'…a major destabilizing influence'
Two hugely important people were taken down by COVID-19 this past week. Both have left a legacy, the importance of which cannot be ignored. John Prine The first struck down last week is one of the greatest modern songwriters of my lifetime, John Prine. One of my favorite musicians, Prine was a humble, funny …
Continue reading “Honoring Two Men Just Brought Down by the Coronavirus Pandemic”
By Laurie Dobson As people come to grips today with the Wednesday’s announcement that Bernie Sanders has suspended, i.e. dropped out of, his campaign, a myriad of collective feelings will have to run their inevitable course. My first reactions are that I feel profoundly let down. In the middle of Holy Week, for God’s sake! …
Continue reading “Sanders Supporter Asks Why Didn’t Sanders Carry on the Fight to the End?”
I’m feeling a little weird these days. No, don’t worry! I’m not coming down with suspicious flu-like symptoms. So far fortunately, I’m managing to stay healthy despite my 71 years and a lung condition that makes me particularly at risk of any respiratory illness that comes along — much the worse if it’s a …
Continue reading “It’s Spring and I’ve Turned 71 in a Pandemic-Induced Recession”
Neshamah Maillard understands the necessity for ‘social distancing’ to combat the deadly health crisis from the Coronavirus Pandemic. However, Maillard never thought in her wildest imagination that the ‘social distancing’ required for Coronavirus meant her staying over 3,500-miles from her daughter. But Coronavirus chaos resulted in Maillard, a Philadelphia-area resident, being thousands of miles from …
Continue reading “Americans Stranded Abroad — Another Coronavirus Crisis Scandal”
On Thursday, April 2, the bottom fell out of the US economy, as the US Department of Labor reported that an unprecedented 6.6 million more workers in the US had been laid off and had filed claims for unemployment compensation payments with their state Unemployment Offices last week. That stunning news followed the already …
Continue reading “Neither Pandemic Nor Economic Collapse is Going to Be a Short-Lived Crisis”
By Ron Ridenour Copenhagen — “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of” COVID-19. For Marx and Engels writing the Communist Manifesto, in 1848, that spectre was communism, their political system of choice. This flaring ghost they described frightened the capitalist class, which endeavored to exorcise its breath. The contemporary specter (thesis-see note) is a new …
4/3 Update: By the time the sacked captain left his ship on orders from a miffed Pentagon brass because of his leaked letter pleading with the Navy to allow his threatened 5000 crewmembers leave the ship for quarters in hotels in Guam where they could be quarantined and separated to prevent further spread of the …
Continue reading “We Have Met the Enemy and It’s a Tiny Virus”
(This article was written for and initially published at RT.com) The Senate and the White House have finally managed to negotiate a record $2-trillion stimulus aid package to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. But the money may well be too little too late. Once approved, the bill will go to the …
Continue reading “Facing Two Epidemics, Covid-19 and Soaring Joblessness”
I’m sitting here self-quarantined with my family in our 1738 stone farmhouse just north of Philadelphia. It’s an ancient building that I’m sure has known its share of epidemics over the centuries, including typhus and the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu. Right now I’m thinking about hospital triage. According to the New York Times, hospitals …
Continue reading “A Triage Crisis is Coming, and It’s Personal”
It’s hard to take President Trump seriously. Not too long ago he was calling the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic a “democratic hoax” or a “Chinese hoax.” Last week he foolishly hosted a party at Mar-a-Lago for son Donald Jr.’s girlfriend at which numerous foreign and local politicians were infecting each other and maybe himself. Now, in …