Day 59 of Nat'l Emergency: Other Voices

Time for some voices other than mine, so here are a handful of quotes from news stories of the last 10 days.

Essential Business?: “I’m willing to go to jail for this,” Harrington said on reopening. “If they (police) come into my club, they’ll have to drag me out in handcuffs.”

That’s Shane Harrington, owner of Club Omaha (Omaha, Neb.), talking about his decision to reopen his adult entertainment venue on Thursday, May 14. Harrington is okay with COVID-19 precautions—his nude dancers will wear face masks and gloves (https://www.omaha.com/news/local/nudity-and-face-masks-club-omaha-plans-to-reopen-next-week/article_0a9f77a7-0197-5f1f-96c3-3288b19fb25f.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share).

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3: Apparently, and to no one’s real surprise, Donald Trump cannot keep a secret. He spilled the beans on which aide to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for the coronavirus. Here’s how The New York Times reported his loose-lips-sink-ships moment:

“White House officials initially asked reporters not to identify Ms. Miller as the aide who tested positive, but Mr. Trump blew the secret when he identified her publicly during his meeting with the congressional Republicans as ‘Katie’ and ‘the press person’ for Mr. Pence.

“‘She tested very good for a long period of time. And then all of a sudden today, she tested positive,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘She hasn’t come into contact with me. She spends some time with the vice president.’” (https://nyti.ms/3duLryu)

Are You Hungry?: Lots of people are because with no jobs bringing in a paycheck they lack sufficient cash to buy food, even as farms and dairies are killing off livestock, plowing under fields of grain and produce and poring milk down the drain because restaurants, hotels and schools are COVID-19 closed and not purchasing their production. 

“If the government were really interested in making sure that hungry people got fed and farmers were supported, they would figure out a way to do it,” Marion Nestle told The Times. Nestle is aptly named. She is a food studies professor at New York University. 

Did He Do It?: Tara Reade’s allegation that then senator Joe Biden sexually assaulted her some 30 years ago has left many wondering. Did he? Is she believable? Even if true, does it disqualify him from running for president given Donald Trump’s history of behavior toward women? 

Here’s one opinion expressed by Susan S. Sigalow in a letter to the editor of The Times: “As a female clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience, I can tell you that while it’s true that women who accuse men of sexual harassment should be given the benefit of the doubt, these women don’t always tell the truth. I never knew of a man who committed a sexual assault only once. It would be a pattern of behavior, repeated over time. 

“Joe Biden has a long history of public service. If he had been committing these kinds of behaviors there would be a trail of complaints, as there is around President Trump. There really are some men who tell the truth and do not commit crimes against women, and they also deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

What Price for a Human Life?: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says it is “priceless.”

“There’s a conversation that is going on about reopening that we are not necessarily explicit about, but which is very important,” he said. “There’s a question that is being debated right under the surface and the decisions we make on reopening are really profound decisions.

“The fundamental question which we’re not articulating is how much is a human life worth? How much do we think a human life is worth?”

Cuomo said that “the faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost; but the higher the human cost because the more lives lost. That, my friends, is the decision we are really making. What is that balance? What is that trade-off? Because it is very real.”

Day 57 of Nat'l Emergency: V-E Day and the Virus

Today is V-E Day. Victory in Europe 75 years ago, May 8, 1945. 

No doubt, like many of you sheltering in place, to pass the time I am making my way through televised series, some new, some old. Maybe I will finally see “The Wire” (highly recommended by our son Dan). And “Game of Thrones.” I just finished “Band of Brothers,” the 2001 HBO 10-part series relating the factual experiences of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101 Airborne Division, U.S. Army, during World War II.

At the end of the fifth episode Easy Company was marching into Bastogne during the pivotal Battle of the Bulge at the end of December 1944. Confronting a last ditch effort by the Germans, Easy Company was under-equipped. The soldiers lacked sufficient ammunition and warm clothing.

From my previous extensive viewing of war movies I knew how the fight to control the strategic crossroads town ended. I knew how the Battle of the Bulge ended. I knew how the war ended. 

