Home Schooling

On our midday walk yesterday Kish and I passed this display on one of the German Village byways.  I could be wrong, but I’m guessing it might have been part of a science project for some youngster who has been home schooled for the past six weeks after the shutdown of Ohio schools.  It reminded me, at least, of science fair displays in the gymnasium when I was a kid.

The coronavirus shutdowns have put pressure on everyone in many different ways.  Some people have been furloughed or lost their jobs altogether.  Some have had to continue working at their public-facing jobs under the threat of infection.  Some have had to learn new technology to do their jobs remotely.  And all of us have had to adjust to staying inside and not doing the things that we used to take for granted, like going to a restaurant for a lunch that you didn’t cook yourself or stopping off at a bar with friends to watch a ball game while drinking a cold beer.

But the challenges for those parents who have had to combine the adjustments that all of us are facing with trying to entertain, and educate, young kids at home is more difficult by several orders of magnitude.  In fact, it’s mind-boggling, and it takes the concept of the SuperMom and SuperDad to an entirely new level.  So if what we saw on our walk yesterday was in fact a kid’s science project, I tip my cap to the Mom or Dad who came up with the idea of their own little at-home science fair.  And who knows?  That little science project might spur a lifelong love of gardening for the student.

Many of us have talked about recognizing, thanking, and rewarding the health care professionals, the truckers, the people working in the grocery stores, the delivery truck operators, and the others who have played such an essential role during the shutdown.  Let’s not forget the parents of young children in that richly deserved chorus of praise and gratitude.  They are doing something that most of us would never even think of trying.  And, long term, what is more important that taking care of kids, and keeping them healthy, and safe, and heading in the right direction during a global pandemic?

In A Mask, No One Can See You Scowl

Obviously, you see a lot more masks around now.  People are ordering masks, making masks, and talking about masks — a lot.  In Ohio, there has been a lot of chatter about masks over the last 24 hours because Governor DeWine’s administration seems to be revisiting precisely who should be required to wear a mask, and when, when businesses reopen.  Kish and I have laid in a supply of cloth masks and disposable paper masks to meet our masking needs once the masking guidance is settled.

So far, I haven’t been in an enclosed structure other than our house since before the guidance on masks started to change.  You will recall that, initially, health authorities took the position that masks weren’t needed and actually might be counterproductive, because donning and doffing a mask might cause you to touch your face, which was totally discouraged.  Then the prevailing view changed, and masks became recommended.  Now, in at least some instances and for some people, they apparently are going to be required when you are in a structure.

So far as I can tell, however, there is no requirement that you wear a mask if you just go outside for a walk.  I don’t wear one for that purpose, and most people I’ve seen around German Village don’t seem to do so, either.  I’m not aware of any studies or medical information indicating that, if you maintain proper social distancing when you are out in the open — and I do — you are at risk of contracting coronavirus, or communicating coronavirus to others.  And a mask really interferes with one of the key elements of a walk, which is to breathe in some deep gulps of fresh air while you are out stretching those atrophied muscles and appreciating nature.

Nevertheless, some people now seem to be arguing that everyone should be required to wear a mask when they exit their front door.  That’s because the whole mask/no mask issue plays into the busybody gene that those people have in abundance.  They decide to do something, and because they do it they think everyone else should be required to do it, too — and you’re a hopeless idiot and horrible person if you don’t.  And they will gladly share their opinion with you, in stern and certain terms.  But just because they conclude that they want to be masked when outdoors doesn’t mean I must follow their lead.  In our land of liberty, you have the right to wear a mask outside if you choose, and I have a right to go maskless — at least, until our elected representatives instruct to the contrary.  That hasn’t happened yet.

I’ve heard of some busybodies taking people to task for walking, jogging, or biking without masks.  That hasn’t happened to me, yet, and if it does I’m just going to ignore it.  The masked among us can judge us all they want, but they need to remember that when they’re wearing a mask we can’t see them scowl.  And that mask pretty much muffles their hectoring comments, too.

Moving Goalposts And Quarantine Fatigue

The press paid a lot of attention to the American people being out and about over the weekend.  In California, the media focused on people flocking to southern California beaches to surf, get some sun, and otherwise do what the Beach Boys told us people do on California beaches.  In New York, there were reports of lots of people out and about in Central Park.  Here in Columbus, we got some pretty spring days after a series of cold gloomy ones, and that caused a lot of people to get outside, too.

