Tag Archives: coronavirus

Sports news

Be patient, sports fans

Those of us who enjoy watching sports activities — and are fortunate to stay healthy during this pandemic crisis — need to suck it up and be patient.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a strict crackdown on gatherings of 10 or more people. Activities of all stripes have been postpone or canceled. Sports teams are put on hold. The governor’s order extends to at least April 3, although I wouldn’t bet my last dollar that he will lift the restriction on that date.

Baseball’s season is put on hold. That means Major League Baseball won’t commence hardball. Nor will MLB’s farm teams, the minor league franchises that flourish in smaller to mid-size communities around the nation.

Listen up, Amarillo Sod Poodles fans: That means you, too.

The Sod Poodles finished their initial season in 2019 with a Texas League title. They whetted the appetites of their thousands of fans who packed Hodgetown at every home game.

They likely will have to wait to resume their cheers.

Sigh. I’m with you, ladies and gentlemen. I wish you could settle into your Hodgetown seats on time, but this crisis compels us to be patient and to do our part to help “flatten the curve” of new cases of coronavirus.

Our sporting appetite will be fulfilled in due course. None of us knows when our government can declare some semblance of victory over the deadly virus. I hope it is soon. So, too, do sports fans in every community from coast to coast to coast.

economic news

It was inevitable, one should suppose, that crisis would produce scandal

I suppose it was expected, that we shouldn’t be surprised at the news flying out of Washington, D.C.

The world is reeling from a deadly pandemic. Now we hear that some members of the U.S. Senate sought to take advantage of their power, their influence, their access to classified information to — allegedly! — score huge profits.

What is it about crises that they seem to attract this kind of potentially scandalous behavior?

We are saluting the heroes and Good Samaritans among us who are performing acts of kindness, empathy and care for those who need help coping with the coronavirus.

It’s also good to condemn those who potentially could use their influence to (a) mislead the public regarding the severity of the crisis and (b) profit from their misdirection.

Several senators allegedly have sought to do profit from the confusion and chaos brought by the pandemic.

One of them allegedly is Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C. He attended a classified meeting in January where he and other senators were told of the dangers that the coming pandemic posed to the economy, as well as to people’s health. Burr then soft-pedaled the threat, telling the public that all would be just fine.

Meanwhile, he allegedly sold millions of dollars of stock just prior to the stock market’s shocking collapse. Do you get it? Sen. Burr got his while the gettin’ was still good, leaving millions of other Americans in the lurch while their retirement accounts were flushed away as investors started to panic.

Is this how it’s supposed to go? Of course not! It’s just a sickening symptom — again, allegedly — of behavior that those in power too often exhibit.

There needs to be a full, frontal investigation into what Burr and some other senators knew and when they knew it. If they are determined to have committed illegal acts, they need to be prosecuted aggressively … for violating their sacred public trust.

None of us should be surprised that this scandal has been revealed.

medical news

Witnessing a heartwarming reaction to pandemic crisis

My heart is filling up with good feelings as I watch the news … all of which is dealing these days with the coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having on human beings around the globe.

I am sure you all have noticed the same thing that has not escaped my attention, which is the huge number of public service announcements from corporate sponsors declaring the same thing: If you’re in trouble and you cannot cope with the crisis, we’re hear to help.

Now, to be sure I fully understand that these messages aren’t entirely altruistic. Automakers are offering “interest free” financing for seven years if you buy one of their products, for example. Still, one of the underlying messages is that the pandemic affects everyone and that we all should draw strength from our neighbors and our family members, all of whom are being forced to make changes in their lives.

By all means I hope this won’t be a long-term disruption of people’s routines. I am not even sure how I would define “long-term,” whether it’s weeks or months or — God forbid — even years.

However, the PSAs and the messages of comfort from Corporate America do fill me with hope as well as a good measure of resolve to do my part to stem the outbreak.

As the saying goes: We’re all in this together.

national news

When given a chance to lead, Trump chooses to attack

I can’t let this story go, but I likely will do so after I finish this brief blog post.

Donald Trump performed a most disgraceful act today in the White House briefing room. When given a chance to show presidential leadership, he exhibited un-presidential petulance.

NBC News’s Peter Alexander to explain to Americans what he would say that would bring comfort to them as we do battle against the coronavirus pandemic. “I would say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump snapped.

Utterly, profoundly and unequivocally hideous.

As Politico reported: “What the president did to Peter Alexander is reprehensible,” CNN anchor John King declared after Friday’s press conference.

