Not the Best of Times

The Worst of Times————————————

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic can bring out the best in people but also the worst. In the former category, of course, are the healthcare workers, the first responders and members of the military, and the many essential workers, who put their health and that of their families at risk to treat, serve or protect us. In the latter category would be those politicians and their supporters, including those in the media, who would use this crisis to further their political objectives. In the latter category, I would also include those jerks wearing swastikas and brandishing rifles at demonstrations in Michigan against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s restrictive policies.

A Washington Post article reported that armed members of something called Michigan’s Home Guard took up positions outside a barber shop, which opened for business in defiance of Whitmer’s orders, ready to “blockade the door if police arrived”. In previous demonstrations inside the Michigan state capitol, demonstrators, some armed, were seen wearing swastikas with many in the crowd carrying signs or wearing clothing signifying support of President Donald Trump. Some Michigan lawmakers reportedly felt intimidated and wore bulletproof vests. Mr. Trump tweeted support of the demonstrators in general referring to them as “very good people” who just want to get back to work. He did not, to my knowledge at least, exclude from his tacit endorsement the gun-toting characters dressed up in Nazi insignia.

What is going on here? It’s one thing to exercise free speech and the right of assembly. It’s quite another to take up arms and defy legal authority. And whose idea was it to wear and display swastikas in America? Where is the outrage among Republican leaders and particularly the president? Why is he not condemning their actions and disavowing their support? His silence on this matter is deafening. Are the votes of these armed protestors acting like militias so precious that he would, by omission, include them in the ranks of “good people”?

I am not a fan of Gov. Whitmer and I tend to agree with her critics who say that her restrictions against re-opening the state’s economy go too far but the proper response would be peaceful protests, not armed demonstrations. But here’s the problem with protest demonstrations, however well-intended, organized and promulgated by social media: they attract troublemakers, create mob behavior and can quickly escalate out of control, tying up law enforcement assets, inconveniencing many and putting people and property at risk. And rather than change minds, they tend to polarize people further. A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll indicated that 70% Of Michigan residents still agreed with Gov. Whitmer’s handling of the pandemic.

The Trump Administration has made it clear that governors have the lead in re-opening their respective state economies subject to meeting certain conditions. This makes sense because the pandemic has affected different regions of the country in very different ways and each governor should be in the best position to judge when it is safe to re-open and under what conditions. They have the authority within their respective states, not the cities or the counties. There are 3,141 counties in the United States and if they all decided to ignore state rules regarding re-opening, chaos could result. The federal government generally deals directly with state, not county or municipal, governments.

We are now less than six months away from election day, but still in the midst of a dangerous pandemic with no end in sight. If ever we needed national unity and leadership it is in times like these. Yet, we are deeply divided over how to manage this crisis and it is obvious that political bias is again informing our actions and beliefs. Republicans generally want to expedite re-opening the economy, accepting the risks which that approach entails because a resurgent economy would benefit Mr. Trump. Democrats tend to favor a slower approach to re-opening, perhaps because a collapsing economy would not bode well for the incumbent’s re-election chances.

What is truly depressing is that we can’t seem to find common ground on what’s best for the nation. Somewhere in this vast nation of over three and a quarter billion people there must be someone who can lead and unite us better than the choices we seem stuck with in November.

Dr. Kelly, a freelance writer living in Coronado, is a retired Navy Captain. He commanded three San Diego-based ships, a naval laboratory and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate at USD, taught MBA students there and was a senior vice-president and director of training and development at Great American Bank. 

May 16, 2020

Divided We Fail

Divided We Fall———————————————–

                Opinion

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

“We are all in this together.” So says the slogan that accompanies nearly every message of hope from government and business leaders regarding efforts to combat the Covid19 pandemic. Unfortunately, it has been overused to the point of losing its meaning. It is also not accurate. We are clearly not all in this together and are divided as to how to deal with it.

We say that the virus does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender politics or other differences but that’s another empty platitude. It seeks out the elderly and those with underlying conditions or compromised immune systems much more than it does the young and healthy. It attacks those who live in densely-populated urban areas much more than it does those in areas that are less-densely populated. It apparently attacks blacks and Hispanics at a rate in excess of their proportion of the population. It attacks more men than women. There are reasons for these differences, of course, but it is an oversimplification to say that the virus does not discriminate.

When the seriousness of the pandemic finally became recognized, we called for national unity in the fight against it, likening it to a war for survival, similar to WW-II when slogans like the above served as a rallying cry. We urged all Americans to put politics aside and unite our focus on defeating this unseen enemy so that our lives could return to normal again. Our medical, pharmaceutical and research communities along with first responders and frontline workers heeded the call, collaborating in the desperate search for therapies and vaccines and keeping essential services and industries running. Unfortunately, for most politicians and media members it was business as usual. They just couldn’t resist the temptation to use the crisis for political purposes.

It was too much, I guess, to expect a politically-polarized society like ours to put politics aside in an election year in order to concentrate our energies on winning this war like we did for the entire duration of WW-II. Given the visceral hatred displayed toward Donald Trump by Democrat leaders and the sustained and partisan efforts throughout his first term to remove him from office, it was probably inevitable that we would fight this war divided along party lines. This could jeopardize, or at least delay, our chances of success and history may judge us harshly for it.