None of this should be a surprise.  When the weather warms up in the spring, people naturally want to get outside and enjoy it, whether they live in California or Kalamazoo.  But these aren’t normal times, thanks to the coronavirus, and the press attention was all about people flouting governmental orders and not engaging in social distancing.

For the most part, I think Americans, and Ohioans, have done a pretty darned good job of abiding by unprecedented governmental orders.  For most of us who haven’t been sent to prison and didn’t experience governmental rationing or curfew orders during World War II, the coronavirus edicts are the biggest and most detailed governmental intrusions into our normal daily lives that we’ve ever experienced.  Given the history of contrarianism in the U.S., you’d expect there to be some resistance, but for the most part people have yielded, and accepted the need for the government efforts.  No one — and I mean no one — wants to kill people or see the country decimated by a fatal pandemic.

But government leaders need to understand that they can’t move the goalposts on us, either.  When the shutdown orders were first issued, they were presented as necessary to “flatten the curve,” protect health care resources from being overwhelmed, and give government time to shore up ventilator and mask supplies.  All of that has now been accomplished — and yet some are arguing that the restrictive orders should continue until . . . when or what, exactly?  I think many people have the sense that we’ve experienced a bait and switch, and the switch is happening right now.  The goalposts seem to be moving from flattening the curve to some point in the future that is more ambiguous and ill-defined — as if some government leaders and modelers and health care experts will “know it when they see it” and let the rest of us in on their decision at their leisure.  That perception is not exactly a recipe for broad societal compliance.

The sense of “quarantine fatigue” is real and, I think, is shared by many.  Part of it is people getting antsy, and part of it is spring fever, but I think part of it is just the notion that we weigh and accept risk as a matter of course, and build those risk-assessment decisions into our daily lives.  If you drive to work or take a driving vacation, you are increasing your risk of death in a traffic accident.  If you live in a house with a staircase, you are increasing your risk of a fatal fall.  But the government would never think (I hope) of banning driving, or multi-story family homes, or any of the other risks that we encounter and accept on a daily basis.

We all know, intuitively, that we can’t stay sheltering in place forever.  We need to get back to work and, equally important, to being permitted the freedom to make rational risk-weighing decisions about our lives.  If seniors who have health conditions and are in nursing homes are at high risk, by all means come up with tailored methods to protect them from COVID-19.  If wearing masks in subways has a discernible positive effect, by all means require them.  And if some people are so worried about the coronavirus that they want to work from home until a vaccine is successfully developed and they have a job that allows them to do so, fine.  But the sooner the government stops trying to ban people who have been penned up for 40 days from congregating outside on a beautiful warm day and starts communicating where we are right now and letting people make reasonable risk decisions, the better.

The Hardest Comeback

Many businesses are going to have challenges when they return after the state shutdown orders expire — a process that is increasingly occurring across the country.  People who have been lectured repeatedly about social distancing and who have refrained from shaking hands or having any close proximity interactions with anybody who isn’t already living in their house may be skittish about throwing that all aside and, say, sitting right next to total strangers and sharing a public bathroom at a basketball game.

I think one business may have the biggest challenge of all:  bowling.  When you think about it, it’s just about the most communal activity for the general public that we’ve got.  It’s indoors.  You bowl on a lane right next to people you’ve never seen before and will never see again.  And– get this, germophobes! — you share alley balls and their hard surfaces with other members of the general public, and you stick your fingers into the same finger holes that other unknown people have used.  All of those balls travel on the same lanes and go through the same ball retrieval devices.  Even more, you share shoes with total strangers, too!

In short, bowling has a potentially dizzying amount of communication vectors.  It makes you wonder if Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, dazzling scarves flying, have ever gone out to the local alley to try to throw a strike or pick up a spare.

Bowling isn’t alone, of course,  Any bars that have communal games — like bocce, or cornhole — are going to see the same issues.  How are people going to react to going to the community swimming pool and jumping in the water that’s also occupied by some germy-looking kids and that dubious guy lurking over at the pool’s edge?  Will people go to concerts, or participate in that fun trivia night at their local tavern?  Are cheering parents going to be maintaining social distancing in the stands at their kids’ baseball and softball games, and are they going to insist that the kids can’t give each other high fives?

