Bob Dylan Releases First Song in 8 Years, & It's Political & Cultural Content is Incredible

Bob Dylan has just released a new song, and it is a powerful one.

It is also quite long, lasting over 15 minutes.

The song is called "Murder Most Foul," and it is about the Kennedy assassination. That is the "Murder Most Foul" that he is talking about. 

Yet, it is also about a whole lot more than that. Like many people seem to have observed, Dylan recognizes that this singular event appears to have been a turning point in American history. Prior to that, everything seemed to be going favorably in the United States, to the point that it stood in a unique place in world history. No nation or empire enjoyed quite the privileged status that Americans enjoyed in the so-called "Golden Age" of the United States in the post-war years, particularly in the 1950's and very early 1960's, right up the the Kennedy assassination. 

Indeed, Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living of any country in the world. Hell, of any country that had ever existed. It was the envy of the world, and the most powerful and influential nation culturally, politically, economically, and militarily. It was far from a perfect society, to be sure. There was racial segregation, particularly in the Jim Crow South. There was a level of conformity and blind belief and obedience to government and other authority figures, that it could make life stifling. And there were problems also with economic inequality, too much military spending, and the seemingly constant threat of nuclear war, as these were also the days of the Cold War.

However, ironically, besides all of that, things were generally good. The United States was a respected, even possibly a revered, nation in the world. It was considered a legitimate leader, and the future seemed limitless with possibilities. There was little doubt that the United States was well placed to face the future, and again, that future looked bright.

What the hell happened?

Well, the Kennedy assassination felt like the first pull on a string that has since seemingly been completely undone. We look at images now of what the country was before the Kennedy assassination, and it is almost unrecognizable. It feels almost like a foreign country altogether. There are things about that country that are almost hard to believe.

It was the Kennedy assassination that served as the singular event that, it seems increasingly clear made a mighty empire fall. To be sure, it did not happen all at once and, for that matter, is not yet perhaps even complete. But looking at the United States now, as a country riddled with all sorts of problems and incredible challenges that it is actually unclear that it can or will pull together to hurdle, it seems quite apparent that the former unity and positive faith in the country is a relic from an increasingly distant era that we can hardly relate to. 

If there existed a sense of togetherness and purpose to overcome mutually shared challenged back then, it has since gone away. It feels now like there are two countries within the United States, and they are increasingly at odds with one another. In fact, it sometimes feels like they cannot even coexist, and more and more people (one-third, according to a recent poll) believe that there will be a second civil war here in the United States. That the country is on a crash course to catastrophe, in other words.

Greed has taken precedence over everything else. It is the reason why Americans cannot even seem to muster a unified response to this whole coronavirus catastrophe. It is the reason why tens of millions of Americans cannot afford healthcare, and why tens of millions more have inadequate healthcare. It is the reason why we keep electing so-called "leaders" who deny scientific facts, and that is why even the existence of the climate change catastrophe to come is a political debate here in the United States, far more than it is anywhere else in the world. 

Many people, both on the right and the left, view Kennedy as a great president. In many ways, he was the last president that people both on the right and the left can agree was a great and unifying leader for this country. And when he was gunned down on the streets of Dallas, something in the country changed, and it was not for the better. And if the problem came into existence then, it has only grown since, become almost like a cancer. As a country, we increasingly turned to distractions, and grew less and less serious, and this is something that Dylan addresses in this beautiful and very thought-provoking song. 

Take a listen, read the lyrics. See if you are not also moved by this latest Dylan song, which feels like a throwback to an earlier era of Bob Dylan, as well. 

Pearl Jam “Gigaton” Album Review

Pearl Jam Gigaton Album Review

Last week, Pearl Jam released their latest studio album. It is the band's 11th album release, and it was supposed to have been supported by a tour here in North America. In fact, I had gotten tickets for the second show that was scheduled, in Ottawa, but for obvious reasons, that was postponed, and hopefully not outright cancelled. There was also supposed to be a movie release of the album, with visuals to accompany the music, two days before the official release of the album on the 27th. I got tickets to that, too, but it was outright cancelled.

Yet, the album was released, and is now available.

And so, to take a break from the coronavirus crisis that has been dominating the headlines for quite a few weeks now, it is time to give my review of the album. Just a note, however: the record store that I usually get new rock albums from - a little mom and pop music store located in Wayne, New Jersey - has been closed, obviously. I decided that it might be nice to get the album anyway, but Target did not have it, either. It clearly would not qualify as an essential item, so that is not entirely surprising. Long story short, I do not physically possess the album, and this review is a revlew of the listed tracks on the album that are available right now (for free) on Youtube. So if you want to hear it for yourself, go ahead and type in the name of the band and the album, and you will get all of the tracks. You can even play the full album in order, as the band has organized it that way, although be forewarned that there are some advertisements. Some of the individual songs are available with lyrics, though other video releases, and there are no advertisements. Choose whichever way you prefer, but this is an album that is worth considering.

So now, let's get on with the review:

Okay, so I have been a big Pearl Jam fan since the early nineties. It is kind of strange, because everyone felt that I was a bit obsessed by the band. At first, they were extremely popular. Phenomenally popular, in fact. Quite frankly, I am not entirely sure that I have seen a band that was quite as uniquely popular as they were at their peak. It seemed that they enjoyed a unique status, and perhaps it was a combination of things. Firstly, they were from Seattle, at a time when Seattle was the capital of the rock world (albeit briefly). They also had sex appeal, apparently, particularly Eddie Vedder, which played well with the female audience, obviously. Vedder also was similarly brooding and mysterious, at once poetic while also conscientious, a trend that was common for Seattle bands, but which broke a seeming “party all the time” mentality from heavier bands prior to that. They had a more serious side, and they addressed teenage angst, and did that with an intensity that ordered on electric during their live shows, which became the band’s specialty. Perhaps you could argue that they were lucky with their timing, as a Seattle band that emerged just as Nirvana was about to break really huge and alter the music landscape, then benefiting from the Lollapalooza tour, which they helped immortalize. They had ties with other bands that helped them out in the early days, particularly the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden. And the band just did some unique things, such as limiting their touring following endless tours their first couple of years, refusing the do videos to promote their new music, releasing albums first on vinyl before CD and tape (at a time when vinyl was considered dead), and battling Ticketmaster. They kept trying to maintain relatively low ticket prices well into the 21st century (it seemed to more or less go away maybe somewhere between either 2010 or 2013). And in 2000, the band released official bootlegs that allowed them to be the first band to have several albums among the bestselling albums on Billboard in one week, which also gave them quite a distinction.              

So, they have an interesting and unique history. They could have bragged about some of that stuff, if they were so inclined, although they generally do not brag.              

For me, the main appeal were the lyrics. I was going through a bit of teenage angst myself at the time, and also depression issues, which is why I became a fan of the band virtually overnight, after being introduced to the lyrics to “Jeremy.” I ran out and got the album, and really got to enjoy it, obviously. Before long, they were the band that I was listening to far more than any other, and looking forward to their next albums. I remember getting Versus, and again, getting used to it, enjoying it. They had a phenomenal show that was broadcast on national radio in early April of 1994, and that was also the time that I tried to get tickets to their show at the Paramount, spent a night on a New York City curbside hoping to get Standby tickets for their appearance on Saturday Night Live (I got the Standby ticket, but still did not get in), and finally, almost went up to Boston for a show there, but that fell through in the last minute. So, I was really, really hungry to finally see them, once and for all.              

