Moses or Camus

It sounds Biblical:  the same forces that led Pharaoh to “let my people free”.  We already are living under the “plague”:  waiting for the real impact of Corona-Virus, the surge of serious illness that may well overwhelm our healthcare systems.  Americans are used to disasters that happen NOW:  hurricanes and tornados, terrorist attacks, fires and earthquakes.  We don’t wait well.

Waiting for the “graphs” and “curves” to come to pass.  Will we peak like Italy, with all of that unbelievable death, or will we flatten (and lengthen, they don’t talk much about that part), so that we don’t overwhelm our hospitals?  We distance ourselves from each other, hope, and wait.

It’s Biblical, apocalyptic, something out of an existential expressionist novel of the 1950’s. If only we could sit around a seedy bar and talk about it, in black and white of course.  But then we wouldn’t be “social distancing,” and anyway, the bars are closed.  I remember reading in college, a “long hair” with torn jeans and flannel shirt, thinking deeply about the absurdity of trying to control the uncontrollable.  In the 1970’s we thought we could “control” almost anything. Existentialism’s ideas then seemed out-of-date and historic. 

So floods are almost like a welcome relief.  Flooding requires movement, problem solving, and action.  They too are inexorable and uncontrollable, but at least there is a visible “foe” to attack.  Flooding is a “normal” disaster.  Americans can deal with that.

All of this is because it flooded here in Pataskala this weekend.  

City Planning

Pataskala is that little farm village that grew.  “City planning” wasn’t really a part of the growth process.  When you talk to the government, they say the drainage system for what now is the city was built on the flat farm fields of Ohio a century ago.  It was probably later for our neighborhood. The first round of development just outside the village occurred about seventy years ago, when the old Van Atta farm, just beyond Vine Street, was one of the first housing additions.  That’s where I live now.

So the developers built storm drainage out of big red clay twelve-inch tiles, laying them across the fields and hooking up to the century old existing village system that went to the river.  No one at the time thought about easements and right-of ways.  They were burying tile in fields, just like the farmers did.

When more developers “filled in” the middle, building in those remaining fields between town and Van Atta, no one worried about the storm sewers running below their houses.  They built right on top of them.  Tiles were everywhere in the old fields, some worked, some didn’t.

Clay Tile

Clay tile is a lot more durable then you’d think.  With all of the houses built, the seventy-year old storm drainage line struggled to handle the increasing volume of water.  A really heavy rain might flood the neighborhood, but give it a couple of hours, and the water would soon go down. It used to be a neighborhood joke, a nuisance.  Folks would bring out their rafts and kayaks and play.  But just recently, the water comes up, and it doesn’t go down nearly as fast.  In fact, it stays long enough for a second round of storms to drive water into basements, garages, and crawl spaces. 

In the thirty-eight I’ve lived in my house, built on a small rise above road level, the garage has never flooded.  Friday there were four inches and more, flooding the room and pouring into the crawl space under the house. It sounded like a waterfall.  The actual structure of the rest of the house is lifted about two feet above the garage level.  Yesterday, I had six inches left before water hit the joists, the electric wires, and came up through the hardwood floors.

What happened?

Cap the Tile

There is a newer house “in town” built directly over the storm sewer, the old clay tile line.  That tile started leaking, and the owner demanded that the city pay him damages for a flooded basement.  The city responded that the house was knowingly built on top of the line and they weren’t responsible.  The owner replied by cutting the line and capping it off.

So now there is no drainage from the old Van Atta farm.  The water flows down the clay tile towards the river – then it stops.  The “lakefront” property that used to be our occasional joke now faces serious ongoing damage.  That’s bad for me, and my house is NOT the lowest house on the street.

The city has a long-term solution.  They may not have an easement for the old clay tile lines, but they do own the roads. So, this summer, a brand new sewer line, big PVC pipe and concrete drop boxes; will be installed under the roads, replacing the seventy-year-old tile.  Instead of dropping money in nuisance lawsuits to defend old red clay, they are putting money towards a modern solution.  Then, if a pipe breaks, the city can dig up wherever it needs to.  It makes perfect sense.

And in the meantime, every time there’s a heavy rain, the City sends workers with a pump and water lines.  They hook at up to the old tile, and pump around the blocked off sewer line and back into the system.  It seems silly, but it’s the literal “work-around”.  The only problem:  water from a twelve-inch tile has to travel through a three-inch hose.  The whole drainage process is slowed way down.

Friday’s Deluge

It rained three inches in as many hours early Friday morning.  High winds accompanied the rain, lashing the houses and street.  Friday is trash-day; the dumpsters were knocked over, drifting down the street now river, spreading neat trash bags around the edges as the water lapped up against the houses.  The recycling bins are kept “loose”, no bags to organize the trash.  You could tell how far your stuff went by what kind of beer bottle ended up in the neighbor’s yard down the street.

I woke up at 6:00am to go grocery shopping. Kroger’s opened at 7:00am  (out of toilet paper at 7:05).  But when I saw the flood, and the garbage, I had to go find my dumpsters, and try to pick up my trash.  It was dark, but I had a “Gorton’s Fisherman” yellow coat on. A (deleted) pickup truck driver decided it’d be fun to soak me.  The neighborhood got an early morning shout-out of Dahlman profanity.

We were late responding to the crisis back at the house.  It took us a while to realize what was happening underneath in the crawl space.  But once we got it, we sandbagged the doors to the garage, and starting pumping the water back into the lake outside the door.  We used my little pump to empty the hot tub, and it took hours to get the water level to drop.  Meanwhile the water crept up in the crawl space, coming ever closer to the joists, the wires, and the floor.

Keeping Occupied

It took until late Friday afternoon to realize the flow was stopped, and the house wasn’t going to flood.  Saturday the garage was a mess, soaked, but the standing water was gone.  The crawl space still had a couple of feet of water, and there was still a lake all around the house.  But everything is slowly draining away.  The sump pumps under the house were hard at work, and I can still hear the city’s pump at work even now.

This is going to be a week for cleanup, when the water finally goes down.  They predict another two to three inches of rain is coming.  But one thing’s for sure – whatever Governor DeWine decides about “sheltering in place” they’ll be a lot to do at this place. I haven’t even looked in the shed at the back of the yard.

 So it’s time to stop writing and get to work.

FDR

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had lots of practice at being the national leader well before World War II.  He became President in 1933, at the depths of the Great Depression.  Unemployment was over twenty percent, most banks were closed, and the stock market hadn’t even begun to recover.  While entering a World War called for all of the strength of the “Bully Pulpit”, entering office in 1933 required more than just words.  

FDR had a plan, the New Deal.  He knew the nation needed to see action, federal action, and in the first one hundred days of his administration he created the “alphabet soup” that became what we know today as the federal bureaucracy. They included: National Recovery Administration (NRA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Civil Works Administration (CWA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

He communicated through action, and he communicated directly to the people through his “Fireside Chats”.  FDR didn’t do it in 140 characters; he took time to explain and reassure Americans that their lives would be better.  His Administration exuded confidence and competence.  It’s a little like the press conferences Governor Cuomo of New York is doing now; talking about how people feel as well as the cold hard facts of the corona-virus pandemic and the actions needed to counter it.

The War

So when World War II came around, he had a strong staff, already used to taking the initiative and willing to take the lead in gearing the nation for War.  He had the confidence of the country, and when he told us that “…yesterday, December 7^th, 1941, a day that shall live in infamy,” Americans lined up to join.  

When he needed an organizer to prepare his military, he found George Catlett Marshall, who managed Nimitz and MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton to win the War. And when he needed a weapon, he found a single-minded son of a bitch, Major General Leslie Groves, who herded his scientists into developing a working atomic bomb.  

Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was a War President.  He made it clear from before the first shots at Ft. Sumter that there was only one condition for ending the War, reaffirmation of the Union.  Slavery was not the issue, nor was “Northern aggression”.  Stay in the Union, and almost anything else was possible.  Leave the Union, and War was the only answer.

Lincoln made it clear that the Union was more important than even the law.  Ask the Maryland legislators who found themselves locked away without charges in Ft. McHenry, the same symbol of Star Spangled Banner fame.  It’s a little like Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine, who knew that a statewide election would put Ohioans in greater danger.  So he cancelled the election, and when a court ordered it back on, he had his Director of Public Health declare it a public hazard, and shut it back down.

Lincoln had a “team of rivals” as his cabinet, competitive and absolutely competent.   But while it took him more than a year to begin to find that same competence in his military leadership, ultimately the people stood with him as he searched for General Grant.   It was his rhetoric, his language that spoke to the American people, raising them to a willingness to defend, serve, and become “…the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here…”

More than Words

We know what a “War President” looks like.  Even George W Bush found his place, as he stood at the side of first responders at “ground zero” and said, “I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”  Unfortunately he squandered that respect in an unnecessary War in Iraq.

A War President takes the lead.  He doesn’t equivocate about whether the state or federal government is in charge, or whether getting ventilator machines out to the crisis areas is some “mail clerk’s” job.  A War President uses the media to get out the information he needs people to have.  He doesn’t spend his time disparaging them for “nasty questions” or claims they are all “fake” news.

And a War President finds a Grant or a Marshall or a Groves to spearhead an American effort to deal with crisis.  Instead, this President put his Vice President in charge, and then steps in front of him to take credit for any positive results.  And finally, a War President recognizes that trust and truth are ultimately what creates confidence and a willingness to sacrifice, not made up results or untested cures.

Trump

Why should the kids on spring break in Florida believe what our government is saying?  Our current “War President” has spent three and a half years trying to convince them that the media constantly lies, while lying himself over 16,400 times since his inauguration.  How does anyone trust or depend on that?

When our President claims it’s like being in a War, what he really wants is the laurels of victory that come with being a War President.  What he doesn’t realize is that those laurels aren’t simply bestowed by the office and the situation.  They are won by the leader’s hard earned actions and earned respect.   That hasn’t happened.

By the way – as I write this — on top of everything else happening in the world, this morning’s storms have made my house “lakefront” property again!! Oh boy!

Shelter in Place

“Shelter in place” was a scary enough term when it we were dealing with mass shooters.  As a teacher, it meant huddle in the corner of a classroom, hope that the door didn’t open, and wait for help.  The concept sucked, as did the alternative “Alice” training.  Throwing Campbell’s soup cans at someone with an AR-15 (yep, I even know that means Armalite, not Automatic Rifle) just doesn’t seem like a fair fight.

