This election is the largest, most consequential mass communication experiment ever conducted. The question before us is whether someone can bend objective scientific data into an alternative reality on a national scale.
Defiant, Now Infected: Trump Is a Morality Tale
“It is time, at long last, to learn. To be smarter. To be safer. To be more responsible, to others as well as to ourselves. We cannot erase the mistakes made in America’s response to the coronavirus but we can vow not to continue making them. The way to treat President Trump’s diagnosis is as a turning point and a new start. This is when we woke up.”
Not normally a fan of Friedmans, but this is very good. “Trump’s Motto: Your Money or Your Life“. Still in a post-Warren funk, maybe I’m not fully appreciating Byedon. My enthusiasm for his candidacy has been based on one overarching thing. He’s not Trump.
“Imagine that your child is sick with a disease and you decide to take her to 100 different doctors to get multiple opinions — and 99 doctors give you the same diagnosis and prescribed treatment and one tells you that there’s nothing to worry about, that your child’s disease will ‘disappear … like a miracle, it will disappear.’
What parents in their right minds would follow the advice of the doctor with the one-out-of-100 diagnosis?
This, alas, is no hypothetical. This, alas, is actually the most important question facing voters in choosing our next president. Are you ready to trust your own child’s and the country’s health to the guy who holds the one-out-of-100 view on both climate change and Covid-19? He being Dr. Donald Trump, founder of Trump University, where he apparently earned a B.S. in B.S.
It is stunning to me how many conservatives want to go with the doctor with the one-out-of-100 diagnosis, since doing so is anything but conservative.”
From Tatsuya Tanaka.
1. Eddy Binford-Ross, a high school journalist, reports on protests in Portland.
2. Whales Get A Break As Pandemic Creates Quieter Oceans. Silver lining.
“The drop in noise could be helpful for endangered killer whales that live in the area, known as Southern Resident killer whales, which rose to national attention two years ago when a mother orca carried her dead calf for days.
The whales use sound to hunt Chinook salmon through echolocation, much like a bat does. They also make a wide array of social sounds. Each pod actually has its own distinct dialect of calls. But ships make noise at some of the same sound frequencies as the whales.”
3. Why Some Young People Fear Social Isolation More Than COVID-19.
“It might be tempting to think that FaceTime and Zoom provide substitutes for in-person social outlets, especially for a generation of digital natives who grew up with smartphones. But, therapists say, talking by small screen offers no replacement for a calming hug and can miss the subtleties of a compassionate expression.”
All is not well. Eight percent of American teens attempt suicide each year. Is there a more telling, damning statistic?
4. An FBI hostage negotiator explains how to persuade people to wear masks. His insights are highly relevant to bridging most of our intensifying divides. Don’t you think?
There is no country in the world where confirmed coronavirus cases are growing as rapidly as they are in Arizona, Florida, or South Carolina. Germany yesterday reported 298 new cases of COVID-19. The U.S. reported over 59,400 cases and 948 deaths.
Websites and stores are springing up selling products that claim to prevent, treat or cure COVID-19. The US Food and Drug Administration advises consumers to be cautious of fraudulent schemes since there are no FDA-approved products to prevent COVID-19.
What would be appropriate punishments for the people behind these websites and stores?
Whatever punishments you propose, make sure they are exceedingly slow and painful.
“Trump is the first president to use the stock market as a near-daily measure of his success — and his virility — and now the market is slumping. If you want to own it on the way up, you have to own it on the way down.”
His “success” and “virility” may take serious hits on Monday.
Pressing Pause 