"Viva the Protesters"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Viva the Protesters!”

April 28, 2020

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens

can change the world, Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

                                                                                    Attributed to Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

                                                                                    Anthropologist, Author

Protests have been around for centuries. The Protestant Reformation in northern Europe in the early 16^th Century was a protest against the universality of the Catholic Church. Americans protested England, beginning with the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and ending at Yorktown in 1781; the French stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789. The Russian Revolution of 1917 toppled the Tsars. Mao Zedong’s Communist revolution in China in 1949 forever changed that country, killing an estimated 20 to 40 million people. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed protests. In our country, in the past half century, we have seen marches for civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights. We have had anti-war protests. More recently we had the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Woman’s March and March for Life. How productive they have been is a matter of debate. Writing last year in “Perspective Magazine,” Chaya Benyamin wrote: “Protest rhetoric is more about preaching to the choir than it is about changing hearts and minds.” A Harvard study of the Tea Party movement, three years ago, had similar nebulous conclusions. But, as an observer, it seems that all these protests resulted in change, some revolutionary.

A reader in Louisiana, a retired lawyer, e-mailed a week ago: “President Trump’s having essentially accepted the epidemiologists’ over-reaction to an admittedly dangerous virus will be historically judged to be by far his greatest first-person policy error.” I tend to agree. Never before, in the history of this Country, was a decision made to intentionally shut down the nation’s economy. In an essay titled “Innovation versus the Coronavirus,” Bill Gates referred to the current pandemic as “the first modern pandemic.” But is it? The 1957-1958 H2N2 virus was called a pandemic, as were the 1968 H3N2 virus and the 2009 H1N1 pdm09 virus.  Those three pandemics killed 2.25 million people worldwide, including 230,000 in the U.S.

The President was put in an untenable position. In early January, when China knew of how contagious and deadly the virus could be, scientists and medical experts around the world, including the WHO, CDC, FDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the NIAID downplayed its malignancy, as did politicians from both Parties. It wasn’t until February that models, many using erroneous data inputs, began showing horrific projections. So personal and political fears, as well as the dread of litigation, obviated a calculated, rational response. Politicians did U-turns, with the media, which had been largely silent in January, jumping aboard. Lockdowns were imposed. Executive Orders were issued and, if not obeyed, offenders could be arrested. In truth, the virus was worse than Pollyanna’s first claimed, but not as bad as Cassandra’s later suggested.

Nevertheless, a cataclysm was unleashed. The consequences have been grim: the biggest increase in unemployment in the nation’s history; the bankruptcy of thousands of small and big businesses; the biggest deficit spending plan in the nation’s history; the possible default of states, counties and cities, and a reckless printing of money by the Federal Reserve. President Trump’s, and others’, calls for negative interest rates will only add fuel to a future inflationary cycle. The decline in incomes will negatively affect future tax receipts, propelling higher deficits of federal, state and local governments. Should shutdowns persist, the result will be a surge in suicides and deaths from opioids and other drugs associated with depression.

We have entered an economic sinkhole from which extrication will be difficult. Politicians will be watching their backsides. Businesses, without some form of limit on liability, will be worried about class action lawsuits, and consumers have been so frightened by the effects of the virus that a return to “normal” will take months, if not years. And any reopening must include protection for those most vulnerable to the savages of COVID-19 – the elderly, the obese; those with preexisting health conditions. People and businesses must respond by being personally and socially responsible – health consciousness, social distancing and commonsensical behavior will become the new norm.

Across the country, protests have begun over the lockdowns, and a few states have begun to lift restrictions. Twenty-six million people have lost their jobs in the past five weeks. Many of these people live paycheck-to-paycheck and for whom the dignity of work is important. Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, wrote in an op-ed in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, “Reopening the U.S. Economy:” “Reopening the economy is not merely about livelihoods, but also about lives.” Andrew McCarthy, in the National Review on the same day, noted that “…governments have a compelling interest in public safety…It is, nevertheless, the foundational conceit of the American republic that governments are created to secure fundamental rights of a nation’s citizens – our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Moreover, the legitimacy of government is dependent on the consent of the governed.”

The media has pilloried protesters, characterizing them as “right wing,” exemplifying “white privilege” and that behind them stand “the quiet hand of conservatives.” Politico had a recent article about how a tea party-linked group planned to “turbo charge lockdown protests.” Katherine Shaver, writing in the Washington Post on Saturday, quoted George Rutherford, an epidemiology professor at the University of California in San Francisco” Letting people decide for themselves because they’re bored is not a good way to do it.” Perhaps Professor Rutherford should familiarize himself with the Constitution, and, no, they are not protesting because they are bored but because they need jobs to pay for rent and food. As well, protesters provide cover for governors skittish about re-opening their economies. Blame for subsequent increased hospitalizations and deaths can be put on those who lobbied for a reopening. Early on, President Trump endorsed the protesters. He has since backed off but has encouraged re-openings when done safely.  

Despite myriad groups working on vaccines and therapeutics, there is little doubt that the virus will linger, and deaths will persist. But the nation cannot afford many more weeks of hibernation. We need a vaccine and we need more tests, which will give assurance to consumers and employers and that will provide officials with a more thorough picture of the spread of the virus. We need government officials to be honest with the people, as to the cause and facts related to morbidity. We need a press that dispenses factual information, rather than sensationalizing personal stories of tragedy. We need more detailed reporting of those who have died: age, gender, preconditions that played a role in death, geographic locations and workplace. Such information will offer perspective and should instill confidence in those least likely to be subject to the most harmful effects of the virus.