The health experts want us to remember these social distancing rules and continue to adhere to them, even if coronavirus goes the way of the dodo, because it will help to prevent the spread of the flu — a yearly occurrence that is deadly for some but that we’ve all come to accept as a risk.  Lots of businesses, on the other hand, hope that we promptly forget all that and get back to having fun with people in crowds.  Something’s gotta give.

 

(Phone) Storage Wars

The last few days I’ve gotten a few of those annoying messages saying that I was nearing the maximum storage capacity of my iPhone.  Of course, I shrugged and ignored them.  Don’t you just hate getting those little pop-up notices?

And then this morning, my phone froze up and one of my apps crashed.

Needless to say, this was a cause for more than mild concern and some significant regret that I hadn’t responded to those irritating notices.  In the Great Coronavirus Shutdown of 2020, what the hell would you do if you didn’t have a properly functioning smartphone that you desperately need to successfully work from home?   So I immediately launched into full frenzied phone fix-up mode.  I restarted my phone, then went to settings, navigated to my iPhone storage icon, and found that I was at about 63.6 GB on a phone that can store no more than 64 GB.  That’s obviously cutting it too close.

Mass deletion was called for.  And as I started that process, I discovered things like this:

• I had messages going back to 2015 that had never been deleted.  These included messages from my periodontist and optometrist reminding me of appointments that have long since occurred and “meet you at the coffee shop of the hotel”-type messages from business trips I had taken years ago.
• Apps that were taking up significant storage capacity that I had never used, or hadn’t used in years.
• A bunch of duplicate photos.
• Lots of music that I haven’t listened to, and don’t really need to have on my phone.

All of this was stuff that was useful and helpful and wanted at one point in time, which is why it was on my phone in the first place.  But my guess is that, when the Coronavirus Crisis occurred, the new texting threads and groups that have been created, and the other increased uses of smartphones in an effort to stay connected despite the stay-at-home edicts, have caused many phones like mine to march inexorably toward their maximum storage capacity.  And what would you rather have access to right now — COVID-19 memes that your friends are sending that give you a chuckle during this difficult period, or that Ticketron app that you downloaded and last used to get some tickets to a concert in 2018?

So, I deleted about 10 GB of random stuff.  It was a productive use of my shutdown time, and I felt better after I cleared out some of the debris.  Now my phone is coronavirus meme-ready again.

If you’re twiddling your thumbs wondering what the hell you might do on day 45 of the shutdown, you might take a look at your storage settings.  And be sure not to ignore those annoying pop-up notices.

The Squirrel Game

Yesterday morning I took a double lap around Schiller Park.  It was a bright, sunny morning, and lots of neighborhood dogs had brought their human pals to the park for a romp through the bright green grass.  Many of the dogs were off the leash.  That meant I got to watch some of the Squirrel Game.

For those not familiar with it, the Squirrel Game is played at Schiller Park on any sunny day.  The contestants are dogs and squirrels.  The squirrels venture out onto the grass.  The dogs see the squirrels and then take off in hopes of actually catching one of the furry critters.  The squirrels see the dogs coming and easily make it back to the safety of the trees, sit on a tree branch, and then taunt the dogs with a death stare like you might see in the NBA after one player posterizes another with a particularly nasty dunk.  

I would be willing to bet that, in the  storied history of Schiller Park, no dog has ever actually caught a healthy adult squirrel.  Nevertheless, their DNA compels the canines to keep trying, not matter what — which makes the Squirrel Game pretty entertaining to watch.  In fact, with people suffering from severe sports deprivation these days, what if there were a live broadcast of the Squirrel Game to help fans try to scratch that sports itch?

Play-by-play announcer:  Welcome to Schiller Park in Columbus, Ohio, for week three of the Squirrel Game!  It’s a beautiful day for squirrel chasing, and we’ve got a full slate of contestants ready to engage in a fruitless interspecies exercise.  Jim, do you think that this just might be the week where a dog actually catches a squirrel?

Color guy:  Not a chance, Frank!  But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a bunch of representatives of man’s best friend who don’t believe that this will definitely be the day when they actually catch a squirrel, and they are willing to run themselves into panting exhaustion in hopes that their dreams will be realized.

Play-by-play announcer:  Well, hope springs eternal!  And we’ve got our first contestants ready to go.  Bosco and Skippy have moved away from their tree out onto the grass, and Missy, an overly groomed Shih Tzu wearing an embarrassing pink bow in her fur, has just been let off the leash by her human.