That finally happened in 1996, slightly more than a month after I got their fourth album, “No Code,” during a trip to Chicago. They played a pair of shows on Randall’s Island late in September of 1996, and my friend managed to get tickets to the second show. It wound up being a legendary show, at the time their longest show ever. What a thrill it was to finally see the band! I would see them again two years later, once through the fan club, with second row center seats to pay that guy back who got the tickets to the first show. In fact, I have now seen Pearl Jam more than any other single band, by far. And I had tickets to take my son to see them in Ottawa in late March, but obviously, the whole Covid-19 thing kind of rained on that parade. But they are one of the bands that my son and I bonded over, as well as Chris Cornell and Soundgarden.              

Yet, here’s the thing: I have kind of also been an on again, off again fan. Yes, I was really deeply into them throughout the nineties, but it kind of lulled just a tiny bit after I had finally seen them. I looked forward to their next album, and I really enjoyed “No Code,” which I still feel was a very underrated album, probably the band’s most underrated album, frankly. But I got back into them in a big way with “Yield,” going into the city to buy the album as soon as it was released, and getting one of the famous lithographs of the band’s new album that Virgin Megastore (remember that?) was offering with every purchase of that album. I still sometimes kick myself for not getting a second one for my girlfriend, just for that lithograph, which was awesome, and which has turned out to be valuable.              

Then, it seemed to taper off just a bit. I liked “Binaural,” but not nearly as much as any of the previous albums. I saw them again that year, but only for one show at Jones Beach. But then came the George W. Bush administration, then September 11th, and then the unjustifiable war against Iraq, and I was longing for people to speak out against the war machine. And Pearl Jam did, and so I got more into them with the release of “Riot Act,” another underrated album. I saw them a whole bunch of times in 2003, including many states and two Canadian provinces. Hell, I was at the show at Nassau Coliseum when they were booed off the stage, which still remains one of my weirdest concert experiences ever.              

For a few years, I was more intensely into Pearl Jam than I had been, and it began in 2003, when I was perhaps more obsessed with the band than ever before. I read several books about them, saw them a whole bunch of times, had an account and was fairly regularly conversing on their chat page, buying all sorts of souvenirs, including posters of the shows that I would go to as much as I possibly could, and so on and so forth. For the most part, it was cool, although a lot of people felt it was obsessive. I was still a huge fan, even if it was not quite with the intensity of 2003. But I saw them three times still in 2004 (for the Vote for Change tour, including the finale at Washington), and then twice each in 2005 and again in 2006, after the release of their self-titled album. That was a great album, where the band seemed to return to a punkier style again, a kind of return of edginess.              

Then, my fandom became normal again. I was not quite so obsessed with them. I did see them twice in 2010 and twice in 2013, but neither of the albums that they were supporting (“Backspacer and Lightning Bolt,” respectively) were anywhere near as impactful for me as some of their earlier albums were. Also, I was starting to get a bit annoyed with how much the tickets were, and how bad the seats tended to be. In particular, I got tickets for a show in Hartford, and paid the same price for nosebleeds that the people right up front and center had paid and that kind of got on my nerves. Let’s face it: the experience is not anywhere near the same. Trust me, I have seen Pearl Jam u close and personal a few times, and I have seen them few in what could be described as the nosebleeds a few times, as well. It’s not the same experience. It’s just not. And to charge the same, for a band that once prided themselves on the affordability of their tickets, just did not sit well with me. And let me tell you, the ticket prices certainly have not gotten cheaper, either. Living in the New York area, they always seem to charge more here than anywhere else, and the tickets are harder to come by, as well. At least charge people in nosebleeds less than people in the front rows. Am I crazy to suggest that?

Maybe it was the less than great seats that were available through the fan club, or maybe it was losing my original fan membership number (I still remember it: 144053) and getting something with an extra digit, which means a higher number and this more fans that are in front of me in terms of priority seating for their concerts. Or maybe, admittedly, their last two albums just had not resonated with me as much as many of their earlier albums had. Or maybe I just kind of got Pearl Jammed out for a little while, if you will. Whatever it was, I was suddenly not listening to Pearl Jam nearly as much for the past few years or so. I got into each album a bit after their were released, and of course, when I went to their shows. But after that, it just kind of went away and, truth be told, my memory cannot pinpoint the last time that either of those albums were taken out and played.

However, this new album was a welcome release for me. After all, it is the band's first effort in well over six years, and it was almost beginning to feel like maybe they might not put out another album. They were still playing live shows, sure. But a lot of bands do that, without really releasing any new material. For the most part, those bands are living off the past, and whatever you want to say about Pearl Jam, I always felt that they were the kind of a band that looked forward to making new, fresh music, and giving it their best. So, it was a little alarming to see how long it had been since the last album was released, even though, admittedly, six years and change does not feel nearly as long for me these days as it used to. But it is good that they finally released another album, at long last.

So, how does the new album actually sound?

Well, I can say this much: this is the best Pearl Jam album in nearly a decade and a half, at least.

Tracklist for Pearl Jam's "Gigaton":

1. “Who Ever Said”
2. “Superblood Wolfmoon”
3. “Dance Of The Clairvoyants”
4. “Quick Escape”
5. “Alright”
6. “Seven O’Clock”
7. “Never Destination”
8. “Take The Long Way”
9. “Buckle Up”
10. “Comes Then Goes”
11. “Retrograde”
12. “River Cross”


Here is a review of each song on the album:

1. “Who Ever Said” – A dark, almost brooding tone to start, before it opens to a more up beat tone, yet with lyrics that reflect that earlier somberness. Yet, the lyrics have meaning, which is not surprising from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, of course. I felt I could relate to the lyrics, “Living forwards in a backwards town.” Yeah, definitely can relate to that, and it feels symbolic, for that matter, of what is going on in the country as a whole, as many (surely including the members of Pearl Jam) are looking forward towards a better world, with the United States embracing it’s role within that world, while officially, politically, the country’s political tires are still stuck in the mud and spreading the mess around, while those we placed in the driver’s seat keep looking back instead of forward. Or how about these lyrics, from the bridge of the song:           

Home is where  
The broken heart is  
Home is where  
Every scar is  

Pretty solid stuff. A good track to open up the new album with.

2. “Superblood Wolfmoon” – Already a familiar tune to anyone who has been following Pearl Jam, and listening to the new stuff as it has been released. This was the second track to be released to the public by the band, and it has a very up-tempo kind of feel to it. It feels reminiscent to me of some of the B-sides from the Riot Act days, and I do not mean that in a bad way. With a bit of a punk bent to it, and lyrics that seem to speak of the promise of something beautiful which was taken away from us way too soon. A solid and enjoyable track overall. Chances are, if you are a fan of Pearl Jam and don’t like this one, you might not be into this album, period. But for me, that’s not a problem. A gem.

3. “Dance of the Clairvoyants” – The most familiar song from this album already, as it has been playing on the radio for some time, having been the first track released from this album. Yet in some ways, this felt like the least familiar song of the album, because it has a very different sound than anything that I have ever heard before from Pearl Jam. The opening in particular always sounded a bit unusual to me, not sounding much like anything that this band has done before at all. And this has a strange feel to it (to me), as well. Yet, it is a catchy tune, and I like it. Plus, there is nothing wrong with a band trying out new things, going in new directions. Yet, the lyrics are as thoughtful as what we have come to expect from Vedder, and they hint at a political perspective, without overwhelming you with a sledgehammer about their political beliefs. Here is a sample of the chorus: 

Expecting perfection  
Leaves a lot to ignore  
When the past is the present  
And the future's no more  
When every tomorrow  
Is the same as before 

4. “Quick Escape” – One of my friends – a mutual Pearl Jam fan and admirer – said that this was his favorite track from the new album. At points, it feels reminiscent to me of some of the stuff from the band’s past, although there are the political lyrics that should probably be to no one’s surprise, given that this is the age of Trump. Traveling is big in the lyrics, and the swipe at Trump is hardly subtle: 

The lengths we had to go to then  
To find a place Trump hadn't fucked up yet  

Sad, but true. Yet, the lyrics are not merely direct hits at Trump, but take on an almost poetic reflection of modern lives, and the directions that we, collectively, have decided to go, while we long for what we lost along the way: 

And here we are, the red planet  
Craters across the skyline  
A sleep sack in a bivouac  
And a Kerouac sense of time   

Oh, and we think about the old days 
Of green grass, sky and red wine 
Should've known, so fragile 
And avoided this one-way flight 

I can see why my friend likes this one so much!

