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Let’s Talk About Vietnam War

As many news organizations have noted, in just three months the American death toll from the coronavirus has exceeded the number of Americans who were killed in the Vietnam War. This may feel like just another statistic to younger generations, but many who lived through that war hear it and might need a moment. This is not ancient history for us. Of the 59,220 who died in Vietnam, 26 were from my home county in northeast Ohio. We didn’t have many college or bone-spur deferments in Ashtabula County, which was full of working-class and rural families. Of those who survived, so many ...

The Nation’s Report Card

The Department of Education just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders: “Grade 8 Students’ NAEP Scores Decline in Geography and U.S. History; Results in Civics Unchanged Since 2014.” The tests were administered from January to March 2018 to a nationally representative sample of 42,700 eighth-graders from about 780 schools. The news is not very good. Only 24% of students performed at or above the “proficient” level in civics. Worse yet, ...

Preview Of Coming Distractions

As you probably already knew, the next six months of 2020 presidential campaigning are going to be ugly. I do not say this happily, but I do so based upon a lifetime of watching candidates run for election and reelection. Almost invariably, politicians return to what worked successfully in previous campaigns. Consider the most recent presidential election of 2016. When exit polls across the nation asked actual voters whether their opinion of the two candidates was favorable or unfavorable, their answers were Donald Trump 38% favorable and 60% unfavorable, and Hillary Clinton 43% ...

After COVID, Will We Want What We Wanted?

When Germany let smaller stores reopen, the expected didn’t happen. Officials thought that shoppers would burst out of their five-week lockdown and spend, spend, spend. They were wrong. As the manager of an espresso machine store in Berlin told the Financial Times, “No one really wants to go shopping right now.” Same story in the Atlanta suburbs. Georgia gave a green light for restaurants, hair salons, tattoo parlors and other close-and-personal services to open their doors before others. But that thus far has not lit up the local economy. Some places decided not to reopen as ...

Up For A New Cold War With China?

Is America, in lockdown, with 26 million unemployed and entering a new depression, up for a confrontation and Cold War with China? For that appears to be where the GOP wishes to lead us. According to Politico, a 57-page memo from Mitch McConnell’s senatorial committee instructs GOP candidates to blame the coronavirus pandemic on China, commit to stand up to China, end U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing and tell voters “my opponent is soft on China.” “China is not an ally, and they’re not just a rival — they are an adversary and the Chinese Communist Party is our ...

Testing: The Way Out Of This Trap

One of the less helpful aspects of our current quandary is the shrill argument between two closed-minded camps. One condemns those who wish to open up the economy as science-defying ghouls who care nothing for human life. The other depicts the stay-at-homes as economic saboteurs willing to destroy the national economy in the name of unobtainable safety. Neither reckons with the indispensable bridge — the testing problem. Whatever mayors, governors, or presidents might say, we cannot restart the economy as long as people are too frightened to resume working, shopping, and ...