Yet the story of the Band of Brothers soldiers of Easy Company, compiled in the acclaimed book of the same name by historian and author Stephen Ambrose through interviews with survivors as well as journals and letters from the soldiers, is gripping and emotional.

I’ve seen lots of war movies depicting practically every conflict joined by American servicemen on land, sea and air, from colonial times till the present. Even into the future, if we are to believe sci-fi imaginations.

Having avoided service during the Vietnam War, I have no first hand experience by which to gauge the special bonding of a platoon unit and the trauma of combat. Viewing choreographed battle scenes in France and Belgium, I feared for the safety, the lives, of individual soldiers on my TV screen. But my anxiety, palpable as it was, could not match the reality of what those young men, the real soldiers of Easy Company, actually underwent.

At the end of episode eight of “Band of Brothers,” as the surviving members of Easy Company are being transported away from the front lines for some well deserved rest and relaxation, a voice-over narrator contrasted their experience with an American home front emerging from shortages and restrictions. Life in the States was returning to normal.

Few civilians, the narrator said, could identify with “the price paid by soldiers in terror, agony and bloodshed” during the Battle of the Bulge and the siege of Bastogne. 

I wonder now about the state of our nation’s backbone. For sure we are in the midst of an extraordinary trauma. More than 76,000 lives lost, with no reliably accurate forecast for how high the toll of death may rise.

Jobs have been lost at a level not seen since the Great Depression when few of our current fellow countrymen and women were alive.

Family wealth, if one can employ that word for the millions who live paycheck to paycheck, has been wiped out for many.

To help stem the spread of the new coronavirus we have been asked to shelter in place and social distance.

But, after less than two months, significant portions of society are rebelling against quarantine. I cannot imagine how they would have fared if they lived in occupied Europe during the war. If they had been Jewish and had to hide in cramped quarters for years to stay alive, with little food or freedom to walk outdoors or entertain oneself with no radio or other media.

I get it. People want to work. They want to eat in restaurants. Shop in stores. Go to the gym. Get their hair cut, their nails trimmed. They don’t want to wear masks. They want to hug their friends, their extended family.

Do they not realize they are placing personal desires over the welfare of the community? My immediate reaction was to think of them as extremely selfish and self-centered. 

Then again, I am fortunate not to have to worry about a mortgage or retirement income. I don’t have young children to feed or school at home. 

What to me are inconveniences of social distancing are traumatic life changes for those younger than my three score and eleven years. 

And yet, I find deep resonance in what New York governor Andrew Cuomo says about the need to balance re-opening the economy against the value of a life. I am not ready, as some politicians have advanced, to jettison older, frailer people so that the next generation can go to the mall, movie theater or restaurant. In this argument, I am a right-to-lifer, which makes me wonder why I have not heard all religious leaders and anti-abortionists loudly proclaim allegiance to shelter at home and social distancing directives. 

Even while we were fighting Nazi tyranny pacifists spoke out against war. They weren’t unpatriotic. They just had a different understanding of what support for our country’s principles meant. 

We are engaged in an all-out war against COVID-19. It is a stealth enemy that has shown it can strike even inside a well-shielded (we would hope) White House. Nearly 77,000 have already died in America from the coronavirus. We are on a trajectory to soon match the number of servicemen the Department of Defense says were killed in action in Europe from D-Day through May 8—104,812. 

Perhaps most troubling is that so many needn’t have died. A new study, led by Princeton Medical Center, asserts that if orders to stay-at-home and wear face masks when outside had been issued four days earlier the number of deaths could have been halved (https://mol.im/a/8301305).

In actual combat, no matter how hard commanders try to limit casualties, they know deaths will happen. COVID-19 is a killer. We couldn’t change that. But competent leadership based on science and accepted medical practice could have reduced the terror, agony and loss of life so many families have experienced these last few months. 

Day 17 of Nat’l Emergency: Dispelling Wild Musings on Cuomo, de Blasio, Mt. Sinai, China

The coronavirus is not only spreading fear, illness and death throughout the land but it also is fostering some wild musings. 

