In the Market

We have a little investment account, setup with the Schwab Company. It’s been there for years though there’s not a ton of money in it. But it serves as an ultimate backstop if we would need finance. I’ve learned not to dwell on it. The stocks go up, the stocks go down; if you leave it alone in the end they trend to the good.

But with all of the tough economic news in the past few months, I’ve worried about where our investment has gone. Did the COVID crisis economy impact on our little nest egg? But, at least as of today, the answer is no: our shares are valued within a few hundred dollars of what they were in February, before COVID, and the crash.

Personally that’s nice to know, especially for two retired folks who also have pensions vested partly in the market.  But it raises a whole different issue:  what planet is Wall Street on?

By the Numbers

We are in the midst of a global pandemic.  Unemployment shot from three percent to fifteen percent, and now has eased back towards ten percent (BLI).  That means that one in ten people who need a job can’t get one.  But in mid-July, 51 million Americans were drawing unemployment (Forbes).  That’s a confusing number.  Last year the Pew Research Institute estimated 157 million Americans were employed, so if fifty-one million are drawing unemployment, that means that now almost a third don’t have jobs.  

No matter how you manipulate the numbers, either a whole lot more people are unemployed than the ten percent listed, or there’s a lot of the 51 million drawing unemployment who aren’t counted. (That’s true, by the way, because they aren’t looking for work. And before someone starts the nonsense elitist conspiracy theory about the lazy American worker, remember most of those on unemployment are waiting to get back on with their regular jobs, closed by the pandemic).

51 million is almost a third of the workforce.  So keep that in mind.  And among industrialized nations, the United States is demonstrably one of the worst in the world in handling the COVID pandemic.  We are on a scale with Russia, and Brazil, and maybe India and Bangladesh (Guardian).  We, the United States, have screwed this up. Many thousands have died as a result.  Even with all of our political blinders on, it’s difficult to argue that.

The Wall Street “Force”

But to paraphrase Star Wars’ Yoda, “…the blinders are strong on Wall Street”!  It’s a narrow tunnel of vision that lets them accept one of the highest death rates in the world, in order to keep on making money.  But if you can think about it in their way, it makes sense.  As long as Americans are working, and much of the workforce either doesn’t get sick or recovers, than the engine of the American economy keeps running.  And while the markets for products are subdued from COVID, many are still going strong.   It’s mostly the old and those with pre-conditions that are dying, and most of them weren’t in the workforce to start with.  If that sounds incredibly cold blooded – it is.

While Mom and Pop running the corner store are losing, Amazon and Apple and Microsoft are cleaning up.  Even if you can’t or won’t go to the local store, Amazon is lining up packages at your door.  And even if you don’t want to leave your property, there’s even more time to build that fence, or deck, or addition.  That’s why there almost no construction lumber left around (check you nearby lumberyard).   We’re all digging postholes, pouring Quikrete, and building fences.  If only we could find the pickets, we could all finish “good fences” and become “good neighbors”.

Folks aren’t invested in Mom and Pop Incorporated on Wall Street. But they sure are in Amazon, Apple, UPS, and all of the other industries legitimately profiting from the COVID crisis.  And that’s not even including investing in companies building ventilators, or developing pharmaceuticals.

Enter the Fed

And to add to all of that, the Federal Reserve is making sure there’s lots of “free money” around for investment.  The current Federal Reserve lending rate is ¼ of one percent annually (Bankrates). In non-mathematics, that means it costs 25¢ a year for each $100 you borrow.  Essentially then, if you can get the best Federal Reserve rate, they’ll loan you money for virtually nothing.  Even more realistically, right now the current thirty-year mortgage rate, something most homeowners understand, is 3% (Bankrate).

So there’s lots of money out there, and folks are using it to buy into the stock market.  More buyers mean that the share prices go up, and that keeps Wall Street “looking good”.  It also provides political fodder for the Trump 2020 campaign that proclaims the “health” of the economy based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  It’s now just a little over a thousand points below the record highs of the beginning of the year (Marketwatch).

Strategic Flaws

But there are two “flaws” to worry about if you’re the Trump 2020 campaign.  First is all of those 51 million drawing unemployment.  Most of them know why they aren’t working, and COVID is the answer.  If they draw the straight line from the COVID disaster to Trump, it’ll mean a disaster for Trump at the polls.  

And there’s a second, more existential moral question.  If the United States economy is rolling by ignoring the human toll of COVID, then what kind of nation are we?  I can’t say that Trump or his campaign is concerned about that, but I can hope that there are Trump supporters that are.  Certainly if they are mourning the loss of a loved one, those market numbers don’t create much joy.

It’s all in where you are economically. If you are doing well with money in the market, you’re doing even better. If you are unemployed, especially because of the pandemic, things are looking pretty grim. And if you are at risk from the pandemic with little being done to protect you from infection, well, Good Luck. You’re not the priority.

This is the eighth in the “Out My Window” series about life in the COVID-19 pandemic world.

Twilight Zone

Sometimes it feels like we’ve fallen into some old episode of The Twilight Zone. I go out and see folks going about their normal routines.  It’s like “The Before Times”; before we ever heard of the Corona-Virus.  They’re shopping at Lowes and at Kroger (they never stopped), and they are now even going into restaurants and bars.  For many, at least here in the Columbus suburbs, it’s “back to life”.  Maybe that’s why Franklin County (Columbus metro) is leading the state in confirmed COVID cases, almost 19000 to Cuyahoga’s (Cleveland) near 14000 (NYT). 

It just seems odd.  At least facemasks cover the workers and most of the shoppers.  And even in the restaurants, as I pass through to get to the patio, the people seated at the tables seem subdued, unsure of what they can or should do.  We went to a patio breakfast this morning.  An older couple sat at the next table, safely distanced from us.  They had their masks on, but there was the furtive, almost threatened look in the older man’s eyes that struck me as he glanced our way.  

It’s like a blanket been thrown on the world.  Many look at others as the “enemy”, or better put, the “infected”.  And their infection could be your own.  A cough, a sneeze, a random touch or even just proximity, and you too can be part of the growing millions of Americans diagnosed with COVID-19.

Inshallah

In some ways that’s a club I’d like to join and get it over with.  That way, the damage is done, and life in the “real world” can be less tenuous and threatening.  But, of course, that all depends on surviving the experience.  I’ve had long discussion with my friends, socially distanced of course.  Some of them take a laissez faire attitude.  In Arabic the word is “Inshallah”.  It means, “If Allah wills it,” as if to say that you have no control over what happens.  My younger friends tend towards that view.  Statistically they can afford to.

But I am a sixty-three year old with multiple “pre-existing conditions”.  Sure I’ve put hundreds of miles on my elliptical machine (especially since March), and added hundreds of pushups, sit-ups and other “ups” afterwards.  But it doesn’t improve the odds I have if I actually manage to contract the virus.  Those odds are still in my favor, but betting my life against a fifteen percent chance of dying ain’t a good bet, at least not for me.  And worse, the folks in my “circle” are at higher risk than I.  So while I can admire “Inshallah”, I don’t have the luxury of allowing only Allah to control my destiny.

I keep thinking of the stories in the hospitals, of those last few moments when you are running out of air, before the anesthesia and the ventilator.  Call you family, tell them you love them:  it may be the last chance you have.  I’m not looking to die, but concern about death hasn’t been threatening and omnipresent like this before. I’m not an “Inshallah” guy, I choose my risks and accept the responsibilities.  And I can’t see choosing this one for me, or my family.

History Rhymes

I went to a family gathering.  We are a Jewish, Irish, German agglomeration, so hugging is in our genetic disposition.  But we remained socially distant, wary of closing the gaps, of crossing the defined familial circles of contact.  It was nothing if not weird.  Who thought we, the United States, one of the most modern nations in the world, would ever be like this?

I read about the Flu Pandemic of 1918 (really, not 1917, and definitely not World War II, Mr. President).  While medicine struggled to treat the disease, they had a pretty clear idea how to prevent it.  Masks, hand washing, and social distancing:  102 years ago it was the same equation we are trying to follow today. 

While we are distant from that time, their struggles are echoed in our own tumultuous response to COVID-19.  There were “anti-maskers” back then.  And, amusingly I guess, there were compromisers then too.  There were the “gentlemen” who wore masks because they were required to, but punched a hole for their cigar or cigarette in the center of the mask.  Somehow, it didn’t prevent infection as well.  Who’d figure that?

It’s just like the guy at Kroger with the mask somehow framing his beard, but leaving his nose and mouth uncovered.  I guess we won’t be getting bed bugs or fleas from him.

Our Own Work 

So many life-altering decisions are occurring, many in contradiction.  The Big 10 won’t play fall sports.  Here in Columbus though, most people somehow have faith that “THE BUCKEYES” will take the field anyway.  They can’t imagine that life has really changed that much:  no football Saturdays, no tailgates, no family gathered around the TV singing Carmen Ohio.  All of them are “spreader” events for the virus.   Just like sending kids to school.

But the kids are still practicing at the local high school.  Whatever health officials say, the politicians aren’t willing to stand between a high school senior’s Mom and her child’s game, at least, not yet.

Inshallah is not the answer.  We’ve known what that answer is all along:  close life down, control the spread, open carefully, and wait until a vaccine can provide immunity.  But instead, we’ve gone into a political Twilight Zone, where common sense is overrun by campaign rhetoric. Allah may or may not be willing, but America will have to come to terms with the virus, or pay the price with the sacrifice of thousands more lives.  

There is another old phrase: “God protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America”.  We’ve depended on that protection in this crisis, and it hasn’t worked.  As President Kennedy said: “Here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own”.

The Announcement

Joe Biden announced his running mate yesterday – California’s Senator Kamala Harris.  The choice represents a first:  the first Black (and Indian-American) woman to be on the national ticket.  There have been two other women chosen as Vice Presidential candidates, Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Sarah Palin in 2008.  And, of course, Hillary Clinton led the Democratic ticket in 2016.

Senator Harris was the right pick from the start, back when Biden secured the Democratic nomination in March.  She fulfills the number one qualification for any Vice Presidential candidate – she is prepared to serve as President of the United States. Harris has three times won statewide election in California, the largest state in the Union.  Twice she was elected to the state Attorney General, administrating the largest Justice Department outside of the Federal government. And in 2017, she was elected to the United States Senate.

And since the death of Floyd George, and the ascent of the Black Lives Matter movement, the selection of a Black woman as Vice Presidential candidate is a statement by Biden and the Party.  Not only does Biden acknowledge the importance of Black women to the base of the Party, but he also recognizes the unique reality of our times.  He could have turned back, to a more typical candidate, a white man who would “fit in” with the other forty-eight pictures on the wall. 

Making A Statement

But Biden recognized the opportunity of making history, and making a statement to the American people.  He originally did that by pledging that his Vice President would be a woman.  Some say he cut the candidate pool in half, but in reality, he doubled his choices.  Consideration of women opened whole new opportunities.  

And he had great options.  But none of the candidates had the qualifications of Harris.  Not only was Harris tested in the hot spotlight of a national campaign, but she was also one of the few candidates to actually challenge Biden directly.  Because of that, Joe Biden was able to make another statement with his choice.  He wants people around him who are going to question, to challenge, and even be willing to oppose him.   This contrasts to the current President who only wants “yes” men and women around.

Biden has a unique perspective of the Vice Presidential role, having served eight years in the job.  The most important qualification for Biden was the ability of the Vice President to work with the President in governing the nation.  And in Harris, Biden chose a person he can depend upon to work with him.

Some say that Harris’s Presidential campaign failed, and that failure should disqualify her from the ticket.  But Joe Biden has a different view of that:  his 2008 Presidential campaign failed as well, but his selection by Barack Obama led to eight years in the White House.

Politics

So what are the political implications?

Harris is only slightly more progressive than Biden.  She was more aligned with him than with the Sanders/Warren wing of the Democratic Party.  So the ticket is moderate/progressive, even though the Trump Campaign will try to brand them as “socialists” or “communists”.   

The political danger of Harris is that the Sanders wing will decide not to support the ticket, as some did in 2016.  But Sanders himself has strongly supported Biden, much more so than he did Clinton.  And the Biden campaign has adopted some of Sanders issue positions, particularly when it comes to the environment.  So, while there will always be some dissatisfied with “moderation”, most will come along with the ticket.