Color guy:  Our audience will remember Bosco, of course.  Like every squirrel in the park, he’s never been caught or even put into remote physical peril by the neighborhood dogs, but Bosco is a crowd favorite because of his exceptional taunting moves.  He’s been training Skippy, so we’ll get a chance to see how that is going.

Play-by-play announcer:  The squirrels have moved pretty far away from their tree to give Missy extra hope.  Bosco has dug up some kind of nut and is munching away on it, while Skippy is twitching her tail, hoping to attract Missy’s attention.  That’s one of Bosco’s patented moves, and it looks like Skippy has mastered it.  Wait a minute — I think Missy has seen them!  Yes, and she’s taken off!  Here we go!

Color guy:  Really bad form by Missy, Frank!  She’s started running much too early, and she’s not very fast, anyway.  You’d think dogs would have learned by now that if you really want to catch a squirrel, you need to sneak up on them.

Play-by-play announcer:  Well, they are dogs, Jim.

Color guy:  Yes, they are, which is why they never have a chance but still happily try.  Bosco and Skippy have noticed Missy heading their way, and Bosco is calmly taking a few extra nibbles on that nut and waiting until the last minute, giving Missy even more hope that this might actually be the day that she catches a squirrel.  And Missy has taken the bait, and is running at top speed.  Look at that pink ribbon fly!

Play-by-play announcer:  That’s why Bosco is one of the true all-stars.  He always gives the dogs hope before crushing their expectations like a discarded soda can.

Color guy:  You’re right of course, Frank!  And now Bosco and Skippy are engaging in some very nifty broken-field running to get back to their tree.  Some great moves from the savvy veteran and the rookie there!

Play-by-play announcer:  They’ve easily made it to the tree, leaving Missy back in the dust.  And now Missy has finally reached the tree trunk and is yapping and acting like she’s protected the human world from the scourge of the squirrel menace.

Color guy:  You’ve got to give Missy credit for trying to put a happy face on a pretty dismal effort, Frank!  She didn’t even come close, not by a long shot, but her posturing and irritating yapping shows she’s a real pro.  

Play-by-play announcer:  Bosco has caught Missy’s attention again, and is giving her that famous Bosco stare.  Jim, I’ve seen it countless times, and it still gives me chills.  And wait, Skippy is joining in!  A double stare!  And now Bosco is going back to munching on that nut, showing Missy and our viewing audience that he is totally undisturbed by the entire episode.  You’ve got to give him credit for showmanship!

Color guy:  Of course, Missy doesn’t realize she’s been dissed.  Being a dog, she’s pretty much oblivious to everything except the chase.  And now she’s trotting back to her human with a very self-satisfied air, having seemingly forgotten Bosco, Skippy and the entire embarrassing episode.

Play-by-play announcer:  Time for a commercial break.  When we return, we’ll be seeing Shultzie, a morbidly obese dachshund, try to catch Tinkles, a fan favorite with a white streak in her tail.

Color guy:  Ha ha!  I love to watch fat dachshunds try to run.  Don’t miss it, folks! 

A Life Lesson In Uncertainty

I’ve been thinking about the Great Depression lately.  Not because I think we’re heading toward another one, but because it is one of those historical events that left an obvious, lasting mark on the people who experienced it.

If you knew somebody who lived through the Great Depression as an adult — and not as a kid who probably wasn’t fully aware of what was going on — you know what I mean.  The adults who lived through the Depression clearly had a world view that was forever, unalterably affected by that difficult time.  After the Depression ended, they generally lived frugally and saved money.  They wanted to avoid debt at all costs.  They tended not to trust newfangled ideas and were as cautious and conservative in their investments as you could possibly be.  And they generally did not  have the sunny faith that things were necessarily going to get better.  There was a hard edge, a Depression-inflicted scar, that was lurking just beneath the surface that tended to influence and affect, in some way or another, just about everything they did.  My grandfather, for example, always wanted to have plenty of cash on hand — just in case everything went to hell tomorrow and he needed it.

Later generations of Americans didn’t share that same worldview.  They lived when times were flush, and they expected that the high times they had always known would inevitably continue.  Sure, there were some bumps in the road, but for the most part we lived lives and developed plans and made decisions about buying cars and houses, determining whether we could afford a particular college for our kids, and planning for retirement on the assumption that life as we always knew it would be pretty much the same in a month, or a year, or five years.  There was a kind of presumed certainty about the future that served as the unconscious basis for all of those kinds of decisions.

