As of this writing, daily coronavirus case counts are over 30,000, a country-wide level we haven’t seen since April. This past Thursday, we set a single-day record of nearly 60,000 new cases. Hospitals in many parts of the United States are exceeding capacity. Many states have hit “pause” on their re-opening plans. Some are re-closing. So, whether we like it or not, it’s time to accept that infections are surging. Lord knows what the landscape will look like after the July 4th weekend.
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Absolving a transgression requires the guilty party to fess up and make amends for the misdeed. Cleaning the slate also means practicing better behavior going forward. With fitting dispatch, disease experts in China and the World Health Organization (WHO) are addressing a fresh health peril brewing in China. Bravo, but these overseers of medical mayhem still owe the world — and the United States in particular — redress for their failures in repelling the current coronavirus pandemic. All should not yet be forgiven and forgotten.
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The phone in your palm has the potential to hold more books than filled the vaunted Library of Alexandria. Your movie subscription service grants you access to more films than you have hours in your life to watch. And song? Well, pick any tune from day one of recorded music to the present and the likelihood is high that you can listen to it after five minutes of online searching. Put another way, thanks to digital technology, we are living in an unprecedented time with respect to access of American (indeed, global) arts and letters.
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Human progress is fueled by limitless flights of imagination. That's a good thing, except when the individual fantasy runs smack-dab into objective reality. Then it is best that the image so dear to one and so harmful to others remain a private reverie. Such is the case of young male athletes who claim to be young women, at least in their own minds. The physical advantage that lads have over lasses cannot be erased by wishful thinking, drugs or scalpels. Only the delusional refuse to accept that boys will be boys.
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Now that the spread of COVID-19 has slowed and the curve has "flattened" it's time for policymakers to come up with ways to bring the economy back to where it was before the lockdowns imposed by so many of the nation's governors knocked it flat on its back.
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This past weekend, a murder (along with two other shootings) occurred in the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" (CHAZ), a six-block neighborhood that has been occupied by left-wing protesters and provocateurs for the past two weeks. We can add this murder to the rape, battery and assaults taking place in the "cop-free" area patrolled by roving -- and armed -- bands of strongmen.
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Success in entertainment stakes its fortune on the notion that the show must go on. So does politics. Donald Trump, with a knack for occupying the sweet spot between the two, would no longer be restrained from taking the stage. With a jolt, he has relaunched his dormant 2020 presidential election campaign for a dash through a minefield of radical strife fueled by national sickness of body and soul.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with top Chinese counterparts in Hawaii on Wednesday was held in secret. The list of topics for painstaking dialogue may have been long, but one underlying sentiment likely linked them all: Misery loves company.
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If one judged only by Hollywood's depiction of the American intelligence community, one could be forgiven for believing we are possessed of an awesome, best-in-class assembly of hackers, spies, gatekeepers and various assortment of keyboard warriors, all at the ready to break-in, shutdown and generally disrupt the digital machinations of our enemies.
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It has happened again: A black man dies at the hands of white police officers, this time in Atlanta. Like clockwork, crowds gather, angry voices fill the air, mingling with the smoke of arson-lit fires. It's another made-for-media performance of the nation's race ritual, one that hardens hearts and betrays the dream of a colorblind society that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. held so dear. An altogether different rite is playing out across America, though. And over time, it cannot but extinguish the hatred: interracial and interethnic marriage.
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Two days ago, the mayor of Detroit ordered a bust of Christopher Columbus removed from its pedestal. It was a peaceful removal for the Italian-born discoverer of the new world. After all, last week in Boston he was beheaded and in Richmond he was pushed into a lake. One supposes he is used to the harsh treatment. In many cities and states, his namesake holiday has long been replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day. In a few decades, it is not inconceivable he will be relegated to a proverbial footnote of history.
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The long, hot summer of discontent we can expect as the numerous protests of police violence are accompanied by sackings, and lootings are bound to have an impact on the upcoming presidential race. Whether it will benefit President Donald J. Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden is, at this point, anybody's guess.
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As the most famous living poet in America once sang, "He not busy being born, is busy dying." These are words for the current moment. Take a look around. Everywhere, from our education and financial and technological systems, down to our familial dynamics and even the way we as individuals view ourselves and live, things are changing. And thanks to pressure of current events, they are changing -- irrevocably -- fast.
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For almost a dozen weeks the American people were subjected to a barrage of information leading them to believe the novel coronavirus was the contemporary equivalent of the "black death" that killed millions in Europe during the so-called Dark Ages.
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If the unfolding economic pain caused by COVID-19 didn't cause businesses to board up, construction projects to halt and despair to settle upon the collective bones of our body politic, some of the protests-turned-riots, from Santa Monica to Manhattan, certainly did the trick. So, this week, as we sweep up broken glass and restock merchandise, and as various states shift from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of reopening plans, the moment enjoins us to ask, "well, what now?" Our answer: Build, baby, build.
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