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Virus Causes Grooming To Take A Hit

A friend closed in his northern Italian apartment for almost six weeks emailed me saying that his wife says he looks like a “clochard.” That’s French for street bum. This from a man who once was a walking advertisement for fine Italian tailoring. Grooming has taken a hit as the coronavirus shuts down public life. That’s understandable, though others in the household might like a spiffier cellmate. The following is not for those suffering from the coronavirus. Their only job is recovery. Rather, it is for the healthy self-quarantining masses stuck for weeks in their homes. ...

Biden Should Go For Unity

Elizabeth II’s speech to the United Kingdom was moving, even for those of us who are lifelong small-r republicans. In some respects, her model cannot be copied in the United States. She is a monarch, and we had some disagreements about that matter in 1776. She is a living link to the most harrowing experience in living memory, the Second World War. And, at 92, she has accumulated a lifetime’s reservoir of trust and goodwill. But the queen’s address does have lessons for us Yanks, and particularly for Joe Biden. Part of what made the Queen’s speech affecting was its theme of ...

Presidency Hangs On One Decision

Easter may not bring America the victory in the war against the coronavirus pandemic that President Donald Trump anticipated. But in this Holy Week, we may be reaching our Saratoga moment, our turning point. While New York state reported a record number of deaths from the virus on Tuesday, over 1,800, new hospitalizations were down. Referrals of patients to ICUs were down. Intubations were down. And the discharge rate for patients from hospitals was holding steady. The thousands of ventilators Gov. Andrew Cuomo had been crying out for are, apparently, not immediately needed. The ...

Hope For The Dead At Easter

That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. — Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) When American colonists were oppressed by governance from Britain, the word most frequently uttered in pamphlets and editorials and sermons was not “safety” or “taxes”; it was “freedom.” Yet, two intolerable acts of Parliament so assaulted personal freedom that they broke the bonds with the mother country irreparably. The first was the Stamp Act of 1765, which required colonists to have government ...

50,000 Will Die — Give Or Take A Few Million

Let us call it The Finger-Pointers’ Dilemma. The toll of the virus has been less than what we were promised. The WuFlu (G’wan, call me racist.) medical experts assured us the sky was definitely falling this time. Maybe 2 million of us would croak. These experts convinced themselves of this. They convinced our public health officials. They convinced Big Media. All of them teamed up to convince our leaders. And so, our leaders shut down our economy. They turfed over 17 million Americans from their jobs. And we are still counting. Upward. They cut the legs from under hundreds of ...

What Options Are There For Monitoring Safety?

Question: What options are out to help monitor my parents safety as I don’t get to see them as much due to COVID-19? Answer: COVID-19 and the contact precautions we are using to prevent its spread has changed the way many of us behave each day, including taking care of loved ones. One suggestion I have and I think may be very useful now is called a PERS, a Personal Emergency Response System. A PERS is a wearable device that you can press to access emergency help. This device is usually on a necklace or wristband, or watchband. There are many different companies that offer this ...