Take, for example, the idea that with his daily press briefings New York governor Andrew Cuomo has become the darling of Democratic hopes and should supplant Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders as the presumptive party nominee for president. To take the whimsy to an even higher level, it is being suggested that Cuomo try to unite the country through a fusion ticket by selecting Nikki Haley, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador and former Republican governor of South Carolina, as his running mate.

There is no denying Cuomo has become a media star for those seeking straightforward talk about the pandemic. He can be funny, empathetic, angry, resolved, informed, attuned to science ... all that and more compared to science-denier-Trump. Cuomo reminds us of New York mayor Rudy Giuliani after 9/11. 

Trouble is, Cuomo also has lots of negatives too numerous to list here. Foremost is his belief that only he knows best and, like Trump, he is willing to pick fights with those he disagrees with. All politicians fight, but Cuomo, like Trump, is another in-your-face type of guy and we already have seen enough of that type of leadership. Plus, we’ve also seen how Giuliani worked out. 

As for Haley being part of a fusion ticket, this is not Israel or any other parliamentary government where a no confidence vote can force an election. Haley might be liked for standing up to foreign governments and the Palestinians but she is as right wing as they come when considering domestic issues. She would not be a logical choice for any Democrat as a vice president fusion nominee. 

John McCain might have won the presidency had he chosen Joe Lieberman instead of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The former Democratic senator from Connecticut was less liberal than most Democrats. As much as Republicans and Conservatives would have been angry at his selection they would still have voted for McCain over Obama while independents put off by Palin’s lack of experience and intellect would have been okay with Joe.

Right now there is no Republican who is pro choice that the Democratic Party would accept.

So dream away those seeking a national unity ticket. We will wake you up after November so you can see the carnage Trump will inflict on the country whether he wins or especially if he loses.

First Amendment Cries: Social distancing vs. religious rights. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio ran afoul of the religious police by suggesting that churches and synagogues that don’t adhere to the coronavirus lockdown guidelines could face “permanent” closure of their buildings (https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-n-y-c-mayor-synagogues-that-don-t-comply-with-coronavirus-rules-may-be-shut-down-1.8717453).

Temporary, I can understand and agree with. Permanent? Not so fast. Let’s give Mayor Bill the benefit of the doubt, that in the passion of the moment he exaggerated a trifle. He’s not being anti-religion, nor is he giving Islam a pass, as some of his detractors have suggested by his referring only to churches and synagogues and not including mosques. 

All that said, there have been repeated violations of the social distancing rules by too many faith leaders and their adherents. For God’s sake, don’t these people know plagues have no religious affiliation? In that sense plagues, along with other natural disasters, are truly the most ecumenical misfortune.

Where Are They?: Two top officers of Mount Sinai hospital system in New York City are sequestered in Florida while their staff of thousands battle the pandemic in the Big Apple (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8164043/Mount-Sinai-execs-safely-tucked-away-FLORIDA-vacation-homes.html). Does it matter?

For sure it is bad optics, but shelter-in-place does not preclude staying in luxury quarters. Unless they are directly involved in treating patients there is absolutely no need for them to be on site. Anyone who is not directly involved in patient care or in facilities management to keep the hospital clean and open should not be required to be on site. 

I wonder, before the article on their whereabouts appeared, how many Sinai employees had any idea where their “leaders” were riding out the pandemic storm. Let’s hold them accountable for how the hospital is supplied and functions during the crisis, not from where they are issuing their executive orders. 

For perspective on how other company CEOs are working from home, link to https://nyti.ms/3bmVQeS

The Blame Game: When the pandemic is over, and it will end, sometime, we no doubt will collectively turn to placing blame on those responsible for its spread. Many already are agreeing with Trump that COVID-19 should be called the China Virus. You decide what you will call it. 

On a more serious note, there seems little disagreement that the virus began its devastating journey in China and that the Chinese authorities mishandled its spread and the flow of information that would have aided other countries. 

Some voices are calling for some form of censure of China, perhaps from the United Nations or other world bodies, even as China denies its guilt and is embarked on a campaign to help other populations, particularly in Third World nations, combat the epidemic while continuing to finance infrastructure projects in those countries. 

