Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
When Covid-19 began spreading, democratic countries began granting their leaders authoritarian powers to fight it. But I’ve been sounding the alarm about those powers from the outset. Here, for example, is what I wrote in “Coronavirus: The Worldwide Lockdown” on March 14: __________ Governments from the Americas to Asia are declaring states of emergency. This… Read more.
Silver linings are hard to find in the midst of this coronavirus crisis. But CNN is providing one with its hauntingly inspirational commercial. This, because it features the poetically named slam-poet Kate Tempest performing voiceover excerpts from “People’s Faces” (2019). That poem ends as follows: Even when I’m weak and I’m breaking I stand weeping… Read more.
In “Coronavirus: The Worldwide Lockdown” at March 14 below, I wrote about lockdowns triggering all kinds of unintended consequences. In addition to spikes in incidences of depression and suicides, I warned that they would create a “perfect storm for a wave of domestic abuse.” Sure enough: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, citing a [horrifying surge]… Read more.
And no, I am not referring to Judy, Pirro, or Napolitano! I gather many of you don’t think I have enough professional gravitas or social influence to say whether lockdowns (i.e., shutdown of all non-essential businesses and stay-at-home orders) compose the best strategy for fighting COVID-19. Well, there’s no denying that retired UK Supreme Court… Read more.
I feel obliged to begin by reiterating my abiding view that, to fight this virus, our political leaders did not have to destroy the global economy; undermine millions of good-paying jobs; and hunker down billions of people in their homes, indefinitely. It’s only a matter of time before we look back on this period of… Read more.
In “Coronavirus: The Worldwide Shutdown” on March 14, I warned that self-fulfilling prophecies and creeping authoritarianism were governing efforts to combat this virus. From panic buying to manic closings, social distancing to self-isolation, and social-media scammers to Truman-Show hammers, life is imitating the art that played out in dystopian films like the Hunger Games, Idiocracy,… Read more.
Just days ago, President Trump was insisting the country would be “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” That would mean ending his federal social-distancing guidelines, purportedly giving the American people their lives back again. But then came polls showing that his approval ratings are soaring in this time of corona. This, despite… Read more.
No doubt you know that this coronavirus pandemic has forced the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics until next summer. That decision inspired this cartoon: Except that, given how PEDs have marred recent Games, the IOC probably should have thought of “safer, smarter” sooner rather than later, no? Related commentaries: Olympic… Read more.
I took a lot of flak for arguing that, far from curing this pandemic, martial law-like restrictions and shutdowns (in business, education, sport, entertainment, etc.) were just causing pandemonium. Little did I know that South Korea was proving my point. (Incidentally, so too were Sweden and Singapore.) South Korea was in the vanguard of nations… Read more.
Related commentaries: corona causing pandemic of attention seeking… corona cowers Britain… Read more.