Confidence needs restoring, not just so consumers can return to their role of generating 70% of the nation’s GDP, but so businesses will not be censured by politicians, condemned by reporters, or harassed by trial lawyers. Examples of countries like Sweden and of states that did not impose draconian lockdown laws (or have since lifted them) should give inspiration to an economic resurgence. The protesters have played the role of a citizen’s revolt. Viva the protesters! As the song goes, “The people has risen, we’re free again.”[1]

                                                                       

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[1] “Risen,” by Shawna Edwards

"The Pleasure of Children's Books"

Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“The Pleasure of Children’s Books”

April 25, 2020

“A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,’

 a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

                                                                                                            Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

                                                                                                            Speech, “The Expanding Universe”

                                                                                                            August 1963

In our (relatively) new digs at Essex Meadows, shelf space is limited. About 750 books make their home in our apartment’s library, a small fraction of what lined the walls of our much larger library in Old Lyme. Nonetheless, a number of children’s favorites made the trip. They are reminders of a past that goes back eighty years and provide comfort as well as pleasure. This essay speaks to five, somewhat obscure, children’s books, four of which date to my childhood. All can be appreciated by adults.

In his essay, “On Three Kinds of Social Intercourse,” Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote of slipping off to his library: “There I can turn over the leaves of this book or that, a bit of time without order or design. Sometimes my mind wanders off, at others I walk to and fro, noting down or dictating these whims of mine.” Lying in bed just before falling asleep, when time knows no borders, my own youth sometimes returns in kaleidoscopic fashion – images appear, disappear and reappear. Before nodding off, I sometimes think of books I knew and loved as a child, of years long ago.

Wolf Story, in the 1947 edition by William McCleery, sits between David McCord’s 1927 essays, Oddly Enough, and a signed edition of Horace Mann’s Inaugural Address at Antioch College in 1854[1]. Mr. McCleery was born in Nebraska and moved to New York (and then Princeton, NJ) as a playwright. In 1947 he was offered a Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH, which is where he wrote Wolf Story. The book was written for his son Michael, who, with his mother, had gone to Reno for a “quickie divorce.” It tells the story of fictional five-year-old Michael who is put to bed every evening by his father, who must tell him a story – “a new story,” Michael demands. The story is about a wolf named “Waldo,” “the fiercest wolf in all the world,” and a hen “Rainbow,” named for her colorful feathers. Michael confused the feathers of a rooster with those of a hen, which his father explained but for which Michael didn’t care. One reason I bought this copy in Philadelphia in 1972, when I found it half hidden on a dusty back shelf, was because it included one of my favorite lines. Michael is told to brush his teeth and wash his face before getting into bed: “Then he took a damp washcloth and gently touched his face with it, being careful not to disturb the dirt inside his ears.” Every time I shower, those words return, and I smile.

When my mother died in 1990 and the house in Peterborough was emptied, a favorite book from my growing up years ended up in our house in Greenwich. It subsequently moved up the shoreline to Old Lyme and more recently to Essex. An Island Story: A History of England for Boys and Girls was originally written in 1905 by H.E. Marshall. My copy now sits between two newer books: A Glorious Disaster, by J. William Middendorf written in 2006, the story of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential campaign, and Frank Bruni’s 2015 book on the college admission’s process, Where You Go is not Who You’ll Be. My copy of An Island Story is the first American edition, published in 1920 and in which “An” was substituted for “Our” in the title. Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall was born in Scotland in 1867 and died two weeks before I was born, in January 1941. The fact that the book was considered inaccurate from an historical perspective never troubled Ms. Marshall. In the introduction she wrote: “There are many facts in school histories that seem to children to belong to lessons only. Some of those you will not find here. But you will find stories that are not to be found in your schoolbooks – stories which wise people say are only fairy stories and not history. But it seems to me that they are part of Our Island Story and should not be forgotten…” The book begins with Neptune’s son Albion being given an island at the request of a mermaid: “It’s a beautiful little island. It lies like a gem in the bluest of waters.”  The story ends, in the American edition, as the Great War came to a close and the founding of the League of Nations. Reflecting a hope that the Great War had made the world safe for democracy, Ms. Marshall concludes with, sadly unprophetic, words from Isaiah: “The nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore, and none shall make them afraid.” The story covers King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, Canute and his attempt to hold back the tide, Edward V, the king who was never crowned, Richard III and the princes in the Tower, the long reign of Victoria and the short one of her son, Edward VII. All eight of my siblings read Ms. Marshall’s book. They devoured it, almost literally, as my copy had pages torn out, and re-inserted in the wrong order. The book was put back together and rebound by master bookbinder Shui-min Block (wife of retired rare book dealer and friend David Block). Shui-min also saved the watercolor illustrations by A.S. (Archibald Stevenson) Forrest, 1869-1963.