5. “Alright” – An introspective tune. There is one point when it really reminds me of “Amethyst Realm” from last year’s Claypool Lennon Delirium album. This song feels like it is  talking about isolation (timely, given this whole coronavirus thing), and developing yourself, believing in what you can do. Being able to find that take off point, having that level of confidence in yourself. A slower song, and not necessarily what comes to mind as a typical Pearl Jam tune, but pretty decent.

6. “Seven O’Clock” – One of the slower tunes of the album. Another one that feels timely for the Covid-19 crisis, . Look at these lyrics:

For this is no time for depression or self-indulgent hesitance  
This fucked up situation calls for all hands, hands on deck  
Freedom is as freedom does and freedom is a verb  
They giveth and they taketh and you fight to keep that what you've earned  
We saw the destination, got so close before it turned  
Swim sideways from this undertow and do not be deterred  

The lyrics fluctuate from rather philosophical and poetic, to comical political swipes at the trademark narcissism of the man currently in the Oval Office:

Caught the butterfly, broke its wings then put it on display  
Stripped of all its beauty once it could not fly high away  
Oh, still alive like a passerby overdosed on gamma rays  
Another god's creation destined to be thrown away  

Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, they forged the north and west  
Then you got Sitting Bullshit as our sitting president  
Oh, talking to his mirror, what's he say, what's it say back?  
A tragedy of errors, who'll be the last to have a laugh? 

A good question. And a good song, one that I had heard a couple of times without noticing anything particularly special, until I listened while reading to and paying attention to the lyrics, which give this a whole other dimension of meaning. I recommend listening to this, and reading along with the lyrics!

7. “Never Destination” – Another song that, to me, sounds like it could have been a Riot Act B-side (again, in a good way, because those tracks were some really cool songs, and were better in my opinion than some of the songs that actually made the cut for that album). This one has a fairly fast tempo, and is just a straight up solid rock song. He makes a reference to his friendship with Sean Penn by using the character name of Bob Honey of Sean Penn’s recent fictional books. This one has a classic rock ‘n roll feel to it, and is enjoyable to listen to, with clever lyrical content.

8. “Take The Long Way” – Every time I see the title of this track, I cannot help but think of Supertramp. However, this sounds nothing like “Take the Long Way Home” by that band. This is a track that might have been done by this band many years ago, in some of the faster, harder stuff. Perhaps the self-titled album, or “No Code,” perhaps. Even "Vitalogy,” although Vedder’s vocal delivery sounds different in this song than it did in those earlier albums, and so you can hear it in this one more.  Just a straightforward, hard-rocking song, kind of like the old days. There is a McCready guitar solo that even feels reminiscent of older days. A cool song, really.

9. “Buckle Up” – You might think, due to the name of this track, that this might be one of the fastest or most intense tracks on the album. Yet, it is more of an acoustic track, with an almost peaceful vocal delivery by Vedder. That is not to say that it is a bad track. Not at all. In fact, this is perhaps my favorite track from this new album. The lyrics are a bit on the dark side, mysterious and brooding, and feel like a puzzle that you want to put together to get the whole picture of what he is singing about. That said, Vedder also does something interesting and unique with his vocals on this one.

10. “Comes Then Goes” – The title of this track feels reminiscent of “Off He Goes” from the “No Code” album, which was one of my favorite. That said, this does not sound like that song at all. Yet, it is another acoustic piece, and it is a great track from this album, arguably my favorite, the one that perhaps grabbed me with the most immediacy. There is an allusion to a song originally by the Who, “The Kids are Alright,” which Pearl Jam has covered at times, as well. Yet, this song is a tribute to another musician that played a role several times in this band's past. Yes, this is a tribute to the late, great Chris Cornell, and it kind of has his style of acoustic guitar. 

11. “Retrograde” – When I first saw what the album cover was going to be, and what the title of the album symbolized, this was the kind of song that I expected to hear. The lyrics really feel about the enormity of the climate change crisis, and just how enormous a task it is that we have if we are going to try and seriously address it. Here is a sample of the lyrics:

Stars align they say when 
Things are better than right now 
Feel the retrograde spin us round, round 
Seven seas are raising 
Forever futures fading out 
Feel the retrograde all around, round

Yet, Vedder reminds us that despite this, we have no choice, really, but to make the effort to try to do something, even if it will take an effort like we have never shown or proven we have in order to do it:

The more mistakes, the more resolve 
It's gonna take much more than ordinary love 
To lift this up

A decent song, albeit another slow-paced one. Very reflective.

12. “River Cross” – The opening of this one reminded me quite a bit of “Love Boat Captain,” for some reason, mostly because of Boom Gospar's organ. The lyrics feel reminiscent of that song, also, for reasons that I cannot quite pinpoint yet. A somber song, reflective and rather philosophical. Alludes to that sense of youth at points, when things feel straightforward and the worlds direction predictable, before surprising turns of the river that cause us to lose our bearings. The sunshine of the springtime of our youth adds to this sense of having lost our once seemingly clear course. Yet Vedder urges us to remember that nothing can hold us down. I like this song, and it makes me think. But this one feels a bit depressing to me, as well, admittedly.

Conspiracy Theories & Ugly Rumors About the Coronavirus Are Making the Situation Worse

Everyone knows about the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. If there is a singular event where conspiracy theories absolutely just were all over the place, it would be the Kennedy assassination. For a while, I was fascinated by these various conspiracy theories, and to some extent, taken in by some of them. Some, on the other hand, were just utterly ridiculous right from the start.              

Of course, sometimes it is difficult to take the official account on it’s face value. After all, there are just so many questions. After all, how could one man – supposedly a lone loser – manage to pull off three shots so quickly, two of which managed to hit the president in a moving car? For that matter, how comes Kennedy seems to react as if shot from the front, with seemingly a piece of his head blown off, and with him being jerked back and to the left? Why did Ruby manage to get so close to Oswald that he managed to kill him, thus ending any real chance at answers? Why did a number of people seem to believe that the shots had come from the grassy knoll?              

There are a lot of questions, and no real answers to that tragedy. And when the next huge event that changed the country dramatically occurred, there were many questions and conspiracy theories that followed, as well. Did George W. Bush know about the September 11th attacks in advance? How could there be so much video footage of the two planes attacking the Twin Towers in New York, but absolutely no footage of the jet striking the Pentagon, since all the video of it was apparently confiscated? Why were there no marks for the wings when it struck? For that matter, how can we believe that the black boxes simply disintegrated?              

There are indeed some questions that remain about both of those events, although for me, I am okay with not knowing. Yes, there seems like a lot of evidence to suggest that Oswald was not alone, yet there are just no concrete leads to prove that he did not, and too many indicators that he was there on that day specifically for that reason, and all of this cannot be ignored. Yes, the Bush administration received advanced warnings of the attack to come and, frankly, should have taken these a lot more seriously, and been able to piece together some idea of what was going to happen.              