It appears we have learned nothing from history, past and present, that liars who repeatedly and loudly proclaim their lies as truth are able to convince a large segment of the populace that their lies are truth and that truth is fake news. 

I would venture to say that the vast majority of people in downtown Nairobi or Khartoum or Munich or Rio de Janeiro do not pay much attention to the rhetoric of the UN Security Council but do start believing messages that are bombarded to them by media influenced or controlled by despots and would-be despots. 

The U.S. might claim it has one of the most educated populations but the fealty almost half of our people display toward an incessant, unrepentant liar proves my point that Goebbals, the Nazi propaganda chieftain, knew of which he was talking and acting. 

Perhaps our only hope for the future is to mandate the departure of any American company deemed strategic from China. Yes, it goes against laissez-faire capitalism but our national security is at stake if China is our major supplier of technical, electronic and healthcare equipment and supplies. 

Concurrent with that action must be a concerted effort to educate Americans that their strategic safety is more important than saving a few pennies, even dollars, by buying from the Chinese and instead they should pay more for made-in-America goods. Growing American manufacturing capacity will grow the middle class and, guess what, we will return to the America of the 1950s that Trump trumpets his love for. 

Day 15 Nat'l Emergency: Time for Humor and ...

Had enough depressing news? I’ll try not to inflict more on you today.

To help you cope, click on this article from the Harvard Business Review. It explains the emotion many of us are feeling is grief and provides ideas how to deal with it: https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief (my thanks to my sister, Lee, a retired psychological social worker and elementary school teacher in Los Angeles).

Deserving of Thanks: A former colleague at Lebhar-Friedman, Barbara Hochberg, posted this appropriate note the other day:

“After COVID-19 is over, I better NEVER hear anyone trash ‘low end’ workers again. Those people at the grocery store, the Dollar General workers, those fast food workers, the Walmart employees, those people you didn’t even think deserved to have a wage to survive on? They’re some of the ones currently carrying the country through this mess, making sure you and your families have food and essentials to survive on, risking their health to help yours. And most won’t even have the money to go to the doctor if they get sick. I better NEVER see someone be unappreciative or dismissive of them again!”

Amen!

I overheard my wife and one of her friends talking on the phone the other day. Both said they haven’t put makeup on in two weeks or performed other beauty regimens. Safe to say, if younger females are similarly beautified each day of home coronavirus containment we might not experience the population explosion we did after the two New York City blackouts years ago. Worth checking the level of baby deliveries next December and January. 

Read On?: One would think that given forced confinement one would finally have the time and inclination to read The New York Times from cover to cover, so to speak. One would think so, but one would be wrong. 

To begin with, I can’t think of a more depressing activity than reading and reading and reading story after story after story about the pandemic. Especially given the proliferation of media outlets available on the Web, one could spend every waking hour engrossed in despair. Read a few articles, but for the sake of your own sanity, limit what you read and view. Trust me, you will find out about truly important news, good or bad. 

Just Wondering: With all the extended handwashing we are doing these days, will we experience a water shortage in a few months? 

It is no secret that the availability and supply of potable water is considered by some global strategists to be the next trigger point for conflict between nations and states. Georgia and Florida have battled in court on water from a river, while Western states have long been at odds over proper use of the Colorado River. 

For the dog lovers among you, and even for those who love cats or other animals more, feast your eyes on this collage of pictures taken by UPS drivers: https://www.boredpanda.com/ups-drivers-meets-animals-dogs/.

If you’re a Broadway musical fan, here’s a medley of tunes adapted for the coronavirus (again courtesy of my sister): https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2Fn1OCZRann8w&data=02%7C01%7C%7C14e5c75372494ed6637308d7d0dc2923%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637207516301042184&sdata=aPipvS5oC7fg%2F%2F8qB%2Fxopw49tndOevak%2FMH8RcL0HIw%3D&reserved=0

So Sad: It is almost impossible to ignore our “wartime” president’s war on science and anyone who disputes his authority and expertise. In rejecting New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s plea for 30,000 ventilators for affected victims of COVID-19, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday night, “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be. I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes, they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying can we order 30,000 ventilators?” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-ventilators-new-york-state_n_5e7d651cc5b6256a7a27c911). 