And Kamala Harris is uniquely tied into the core base of the Democratic Party, Black women.  Harris is a graduate of Howard University, and a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, an important and historic link to Black women leadership.  Harris represents a new generation of Democratic leaders along with several of the other primary candidates for President.  Her obvious energy and enthusiasm will help energize the Party.  Both are critical for Democrats, the majority political party in the United States. It only needs to get its voters to the polls to win. 

The Campaign

Trump 2020 was already prepared with attack ads against the Biden/Harris ticket; some were running on social media last night. The current Trump narrative is that Biden/Harris is a “socialist” ticket, as if Trump was running against Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  But he’s not, and the American people recognize the difference.

Depend on things to get ugly, with personal attacks on both Biden and Harris.  The whispers will be that Biden is somehow “diminished” and that Harris is, well “a woman”.   But both Biden and Harris have shown they can take hits and come back strong.  And Americans are not going to fall for the old tropes that might have worked twenty, or even four years ago.

Biden made the right choice.  Harris has “the right stuff”. 

“Good Old Days”

I listen to folks talk about “the good old days”. That was when you could look at both political parties candidates for President and think that either one would take care of the nation.  Those days weren’t so long ago.  I didn’t agree with Mitt Romney, and would have been crushed if he won in 2012.  But it wouldn’t have created an existential political crisis.  And I felt the same way about John McCain, and even Bob Dole and George HW Bush. (If you see a space where George W Bush is, you’re right).

But even then, and far before, we have had politics of intentional divisiveness.  “Divide and conquer” has been an American political tactic for at least two hundred years.  What the modern era of high tech has done, is made “dividing” so much more effective, and dramatic.

Wille Horton

In 1988, the Bush campaign used the infamous “Willie Horton” ad to drive a wedge in voters.  Bush’s opponent, Governor Mike Dukakis of Massachusetts, was in office during a weekend furlough program for eligible convicts.  The program had great goals:  prepare felons for release and give them a reason to behave in jail.  And while generally the program achieved those goals, one prisoner on release committed an especially heinous armed robbery and rape. 

The Bush campaign pounded the “dog whistle” racist message of a black man raping and torturing, making it somehow Dukakis’ fault.  “By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder of Willie Horton is Dukakis’ running mate,” said Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater.  It worked.

Gay Marriage

In 2004, George W Bush was running for re-election against Democrat John Kerry.  Bush was running behind in the early polling, and needed to secure electoral votes in states like Ohio.  The problem for Bush was that after the contested election of 2000, it was likely that Democratic turnout in Ohio would be high.  Bush had to find a way to energize the Republican vote in the state to offset that turnout.  

The Republican Secretary of State of Ohio, Ken Blackwell, placed a state issue against gay marriage on the ballot.  It wasn’t really an issue for Ohio, but Blackwell determined to make it one.  It forced Ohio Republicans to face the possibility of allowing gay marriage. Their reaction pushed them to come out and vote against it.  And they did, voting for the marriage issue and George Bush.  It secured both Ohio and the Presidency for Bush’s second term.  

It was the “wedge” that polarized and energized voters to participate in the election.

Dog Whistle

You wouldn’t think that “wedges” would be necessary in the election of 2020.  Our nation is so polarized, that every issue seems to drive us apart.  Even the common sense reactions to world pandemic; wearing masks and social distancing, somehow have managed to force folks to “take a side”.   

But the ability to “wedge” and divide voters has come so far since the early days of television commercials and “dog whistle” speeches.  Now splitting American voters can be done with precision, as social media targets picked issues to reach the interests of a particular voter.  

It’s a carefully orchestrated attack, using social media to lay the groundwork, and then the campaign to “close the deal”.   Racism being used again. The Trump campaign is literally threatening suburban white women with “Black Lives Matter and Antifa” coming to burn their homes.  But that kind of “dog whistle” (or air horn) racist attack seems to be falling flat in that key demographic for the Republicans in 2020.

Child Trafficking

So there is another angle of attack:  disappearing children.

There is no “acceptable” number of children disappearing in America.  In social media today, you see numbers like “2000 children go missing in the United States every day”.  That’s actually a valid statistic.  But there’s a missing factor.  The vast majority of those missing children are found.  In fact in 2018 in Ohio, 19879 children were reported as missing.  But what is not reported as loudly, is that 19510 were ultimately found safe, 98% (Sandusky Register). 

Of those 19879 missing children, over 12000 were classified as runaways.  This is not to devalue the 369 children whose cases were not closed.  But in Ohio 2018, only six of the closed cases were “stranger abduction” cases.

But social media has conflated the highly visible Epstein case, with the huge missing child number (even though 98% are returned).   Then add that to the Trump “whisper” campaign that accuses Biden of an “improper” interest in children, and we have another “wedge”.  

It’s odd that the attack is made on this issue, considering of the two major Presidential candidates, Donald Trump is the only one with a direct connection to Epstein.  I’m not accusing the President of sexual impropriety with minors, but there’s so much more evidence for that possibility rather than of Biden doing anything wrong.

Voters Not Voting

But that’s the nature of wedge issues. And the demographic groups of white suburban women and younger “social media” voters are the ones in the crosshairs of this wedge.  The Trump tacticians hope that even if this doesn’t convince them to vote for Trump, perhaps it will prevent them from voting for Biden.

It fits in with the overall Internet “conspiracy” theme of many Millennials.  If everyone is guilty of everything, than why bother to vote at all.  And that idea benefits Trump.  Think about that the next time you’re checking out your chosen social media platform.

Golfing Tradition

There is a tradition in golfing, the Nineteenth Hole.  Sure a regulation golf course has eighteen. But it’s at the last stop, the Nineteenth Hole, that the “obligations” of the day’s competition are resolved.  If money was on the line, then it is exchanged at the Nineteenth Hole.  If drinks were bet on certain putts, then those debts are cleared at the Nineteenth Hole.  And if eighteen holes of golf weren’t enough time to conclude conversation or business, then the Nineteenth Hole is the place to be.

The stakes are even higher at a golf club where the membership fee is $300000, more than three times the median mortgage debt in the United States.  If you can sit in the Nineteenth Hole there, you can afford the bar bill, whatever it may be.

But for your $300000, you ought to get something more than a nice golf course, a good bar at the end, and the formal dinner club inside. If you’re paying six times more than the national median annual salary, you better be getting something great.  And at the Trump National Golf Club at Bedminster, New Jersey, you get a unique live show at the Nineteenth Hole.

Kings and Courts

It harkens back to the “days of old”, when kings held forth in front of the royal court in ancient palaces.  This King, stands in front of the “court” flanked with all of the trappings of his office.  There are the carefully tucked flags, the medieval seal on the podium, and the television monitors to display whatever information the King might wish to show.  Trumpets play his official anthem heralding his entrance; “Ruffles and Flourishes” followed by “Hail to the Chief”.  

And all of this in front of the Nineteenth Hole crowd at Bedminster.  After eighteen holes and a couple of blasts at the bar, the country club set get the best live entertainment money can buy.  The President of the United States, dressed for performance in his customary white shirt, blue suit, and overly long red tie, is putting on a show for the members, right around 5:30 in the afternoon, when the golfing’s done and the drinking has begun.

And it’s not just a visual spectacle; this show includes a participation phase.  The King stands before the assembled “court”. A small contingent of the hated “media” is placed carefully between the him and the golf crowd.  The “media” dare to question the King, maybe asking if he’s considered the fact he’s violating the Constitution by trying to legislate from the Bedminster Court.  Then the Nineteenth Hole crowd knows what to do.  They jeer and boo the ignominious reporters, and cheer every petty insult the King throws at them.  

Prosperity Theology

It’s like those Medieval Dinner Theatres, where you get dinner and a show with the “royal family”.  Food, jousting and sword battles with knights fighting for your honor are all a part of the price of admission.  But this is so much better, because it’s REAL.  This King really is trying to rule His “kingdom”. And he’s doing it for the benefit of those who can afford to drink at the Nineteenth Hole at the Trump National Golf Club at Bedminster.  What great early evening entertainment.  Afterwards, a shower in the executive locker room, and slacks, sports coats and ties to conform to the dress code for dining in the clubroom.

Donald Trump has spent his life trying to prove that he belongs in the “Bedminster Golf Club” class.  He believes in a secular version of the “prosperity theology”, the warped evangelical belief that God shows his favor by granting wealth and privilege.  It is the driving force behind televangelists like Oral Roberts, Joel Osteen and Jimmy Swaggart. They MUST have the houses, and the planes, and the limousines. It’s proof of God’s blessing for their mission.  

Prerogatives of Wealth

Donald Trump is selling a different version of “prosperity theology” to his voting base.   He’s doing it by performing for his “members” at Bedminster and showing his base how the “privileged” class deals with the hated media.  He’s also trying to use that privilege to prop up his failing Presidential campaign.  His message is:  we are the privileged, the blessed, those that can afford to be here.  Our wealth proves that we know how to take care of our nation’s problems.  Don’t dare question our authority or solutions, or we’ll jeer you off the premises.  The reporters don’t belong. If you want to, and you are blessed with wealth, you could.

The sad part is, the Trump really isn’t “one of them”.  He is the entertainment, almost the hired staff.  And even worse, he is using the Nineteenth Hole at Bedminster to desecrate our secular national scripture, the Constitution.  His self-proclaimed privilege is authoritarian, and is threatening the very foundations of equality in the United States.  

Now on TV

If you read  Trump World, it should come as no surprise that we watch a lot of MSNBC around here.  There’s a television in almost every room, and during the day wherever we are, it’s on.  During the pandemic it seems like our closest “peers” have been the hourly anchors.  We’ve gotten used to their foibles. Katy Tur cuts off questioners, Andrea Mitchell hints at inside knowledge she can’t reveal, Craig Melvin jovially asks the tough questions, and Joe Scarborough’s harangues are reminiscent of “I’m as mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” from the movie Network.

And I know folks will say that listening to MSNBC will “rot your brain” or “grow hair on your hands”.  They’ll argue that it is Fox News inverted. Folks claim we only hear one side of an argument, just more confirmation bias for views we already have.  And there is some truth to that, except for the hair part.  But in the background there is NBC News.  They bring the latest breaking news and send their best to find out what’s going on.  For proof of that, check out Jacob Soboroff’s work on child separation on the border, or Julia Ainsley’s insights into national intelligence.

And we balance it with a large dose of print journalism.  Sure we read the New York Times and the Washington Post, but there’s also the Wall Street Journal and the daily Associated Press feed.  And there’s local television news too, delivered with a joke, a smile, and a right-wing bias from Fox and the ubiquitous Sinclair Broadcasting Corporation.  If that doesn’t tilt the scales to balance, nothing will.

News was News

I grew up with NBC’s Huntley/Brinkley News.  It wasn’t even a question in our house. Dad ran a television station that was an NBC affiliate.  Chet Huntley or David Brinkley told us the story of our times, from the Kennedy assassinations, to Vietnam, to the moon landing.  They were our bridge to the bigger world.

And that era led us to believe that the news we received was straight, an unbiased report of what was going on.  When CBS legend Walter Cronkite came out against the Vietnam War, it was so powerful because it was so unusual:  the anchor took a political stand.  

But we also knew television “personalities” that put their own views on the air.  Dad started the Phil Donahue Show at WLW-D in Dayton. Phil’s first show featured renowned atheist Madelyn Murray O’Hare, one of the named complainants in the Supreme Court case against prayer in school.  Phil was an unabashed liberal, and his show examined topics that weren’t part of the “polite” conversation of the time.  Dad wasn’t anywhere near Phil politically, a “Rockefeller Republican” himself, but knew good business when he saw it.  The Donahue Show grew to two hundred and twenty-five markets across the country.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that when NBC decided to try to establish a cable channel to compete against Fox, they went for a “progressive” bias.  And Donahue, retired from his own show after twenty-six years, was one of the early MSNBC hosts.  He only lasted six months:  even MSNBC wouldn’t permit a host who was against the Iraq War.

Astride the Middle

There are the “crossover” hosts, the NBC News figures who came over to MSNBC.  While it might seem “natural” for Chuck Todd, the host of Meet the Press to have a daily show on MSNBC, it’s not an easy fit.  Todd is from the tradition of Meet the Press, the longest running television show in history at seventy-three years. 

 MTP has always been about tough questions by tough reporters, but without the more open “bias” that other MSNBC hosts show.  Chuck Todd stands in place of the legendary Tim Russert. Russert dominated political reporting in the early 2000’s from the NBC Washington news bureau, dying of a heart attack at his desk.  Tim was biased for only two things, the Buffalo Bills football team, and his father.  Todd has taken a similar approach, though his loyalty is to the Miami Florida teams and the Washington Nationals.

