News item: In an interview with Time magazine, Jared Kushner said that he couldn't commit to keeping the elections going in November. He was an ambitious Senator named Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip. Promising every citizen $5,000 a year and a return to a strong economy and "traditional values" he ran for President and won. From there, everything changed. He drastically cut down the powers of Congress and set up kangaroo courts to enforce the laws he created. He built a paramilitary unit he called "The Minute Men" to stifle dissent. He eliminated minority rights and sent his political opponents and dissenters to concentration camps. He eliminated individual state governments, carving administrative "corpos" he could control more easily. It can't happen here. Right? Sinclair Lewis would disagree. That was the title of his 1936 book, which essentially predicted the rise of Donald Trump 90 years ago. Think about it. * Yesterday, with the ...
I had been having chest pains and finding myself out of breath when walking up the slightest hill so the cardiologist suggested I come in to the hospital for a catheterization, a procedure where like a plumbing snake, they make a tiny cut inside your wrist and run a camera up your arm, through your shoulder and into your coronary arteries. It's terrifying — not the procedure, that's easy and I'm fine, but just walking into a hospital. I'm 65, have had five stents, so I'm a high risk person, and you don't know what's floating around in the air over there or lurking around on the bannisters, but as the cardiologist said to me through my computer last week, "you have to weigh the risk against benefits," and based on my history he thought it was a risk, whatever it was, that was worth taking. So I drove the car for the first time in six weeks (it was just like riding a bike) with a worried wife next to me. Since it's an in-and-out procedure,...
Paul Ehrlich reports from Oregon: The city moved early on social distancing and, with its relative low density compared to most cities, death and cases have not been a serious as elsewhere—eight deaths, 213 confirmed COVID-19 patients. Thus far. Because like elsewhere throughout the country testing shortages are a major problem, creating an undercount of people actually infected. Meanwhile, most people here taking the necessary precautions seriously, and stepping up to help and volunteer (errands, etc) for those who are self-isolated. And attempts to stay positive. In our condo building, for example, we have a weekly hallway happy hour (six feet apart) meeting with glasses of wine to socialize, keep in touch. And during this outbreak, my 97-year-old mom decided she wanted to be closer to us in Portland despite invites since we moved here nearly three years ago after prowling and publishing in Asia since 1983. While tricky given her condition under the best of circumstances, my wife a...
Comments
Post a Comment