Now, with the coronavirus, there are, predictably, plenty of conspiracy theories galore. I had a couple of conversations already with people who are quite taken by these. The most persistent among some Americans is that this was some kind of hoax designed to make Donald Trump look bad (as if he needed any help with that). Many who believe this seem to think that the Democrats would be willing to destabilize the entire economy and release a dangerous and unpredictable virus, all just to make sure that Trump does not get a second term. Some Trump fans also quickly point out that there was another pandemic, the swine flu, which took place during the Obama years in office, and which impacted tens of millions of Americans who got infected, with tens of thousands dying from it. They point to the lack of media hype back then, and their clear insinuation is that if Donald Trump was not in the White House, none of what is currently happening would be happening.              

However, this whole coronavirus is an airborne virus that, indeed, likely did not originate here in the United States, from what we can tell. It does not help to call this the “Chinese flu,” but there is evidence to suggest that it did come from China, particularly somewhere around Wuhan, which was the epicenter of the whole thing from the earliest days. Some have suggested it started because some human – patient zero – ate a bat that had the disease, and that this was how the whole crisis that has now spread literally around the globe began.              

Since there is evidence that Covid-19 began in China, and since China is such an easy and apparently natural scapegoat for many ills in the world according to many Americans, there has been no shortage of people who have jumped on this. Trump himself pounced on it, and wants to make sure that everyone knows he blames China for it all. This opinion is shared by many Trump supporters, who have pounced on this thing.              

Over the weekend while at work, I encountered a guy who asked me, out of nowhere, what I thought about this whole coronavirus thing. Admittedly, I was a little leery, because I have learned to hesitate before talking politics with anyone, and this guy had an unusual energy and intensity that was a tad off-putting. It was only too easy to imagine a conversation that would be all over the place, with a stranger who may reveal himself to be less than fully stable mentally, or perhaps even angry. Being at work, an argument was not something that I wanted any part of, either. Yet, the guy insisted.              

This guy told me some new conspiracy theories, or rather, specific details of a conspiracy theory that has been floating around. Namely, he said that it was a biological attack on the United States by the Chinese. This kind of belief, like many conspiracy theory, kind of revolves on the periphery on believability, seemingly making just enough sense to be plausible to some people. He backed this up with what he felt were proof and facts that he had at the ready. He asked me if I knew what was going on there, and I admitted that I did not. But he mentioned that China now has zero cases of Covid-19, which was something that I know not to be true, but which seemed hardly worth challenging him on. After all, the virus ravaged numerous Chinese cities and shut down normal life and routines for quite some time in China.              

He suggested that China had far more advanced nuclear weapons than we Americans had. This was where I challenged him, but did so without any passion or anger, simply pointing out that I was not so sure about this, since we spend more than the next 11 leading countries in terms of military spending– which includes China – combined. But he insisted, and so I just shrugged, not seeing much point in continuing that particular argument. Again, these days, it seems that facts just do not matter to some people.              

Basically, he felt that China did this to hurt the American economy, to undermine American power. He felt that Trump was not doing that bad of a job, despite having clearly made some mistakes, which made him only the second of third black man that I have met who is supportive (more or less) of Trump. According to him, the United States is hurt, with possibly irreparable damage, while China is rising because of this. He insisted that all of “those counties: (that was how he put it) had agents – spies – here in the United States, and they introduced the virus here. How else would it have gotten here, he asked?              

I mentioned that China had been hurt by the coronavirus, that it had suffered from tens of thousands of infected and thousands of deaths. The economy was hurt, because businesses throughout China were closed for a period of time, much like they are here in the West right now. Strangely, he seemed to suggest that China was trying to make Trump look bad (differing from some Trump fans who believe that the Democrats are behind this), and he also was suspicious of Russia, claiming that they had no cases, and had closed their borders. In fact, Russia does have hundreds of cases of the coronavirus, and has seen some deaths, although it has not reached anywhere near the numbers that it has in some other countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americans. At least not yet.              

When the guy left, I felt a little strange. I cannot say that it is entirely impossible that this whole thing was some kind of biological terrorism, but it seems unlikely to me. Frankly, it feels like the product of minds that watch too many spy movies and television, where evil characters bent on world domination release a virus to further their diabolical schemes. Frankly, it seems to me that there are a lot of cartoonish opinions and versions of “reality” here in the United States that are hard to take seriously. After all, look at who is currently sitting in the Oval Office. It was beginning to feel like this was one man who was betraying his own kind of cartoonish understanding of the world.              

So, is it some biological attack by the Chinese. or someone else? The Russians? The Koreans (I think he meant the North Koreans)? The Iranians, perhaps? Again, it is not impossible. But it also does not feel right, or resemble anything that feels much like reality to me. It feels like a dangerous conspiracy theory that further erodes common sense, like the conspiracy that someone shot Kennedy from the sewers, or how Saddam and Iraq were somehow involved with the September 11th attacks, regardless of a total lack of evidence. It sounds like finger-pointing and trying to blame “the other” and increase tensions for no reason whatsoever, adding fuel to an already burning fire.              

There is another guy – a very young guy who is likely in his early 20’s - at this same job who has shared some strange theories about Covid-19. He seems a little naïve in a young sort of way, and also shared the previous guy’s belief that it was a biological attack by the Chinese. But he also heard that all of this will just come to an end on April 8th. Yes, that’s right, it is not a misprint. The way that he put it, he heard somewhere, from someone, that just like that, this thing will disappear without a trace on April 8th, vanishing as quickly and mysteriously as it first appeared to begin with.              

Okay.

There are other rumors, too. Rumors which have no basis in fact or science, and which could seriously exacerbate the situation. One of these is that chemicals which mix together to make bleach could somehow kill the coronavirus. If it does, it could also clearly prove lethal to anyone who drinks such a concoction, as well. 

Rumors persist also that this whole thing is one giant hoax, or at least that the coronavirus really is not all that bad as they say, that the media is hyping it up and ruining the country, and that we should all simply return back to work and our normal, everyday routines, even if it would mean a much wider outbreak of the disease.

Nor are the rumors relegated to just the United States, for that matter. Below is a link to an article which explore how Iran is dealing with harmful rumors which have little to no basis in fact, and which are hurting efforts to combat Covid-19.

The rumors will continue. That seems to be part of the norm whenever there are events that change our lives like this. 

But the prevalence of rumors seems to be shifting our frankly immature and less than thoughtful American society more than it has in the past. If we want to get back to trying to do our part to make a better country, we are going to need to return back to a time when at least simple, indisputable things like facts matter again. 

Iran confronts coronavirus amid a ‘battle between science and conspiracy theories’ By Richard Stone, Mar. 29, 2020:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/iran-confronts-coronavirus-amid-battle-between-science-and-conspiracy-theories

Economic Impact of Covid-19 Crisis Being Felt Economically as More Than 3 Million Americans Filed for Unemployment Just Last Week

Just how devastating has the coronavirus crisis been these past two weeks or so?

Well, look at this recent bit of news: more than three million Americans filed for unemployment just last week alone!

This is at least partially in response to the lockdowns, and the limited mobility for many Americans, particularly in states that have begun to crack down on any and all unnecessary travel. Many businesses were forced to shut their doors at least temporarily, and it seems apparent that quite a number of them will not be able to reopen their doors for a long time. Perhaps in some cases, they will never open their doors again. That is how bad the economic crisis has been as a result of this.