Now we’ve had the fates throw an enormous wrench into the works.  We’ve learned in a brutal, stunning, totally unexpected way that we can’t presume to know for sure what will happen in the future.  How is that going to affect people’s decisions going forward?

I wonder if this coronavirus experience, too, is going to also have a lifelong effect in terms of where people choose to live and how they choose to live.  At minimum, when we are trying to make a decision about a course of action, will we always be thinking:  “what if another global pandemic occurs?”

Starved For Sports

Yesterday the National Football League draft broadcast set an all-time record for viewership.  And it didn’t just sneak past the prior record, either — it obliterated it.  Some 15.6 million people tuned in to watch the draft, which is 37 percent more than the number of people who watched the 2019 draft.

Gee, I wonder why the viewership numbers went through the roof?  After all, the NFL draft is normally one of the most overhyped, boring events imaginable, with a bunch of delays between picks and countless talking heads yammering about the best player still “on the board.”  And this year, where all of the participants in the draft were carefully maintaining social distancing and sheltering in their different houses, there was even less drama than normal.  No rational person would spend hours watching the NFL draft — unless it turns out to be the only live event for a major sport in, say, six weeks, and a bunch of sports-starved Americans are dying to watch something, anything, that wasn’t recorded in 1988.

I’m guessing that the rest of the NFL draft will set records, too — because what else are you going to watch?  And if some of the lesser sports want to increase their fan base, they might just decide to put on some made-for-TV event that allows Americans to satisfy their lust for sports.  Badminton?  Curling?   Bocce?  They all allow participants to maintain some appropriate distance, and yet also involve that essential element of competition.  At this point, the true sports nuts would probably be willing to watch two geriatric guys at some retirement center in Florida play a death match on the shuffleboard court.

The interesting thing about the NFL draft is whether the extraordinary ratings mean anything about what fans are going to do when the restrictions are lifted and sports begin to actually be played again, in arenas and stadiums.  Will they go watch live, or has weeks of social distancing caused them to want, instead, to only watch the games on TV?  I’m guessing that there’s a fair number of people who will happily don their masks and go to see their favorite team play — especially if its an event that is played outdoors.

Seemingly Designed For Social Distancing

How many times has this scenario happened to you over the past few weeks?  You’re out of the house on a walk, enjoying some fresh air and a much-needed change of scenery.  But in the distance, at the end of the block, you are acutely aware of a couple walking their dog heading your way and seemingly committed to hogging the sidewalk.  So you’ve got to make a decision — do you pop out onto the street and circle around them, or do you jaywalk to the sidewalk on the other side of the street where you hope you won’t run into other pedestrians?

In German Village, there’s often a third option:  many blocks have a little alley positioned at about mid-block, providing you with a new route to avoid the dog-walkers.  Sure, the alleys are quaint and picturesque and interesting, but more importantly right now they have turned out to be very handy walking alternatives that permit you to maintain that six feet of clearance from the other potential virus vectors that might be out for a stroll.  And our neighborhood is honeycombed with them, all ready to accept turn-ins by pedestrians who are trying to follow governmental guidelines and avoid unnecessary exposure.  It’s almost as if German Village was designed with pandemic social distancing in mind — or the need to occasionally dodge a process server or veer around that incredibly talkative neighbor.  

As a result of these weird times, Kish and I have been spending as much time walking in alleys as we have walking on main streets.  We’re not going anywhere as the crow flies anymore, and if you mapped out our walks they would look as indirect and rambling as the roaming of a loose dog who is easily distracted by squirrels.  And we’re getting to know every inch of the neighborhood a lot better.    

Who knows?  In the future, savvy realtors who are always eager to find something positive to say might just build pandemic preparation into their set speeches, and tell  potential buyers that German Village is an ideal place to keep that social distance.

Mulch Ado

This week, our back yard reaches its high point of the year.  Sure, there is some brown in the grass of our tiny, kidney-shaped lawn — inevitably — but with fresh black mulch just laid down that is still emanating that distinctive mulchy fragrance, and the bright spring growth fresh on our trees and shrubs, our patch of ground looks sharp and edged and well tended.