Does Trump think it is a competition between states and governors to see who has the most coronavirus cases and deaths? 

Maybe this mock clip of Trump truly does capture the essence of the man (thanks to my high school classmate Mike Exelbert for forwarding it to me): 

IMG_4157.MOV 

American Values Are Worth Saving

Misspeaks by politicians are nothing new. From Bill Clinton's finger-pointing avowal, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” to Richard Nixon's jowel-shaking, “I am not a crook,” Americans have been treated to one doozy after another as our ruling class and would-be members try to balance the need to talk a lot with the difficulty of not saying or doing anything controversial.

Does Hillary's “a basket of deplorables” spring to mind? Or do you remember “mucaca” (monkey) from George Allen's run for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia? How about Howard Dean's exhilarated scream to rally downcast supporters after he lost the Iowa presidential nominating caucus many expected him to win. He never recovered from the over-exuberance. 

To this short, incomplete record of history add Andrew Cuomo's foot-in-the-mouth comment that America has never been great. Never mind if he is right. All that matters in political misspeak is, does it provide an opponent endless opportunity to exploit the comment to stir up his or her base while sowing doubt among the speaker's cohort and potential followers.

The "Make America Great Again" candidate and now president pounced. Rightly so, for in politics nuance does not secure votes. Cuomo stumbled and no amount of backtracking will erase a videotape that will launch a thousand shiploads of negative ads.

There's another reality in current political conversation. No matter what Donald Trump says or does, his base will not falter. Elected Republicans and those wanting such status will not abandon him. Only those retiring or already out to pasture speak out. The former, however, still vote the party line, the party these days being the Party of Trump.

To unseat Trump independents and brainwash-free Republicans will have to put greed aside to save the republic (ignore the economy, patriots). It won’t be easy.

We hear a lot about American values. How Trump and his disciples push ideas and actions—on immigration, bashing dissenters, tax relief, support of autocrats, to name several—that are not reflective of those values, at least the values most often identified with America since the end of the second world war.

But just how complementary or contradictory is Trump to our historic values? Perhaps, our history is different than our values of the last seven decades. Perhaps, Trump is the mirror we cringe at looking into because we would see a long history of slavery, worker exploitation, racism, xenophobia, restrictive immigration, eugenics, repression of dissent during times of war, boundless executive authority, discrimination of the latest wave of immigrants.

Cuomo might well have been thinking of these stains on our heritage when he spoke. But telling the American people the truth is not always the wisest or safest road to the White House.

A year ago, former vice president Joseph Biden talked about American values in an Op-Ed printed in The New York Times.

Under the headline "Reclaiming American Values," Biden phrased them thusly: inclusivity, tolerance, diversity, respect for the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. If these are the democratic principles we wish to see around the world, America must be the first to model them." https://nyti.ms/2y0xPq9

Let's be honest. America did not always embrace them. Sadly, Trump gets a failing grade for all of them. Even more sad, the Republican Party has abandoned its principles to blindly follow him down the rabbit hole. Saddest of all, nearly half the American public has turned its back on what it should have learned in any basic civics class.

Kickoff Time for the 2016 Elections

It’s all over but the shouts of joy or despair, the air of resignation or elation, the couldabeen, shouldabeen cries of missed opportunities, the atta-boy, way to go hurrahs of “yes, our country has been saved from (you pick it) socialism or 19th century-style robber baronhood.” 

Hard to believe that, barring a hanging chad-like controversy, we will settle into the 2016 presidential election cycle in less than 36 hours. I know, you just can’t wait. Who’d have thought there was an actual silver lining to gender neutral Hurricane Sandy (like the Saturday Night Live character Pat, who’s to say Sandy was a female or male hurricane), when it knocked the campaigns off front pages and TV screens for days, giving the nation respite from the shallow, often offensive tones of the candidates and their surrogates. 

