been inspired and hopeful at times and disgusted and disappointed at times.  But I've decided I can do two things.  I can be open to learning and understanding and I can use that understanding to perhaps work in areas where I can make a difference.  My wife and I are seeking information and are open to broadening our horizons.  We took a class this morning called "Dismantling racism...one insight at a time".   The instructor provided some really thought provoking questions and sprinkled in some history and relevant facts.  He provided some resources for us to explore which might provide more insight and understanding.  And that couldn't hurt.

But I have to say that it's difficult to get past the destruction and radical actions of some of the protestors.  I don't think I'm untypical of many people in society today who want to live in a better country when it comes to race relations, but doing something becomes problematic in the face of violence, wanton destruction, and outrageous demands.  I can't even pay attention when mobs are roaming the streets.  I can't even consider actions when police and governmental leaders are being demonized and even killed.  I can't even pay attention when statues and memorials are being destroyed and defaced with no regard to who or what they memorialize.  So while I will quietly work for more personal understanding, I'm not sure I can get to the next step of action in the face of such anarchy.

I'm not sure where we go from here.  Until things quiet down and we can get to constructive dialog there are two things I'm holding onto.  The first I heard today and the second is timeless.  I heard this quote in the class today.  "Not all are guilty, but all are responsible."  I and so many others aren't guilty of past sins, but we are responsible to fix what we can and do better in the future.  Many, many people want to do that, if we can get to a dialog.  I understand that many don't and we'll just have to live with that and hold people accountable.

The second is a speech I refer to periodically and it actually gives me hope.  It's Lincoln's second inaugural speech and is copied below.  Lincoln is by almost any measure our greatest President.  That is because of two things.  He held the Union together and he freed the slaves, although as I'm learning there are an awful of of flaws in the 13th Amendment that have resulted in terrible unintended consequences.  This speech lays out where we need to go.  He died before he could get a good start.  Maybe it's time we finished the job.

"Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends is as well known to the public as to myself and it is I trust reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ~ all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war ~ seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Monuments and Statues

One of the big things in the news lately is the odd phenomenon of protestors and anarchists desecrating, defacing, and destroying monuments and statues around the country.  I say odd because it's really sort of a new tactic.  I guess maybe we've seen some of this in the past, but it seems to be something that those who feel the need to protest and destroy seem to think is effective.  It's not.

In the scheme of things, a protest is an effort to bring people around to your way of thinking.  In a country as big and diverse as ours, change only comes by changing the way some majority of the people think.  Especially in America change can't be forced.  It can't be forced by the government.  It can't be forced by the mob.  It can't be forced by slogans.  It can only occur when there is some agreement and belief by a significant body of people that change is appropriate.  But in my view the protestors are blowing it.

First we saw the phrase "defund the police".  As I said on other posts this is a huge blunder and maybe the worst marketing/branding mistake I've ever seen.  As soon as that phrase pops up, the vast majority of people turn away.  And even if some of the more rational voices in protest try to explain, try to bring up reasonable reform, try to distance themselves from it...it's too late.  Their only solution is to totally divorce themselves from that ridiculous and emotionally charged phrase.

Now we see the legitimate protestors being jumbled up with the anarchists.  Antifa has smartly taken up the cry from BLM and has distorted that message to be perverted to their own.  The reason for that is that Antifa methods and actions are so outrageous, so offensive, so damaging that they see cover in the BLM movement.  Because here's the deal. After the George Floyd murder and resulting protests, the BLM movement had a lot of potential allies.  A large number of people in the country have recognized the oppression and inequality that our fellow black citizens have faced.  They are sympathetic and they want to "do something".  I've seen more of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances than I can believe voice that very thing.  I've seen people reaching out and wanting to understand, take action and seek change.  Many, many people want to get involved and take some action (which may be undefined today) to positively effect change.  But when things are uncertain, the tendency is to be reluctant in the face of that uncertainty.  Whether they know it or not, the good people who are sincerely protesting racial inequality have been lumped with the anarchists and that will do them damage.  If people sitting at home watching who are sympathetic and want to see change can't tell the people protesting for racial justice from the anarchists, the anarchists are winning.

  

Over the last several days we've seen a part of Seattle deteriorate into a chaotic, fascist state.  We've seen statues and monuments of Christopher Columbus desecrated and destroyed.  I wrote a post about Columbus last year that still applies and you can read it here.  We've seen statues and monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson pulled down.  Probably most oddly we saw the statue of Ulysses S. Grant, a key opponent of slavery and a President who did a lot of advance the lives of slaves after emancipation, destroyed.  That makes no sense at all, except it fits with the narrative of destroy everything connected with the country.  This weekend we have seen that statues of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner and Father Junipero Serra, a Jesuit missionary in early California days were toppled.  And of course we've seen a lot of statues of heroes of the Confederacy desecrated and destroyed.  The Confederate statues and monuments have been controversial for quite a while and we've seen a growing movement to take action to move them out of the public view.  Personally, I'd be in favor in moving them to a place, community by community, that is more appropriate than a public park or venue for all to see.  These things are historical and deserve to be preserved to tell the stories.  But I'm sympathetic to our black citizens who might have to walk by them every day and relive that horrible history.  The city of New Orleans has done a good job with this as they've moved a lot of Confederate statues to more appropriate places.  They didn't destroy them, they moved them.  Big difference.  But I get that there are many who strongly disagree.  So be it.  In time the situation will be resolved.  But most don't believe the resolution comes when violent mobs pull down a statue.

All of this is in addition to the ongoing protests and riots that aren't getting huge coverage in the media, but they are there.  The media is way more focused on how big Trump's rallies are and what is his latest outrageous screwup to indicate what a genuine asshole, traitor and criminal he is...according to them.  But I digress.  The point is that when good people are protesting and urging legitimate change in an area that cries for change and they get lumped with anarchists who want nothing more than to destroy, their cause will become diluted and lose inertia real fast.  Because while many average folks, both white and black, will buy in to helping with legitimate and rationalized change, they will not stand for the destruction of their society and way of life.  They may be patient.  They may not want to get involved when the destruction is far away and lightly covered in the media.  They may even be willing to suffer insults while trying to understand how to help.  But protests and change are one thing, destruction and devastation are another.  

The anarchists (Antifa) deserve to be punished and destroyed.  There is no place in our society for them.  A lot of people look to the Trump and the federal government to "do something".  But this is really a state and local government issue.  And if the state and local government won't do anything, then it will continue.  I hope (and believe) that at some point enough people will be fed up that they will vote in officials who will take decisive action against these assholes.  And by decisive, I mean strong, harsh action that will squash them.  And the BLM protestors, the sincere ones, deserve to have their voices heard and to be allowed to build a movement that will stimulate change for the better.  But as long as they align themselves with things like "defund the police" and the anarchist movement they will be stymied.  Their voices will be drowned out.  And that's too bad.  Because it's a message we all need to hear.