It will be pretty much all downhill from here.  We’ll have a yard resurgence when the flowers bloom in a few weeks, but without fail the thick coating of luxurious mulch will lose its fragrance and its dark color thanks to the upcoming spring and summer thunderstorms and the bleaching effect of the pounding July and August sunshine.  By the end of the summer it will find itself in unseemly clumps of dried, shredded wood, leaving the beds a pale shadow of their current selves.  The grass will wither and die and vanish into yawning bare spots where new grass will stubbornly refuse to grow, no matter what kind of patch mixture I try.  And by next winter, most of the mulch will have mysteriously vanished on the wings of the winds, leaving the dirt in the beds uncovered and defenseless, to inevitably return to its natural state of a dull gray, brick-like consistency that yearns for another mulchy treatment next spring. 

Where does the mulch go?  Perhaps it channels its inner Hamlet, and simply resolves itself into a dew. It’s something that only a yard specialist could say for sure.  And when did mulch become such a key part of the yard grooming process, anyhow?  I don’t remember the sturdy suburban Dads in the neighborhoods of my childhood spreading mounds of mulch in their obsessive, competitive quests for fine-looking lawns and gardens.  Mulch is another example of the awesome creativity of American businessmen and marketing experts who somehow convinced everyone that their flower beds really required an annual spread of wood chips soaked in come kind of rich biological stew that involves cow flop as a key ingredient.  

But now we’re conditioned.  Mulch is required, so mulch it is.  And, really, the back yard does look pretty good right now.

No Trip On The Horizon

There have been so many things to adjust to, and so many changes have occurred, since the coronavirus pandemic invaded our existence and altered our routines.  Among other things, COVID-19 has caused me to violate a longstanding rule of personal conduct:  for the first time in I don’t know how long, I don’t have a vacation or interesting travel to a new place on the immediate horizon.

Global pandemics really have a way of messing with your plans, don’t they?

A decade or two ago I realized that I felt better about work if I had always a trip on the calendar for the near future.  Since that day, I’ve made sure that I have some impending travel to anticipate that will break up the daily routine.  I’ve tried to plan the trips so that they occur regularly at the intervals of a few months.  They don’t need to be big trips, either — maybe a weekend trip with a group to a new place, or a visit to see friends for a few days, or a wedding, mixed in with a longer vacation now and then.  I found that having something fun and different to look forward to allowed me to avoid getting stale and ground down by work and helped me to stay sharp and maintain a positive mental attitude.

But the coronavirus changed all that and scrubbed the social calendar clean, like a giant hand wiping off one of those dry erase boards.  A weekend trip to Austin earlier this month was the first casualty, followed quickly by the cancellation of a wedding in Chicago in May and an annual meeting in Asheville in June.  And even the plans that remain on the calendar are fraught with total uncertainty.  We’ve got a trip overseas planned for the fall that we hope will go forward, but who really knows?  With the predictions of a second round of COVID-19 and talk of potential foreign travel restrictions, I’m not betting my bottom dollar on anything travel-related right now.

I freely admit that, relatively speaking, this is a very minor thing, and one I will gladly accept in exchange for making sure that we and the friends we’d be seeing all stay safe and healthy.  But it’s another way that the pandemic has upset the apple cart and forced unwanted changes.  I’ll manage without a trip or two on the calendar, but I definitely look forward to the day when I can feel, once again, that I am working steadily toward some enjoyable travel on the horizon.

The Nazi Alternative Universe

We’ve been watching the excellent HBO mini-series The Plot Against America.  It’s a gripping, well-acted, and very difficult to watch story that is part of the “alternative history” genre.

In the show, Charles Lindbergh — still a hero to millions for his solo flight across the Atlantic years before — decides to run for President in 1940 on an isolationist platform.  Lucky Lindy barnstorms across the country in the Spirit of St. Louis, giving the same short speech about America’s choice being between Lindbergh and war.  Lindbergh surprisingly defeats FDR, and the result is catastrophic for American Jews generally, and one Jewish family in particular, as the country slides into a cozy relationship with the Nazis, fascism, and virulent anti-Semitism.  (And I haven’t had the chance to watch the last episode yet, so no spoilers here.)