“It was striking that this came, this, forgive me, bullshit attack on fake news came just moments after the secretary of State said the American people have to be careful about where they get their information and go to sources they can trust.”

It’s too much to ask that Donald Trump ever learn how to behave in moments of crisis. We are in that moment now. The nation is full of citizens who are frightened, out of sorts, anxious and worried. They need the president to give them comfort and to tell them the truth at every turn. They are getting none of it.

Americans deserve far better than what we’re receiving from this individual who is a president in name only.

medical news, national news

Oh, how POTUS could have answered that question

Donald John Trump’s ineptitude as president of the United States was on full display today as he excoriated a reporter for asking him a simple, straightforward and totally relevant question.

Trump’s tenure as president is being pummeled by the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

So, at a White House briefing today, Trump took a question from NBC News’s Peter Alexander, who asked the president what he would say to Americans that would comfort them in this time of trial and anxiety in the face of this pandemic.

“I would say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump told Alexander.

Wow! Isn’t that simply special?

There he stood at the podium. A reporter asked him to deliver a statement that could lend an air of confidence in the government’s response to the pandemic. Trump then decided to reignite his war against the media, the press that the U.S. Constitution protects against government interference or coercion.

How might Donald Trump have answered the question in a way that could serve a legitimate and valid purpose? Hmm. Let’s try this:

I would tell Americans that your government is working diligently to fix the things that are wrong with its response. We’re trying our best to protect you. We all took an oath to protect Americans against the forces that would do us harm. This “force” is invisible, but it’s an enemy that needs to be destroyed and I, as your president, will commit my waking hours to fulfilling that mission.

Did the president go there? Oh, no! Not even close!

He was given a grooved fastball straight down the middle of the plate … and he whiffed! He threw his bat into the crowd. He did far more harm than good by going after a serious journalist who was doing his job.

I’m going to say this for as long as I am able: Donald Trump is unfit at every level imaginable to be president of the United States.

medical news, national news

Trump is coming apart … piece by piece

Peter Alexander is a competent, well-trained, highly respected broadcast journalist who works for NBC News. So, when he asks what he has called essentially a “softball question” of the president, one could expect the president to answer the question forthrightly.

Except that the president happens to be Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump.

Alexander asked Trump today whether the president’s soft-pedaling of the coronavirus pandemic was giving Americans “false hope” given that the evidence suggests there is reason for Americans to be afraid. “What would you tell Americans?” Alexander asked.

Trump said he would tell them “that you’re a terrible reporter” and “that’s a very nasty question.”

Good grief, man!

Donald Trump today — once again — has shown his utter and categorical unfitness for the job he occupies. He is supposed to be the voice of calm, reassurance, empathy at a time when the public demands it of their president. Instead, we saw another example of the petulance that Trump exhibits when the chips are down, when circumstance requires wisdom.

Americans are dying of coronavirus. Millions of other Americans are concerned to the point of fright over the prospects that they might test positive. The nation still needs more testing equipment. We need more hospital beds. We need a coordinated national response that complements the response that cities, counties and states are mounting to fight this pandemic.

Most of all we need a president who can lead a nation full of citizens who are worrying about their loved ones.

Instead, we have a president who insults a respected reporter who is just doing his job.

Disgraceful.

national news

Do as we say, not as we do?

You may accuse me of nitpicking if you wish. That’s fine. I don’t give a pile of rat sh** if you do.

The picture you see with this blog post shows the president of the United States along with members of his coronavirus response team. Donald Trump and others have been briefing the pubic on measures the government is taking to stem the infection rate.

They’ve talked a whole lot about “social distancing,” which reminds us to maintain a certain distance from other people; the coronavirus is transmitted easily from person to person. It’s what they call “community transmission” or “community spread.”

What’s wrong with this picture? It shows that the brainiacs comprising the pandemic response team members aren’t doing what they’re telling the rest of us to do.

Donald Trump even has chided media members for “sitting too close to each other” while he blathers on incoherently.

C’mon, folks! Get with the program! If you’re going to issue stern warnings and advice on how to avoid getting a potentially disease, you should at least have the common sense, decency and smarts to demonstrate the thing you’re telling us to do.

national news

Pandemic crisis spurs renewed hope in our future

And now … for a healthy dose of uplifting news at a time when we all could use a bit of cheer.

If you’re worrying about the future of our nation — and, for that matter, our planet — consider all the stories we are hearing about the acts of kindness being performed by young people as they help their neighbors during the coronavirus pandemic.