But now it has a whole new meaning.  In other eras it was called house arrest or curfews, but now it means, “please, stay at home, so we don’t have to make the police force you to do it”.  It’s a kinder, gentler way of keeping folks in their houses.  And, of course, it’s the right thing to do in this corona-virus world – something I expect we will be doing here in Ohio soon.

An After Thought

By the way, Joe Biden won three elections last night.  He gained a 289 delegate lead in the race to the nomination over Bernie Sanders, 1153 to 861.  Biden won Florida 62% to 23%, Illinois 59% to 36%, and Arizona 44% to 32%.  If Ohio had voted he would have won there as well.

But with social distancing, sheltering in place, and cleanliness guidelines, how will the remaining half of the states manage to hold primary elections?  Big states are still in play:  New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio (re-run) and Wisconsin among them.  And if they can’t find a way to vote, what does that say for the November election.  The “wave theory” of corona-virus says there will be this first onslaught, then a pause.  Scientists then predict a second “wave” will hit sometime in the fall, when the social distancing rules may need to be applied again.  

A friend strenuously objected to Ohio’s postponing the election yesterday, saying that we must protect the right to vote at all costs, even in this health crisis.  He had a point:  if there’s a health crisis in November will there be some attempt to postpone the Presidential election?  It would be hard for me to  “shelter in place” if that happened.

Of course there are alternatives.  Oregon and Washington vote by mail: no physical contact or polling places needed. Even those who forget to send their ballots can drop them off at “collection” stations.  That minimizes the risks to both the voters and the collectors.  While many states have struggled to make voting easier, for political or other reasons, perhaps our current health crisis will “trump” those concerns.  We will see.

Bye Bye Bernie?

In the meantime, Democrats are treading lightly when it comes to the Bernie Sanders campaign.  The writing is “on the wall” so to speak for the Senator from Vermont.  Statistically speaking there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable chance he could win the nomination for the Presidency.  As crazy as it seems, it’s less than a month from Bernie’s big win in Nevada and New Hampshire and the virtual write-off of the Biden candidacy, the world is now “upside down”.  Democrats nationwide have spoken, and Biden will be the nominee.

Joe Biden did his best to sound Presidential, magnanimous, and accommodating to the Bernie Sanders’ supporters in his victory talk last night (it really was a streamed talk, not a typical campaign victory speech).  Biden, like Hillary Clinton in 2016, knows that he needs all the help he can get to defeat Donald Trump.  Sanders’ supporters represent votes, and even more importantly, energy in the fall campaign.  So “kid gloves” is the word for talking about Sanders and his followers.

And there isn’t, so far, the bitterness that pervaded the end of the Clinton/Sanders battles of 2016.  The DNC has gone above and beyond to be fair, and like it or not, the voters have made the choice very clear.  So the time is coming to wrap up this primary season.    

The election is currently running way back in second place in this corona-virus news world.  It would be a good time for Senator Sanders to do what’s right for the Party, and the Nation, and let us concentrate on getting through this crisis, and onto ending the four-year disaster of Donald Trump.

New Normal

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, Tuesday, March 17^th, 2020:  a unique day in our history. Unusual things have happened on this day, as Ohio and the rest of the nation dig deeper into the era of Corona-Virus.  Here, Governor Mike DeWine tried to cancel today’s primary elections, and a local court overruled him.  When he lost the case, the wily veteran showed his well-earned political wisdom. He waited until 10:00 pm last night to have his Public Health Director declare the election a public health hazard – too late to appeal.  The election is postponed, probably for a while.

Speaking of Governor DeWine, it’s not often you’ll hear me speak highly of a member of the GOP in this age of Trump.  And while it’s not likely that I’ll be voting for him, I do admire has political courage. Two weeks ago he cancelled one of the most important revenue and sporting events in Columbus, Ohio, the “Arnold Sports Classic;” and the town was aghast.  Today, in what seems like months later, it’s not a big deal.  The Governor is trying to stay ahead of THE curve, literally, and I hope he continues to be willing to make the tough decisions.  He’s doing what’s right, not what’s politically correct. DeWine is an Irish name, and from one Irishman here (it’s Martin O’Connor Dahlman) I’ll raise a glass to the Governor tonight.

Homework

I spent my day working from home.  It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around the idea of substitute teaching from my office at the house, and today grading “papers” was all done online. But I spent my “work” hours staring at some awesome projects from my new social studies classes.  I even got the same old headache I used to get with term papers, but I didn’t fall asleep grading quite as much!

As I worked I listened to the President’s press conference.  As of yesterday he finally realized the real bad news:  millions may die on his “watch”.  Mr. Trump is subdued, and worried, and saying all of the things that he should have said two weeks ago; the kind of things that Mike DeWine has been saying all along. But at least he’s got it, and he’s working to be “Presidential”, something he’s always said he could do but never pulled off.  

I also watch Governor Cuomo of New York today, talking about his children, and his parents, and what life is like under “social distancing”.  The Governor was telling stories of his life to describe what we have to do:  it must have felt the same when Americans gathered around the radio to listen to President Roosevelt in the depths of the Great Depression.  Cuomo’s key:  what’s going to happen is going to take time, but in the scope of our lives, it’s a short time that will only feel like it lasted forever.  The only things we will lose are those family and friends we lose through death.  Whatever we can do to lessen that loss is worth the sacrifice.

In the World

I did venture to the Kroger’s for some needed supplies.  No, we’re still fine on toilet paper, but heaven forbid the dogs run out of carrots, or canned food.  Good thing about the toilet paper, by 2:30 there was none left in the store again.  Someone must have a mountain of that stuff somewhere, a basement filled to the rafters, or a garage that you can’t open the door.  I guess I have to admit it:  I hope they have a flood.  It would serve them right. Even if Ohio says “shelter in place” you still will be able to go to the store for supplies.  That includes toilet paper.

But I found what we needed, keeping my “appropriate” physical distance from the other customers.  Everyone was subdued, except for the young cashier.  There wasn’t a “bagger” so I was doing it myself. As I attempted to pickup a new plastic grocery bag again and again, she watched me, and finally said, “You have to lick you fingers”.  I knew that, but it’s a “new” world of corona-virus, and I didn’t think that finger licking was appropriate.  But as she said, “it’s your bag”. 

St Patrick’s Day

Anyway, I’m thinking about an electronic assignment for my remote students at the other end of the computer screen.  There’s a Bobby Kennedy quote:

            “There’s an old Chinese proverb:  may you live in interesting times. Like it on not, we live in interesting times.”

I think my young charges should write what life is like in the 2020 Corona-Virus.  I hope it’s a one-time event for them, something they can tell tall stories about to their children.  It’s history class I’m teaching, and it’s history that they’re living. So are we.

But regardless of all that, it’s St. Patrick’s Day – and we’ve laid on a supply of Guinness and Conway’s.  There’s no party at the Irish Pub tonight, but I’ll still be celebrating me Irish heritage.

Sláinte!

Bad News at the Door Step

If you listen to the news, this week it seems all depressingly the same.  Social distancing, washing hands, flattening curves, an exponential crisis:  everywhere you turn you’re being warned.  Here in Ohio the schools, restaurants, bars, casinos, racinos (yep, there’s a difference) fitness clubs, and even my dentist’s office are all closed.  When you run into people, out on the street or at the grocery store, they look a little guilty:  I’m not in my house; is my excuse to be out “good” enough?  

Pataskala, Ohio is dealing with the corona-virus crisis just like everyone else.  We’ve had our bad moments.  There supposedly was a fight in the local grocery store:  one man took three packages of toilet paper when he was only allowed to have two, another took the last package left, and wanted the extra.  There were words, and a shoving match, and someone else had to intervene to stop something worse.

It’s odd:  why toilet paper?  How did that become the symbolic product shortage of the corona-virus, a disease of the lungs?  Sure, they’ve run out of bacterial wipes, and paper towels, but toilet paper?  And why is everyone convinced that there will be shortages, that somehow they will be ordered into their homes with no way out?  But that’s where Pataskala’s residents are.  If you want white bread, you’re probably out of luck.  Good thing I like rye!

Back to School

I picked a great time to get back into education.  As the “long-term sub” for a middle school social studies teacher, I was just getting my legs (and voice) back when schools were closed.  Now, this “old dog” is going to have to learn a lot of new tricks.  Education isn’t going to stop:  there’s a whole new world in “Google Classroom” where students and teachers can interact and learn.  Good thing we were supposed to have spring break next week, I can buy some time to figure out how to make all this happen.  

Republican Governor Mike DeWine will probably never get my vote, but he absolutely has earned my respect.  His handling of the crisis has been forthright and honest, and he is willing to make the tough decisions that might save lives here in Ohio.  He rolled out his “plan” over several days, not wanting to “nail” Ohioans with too much at one time.  Sure schools are closed until after April 3^rd, but I would bet as we get closer, schools will remain shuttered much longer.  He’s just in no hurry to deliver one more piece of bad news.

So the staff at the school will learn how to educate from a “social” distance, via computer.  They’ve already picked up the challenge, and many have offered to help an old “chalk” teacher with the new technology.  I’ll get it, and if needs be, we can teach for the rest of the year.  I’ll miss the contact, and the discussions, but that’s the one thing we can’t have for a while.

Good Cops

By the way, since all the kids are at home, some parents are frantic.  They have to work, and the school and the YMCA and the library are all closed. There’s nowhere for their kids to go.  The Pataskala Police Department has offered to stop by and check on them; just give them the address and your phone number.  “Wellness checks” are something they’re happy to do: making sure that young teens are OK at home is a great service to our community.

Good Friends

As I’ve noted before, Pataskala is the home to more pizza shops than almost anything else (well, there’s a lot of car parts places too).  There are also several restaurants of one kind or another, a Chinese carryout, two Mexican places, and a number of bars that serve food.  But the governor has ordered all restaurants closed, carryout or delivery only.  

Members of the community are putting the local menus online, and encouraging folks to buy some local carryout food at least once a week.  The big businesses, the chain restaurants will probably be all right, but places like the Nutcracker and Ziggys and the “hallowed” local pizza place, Capuanos, will need community support to survive the crisis.  I believe that they’ll get all the help they need – it’s just too bad Ziggys can’t carryout beer.