The week before, by way of comparison, only 282,000 people had filed for unemployment, which is a mere fraction of the three million last week, according to the Department of Labor. 

Yet, experts are warning that this may just be the beginning:

Thursday's numbers are just "the tip of the iceberg," Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said as she noted that these figures do not even include data from this week. 

"Businesses cannot plan for this kind of sudden stop of cash flow," she told NBC News. "This isn’t a 'rainy day fund' situation." 

Some of the most severely hit states are suffering the worst. That includes New York and New Jersey, the two states that currently have the most and the second most confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country. But recently, California had it bad, before they started a statewide lockdown. But it has come at a clear cost, as  according to Governor Gavin Newsom, jobless claims are increasing by more than 100,000 a day.

BUSINESS NEWS More than 3 million Americans filed for unemployment claims last week by Lucy Bayly, March 26, 2020:
"It's beyond anything we have ever seen. It’s the speed that is so painful," one economist said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/unemployment-claims-hit-3-million-last-week-n1169266?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR28v3R_hU3mRByazDPUYqWf84HXWVs7ATy1S7mQXAUXl0ORqLCNw-tuZ_E

Remembering Summer Vacation From Over 30 Years Ago

Recently, I told my brother that a mutual friend of ours, who we had spent much of the summer of 1989 in France with, got into contact with me via Facebook.

Well, he sent me a couple of pictures from that summer, and it seemed worth sharing here.

The first picture may have been taken by me, although I cannot say for sure. But my brother is on the left, our Algerian friend Riad is in the middle (he is the one who recently got into contact with me, and who sent me these two pictures), and Bruno, who is from France, is on the right, looking at Riad (or so it seems to me).  We were in Leffond, a small town in eastern France, not too far from Dijon, which is the most famous large city within the vicinity of the area where this picture was taken. 

The second picture was also taken in Leffond. This one features only Riad, and he is in the Renault 5 (back then known here in the United States as "Le Car") that belonged to my aunt, who was the one who took us in during those summers of the 1980's. This was the last such summer when we visited, and my guess is that my brother, like me, has fond memories of this summer. Leffond is a very small town, and there was usually not all that much for kids to do. But we were all teenagers (the three pictures below, as well as me), which made it a lot more fun, I think, for all of us. We played a lot of ping pong, and generally had some good times, despite a language barrier particularly with me. 

Indeed, that summer was fun, and I mostly have positive memories from it. Being in Leffond for what turned out to be the last of our summer vacations in France of the 1980's, and being able to enjoy the company of young men who were more or less our age, it made it especially fun. If memory serves correctly, Bruno was the oldest among us, and Riad just a little younger than him. My brother was likely a year or two younger than them, and I am just shy of three years younger than him, which made me the baby and the brat of the pack.

Still, it was good times, and it seemed particularly timing, given the confinement that we are all subjected to nowadays with the Covid-19, to remember this summer.

Enjoy!

Americans Continue to Set Bar Really, Really Low as the World Watches

Earlier today, I was commenting on someone's link about basically how low the standards have gotten here in the United States. Yesterday, for example, I mentioned how President Trump's approval ratings right now match their highest ever. As of yesterday, 49 percent of Americans - almost one in two - believe that he is doing a good job.

That, despite his criminal behavior which was exposed during the whole impeachment trial, even if it was conveniently ignored by Republicans, who were able to kill the impeachment process.

And that, despite his clear and undeniable downplaying of the whole coronavirus, trying at every turn to minimize it, in efforts that seemed to contribute, frankly, to the epidemic getting as serious here in the United States as it has gotten. He attempted to brush it off, claiming in late February that the cases would go down to zero within a couple of weeks. As of right now, the United States has more confirmed cases of Covid-19 than any other country.

Yet, Donald Trump wants to rush the end of the social distancing effort meant to keep the coronavirus in check, against the best advice of nearly all of the experts. He claimed that he wanted business back in full swing and full churches by Easter, which is just weeks away. Again, so far, the confirmed cases have only risen, and the United States has just reached the 1,000 mark in terms of deaths from coronavirus. It seems sometimes that Trump's only real source of concern is the stock market, which has obviously taken quite a hit due to the coronavirus, and the social distancing efforts, with most businesses either open on a limited basis, or outright closed. 

Trump has pretty much mishandled every aspect of the coronavirus, much like he has mishandled his entire poor excuse for a presidency. He has helped to erode our constitutional rights, the same ones that he swore to uphold during his oath in office. He has pulled the United States out of binding international treaties. He has polarized the nation like nobody else before in our lifetimes, despite claiming that he would be the "president for all Americans." At every turn, he has continually embarrassed and disgraced his country and himself, and boasted with transparent lies that are easily refuted with simple fact checking. Even his political allies admit that he is far from truthful with everything.

Surely, a country that claims to pride itself on greatness would hurriedly get rid of such a blight on the American legacy, right?

Again, recent polls suggest that he has the highest approval ratings that he has ever had. And worse: a recent poll shows that a wide majority of Americans actually support how he has handled this whole coronavirus calamity.

What has happened in this country, that we have collectively lowered our standards so severely that such a ridiculous man slowly but surely gains favor in terms of approval from the American people, while having done absolutely nothing whatsoever to earn that level of trust. He continues to feed his willfully blindly loyal supporters - who number in the tens of millions - and they just continue to support everything that he does, even as it undermines almost everything that the country once was, and almost every idea that the country once stood for.

As a country, the United States has a serious problem with staggering levels of immaturity, and we have the ultimate manchild now serving in our highest office as permanent proof and testament to just how low we can collectively go. 

Our Founding Fathers are probably rolling over in their grave.

Trump’s Handling of Coronavirus Approved by 60% in Gallup Poll By Justin Sink March 24, 2020

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/trump-s-handling-of-coronavirus-approved-by-60-in-gallup-poll-k86e29ot?fbclid=IwAR3wVHhwYCKKvRvcgJm-QIJCEcaM1_YWfPLTsPu6A2F9GP4dQXWU6CLuoII

Trump Finally Agrees to Stop Pushing the Term ‘Chinese Virus’

Donald Trump will finally stop trying to blame one other country in particular for the whole coronaviru crisis that the entire world now faces.

Not long ago, Trump was pushing to try and refer to the coronavirus, or Covid-19, as the "Chinese virus."

Many were critical of this, as it seemed to amount to finger-pointing and playing the blame game, something that Trump specializes in.

But blaming others, in this case blaming the Chinese, does not actually help anything, but it hurts plenty.  It makes things worse, adding tensions between the two countries and people at a time when we should be uniting to fight this thing all together. 

Also, this is the tool of someone who is clueless in this crisis, and does not know what to do. So, typical of Trump, as he typically just tries to pin blame elsewhere, no matter what goes wrong. In this case, he tried to blame China, obviously.

Yet one more piece of evidence - as if any more evidence were necessary - that he is completely unfit  and unqualified for the office that he presently holds.









Here is the link to this article that got me on this topic to begin with:

Trump Says He’ll Stop Using the Term ‘Chinese Virus’ By Karen Leigh March 24, 2020,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/trump-says-he-ll-stop-using-chinese-virus-easing-blame-game

Covid-19 Will Likely Impact Our World For a Very Long Time to Come, Even Beyond When it Finally Disappears

This whole coronavirus thing is scary, and unlike anything that anyone well under 105 or 110 years old could possibly remember.  

The closest thing like this that has happened in relatively modern history was the outbreak of what was called “Spanish Flu” back in 1918. The numbers for that were rather staggering, with estimates of people who died numbering in the tens of millions. There are even estimates that it might have killed up to 100 million, although most estimates are less than that.  