It’s a difficult show to watch, of course, because no one wants to see the kind of America depicted on the show — but as I watched I found myself thinking about the role of Nazi Germany in the alternative history genre of fiction.  So many books and shows revolve around “what if” questions in which the Germans win World War II — The Man in the High Castle is one recent example — that it almost seems as if Nazism was responsible for the creation of the alternative history genre in the first place.  And it’s interesting that, of all of the potential turning points of history, World War II seems to be the source of far more interest than others.  There might be alternative histories written about “what if” worlds in which, say, the British won the War of 1812, or the Kaiser emerged victorious in World War I, but if so there aren’t many of them, and they’ve remained in obscurity.  The Nazis, in contrast, always seem to take center stage.

Why, exactly, do the Nazis command so much more interest and attention?  Part of it is that their creed and philosophies were so murderous, hateful, and outlandish that it’s hard to believe that they controlled a country and were able to launch and fight a global war, and implement the Holocaust, less than 100 years ago.  There’s a certain amazement about the fact that it happened, and that the Nazis actually existed in an era of automobiles and planes and telephones.  That still-shocking realization gives a powerful narrative punch to alternative history stories about what might have happened had those terrible, soulless murderers won, even 80 years after the Nazis were hurled into the dustbin of history.

Whenever I see or read an alternative history about a Nazi triumph and what it would have meant for the United States, I’m always reminded of a quote from Tom Wolfe in the ’70s, when he observed that “the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”  In short, people have long loved to predict that America is teetering on the brink of fascism and totalitarian repression.  World War II, perhaps, was the closest those predictions came to being realized.  Part of the reason that the Nazi alternative history genre is so crowded may be that the Nazis are a storytelling device that allows people to imagine that fascist America that has for so long been predicted, but has never come to pass.

I doubt that The Plot Against America will be the last alternative history in which America has fallen in World War II and fascism reigns in the former land of the free and home of the brave — and that’s OK.  Depictions of what a fascist America might look like helps us to keep our guard up.  That’s a big part of the reason that the “dark night of fascism” has never landed on our shores.

 

The Masked Economy

We’re inching closer to the point where some significant portion of the United States is going to reopen again, and one question people are asking is:  how is the economy going to perform after the reopening occurs?

Of course, no one can predict what’s going to happen, because we’re truly in virgin, unprecedented territory.  Never before have we stopped the world’s largest economy with a series of closure orders, kept it shut down for weeks, and then tried to restart it through a series of piecemeal orders issued on a state-by-state basis.  There are no meaningful historical parallels.  Anyone — regardless of their claims to “expertise” — who tells you that they know with confidence what’s going to happen is lying, because no one can possibly know.

The ultimate economic response is going to be the product of millions of individual decisions made by our different economic actors, and no one knows for sure how they’re going to respond.  Are consumers going to go out and spend those checks from the federal government in brick and mortar businesses, or are they going to bank them, or are they going to permanently shift their buying to on-line shopping?  Are people pining for a sit-down meal in a restaurant?  Is there a pent-up demand for products — like, say, shoes — where you really need to try them on that will bring people back to brick and mortar stores?  Are the countless small businesses going to reopen, or has the hit to their cash flow been fatal — and if they reopen, are they going to rehire all of their former employees immediately, or take a partial, wait-and-see approach?  Are restaurant owners going to reconfigure their restaurants, and advertise that they have implemented a new social distancing seating policy, and adjust their prices to reflect the new normal?  Will entirely new jobs — like the roaming disinfecting wipedown specialist, the entranceway COVID-19 test administerer, and the mask patrol — be created, that will help to nudge unemployment statistics back down sooner than anticipated?  Will businesses default on loans, putting pressure on bank financial statements and cash flow?

I’ve got no special insight into any of this.  I would only note one thing:  I think it’s pretty clear that many business people are very good at figuring out a way to make money.  If you’ve been on social media recently, you’ve probably had it seep into your consciousness that a lot of places are selling different kinds of masks and other protective gear — more websites selling more masks, in fact, than you ever thought possible.  It’s an example of how the participants in the modern American economy are both inventive and adaptable.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the economy will come roaring back from a total standstill.  But it does suggest that the people who were successful in business before the great shutdown are going to apply all of their creative, flexible impulses toward getting that “invisible hand” to work in their favor, and to entice homebound consumers into going out to the world at large and spending.  Where some people are going to see a cause for hand-wringing, others are going to see great opportunity.

What does it mean?  We’re about to find out, in the greatest economic experiment in the history of the human species.

 

The Subway Vector

If you look at the New York Times map and chart of coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States, one fact screams out for attention:  the New York City metropolitan area has been far, far more affected by the epidemic than any other part of the country.  The disparity is profound.