Todd is not popular with the “progressive” set.  They say he “softballs” the Republicans, and hits hard against the Democrats.  I disagree.  My evaluation is that he asks the “tough” questions of each side, allows everyone to have their say, and follows-up with insightful responses.  What he does do, is let folks from either side of the political spectrum tell their story.  That’s what the “progressive” side has a problem with.  They don’t want to hear it.

Room at the Center

Todd’s weekday show, Meet the Press Daily, has been moved from a prime slot at 5:00 pm, to one in the early afternoon.  MSNBC says it’s about MTP Daily’s falling ratings. They gave former Bush operative Nicolle Wallace two hours from 4 to 6 leading into the evening lineup.  And I’m sure that’s true.  I love Nicolle, and her brand of never-Trumpism.  But there’s no veil of objectivity there, she has made it clear that she is a “Lincoln Project” former Republican at the very least.

Todd remains the host of Sunday’s Meet the Press, going across the entire NBC network. But there’s a more important political phenomena going on, and it’s not just on MSNBC.  Chuck Todd represents the center, a newsman trying to allow both sides to have a say.  But the market for that kind of news, particularly on MSNBC,  is shrinking (or on Fox, ask Shepard Smith or embattled Chris Wallace).  

And that’s because the “middle” of the political spectrum is shrinking nationwide.  As our country gets closer to the seminal election of 2020, the battle lines are drawn.  Polarization;  forcing everyone to choose, is quickly squeezing folks out of the middle.  We see it at MSNBC with Chuck Todd, but we also see it in our daily lives.  The friends we have that were “soft” on President Trump, perhaps supporting him but willing to see his flaws, are now hardened.  They no longer question his actions:  Trump 2020 is now all about loyalty.

Choose

Elections are “binary choices” (excepting Jo Jorgenson and Kanye West).  Of course once folks make their choice, they become aggressive in defending it.  

But our current polarized world seems so much more than that.  Whether it’s the news channel you watch, wearing a mask at the store, or conversations you can have at dinner, everyone’s side has hardened.  Many of our friends disagree with us politically. But while we used to be able to discuss it, now, the best we can do is stay silent.  

Today’s world doesn’t favor those in the middle. Ask Chuck Todd.

Kitchen Techniques

There is a traditional way to check whether a pot of boiling spaghetti is done.  Take some of the noodles, and throw them up against the wall.  If it sticks, it’s done.  Of course, if it’s overdone and sticky, it still sticks to the wall.  So if you are into food tossing, start throwing the noodles early.  You don’t want sticky noodles!

There is an old political tactic that works much the same way.  Take everything bad you can possibly find out about you opponent and throw it up “against the wall”.  It really doesn’t matter whether it’s important or not, or even if it’s true.  If it sounds bad, if it could be construed as sounding bad, if a video image can be stopped at the one point where the opponent looks goofy, or stupid, or pornographic; then get it up on the wall.  See what sticks, what resonates with the voters, and then beat that idea to death in advertising, speeches, innuendos and “whisper” campaigns.

Matter of Truth

The George Bush campaign did that to John McCain in the South Carolina Presidential primary of 2000.  McCain and his wife adopted a baby from Bangladesh in 1991.  The “whisper campaign” in the 2000 primary run-up was that she was McCain’s illegitimate “dark-skinned” daughter.  The truth of the matter wasn’t important, if McCain could be forced to deny the rumor, it made it even stronger.  “The spaghetti” stuck to the wall.  Bush secured South Carolina and the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination.

We saw a more recent example with early attacks on Amy Klobuchar in the 2020 Presidential campaigns.  Rumors were floated about how angry she got, and how she mistreated her staff.  Whether the rumors were true or not wasn’t really the point.  Klobuchar was portrayed as losing control of her temper.  While in John McCain that kind of anger was seen as “endearing”, a “gruff old veteran”; the double standard of American politics struggled with accepting a woman with anger issues.  

Getting an Edge

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the 2020 Trump campaign is throwing stuff up against the wall as fast as they possibly can.  Yesterday was a great example.  First, Joe Biden made the comment that the Latino community is “…diverse, unlike the African American community”.  On the face of it, the statement seems pretty reasonable.  The Latino community in the United States comes from the Caribbean, Cuba, Mexico, Central America, and South America.  Each has different traditions and beliefs, making it difficult to say there is a “Latino” point of view.

The Black community in the United States is mainly African American, descendants of slaves.  While there are many differing points of view in that community, there isn’t the diversity of culture and country of origin.  But the Trump Campaign, including the President himself, was quick to jump on the phrase.  Trump claimed that Biden, “…totally disparaged and insulted the Black community.  What he said was incredible, and I don’t know what’s going on with him, but it was a very insulting statement to make”.

Not only did Trump try to push a faux insult of the Black community, but it also was an attempt to further their whisper campaign that somehow Biden has dementia.  In the past few weeks, Trump even went so far as bragging about passing a dementia “test”, and tried to push Biden into responding.  It’s not a matter of what’s truth; it’s a matter of trying to see what might stick with the American voter.

Whose Side is God On?

But the President wasn’t done yesterday.  When he arrived in Cleveland, on a government paid campaign trip, he claimed that Biden was against God. Trump said Biden would: “Take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything.  Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy.”

Biden responded later, and got the chance to emphasize three of his themes that are “sticking”.  He was able to emphasize his own personal compassion, something President Trump fails to display.  He also got to emphasize the Administration’s failure to control the COVID epidemic.  And, he showed himself as being “more Presidential”.

“Like so many people, my faith has been the bedrock foundation of my life: it’s provided me comfort in moments of loss and tragedy, it’s kept me grounded and humbled in times of triumph and joy. And in this moment of darkness for our country — of pain, of division, and of sickness for so many Americans — my faith has been a guiding light for me and a constant reminder of the fundamental dignity and humanity that God has bestowed upon all of us.  For President Trump to attack my faith is shameful. It’s beneath the office he holds and it’s beneath the dignity the American people so rightly expect and deserve from their leaders.” 

And by the way, Biden wasn’t talking about “diversity” anymore.  The President managed to “step” on his own campaign message.

Whispers

The whisper campaigns are out there.  There are pictures of Biden with his hands on the shoulders of little girls.  He could be just “grandfatherly” but the narrative is that he is some kind of pervert.  And there is the Epstein list.  Biden isn’t on it, but is Trump?

There comes a time where there’s so much spaghetti sticking to the wall, you can’t tell what’s done or what’s not.  And worse, some of it is just old stuck spaghetti.  All it really does is push voters to that “I don’t want either one” position.  And that too, might be an advantage to one candidate or the other.  

I just taste a strand of my spaghetti.  It saves cleaning the wall.

Dog Days

It’s August.  In Pataskala, Ohio it’s the time for heat, humidity, thunderstorms and dust:  the dog days of summer.  Speaking of dogs, ours want to stay in the air conditioning, except for KeeLie, the new addition.  She has to go out and patrol the backyard, bark at the unseen neighbor on the other side of the fence, and peer through the gate at the dog next door.  

For thirty-six years August was a time of excitement for me.  After a summer of relaxation and coaching, August meant it was time to go back to work.  August meant going back to school:  planning, and preparing, and writing on the now obsolete chalkboard, “this is as good as it gets”.  On the first day, kids thought that meant “Dahlman’s” government class, but what it really meant was that this was “as good” as my handwriting would get.  It would deteriorate as the school year went on.

Those first days of school were always exciting.  It’s not many careers that let you have a clean slate every year, a chance to fix the mistakes of the previous year, and have the challenge of being better than you were before.  

Southwest Licking

I had the privilege of teaching in the same school system throughout my entire career.  It was a district on the far edge of Columbus, Ohio’s growth.  What started out in 1978 as a rural school, with “tractor day” in the parking lot and blue corduroy Future Farmers of America jackets in the hallway, changed over the years.  Now it’s a suburban district, where the few farmers left are hassled for driving slow combines on the roads, or fertilizing their fields.  

As a growing district in Ohio, the Southwest Licking Local School District was often strapped for money.  There were several years when we started school in August under a financial cloud.  Tax levies failed, cuts were threatened, and young teachers were unsure whether they would have a job come April.  The school district used the only leverage the really had by threatening to cut sports and bussing:  an empty stadium on football Friday night hung in the air.

Hope Springs

Kids are eternally optimistic.  And for thirty-six years they were absolutely right.  Even when sports were actually cut, back in 1980, the coaches ended up volunteering to do the jobs they should have been paid for.  The crisp, new dollar bill we “earned” that year is still framed on a bookshelf.  And in 2003 when the Administration decided to keep spring sports but only allow one coach for each, sending me out to supervise sixty boys in track and field alone, my staff jumped in and we split the one paycheck four ways.  

The kids haven’t changed.  Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, football players have run sprints in the heat, and the Cross Country runners have covered hundreds of miles on the roads.  They believe that somehow, the virus will not stop them from their chance to compete.  And their coaches believe:  my friends have spent the summer preparing the woods for the thousands of runners, even though they cannot visualize how it would be possible for three hundred to line up for the gun and maintain social distance. 

It’s August.  Here in Ohio many of the “big” school districts have already made the call to avoid contagion.  They are going to start school “online” rather than in person.  But even though they are keeping kids out of the hallways, they still are out on the fields, getting ready for a season they may not have. 

Going to School

Teachers at Southwest Licking report to school on Wednesday.  They will prepare their classrooms, already overcrowded from school growth, to keep “social distance” between students. The national “norm” of six feet has already been shrunk to three.  There isn’t enough Plexiglas in the world, and there’s a reason that a new school is rising in the fields nearby.  The Governor has ordered all students, kindergarten through twelve wear masks.  After decades with teenagers, I’m skeptical.  The halls will still be packed, and the adolescent “declaration of independence” will be made with full oral nudity!

Who is at risk?  The disease that proves over and over that it will spread, regardless of politics or religion, is still growing here in Ohio.  The chart for Licking County, our county, looks like the final approaches to Mt. Everest (Ohio).  We know that kids aren’t immune, despite the President’s assertions, but we also know they are at lower risk of serious illness.  Their parents and grandparents are not so lucky.  And neither is the school staff.

Into the Soup

There are few job positions that require adults to drop themselves into such a viral soup.  Medical folks certainly are at greatest risk.  It’s why we made a national emergency over getting them protective gear.  And prison guards are in “the soup”.  They have suffered along with the inmates in the enclosed cells and tight spaces of confinement.  In Ohio, 940 prison staff have been diagnosed with COVID, and more than 5000 prisoners (Marshall Project).

So teachers are torn.  They want to teach.  Most got into education because they love the profession.  Money helps, but they want to do their job.  And teachers know full well, that in person education is qualitatively so much better than online education.  But teachers also know that there often isn’t even enough money for the basics, dry erase makers and copies on the Xerox machine.  PPE might be on the list today, but will soon be too much to afford.   And teachers and kids both are doomed to fail to socially distance.  Ultimately, that kid that needs a hug will overwhelm the “rules” of COVID.

It is an oddity of our COVID world:  the kid on the football field or in the woods running is at less risk of viral infection there, than in the classroom.  And so are their coaches.  

The energy this August isn’t about excitement, it’s trepidation.  I don’t envy my friends this year, those coaching and teaching, and those making the decision about whether they go to school in person or in front of a computer.  It’s not just about the big race, or the football game, or the hallways.  

It’s a life and death call.

“We the People, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…” – Preamble, US Constitution

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” – Martin Luther King

More Perfect

It is an intentional grammatical error in the Constitution, where Madison sets the goal for the new Republic the Founding Fathers were creating:  forming a more perfect Union.  Madison didn’t make a mistake, nor was it a criticism of what they wrought in creating the government.  It was common sense, that while they were creating something brand new in the world, that from the birth they needed to strive to perfect it even more.  Newborns are almost always perfect, yet parents continue to make them “more perfect” throughout childhood.  So should the citizens of these United States.

And one of the most important “perfections” was in the right to vote.  As the Fathers sweltered authoring the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1786, in most of the states only twenty-one or older, white, male, Christian, freeholders (land owners) were given the franchise, the right to vote.  That only consisted of twenty percent of the population.  Voting was exclusive at the beginning of our representative democracy.