This is an airborne virus, which makes this obviously very dangerous. You may very well get it just by proximity to someone who is infected, and what makes this particularly dangerous is that some who are contagious might not show any symptoms yet. Indeed, some who look and feel healthy might be infected and spread the coronavirus. That makes this very scary.  

But indeed, it is not only the health risks that make this whole situation scary. Already, it has had an economic impact, and it has been quite detrimental. The stock market crashed, and many people have been sent home from work for an indeterminate amount of time. No one knows when – or even if – things will return to normal. And many people may not even have jobs to return to. A lot of smaller businesses are not going to be able to survive this, and there are estimates that just from the past two weeks, there may be anywhere from one to two million Americans who will find themselves suddenly unemployed. The number of people filing for unemployment is growing daily. It feels like we are on the brink of an economic downturn that might last a long, long time.  

Hopefully, it will not turn into an economic disaster, although that possibility cannot be completely eliminated.  

How bad could it get, though?  

There are projections that suggest unemployment may rise to 30 percent, which, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently mentioned, is higher than even the peak unemployment rate seen during the Great Depression. 

Here is what she recently said:  

"We may see up to 30% unemployment rate. At the peak of the Great Depression, we saw 24% unemployment. So this is something unlike anything we have ever seen."  

Scary thought.  

That is not to say that those kinds of numbers will actually happen. But there is so much uncertainty surrounding this thing, that nothing seems impossible. None of us have seen anything like what is happening right now, so there is no clear model for us to compare with or follow. We just do not know what is going to happen.

Here is the link to the source from which I got the quote used above:

Quote by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taken from Twitter page of Justice Democrats @justicedems:

https://twitter.com/justicedems/status/1241923195990663168

RIP, Albert Udezo, Co-Creator of Iconic Asterix Comics

Amidst the world transforming headlines from the Covid-19 virus around the globe, there was sad news from France today.              

Albert Udezo, who along with his friend René Goscinny, created the Asterix comics in 1959. Together, they created the comic adventure stories of Gaulish warriors in a corner of France, who were the last village standing and fighting against the Roman Empire.              

Urderzo had drawn the comics for the iconic series, and he outright took over the writing of Asterix after Goscinny's died in 1977.              

Asterix books have sold over 370 million copies worldwide, and in dozens of languages. There have also been some feature films, the most famous of which have starred famous French actor Gérard Depardieu as Obelix, who is the best friend of Asterix. Obelix was supposed to have fallen into a vat of the secret concoction that only the Gaulish villagers have access to, which gives them super strength. That is the reason why they manage to hold off the Romans for so long, and this resistance is the reason why the Romans are so obsessed with taking over this one last holdout against their might empire.

On a personal note, Asterix was quite big in my family. My father remembered enjoying Asterix comics from his younger years, while my brother and I also enjoyed them decades later. When we would take trips to France, I collected the popular comic books (literally, hard cover books, and not anything similar to Marvel or DC comics of the time). My personal favorite was Tintin, but I also very much enjoyed Lucky Luke and, of course, Asterix. It should be noted that Udezo also played a huge role in the creation of one Lucky Luke book, "Le Cavalier blanc" (known in English as "The Dashing White Cowboy"). Those were the big three French language comics that I particularly enjoyed, and which still to this day remind me of summers in France back in the eighties. They were a source of comfort and enjoyment to me while on those trips, and reminded me of those pleasant trips once they were gone. Even now, they remind me of that element of my childhood.

Even my Polish girlfriend knew and very much enjoyed Asterix. He was apparently well known even in Poland during the days of communist rule there. Again, he had a universal appeal.

While new Tintin books were not still coming out when I was younger, there were (and until very recently, still are) new Asterix and Lucky Luke books that regularly come out. That might change after this, but Udezo and others left us their gift of these comic books to enjoy as we wish. Like John Lennon said following the breakup of the Beatles, there were still the music albums to enjoy them by. With Udezo and the other creators of Asterix, we will always have the comic books to remember and enjoy. 

RIP. You will be missed. But what a great gift he left for us to enjoy for many years to come.

Albert Uderzo: Asterix co-creator and illustrator dies aged 92 by BBC News, 24 March 2020:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52016721#

Trump Approval Rating Equals Record High Despite Severe Mishandling of Covid-19 & Reinforces Negative Views About Americans Around the World

Sometimes, you hear news that feels like fingernails scratching a chalk board.

This whole coronavirus thing feels a bit like that. But frankly, we have had news headlines over the past three years and change - since November of 2016 - that have felt like that, truth be told.

But there was one headline that, despite all of the bad news that we have read about and/or seen recently, feels like it particularly condemns Americans.

Despite all of the nonsense, the outright lies and deception and spreading of misinformation and boastful, falsely proud ignorance of Donald Trump, his approval ratings here in the United States match the all-time high, which he reached just after the whole impeachment trial. In other words, the two examples when his failures were like dirty laundry being aired before the entire world, and Americans are more supportive of him than ever before.

This is why the rest of the world increasingly skeptical about Americans and how they view the world.

I am not saying that Americans deserve this because they are Americans. But right now, as of today, basically one of every two Americans actually approves of Donald Trump's job in the White House thus far.

Collectively, we Americans have been spoiled and allowed ourselves the conceit of believing whatever we want to believe, facts be damned. And because of that, Americans will get the government - and the results from that government - that they deserve. He will continue to be a debacle and an embarrassment for the entire country, to disgrace himself personally and the country that he was elected to represent, and more Americans than ever are supporting him while he does this. It seems more likely than ever before that he will receive a second term in office, despite ample evidence that he qualifies, frankly, as the worst president in American history.

We Americans are opting for the worst possible leadership at a critical time when we can least afford it, and it is deservedly hurting our image around the world. If the Kennedy assassination ended the "golden era" of American history, when we were the envy of the entire world, and if the September 11th attacks began to alter the image of the United States from "the leader of the free world" and a nation in good-standing to an increasingly abusive and untrustworthy country, than this recent Covid-19 crisis is making us a laughingstock around the world, with a truly pathetic for what passes for "leadership."

Whatever happens - and Trump seems almost intent on making matters worse, and even far worse - we will almost literally have asked for it.

Incredibly depressing.

And it would be unbelievable, except that this ridiculous version of reality - where Americans do exactly the opposite of what they should be doing - is starting to feel seriously old now.

Do we have it in us to be better than what we have allowed ourselves and our country to become?

Frankly, the world has a right to be skeptical about that question by this point in time. 

How depressing.

Gallup: Trump job approval rating matches all-time high BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 03/24/20

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/489285-gallup-trump-job-approval-rating-matches-all-time-high?fbclid=IwAR0ZpVNQhQPnjzDS3Q8okyF3kRQU-RDKYef5z1QleFOg92IsuDGCm6YdBzI

Tokyo Olympic Games Officially Postponed, Likely to Be Held in 2021

You kind of had to see this one coming, right?              

After all, sports leagues in Europe and the Americans had suspended play, and pretty much all major events and gatherings had also been either postponed, or outright cancelled. And while the Olympic Games were supposed to be held months from now, it nevertheless was not a guarantee that the worst of this coronavirus thing would be over. Also, some other countries, like Canada and Australia, as well as some world leaders had been encouraging a postponement of the Olympic Games.              

Finally, yesterday, the games were officially postponed, which makes these the first Olympic Games to be cancelled or postponed since World War II.              