Barnaby was a cartoon character, begun as a comic strip in 1942.  It was printed in “PM,” a liberal-leaning New York newspaper that refused to accept advertising. It was a weekly, published by Ralph Ingersoll and financed by Marshall Field III and operated briefly between 1940 and 1948. The comic strip later ran in the “New York Journal American” until 1952. Barnaby was a cherubic, five-year-old boy who was visited by his short, cigar-smoking, four-winged fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O’Malley. He was created by children’s author Crocket Johnson, also known for the 1955 Harold and the Purple Crayon. Barnaby’s fairy godfather arrives one night, flying in through an open window, answering Barnaby’s wish to his mother for a fairy godfather: “Cushlamochree! Broke my magic wand!” [in reality, his cigar] “You wished for a Godparent who could grant wishes? Yes, my boy, your troubles are over. O’Malley is on the job.” Barnaby and his godfather get into and out of a number of scrapes, bringing joy for those like me. In 1943 Henry Holt and Company published Mr. Johnson’s comic strip in book form, titled Barnaby. I had long forgotten Barnaby when, about thirty-five years ago, I saw a copy in Avenue Victor Hugo Books, a seller of used books in Lee, New Hampshire. On my shelves, Barnaby snuggles between a 1952 edition of Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and the 1886 copy of Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Another book from my youth was a childhood favorite of my mother’s: The Adventures of Miltiades Peterkin Paul: A Very Great Traveler Though He was Small.  In my copy, no author is listed, though it does cite John Goss and L. Hopkins as illustrators. It was published in 1916 by Lothrop, Lee, Shephard & Co., Boston. The book was in fact written by John Brownjohn, a pseudonym for Charles Remington Talbot (1851-1891) and originally published circa 1877. Talbot was an author of children’s stories, often in verse. The reader is not given much detail as to when and where Miltiades was born, only that it was New England and that he was the fourth child of a farmer named Gray. While missing annual birthdays, Miltiades takes comfort in the fact he was born on February 29^th, because, as he says, if there had been no Leap Year that year “I suppose I should never have been born at all.” His brother John Henry Jack, a mean older brother, tells him that the day he was born “the sun darkened.” Like Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Miltiades goes forth on adventures, many of which occur as he sits, eye lids closing, in his father’s library “with his feet higher than his head.” His head droops, he dreams, reminiscent of Alice, and his adventures begin. We learn that his great grandfather Deuteronomy Gray was “sitting in the same position more than a hundred years before, on the morning that young Israel Putnam came down the road with his old flint-lock rifle on his shoulder and called out for him to come over to Pomfret with him.” It was not the Revolution, but a wolf that had raised the alarm, inspiring Miltiades toward a new adventure. My copy, like An Island Story, had to be rebound, and was then boxed by Shui-min Block. Miltiades Peterkin Paul now resides between The Headmaster’s Papers (1983) by Richard A. Hawley and a boxed presentation copy of Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, written in 1986.

A book picked up later that had no connection to my childhood, but which makes for delicious book burrowing is a short one with cardboard covers by T. Put, published in 1905. The title: A Catalog of Doggerel or Jokes that Was. It is eleven pages long, illustrated and includes this short poem:

The scientific students see

All bent on Zo-ol (O, gee!).

Say, are they here from interest, -

Or did they come intorest?

[If for true knowledge they would look,

They ought to read this little book.]

How could a lover of verse resist? I have been unable to find anything about Mr. T. Put or the publisher, A.M. Coit. There is no library of Congress number, suggesting it may have been privately printed. Its dedication reads: “To His Birdship the Record Owl,” which offers no clues, but does provoke a smile. The book, now encased in a handsome box, sits happily on a shelf between an 1834 edition of Miriam Coffin by Joseph Hart and an 1888 copy of Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s, another book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The latter was a discard from the Middle Haddam Public Library; their waste became my treasure.

Childhood is a magical time. Despite instant communication and social networking, it still is for those born today. Do not let Cassandras frighten you into believing otherwise. In childhood, everything is new and magical. In our time, we experimented, and we learned. I envied birds in their flight, the freedom they had, disappointed that my hands and arms weren’t feathered. I wanted to look down from a hundred feet – not for perspective but to spy on my sisters. Books of our childhood, such as the ones mentioned here, keep us grounded, not in the realities of science and data, but in the precious moments and magic of childhood that helped make us who we became. In Matilda, Roald Dahl wrote about his heroine: “The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to to amazing people who lived exciting lives.”

Children’s books conjure memories. They remind us of our families, that we descend from long lines of those who came before, that we are part of a continuum. They make us think of the awesome responsibility we have to future generations, to maintain hope and avoid the cynicism of a technological age. As we age and our runway shrinks, we know we must do for our grandchildren what our parents and grandparents did for us. Let them be children, encourage their reading and their imaginations. Childhood lasts only a few years. Let them be good ones. There will be time enough to be an adult. William McCleery, Henrietta Marshall, Crockett Johnson, John Brownjohn, T. Put and a host of other authors of children’s stories are allies in this process.

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[1] Horace Mann became president of Antioch College in 1853. He and my great, great grandfather Sydney Williams married sisters, Charlotte and Caroline respectively, daughters of Asa Messer, then president of Brown.

"Why I Like Trump"

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Why I Like Trump”

April 24, 2020

“Whatcha gonna do when a feller gets flirty

An’ starts to talk purty…?”

                                                                                    Ado Annie Cairns to her friend Laurie

                                                                                    “Oklahoma”, 1943

Self-examination is important. It is healthy to try to understand why we believe this or that, why we like this person but not another. Since my support for the President is controversial, even among those who agree with me in other matters, I thought a public self-examination would be welcome.

Ado Annie Cairns would never have fallen for Donald Trump. He doesn’t talk “purty.” He is the antithesis of me, of the way I was brought up, the way I live my life. His clothes are too fancy, and I don’t like the way he dyes his hair. He loves money and power and does not seem interested in history or philosophy. He butchers the English language when he speaks. I doubt he reads Trollope. He is boastful in a way I hope I am not. I would have no interest in living the life he has lived. Nor would he want to live mine.

So, why do I like and support him? Why do I feel he was what the Country needed in 2016 and again in 2020? He has an intuitive sense, I believe, of what troubles America. I doubt he has read much American history or is familiar with our Constitution. I am sure he has never read the Federalist Papers. But he has an instinctual understanding of people.

All societies create ruling classes. I was a beneficiary of that, in that my family were prominent in the last half of the 19^th Century and into the early years of the 20^th. It was a time when the Country was governed by white, Anglo Saxon Protestants, WASPs as they are lovingly called. That era began to decline slowly in the years after World War II and a new class took the reins – technocrats, bureaucrats, educators, scientists, and businesspeople, David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest. They came from all walks of life, represented all races, religions and sexes. They helped lift up the Country after fifteen years of depression and war. They built highways and put man on the moon. They desegregated schools and offered equal opportunities to women. They won the Cold War without firing a shot.