Freeholders

The first restriction to fall was the “freeholder” rule, but it took some time.  By 1828, and the election of Democratic Populist Andrew Jackson, the vast majority of states allowed twenty-one year old white men the franchise.  But it took until 1856 for the last state to abolish the property clause, North Carolina.  Other groups, women and free black citizens, were pressing for the right to vote, but generally were denied the opportunity.

The next great leap in broadening the vote was the Fifteenth Amendment, passed after the Civil War.  It supposedly granted suffrage (the right to vote) to black men, including those freed from bondage by the war.  But soon after, the “compromise” that resolved the election dispute of 1876 ended the Reconstruction era, and Jim Crow Laws were put into effect, taking away those rights.  Poll taxes, grandfather clauses (you could only vote if your grandfather could) and bogus tests (how many jelly beans in the jar) all served to make sure that black men couldn’t vote.  And for those who tried to anyway, there was always the Ku Klux Klan’s terror and murder to emphasize the point.

It would take until 1965, almost a century later, for the Voting Rights Act to be enacted by Congress, enabling the words of the Fifteenth to become action.  One of the prime motivators of that Act, Congressman John Lewis, died last week.  It isn’t ancient history. 

It was in 1887 that Native Americans who chose to disassociate themselves from their tribes could become United States citizens.  Prior to that they were treated as foreign nationals, though the US had little regard for their national rights.  But after 1887 Native Americans could technically vote. Then states established some of the same restrictions that the Jim Crow Laws placed on Black men.

Suffrage

In 1920 the Congress and States agreed to the Nineteenth Amendment, granting suffrage to women.  While this included both Black and Native American women, many states still applied the unfair restrictions.  But 1920 did effectively double the number of eligible voters in the nation.

In 1924 all Native Americans, regardless of tribal status, were granted citizenship.  And in 1943, in the middle of World War II and the Nisei Internment camps, Chinese immigrants who attained citizenship were granted the right to vote as well.

1961 saw the passage of the Twenty-Third Amendment, granting the District of Columbia electoral votes in Presidential elections.  Prior to that, Washington DC residents had no say in the choice of President.  However, the District was only granted three votes, the minimum for any state, and symbolic representation in the Congress only.  There still are no Congressmen or Senators from Washington, DC.

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment banned the poll tax, taking away the strongest tool in the Jim Crow toolbox.   The 1965 Civil Rights Act put teeth in laws guaranteeing minority voting rights, and the Supreme Court ruled in Harper v Virginia Board of Electors that paying taxes could not be a qualification for voting. 

And finally, in 1971, the voting age was reduced from twenty-one to eighteen.  This was in response to the Vietnam War protests with the slogan, “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” resonating with the American people.

Reversion

In this century, the United States has taken a different direction.  While the laws remain on the books, the trend has been to make voting more difficult.  Dozens have states have instituted voter identification laws, aimed at solving a voter fraud problem that doesn’t exist.  In recent times, the number of actual voting frauds has been miniscule.  Here in Ohio there have been fifty-one convictions for voting violations out of the many, many millions of votes cast in the last two decades.  And there have been zero convictions for fraud at the polls (Heritage). But because one political side claims, “fraud is widespread”, many states require state identification cards to vote.

For suburban white America, Voter ID Laws don’t seem like an onerous requirement.  Doesn’t everyone have a Driver’s License? And if they don’t drive, they can surely get a State ID card.  But both the license and the ID card require fee payments, ranging from $8.50 (Ohio) to $29 (California).  And it also requires time, time to go the Division of Motor Vehicles, wait in line, and apply for the card.  And for those who live in the city and don’t own a car, it requires finding public transportation to the DMV or getting someone else to drive.

Lining Up

But if you really don’t want to let people vote make them wait in line for hours to cast their ballot.  And the easiest way to do that is restrict the number of polling places, especially in the urban areas. Ask the voters of Atlanta.  That way folks have to miss work, find childcare, and stand in the weather to vote.  Somehow, by the way, that doesn’t seem to happen in the suburbs.  Or in Kansas or Kentucky or Wisconsin, simply close all of the urban polling locations, and put one big one in a location accessible only to those with private transportation.  

Mail-In Voting

So the mythical voter “fraud” problem is used to keep folks who live in urban areas and are less likely to drive from being able to vote.  It is no mistake that those folks generally vote for one political party over the other.

That same mythical problem is now being used as a cudgel to try to prevent mail-in balloting.  That’s been used in the United States since the Civil War.  We call it absentee voting, here in Ohio. There have been a total of seven convictions in Ohio for absentee ballot fraud in the past twenty years (Heritage). It’s just not a thing.

Some will argue a “difference” between mail-in balloting and absentee voting.  President Trump just yesterday argued that mail-in balloting in Florida is safe, but in other states is not.  But in the state of Oregon, the entire election process is done by mail.  Voters register with the state, and as part of that process give a signature.  A few weeks before the election, those voters are mailed the ballot.  Those ballots are then filled out, signed and returned, either by mail, or dropped off an official drop box (Oregon).

Oregon has had a total of fifteen voting offenses in the past twenty years (Heritage).

Here in Ohio we don’t have “mail-in” balloting.  We have absentee balloting, requiring the registered voter to send a request for a ballot, then get the ballot, then return the ballot.  But in Ohio, even the act of sending every registered voter an application to return to get an absentee ballot is seen as “political”.  It’s as if somehow folks should “try harder” to get the ballot, but what it really smacks of is voter suppression.

Arc

The arc of American History moved for almost two hundred years towards greater inclusion and more voter participation.  But in the last twenty years the arc has flattened, and worse, now that COVID has given us all an education in graphing, bent in the wrong direction.  We are living in an era when some of the most powerful are interested in preventing voting, at least for those who have differing views.  

I can’t think of anything that is more Un-American.

But Martin Luther King was right.  The arc of the moral universe does bend towards justice.  Those who are trying to restrict the vote will find that citizens will overcome the barriers, and change the rules so that every eligible citizen can take part in our government.  It’s the American thing to do. 

No one else was in the room where it happened
The room where it happened, the room where it happened
No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade, how the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens, but no one else is in the room where it happens 

• The Room Where It Happens – Hamilton the Musical (of course)

At the Table

So Steve Mnuchin, Chuck Schumer, Mark Meadows and Nancy Pelosi walk into a bar.  If that sounds like a bad joke, you’re right, but that’s the “team” negotiating the most recent COVID recovery bill.  Of course, the joke’s on them:  we can’t recover from the COVID pandemic until we actually get control of it, something that doesn’t look likely to happen until a new administration takes the reins in January.  But anyway, those four are trying.

If it sounds like there’s a missing cog in the not so well oiled machine of Congressional compromise, you’re right.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t “in the room where it’s happening”.  And don’t assume that the Secretary of the Treasury and the White House Chief of Staff are speaking for him.  They are negotiating for the President.  McConnell has been neutered, cut off from a place at the table by his own divided Republican Senate membership.  Twenty of the GOP caucus have backed away from the Leader and the President, and demand that, “Too much money has been spent, and we need to stop”.

A Weakened President

What they are really saying is:  Trump’s in re-election trouble, and when he’s gone we will need to go back to our traditional conservative constituency and donors, and tell them something good.  So we are going to say that we stood against excessive spending and prevented the unemployed from getting more money for not working.  They need to get out and support the economy, so we tried to force them out.  

Of course unemployment is still somewhere north of eleven percent.  Over sixteen million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits.  And it’s not like there are a lot of jobs out there. The jobs folks used to have in restaurants, tourist industry, and lots of other industries aren’t available.  But for those twenty Senators, standing against “excessive” spending is more important than helping Americans through the COVID crisis.  And they no longer see helping President Trump as helping themselves.  

Can’t Lead

So Leader McConnell can’t lead the Senate Republicans in negotiations, when more than a third of his caucus is against everything on the table.  In fact, if the President, Schumer and Pelosi agree, McConnell may have to bring a bill to the floor for debate where the Democrats get the bill passed with minimal Republican help.  It will take all forty-seven Democrats and at least thirteen Republicans to get to the magic sixty-vote margin. 

And, if McConnell was completely candid, I think he would be more in line with the twenty holdouts then the President or the rest of the negotiators.  But he too is faced with a political crisis:  her name is Amy McGrath, the Democratic candidate for the Senate against McConnell back in Kentucky.  He currently holds a comfortable polling lead, 53% to 36% for McGrath, but for the first time in years, his campaign is being matched dollar for dollar.  And McConnell has absolutely hitched his wagon to Donald Trump.  His personal “favorability” rating is less than thirty percent.  Should the Trump Campaign continue to “go south” McConnell’s own fate will get shakier as well.

So McConnell cannot break with the President.  In fact, he will have to bring the Senate in line with the President’s view.  Traditionally Republican leaders won’t bring bills to the floor of the Senate without having a Republican majority to pass them.  It’s not the same as the discredited “Hastert Rule” in the House of Representatives, but it is a way to maintain control of the legislative process.  But with a rump caucus of twenty sitting in opposition, it will require the full cooperation of Minority Leader Schumer and the Democrats to get the President’s bidding done.

On the Table

So what’s on the table for negotiation?  For the unemployed, it’s additional benefits.  Most states pay fifty percent of previous earned wages as unemployment, since the first COVID bill, the Federal government has added $600/week to that amount.  But that ended last Friday.  Also, the government suspended mortgage foreclosures and rent evictions since April.  That too has ended, and millions of Americans are faced with a future “on the streets” as the thirty-day eviction processes begin.  

And there’s the “rebate” of tax money, similar to the $1200 checks sent out to Americans in May.  This time dependents over sixteen are included.  And the PPP, forgivable loans to businesses, would be extended.  There’s also a liability protection clause added to protect businesses from customers or employees that get COVID while working, shopping, or eating there.

Then there are the “extraneous” items that seem like they don’t really belong.  There’s a couple billion dollars for a new FBI building. And there’s additional funding for the F-35 multi-role fighter project.  

The House of Representatives have already put their cards on the table as well, with the Heroes Act.  While there is some agreement on many of the above items, the Democrats have also included mail-in balloting throughout the country, a non-starter for many in the Senate.

Making Sausage

It’s election time, and the United States is in the middle of a pandemic.  Almost five million Americans are diagnosed with COVID, and close to 160,000 have died.  Unemployment is high, schools are questioning whether they can open, and “normal” life is completely disrupted.  Trying to help the voters would seem to be a no-brainer for all members of the House, the Senate, and the President himself.

In a “normal” political world, the “sausage” would get made.  Both sides would get some of what they want, and lose some of the things the wished they had.  There would be a law, helping most people, and making both Republicans and Democrats look like they cared.  Most are running for re-election, you’d think that would be motivation enough.

Three Republican Senators are not running for re-election, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Pat Roberts of Kansas.  Eleven more Republicans are not up for re-election is 2020.  For the retiring Senators, they are looking forward to earning money by influencing others.  Alexander discussed this when he explained his impeachment vote.  He wanted to be able to “hang out” with his friends.  That lobbying requires that they be in “good stead” with the clients, most of whom are traditional conservatives.  And for the eleven looking at running again in 2022 or 2024, they are protecting their standing in the post-Trump era.

On Principle

So politically it might be more “astute” for them to stand on “principle” and try to block COVID aid.  Their future careers are more important than the current plight of the nation.  So there may not be a COVID aid bill passed in the next few weeks.  And if it doesn’t happen by September, it may well get lost in the political turmoil of the election campaigns.

Too bad for the unemployed, who won’t be able to stay in their apartments or their homes. And really too bad for America, bereft of real leadership in its moment of crisis.

Cartoons

When I was a kid, one of childhood’s traditions was cartoons on Saturday morning. At the time I didn’t realize it was actually a “parent trick”:  I would watch early morning cartoons, and Mom and Dad would get an extra hour or two of recovery time from Friday night.  They were smart, and everyone was happy.

It was the 60’s.  Cartoons were hand drawn, and included traditional characters like Bugs Bunny and Road Runner.  There also were the “shows”, like the Flintstones, that told the story of a white suburban family in stone-age times.  Kids could all relate to Fred Flintstones’ car; we used our feet for brakes on vehicles too.  

It was only as I got older, really right at the end of my Saturday Morning cartoon viewing; that the first automated cartoon came out, Speed Racer.  I guess I remember it best for the opening sequence of every show, as it seemed like dozens were killed in car wrecks as the singers joyfully called out, “Go Speed Racer Go”!!