That should provide some context about the seriousness of this whole Covid-19 situation, which has obviously shaken most of the entire world. It is continuing to grow in Africa and South America, and has already had a major impact in Asia, Europe, and North America. Some countries, like China and Italy, have seen staggering numbers of cases, and thousands of deaths each. The United States has the third most cases of among countries of the world, and both the number of confirmed cases, as well as deaths, keeps growing. This thing is far from being resolved or contained, even if there may be signs for hope.

Comparing Covid-19 to September 11th

The last time that we had a news story that proved anywhere near as huge and impactful as this coronavirus thing, it would have been the September 11th attacks, back in 2001. That was different than this, of course. Those were attacks, and they were surreal, with a theatrical quality to it that the terrorists who planned it surely knew, because if you did not know any better, it almost might have felt a bit like watching a movie. There were these planes filled with oil crashing into skyscrapers with a whole city filled with spectators present, and many of them with cameras. Then, the video of people trapped and jumping from the tops of the skyscrapers to escape the blistering heat, before both of those buildings ultimately collapsed. So we got these unbelievable images of jets crashing into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, and then the buildings themselves collapsing, as well as reports (without the visuals) of the places crashing into the Pentagon in Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania.  

It made for incredible images, and it seemed that everyone had a morbid fascination with watching the attacks, again and again.  

This is very different. There is no one single moment, if you will, where the news event changed the world in an instant. There is no Zaputer film showing the moment that a young president was struck down by an assassin’s (or perhaps several assassins in a conspiracy?) bullet striking him down. No images of the moment the planes struck the towers, incredibly showing the precise second when the world seemed to change from what we had known before to a very different, new reality, after which the world would never be the same.  No, this one was very different.

There is no specific video footage when everyone suddenly knew that the coronavirus had reached a point of being a global pandemic. You will not find dramatic images of any particular moment when a country, or indeed in this case the world, understood that we have reached a point where nothing will ever be quite the same again.  

And yet, we seem to have reached that point.  

What could that one moment have been? When the epidemic started to be huge news, but seemed restricted to China and South Korea? Was it when the Chinese completely shut down Wuhan, and the images of normally busy city streets being completely deserted came to us on television? Was it when the virus spread in a big way to Italy? Was it when the NBA cancelled the duration of the season on the same day that Tom Hanks became the first major celebrity in a celebrity addicted society to get the coronavirus? Was it when Trump, later that same night, gave an address and finally – albeit seemingly still reluctantly – admitted that this was, indeed, a crisis? Was it when businesses began closing, or when California became the first state (but most assuredly not the last state) to impose a mandatory stay at home, “shelter in place” order? Was it when there were images on television of a convoy of trucks in Italy carrying all of the dead away to be cremated in recent days? Will there perhaps be a more shocking than that, if the crisis continues to grow? To me, for now, I think that the images of those Italian trcks carrying the corpses of coronavirus victims is probably the most shocking, since it really brings the tragedy into light. It looks like something that you might have read about in books or movies about some kind of a plague, such as in Stephen King’s “The Stand.”  

That was pretty close to surreal.  

It seems that the epicenter of the coronavirus is no longer China, but Italy, where citizens apparently ignored the seriousness of the crisis, and went about their daily business like usual. But when the crisis really began to hit hard, Italy suddenly became the center of attention in terms of the coronavirus crisis. Just yesterday alone, 793 people died from the virus. To date, Italy has seen nearly well over 50,000 confirmed cases of infected, and nearly 5,000 people have died from the virus in Italy as I write this. Sadly, it is not necessarily safe to assume that the number will not reach or exceed 5,000 by the time that I get a chance to publish this. Historically, Italy is no stranger to tragic viruses.  

Here in the United States, this latest crisis has had a profound impact already, just like past huge news crises have done, and it is not good. The Kennedy assassination seemed to usher in an era when the United States effectively left what was considered it’s “golden age,” a period when it was the envy of the entire world, when it far and away led the world in terms of influence politically, economically, militarily, and culturally. September 11th seemed to end the era of the United States being the still respected leading superpower of the world, as the wars under George W. Bush and the increasing surveillance  and drone strike methods that Bush, Obama, and Trump all seemed to champion have undermined the credibility, trust, and still relative good standing with other countries that we used to have.  

Now, the coronavirus is showing that the United States has outright glaring failures. In what way? Well, the White House “leadership” (yes, I put that word in quotes) would be laughable, if the consequences were not so damn tragic. Trump and many other Washington insiders were too busy trying to undermine or even outright deny the threat, that they squandered an opportunity at better preparedness for when Covid-19 finally did reach our shores. Despite Trump’s claims that he and his team are handling the crisis brilliantly, there is plenty of evidence to suggest quite the opposite, such as his earlier numerous denials, and how he seems far more concerned about the impact on the stock market than he is with the very real impact on the lives of the American people.  

Beyond just the Trump administration, which has exacerbated the crisis rather than helping to make it a little better, the system of extreme capitalism has shown that it’s excesses are a clear sign that it is failing. People are not being tested in any great number, there are not enough masks to go around in hospitals, which are already overcrowded, with not only no relief in sight, but with things expected to grow even worse in the coming weeks and months. The callous indifference of so-called national “leaders” (again, the quotes) show blatant corruption and shameless self-interest, as politicians sold their valuable stocks just before the crash, all while misleading the public by claiming that this will not be that bad. The most infamous such case is Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who sold a reported $1.7 million worth of stocks, and told a private audience just how bad the coronavirus would probably get, while telling the general public that, for the most part, there was not much to worry about.  

Nor is Senator Burr the only one who seems not overly worried about the detrimental impact of the spread of Covi-19. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin took a philosophic approach, saying that only somewhere between1 percent to 3.4 percent of cases of coronavirus wind up leading to death. Even if the number of Americans who get infected remain well below half of the total population, or even if it remains less than a quarter of the population or even just ten percent who will get infected, that still means that tens of millions of Americans will get it, and out of those, hundreds of thousands, and possibly even millions, will die. Johnson was trying to remain upbeat about the prospects of only a few hundred thousand, or perhaps a million or more, victims of Covid-19. That kind of callous indifference from an American – particularly a Republican - politician and champion of the no holds barred version of capitalism that we have here in the United States is as American as apple pie. And again, I reiterate that the whole world is watching how we react, and we are losing still more ground in our credibility and basic human decency before the eyes of the entire world.  

Many people are taking involuntary breaks from work, and many of those are not being paid. There were huge spikes in cases of people filing for unemployment. Some businesses are asking these people to take unpaid leave for many weeks. A lot of people are worried that they will not have a job to come back to, and for many of those people, losing their jobs also would mean losing their health insurance, since our “for profit” healthcare system binds health insurance to employment. That impending crisis in it’s own right comes just as the biggest health crisis in at least one century grows to a level that is impossible to ignore, much less deny. Many businesses are fearful that they will not be able to weather this storm.  

Yes, it is bad.  

But I do not want to fixate on all of the bad, or add to the fear, or even the paranoia, that seems to be growing at the moment, perhaps even faster than the coronavirus crisis itself is. That, to me, is part of the problem, and not a minor part.  

This crisis is about a lot more than inconvenient shortages of toilet paper or meat or rice or other items at the supermarkets. There are a lot of jokes about those things, and I have joked about some of those things myself. The reality is, however, that this virus is far more serious than that. We are facing something that is far scarier or grimmer, frankly, than the planes that crashed into buildings on September 11th, or the bullets that struck a young president more than half a century ago. This crisis is very real, yet one of the major problems is that some people still are not taking it seriously. Just days ago, some people in Florida took advantage of their days off from work to go to beaches that ended up being very crowded, even though the whole idea of being taken out of work was to stay at home in an effort to contain the virus.  