Speaking of beer, even the local brewery, the Granville Brewery, is closed.  But I heard they’ll fill your growlers for you if you need it, you just can’t sit at the bar!!

There’s lots of grousing and grumbling:  no one around here is sick – yet.  But there’s also an underlying fear, of what might happen, if not to you, then to someone you love.  It seems that things will get much worse before they begin to get better.  But Pataskala, with all its flaws, will stand together to help each other.  Neighbors will check on neighbors, and friends with friends.  

They might even loan you a roll of toilet paper.

Back Before

Twelve days ago was “Super Tuesday”.  Joe Biden won big, ten states to Bernie Sanders’ four.  And even Sanders’ win in the “big enchilada,” California, was close, earning him only forty-seven more delegates than Biden, 211 to 163.  Super Tuesday results changed the entire course of the Democratic nominating process, followed up by Biden’s strong results this past Tuesday in Michigan, Missouri, and three other states.  Sanders managed to win only one, North Dakota.

That was the “big deal” last week, the week before the United States confronted the Corona-Virus head on.  And the elections, and life, go on, despite all of the “oxygen” in our lives taken up by this ultimate health crisis.    

My wife is “fostering” a rescued dog.  She named the eight-year old “Bandit,” and he came to the house three weeks ago in sad shape.  His back legs hardly worked, his ears were so filled with infection the he couldn’t hear, and he had other skin infections and probably worms. He was a mess from months wandering outside.  Before there was the corona-virus quarantine, Jenn was quarantined here in the house, giving intensive care to Bandit.  This coming Tuesday he goes for an MRI and possible spinal surgery to determine his fate.

But he has improved under Jenn’s care.  He’s standing better, eating regular dog food, and finally sleeping more than two hours at a time.  He’s good enough, that Jenn could actually leave the house for a few hours without worrying.  Since Tuesday is Bandit’s big day at the veterinary hospital, we decided to go cast our primary votes at the County Board of Elections in Newark.

Social Distancing

It was the first Saturday of  “social-distancing” to slow down the course of the corona-virus.  Folks here in Licking County seem to be taking that seriously.  The roads weren’t as crowded as usual.  When we arrived at the Board of Elections, there wasn’t a line, even though this was the only place to cast early ballots on Saturday morning.  We walked straight in, got our “new” optical ballot from the clerk, and voted.  I complimented the clerks on the new apparatus, not only is there an actual paper ballot printed, but you can visually check your votes to make sure there are no mistakes.  Licking County seems ahead of the voting curve.

We were out, Jenn for the first time in weeks.  So we went to lunch at a local pub.  It was a little early, but we didn’t expect to be the only customers in the place.  It gave us a chance to talk to the staff over our burgers.  This was their new “reality” of business, a few customers but many open tables.  It was supposed to be a Saturday of NCAA basketball finals with the bar packed.  Today the bartender was straightening out the bottles on the top shelf; no one was looking for a drink.

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day weekend, America’s excuse to drink Guinness beer and Jamison’s Irish whiskey.  But it’s not happening, folks are staying home, and no one is getting a tip for good service.

On the Point

What’s going to happen to these restaurants?  One of our favorite spots in Cleveland, Nighttown, has closed its doors for a month.  The workers are laid off, told to collect unemployment.  Other restaurants are shortening their hours, and soon will start cutting back on employees. 

Investors have been anticipating a recession for months, but Corona-Virus has sealed the deal.  It’s not just the stock market, down twenty percent, 6000 points in the past month.  It’s those bartenders and waiters, standing around at the restaurant, talking nervously to the few customers.  Food comes out fast, and drinks are never empty.  But these folks won’t be working for long.  When the government says that they’ll take care of those hurt by the epidemic, I hope these guys are in the front of the line.

I know we’ve got to practice “social distancing”.  My substitute-teaching job has turned into developing materials for “online education”.  Kids are going to check-in online, get their assignments, and then put them in the “drop-box” to be graded.  It’s a “brave new world” of teaching, one that puts us all out of harm’s way.  And if you study the “flattened” curve of disease, it’s going to last for months. So get used to it.

But don’t forget all those folks who are going to lose out.  Not just kids who will miss the personal contact, but people who will lose their jobs because we are all hiding from the virus in our homes.  

And if you go out to eat, leave a big tip.  They need it.

Today

I had the distinct honor of coaching high school track and field for forty years.  Thousands of kids ran, jumped, and threw on my teams.  Some struggled, some were average, and some were champions.  One athlete won the state and set records that still stand.  Others were close to those achievements, striving to be the best. I asked all of them one thing:  to work to be better than they were.  

Track is like that.  You compete against others, sometimes against the best there is, but you always, always, compete against yourself.  And that is what makes it special; it doesn’t require a competitor to measure your own effort and success.  Even if you are the “worst” you can still be better than you were yesterday.  And if you are the best, you can still have a reason to be even better.

Don’t Wait

The advice I often gave those athletes was; “Strive today, because no one can promise tomorrow”.  When you have the opportunity to do something special and extraordinary, don’t fail to make the most of it.  As you float down the track in the 100 meters, the fastest in the field, don’t miss the chance to go even faster.  Tomorrow isn’t promised; a hamstring injury in the prelims might end your season.

When you soar over the crossbar at 15’, don’t let the wind distract you from going even higher.  It might be the one time that all of the random forces, including luck, are at your back.  You might only have this one chance to set a record, to reach your dreams.  Don’t depend on tomorrow, it isn’t promised.  

When you run the fastest 400 in school history, don’t suffer that someone was even faster in the field.  Tomorrow pneumonia might strike, and your season is over.

Focus on today, on now, on this moment.  Achieve it now.  Tomorrow isn’t promised.

As the coach, I was there for many athletes who strived today and hoped for a tomorrow to fulfill their dreams.   For a chosen few, the gift of tomorrow came, and they achieved all that they hoped.  And yet, even for them, there was still that self-competition.  They might have been better than everyone else, but they were not yet better than themselves.

Tomorrow’s Gone

Today, many of those athletes are finding out there is no tomorrow.  It’s all for the right reasons:  the United States is in a desperate race against the Corona-Virus.  It is an odd race, one we will certainly lose.  But if we lose it slowly enough, we can actually win. We must reduce social contact.  We must save lives by saving space in hospitals.  It’s our duty, as a nation. 

But it doesn’t make it easier for those athletes, who are giving up their dreams.  

There is the story of the 1980 American Olympians, many the best in the world at what they did.  They trained their whole lives simply for the chance to compete, and for some, to win a medal.  But the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and the Olympics were in Moscow.  My former boss, President Jimmy Carter, determined that the US team should not compete in the capital of an invading nation.  The cause was right, but the impact on those Olympians lasted a lifetime.  They lost their chance at the dream.

There are few future Olympians running for the team I once coached today.  But there are some alumni training on their college teams, who just lost their NCAA championship chance.  I know them; they will put their heads down and move onto the next goal.  That’s who they are, and how they’ve been trained.  But they will never forget, and they will always regret losing this tomorrow.

Do Your Duty

In the larger scale, everyone knows what’s right.  Everyone knows that, to quote Commander Spock, “the good of the many outweighs the good of the few”.  We will weather this onslaught of Corona-Virus, in six months or a year.  And we will have a vaccine for this disease inside of two years.  Corona-Virus will become another in the list of world pandemics that burned through, then faded away.  

I explained smallpox vaccination to a class of eighth graders.  It’s a disease that exists only in germ warfare labs today, extinguished by science.  I reached to my shoulder to show them that mark of “ancientness,” a scar from the vaccination for a disease they’ve hardly heard of.  So too will Corona-Virus be.

But it won’t change the individual losses, both to those that don’t survive the onslaught, and those who give up their dream that others may live.  We must be a nation of purpose.  But don’t hold it against the few who will do their duty, if they mourn the loss of their tomorrow.

Stop the Surge

It took weeks, but the public health authorities finally gave a clear explanation for their actions.  The question many Americans were asking was that if everyone would ultimately be exposed to the corona-virus, what was the point of “social distancing”.  Why should we go to all the trouble of changing our lifestyles, cancelling our events, and even staying in our homes?  

It isn’t about “avoiding” the virus.  It’s about “stopping the surge”.

Once the United States lost the opportunity to “contain” the virus, the only thing left to do was to “mitigate” the damage.  The damage is in the numbers.  Public health experts suggest as many as twenty to forty percent of Americans will get the corona-virus.  That’s somewhere between 70 to 130 million people.  And, judging on the Chinese and Italian outbreaks, 80% of those will have mild to moderate symptoms, not requiring hospitalization.  They’ll get sick for a week or so, and get better.

Flatten the Curve

So it comes down to the twenty percent, those who need hospitals, intensive care, and even mechanical vents, breathing machines.  Twenty percent of 70 million is 14 million people.  The United States has somewhere around 800,000 hospital beds, and around 70,000 intensive care units.  If millions of people need intensive care all at one time, there is simply nowhere for them to go.  In Italy, doctors have been forced to triage patients, determining who gets care based on who has the best chance of survival.  People are dying because there aren’t hospital rooms for them.

But if public health officials can convince Americans to “spread out,” avoiding mass events where the virus will quickly spread from person to person, then perhaps we can avoid that surge of patients needing care.  It’s not that they won’t ultimately need to be hospitalized, it’s that they will hit the hospitals over a longer period of time.  They can go in, be treated, and be released before the next patient arrives.  Over time, they all can be treated, as long as they don’t all show up at one time.  Many more will survive; hospitals will avoid determining who will live and who will die.

So if we can “flatten the curve” we can spread the number of cases over time.  Flattening the curve spreads patients about, if will allow many more people who are at risk from corona-virus to survive.  It makes perfect sense – they just had to tell us!

It would have made sense three weeks ago too, and it would have worked so much better.

Bernie’s Bargain

Wednesday Senator Bernie Sanders spoke out about the results of Tuesday’s primaries.  He made it clear that he was going to continue his campaign, and debate Biden Sunday in Phoenix.  But Bernie’s speech wasn’t really a challenge to Biden’s success; it was the opening gambit in negotiations with the Democratic convention.