Nowhere are the divisions more evident than in plans for re-opening the economy and getting people back to work after two months of shutdown that already has had a devastating effect. Expectations that the economy will come roaring back are probably overly optimistic. Recovery will likely be gradual given the number of expected business failures. The president and GOP lawmakers and governors mostly favor a rapid approach to re-opening, warning that prolonging the shutdown will greatly increase the damage to the economy, making the cure worse than the disease. Democrat lawmakers and governors tend to favor a slower approach, warning of the dangers of a resurgence in the number of cases and an increasing death toll. Both sides are right, of course, but they can’t even agree on that.

Navigating life’s constant challenges requires compromises but we seem to have forgotten how to do that. We don’t debate anymore. We just accuse each other of being wrong. The longer we keep the world’s largest economy mostly shut down, the more damage it will do and the longer it will take to recover. We can’t print money forever to keep businesses and the unemployed afloat. We’ve got to get people back to work or there will be no work to get back to.

There will be deaths no matter which approach is taken and every life, of course is precious. But the fact is, we tolerate a certain number of fatalities when, for example, we decide to send troops to combat or raise the speed limit or lower the minimum age for obtaining a driver’s license or build automobiles that go 165 mph. Want to save more lives? How about forbidding the use of tobacco or alcoholic beverages? Believe me, if this economy collapses, resulting in years of depression like back in the 1930s, there will be many lives lost and perhaps even a country.

Ours is a huge nation with distinct regional differences. The approach that may be right for, say Texas and California may not be right for New York and Michigan. Maine is very different from Arizona. The governors are in the best position and have the authority to determine which is best for their state. We may not agree with their politics or their methods but it’s their call and they need to be supported. They will be held accountable for their decisions at the polls by their own citizens. Disruptive demonstrations against them are not helpful, especially when attended by idiots brandishing rifles or wearing swastikas or KKK garb who should be denounced by both parties.

May 12, 2020

 

Density Can Be Deadly

Dealing with Density——————————

                Opinion

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

As encouraging progress in developing promising therapies to treat Covid-19 patients is made and as researchers work frantically to develop vaccines, the rest of us increasingly wonder what the new normal will look like as restrictions are eased. Since most experts agree that the coronavirus may return or that new viruses may cause new epidemics, how will we prepare for them? And how abnormal will the new normal be?

Here’s one clue. Many people are fleeing, or planning to flee, major cities, particularly those in the densely populated northwest corridor of the United States between Boston and Washington, D.C. New York, for example, once the most populous state, but now only fourth largest, had been experiencing population decline for some years prior to the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, even before the delightful classic movie comedy “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” was released in 1948, affluent New Yorkers were dreaming of retreating to a peaceful country home in rural Connecticut or New Jersey or upstate New York or at least a vacation home in the Poconos; anything to get away from a cramped apartment during a New York summer. Now, there’s a new reason.

New York, America’s largest city, is also its most densely populated. Its approximately 8.4 million inhabitants are tightly packed into about 300 square miles which works out to about 26,400 folks per square mile. That’s pretty cozy compared to almost all of the rest of the country. Many live in apartment or condo towers, accessed by often crowded elevators. They commute nearly everywhere packed into subways and buses and share the sidewalks with the homeless. The region is served by three major international airports bringing in, during normal times, tens of thousands of visitors daily from all over the world, along with their diseases if they have any. Popular restaurants, theaters and stadiums, in normal times, are also crowded as are the streets and shopping venues. The crowds, the bustle, the tourist attractions and the congestion characterize the Big Apple and make it exciting. They also make social distancing almost impossible unless you stay home which is no way to live for long, especially in a tiny apartment. So what will the new normal look like there?

The U.S., which has roughly a third of the known cases of Covid-19 and about a fourth of the deaths, is a large country with relatively low population density, particularly if you exclude the New York City metropolitan area which includes the five boroughs, northern New Jersey and southwest Connecticut. About a third of the country’s known Covid-19 cases thus far occurred in New York State, most of them in Greater New York City which accounted for about one-fourth of the nation’s Covid-19 deaths to date, a death rate far out of proportion to its less than 3% share of the nation’s population. It follows, of course, that the death rate for the rest of the country is far less. It should go without saying that this isn’t the fault of the good people of New York but it does help explain why more and more of them want to flee to Florida or Vermont or somewhere when they’re able. There are, to be sure, other urban hot spots like New Orleans and Detroit but none as severely impacted by the pandemic as New York.

These realities raise questions about future development of our urban areas, some of which, like San Diego, are just about out of land suitable for building within reasonable commuting distance of jobs and the trend is toward building apartment and condo towers and expanding use of public transportation for increasingly longer commutes. These options are not particularly conducive to social distancing if still needed or needed again.

America, which boasts the world’s third largest population, has a population density only about one third that of China. For most of its history, it has welcomed immigrants, who have contributed so much to the country. But immigrants tend to migrate to the cities where the jobs, services and, in many cases relatives, tend to be, not so much to the more sparsely populated areas that could use more population growth and development. Will the new normal bring changes to our immigration policies? How about our policies regarding the homeless, such as they are?

All of this is to say that the new normal may reflect changes in how we plan for housing and public transportation and cause us to look for ways to reduce population density. There’s a lot of unused space in this country. We shouldn’t have to live on top of each other or be packed like sardines into public transportation. Nobody, of course, knows what the new normal will look like but we know that it will be different and we should be thinking about it now.

May 3, 2020