As anyone who has read my blogs knows, I’m hoping for an Obama victory. No need to review why. But there’s still time to point out some interesting and perhaps fun thoughts about the election.

For instance, I wonder why so many Republicans deny the reality of evolution when they’ve witnessed it in warp speed before their very eyes. During his years-long run for the White House, Mitt Romney has evolved from a moderate to a conservative to an extreme conservative to a moderate (at least in his eyes). It’s not so much survival-of-the-fittest as survival-of-the-whatever-it-takes-to-win. We’ll see Tuesday if the public swallows his brand of political posturing.

From the Republican party and presidential debates, Romney came across as a silver-tongued salesman. Rapid fire delivery of purported facts. No countenance of disagreement. Aggressive to the point of disrespect. A manner more suited to the manor than to the general public. It was a type of behavior I’ve seen before, in captains of industry. Even in public companies, they broached no dissent. Shareholders at annual meetings who questioned their authority were barely tolerated. Shareholders could submit resolutions and get to vote on the election of corporate directors, but the tally was usually stacked in favor of management. For Romney to win he would have successfully convinced enough voters that he knows best. 

I found an insight into his character in a story that didn’t get as much play as I would have suspected, given its human interest nature. The Associated Press reported that after the second debate, the town hall debate where Obama woke up from his first debate coma and attacked Romney’s misrepresentations, Romney's son Tagg was tempted to "take a swing" at the president for criticizing his father. Tagg made that admission in a radio interview. He apologized for his thoughts. Forty-two-year-olds don’t make those kind of statements if they haven’t been brought up in an environment where the powerful are not meant to be challenged. 

During one of his campaign stops last month, Romney predicted stock markets would likely rise if he wins. "There will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country," he said. "We'll see capital come back and we'll see—without actually doing anything—we'll actually get a boost in the economy," he said. "If the president gets re-elected, I don't know what will happen. I can­, I can never predict what the markets will do."

What does he think has been happening to the stock market over the last four years? Here are the facts: On Election Day 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 9,625. On the next three Election Days under Obama, the DJIA went up to 9,771, then 11,189, then 12,170. As Americans troop to the polls Tuesday, the DJIA is at 13,113, a 36.2% increase under Obama. Compare that to what happened under George W. Bush’s presidency. The day he got elected, the DJIA was 10,952. Eight years later it was 9,625, a 12.1% decrease. For all their bellyaching about Obama wanting to increase taxes on their oversized earnings, Wall Streeters have done quite nicely under our “socialist” president.

It’s apparent that once more the country will be divided in politics and philosophy. So why not adapt an idea from Britain and separate the country in two, much the same way Ireland was divided as was the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan? Actually, the idea of two entities precedes British action. The Confederacy thought it up first. You’d have the Republic of Red States stretching across the South, Midwest, and Plains states separating the two sections of the Republic of Blue States in the Northeast and West Coast—having two parts is like the original Pakistan, the eastern section is now independent and known as Bangladesh. (For the moment, let’s not concern ourselves where Florida, Illinois and perhaps Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota fall.) Let’s remember that Texas governor Rick Perry thought his state might want to secede from the Union. This idea just elaborates on that birdbrain notion.

The Red States would have lots of natural resources, lots of agriculture, lots of nuclear rocket silos, lots of tornadoes and drought, lots of Bible belters. Lots of people working with their hands and big machines. Blue States would have lots of earthquakes and shore erosion. Lots of lawyers, bankers, geeks, surfers, media stars, fashionistas. Lots of people dedicated to making money from  intellectual capital, with no guarantee their ideas are anything more than schemes to make money out of thin air. 

I don’t have all the details worked out, but it’s worth keeping in mind as we start the next presidential selection process on Wednesday. Assuming Romney loses, the GOP will undergo an internal contest of values. It will either veer further right or return to a more moderate, just right of center, position. If it does the latter, NJ governor Chris Christie has a shot at the nomination. He’d have to fight off Jeb Bush. If it swings further right, Christie would either have to alter his stances or Congressman Paul Ryan would have an inside track, along with Senators Marco Rubio and Jim Dement. 