Sanders honorably has spent a lifetime fighting for his beliefs.  Universal health care, forgiveness of student loans, and dealing with climate change are his core issues.  He’s bringing them to the table at the debate, demanding that Biden respond to his concerns.  What Bernie offers is a motivated base, a voting group that Biden absolutely needs to win the election in November.  

And Biden can offer Sanders and his supporters reasonable answers, moving to “the left” without leaving his more moderate supporters.  So the debate on Sunday is likely to be more friend-to-friend negotiations, rather than a bitter attack that damages both candidates.  

If Sanders likes what he hears, and Biden gets the results in Tuesday’s primaries in Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Arizona that he expects, perhaps the Democratic Primary campaign will wrap up in the next week.  If not, Sanders will continue.  This is his last chance to run for President, and his best chance of getting his views “on the table”.  He won’t quit without getting something.

Back to Work

Just a personal note:  I’ve gone back to work, temporarily.  I’m teaching social studies to sixth, seventh and eighth graders, filling in for a teacher who just had her first child.  It’s a real eye-opener:  when I left the classroom in 2006 there were still chalkboards and pencil and paper notes.  Today there’s a “Smart Board”, every kid has a “Chrome Book” and tests, assignments and projects appear magically in the “In Box”.  

Luckily for me, kids are still kids, and history is still history.  So if my “Trump World” essays seem to be appearing later in the day, and have odd references to Hindu culture, the Middle Ages, or the Civil War, there is a reason.  It’s exciting to be back in the classroom, but it’s not exciting to be back in “five in the morning” world.  Thank goodness spring break is only a week away!

Is It Over?

Another Tuesday

Tuesday’s primary votes are telling a story, a tale that supports Joe Biden’s candidacy.  But it’s not “all about Joe,” it’s more about the choices Democrats are making today.

Just as South Carolina was Biden’s “firewall”, a total win or lose proposition, Michigan was Bernie Sanders last line of defense.  The Biden campaign was on its last legs after abject failure in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.  Anything short of overwhelming success in South Carolina, a state where African-Americans make up over half of the Democratic electorate, and the Biden campaign would wither away.  It wouldn’t be Biden’s choice:  the money would dry up, and with it, his candidacy.

South Carolina and Jim Clyburn came through for Biden.  That Saturday success turned the tables on the national electorate, and Super Tuesday led to Biden victories throughout the country.  He took the delegate lead, but more importantly, he came through in the popular vote among African-Americans, suburban women, and older voters.  Biden created his own unique coalition, different from Barack Obama, and from Bernie Sanders as well.

Super Tuesday was important not just because of the success of the new Biden coalition.  It was also marked by the failure of the Sanders “revolution,” the whole new grouping of young new voters who were going to change the fabric of the American electorate.  Bernie counted on them to appear in overwhelming numbers, enough to bring his Social-Democratic dream to the fore in American politics.

No Revolution

But it didn’t happen.  The young supporters didn’t turn out to vote.

So Michigan became his last bastion, the site of a surprise victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 that re-energized his campaign.  Michigan convinced Sanders to continue his 2016 efforts all the way to the end of the primary season, much to the disgust of the Clinton camp.  

The question to ask about 2016:  were people voting for Bernie Sanders, or were they voting against Hillary Clinton. Clinton had the second highest negatives of any major candidate to run for President (Trump had the highest):  were Michigan voters in 2016 choosing the Social-Democratic philosophy, or were they simply opposing another Clinton for President?  And how much of a role did misogyny play in both the primary and general elections?  Was it just the fact that a woman was running for President that cost her the election?

So when the Sanders campaign went “to the barricades” in Michigan last week, they couldn’t have been absolutely confident.  Yes they had the bulwarks:  college voters from the University of Michigan and Michigan State to Superior State.  Would those students be enough to offset the powerful vote of the black community around Detroit, clearly trending towards Biden?  What would the suburban vote, fresh off the “change” election of 2018, say about Sanders? And how would the Michigan farmers, suffering under the agricultural and immigration policies of the Trump Administration do?

Bad News for Bernie

It’s probably not as much about Bernie, as it is about Donald.  Turnouts are hitting record levels, but it isn’t the “revolution” that’s driving folks to the polls.  And while Joe Biden may be a “good guy” and all, he’s not Barack Obama, with charismatic energy.  Democrats are coming to the polls with a single, burning purpose:  to choose the candidate that can beat Donald Trump.

2016 Democrats weren’t even worried about Donald Trump. They thought, “The GOP would never nominate him”. Or if they were foolish enough to do so; he would never, ever, never have a chance of being elected.  So the 2016 primaries were about the last year’s of the Obama Presidency, and the frustration of McConnell blocking every effort to make positive changes.  Merrick Garland was only the most obvious example, it seemed that every Democratic goal was stopped by, the “Grim Reaper”.

So Democrats in Michigan and other places took the opportunity to challenge the establishment, in the persona of Hillary Clinton.  Bernie was the foil, the tool used to express common Democratic feeling of frustration.  

But we woke up on a Wednesday morning in November to the realization that Donald Trump was President.  Democrats have lived that nightmare ever since.  2020 Presidential calculations have come down to one simple equation:  which candidate has the best chance of ending the Trump Presidency.

Why Joe?

Results show that Democrats aren’t willing to risk the Sanders Revolution for fear that it might fail.  They are willing to take a less than perfect candidate in Biden, who is a weak stand-in for President Obama. He still represents the strength, calm and professionalism of the Obama Administration.  In short, they don’t want a revolution; they want a return to normalcy.

Every single county in Michigan went for Joe Biden Tuesday night.  Even in Washtenaw County, home to the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, Biden edged Sanders out.  And in the northern farm counties, up high in the “mitten”, the farmers voted for Biden as well.

Sanders flew back to Vermont Tuesday night, forced to cancel his Cleveland rally due to corona-virus concerns.  He had nothing to say.

So he will need to make a decision soon.  In 2016 he went all the way to the end of the primaries, forcing Hillary to defend in each state while knowing that she would ultimately need the Sanders’ supporters to win in November.  If he does that again in 2020, will he really chance wounding Biden in the ultimate quest to beat Trump?  

Known Knowns

Here’s an update on the coronavirus. We know if you’re healthy, especially young and healthy – coronavirus is generally not a risk to you. If you’re older – like me – or have underlying health issues – or both – coronavirus puts you in danger. We think 80% of people who get coronavirus will be ok.  The other 20% will face serious illness with possible long-term damage, and particularly lung damage. And of course some small percentage of them, elderly mostly – will die. 

You read the memes and messages – flu kills more people – we don’t freak out about it. Measles is more easily transmitted – and we are only mildly concerned.  

And there is the one scientific fact that we absolutely know.  If we don’t test people for coronavirus, we won’t know how many people are sick.  Many will have cold and flu symptoms, and simply treat themselves.  They won’t “go in the count”.  But they will have the opportunity to spread their disease, for up to two weeks before they experience whatever symptoms they are going to have.

Not testing doesn’t mean we’re doing better than other countries, like Italy or Iran or China.  It simply means we don’t know what we don’t know.

Counter-Measures

But we have vaccines for both flu and measles. Much of the concern about those diseases is that by not getting vaccinated, those most in danger are placed at the greatest risk – people immune compromised or otherwise unable to be protected.  It’s not so much that you or your kid will get sick, it’s that you or they become a walking infection machine before being aware they are sick. Then they infect those who can’t survive the disease. 

And there’s no vaccine for coronavirus:  all that can be done is treat symptoms in those who become critically ill. In a letter from an Italian doctor I read recently, he spoke of the shortage of mechanical vents, breathing machines, in Italian hospitals.  Operating rooms are turned into intensive care units as the last vents left available.  In some cities there is no other medical care going on other than treating coronavirus. The at-risk twenty percent are overwhelming. 

Here in America we are being given lessons on washing hands. We are told stay six feet from each other (try that in any public school classroom in America) and sneeze in your elbow, not your hands. 

Doesn’t that sound reassuring?  Modern science at it’s best, saving society with soap, water, and alcohol based sanitizer. That’s it: sing a song while you wash your hands? Our vaunted medical establishment, the folks that stopped Ebola, that’s all they’ve got?

Yep.

Mitigation not Containment

So let’s get all this straight. COVID 19 is the particular coronavirus we are worried about.  The opportunity to “contain” the virus has passed, with “community transmission” (sounds like a cable company) occurring in several parts of the United States.  Now, all that can be done is mitigation – another term for cutting losses. 

Like the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we’ve started with nothing more than isolation and “mitigation”.  The difference is during Ebola; mitigation was quickly followed by a vaccine of sorts, and even more specific treatment options.  And there was no “community transmission”.   But we are being told by the “best and the brightest” of American medicine, that a vaccine is a year away, at minimum.

“But the spring will end this,” they say.  “Like the flu, it will go away in the summer sun.”  We don’t have any reason to know that.  It didn’t happen with the Spanish Flu in the horrible epidemics from 1918 to 1920.   And by the way, it isn’t the temperature that reduces the incidence of disease.  It’s the fact that folks spend more time outside, beyond the four walls of the hothouse disease spreading environments of their homes and offices.  School’s out too.

Looking Forward

It’s disappointing.  We expected more from our science, and our government.  But we are here now, facing a massive infection of American society.  This isn’t the apocalypse, and this particular disease won’t end our society, though it already is having a dramatic impact on our economy.  Oil prices are down:  China’s not using as much, and a tiff between Russia and Saudi Arabia means that the supply will go up.  That’s fine; gas prices will probably drop again soon.

That will match the stock market, after a few days of near free-fall.  The Market is looking forward to limited productions, supply-line disruptions, and possible citywide quarantines.  Working from home doesn’t work, if you’re a restaurant, or a factory, or a distributor.   While the Administration and the Federal Reserve will try to “pump” the economy by adding funds, money might not solve the market value problems.

It’s America.  We will find a way to muddle through.  We will have elections and conventions, and probably the World Series as well.  But denial is not the answer.  We need to recognize the problem, realize that some will in fact get sick, really sick, and some will die. We need our hospitals to get prepared for the onslaught. And then,  we’ll have to deal with it, not ignore it.

Numbers Count

Politics is a matter of numbers.  Can you raise enough money?  Do you have enough contacts? Have you found enough issues that resonate with the voters? Did you get enough votes?

