Monthly Archives: April 2020

local news, State news

Cabin fever is overpowering

I am making an admission with this blog post. It is that the coronavirus pandemic has afflicted me with a serious case of cabin fever.

The image with this post is of the fifth wheel my wife and I own, along with the pickup. The picture was snapped a year ago while we were parked for a couple of nights at San Angelo State Park.

But … here’s the deal: Texas has closed all its state parks. That means we cannot take our recreational vehicle for a trip to any of them. Nothing is open. The Parks & Wildlife Department shut ’em all down. It’s only temporary.

However, you have to understand something about my wife and me. We are ardent supporters of our state park system. We purchase a state park pass each year to waive our entrance fee into any of the parks throughout our state.

We can’t use it. TP&W has extended the park pass for two months past its expiration date, and we’re grateful for that.

In the meantime we’re stuck at home. That RV is parked about three miles away. Our truck is in our driveway. We don’t even drive the truck much, given that Gov. Greg Abbott and the city of Princeton have closed practically all outdoor activities, most businesses.

Cabin fever is the pits, man. Although it’s surely not nearly as perilous as the fever associated with COVID-19. Accordingly, I am grateful that our family has been spared the disease, although we hear from family members that they’re going stir crazy, too. We feel their pain.

The stay at home directive has shut down anything we can do with the RV. A private RV park is out of the question as well, as nothing in any community we would want to visit is open to visitors.

Do you get my drift? We are ready for the “social distancing” we’re all observing will have the desired effect and will reduce the infection rate sufficiently to allow Gov. Abbott and other officials to give us the “all clear.”

When we hear it, we’re likely to hit the road open as soon as is humanly possible.

Cabin fever is the pits.

medical news, national news

Trump uses health crisis as re-election campaign forum … disgusting

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I caught a few minutes today of one of Donald Trump’s frequent White House press briefing/campaign rallies.

As before, I came away shaking my head wondering how in the world this guy gets away with this idiotic charade.

I watched Trump chide Joe Biden over a statement that came from the former vice president, who’s become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. I was astounded to listen to Trump actually question whether Biden wrote the statement, suggesting the text came from his campaign staff, which Trump managed to suggest comprised some “very smart” aides.

As usual, the president’s rambling was at best semi-coherent.

And this occurred before Trump opened the floor for questions from the media gathered in the White House press briefing room. I turned away from the Trump Show to take care of some household chores.

The more I see of Trump’s daily “briefings” on the coronavirus pandemic the more convinced I am that he performs not a scintilla of public service when he stands in front of the nation in this fashion.

You know what Trump needs to do … but he won’t. He needs to stand down and leave the actual information conveyance to the experts who comprise the White House pandemic response team headed by Vice President Mike Pence; for that matter, Pence should step into the shadows, too, for I am sickened by the sucking up he demonstrates whenever he talks about the “outstanding leadership” that Trump provides to deal with this crisis.

However, these so-called “briefings” become only a platform for Trump to campaign for re-election. He uses this venue to criticize the media, Democrats, previous presidents (and chiefly just his immediate predecessor) and everyone else not associated with his administration.

He keeps insisting he is unifying the nation. He accuses congressional Democrats of “politicizing” this national emergency while doing the very same thing himself. He calls out media for reporting “fake news” without ever recognizing the extreme irony that he — the “kind of fake news” — would accuse anyone else of doing the very thing he has turned into something of an art form.

Therein lies the reason I refuse to listen to what this clown has to say. I want to rely on the scientists, the doctors and assorted other emergency response experts to provide me with information I can use.

If only Donald Trump would shut his mouth.

national news

Gov. Cuomo to POTUS: Why act now to restart the economy?

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo today asked a perfectly relevant and pertinent question of Donald John Trump.

Why would the president decide to “federalize” the restarting of the nation’s economy if he was so unwilling to do so when it became imperative to impose restrictions that effectively shut the economy down?

Cuomo, a Democrat, posed the question today as Trump was musing out loud about the possibility of declaring the nation should be back in business by May 1. Cuomo noted that Trump wasn’t willing to issue a national declaration when the coronavirus pandemic was sweeping around the world; he chose to leave those matters to state and local officials.

In fact it should be noted that the president has no real authority to overrule governors’ decision on such matters. The U.S. Constitution — were Trump ever to take time to actually read the document he took an oath to defend — leaves plenty of power to states, counties and cities; those entities and the individuals who run them are empowered to issue declarations on whether they should reopen. The president in this instance is a bystander.

Yet the “wartime president” wants to issue a declaration all by himself, as if the governors who have issued stay at home orders or closed public schools and businesses are going to follow the president’s lead … no matter where it takes them.

Gov. Cuomo’s question is on target. If the president was so reluctant to take charge at the start of this crisis, what has emboldened him to exert power that he really doesn’t possess?

I think I know the answer: Because strutting and preening now  provides grist on which to campaign for re-election.

national news

Fire Fauci? Is this serious?

The Donald needs to be committed. Fit this guy with a straitjacket. Send him to the Rubber Room. Keep the lights turned on and watch him like a hawk.