But with success, came smugness. Over time, they became distanced from their forebearers in media, universities, banks, multinational companies and politics. As in George Orwell’s story, Animal Farm, the new elite became the oppressors. They lost touch with who they once were. Their attitudes became more supercilious than that of those they supplanted. The pomposity of WASPs was displaced by the sanctimony of this new, technocratic class. There was always a sense of Protestant guilt in old WASPs that stemmed from their Judeo-Christian values – feelings of self-doubt that is missing from the new elites.

Despite having made his money in the murky world of high finance and commercial real estate, Donald Trump sensed the discontent their piety raised. While he lived in New York, the city of his birth, he was always an outsider. He was brash and unpolished. He was like Caddyshack’s Al Czervik, an obnoxious “nouveau riche” interloper against the establishment’s imperious and dated Judge Smails.

Trump is in the forefront of a revolt – not against science as some claim, or against morality as others assert, but against an establishment class that left huge segments of the population behind. Unlike most politicians, he is untutored, saying what he believes, with a “Devil take the hindmost” attitude. He may have personal baggage, but he doesn’t have hangers-on. He may not be literate, but, as Victor Davis Hanson has written, he is “cunning.” When he takes on a snarky, hypocritical press at his daily COVID-19 meetings, one can see pleasure in his eye. Most of them detest him, for they are part of the class – in their comfortable world of moral superiority – he wants to overturn; so, they ask him questions, looking for “gotcha” moments they can later air on CNN and MSNBC. Instead of falling into their traps, he reminds me of the Yankee farmer who outwits the city slicker. No President has spent more time with the media – a media that doesn’t like him, in part because he doesn’t talk “purty” like his predecessor.

The political Left likes to think of themselves as at the vanguard of a revolution. They are not. Either they are boosting a tired socialist venue that for eight decades has proven detrimental to the people it alleges to help, or they are defending the status quo, especially in education and government bureaucracies. They believe in virtue signaling, not virtue. Their base is composed of elites in media, universities and tech companies, bureaucrats in Washington, hedge fund managers, public union bosses and those dependent on government largesse. Mr. Trump is the change agent, a disruptor to this world. Power is an aphrodisiac, so the establishment will not easily give in. But the world has always changed and the elites that were forged over the past seventy-five years are bereft of new ideas. The generations that came before accomplished great goals, in terms of scientific advancement, rising incomes and improving equality where race and sex are concerned. We are a better country for what they accomplished. But in the past two decades their offspring have become arrogant, with little to say that is new. With wealth gaps having widened, they want to protect their positions at the expense of working families whose values align more with Western traditionalists than with global multiculturalists.

All societies need diversity to adapt and to survive, especially of thought. We have achieved diversity in race, religion and sex. Is there more that can be done in those areas? Of course. But consider how far we have come and think of those left behind, who are mostly white working families from the South and Midwest – Hilary Clinton’s “deplorables” who cling to their guns and Bibles. There is a sameness in thought among elites today that needs to be challenged, not belittled. Approximately 70% of the media and Hollywood support leftist policies, while about 90% of educators and Washington bureaucrats supported Democrats in the last election. A change is what these people did not want, yet a change-agent is what they got, and that has threatened their comfortable lifestyles.

So, I like Trump because he represents change. He seeks equality of opportunities, not outcomes. He understands the dignity of work and the desire for self-sufficiency. He favors the individual over the institution. He trusts the people, not the State, He supports independency over dependency. He believes in moral absolutism, that there is good and that there is evil in the world, and that not all cultures are equal in how they treat women and minorities. He recognizes the need to coexist in a multicultural world but does not believe one has to assume the mantle of his neighbor to live in harmony.

These attributes may reflect instinct on his part, not a philosophical understanding through study. But I have long said about Trump – as is true with all politicians, including the most mellifluous – it is not what he says, but what he does. His coarseness is off-putting but his caring for “deplorables” is real. Many of you will disagree, but that’s okay; this is America.

"COVID-19 - Dissension Not Allowed"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com 

Thought of the Day

“COVID-19 – Dissension Not Allowed”

April 22, 2020

“I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”

                                                                                                            Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

                                                                                                            Letter to James Madison, 1787

Our reaction to COVID-19 has shown the best of us, but also the worst. Protection of the vulnerable – the elderly and those defenseless because of preconditions, ranging from obesity to diabetes – has been admirable. Healthcare workers willingly expose themselves to a novel virus, despite conflicting and changing reports as to its cause, properties, transmission and morbidity rates. Until recently, most of us have complied without complaint, acting with ovine-like acquiescence to draconian measures that have led to a “lockdown” of the economy and the loss of millions of jobs.

We obey common-sensical rules about social-distancing, wearing face masks, scrubbing our hands, not touching our face, sneezing into a Kleenex, and using gloves and disinfectants. Anything to slow the rate of infection of a highly contagious virus. But the lockdown of two thirds of the economy (as measured by those who do not have the option to work from home) has been pre-empted from debate. As well, some political leaders have taken lockdowns of the economy to an extreme – banning yard work, home construction projects or preventing citizens from using parks or playing golf. Some governors have used the pandemic as an excuse to get the federal government to help bailout their states’ finances. Others have talked of using Drones to monitor people’s behavior. Debate, as to the cause of COVID-19, is discouraged, as is seen in the disparagements of President Trump for calling the virus a Chinese or Wuhan virus, despite indisputable evidence that that was its origin. Those who raise questions about COVID-19 are called “anti-science,” in spite of the fact that the science regarding the virus, its characteristics, transmission and morbidity rates keep changing. We cannot forget we are in an election year. Republicans, who would like to keep the Presidency and the Senate and re-gain the House, would like to get the economy re-started as soon as possible, but without initiating a second surge of the virus. Democrats recognize that the economy has been Republicans’ strongest suit, so have an interest in the economic downturn lasting longer.