In 2016 we learned that polling isn’t an exact science.  Many felt that the polls mislead the American people, polls that showed Hillary Clinton as the clear winner of the Presidential election up through the day before the vote.  And, as Democrats are quick to point out, Hillary technically got the most votes in the election, by almost three million.  But that’s not how America chooses its President.

Pollsters would argue that the Trump/Clinton polls were “within the margin of error”.  But the fact that every poll showed Clinton winning, and every poll was on the “wrong” end of the error margin certainly led many Americans to doubt their credibility.

So the fact that the most recent polling shows Joe Biden ahead in the Michigan primary (by six percentage points) isn’t something you’d bet the ranch on.  We’ve learned that betting the ranch might cost – the ranch.

Two Issues

In Michigan, Senator Sanders is arguing that he is “closer” to the labor voters because he was against NAFTA and the “Bailout of 2009”.  Sanders argues that NAFTA sent good Michigan jobs out of the country, without protecting workers here at home.  And he argues that we “bailed out” the wealthy Wall Street firms in the Great Recession, but left the common homeowners hanging with underwater mortgages.

He’s not wrong.  And to make his next point, Sanders points out that Joe Biden voted for NAFTA, and was the Vice President supporting President Obama with the Wall Street bailout.  That’s how Bernie plans to make his point to Michiganders:  I backed you, Joe didn’t.

Of course, Biden will come back that Sanders was against the auto industry bailout that saved General Motors and Chrysler.  That bailout saved thousands of Michigan jobs, and the single most important industry in the state.  So there’s that.

Waterloo

Bernie Sanders is in a difficult situation.  After the surprise of  “Super Tuesday”, he now is behind in delegates to the Democratic Convention in July.  Tomorrow Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Washington will determine their delegates.  Judging from “Super Tuesday” results, Biden will likely have an overwhelming victory in Mississippi.  Sanders won Michigan in 2016, and did well in Missouri.  Whether that was a reaction to the negative imagery of Hillary Clinton, or more about his stand on the issues, will be tested tomorrow.  But one thing is clear:  Sanders must staunch the bleeding of Super Tuesday.  If he doesn’t win somewhere, in particular, if he can’t replicate his Michigan win of 2016, it’s hard to find his path to the nomination.

Michigan may represent his “Waterloo”:  win and he’s Wellington, lose and he’s Napoleon. 

Pure Michigan 

Michigan is highly representative of the American electorate.  There is the urban center of Detroit, with a high percentage of black voters.  Biden has so far dominated with that voting block.  But Sanders has tried to make inroads; Jesse Jackson came in to endorse him last weekend.  Whether Jackson will impact with older black voters, an area where Biden runs strong, still has to be seen.

There is the strong labor union vote in Michigan.  Union leadership seems to be trending towards Biden, but Sanders hopes his platform appeals to the rank and file. Sanders won strong union support in Nevada despite their leadership; gaining union votes is his key to winning.  But perhaps most significantly, there is a strong suburban vote in Michigan, the vote that turned Michigan from Republican to Democratic control in 2018.  Sanders must find a way to appeal to suburban voters in Michigan, in order to prove that he can reach them nationwide.

But most importantly, Bernie needs to reach the younger voters, and turn them out to the polls.  The core of Sanders appeal is his outreach to Millennials and younger.  If they don’t vote overwhelming for him, it’s hard to imagine a Sanders victory.

It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over

This Tuesday will NOT mark the end of the Democratic primary campaigns.  But Tuesday’s results will tell us whether the Biden “surprise” was a fluke, or a movement.  And that will tell us whether Bernie Sanders is destined to be the Democratic Candidate for President, or will have his same result from 2016.

Tuesday will tell that tale.

Philmont

I was thirteen soon to be fourteen in August of 1970.  As a Boy Scout I was given a special age waiver to participate in a “high adventure” activity at Philmont, New Mexico.  The Boy Scouts owned (still do) several hundred square miles of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the town of Cimarron, and small groups of Scouts would backpack from camp to camp through the range.  It was a ten-day adventure, taking us high above the tree line on Mt. Baldy at 12,000 feet, and exploring near one hundred miles of the world of New Mexico wilderness.  We met deer, and bear, and tested our limits on the high mountain trails.  

We were on the western side of the territory, miles from the headquarters and highway, when a boy died on a base camp day hike.  He didn’t die of injury; he became gravely ill from an unknown cause, and then passed away.  Authorities weren’t sure what caused his death, but the symptoms he exhibited before his passing resembled pneumonic plague.

Plague

Everyone knew what the bubonic plague was, the rat-borne bacterial disease that killed massive numbers of the population in the middle ages.  And even if they don’t know about the plague, they probably know the signs:

“Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posey, ashes, ashes, all fall down”.

That ancient rhyme describes the ringed red pustules of bubonic plague that smelled so bad that flowers were used to try to cover the odor.  Burning bodies, “ashes, ashes” and everyone dies.  It seemed like such an innocent childhood song.

Bubonic plague was passed through fleas.  The rats had the disease and the fleas bit the rats.  The rats died, and the fleas moved onto the nearest warm bodies, humans, carrying the disease with them. 

The plague still exists in some rodent populations, including squirrels in the mountains.  But pneumonic plague is different, instead of passing through an insect bite; it is carried in the air by droplets from an infected source.  That makes it much more dangerous, because it is so easily transmitted.

Quarantine

They sealed Philmont off.  Parents drove to the camp, lining the highway at the front gate trying to reach their children.  The National Guard came in to guarantee the quarantine.  My group, 8-04-C2, blithely continued hiking our itinerary, actually passing off the property for half a day before reaching our next camp.  Headquarters didn’t want to call everyone back in, massing the Scouts in base camp would increase risks of infection.

So, while my parents worried, and my sister had her first child, I was marching the hallowed trails of Philmont.  It took a couple of days and an autopsy to find that the unfortunate boy had a congenital heart defect, not pneumonic plague.  The crisis that didn’t ever exist was averted.

Coronavirus

We are not so lucky today.  The crisis of the COVID-19 virus is very real.  Like the pneumonic plague, it is passed through airborne droplets, or through contact with the virus on surfaces.  Unlike plague, it has a much lower fatality rate, though scientists are still unsure how dangerous it may be.  Somewhere between 2% and 4% of those who contract the disease die. The victims are older, sicker, or have compromised immune systems.

The disease moves from person to person, with the potential for exponential growth.   I’m not a “math guy”, so I’ve stolen a graph from the Internet to explain the difference between linear growth and exponential growth.

.

Known Unknowns

Now the Centers for Disease Control tell us that the United States has 164 cases of coronavirus (as of today, March 7 CDC).  But the one factor they don’t mention:  the tests to diagnose sick people with coronavirus are still extremely limited.  If you can’t test people, you can’t know how many people have it.  If you don’t know how many people have it, you can’t determine what the progression of the disease might be.

Somehow, the United States, the leader in scientific research in the world, hasn’t developed a mass test for this disease.  In fact, we are told that we pay the highest drug costs in the world because we are financing that scientific research, the infamous “cost of the first pill” that drives American pharmaceutical prices.  But if you go to your local doctor today, it’s unlikely he can test you for coronavirus.

Instead, you must go to a hospital emergency room, a fertile area for disease transmission pretty much anytime, and even then you may not be able to get tested.  The United States is not ready.  We don’t know, we what don’t know.  And we don’t know how many people have coronavirus today.

What to Do

So the great American scientific community is telling us to wash our hands, stay away from sick people, and not to touch our faces.  And we are cancelling mass gatherings:  college basketball games played in empty field houses, the Ultra Music Festival in Miami and the famous South by Southwest Festival in Austin called off.  The elderly and sick are told not to fly, and for sure, not go on a cruise.

But Disney World remains open.  Orlando still beckons spring breakers.  Everyone is determining how much of their life will be disrupted for this unknown disease.  They are trying to determine if hiding in their home is enough to protect them, and if it’s worth it.

We need better guidance, and the government needs to get better information.  It looks like we’ve missed the opportunity to “stop” anything, now we are going to have to deal with the human, medical, and economic consequences.  

Maybe it’s time to head for the mountains.

Liberal

I used to be a Liberal.  I believe in liberal ideals, like the Affordable Care Act with an option for government insurance like Medicare for anyone who wanted it.  Like we ought to have at least two more years of public education available for everyone for free.  That we ought to make a huge government-run effort to fix the environment, with an emphasis on reducing hydrocarbons and making energy from renewable non-polluting sources.

I used to be a Liberal.  I looked to the “liberal lions” of the Senate, Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold and Sherrod Brown, as role models and defenders.  Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were liberals (at least Johnson as far as civil rights were concerned).  And I “thought” that the term “liberal” was changed to “progressive” for political reasons.  Somehow in the 90’s people thought that “liberal” was bad, so they came up with a new term for it.

Progressives

I was listening to former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner last night.  Turner is a co-chair of the Bernie Sanders campaign, and made it clear that unless you were “all-in” on the Sanders’ agenda, you weren’t a “progressive”.  Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, paying off all college debt, and taxes on the wealthy:  all are gospel.  If you aren’t for all of it, then you aren’t a “progressive”.  I like a whole lot of those ideas, but I also have trouble seeing a path for their absolute acceptance by even a small majority of Congress.

In the “old” days, the Bernie Sanders movement would have been considered beyond the “liberal” wing of the Party.  Social Democrats in the German or United Kingdom mold were beyond the scale of modern American politics.  So the Sanders movement has taken the title “progressive” and left the rest of the Democratic as “moderates”.  But moderate means something very different to me.

Moderates

Mike Bloomberg is a moderate.  While he has some more “progressive” notions, like gun control, he is essentially a Wall Street Democrat. Bloomberg is closer to the “Rockefeller Republicans” of old, a moderate wing of the Republican Party that has ceased to exist.  The remnants, with nowhere left to go, became Democrats, just like the former Republican mayor of New York.

Jimmy Carter was a moderate, the Governor of Georgia running to the middle to win the Presidency.  In fact, one of Carter’s biggest difficulties in governing was in gaining cooperation with a Democratic House and Senate, both more liberal than him.  Their inability to reach agreements to govern helped get eight years of Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Bill Clinton and the “Blue Dog” Democrats were moderates.  They were more concerned about balancing the budget than many of the social issues that would cost money.  At the time, they were able to reach agreements with many of the Republicans, who still were in the Bloomberg moderate lane.  