On the Democratic side, the battle for the nomination will be between Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Andrew Cuomo. Those are easy predictions. My real crystal ball forecast is the vice presidential pick—Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ, or Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts. 

That’s it for now. Go vote. Pray. Cross your fingers. Light candles. Vote again (just kidding). Pray some more (not kidding).

Fair, of Should I Say, Storm Warning: Anyone, anywhere in the market for a new or used vehicle in the next half year or so better check where and when that car was manufactured and serviced. With so many cars swamped by Hurricane Sandy, lots of autos and trucks will be bought as replacements. But if you’ve ever wondered what happens to the cars and trucks salvaged from the deluge, even those that were on dealers’ lots, listen up—they are often “repaired” and many times shipped to other parts of the country to be sold to unsuspecting customers. 

That’s where CarFax or other services that can trace a car’s provenance come in handy. Trust me, you don’t want to buy a car or truck with an engine that was under water. For a new car, it’s probably a good idea to buy one built after November 1. It also would be a good idea for any new or used vehicle purchase to get the dealer to give you a sworn statement that it has not gone through Hurricane Sandy.

Tragic Bookends: New York mayor Michael Bloomberg moved into city hall months after the devastation of September 11. He will be leaving office at the end of 2013 while the Big Apple is still in the midst of recovering from the big bite Hurricane Sandy took from it. 

Following Sandy

Gilda and I dodged another bullet. Our home was not affected by Hurricane Sandy. We did not lose power, Internet, cable or phone service. I still think I should have bought that small generator just in case we needed it to run our sump pumps. Perhaps next time I’ll be more aggressive. 

I haven’t become a storm-zombie, watching or listening to Hurricane Sandy 24-hour coverage. But from the little time I did spend pre- and post-landfall, here are some observations:

Prior to Sandy hitting the New York area, CBS-2 weatherman John Elliott, when describing the dangers expected from the storm, said, “We’re not trying to scare you.” Whoa! Of course he was trying to scare his viewers. He was trying to scare everyone into doing the right thing, such as evacuating from low-lying areas. Anyone who didn’t heed his warnings and had the capacity to vacate before Sandy hit but didn’t should be required to pay for any emergency help provided to rescue them.

I found it rather incongruous watching in-studio newscasters nattily dressed and coiffed while telling us about the storm and flooding. I’d have preferred a little more grunge, in the spirit of what their reporters in the field were experiencing. 

Bridges, roadways, tunnels, mass transit were closed. Ferry service was suspended, as well. Ferries? I couldn’t understand that at first. Aren’t ferries supposed to float, even over troubled waters? Gilda and her brother Carl reasoned the ferry terminals probably were damaged. Makes sense.

With Noah and the Flood a recent blog topic, Carl also reminded me Russell Crowe is filming part of a movie titled Noah on Long Island which, according to a noon report, has 90% of its residents without power. The biblical-based film is being directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan and The Wrestler), a boyhood and long-time friend of our nephew, Andrew, Gilda’s sister’s oldest offspring.

President Obama swiftly declared parts of New York and New Jersey disaster areas and eligible for emergency federal relief funds through FEMA. Ever wonder what Mitt Romney’s position is on FEMA assistance? Here’s an article from The Huffington Post:

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.

"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

On Sunday, according to HuffPost, “a Romney official reaffirmed the former governor's position Sunday evening in an email.

"'Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters,'” the Romney official said."

One has to wonder how any state would be able to afford the billions and billions of dollars it will require to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo already has said states do not have such funds, given their constitutional requirement to balance their budgets. Washington, on the other hand, can supply financing, even if it means adding to the national debt. 

As for Romney’s suggestion to privatize disaster relief, it would open a Pandora’s Box of  troubles including the possibility help would be doled out quicker to more affluent areas than poor neighborhoods. If government did that, voters could react at the next election. But there’s no recourse if private enterprise fails or shows favorites.  