This debate favors Democrats, as we will not be totally free of the virus until a vaccine arrives, and that may be a year to eighteen months away – too long for any of us, Republican or Democrat. While the virus appears to have peaked, or to be peaking, deaths will continue to mount, especially given the way they are now counted. So, a restart of the economy will be accompanied by deaths that will be said to be caused by COVID-19 and are a consequence of a premature re-opening of the economy. Any restart will be slow, as people will be nervous and social distancing will remain in effect, whether by rule or by habit, which means that busses, subways, trains and planes will be slow to recover ridership. Most people will not immediately pile into crowded bars, restaurants or stores. It is hard to envision the economy coming back in “V” fashion. Too much damage has been done to people’s confidence. Republicans, in wanting to restart the economy, are in the right, in my opinion, but they have the tougher side of the argument.

Because of the extreme measures adopted, in respect to our economy, both parties, along with scientists, the task force and the CDC, have a self-interest in COVID-19 being seen as the most virulent of viruses to ever hit our shores. How else to explain the draconian measures taken?  It is cited as worse than the Spanish Flu of 1918, with 675,000 deaths in the U.S.; the Asian Flu of 1958, with 116,000 American deaths, and the Asian Flu of 1968, which killed 100,000 in the U.S. In none of those case was the U.S. economy shuttered as it has been in this instance. (Keep in mind, the populations in the U.S. during those three pandemics were, respectively, 106 million, 180 million and 205 million. Today we are a nation of 330 million people.) A high death count, but one lower than that suggested by Imperial College London’s model and others, is also in their interest, as it helps justify their decision to shutter the economy. The CDC now allows coroners to list COVID-19 as a “probable or presumed” cause of death, even if the patient had never been tested. It will only be when antibody testing becomes ubiquitous that we will learn how widespread COVID-19 has been and whether a herd immunity has developed.

We cannot and should not ignore the role played by China. They kept the virus, its characteristics and its origins, under wraps for too long. They were devious, whether intentionally or not. For example, on January 23 they banned flights within China from Wuhan, but not flights from Wuhan to other parts of the world, including Europe and the U.S. We cannot forget that the WHO and the CDC downplayed the transmission rates of the virus (even commenting in January that it was not transmissible from human to human), when China had to have known how contagious it was, and so should have the WHO. What we know now is that the virus is highly contagious. We know it came from Wuhan, most likely from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Chinese scientist Shi Zhengli has for fifteen years warned that bats she works with at the Institute, harbor coronaviruses, which pose serious risks to humans. As speculation has mounted that she may have been the source of the pandemic, she denies any culpability, reminding one of Hamlet’s Queen Gertrude: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The New York Times reported on April 4 that 390,000 people traveled from China to the U.S. during the month before President Trump placed a ban on travel from China – a period when China knew of its deadly consequences. We also know that most Chinese college students in the U.S. (about 400,000) would have returned to their campuses after the Christmas holidays. Should we believe that no one coming from China in December and January carried the virus to the U.S.?

How widespread is the virus? No one knows. Stanford researchers have tested 3,000 residents in Santa Clara County, about 1.5% of the population, for coronavirus antibodies. The results suggest that between 2.5% and 4.2% of people had contacted COVID-19, a population 50 to 85 times greater than the number of cases reported. Similar tests in San Miguel County, Colorado suggest that one to two percent of the County had been infected and perhaps ten times carry the virus. The differences between the two counties may reflect demographics – Santa Clara has two million residents and includes San Jose and Palo Alto, while San Miguel County has a population of 8,191, extending west from Telluride to Slick Rock. Taken together, both tests suggest that the total infected population of the U.S. is likely ten to eighty times official numbers. That also would be the inference of a report from the Los Alamos National Laboratory that concluded an infected person passes the virus to 5.7 people – twice what the WHO said in February. More serological tests are needed, but the data suggests a herd immunity exists. As well, both tests indicate the morbidity rate is lower than claimed.

The United States, because of its wealth and success, has become complacent. We have seen complacency in markets near peaks, when hope rules and skepticism dissipates; we have seen it in athletic teams, when a winning streak feels it can go on forever; we have seen it in businesses. We have seen it in universities. We see that complacency today in politics where social justice rides above the rule of law, and where over a million and a half people in California voted for an avowed socialist; and we see it in activists who divert water from farmers in California’s Central Valley to protect the Delta smelt. Even in the $2.2 trillion aid package to help people and businesses hurt by COVID-19, Congress earmarked $25 million to the CDC to study gun violence. Nevertheless, this coronavirus has made people realize that viruses are not political, that they recognize no borders, nor do they care for social or economic status. Stay-at-home rules have made us more aware of the importance of things we miss – family, friends, church, weddings, anniversaries, graduations and, yes, funerals.

Yet, what strikes one most forcibly about this pandemic is not its severity – the three other pandemics mentioned above infected and killed more people – but the unquestioning compliance with rules to “shelter-in-place,” a manifestation of complacency toward liberty. It has been the willingness of the people to accept, without doubt, question or protest, measures that have been harmful to their pocketbooks and, more important, to their freedom. This is not to dismiss the seriousness of the coronavirus, especially for the vulnerable, but we can never forget that totalitarian regimes begin with disallowing dissension and controlling thought. We have grown soft. Our wealth has moved us to substitute comfort for freedom – universal healthcare, education for all and a guaranteed income, at the expense of individual independence. However, a change is underway. After almost six weeks of shutdowns there have been protests in at least twenty states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. There are sure to be others. These are the people most harmed from the economic shutdown. “Liberate Michigan,” said President Trump in a tweet last week, providing encouragement for those who must to return to work but dismaying for elitists, like the editor of our local paper.