But there seem to be no more moderate Republicans left.  Folks like John Kasich, who appears to be a more moderate Republican today, is really a traditional conservative of old.  It’s just that the Party has moved so far to the right – Kasich looks like he’s in the middle.

There are however moderate Democrats, including many of the new House of Representative members who turned Republican seats in the 2018 election.  It was those moderates who won control of the House, basically filling the vacuum that the “new” Republican Party left in the middle of the ideological spectrum.  These are also the Democrats who most fear a Sanders’ Presidential candidacy.  They know that they can’t move so far to the left to reach Sanders without losing their Congressional Districts.

Semantics

It’s all a question of semantics, but semantics has political consequences.  Just as current Republicans today claim the “conservative” title of old, when in fact they are far right of traditional conservatives, so the Sanders’ camp is claiming the progressive label.  They are far past what a traditional liberal, a Paul Wellstone or Gary Hart would be.  By taking the “progressive” label, they are trying to mainstream what is a more extreme ideology.

That doesn’t mean their ideology is wrong. 

What it does mean is that there is little common ground between the extreme of Social Democrats and even the moderates in their own party.  Where is the compromise allowing a more diverse Congress to move legislation, that the “my way of the highway” purity test doesn’t allow?   In our Democracy, there has to be a way to reason, and compromise, to achieve almost anything.

So I’ll stick with my own label.  I am a Liberal, out of the grand tradition of liberalism in the Democratic Party.  I won’t be pushed into the “progressive” wing, but don’t you dare call me a “moderate”.

The Threat

How big a threat does Donald Trump consider Joe Biden to be to his Presidency?  So large, that he was willing to risk the office, face impeachment and join the short list of three, to muddy Biden’s reputation.  When Biden seemed like he was failing, he fell off of the GOP radar.  Now that he’s back as one of two candidates for the Democratic nomination, guess what’s back?

Monday, Senator and Trump lackey Ron Johnson threatened to issue a subpoena to a private company to investigate Burisma. Johnson claims the company, named Blue Star,  “sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department” (Politico).

Johnson is using his position as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to leverage the investigation.  Democrats on the Committee are warning the Republicans that they are, “concerned that the United States Senate and this committee could be used to further disinformation efforts by Russian or other actors” (Politico).

This move is despite warnings from fellow Republican Chairman Lindsey Graham (Judiciary) and Richard Burr (Intelligence) about treating such intelligence as Russian disinformation.

The Tactic

The Republicans learned at the “feet” of former Congressman, turned Fox News commentator, Trey Gowdy.  Gowdy spent two and a half years, issued a 700-page report and spent $7.8 million to investigate Hillary Clinton and her involvement in the Benghazi disaster and the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens.  While ultimately the Committee was unable to blame Clinton for any wrongdoing, there were able to “drag Clinton through the mud” for more than two years before her run for President.    As now House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in September of 2015:

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought” (WAPO).

Donald Trump had the highest unfavorable ratings historically of recent Presidential candidate at the end of the 2016 election cycle, 61%.  His only chance of beating Hillary Clinton was to make her nearly as “unfavorable” as he was.  Starting with the Benghazi hearings and then the FBI email investigations, Clinton reached a negative rating of 52%, nearly as bad at Trump, and close enough to create the extreme conditions where Trump won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by three million votes (Gallup). 

Today Donald Trump has a 52% disapproval rating.   Currently Biden has a 47% rating, though this rating is based on polling done prior to the South Carolina and Super Tuesday primaries.  To replicate the election strategy of 2016, Trump must make Biden as unfavorable as he is.

The Mud

It won’t just be investigations of Hunter Biden and Burisma.  It will be attacks on Biden himself, about his age and his well know propensity to commit verbal “gaffes”.  And I’m sure there will be some weird sexual allegations about Biden “inappropriately touching”.  If Biden gets the nomination, watch for an “October Surprise”.  

Truth isn’t the issue.  Finding “real dirt” won’t be the problem.  We are in the “post-fact age,” so there is no need for veracity.  And it will be aided by the powerful social media presence of the Trump campaign, and added to by Russian Intelligence.  

So get ready.  We are going to hear all sorts of things about Joe Biden, most not true.  But, as Alexander Hamilton noted two hundred and twenty four years ago:

“The public mind fatigued at length with resistance to the calumnies which eternally assail it, is apt in the end to sit down with the opinion that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent”(Hamilton – The Reynolds Pamphlet).

Baked In

The public perception of Trump is baked in.  We already know he’s a misogynist, a racist, a narcissist, and a whole lot of other “ist” words.  There is little a President, elected without a majority, impeached by Congress for a crime he admitted doing, could possibly do to make the public see him as any worse.

A segment of our American society has bought the lie:  we need a bad man to make our country better.  It is the “myth” of the Fox show Twenty-Four:  to “protect America” we need Jack Bauer, willing to break any law and violate any moral. Trump himself has made that point explicitly by defending, protecting and pardoning Eddie Gallagher, a disgraced Navy Seal who murdered a teenage prisoner, then took a “trophy” picture with the body to send to his friends.

Joe Biden has been in the service of America since the 1970’s.  Unlike many, he did not enrich himself in service in the Senate.  He came in the poorest Senator, and he left the Senate thirty some years later still as the poorest.  He has been prone to verbal “gaffes” since he first ran for President in 1987, it’s not a sign of “old age,” it’s him.  We all know that from the stage-whispered “this is a big f**king deal” in Obama’s ear when the Affordable Care Act was passed.  

So Biden will “be in the barrel”.  It will be up to America to ignore the lies.  

Shock and Awe

The clear winner of Super Tuesday was former Vice President Joe Biden.  He won the South:  North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Oh, and by the way, he won Texas as well.  He won in the North:  Massachusetts and Minnesota.  Maine, with 91% of the vote counted, is still to close to call.  And while he didn’t win in the West, with Colorado decided for Sanders, and California likely to do the same:  he did well enough in those states to stay close to the total number of delegates that Senator Sanders earned.  

In short, Joe Biden won Super Tuesday.  He will likely have the delegate lead when all of the counting is done (which will be a while, California mail-in ballots aren’t due into the boards of elections until Friday).  And Biden did all of this, without a campaign staff on the ground in most of those states, and without a television ad anywhere.  

When it’s all said and done, if Joe Biden earns the nomination, Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is the reason.  His heartfelt endorsement of Biden the Wednesday before the South Carolina primary changed the entire track of Biden’s campaign.  The former Vice President’s overwhelming South Carolina victory, based largely on his strength in the black communities, altered the national perception.  When Clyburn said, “Joe knows us,” he anchored Biden support.  It carried over to the rest of the South, and obviously much of the rest of the nation.

Slogging it Out

Now we are looking at slogging it out, primary by primary, throughout March, April and May.  Biden’s lead will certainly not be insurmountable, and the dedication of Senator Sanders and his followers is legendary.  If there’s a way to make hard work pay off in votes, the Sanders campaign will find it.  

But the calendar will not be kind to Bernie.  Next Tuesday’s contests: in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington leave only two states where Sanders has a solid chance of success.  But in Michigan the latest polling shows Biden up by 6%, and Washington polling is pre-South Carolina. Even then Sanders may have to struggle.  And the St. Patrick’s Day contests in Alaska, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio the next week are even more likely to be “Biden Country”. 

The end of March may find Biden with a seemingly insurmountable lead, but both candidates will certainly fight it out to the bitter end.  The last six primaries: South Dakota, District of Columbia, Montana, New Jersey, and New Mexico; take place on June 2. 

Staying In

Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg are faced with a serious question:  do they continue in the campaign or not.  Warren has years of work invested in her quest for the nomination, and heartfelt views and concerns about America.  If she stays in, she will be, rightly or wrongly, constantly blamed for cutting into Bernie Sander’s delegate count.  Her only path forward to the nomination is as a compromise candidate in a brokered convention at Milwaukee in July, an outcome that is looking less likely then it did twenty-four hours ago.

And Mike Bloomberg, well, as the Beatles sang, “Money don’t buy me love”.  Divide the $500 million spent into the number of votes he earned on Super Tuesday – about $300 per vote.  Bloomberg is a “data” guy; I expect he will soon decide that his presence as a candidate is no longer viable.  It wouldn’t surprise me though, if we went through another week or so before he does. Cutting your losses at half-a-billion dollars has got to be tough to do.

The conventional wisdom suggests Warren votes go to Bernie, and Bloomberg votes go to Joe.  I’m not sure that’s completely true, I think a lot of Warren supporters are backing a strong woman for President.  I’m not sure what direction they take when that is no longer an option.  But I do think Bloomberg voters either go to Biden, or don’t vote at all.

Looking for the Revolution

Bernie Sanders has promised that a revolution of young and disaffected voters will rise-up to support his candidacy.  But it hasn’t happened yet.  The huge turnouts in many of the Super Tuesday states weren’t Bernie-backers; they were black folks and white suburban women.  They didn’t show up to vote for Bernie, they came for Joe.  And that encourages more moderate Democrats to support Biden. 

That is because, while Sanders preaches Democratic-Socialism, what he promises is a whole new voting block to defeat Donald Trump.  That promised up swelling of Sanders supporters didn’t show when he needed them on Super Tuesday.  If he can’t count on them in the primaries, then it raises huge concerns about defeating Trump in the general election.  

Biden needs to organize.  The momentum of South Carolina and Super Tuesday will only carry him so far:  he requires staff on the ground, and ads on social media and television.  The money will roll in, but “staffing up” is harder to do.  Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg can help, but if Bloomberg does decide to withdraw, there is an entire national campaign on site and ready to go.  

But historically, regardless of the outcome in Milwaukee, Biden’s victories on Super Tuesday will go down in American history, beside Harry Truman’s “Dewey Wins” Presidential victory of 1948 and John McCain’s 2008 South Carolina turn around.  To go from a campaign on life-support after Nevada, to a clear shot at the nomination today, is more than remarkable.

Democrats, as Tom Perez said, need to “…fall in love, then fall in line”.  After Milwaukee, all of our eyes need to be on a single prize, removing Donald Trump from the Presidency, and saving our nation.  Bernie or Joe, we need to be one party with one mission.