I am struck and frankly a bit stunned at the stories we keep hearing, reading and grasping. Young people are running errands for their elderly neighbors, or even complete strangers. They grasp the notion that some Americans need a helping hand, but lack the mobility that others possess. So they step up, lend a hand — and they do with no strings attached. They realize, to borrow the phrase that’s sweeping the land, that “we’re all in this together.”

“Good Morning America” today featured an organization that sprung up as the pandemic began taking its toll; the organization is called “Invisible Hands.”

Liam Elkind is a 20-something New York City resident who co-founded Invisible Hands. He shops for food and other essentials for neighbors. He is on a state-ordered break from college. He can’t go to the beach or hang out in bars with his pals. So he is extending a helping “invisible hand” to those who need help.

That is just one example of young folks answering the call.

I want to mention this merely to convey what I believe is an example of our nation’s future is in good hands. Sure, the kindness and compassion isn’t limited to young folks. Many millions of Americans of all ages are responding with open hearts as well.

Let’s just be mindful of what is transpiring. It’s a national emergency. States are beginning to lock themselves down. California is the most notable example of the kind of drastic, but necessary, measures that we’re seeing implemented.

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered every one of the state’s 40 million residents to “stay at home,” and to leave only if they have business that requires them to venture out. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered severe restrictions on the number of people who can gather indoors, a move that has closed restaurants, bars, gymnasiums. These decisions are occurring across the nation.

Young people and others who are physically able are stepping into the breach to lend a much-needed hand.

We’ll get through this. Yes, it might take a good bit of time. The response we’re seeing all over this great land tells me, though, that we’re going to be just fine … and that our future is in good hands.

This, I declare, provides incontrovertible proof of America’s longstanding greatness.

medical news

Life in our state is about to change

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued an executive order that is going to change the lives of millions of Texans in ways they might not yet comprehend.

He issued an order that will limit indoor gatherings to 10 or fewer people. Think of that for a moment. It means that beginning Friday, there will be no congregating at barbecue joints, no swilling of cold ones at the end of a tough day at work, no working out at gymnasiums along with other fitness geeks.

I am working on a story for the Farmersville Times and in the midst of compiling some information about how businesses are coping with the coronavirus pandemic, the order came from Gov. Abbott.

Two local restaurants will suspend indoor dining; they will continue to serve “takeout” meals, and they will deliver meals ordered by their customers.

To his credit, Greg Abbott doesn’t view the pandemic as a “hoax.” He is taking it as seriously as he possibly can take anything. Indeed, so are governors, county officials, mayors and state legislators all across the country.

There might be pockets of individuals who disbelieve the seriousness of the virus that has killed thousands of human beings worldwide. They need to shut their pie holes and line up along with the rest of us who are taking these mandates seriously.

Public schools already are closed. The Princeton Independent School District, where we live, will be shuttered at least until May 4. Public colleges and universities in Texas are disallowing face-to-face study in classrooms, enabling students to study online, in their home; that response also is occurring throughout the nation.

My hope is this: The limiting of exposure will stem the outbreak of this illness around the world. Just maybe we can through this crisis sooner rather than later.

Of course, we cannot predict when “sooner” arrives. We’ll know it when it gets here.

national news

One more thought on ‘wartime president’

2 Comments

Call it a form of “stolen valor,” which happens occasionally when individuals claim to be more heroic in battle than they actually were, or they wear medals on their chest they didn’t earn.

Donald Trump’s effort to cast himself as a “wartime president” offends me on at least two levels.

One is that he worked diligently to avoid service during the Vietnam War, getting a physician to diagnose him with bone spurs. Millions of others of us from that generation didn’t have the wherewithal — let alone the inclination — to wiggle our way out of serving our country. So we served. I served! I am proud of my service, as infinitesimal as my contribution to the Vietnam War effort turned out to be.

Thus, for Trump to seek to be called a “wartime president” offends me at that level. It’s visceral, man.

The second level deals with the timing of the assertion he made. We are in the midst of a presidential election year. Donald Trump is seeking re-election. He wants to wear that label as a cynical political ploy to persuade voters that they shouldn’t want to elect a new commander in chief while we’re “at war” with a killer pandemic virus.

It ain’t the same as being at war with an enemy government, or a vast worldwide network of terrorist organizations.

Thus, Donald Trump, in my view, qualifies as the quintessential chicken hawk.

There. On this matter … I’m out!