Today's Headlines

Jennifer Rubin's column in the Washington Post was about all the national news I could stomach.  It is a succinct, cogent and therefore frightening summary of the chaos and craven corruption of this administration and the Republican leadership in confronting the Covid 19 crisis, and it is only getting worse as more corrupt practices are applied to relief efforts.  That includes political favoritism in doling out deliberately scarce live-saving resources and further attempts to turn the $2 trillion bipartisan economic rescue bill into riches for the favored few.

Rubin's column ends:
"The chaos, confusion and incompetence at the federal level magnify our daily anxiety and uncertainty. We have lost control of our lives, and those supposed to lead us through this ordeal are deepening our national trauma. Years of contempt for expertise, for competent government and for truth itself on the right now haunt us all. God help us."

Regionally, the most painful place is the horror that is New York. I keep track of what I can in my current home state of California, and my birthplace of western Pennsylvania.  In both places--and I'm sure in many others--many people are struggling just to feed themselves.  In both states, long lines of cars to food banks now needing the National Guard to distribute an eight-fold increase in the food needed.

Locally, virus testing has identified 10 new cases in the past three days, for a total of 39 active cases and two patients hospitalized.  Per capita, Humboldt is testing more than the national average, and the percentage of positives is less than half the national average.  The average age of the positives is 44, which suggests students are among them but neither Public Health nor HSU has anything to say about this directly.

My current coping mechanisms include: walks with Howdy, backyard hoops, "NCIS New Orleans" (a series I don't see ever coming back on the air) with Margaret, Mind and Life videos and Tony Hillerman mystery novels.