So I grew up in the Boys Scouts.  Sure I went to church, and had great parents, but a big part of my “moral” foundation seemed to be linked to the tenets of Scouting.  Maybe all of the other influences: my parents, my school and church; got summed up by the clear rules of the Scout Oath, Law, Slogan and Motto.

Scouting made it simple:  I was supposed to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. As a Scout, I was “prepared” and I really did try to “do a good turn daily”.  I really worked at  “doing my duty to God and my country”.   I even tried to be “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight,” whatever that last part meant.  

All Scouts Are Green

The Scout rules I grew up with meant that race didn’t matter, nor social standing.  We were all “green” (it was before the uniform went khaki). Doing my duty to my country meant accepting others freedom to have any religion or no religion at all.  It meant equality of citizens, and helping those who were less fortunate.  It might even mean protesting against an unjust war, but it would also have meant going to that war if required. 

Looking back, I’m sure all of my adult leaders were Republicans.  They were mostly business executives, men who had great experiences as Scouts themselves, and wanted to pass them on.  I lived in Cincinnati, and my Scoutmasters were both Proctor and Gamble men.  I didn’t know it at the time, but one, Clayton Warman, led men through the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.  Another, Tom Morgan, a P&G Engineer, flew Bombers for the Air Force in the 1950’s.  They were solid men, good leaders, teachers and role models.

Those leaders helped me earn Eagle Scout.  But it was after that, when my “advancement” in Scouts was basically over, that they let me have the experiences of leadership and teaching that lead me to my career in education.  I became a teacher and a coach, but Scouting is where I had my apprenticeship that led me to the field.

Applying the Rules

I guess those men didn’t realize they were helping me become a Democrat.  I know Scouting has never been considered a “liberal” organization, but it seemed like a logical outgrowth of the doctrines.  Even as a Scout, I struggled with Scouting’s demand of religious faith.  And later, as an adult, I applauded the acceptance of gay Scouts, and later, gay adult leaders. 

And Of course I think no one should be denied medical care because they can’t afford it.  As a Scout we were taught to aid someone in trouble.  I didn’t think about liability, or race, age, or gender, when I raced to help a child who was traumatically injured.  My training kicked in.  I was prepared.

Of course we should take care of those less fortunate, helping them to improve their lives.  My “Eagle Project” was repainting a group home for the mentally handicapped. It helped them, and it helped us Scouts as well. 

 And of course everyone is equal.  When you were a Scout, you were measured by your effort and your willingness to carry your share of the load, sometimes literally when we were backpacking.  Your race, creed, religion made no difference.

And that’s why I get confused today, when we don’t recognize that every citizen should have an equal say in our government.  We cling to bias and unfair political traditions, from the Electoral College, to Gerrymander districts, to restrictive voting processes.  All of these are designed to make some “more equal” than others, definitely not in line with the “Boy Scout way”.   

Earning Your Way

Sure Boy Scouts was “capitalistic”.  You earned you way up the chain of rank, from Tenderfoot to Eagle.  “Time-served” didn’t get you much in the way of advancement, you had to “show what you know” each step of the way.  But our troop practiced democracy:  we elected our youth leaders from the Patrol to the Troop level.   We also gave boys leadership opportunities even when they weren’t elected.  Everyone at some point got the chance to lead, sometimes literally with a map and a compass.  And we all followed, even if it meant that our five-mile hike was going to take ten.

I know the Scouts are in trouble.  Like Little League, Church groups, and my profession, some adults used it as cover to abuse children.  It’s absolutely right that our era today is looking for justice for the victims, and the organizations do bare responsibility for enabling those actions.  But a lot of good came from them too.  That shouldn’t be forgotten in the turmoil.

Boy Scouts has become Scouting USA.  Boys and Girls are now in Troops together.  Just like America, Scouting had to grow, to be more than what it was in its “heyday” in the 1960’s.  And Scouting is taking responsibility for what it did “wrong” in those days as well.  The National Council is seeking bankruptcy protection so it might survive the lawsuits it’s facing.

But the standards that the Scouts demand are still valid.  The foundations they established are still sound, regardless of the failings of the organization.  Just like the United States, they are struggling to be “more perfect” in a dynamically changing society.  Let’s hope they can follow their own motto and  “Be Prepared”.

Fall in Love

At the end of October, four months that feel like four years ago, I wrote an essay called Fall in Love. I examined the various Democratic candidates for President of the United States, and the “theory” of Tom Perez, Chairman of the Democratic Party.  Perez said, “I hope you fall in love with multiple people, and then fall in line when we get the nominee” (NBC).

In that essay, I “fell in love” with Pete Buttigieg.  He articulated an advanced America, one that was more than just an end of Trump or an extending of Obama.  Mayor Pete explained his vision of “Day One” after the Trump reign is over.  I thought he did it better than any other candidate, and I endorsed him.

Somewhere in the middle, perhaps during the “long ago” impeachment crisis, Pete seemed to get a little stale.  Like many of the candidates, it was tough for him to find something new.  He wasn’t the only one:  Bernie seemed to be stuck on the same lines, and Elizabeth Warren’s plans were wearying.  But recently Pete found new life, not just in winning Iowa and finishing a close second in New Hampshire, but in a clear understanding of what a Sanders/Trump choice might mean to our country.

“Berning” Down

Pete warned us that “burning down the party” as he thinks Sanders would, might not be the answer to beating Trump.  He offered a “middle path” not only between Democrat Socialism and mainstream Progressives, but also from the Biden/Bernie/Bloomberg/Boomer generation to his own Millennials.  Buttigieg represents the future, and he was calling on Democrats to join him there.

South Carolina’s results made it clear to the Buttigieg “brain trust” that there was no path forward to this nomination.  Tom Steyer, by the way, found the same thing.  Almost $200 million didn’t “buy him love” from Democratic voters.   The Palmetto State and Congressman Jim Clyburn gave Joe Biden’s candidacy new life with a resounding victory.  

Clear a Path

So Mayor Pete withdrew from the election last night.  He did it not only because it was reality, but also because it was the right thing to do.  Pete spent a month warning that a Sanders’ candidacy was dangerous, now he found his own candidacy would further Sanders’ efforts.  So Pete stepped out of the way, allowing more moderate voters to consolidate around another candidate, probably Vice President Biden.  And he did it before Tuesday’s massive primary vote in seventeen states.

I suspect Senator Klobuchar will do the same, after Tuesday and her home state of Minnesota’s primary.  I’m not so sure what Senator Warren will do after her home Massachusetts results; she still is waiting for Sanders’ voters to trend to her side.  Perhaps Warren sees herself as “Sanders lite,” a more progressive candidate without Bernie’s socialist baggage.  

And we don’t know what impact $500 million of Mike Bloomberg’s money will have on Tuesday, though Steyer’s experience might be forewarning.  

Polling indicates that Bernie Sanders will be a big winner on Tuesday, particularly in California with its “mother-lode” of convention delegates.  Warren isn’t cutting into his vote so far, and more moderate Democrats will be split between Biden and Bloomberg.  But Wednesday morning will tell us where the Democratic Party stands for the next four months. We are either on the way to a Sanders nomination, or we are in for a grueling knockdown fight between Sanders and the moderates, probably Biden not Bloomberg.

The Future 

But one thing is for sure.  Pete Buttigieg showed not only a tremendous amount of political “grace” in getting off the field, but also a tremendous amount of political acumen.  He knows that the future of the Party is his.  Whatever the outcome of Super Tuesday or even the 2020 election, all of the current leaders of both political parties will be gone by 2024.  Sixty may be the new forty, but being in their mid-eighties will stop the candidacies of Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders, and Trump in four years. 

So Pete did the right and the smart thing.  He took his wins and his political capital, and he saved it for a future run.  I suspect he will ultimately endorse another candidate for the nomination, but he will wait to see Tuesday’s results before he does.  Pete will not be President in 2020.  But he is “the future” of the Democratic Party, and he will be back.

In the meantime, my own Ohio Primary is coming up on St. Patrick’s Day.  There’s good reason not to vote early, the candidates are changing so fast that a vote today might be meaningless in three weeks.  I suspect Joe Biden will still be viable, and I anticipate he will have my vote, even though he didn’t win my heart.  As Tom Perez said, it will be time to “fall in line”. 

Note: Joe Biden won South Carolina last night. That definitely changes the primary equation — but Tuesday night will really “tell the tale” of Sanders, Biden, Bloomberg and a possible brokered convention. More on Wednesday.

COVID-19

We don’t know what’s going to happen with the “COVID-19”, commonly (and inaccurately) called CORONAVIRUS. COVID-19 is a type of Coronavirus, one of many, that is now causing illnesses throughout the world.  We don’t know how “bad” it is, though preliminary information indicates a death rate of about 2%.  COVID-19 seems to kill the old, the very young, and the immune-compromised.  That’s unlike SARS of a few years ago or the Spanish Flu of 1918:  those killed the young and healthy first.

We do know that it’s a virus that can be transmitted through the air in the form of droplets, and through contact.  And we know it’s here in the United States, both in the form of those who unfortunately were in Asia when it broke out, and now, those getting it through what is wonderfully called “community transmission”.  That phrase really means:  we don’t know how the Hell they got it, it simply was “out there” in the community.

Not the Flu

It’s going to be a “thing” for a while.  Likely, folks will get sick, and if the numbers hold true, 98% of them will get better.  That’s compared to the “regular” flu, where the fatality rate is .05%.  In clearer terms, if 10000 people get the flu, five will likely die.  If 10000 people get Covid-19, two hundred will die.  That’s a big difference.

We are being told that wearing a mask won’t stop Covid-19.  So we are supposed to wash our hands, not touch our face, and make sure that if we get sick, we don’t go out, we self-quarantine.  All of which seems to be pretty lame answers for what should be a national emergency.

Deep State Rescue

The present Administration in Washington has done everything it can to denigrate the “deep-state:” those government workers who in various ways make our country run.  We’ve been told that the scientists who predict global climate change are wrong, “bought out by the extreme left,” and that the intelligence agencies are out to get the President.  The Trump Administration instead offers us nonexistent “clean coal” and takes away our flavored Vape pens.  Facts have been a casualty of this White House since the very beginning, political and scientific.