If the Flintstones represented a mythical past, The Jetsons represented exactly one hundred years in the future in 2062.  They too were a white urban family, living in a huge apartment floating far above the ground in Orbit City.  Robots did “the dirty work”, though they could be quirky, like Rosie the Jetsons’ housekeeper.  To kids of the 1960’s, the Jetsons set “the future”.  We expect flying cars, soaring buildings, robot assistance and vacations on the moon.  And don’t forget Astro the dog could talk, though I’m not sure I want my three pups to be able to discuss dinner every night!

Halfway There

We are kind of on the way to a Jetsons future.  No we don’t have the flying cars yet, but Amazon already is delivering packages by drone.  And we don’t have Rosie the Maid robots, but I was surprised to see an IRobot lawn mower moving along the other day.  Houses can be controlled from our phones (not mine, we still have to turn lights on and off manually) and we have “wrist radios” just like another cartoon, Dick Tracy.  So forty years from the Jetsons we are headed that way.

The Jetsons never got too much into detail as to how their world was powered, but their flying cars ran on power capsules, not liquid fuel, so we can guess that they have passed the petroleum era.  And why shouldn’t we?

Fossil Fuel

Look, whatever political stand you take, fossil fuels are not the fuels of the future.  Sure we’ve found that fracking has extended the life of petroleum.  And we have turned our technology into wresting the last expensive bits of gas and oil from the earth.  But it’s a zero sum game; there is a finite end to fossil fuels.  Meanwhile, we risk ground water from fracking, the oceans from deep well pumping, and pristine wilderness from oil exploitation.  

Transportation will probably be the last industry to give up petroleum.  Planes and trucks are going to need it, and it’s hard to imagine a recreational vehicle pulling a camper that could run on batteries.  But there’s a whole lot we can do to move away from fossil fuels, and it’s inevitable that we will have to do it.  And it has that most important benefit of protecting our future.  The Jetsons might have been telling us more than we realized.  Their soaring apartments are far above the ground, maybe the environmental changes brought by fossil fuels literally forced them to live in the clouds.  

Solutions

We know that there is a clock ticking, a clock that will run out by 2050.  The changes to our environment that we are making from fossil fuel pollution will be unalterable if we don’t stop.  And we can, and we can do it while creating an entire new opportunity for mass employment when we do it.

Let’s just think about some “easy” things we can do, today, to change the future.  We have huge swaths of land filled with suburban housing.  If each of those houses were equipped with solar energy shingles, linked to battery storage units in the house, we could move our households to sixty to eighty percent renewable energy.  Yes, there’s a significant “up front” cost, but over decades it pays for itself.  In the meantime, we don’t use coal or gas created electricity from the grid.

And that electricity grid needs to move to renewable sources as well.  Solar is one, wind farms are another.  We should be making huge investments in those industries, instead of taking $60 million bribes here in Ohio to prop up old nuclear plants or build new fossil fuel generators.  In the US, electric power generation represents 32% of greenhouse gas pollution (EPA).

Generate power at home, make the grid non-polluting, and then plug in your electric commuter car.  28% of pollution comes from transportation activities; we can reduce a lot of that by moving to electric cars.  It might be better to create more mass transportation, but if Americans are addicted to their individual vehicles, as both the Flintstones and the Jetsons showed, then let’s have traffic jams with non-polluting cars.

Flying Cars

It’s 2020 and the clock is ticking on our environment.  Storms are stronger and more frequent, areas like Central America are facing droughts that are driving folks to migrate north, tides are getting higher, and the whole world is warming.  We can still “dodge the bullet”, and we can do so and employ a whole lot of folks.  It’s really not even a question of technology:  it’s a question of will.

We know what that cleaner environment will look like.  A strange “benefit” of the pandemic was that for a few weeks we stayed at home, and pollution literally went away.  We saw what could be done.

So while we do all of our fighting about stopping a second term of Donald Trump, add this to the list of why a Joe Biden Presidency would be better for our world. He is committed to a renewable energy America by 2040.

And that still gives us twenty-two years to get our flying cars!!

Purists

There are some of us who are “purists”.  We were the ones who had faith in Americans to see through the Trump campaign back in 2016.  We thought we saw Mr. Trump as he was, a charlatan, a “one trick pony” actor who was playing “The Apprentice” on a national scale. 

We read the national polls going into November of 2016.  And we fell for the “scientificity” of polling in October.  Sure, Trump had clawed back much of the advantage Clinton held throughout the summer and fall, but she still held a lead.  That critical “margin of error” in tiny type at the bottom of each graph, wasn’t really important, was it?  And the fact that Trump had climbed within that margin, aided by FBI Director Jim Comeys’ leaked letter to Congress, should have sounded alarms.  It didn’t.

Nightmares

And there is that other factor, the one that still haunts us today.  That somehow polling didn’t reach the “closet” Trump voter, the one that won’t admit to voting for the man, but in the secrecy of the voting booth still commits the deed.  Afterward, many of us made a big deal of the “closet vote”. But reality was there weren’t that many.  Vote counts were all within the polling margin of error.  Looking back, I think it was more a matter of hubris. We thought,  “How dare someone we knew, maybe even our friends, vote for ‘that man’?  Of course they wouldn’t admit it, even to pollsters.  They hid their ‘evil’ intentions.” 

And the “purists” share a searing memory.  That moment, somewhere in the middle of the night, when we realized that Barack Obama was going to be succeeded by Donald Trump.  That somehow, someway, the America that had progressed to the point of electing the first Black President, instead of choosing the first woman, was now electing — him.  All of the issues we hoped could be resolved by Hillary Clinton were now at risk.  It wasn’t a nightmare, because we weren’t asleep.   We cried for America.

Even Worse

We had no idea how bad it would really be.  Many tried to find a way to hang on to progressivism.  It was called “the Resistance”, and the purists signed on from inauguration day on.  Millions marched in the streets, chanting “not my President”.  But, of course, he was.

There were small victories.  John McCain, of all people, saved the Affordable Care Act.  The Supreme Court stopped the “Muslim Ban”.  The FBI investigated Russia’s involvement, and when Comey was fired, we had great hopes for the Mueller Investigation.  And, Donald Trump, President, was the third in history to be impeached.

But Trump had great victories as well.  The Border Wall, whether it really is being built or not, was a winning issue for the President.  And environmental rules have been slashed.  America stopped its leadership on climate change and renewable energy.  And perhaps saddest of all, children are still being separated at the border, in spite of Federal Court intervention.

The one unifying theme of the Trump Administration has been a cavalier ignorance of the Constitutional norms of America’s Democracy.  They’ve broken all the “rules” to improve life for the 1%.  And they have committed the most egregious sin of all:  incompetence.  The “team” that came in, the Trump Organization writ large, failed to protect America from the ravages of pandemic.  They didn’t just fumble the ball they threw the entire game.  In industrialized nations, our response rates as one of the worst.  It costs thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.

A Grand Alliance

There is an old phrase: “beggars can’t be choosers”.  We are an America in crisis.  Resistors cannot be Puritan about who can join our cause.  We must accept the aid of other Americans, wherever they are coming from, and whenever they “saw the light”.  Maybe it’s the “Never-Trump” Republicans, like those in the Lincoln Project.  Sure, they remain traditional Republican conservatives, and in normal times they would be battling progressive ideas. 

But we are not living in normal times.  They bring their skills to the table, and we should embrace their energy.  We need them to reach out to their kindred spirits, now “closeted” Republicans who cannot stand to vote for Trump again.  The Lincoln Project Republicans can legitimize their vote.  While they cannot embrace “the Resistance”, or heaven forbid, Black Lives Matter, they can see McCain’s campaign manager, and a Republican candidate for White House Counsel, George Conway, as leaders they can follow.  

And, my Resistance friends remember this.  The President has already hinted that he won’t accept the election outcome.  He doesn’t have to, but it would absolutely help if there were an overwhelming mandate to remove him from office.  We need every vote, not just to win, but also to win decisively and end the Trump reign.  

“The Enemy of My Enemy is my Friend”.  If you are voting against Donald Trump, you are welcome to the cause.  Whether you were a “Resistor” from the beginning, or a realist who finally recognizes the incompetence of the pandemic response, welcome.  We can argue about our philosophical differences later.  Right now we are in an existential crisis, perhaps at the crossroads of our Democracy. 

Late or early, welcome to the Resistance.

Here’s another in the “Outside My Window” series, chronicling life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Summer in the City 

Here’s the Link to the Lovin’ Spoonful Song

The summer of 2020 has been hot.  We’ve had twenty-two days over ninety degrees in the past two months, and we’ve had plenty of rain to go with it.  That’s the daily double; it’s hot as Hell, and humid too.  And the grass is growing so fast it’s got to be cut twice a week.  There’s no way to avoid this long, hot summer.  Can’t go to the movies, my parents’ cure for the heat.  The theaters are closed. Even driving the Jeep with the top off can be too much.  If you have to stop, it’s like being on a pan in the oven.

I think the heat is affecting peoples’ outlook on the world.  Things are already tense:  the COVID-19 crisis continues, with growing numbers of infections and hospitalizations.  But when your hot and sticky, it seems easy to buy into all of the fancy statistical “figuring”.  Given enough numbers, folks can find miniscule percentages of people who might “really” be at risk of COVID-19.  And if you believe that the virus isn’t a threat to you, then all of the “suggested” regulations, masks, social distancing and the like, chafe like a scratchy, grass covered t-shirt in the afternoon sun.

Colors

Of course, cooler heads get it.  The virus hasn’t gone away.  Ohio has instituted a “color code” system by county, warning the state when things are getting bad.  Code Yellow – Level 1 – means that there is exposure, but things aren’t bad.  Level II – Code Orange – the exposure is increasing.  Level III – Red – there’s a very high level of exposure.  And then there’s Level IV – Code Purple – severe exposure and time for folks to shelter in place.  No county in Ohio is at the Purple level yet, but there are a lot of them in Code Red. 

Of course the more people in a county, the more likely there’s viral transmission.  So it should be no surprise that the major cities:  Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, are all in Code Red.  So are some of the smaller ones:  Portsmouth, Marion, and Lima.  And since Columbus has always been a “spread out” town, it really shouldn’t be a surprise either that some of the counties surrounding the core Franklin County are Code Red too:  Fairfield County and here in Licking County.

But Orange, Red and Purple aren’t the only colors that influence those counties.  It’s should be no surprise that most of the Code Red counties are also “Blue”:  Democratic counties.  And that the Code Yellow and Orange Counties are almost all “Red”:  Republican.  So built into the COVID-19 infection is political division.  If you live in Muskingum County, where the big city is Zanesville, it’s easy to see the epidemic as someone else’s problem.  There’s not much impact there, and “all the fuss” seems to be so overblown.

Dis-Information

Of course it doesn’t help that some politicians and social media have waged a campaign of dis-information, designed to raise doubts about the “official” scientific sources.  This week alone, far-right media published a series of “experts in white coats” touting discredited drugs that could “treat” COVID-19.  It went “viral” as folks are desperate for quick and easy answers to a threatening disease.  But “viral videos” won’t make the virus go away either – so everyone just gets even more hot and sweaty and less trusting of the voices of reason coming out of the state capital in Columbus.

Desperate also is the word for folks thinking about public schools.  They are desperate for the schools to open, desperate for their kids to have a “normal” life, desperate for childcare so they can go back to work.  But Code Red County schools are planning on “online” learning.  So kids will be at home, and parents are stuck with figuring out how to supervise their kids and their kids’ education, at least for the foreseeable future.

Hotheads

Here in Licking County, we are the source of the “itch”.  The western part of the county, adjacent to the urban Columbus area, is heavily populated and Code Red.  The eastern part of the County, more rural, is less impacted.  But since it’s a County system, with the numbers in the west, Licking County as a whole is “Code Red”.  So the county schools are faced with a dilemma.  The ones on the eastern side are planning on going to “regular” five-day a week in-person school.  The ones on the west side are pressured to open “regular” school, but are likely to end up “online”.  And no one is going to be happy.

And all of this will come to a head in the next two weeks.  Regardless of all of the planning, spacing desks and partitioning buses, schools are going to have to make a final decision.  Go or not go:  knowing that the community is going to question every call.  If you don’t trust Washington, or Columbus, or even Newark (the county seat), why would you trust any leadership at all?  If kids can play Little League Baseball and practice for high school football, why can’t they just go to school?  

So August is likely to be even hotter.  If the temperature outside doesn’t break ninety, the hot heads in town will provide all the heat we need.