Sometimes, it feels like we Americans are just asking for something truly horrible to happen to us, because we keep collectively tempting fate. Does it still seem like a good idea to have put a clown into our highest office? I remember one Trump fan telling me that at the very least, he will be entertaining. While I personally never found the man entertaining in the least, I wonder if those people who voted for him because they agreed that Trump was entertaining (and I believe there are quite a few of those) are still laughing now, through his denials and his bungling of this whole crisis, or implying that sick (and potentially infectious) people should continue to go to work, and that they would likely get better? Are you not entertained?  

Frankly, I wish that we had a real president at the helm, and not a transparently selfish, spoiled, disinterested parasite. I wish we had far better people in Washington right now more generally, people who might actually be seriously regarded as leaders.  

Unfortunately, that is not the case. We have what is a reflection of the values that we have championed in this country for far too long: selfishness, indifference, xenophobia, ugly nationalism, arrogance mixed with ignorance, and sickening secrecy to keep the truth at bay. And the situation with the coronavirus is worse because of all of this. There are lessons to be learned from all of this, but will we actually take it seriously enough this time to learn from it? We did not learn all that much from September 11th, as we squandered the sympathy of the world by pursuing unethical and unjustifiable war in Iraq. We have not learned lessons apparently from four decades or more of an increasingly extremist capitalist ideology, even though our standard of living has consistently slipped. When we faced the economic crisis of 2008, we elected “leaders” who bailed out the big banks and major corporations, leaving middle of the road Americans out to dry.  

Can we Americans finally overcome our own collective conceit to learn some serious lessons and humility from all of this?  

As with our economy presently, I would not bank on it.

Still More Covid-19 Headlines & Updates

There is so much going on in the world right now these past few weeks, that it feels like the headlines are coming at lightning pace. Frankly, it is difficult to keep up, because the major headlines just keep on coming. Just when you think that you have heard all of the most recent updates, and perhaps feel up to speed enough to try and write something in a blog such as this one, there are other huge screaming headlines that come up, rendering whatever update you made irrelevant, and feeling like old, outdated news.              

That said, let me at least try to give an adequate update up to this point, on the morning of Monday, March 23, 2020:  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has apparently tested positive for the coronavirus, and has placed herself under quarantine.              

She is not the only major politician to test positive. Senator Rand Paul has also tested positive for the coronavirus. This bit of news came just one week after his father, former Senator Ron Paul said “People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus 'pandemic’ could be a big hoax."  

Both Australia and Canada call for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo to be postponed. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has conceded that postponement is not only a distinct possibility, but perhaps even inevitable. He suggested that it would not be fair if not everyone or everything was ready, given the time constraints that the Covid-19 epidemic has caused.  He also set travel restrictions on the United States, so now anyone coming from the United States will be quarantined for 14 days. 

Placido Domingo has tested positive, even though he is largely seen as disgraced due to his suspicious conduct revealed by the whole “Me too” movement. Similarly, disgraced former filmmaker Harvey Weinstein has also tested positive.  

Measures are increasingly being taken here in the United States. Numerous states have taken serious, even in some cases drastic, measures to try and enforce a shutdown in order to contain the spread of the virus. Those states include California (the first such state), New York (which is now generally recognized as the epicenter, or “ground zero”) of the Covid-19 cases here in the United States, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, and Louisiana. And in Florida, finally, all public beaches have been closed to the general public, following the news stories about overcrowded beaches last week.  

There are growing calls for White House briefings on the coronavirus pandemic not to be covered or televised, due to misinformation. Who knew that an unqualified scam artist with a very well established tradition of lying would mishandle a crisis like this so badly and prove to be more a part of the problem than a part of the solution, eh?  

Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases in the United States continue to grow. There are over 23,000 cases nationwide, and over 300 people have died of it nationally to date. Of course, those numbers pale in comparison to some other countries, at least for now. Italy’s death toll just surpassed that of China, as the have now seen more than 3,400, and over 41,000 confirmed cases.  

Overall, the death toll around the world due to the coronavirus has reached more than 10,000.  

As with other huge news stories that almost defined whole era, such as the September 11th attacks or the Kennedy assassination, this whole coronavirus thing is also filled with conspiracy theories. Iran refused American assistance due to a conspiracy theory – believed by many in Iran – that this thing was created by the United States government. Similar beliefs are held in China, the country that many Americans (particularly Trump and his supporters) blame for the whole coronavirus pandemic, with some believing that this was some kind of a planned attack. The, of course, there are still people who believe that this whole thing is a hoax, of course.  

Worse than these conspiracy theories, arguably, are stories that, when you connect the dots, reveal not so much an outright conspiracy, as much as gross negligence and abuse of power due to narrow self-interest and greed. The most famous examples are the senators here in the United States who sold their stocks just before financial markets plunged, all while misleading the public by downplaying the seriousness of the impending crisis. The most famous, and possibly egregious, such example is Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, who sold somewhere between $598,000 to $1.62 million in stocks in February.              

Yet, he is only the most famous example of far too many. The names include Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma (who has made a name for himself numerous times in the past for his absurd climate change denial). Feinstein sold somewhere between $1.5 million to $6 million in stocks, Loeffler sold somewhere between $1.7 million to $4.5 million in stocks, and Inhofe sold somewhere between $230,000 to $500,000 in stocks, all just in time before the Covid-19 crisis, and the economic collapse that it caused.              

This prompted some reaction, such as this one, by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

"Burr knew how bad it would be. He told the truth to his wealthy donors, while assuring the public that we were fine," Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet. 

"THEN he sold off $1.6 million in stock before the fall."  

"He needs to resign," she said.  

Ocasio-Cortez added later after the report on Loeffler surfaced that she should also resign.

She later added another tweet about this:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC  

It is stomach-churning that the first thoughts these Senators had to a dire & classified #COVID briefing was how to profit off this crisis.  
They didn’t mobilize to help families, or prep response. They dumped stock.  
Sen. Loeffler needs to resign, too.  

9:40 PM · Mar 19, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Indeed, like with any major crisis – and almost every major news story more generally – this whole thing has shown examples of both the best and the worst that humanity has to offer. There are good people who are helping the world over, and many of them, probably even the vast majority, are not making any kinds of headlines whatsoever. But the bad side of people always seems prominently on display, and it seems like it is human nature to kind of hone in on these kinds of behaviors. That is why this criminal conduct by the Senators is making such waves.              

Yet, there are smaller versions of criminal conduct. There are inflated prices for toilet paper, and I heard of one woman who bought toilet paper from a supermarket, and then was selling rolls for $5 each. There are just so many vultures lacking scruples out there, that it is enough sometimes to almost lose hope in humanity.

Below are the links to the articles, and to one Twitter page, which I used in order to write this blog entry, as well as the specific statistics and quotes used above. I also got some of the information from CNN earlier this morning:

Worldwide COVID-19 Death Toll Tops 10,000 as Italian Nurses “Stop Counting the Dead”  HEADLINE, MAR 20, 2020:

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/20/headlines/worldwide_covid_19_death_toll_tops_10_000_as_italian_nurses_stop_counting_the_dead




Senators sold off their stocks ahead of coronavirus economic crash by Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY, March 19, 2020:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/19/reports-burr-loeffler-sold-stocks-ahead-coronavirus-marketcrash/2882006001/?fbclid=IwAR3joH4i7lMtz4uFwshst-WA_x2eTZh3F01VPP0QcVZmBOfZnfDArBBfY-o



Second tweet by Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez was from her Twitter site. Here's the link:

https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1240815356572205056