On Fox News, commentator Laura Ingraham offers us this calming advice:

“Instead of giving in to panic and partisanship perhaps we should thank the good Lord that we live in the most well equipped country in the world to weather these challenges and overcome them.”

The problem is, the United States may not be as equipped as we have been. Offices sit vacant in the National Institute of Health, the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security. We’re not sure that this Administration has he personnel to “weather these challenges”.

Political Medicine

There have been medical crises in the past.  Just recently the Obama Administration faced the Ebola virus, a disease with a 90% fatality rate.  Quickly and quietly, they kept Ebola out of the general US population.  They brought US citizens exposed to the virus back home and treated them.  They worked with the rest of the world to find a way to stop it, with a “cure” that drops the fatality rate to 34%.  And they found a vaccine, a way to prevent Ebola.

That was a huge “success” of both the Obama Administration and the world, but most importantly, for science.

There have been failures as well.  When HIV first arrived in the United States, it was a disease soon wrapped in politics. Because it first afflicted the gay community, spending money and resources on research became “a thing” for the Reagan Administration.  AIDS was controversial:  it wasn’t until the virus got into the general population’s blood supply and began to impact all Americans, including the deaths of tennis star Arthur Ashe and hemophiliac Ryan White, that the disease was “normalized”.  

It took six years to develop the first vaccine.  By 1996 23 million people had the disease worldwide.  By then scientists had developed treatments that allowed people to live for longer periods of time.  Today there are over a million Americans living with HIV.  But more than 700,000 died before the disease was controlled.

The Good Guys

So what is COVID-19 going to be, Ebola or HIV?

The answer is neither:   COVID-19 is not nearly as deadly as either of those.  And, as Ms. Ingraham said, we are the nation “best equipped” to deal with this national health issue.  The problem the Trump Administration has is depending on “the good guys” in the white coats to find solutions.  Mr. Trump has made it a policy to alter facts and ignore science when it suits his story. He has already done so with COVID-19.  “It will miraculously disappear in the summer,” he said, and if we “…don’t touch handrails” we may be all right.

And noted anti-science guy, Vice President Mike Pence, is now in charge.

So now we are depending on the Vice President and the President to let science “loose” on COVID-19, and get out of the way.  We are depending on them to give us the facts so we can take appropriate actions to protect our families and ourselves without unnecessarily barricading our houses with towels under the doors.  

The White House needs to get out of the way, and let the “white coats” do their thing.  They need to let “the good guys” of science solve the problem.  We need to hope that politics can be set aside, something that the President has so far been unable to do. Don’t hold your breath, though that is one short term preventative measure – really short term.

Five Days

The next five days are critical for Senator Bernie Sanders.  Tomorrow’s South Carolina primary will determine whether Sanders’ current major competitor, Joe Biden, remains a viable candidate for President.  If Biden has a big win in South Carolina, he can move on.  Less than that, Biden’s funds will dry up, and his candidacy will end.

Then on Tuesday, Sanders faces the power of the “almighty dollar” in Mike Bloomberg.  How Sanders, Biden and Bloomberg fair in the seventeen state election will give everyone a more accurate view into the Democratic race. 

I know, I haven’t mentioned Warren, or Klobuchar, or Buttigieg.  I don’t see a way for them to proceed, unless Tuesday’s results are so fractured that no one is advanced.  If that is the case, then Democrats are in for a wild ride, and a divided convention.  Folks talk about Sander’s candidacy resembling George McGovern in 1972. But that fragmented result might be more like the riot-filled convention in Chicago in 1968.  

Super Stupid

The New York Times published an article this week about Democratic Party Officials using “super delegates” to stop Sanders at the convention, if he can’t win on the first ballot (NYT).   It’s a stupid thing for them to be talking about.  The election is now, and the “narrative” hasn’t been written yet.  If there is one thing that will motivate Sanders’ voters, it’s the shadow of the “DNC” trying to put its thumb on the convention scale.  Many Sanders’ supporters are convinced that happened in 2016.  Even if the Democratic leaders are doing exactly that, they need to shut-up about it now before they create a self-fulfilling prophecy of Sanders’ success.

But here’s what should happen.

The Revolution

Bernie Sanders has based had candidacy on creating a “revolution” that will carry him to the Presidency.  Sanders has been very clear:  for his programs to move forward, he will need the House and the Senate to join in.  As Angelica Schuyler sings in the musical Hamilton: “…you want a revolution?  I want a revelation!”  The revelation that Sanders need to demonstrate to the Democratic Party:  his “revolution” really exists.

A revolution requires an army of followers.  Senator Sanders has promised that he will bring a whole new cadre of voters to the polls, voters that haven’t been part of the electorate in the past.  He promises the young, the Millennials, and the disaffected.  That’s how revolutions work, and it’s what Bernie has preached for decades.

Now is his chance.  Prove the “Revolution.”  Bring this whole new constituency to the polls, and win.  If the Senator can do this, there won’t be a question about wining the nomination on the first ballot.  He will have an overwhelming majority in the convention, and the super delegates won’t have the chance to influence the outcome.

And there won’t be the fear that Sanders is the “next” George McGovern, a man who won only one state in the landslide Presidential defeat of 1972.  If there is a “revolution” then the revolutionaries will show up in November, and the loss of “Never-Trump” votes on the “right” won’t cripple Democratic candidates.  There will be a “blue tsunami” of millennial voters, new to the fight, lifting Democrats to the Presidency, and control of the Congress.

Place Your Bet

Senator Sanders is asking Democrats to go “all-in.”  He wants the Party to support his brand of Democratic-Socialism, going farther “left” then ever before.  And he’s doing it at a time of the greatest risk to American democracy:  Donald Trump.  

Senator Sanders only earns the right to place that bet, if he can bring new voters to the table.  There is no “credit” available in this game, he’s got to prove the “goods”. The proof is simple:  he either has the votes and the delegates to win on the first ballot, or he doesn’t.  If he can’t win on the first ballot, than he has failed to prove the “revolution”.  That failure would show Democrats that his gamble won’t pay off.   

Then the delegates in Milwaukee will need to make a different choice.

A Place to Eat

It’s tax time in Pataskala, Ohio: a town “15000 strong” as the signs at the city limits say.  When I moved here in 1978 Pataskala still had a rural flavor.  There was Tractor Day at the local high school, and the grain elevator had only recently closed.  But all of that is far behind us now.  I mark the end of “rural” in our town as the day McDonalds opened with the high school marching band getting out of school to play.  That was sometime in the early 1980’s.  Now the McDonalds is next to Subway, down the street from Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Tim Horton’s and the inevitable Taco Bell.  

But as far as food is concerned, it’s pizza that drives Pataskala – all the pizza joints in the world.  There are at least a dozen within five miles of “downtown” Pataskala:  Mama Linda’s, Pizza Hut, Donato’s, Dominos, Capuano’s, Massey’s, Little Caesar’s, Flyer’s, Pizzaroni’s, Creno’s, Jnb’s, and LuLu Mack’s.  This town may have issues, be we can sure eat pizza.

Farms to Houses

What used to be farm fields in this community are now taken up with housing developments.  And with the greater expansion of the Central Ohio area, more houses, apartments, and schools are needed to cover the burgeoning population.  We ain’t gonna be farmers anymore.

Pataskala is what social scientists would call an “exurb”.  We are far enough away from the “big city,” Columbus is twenty miles, that we aren’t quite a “suburb”.  But twenty miles is still close enough for most folks to commute to work, and Pataskala is a “bedroom” community without much industry of our own.  There are still a few farms, but the housing developments are getting ever closer.  Facebook is filled with complaining about the smell of fertilizer in the spring, and the slow paced tractors and combines on the roads in the fall.

A lot of folks moved here to enjoy “country life”.  But they want “country life” with a Kroger’s supermarket five minutes away. And, obviously, they need a pizza shop at every corner.

Big Little City

Pataskala is the twelfth largest city in Ohio (out of 260 some) – by area.  We are only slightly smaller than Youngstown, and bigger than Middletown, Springfield, Canton or Newark.  And with our increasing population comes the increased need for police.  What used to be the “village” police department where everybody “knew your name,” now consists of 22 patrolmen, detectives and senior officers.  They are spread out over almost thirty square miles, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.  

With more people they need more officers, and to do that, they need more money.  And they’re asking.

There are two different school districts in the city of Pataskala.  One district, Licking Heights, is entirely contained in the “city”.  The other, Southwest Licking where I spent my career, is part in Pataskala, and parts in the village of Kirkersville, and Etna, Harrison, and Liberty Townships.  Both districts are building new high schools to try to keep up with the student increases.  They’ve both asked for tax renewals:  Licking Heights approved theirs last year; Southwest Licking is on the ballot next month.  Both schools are trying to get along with roughly the same money, even as they build and open new buildings.  

Voting on Taxes

But police and school taxes are some of the few that people can actually vote on.  The Federal and State governments don’t ask when they want more taxes.  The legislatures simply raise the rates.  But local agencies often have to go directly to the people to make their case for more money, and just as often, receive the backlash and frustration of voters.  For some, if it’s the only tax they can turn down, and they do.

My mother would say, “…They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face”.  When someone needs policemen, they don’t want them to be 8.4 miles away.  And we should all want kids to go to “good” schools, both because it’s good for them, and because it makes property values go up.  But taxes are frustrating, particularly in February and March when they’re actually due. It’s easy to “take it out” on the nearest “taxer” that can be found.

But in doing so, local voters hurt their own community.  

Our Town

Pataskala has already transitioned to the “exurbs”.  But many people in town still wish it was “country”, and “country” seems to be synonymous with not paying taxes.  But, unlike pizza shops, having good schools and good police protection doesn’t automatically happen here in Pataskala.  They need support, and they cost money.  

We can argue politics in Pataskala too.  Whether it’s allowing more housing developments, or discussing where “open shooting” areas can be in the city, we are struggling over our transition to “suburb”.  What we shouldn’t do is ignore the real needs of the City we have now: needs that can only be addressed with the support of the voters. 

So Pataskala voters, support the Police income tax – it’s just ½ of one percent. It’s five more officers to protect and serve of all us.  And vote for the SWL School levy; it costs nothing more than what voters are paying now. 

It’s good for you, and better for our community.