As of today, the Times reports 34,726 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. — and fully half of those are in New York and New Jersey alone.  The incidence and mortality rates in those states are orders of magnitude higher than in other areas.  And it’s not the entire state of New York that is producing those staggering numbers, either.  Instead, the hot zone is for the most part limited to New York City and neighboring communities.

In fact, if you cut the New York City metropolitan area numbers out of the equation, you find that the per capita numbers for the rest of America are far less alarming than the overall numbers, and much more in line with the data reported from other countries.  The vast disparity in the virulence and transmission of the coronavirus in the New York City area, compared to the rest of the country, is compelling support for making decisions on reopening the country and the economy on a state-by-state, locality-by-locality basis.

This drastic difference in the impact of COVID-19, though, begs the question:  why is the New York City area being hit so much harder than other areas?  Of course, it’s more densely populated than the rest of the country, which clearly must have an impact.  But there is an ongoing, increasingly heated controversy about whether New York City’s mass transit system — and, specifically, its subways — are a vector for transmission of the disease.  An MIT professor has looked at some data and argues that the subways are having a noticeable impact.  Others, including transit authority officials, contend that the MIT study is not scientifically valid and shows, at most, correlation — which is not causation.

It seems entirely plausible that subways could be a contributor to New York City’s bad coronavirus statistics.  If you’ve ever ridden the subway, you know that the platforms and cars are crowded, with people packed together, sharing metal poles as they steady themselves against the jostling of the cars, and also sharing limited breathing space.  The social distancing being practiced in other parts of the country just isn’t possible.  And, in my experience, the subway cars aren’t kept spotlessly clean, either.  If you compare that method of transportation to the “car culture” that prevails in other parts of the country, where most people travel in their own vehicles with windows closed, it could provide an explanation for at least part of the disparity in the coronavirus data.  At the very least, it is a possible cause and hypothesis that should be fully evaluated.

This is a hot-button issue, because New York City’s subway system is a primary source of transportation for hundreds of thousands of commuters every day, and if the subways are — after careful study and analysis, of course — determined to be a vector for transmission of COVID-19, that will dramatically complicate the process of reopening the Big Apple.  And mass transit is a political issue, as well, and there is a risk that political considerations will affect taking a hard look at the public health issues related to  subway use and operations in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen that our political officials can’t resist playing politics even in a time of global pandemic.  But at some point, public health considerations should trump petty political posturing.  We need to figure out why NYC is such a huge outlier, and then take steps to make sure that the causes for the disparity are properly addressed so that people in New York — and in the rest of the country — are protected the next time a virus sweeps across the world.

Into Unabomber Territory

Today I returned from my morning walk, took off my stocking cap because the morning temperatures are still down in the freaking 30s, and greeted my lovely wife.  She took one look at my head and observed that I looked like Ted Kaczynski.

When your appearance is being compared — and not without reason — to the Unabomber’s booking photo, you know you’ve plumbed new depths of personal grooming.

This is not my fault, of course.  I last got my hair cut about a month before the COVID-19 shutdown took effect, and I’ve missed two appointments since then.  That means I’ve lost two opportunities for the Platinum Stylist to trim me up, attack the random hairs, and make me look distinguished when I leave the stylist’s chair.  And with gray hair being coarser and kinkier than my prior crop of fine mahogany locks, it’s safe to say that two months of unimpeded growth have given me a less than distinguished, grizzled look.

What can you do when all of the hair salons and barbershops are closed for weeks by state order, and you have no idea, really, when they will open again?  Getting your hair cut by definition is the opposite of social distancing, with the stylist hovering around inches from your head, wielding scissors and clippers and touching your hair and head and neck.  The next time I plop down in her chair, the Platinum Stylist may well be the Masked and Gloved Stylist.

But that day is in the future, and for now the options are limited:  (1) do nothing and move from Unabomber territory to long-time cave-dwelling hermit status; (2) do what others have done and use my beard trimmer to give myself the first crew cut I’ve had since I was 10, so that I look like an escaped mental patient or someone who’s just dealt with head lice; or (3) let Kish try her hand at cutting my randomly sprouting locks into something that looks like a appropriate haircut and run the risk that she can’t resist trimming a humorous message onto the back of my head.

Needless to say, I’m still weighing the alternatives.  In the meantime, the grizzled look becomes more grizzled with each passing day.