1918

The United States was a very different place in 1918, the year my parents were born.  The nation was in the middle of a World War, with US forces joining the incredible death in the human meat grinder of trench warfare in Europe.  Four million Americans were mobilized and sent to the battlefields in just over a year.  One of the major training bases was at Camp Sherman, built on the sacred land of the Hopewell, the ancient moundbuilders, just north of Chillicothe, Ohio (NPS). 

110,000 Americans would die in World War I. Like deaths in the American Civil War only fifty-five years before, disease was as deadly as bullets. 45,000 World War I recruits died of the “Spanish” flu, the influenza epidemic of 1918.  30,000 of those never reached France, but died waiting in camps or on the way in ships. 

1,717 of those died at Camp Sherman, so many that the Majestic Theater in downtown Chillicothe became a temporary morgue.  The theater was shuttered anyway, quarantined by the virus that attacked civilians as well as soldiers.  Bodies, “stacked like cordwood,” were embalmed there. The body fluids ran into the alley next door:  it became known as “Bloody Alley”.  Then the bodies were transported by wagon back to Camp Sherman, to be shipped home by train (NPS).

Flu, War and Booze

Out of a population of 103 million, 675,000 Americans died in the 1918 Flu Epidemic (for those fixated on death rates, that’s .6% of the population).  The epidemic struck when Americans were already mobilized and sacrificing for the war effort.  Nineteen states already banned recreational alcohol use, in order to save the liquid for the war effort or use the grains for food production.  And many patriotic Americans “gave up” alcohol for the war.  It made a statement: many of the best-known beer manufacturers were of “enemy” German descent (Anheuser-Busch, Coors, Miller, Yuengling).

During the war saloons, bars, and nightclubs were closed.  In the epidemic, those same establishments served as what we would call today “hot spots”, places where disease was easily passed from one person to another.  Alcohol “greased” the rails of transmission.  Masks came off and social distancing became physical contact.  Think of the “you’ve lost that loving feeling” scene in Top Gun, or my Alabama-born boss making everyone stand and sing Dixie at the end of the night.  It’s part of our American tradition, and a perfect incubator for viral spread.

A Nexus in History

All of this fit in with a growing social movement in America to give up alcohol.  The Anti-Saloon League, the leading group pressing for national prohibition, was headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.  It became an historic nexus:  the anti-alcohol forces, the sacrifices for the War, and the epidemic all lead to the adoption of the 18^th Amendment, prohibiting recreational alcohol in the United States.

Today we aren’t at war with other nations.  Instead, we are at war with each other, agitated by half-truths and outright lies.  We aren’t tearing up ancient burial grounds to mobilize and train soldiers; instead we are tearing down statues erected to glorify the stain of historic racism.  In our current era of polarization, we are struggling to deal with a global pandemic.  Folks are physically protesting the restricting of our normal lives to control the virus.  We desperately want to crowd together at the ballpark, or the rally, or at the bar.  That, even though “That loving feeling” that we are looking for will further the spread of COVID-19.

And we are faced with a growing social movement recognizing the historic inequities of American racism. Americans are protesting for change, despite the dangers of viral infection and death.

In 1918 they were just beginning to understand how to treat the disease ravaging the nation.  But they did have a good knowledge of how to prevent the spread of the virus:  masks, social distancing, preventing large gatherings, closing the “hot spots”, the theaters, restaurants and saloons.  It was all part of the war effort.  But there were “anti-maskers” then too, especially after the War ended.  The duty to protect the troops was more effective in controlling disease than their duty to protect each other.

Nexus Today  

Today we are wrestling with ways to control COVID-19’s growth, waiting for a time when vaccination might return us to some form of normalcy.  We are arguing about what to do with schools, public events, restaurants and bars.  We are at a different kind of nexus:  a meeting of politics, unbridled information overload both real and false, social upheaval and epidemic.  Out of the 1918 nexus came a national desire to change behavior by Prohibition.  While that experiment ultimately failed, it was a noble effort to make life better.

Who knows what will come of our current nexus.  Just one favor:  don’t close all of the saloons.  Some of us need a drink.

Bush v Gore

It was “only” twenty years ago.  Vice President Al Gore was the Democrat running to succeed Bill Clinton, against the Republican Governor of Texas, George W. Bush. Personally, as a Democrat disappointed in Clinton, Gore was only a small step up.  He was a little less “moderate” than Clinton, but he was wooden as a campaigner.  Clinton was able to immediate relate to folks.  Gore tried to be that way, but came off as standoffish and mechanical.  

George W. Bush on the other hand was the personable guy we still think of today.  But a tough campaign staff offset his personal friendliness.  John McCain found that out in the South Carolina primary, when Bush supporters circulated rumors of an illegitimate black child.  It was “hard ball” politics, and a key factor in Bush’s win in South Carolina to lock up the Republican nomination (NYT).

The shadow across the Gore campaign was the Clinton Impeachment.  Whatever you thought of the outcome, whether Clinton should have been impeached or removed or not; the facts we learned about his behavior in the White House were ugly.  Of course, we learned a lot about Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Speaker-Elect Bob Livingston, and several other Congressmen as well.  In the end, no one looked good.

Hanging Chads

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the November election was close.  So close, that it came down to the electoral vote of Florida.  And Florida came down to only a few hundred ballots out of the almost six million cast.  

There is a scientific and mathematical term called  “margin of error”.  In any counting or polling, there is going to be some error in the results.  In counting votes, or counting pennies, there will be some mistakes.  Maybe it’s only one in ten thousand.  But the Florida vote was so close, that it was within that margin.  There were almost six million votes.  A one in ten thousand margin of error was around six hundred. The deciding margin was five hundred and thirty-seven.

It also means that however many times you recounted, you would get different result each time.

And then there were the flaws in the ballots themselves.  Many counties in Florida used “punch ballots”, where you punch out “chads” of paper so that a hole is left where you wanted to vote.  But some “chads” don’t get punched completely out, and some folks didn’t push hard enough.  Was a partially punched “chad” a vote for a candidate?  What about a dimple?

And finally, there was the Palm Beach County ballot, the “butterfly ballot” where it was easy to confuse the “punch” for Gore for the “punch” for third party candidate Ralph Nader.  How many Gore votes ended up as Nader votes was impossible to know. And how in the world could that error be undone?

The lawyers from both campaign descended, and Florida counted votes through Thanksgiving and on into December.  Finally on December 9^th the US Supreme Court, in a party line five to four vote, chose to stop the count.  That made the winner George Bush.

Patriotic Duty

Many Democrats refused to accept the Supreme Court solution in Bush v Gore.  It was only when Mr. Gore appeared in a nationwide address, and told the nation that he would support the new President, George W. Bush, that most began to accept the outcome. By the way, it’s worth a watch, if you’ve got eight minutes – a patriotic moment. By Christmas, there was lots of grumbling, but Vice President Gore led the Senate in counting the electoral votes and declaring Bush the victor.  At the inauguration, Clinton and Gore made it clear that they were doing their best to transit the government to Bush (but some staff stole the “W’s” off of keyboards in the White House).

So here we are in 2020.  The current President, Donald Trump, is maneuvering to have an “excuse” if the election doesn’t go his way.  He’s already questioned the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, in spite of the fact we’ve been doing it since the Civil War.  And he’s turned his back on international interference in our electoral process.  So there is the question:  will Donald Trump recognize the legitimacy of an election outcome that makes Joe Biden President?

Joe Biden, on the other hand, is a traditional American politician.  There really is no question that if the “shoe’s on the other foot” and Trump somehow wins again, Biden will follow the tradition of Gore and the others.  But Trump is not a “pro”, and he has made it clear that he has no problem being a “bad loser”.

Acceptance 

And what about the “forces” of the Federal government?  Trump hasn’t hesitated to use the military to pursue his political goals.  Ask the thousands of troops moved to the Southern Border to stop the mythical “caravan” of illegal immigrants, right around the 2018 election.  Or ask the thousands of Federal enforcement agents being mobilized today to go to “Democrat (sic) Cities”.  

Defense Secretary Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Milley have expressed regret at getting dragged into the clearing of Lafayette Square and the “policing” of Washington, DC.  They seem prepared to fulfill the traditional role of the military in US elections:  remain neutral.  But until “orders” from the Commander in Chief come down, it’s difficult to tell what they would do.

Integrity

It’s not far fetched to envision a scenario where Biden or Trump wins by a narrow margin, weeks after Election Day as counting mail-in ballots progresses past Thanksgiving.  After an ugly campaign, those weeks would be even more divisive.  Taking the lessons of 2000, lawyers from both sides would descend on critical Boards of Elections, trying to put “their thumb” on the scale of the count for their candidate.  

By the time it’s all concluded will either candidate accept the result?  Will the American people?  

The election of 2020 is a critical turning point in the story of American democracy.  Whatever side of the political fray you find yourself, it will be an election held under unique circumstances, one conducted in the middle of a world pandemic.  And we have already spent seven months learning to question every statement by the “experts” about COVID; it won’t be a big step to question the “experts” in counting votes.

There’s really only one way out.  One candidate needs to win so decisively that there can be no question as to the will of the nation.  But in a nation so divided, there’s no certainty of that.  So to quote MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, “buckle-up”!  This won’t be over on Election Day.

One More Dad Lesson

So one of the lessons my father taught me over the years was not to be overwhelmed by decisions.  He had a system, a process that would help him decide what he should do.  It wasn’t a complicated procedure, just a legal pad and a pencil.  He would make two lists, one the “pro” list and one the “con” list.  At the end of making each list, you would look over the whole pad, and often it would lead you to a conclusion.

When he first showed this system to me, I objected that it didn’t have “heart”.  I felt that there was an emotional component to decision-making that ultimately had to be taken into consideration.  But Dad knew something I didn’t, that emotion colored the list, and more importantly, colored the strength of each of the factors on the list.  It was part of the process, and in the end, whatever conclusion you came to, it was usually right emotionally as well as intellectually.

So here’s my list of who to vote for President.  If you’ve read Trump World very often, I’m sure you won’t be surprised by the conclusions.  But perhaps it will help you reach some conclusions yourself, particularly if you are somehow on the fence in this incredibly polarized political world.  

Since I can’t put a legal pad in essay form, instead I’m going to do an issues list.  My comparison will be between Joe Biden, the Democrat, and Donald Trump, the Republican.  I will not be including third party candidates.  They don’t have a chance to win the Presidency, and I don’t believe this is an election to “honorably lose”.  And I don’t agree with most third party candidates’ positions anyway.

Old White Men

So let’s start with “the elephant” in the room.  Joe Biden is an old, white man.  He’ll be seventy-eight if he’s inaugurated in January, the oldest man to begin the Presidency.  Donald Trump is also an old, white man, but slightly younger at 74.  

And Joe Biden has a lifelong habit of saying “the wrong thing”.  Some of that can be attributed to his stuttering disability.  But some are “traditional” Biden screw-ups.  His latest was that “Trump was the first racist elected President”.  While there is little argument that Trump is a racist, there also is little argument that so were several other Presidents, including some chosen in the modern era.  Woodrow Wilson comes to mind.  I don’t attribute that to Biden’s old age – he’s been flubbing lines like that for his entire political career.  Remember the open-mike moment – “Barack, it’s a big f—king deal”?

Donald Trump has said some pretty crazy things too.  He talked about using light and disinfectant to cure folks of COVID-19, and he’s seems to have trouble walking and holding bottles of water.  And of course, he wished an accused sex trafficker “well” as she sits in a prison cell.  You could attribute that to old age, or the onset of dementia.  But the reality is, that neither Trump nor Biden are “perfect” candidates.  They are both old, white men, perhaps not as sharp as they were in the 1990’s.  So let’s call this a draw.  Either way, in 2021 an old white man who might be shakier than we’d like is going to be inaugurated as President.

Polarize

Donald Trump is a polarizer, the “Divider in Chief”.  He began his political career by gliding down the “Golden Escalator” and talking about Mexicans as rapists and criminals (and some – some are good people).  I’m a Liberal Democrat and Joe Biden is more moderate than I would like.  But he has made a career of reaching across the aisle, of working with both sides to reach compromises and further government.  

We’ve had three and a half years of division, so much so, that some of my more extreme conservative friends are talking about civil war if Biden wins.  That didn’t start because of Donald Trump, or even Mitch McConnell.  And it certainly didn’t start with Joe Biden or Barack Obama.  Actually, it began in the late 1980’s with campaigns run by Lee Atwater.  And before anyone screams bloody murder, I know there are Democrats who were divisive too.  Certainly Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” didn’t do anyone much good four years ago.