The concern of an existential threat, and the balance that must be found between safety and freedom, was a worry for Alexander Hamilton. In Federalist 8, he wrote: “Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates.” Hamilton’s concern was war; today, we cannot allow a desire for safety be reason to surrender freedom. Think of Londoners during the Blitz.   

"What is a Person to Believe?"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“What is a Person to Believe”

April 17, 2020

“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”

David Hume (1711-1776)

Scottish philosopher, historian

An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748

We are told we live in an era of science. Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote, “the good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.” But is that really so? Does not science change as new evidence is gathered? Statisticians use models to justify their findings. Yet models are only as good as their inputs. The epidemiologists’ models we have seen regarding COVID-19 have changed markedly over the past few weeks. In mid-March, Imperial College in London predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S., with no mitigation. By the first of April, modelers at Oxford saw that number drop to a range of 100,000 to 240,000, with some mitigation. Now the estimate is 60,000. A University of Virginia model shows COVID-19 will peak this summer, while Health Metrics Evaluation at the University of Washington suggests the virus will “peter out” in May. Models make assumptions about, among other factors, human behavior, the measurement of which is an art? What is a person to believe?

If we are to base our beliefs about COVID-19 on the basis of “evidence,” it is unsurprising that confusion abounds. We presume, with strong reason, that it came from the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China, but whether from a live bat sold for human consumption at a wet market or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control has never been made clear. We are told coronavirus is highly contagious. Ten days ago, the Los Alamos National Laboratory published an article in which they claimed that the transmission rate for COVID-19 is between 4.7 and 6.6. For comparison purposes, the seasonal flu, the transmission rate is 1.3. (The transmission rate is also referred to as the regeneration rate, or the R0.) At the midpoint, 5.7, over ten rounds, one person could infect 36 million people. The chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control in Beijing puts the transmission rate at between 1.0 and 5.0. At the midpoint of 2.5, and after ten rounds, one individual could infect 9,538 people.  Which are we to believe?

Mortality rates are equally confusing. Is the rate calculated only for confirmed cases, or do deaths recorded include those with underlying conditions from which recovery was not probable?? Recently, some deaths attributed to COVID-19 include those who were suspected of having COVID-19, but on whom no tests were made. Is that fair? What about obesity, diabetes and lung disease. Should the asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic be included in the denominator? And what about perspective? In 2018, 7,779 people died every day in the United States. That would suggest that since the first two deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 on February 26, more than 388,000 Americans have died from other causes. As of April 15, 30,844 Americans have died from COVID-19, (a number that includes 4,059 “probable” deaths in New York City). – a tragedy, but one that needs be kept in perspective. At the end of March, mortality rates from COVID-19 in the U.S. were estimated at 3.4 percent. Today, with millions more having been tested, that number is around 0.3 percent. Will that number continue to decrease as more tests are performed, or will a relaxation of lockdowns and social distancing, necessary for re-opening the economy, cause that number to rise?

Has the virus spread more widely than is known or acknowledged? Wuhan is China’s sixth largest city with a population of 11.1 million people. It has the largest student body population of any city in the world, which means that thousands of U.S. students were in Wuhan through the end of 2019, a month to six weeks after the virus was established. As well. In the 2017-2018 academic year, 360,000 Chinese students were enrolled in U.S. universities. Presumably, the numbers were similar for the 2019-2020 academic year. Most of those students would have returned to their U.S. college campuses following the Christmas holidays. Yet, the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, 2-nCoV019, was a thirty-five-year old man, with “underlying health issues,” on January 19. He had returned to Washington State after visiting family in Wuhan. He claimed that when in Wuhan he had had no contact with anyone who was ill. After eight days in the hospital, he was asymptomatic and discharged. But are we to believe, with 3,000 to 4,000 people arriving in the U.S. every day from China through the end of January, that no one else had contacted this novel, contagious virus before then? Is it not possible that there are thousands, if not millions, in the U.S. who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and have developed immunity?

And what about China, the source of this contagion? Hubei Province includes 58.5 million people. As a stand-alone country, it would rank as the 26^th largest in the world, just behind Italy and just ahead of Spain. For all of its economic success over the past two or three decades, China remains a Communist dictatorship. Two hundred million surveillance cameras keep watch over its 1.4 billion people. The Chinese Communist Party, at 90.5 million members, may be the second largest political party in the world, but the other 93% of the population lack basic rights and opportunities. Despite the enormous wealth of Chinese Communist leaders, China is a poor country. Household incomes in urban areas average about $6,000 a year. One point five million Muslim Uighurs are being held in 1,000 re-education camps in Xinjiang Province, in China’s northwest. This is the country that allowed the novel coronavirus to spread around the world for two months, with tens of thousands of people flying into and out of Hubei Province, before notifying the rest of world. Worse, the WHO (World Health Organization) was their willing partner. Should we believe them now, as they claim to want to help stop the spread of the virus they started?

Besides Chinese disinformation and the natural political exaggerations in an election year, part of the confusion lies in the fact that COVID-19 is a novel virus, which means it is a new strain never before seen in humans, so doctors and scientists had to learn on the go. Part of the problem is ours, for when we heard from those who make evidenced-based decisions we believed their predictions were accurate. Like sheep, we accepted the most extreme of the forecasted death rates, which resulted in an economic shutdown, the proportions of which have not been seen in at least eighty-seven years. We were led away, without debate, from the concept of a “herd” immunity, which might have ended the blight without risking the economy. In years to come, when historians review the virus and the reaction, will they say we acted wisely, or will the judgment be we reacted with a “herd” mentality, and that when attacked we assumed the hedge hog’s defense. It goes without saying that the aged and the health-vulnerable need protection, but like lemmings, have we run off the proverbial economic cliff? What is a person to believe?