Donald Trump has retweeted arguably the most insane message I’ve seen since this coronavirus pandemic exploded onto the worldwide scene. It was a hashtag that read #FireFauci.

What in the name of presidential idiocy is going on here?

“Fauci” is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has become a household name. He is arguably the world’s leading infectious disease expert. He’s been working diligently on the president’s coronavirus response task force. His task has been to provide information to the public on what we should expect and has been making recommendations to Donald Trump on what he should do to combat this virus.

Trump, as near as I can tell, isn’t listening to Fauci.

Now we’re hearing some chatter that Trump — the know-nothing president — might be growing disenchanted with Fauci.

Would he dare remove this brilliant mind from the center of decision-making as the Trump team struggles to find an answer to this pandemic?

Were he to do so, Trump well could put even more Americans in danger if we are denied hearing in an official capacity a certifiable expert on this deadly disease.

Instead, in Donald Trump’s vision of a perfect world, we would hear instead from a certifiable buffoon. The Donald well might be seriously off his rocker.

national news

Is the Trump presidency actually ‘over’? Oh, one can hope

I keep reading these essays from thinkers opining about the possibility that the current worldwide health crisis spells the pending end of the Donald Trump era as president.

If only I could put much stock in it all. You see, Donald Trump has demonstrated time and again this astonishing — and shocking — ability to turn doomsday scenarios into a bumper harvest.

It is unbelievable in the utmost extreme.

So with the world reeling from infection caused by the coronavirus pandemic and Americans being felled by the thousands every single day I am not willing just yet to sound the death knell for the Trump presidency.

What is lacking, in my mind, is much evidence that dedicated Republicans who strangely have clung to this imposter’s message are actually willing to abandon this carnival barker.

I see public opinion surveys that continue to show that Trump is retaining the support of that base of voters who see something in this guy that is lost on most of us. I don’t know what it could be, but it’s real. The polling numbers seem to bear that out.

We have this presidential campaign that seems to have been stalled by forces beyond everyone’s control. A former vice president, Joseph Biden, has emerged as the Democrats’ clear presumptive nominee. His message of redemption of recovery of the nation’s “soul” rings true to many of us.

The question remains as to how many of us are willing change course. I, of course, am all in with Joe Biden just as I’ve been all in with my opposition to Donald Trump.

Trump has shown this remarkable survivor’s skill. He dances and dodges his way out of every lie he tells. He challenges the medical and scientific experts who offer the world a realistic assessment of the dangers posed by the pandemic. He blathers on in connection with issues about which he knows nothing, speaking in platitudes and clichés.

But it has worked. So far.

Is the end of this guy’s era at hand? Oh, my hope keeps bubbling.

environmental news

OPEC to cut production; get ready for a price increase at the fuel pump

As a red-blooded American consumer of goods and certain commodities, I cannot endorse a nearly 10 percent reduction in the production of petroleum products.

You see, I am one of those Americans who has no problem watching the price of automobile fuels plummet. I looked today at the price of gasoline and diesel in Princeton, Texas, and saw the gas price at $1.41 per gallon, with the price of diesel at $2.11.

Not bad, eh?

The plummeting fuel prices are a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Motor vehicles are becoming a rare sight on our streets and highways. Businesses are shuttered. Employees have lost their jobs. The economy is tanking.

Are we supposed to be salute OPEC and other oil-producing nations — including the U.S. of A. — for enacting a policy that is going to bite a bit more deeply into our budgets? I won’t do that.

I’d rather take the longer view.

I would prefer to see fossil fuel companies reinvest their still-substantial largesse into alternative energy sources. I am a bigger fan of renewable energy — wind, solar and hydropower — than I am in depleting fossil fuels, which I hasten to add is a finite resource.

Donald Trump hailed the reduction in output as a boon to the oil industry. I guess it is. However, we are going to pay a price farther down the road as we continue to guzzle this resource and, dare I say, pollute the air we breathe.

national news

Pearl Harbor and 9/11 rolled into one tragedy

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams has issued fair warning.

Americans, Dr. Adams said, are going to endure our “Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment” as we continue to wage war against coronavirus pandemic.

I have no doubt that we are up to the challenge. We’ve been through hell already in our lives. I am 70 years of age and I’ve had a ringside seat to plenty of national crises.

The Vietnam War; constitutional crises; presidential impeachments; assassinations; fiscal calamity. They all have inflicted deep wounds on our national psyche, not to mention — in the case of the Vietnam War and other conflicts around the world — wounds on many thousands of Americans’ physical well-being.

We have somehow endured and emerged from those crises strong. Some have suggested we are stronger than ever. To that extent, I endorse part of the message that Donald Trump seeks to deliver, which is that we’ll emerge from this health crisis a stronger nation. I just do not want him to take credit for it … although I am certain he will seek to do so.