But here we are, in the present.  Our “binary choice” (is that a computer language?) is “Trump the Divider”, or “Biden the Uniter”.  Seems to me we’ve had plenty of division. It’s time to heal, and if there’s anyone who would make a terrific “Healer in Chief” it’s Joe Biden.

Socialists

And what about the “S” word – socialism.  The far progressive wing of the Democratic Party isn’t far from socialist, though I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing either.  But it really doesn’t matter, because Biden ain’t no socialist.  He is a middle-of-the-road, moderate Democrat.  He’s a capitalist who believes government can make things better, and can help the working class and the poor.  Trump believes that government needs to let everyone fight it out among themselves, except for the rich, who clearly need more tax breaks.

And speaking of helping, what’s happening with health insurance?  Donald Trump has now had three and a half years, two of them with a fully Republican Congress.  His main mission, to remove the Affordable Care Act, failed.  Meanwhile, there isn’t a Republican plan for health care.  They haven’t proposed anything (though didn’t he say there would be one in two weeks, about three weeks ago?)  The Trump Administration is still in Court to try to stop the Affordable Care Act, in the middle of a pandemic.

Biden obviously likes the Affordable Care Act, and wants to expand upon it.  He would like to add a public option to the plan, and do more to control costs, particular prescription drug costs.  We know what he’s already done as Vice President to get good health insurance to more people, so he has a track record.

Science

I am sixty-three years old.  I grew up in the shadow of nuclear destruction.  We hid under desks during the Cuban missile crisis, and the joke, “Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven,” really wasn’t all that funny.  But we survived that era.  Now we are in an era of climate extremes that science says is caused by humans.  The summers aren’t the hottest, but they are very hot.  The storms aren’t the worst, but they are all bad.  The tides are getting higher, and the ice is melting.  

The Trump Administration has made it national policy to roll back environmental protections.  In one of the few areas where Trump had success, we have sold out the environment for short-term economic gains.  It’s at the heart of Trump’s success on Wall Street.  Joe Biden is committed to the long-term improvement of the climate, and reducing the world’s impact.  Biden is following science, Trump is ignoring it.

Competence

Twenty years from now those choices will have a big impact.  But ignoring science is costing us, right now.  We don’t need to worry about nuclear destruction; we need to worry about, viral infection.  Today the United States will pass over 150,000 deaths from the COVID-19 virus.  Near 4.5 million are infected.  

President Trump ignored science for short-term economic gains.  We are paying the price, literally in blood.  Joe Biden has put forward plan after plan to deal with COVID, plans that would lead America to reduced infection and death, and long-term economic improvements. He is listening to science.

Trump is incompetent.  Biden is competent.  That’s the bottom line on the checklist.  And while there are all sorts of things that I’d like to see in a President that Joe Biden doesn’t have, the minimal requirement has to be that: competence. 

 So that’s why I’m voting for Joe.

Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing

“ Here’s the deal, it looks like a war zone because at 1:30 in the morning, 2,000 people are throwing cases, bottles, and Molotov cocktails, there’s no reason people need to be at a courthouse past midnight”. – Sara Fagin, Republican Campaign Consultant

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  – US Constitution, First Amendment

Portland

What’s happening in Portland, Oregon is confusing.  Unmarked agents of the Federal Government are defending the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse from protestors night after night.  What started as Black Lives Matter protests against police violence and the killing of George Floyd, has now evolved into – something else.  

Thousands are coming to downtown Portland each night. They are there to demand that the anonymous Federal defenders be removed from their town.  And hundreds seem to be there to engage in some form of combat with those defenders: firing bottle rockets, flashing lasers, and throwing frozen water bottles and other projectiles at them. 

The Feds respond in kind, with tear gas and nightsticks, wading out beyond the confines to the Courthouse to chase rioters down.  The park across the street from the Courthouse has become a focal point. Last night the Feds searched the makeshift encampments there, finding gas masks, sticks, chemical sprayers and, ominously, an empty gas can (USA Today).

Meanwhile, the Portland Police has turned a blind eye to the protest zone.  They avoid getting caught between two forces they can’t control, the protestors/rioters, and the Federal forces.

Too Many Actors

Portland Police and Federal agents, protestors for Black Lives Matter, or against Federal intervention (they would say invasion), and rioters who are coming “for the fun”:  it’s hard to defuse the situation.  Black Lives Matter organizers are concerned that their goals are now lost in the melee, diluting the strong statement they have made across America.  Local police enforcement is lost in a battle between protestors and the Feds.  Even the Mayor of Portland was on the frontline; tear gassed by the Federal forces.

And it doesn’t help that the Federal forces are dressed in military style camouflage.  It seems like a “small” thing, but wearing “Operational Camouflage” makes them look a lot more like a military force (some would say an occupation force), rather than a policing organization.  And, other than vague “Police” labels, it is unclear who the helmeted and armed Federal forces really are.  Are they Border Patrol, or Bureau of Prisons, or ICE, or FBI, or U.S. Marshals or even the TSA?  Whose is responsible for the actions of these unidentified “soldiers”?  It all lends to the conspiracy theories. Are they somehow mercenaries hired from Erik Prince to do the bidding of Donald Trump and Bill Barr?

The Mayor of Portland, the Attorney General, the Governor, the Congressmen and Senators from the state, have all asked the Federal Government to withdraw the forces from Portland.  Whatever the original intent of the protestors or the protectors, it is now all about the Federal government forcing themselves into Oregon.  It seems that both sides are out of control.

Politics

It also crosses political lines.  Sure Republicans are lining up behind the Trump campaign slogan of “LAW AND ORDER”. But deep down they are concerned about a Federal expansion into the local law enforcement.  It doesn’t help that the President is promising to surge 75,000 Federal agents into “DEMOCRAT CITIES” throughout the nation, especially since they are only 100,000 total Federal “policing” agents.  Are they all going to Albuquerque and Chicago and Kansas City?  Who is going to be left on the border, or busting drug dealers?

The ideal resolution is for the “Federal” forces to withdraw, replaced by Oregon’s forces. Include the Oregon National Guard if necessary.  But that would be too “simple”.  

President Trump has found a pressure point he can use to change the national subject from the COVID-19 epidemic.  His “righteous indignation” about the “failure” of the DEMOCRAT MAYORS is fired every night by the battles outside of the Hatfield building.  Don’t be surprised to see the clashes in Trump 2020 ads soon in a TV or computer near you!

And for those wishing to battle the failures of the Trumpian Federal Government, from the President, to Bill Barr to ICE to child separation:  they have found a place to “fight”.  Portland is the magnet. As former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said, “…after the protests are made earlier in the evening, night after night, something happens”.  The peaceful demonstrators are overawed by those looking “for the fight”, and the riots begin.  But a magnet is attracted to something, and the something is the camouflaged Feds around the Hatfield building.

Thumb in the Dam

The Constitution puts no time limit on protests.  The “time bell” doesn’t go off at midnight, when the “right to peaceably assemble” is somehow revoked.  But there is a different kind of alarm that should be sounding.  It is a clarion call of politics overwhelming common sense, of the ten-second video becoming more important than the hard work required to reduce the tensions.

The answer is not to allow the burning of the Mark Hatfield Courthouse.  But the answer is also not to keep Federal forces in place to draw the violence.  The appropriate response is for the Federal government and the State government to work to resolve the issue. That could bring some peace to the area around the Courthouse.  And, that’s something that Mark Hatfield himself would appreciate.  But he practiced politics in a different time.  In our polarized nation today, it’s likely that all sides will remain intransigent.  

But don’t think the protestors or the rioters will disappear.  There a huge reservoir of dissatisfaction built up, and the dam is breached.  Portland is the “crack” where that disapproval can be physically voiced and acted upon, night after night.  It will stay that way until someone puts a thumb in the dam. Until that happens, there will be no “time bell” to ring.

The Man Upstairs

It’s July 24^th, 2020.  It would have been my Dad’s 102^nd birthday today.  He passed away four years ago, just a couple of days shy of 98 years old.  The light of his life, my Mom, had gone five years before that.  They had an amazing life together, so much of it full of joy and adventure.  It was only in those final couple of years before Mom died, and the last couple years for Dad, that things got sad.

When Mom died, none of us were prepared. The days after her death were a flurry, planning a funeral, and then finding that our “family” Weil Funeral Home couldn’t do it on Yom Kippur. They were still great, and helped us move to the Catholic Gilligan Funeral Home. We were all worried about Dad, but he was more concerned about us. When the funeral was over, the Irish in us took over (after all, Mom’s maiden name and all of our middle names is O’Connor). With Jameson’s in our glasses, we drank a toast to “the man upstairs”. It was Dad; he’d gone up to bed, the last night he’d spend in the house where they lived for over forty years.

So now I’m sixty-three, and thinking about him.  His goal in those last years was to make it to 100.  In those years, I was handling all of his finances. Dad would ask, “do I have enough money to keep living?”  The answer always was, “Of course, you can live as long as you want”.  “Can I make it past 100?” he’d press on, and I’d assure him there was plenty for that.  Dad always would pay for whatever we were doing, but then he’d pat his pocket and say he didn’t have his money.  I’d answer,  “I’ve got your money”.   I think he found that reassuring.

Work Hard

There are lots of things that Dad taught me.  Most of them were through example.  Dad was one of the hardest-working men I’ve known.  Some of my earliest memories are from when he was “on the road” Monday through Friday.  There were evening phone calls from Indianapolis or Ottumwa, and he’d pull back in on Friday ready to see his family.

Saturday’s there was always stuff to do, work around the house or the yard.  But Dad was no “handyman”, though he wished he were.  I didn’t realize that until I was older.  When I got my first car, a 1969 Plymouth Fury III (I still have the keys) the engine was shot.  Dad was no mechanic either, but our neighbors Tom Morgan and Carlos Phillips, both were good ones.  So Tom, Carlos and I would work on that Plymouth, and Dad would join in until it got late enough.  Then he’d fall asleep.

Napping

Dad made sure that all good “Dahlman’s” could fall asleep any place, any time.  So when things got late in the garage, Dad might be found snoozing somewhere, leaning against a tire.  It’s actually a great skill to have.  I’ve slept through Broadway plays, track meets with guns going off, and pretty much every airplane takeoff I’ve been on.  Dad learned that skill as a kid with a bad stomach.  When he felt sick, he went to sleep, and woke up feeling better.  Later on you could count on Dad, asleep in a chair by the TV pretty much any evening.

But what really mattered was that Dad wasn’t particularly interested in the guts of a big old Plymouth engine.  Looking back, he was there for me, to be a part of what I was doing.

Hit the Waves

Dad was no “outdoorsman” either.  But when we went to the beach, he loved the ocean, and the waves.  He taught me the skill of bodysurfing when I was nine at Cape Cod – and we both enjoyed that for years.  It wasn’t until he was near seventy that the waves finally got him.  We were in the Bahamas, bodysurfing some big rollers coming in from Florida.  One flipped him head over toe, stuck his face in the sand and knocked his swimsuit to his knees.  He got up, pulled himself together, and jumped in again, but ever after he was cautious of the big ones.  Now that I’m closer to that age, I get it too.  I’m not as reckless as I used to be, because now, getting twisted means waking up hurting . 

But when it came for a “walk” down the beach, usually several miles with the ultimate speed walker, Mom, Dad would pass.  Mom and the rest of us would head for “the end” of the beach, and then come back.  We’d find him snoozing in the chair, usually with the tide lapping at his feet. 

When I was getting my “going to college” award from my Scout Troop 819 (it was a glass bottomed beer mug, still on my mantle) Dad went on his first Scout camping trip with me so he could be there for the campfire ceremony.  I’m guessing the last tent he slept in was a shelter/half in some field in Georgia during basic training in 1941.   I know he didn’t sleep much (no snoring to be heard), and though I didn’t realize at the time, again, it was to be a part of what I was doing. 

Dahlman Tennis 

But there was tennis.  Man, did Dad play tennis.  Even after he had a couple of strokes, and his left foot dragged a bit when he walked; put a racket in his hands and he could run across the court.  He played until he was 93, and he played to win.  His tennis group in Florida was called the “Walking Wounded”.  Dad only had two open-heart surgeries, but there was an open heart with knee replacements, a couple of artificial hips, and all sorts of other ailments in the crew.

So when I was down to visit and kibitzed into the game, I tried to take it easy on our opponents:  my mistake.  Dad and I were parterned in doubles, and the opposition came to the net on a weak shot.  I ran up to take it.  