Last evening at the President daily press conference with the coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx laid out guidelines for re-opening the country in three phases. These are guidelines – not directives – and the timing is left to the states. They will be using CDC’s influenza-like maps that they have for every county and city. The guidelines appear sensible, so one would expect that governors will likely adopt them. Before a state can enter phase one, it must show a downward trajectory for fourteen days of those infected. The guidelines include continuation of good hygiene, the wearing of masks when in public and staying home when sick. Employers must ensure that social distancing is maintained, counters and public areas disinfected regularly, employees’ temperatures are taken daily, and non-essential travel is prohibited. Phase two will allow non-essential travel to resume and some schools and camps to open. In phase three the vulnerable should be allowed back into public places. Throughout all phases, good hygiene and common sense should rule. How long each phase would last would be up to the individual governors. Nevertheless, this was a moment of sunshine at a bleak time, and I hope does not betray our belief.

"Risks and COVID-19"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Risks and COVID-19”

April 11, 2020

“There is freedom waiting for you.

On the breezes of the sky.

And you ask. What if I fall?

Oh, but my darling,

What if you fly?”

                                                                                    Erin Henson (1981-)

                                                                                    Artist, Designer, Poet

Most decisions we make involve some measure of risk. Generally, the consideration is fleeting. Do I take the stairs and risk falling, or the elevator and risk it breaking down? At times, the choice is more absolute: Do I take the double-black diamond with moguls, or do I go around on the bunny trail? Sometimes the odds are important: Is my need to cross the street against traffic so great that the attempt should be made despite oncoming traffic? Risk is ubiquitous. It is embedded in the friends we make, where we go to college, what job we take and in our choice of a marriage partner – a risk my wife and I took fifty-six years ago today. A wise friend used to say that he was never upset with mistakes he had made but was troubled by risks he never took. Risks vary depending on what we do. To a soldier in combat, risks have different consequences than the ones we encounter daily. In his 1916 collection of poems, Mountain Interval, Robert Frost included “The Road Not Taken.” At a fork in the road a traveler pauses, knowing he cannot walk down both paths, so chooses “the one less traveled by…”  The reader never knows whether the choice was a good one or not, only that it “has made all the difference.” As well, progress is impossible without risk. A baserunner cannot steal second without taking his foot off first. Neither can we avoid risk. “Security,” as Helen Keller once wrote, “is mostly a superstition.”

Risk is defined as the interaction with uncertainty, a measure of the probability of danger or loss, against safety or profit. In our daily lives, we try to mitigate risk. We are encouraged to look before we leap. Insurance companies employ actuaries to assess risk and calculate premiums. Investors use algorithms to quantify the risk of loss against the potential for gain. While these calculations are never perfect, they are Darwinian in that those who are best at measuring risk tend to be the most successful, what Joseph Schumpeter termed creative destruction in industries as they adapt to change.

Politicians employ risk to further agendas: we are told we will be overrun by illegal immigrants if we do not shut our borders; we are frightened into believing that anthropomorphic warming will destroy the planet, and that an ever-expanding population will lead to mass starvation. Now we have the health risk of COVID-19 that was first downplayed by professionals, the media and politicians, but which now dominates the news. As well, COVID-19 has created enormous economic risks.  

There is little question that COVID-19 is dangerous, especially for the elderly and those that have under-lying medical conditions, like asthma, lung diseases, heart conditions, diabetes, liver or chronic kidney disease. Given the game of blame, as to who missed the seriousness of the virus, it may be of value to review some of what was said and done about COVID-19, from when it first made its appearance – a timeline, if you will, but a list that does not pretend to be exhaustive; but it is indicative.

November 17, 2019 – On March 14, 2020, Jeanna Bryner, Editor-in-Chief of Life Science, quoting the South Morning China Post, reported that a “55-year-old individual from Hubei Province may have been the first person to have contacted COVID-19…That case dates back to November 17, 2019….That’s more than a month earlier than doctors noted cases in Wuhan, China, which is in Hubei Province.”

December 31, 2019 – The New York Times reported on April 7, 2020 that on December 31, 2019: “The Chinese government confirmed that health authorities were treating dozens of cases.”

January 14, 2020 – The World Health Organization (WHO) said: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”[1]

January 17, 2020 – The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stated that, “based on current information, the risk from 2019-nCoV to the American public is currently deemed to be low.” The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that American citizens returning from travel-restricted countries were being rerouted to specific airports where they would be screened and isolated.

January 20, 2020 – Japan, South Korea and Thailand reported their first cases of the novel coronavirus.

January 21-24, 2020 – World Economic Forum in Davos – attended by 3000 individuals from 117 countries, including 53 heads of state. China sent a large delegation, though Xi Jinping did not attend.  

January 21, 2020 – The first case of coronavirus in the United States was reported of a man who had traveled from Wuhan, China.

January 22, 2020 – President Trump, in response to a question regarding COVD-19: “We have it totally under control; it is one person, coming in from China.”  On that same day, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), a hawk on China, sent a letter to Alexander Azar, Secretary of Health and Human (HHS), encouraging the Administration to consider banning travel between China and the U.S.

January 24, 2020 – The CDC confirms the second U.S. case of coronavirus, adding, “based on what we know right now, the immediate risk to Americans remains low.”