There is a silver lining to all the destruction—replacement purchases by municipalities and individuals for capital goods, home furnishings and apparel will stimulate the economy. Lots of jobs may be created filling the new demand for goods and services. Contractors and related construction industry workers have reason to smile, assuming they didn’t suffer from Sandy. Romney, of course, would see these jobs as a plus, given that in his nominating acceptance speech he mocked Obama for promising “to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.” Obama’s idea doesn’t sound too crazy now, does it?

I guess we’re lucky Sandy hit this week and not a week later when the election might have been affected by more than just the campaigns suspending events. Had Sandy come next week, we might have had to extend voting beyond Tuesday in the states affected, most of which lean Blue. Then again, in places like Pennsylvania where Republicans now control the state government, there might have been some thought not to as a way of keeping Obama’s vote total low. (Yeah, I'm being cynical, but not too unrealistic.)

Gilda had the best comment—just let Ohio vote. Whomever wins the Buckeye State wins the presidency.

I wasn’t the only one to focus on the World Series ending on a called third strike. Here’s a link to an article from The NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/sports/baseball/called-third-strike-is-rare-way-to-end-world-series.html

  

Public Relations and Omens

Three of a Kind: What do Planned Parenthood, Barack Obama and Israel have in common?

Ineffective public relations.

A mere 3% of its services are abortion-related, yet Planned Parenthood has allowed its foes to tar the organization as a baby-killer rather than a provider of health care and family services that has saved millions of lives.

In the recent Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation brouhaha over funding for Planned Parenthood, it struck me as ironic that an organization (Komen) dedicated to saving lives affected by breast cancer would suggest one of the main conduits of breast cancer testing for the needy would be denied funding. It’s sad that Planned Parenthood’s overall mission could be darkened by its abortion services which comprise such a small percentage of its practice. I have no problem with Komen disagreeing with Planned Parenthood’s abortion services. But it would have been misguided to cut off support for a group that benefits so many who would otherwise not be able to obtain affordable breast cancer screening.

The reality of Barack Obama’s presidency is a far cry from public perception. He has failed to paint his own narrative, allowing Republicans to depict health care reform as a disaster, the bailout of the auto industry as a travesty of capitalism, the wind-down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a foreign relations tragedy, the killing of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda terrorists as inconsequential, his support of Israel as non-existent, his championing of higher taxes on the wealthiest as class warfare, and on and on. Three years of constant bombardment by the GOP will be hard to overcome, no matter how many hundreds of millions the Obama campaign spends on advertising in the coming months.

Perhaps that’s a lesson Andrew Cuomo learned and is the reason the first-term New York governor already has broadcast commercials touting his successes almost three years before his re-election comes up.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, but it has permitted itself to be labeled an oppressor state.

Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) cults have degraded Israel’s dedication to equality and religious tolerance. Their mean-spirited interpretation of religious law and customs threatens to cleave the country in two. Religious extremists (non Haredi) in the West Bank also threaten to undermine any hope of a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli two-state option.

For sure, I am not absolving the extremists within the Palestinian community. But I hold the Israeli government and its more Westernized citizenry to a higher standard, a standard that respects the rule of law and also imbues its own tragic history into treatment of Palestinians under its control.

The narrative and legitimacy of Israel’s existence have been attacked on college campuses throughout America and Europe.

Israel has a powerful story to tell in many fields—the arts, science, health care, education, technology, agriculture, philanthropy, commerce. Sadly, too many, Jews among them, define Israel by its treatment of Palestinians, and by its internecine religious warfare. From time to time Israel embarks on an advertising campaign to stimulate more visits to the country. It’s time it paid more attention to traditional public relations positioning and less time promoting tourism.


Which omen to believe? A day before tonight’s Super Bowl, a bus containing members of the New York Giants broke down on its way to the squad’s final pre-game practice. Does it portend a Giants loss to the New England Patriots, or just signify the team will get off to a slow start in the game?

Or, does an inadvertent and embarrassing posting Saturday of a National Football League screen shot on the Giants’ Web site proclaiming “The Giants are Super Bowl CHAMPIONS” suggest the final outcome?

Ninety more minutes before we begin to know the answer.