Don Dahlman’s tennis rules were pretty simple:  if the other guy hit a bad shot, and you could drive it down his throat, you did.  It was pretty scary when I was ten or so, though I later learned to not “feed” him a killable ball.  So when open-heart surgery, two artificial knees and a bad elbow came to the net, I didn’t kill the ball. I lobbed it back over his head.  

After the point, Dad took me aside.  He wanted to make sure I understood the Dahlman rules of tennis.  Even in the “Walking Wounded” games, there was no letting guys off the hook just because of their ailments.  THEY stepped on the court; it was THEIR problem if they couldn’t take it.  “But,” I said, “I might kill him”.  “We’ll win the point,” was Dad’s response.  

I didn’t win a set of tennis against Dad until I was eighteen.  I didn’t lose more than one or two after I was thirty (that would have made Dad near seventy).  It was no good trying to “feed” him the points, he knew if you weren’t going after it, and he didn’t want to play you if you weren’t trying to win.  So, with the exception of not hitting overheads (Dad would get dizzy when he went straight up in the last few years) we played tennis hard.

The Tryouts

Dad’s work came home.  We were all a part of whatever he was doing at the TV station, or with the programs he was involved in creating and selling.  And we were definitely the final approval committee for new hires.  I think the logic went:  if you couldn’t come to dinner and sell the bosses’ kids, you probably weren’t going to be able to convince Proctor and Gamble to buy four thirty-second commercial spots on the next TV show.  So we met the whole team, Grant and Lee, Bruce, Boyce, and Joe.  They passed the test around the dinner table, and went out into the world to sell Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael, After School Specials, and, towards the end, Jerry Springer.

Speaking of working for Dad, he taught me one other thing. He taught me a range of profanity that I have found to be a valuable and effective tool in my life, though I never used it towards people like he did.  He seldom used it at home, but it was clearly the “language” of his work. When he was trying to get something done, or get someone motivated, the shear creativity of Dad’s language was amazing.  

I never, ever wanted to work for him.  It must have been a World War II thing, because some of his friends were as good at profanity or even better.  And one of my earliest employers, a WW II Marine himself, did the same.  Those kinds of words coming from a US Congressman really had a punch.

Some kids learn profanity on the back of the bus, and some at Boy Scout Camp.  I learned a little about sailing from Jerry Ransohoff.  But I learned so much more about language, and what could possibly be said with a four-letter explanation. And I learned lots of dirty jokes from Art Spiegel over the tennis net.  But the “best” profanity I learned was from listening to Dad talk business on the phone.  It’s served me well.

Take Risks

Looking back, I realize Dad was a risk taker.  He believed in himself and in his ability to do whatever job he put his mind to.  If a company didn’t give him what he wanted, he moved on. He went from one company to the next:  Adler to Crosley, Crosley to Ziv, Ziv to Avco. When Avco became Multimedia, he went from Dayton to corporate in Cincinnati, moving where he needed to be.  Our family went with him, except for two years when we were in Cincinnati and he was in Dayton.  The commute proved to be too much, and we finally moved to Kettering to be near the TV station, WLW-D.

But the one move Dad never made was to New York City.  That was the center of the broadcast universe, home to the networks.  I’m sure there were plenty of opportunities, and both Mom and Dad were city lovers.  But they didn’t want to raise us in the city, and they didn’t want Dad to spend hours on a train every day to the suburbs.  So he took risks and moved up, but never made the final move to NYC.  He passed that up for us.

Dad was a child of the Depression, and a veteran of World War II.  He smoked a lot when I was very little, as did most of his generation.  When he was forty-four, we were living in Bloomfield Village outside of Detroit. He came in the living room of the house one evening, and announced that he was smoking his last cigarette.  The doctor told him he wouldn’t live to see his kids grow up if he didn’t quit, so he did, right there.  I only saw him smoke once more, several years later in Dayton.  There was a stain on the dining room table; somehow cigarette ashes would get it out.  He looked immensely pleased to smoke one for that purpose.

The Final Lesson

But Dad and Mom taught us one lesson beyond all others:  how to love and how to live.  I had the honor of speaking at both of their funerals. I don’t think I can say it any better now than I did when I spoke for the family at the pulpit at Trinity and Ascension Episcopal Church in Wyoming, Ohio, in those days of grief after Mom passed away.

And most importantly of all, we learned the great gift of love.  There is no greater love story than that of Mom and Dad:  born in the bombing of London, nurtured through the trials and turmoil of the great American television boom; raising kids in the 60’s, enjoying the life of travel that the 80’s and 90’s brought.  They were inseparable, they were one, they were the epitome of what commitment to each other meant. “’Til death do us part” was only a part of their commitment. “To live life as one” is the greatest gift Mom and Dad had to teach.

Happy Birthday, Dad, I’m so glad you’re with Mom again.

Dirty Jobs

Mike Rowe

Mike Rowe is a television star, much like Donald Trump was before he turned to politics.  Mr. Rowe starred in the cable favorite, Dirty Jobs.  He went from town to town in America, and highlighted jobs that “regular folks” were doing.  They usually were jobs that included getting dirty, greasy, and nasty on a daily basis.  And Mike not only “reported” on those jobs, he often participated. 

The jobs ranged from obscure; bat cave scavenger and worm dung farmer; to commonplace, like road kill cleaners and sewer inspectors.  He made 170 episodes over seven years.  Many Americans came to love both the eye-opening revelation of what their fellow citizens did for a living, and Mike Rowe’s constant willingness to get down and dirty as part of the show.  

So when the series ended, Rowe had a large following.  He’s parlayed that fan base into backing for what he calls his non-political views.  It started with the American educational system.  Mike became an advocate for vocational education, and a critic of “everyone needing” a college degree.  It fit in perfectly with his Dirty Jobs image.

Champion

Mike isn’t necessarily a “Trumper”, but he has a developed a role as the “champion” of the common man, much the same role that Donald Trump claims.  Rowe’s take on 2016 was that the choices were “skinny” and that voters were “busted” with both candidates.  He doesn’t see the present choices as particularly different.

He has already begun filming a return of Dirty Jobs.  Some have criticized his travelling around the country, taking a film crew from place to place in the middle of a pandemic.  But Rowe takes a very firm stand on COVID-19, one that gets little conversation today in our country.  And that’s why we’re doing this “dirty job” today, writing about Mike Rowe.  

Mike accepts the view explained by Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP).  Osterholm anticipates that the COVID-19 virus will ultimately infect 100 million Americans, and kill 480,000.   He explains that “flattening the curve” reduces the volume of COVID cases at any one time, but never was, and isn’t, about “stopping” the disease; just slowing it down so hospital space remains available.

Osterholm sees the COVID epidemic as requiring herd immunity.  Herd immunity means that a high percentage of the population gains immunity, either through having had the disease, or vaccination.  Until we reach herd immunity, the disease, he says, it’s going to continue to spread.

Grieving

Rowe takes the position that we need to go through the stages of grief about COVID:  denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance.  And that once we reach acceptance, we need to determine to go ahead and live our lives, knowing we will ultimately get the virus, and lose loved ones, and there’s little or nothing we can do about it.

It doesn’t mean that Rowe, or Osterholm, advocates recklessness.  Both wear masks when appropriate, both advocate social distancing. And both recognize that “flattening the curve” is important as a way to reduce suffering.  

But Rowe has reached a fatalistic position, that since he can do little about the pandemic, he has determined to go about life, filming the new series, and travelling the country.  As he puts it, 40,000 Americans die in traffic accidents each year: we don’t cover every wreck with national media exposure.  Wear a seat belt, check your mirrors, and drive.  His view:  “I’m also aware we’d be a lot safer if we all kept ourselves in the house. But that’s not why cars, or people, exist” (Rowe Blog).

Choices

There are, clearly, alternative views to that of Dr. Osterholm and Mr. Rowe.  Many other experts believe that we can stave-off the fatalities until a vaccine arrives, and then achieve herd immunity by injection rather than infection. In that way, hundreds of thousands won’t have to die.  It’s a matter of patience and control:  putting off choices that will increase infection, and controlling interactions with others.

But Mike Rowe is expressing the thoughts of many; wanting to regain the life they feel they lost on March 15th.  It is a kind of an American, bull-headed, full steam ahead approach.  If folks are going to die anyway, then let’s get it over with and get on with our lives.

That choice has one significant problem:  those making that decision aren’t just making it for themselves.  They are making it for everyone, whether we agree with Dr. Osterholm or not.  Their decision to “live their lives” will speed the spread of the disease, and fulfill their prophecy of mass infection.  

And that’s the dirty part.

No Serenity

O God and Heavenly Father, Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen – The Serenity Prayer

Faith

I am not a religious man.  For those who find that concerning – it’s not from “want” of knowledge.  I’ve studied religions my entire life. I was the son of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, and raised in the Episcopal Church. The joke was it was as close as Mom could get to Catholic without Dad getting mad.  I’ve read from the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible and the Talmud. 

For me it’s always been a question of finding faith, not knowledge.  And I haven’t made that great leap of “faith,” at least, not yet.  But it doesn’t mean I can’t draw some knowledge and understanding of human nature from the beliefs I’ve studied, and try to gain wisdom from the prayers and stories I’ve heard.

Change

But this week there is so much to change.  Here in Ohio we find that some of our political leaders sold us out. At least it was for a good price, $60 million.   We are all “on the hook” for the debts of First Energy and their aging nuclear reactors. It’s now a part of our energy costs for the foreseeable future.  And in return, we gave up programs encouraging renewable resources. So instead we empower gas, oil and coal, and push the two remaining nuclear plants far beyond their shelf life. 

And we find that a US Senator, Republican Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is accepting Russian disinformation as an excuse for investigating the Democratic candidate for President, Joe Biden.  After years of opportunity, Johnson is only now trying to use his Committee to put his thumb on the scale of the Presidential election.  He is naive or cynical: trading on disinformation to impugn Biden’s reputation.  

Courage

This week we discovered that the Department of Homeland Security is sending “flying squads” of “officers” into American cities.  The President determined that those particular cities aren’t governed effectively.  Instead of working towards improvement with the local and state officials, Mr. Trump has decided that HE, who left the United States completely vulnerable to COVID-19, knows better how to run them.  So these anonymous, camouflage clad “troops” are in the streets, using their “muscle” to enforce Presidential will.

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman stated, President Trump is using this to deflect America from the COVID disaster. It’s a Wag the Dog scenario, except this is no foreign war. Donald Trump is going to wage a war against Americans in America, all to get votes in November.

Acceptance

And this week we are told that political bullying is just fine. Some Senators spent an entire year blocking any consideration of President Obama’s selection of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Now they have made it clear that if a vacancy occurs while Trump remains in office, they will fill it.  It lays bare what we already knew:  that McConnell was lying when he said we shouldn’t choose a Justice in an election year.  And somehow, it elicits a bully’s sick “giggle” when he and other Senators are confronted with their prevarication.  

This week the President’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, was given the choice of returning to jail or giving up his First Amendment freedom of expression.  There isn’t any legal support for that, just a Justice Department demand. The Attorney General wants to do whatever he can to tilt the scales for Trump in the 2020 election.  The Cohen book certainly won’t be saying much good about Trump. Keeping Cohen in solitary confinement thru Election Day will solve one of the President’s many problems.

Wisdom

And finally this week, the President told us that it was OK to risk thousands of students by re-opening schools under all conditions. “Only .004% of students who get COVID-19 will die,” he said.  There’s 50 million some students in the US, and if only five percent are infected, it means two and a half million get COVID-19.  That tiny little percentage, .004 of a percent, amounts to eight thousand, five hundred kids who may die.

So what we are told is not only are some willing to kill off the elderly, but those kids as well.  Of course the deaths will be spread across the nation, and are likely to be “only” those with existing weaknesses.  We call them pre-existing conditions, but while everyone is waiting for “herd immunity”, I guess the disease will “cull” the herd too.

Serenity

All of these make me angry.  I hate the fact that the nation I love; that I swore loyalty to since I first placed my hand on my heart in kindergarten; whose emblem adorned my pocket as an Eagle Scout; and whose history I have studied and taught my entire life, is letting this happen.  I hate that we need the “Courage” to change in November, and then, God willing, the “Patience” to wait until January, to begin to confront these injustices.

The Serenity Prayer asks the Lord to grant us the serenity to accept all of this.  I prefer a quote from a 1980’s Brat Pack movie,  Red Dawn:

“Hate keeps me warm”.  

And this summer is hot enough already.