January 28, 2020 – The WHO, following a meeting between WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Chinese President Xi Jinping, issued a release: “The WHO delegation highly appreciated the actions China has implemented in response to the outbreak, its speed in identifying the virus and openness in sharing information with WHO and other countries.”

January 29, 2020 – According to an April 5th article in the New York Times by Maggie Haberman, Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade advisor, warned the White House on January 29th that coronavirus could “cost the Country trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.”

January 30, 2020 – The WHO declared a global health emergency of international concern. The CDC confirmed publicly for the first time the person-to-person spread of coronavirus. That same day President Trump created the White House Coronavirus Task Force to coordinate all efforts, with HHS Secretary Alexander Azar as chair.

January 31, 2020 – President Trump declared coronavirus a U.S. public health emergency and issued a ban on travel between the United States and China. On that same day, Joe Biden criticized the President for the travel ban: “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia.”

February 4, 2020 – The White House directed the FDA (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration) to step up coronavirus diagnostic testing procedures.

February 5, 2020 – The CDC issued a statement: “While we continue to believe the immediate risk of 2019nCoV exposure to the general public is low, CDC is undertaking measures to help keep that risk low.”

February 7, 2020 – New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot told a TV interviewer, “I want to be clear, this is about a virus, not a group of people. There is no excuse for anyone to discriminate or stigmatize people of Asian heritage. We are here today to urge all New Yorkers to continue to live their lives as usual.”

February 10, 2020 – New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio was interviewed on MSNBC: “If you are under 50 and you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here. This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu. And transmission is not that easy.”

                  February 18, 2020 – The CDC reaffirmed, “The risk to Americans from coronavirus is low.”

February 20, 2020 – The White House raised travel warnings to their highest level for Japan and South Korea.

February 24, 2020 – Nancy Pelosi toured San Francisco’s Chinatown, urging people to come along, mingle and shake hands with residents.

            February 26, 2020 – The first case of suspected local transmission in the United States was announced by the CDC. On that same day, President Trump replaced Mr. Azar as head of the corona task force with Vice President Michael Pence.

            February 27, 2020 – Vice President Pence named Dr. Deborah Birx to serve as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator.

            February 29, 2020 – The first death in the U.S. from coronavirus was recorded in the U.S. On the same day, President Trump halted travel to and from Iran.

            March 11, 2020 – The WHO declared coronavirus a worldwide pandemic.

            March 12, 2020 – President Trump imposed travel restrictions with Europe.

            March 13, 2020 – President Trump declared coronavirus a national emergency.

            March 14, 2020 – The White House extended travel bans to the United Kingdom.

All the incidents mentioned above reflect risks that were either political, reputational or both. People on both sides of the aisle can find the fodder to satisfy claims of neglect or worse. But should that be our pursuit as we face the twin crises of a pandemic and a collapsed economy? As someone once said (or should have if they did not), “democracy is a slow process of stumbling to the right decision, instead of going straight forward to the wrong one.” Unlike dictatorships, democracies move slowly, as they listen to multiple voices and encourage debate. Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, after Pearl Harbor, is alleged to have said: “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” They had. Was the President late in declaring a health emergency, or did the fault lie with the WHO and the CDC who downplayed its seriousness? Should Democrats have been pursuing a feckless impeachment when the coronavirus was invading our shores? Early on, with the exception of Senator Tom Cotton and Secretary Alexander Azar no one in Washington appeared to take seriously what became a pandemic. Why? Was it because of a deceitful China or a compromised WHO? Was it because Washington and the media were otherwise engaged? In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Holman Jenkins concluded: “Many things are worth doing; many risks are worth taking, and many are worth avoiding. It would be great to have more clear thinking about which is which in our current crisis.”  But that is the problem with forecasts. We deal with things as they are. “The future,” as the song goes, “is not ours to see.” At the moment the focus should be on helping the sick, finding cures and righting the economy. There will come a time to disinter the past and place blame where it belongs: who underplayed and who overplayed the risks of COVID-19?

With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to point out missed signs, like the concern of Senator Cotton on January 22 or the warnings from Secretary Azar a week later. But it wasn’t until January 30 that the WHO and the CDC elevated coronavirus to a health emergency of international concern. The next day, the President declared COVID-19 a U.S. public health emergency and banned flights from China. So, should he have listened to two men, accomplished in their fields but neither a doctor, or should he have heeded the scientists and doctors at the CDC and the WHO? Keep in mind, the President had to navigate the ship of state through the Charybdis of a public panic and the Scylla of ignoring an unknown health threat. He chose a middle course. Given what we now know about the failure of a compromised WHO and a depleted Strategic National Stockpile of drugs and medical equipment, it appears, at least to me, that he chose well. But risks continue to propagate. The United States has lost 10% of its workforce in three weeks, a rate of decline faster than during the Great Depression. The President now faces a challenge – how to restart a twenty-two trillion-dollar economy, without reigniting the deadly virus.

It has been three months since coronavirus struck our nation. As a Country, we have rallied. It appears that social distancing, self-isolation and commonsense hygiene are working, and that the worse may soon be over – that the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a freight train barreling toward us, but the light of resurrection, appropriate in this time of Passover and Easter. But there remain risks our leaders must take – How to restart this economy from the somnolence of a six-to-eight-week shutdown? How to pay back the two to four trillion dollars borrowed to save businesses and jobs? This will require more choices, decisions (and risks) for the politicians who lead. We are in untraveled territory. COVID-19 has not been eviscerated. Re-starting the economic engine will not be easy. Money is not free, and we all know it is the private sector that generates the income the public sector spends. Voters in November will elect the individual they believe best suited to lead us toward a healthy, economic revival.    

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[1] Dates, not otherwise identified, come from a March 31, 2020 report by Cleta Mitchell in The Federalist. She is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law office of Foley and Lardner