Our Pearl Harbor moment nearly 80 years ago thrust us into a world war. Millions of young Americans signed up immediately to get into the fight. My father, I learned just this past fall, enlisted in the U.S. Navy on the very day Japan attacked our fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Then came 9/11, an event that spurred a new generation of American heroes to join the war against international terrorism.

Yes, we emerged from that Pearl Harbor moment a mighty nation. It remains to be seen how we will rebuild ourselves after the terror attack on 9/11, although the signs look promising to me.

My hope now for the nation is that we exhibit patience and perseverance. Yes, we’re all learning to live in a world that requires us to observe new norms of behavior. Given the alternative to learning these new norms, I am willing to stay the course for as long as it takes.

We mustn’t rush back to what we think is normal. The killer virus does not respect the economic pain we’re enduring. It is singularly deadly. No amount of bluster is going to wish it away.

We got through Pearl Harbor and 9/11. We’ll get through this crisis.

medical news

How will POTUS evade these questions?

Donald J. Trump’s evasive tactics have become legendary during his brief career as a politician.

The more I think about it, I am inclined to presume he honed those evasion skills back when he sought to evade military service during the Vietnam War; he found a way to forgo service by getting a doc to prescribe “bone spurs.”

But now the president of the United States is facing another set of assertions that he will have to explain … if he is unable to evade any accountability.

Advisers told him, it has been reported, as early as late 2019 about the potential for a deadly viral pandemic. He shrugged it off, The New York Times is reporting. More warnings came forward in early 2020. Trump continued to ignore them.

Then he told the nation repeatedly that the coronavirus was “under control.” He told us it would disappear “miraculously” when the temperature warmed up. Nothing to worry about … he said.

Now he is saying he called it a pandemic before anyone else knew what it was.

How does this clown get away with this lying? How do his fanatic followers continue to believe these denials, how do they reject the statements of supposedly trusted Trump advisers that the nation is facing a deadly peril?

I cannot yet grasp how this individual is able to wiggle his way out of such predicaments. To be brutally candid, it is an extraordinary trait I never have witnessed in an American politician.

The casualty count continues to mount. The doctors, scientists and even some top political advisers tell us there was much more that could have been done to avoid such carnage … and that Donald Trump failed to act.

How will this guy explain it away? More to the point, how will so many Americans continue to believe him?

national news

They do it out of love

Americans from coast to coast to coast are honoring a new generation of heroes who’ve been called to action to fight an “invisible enemy” we’ve come to know as the coronavirus pandemic.

We’re holed up in our homes. Many of us — such as me — have been doing a lot of binge-watching of TV. Today has been devoted to watching a series I didn’t know existed until I found it on my Netflix channel.

It’s called “Medal of Honor.” It tells the stories of heroism that often defy human understanding. I’ve seen stories of brave warriors who fought — some to the death on the battlefield — from Italy, France and Germany, to Korea, to Vietnam and to Iraq and Afghanistan. All of these men received the Medal of Honor for their valor.

What is the thread that runs through all these tales of heroism? It is love. The men perform these acts out of love for their brothers in arms.

One story tells of such love between two Army soldiers who didn’t get along … until the bullets started flying in Afghanistan. One of the soldiers leapt into action to save his wounded comrade, the guy with whom he didn’t get along; he ran through a hail of bullets, tended to his comrade’s wounds, lifted him and carried him back to safety. The wounded soldier didn’t survive his wounds, but the young man who sought to save him cries to this day when recounting the loss of life and the regret he carries with him that he was unable to save his comrade. He acted out of love.

It’s love that is the overarching theme of these tales. It is woven into the narrative that is being told so long after they have been performed. Just as love is the common denominator among those who are honored for their valor on the field of battle, I also believe we are able to ascribe that motivation to today’s heroes who tend to those stricken by deadly illness.

You know, maybe we should tell these heroes more than just a simple “thanks.” Maybe we should express our love to them.

medical news

Listen to your medical team and the governors, Mr. POTUS

Donald Trump took a question this past week from a reporter about the “metrics” he would use to decide whether to “reopen” the U.S. economy that the coronavirus pandemic has slammed shut.

He pointed to his noggin and said “my metrics are right here.” He’s going to make a decision, he said, after listening to the advice he will get from his team.

If only I could believe he would listen to anyone, let alone to the experts with whom he has surrounded himself.

The docs and many of the nation’s governors are imploring the president to resist seeking to restart the economy by May 1.

Too many Americans are still being infected. Too many also are dying from the COVID-19 strain of the virus and yet Trump still keeps talking about the need to get Americans back to some sense of “normal.”

The need must be first and foremost to stem this infection and to ensure that we test sufficient numbers of Americans to determine who is infected. To date we have tested a tiny fraction of Americans; we need to get many millions more tested. Only after we do that should we “reopen the economy” and seek to return to the way it was before the pandemic swept across the world.

The medical experts and many governors are pushing back against Donald Trump’s desire to act. Is he seeking a premature restarting of the economy? A lot of the “best people” advising Trump believe he must slow it down.

Pay attention to them, Mr. President. They have the “metrics” that need to matter more than those that are knocking around inside Donald Trump’s skull.