The View from Right Field

Helping Each Other, Not Blaming Each Other

For the next few weeks or months (as long as necessary), I am going to pin this post at the top of my blog to remind me of something I tweeted yesterday:

“As we get thru this, we must all remember that mistakes will be made. Things will be done that shouldn’t have been. Things will be left undone that should have been done. But helping each other is more important than blaming each other.”

Accepting Mistakes. Focusing on the Future. The Way to Solve Covid-19.

As we try to get through this crisis, we need to keep two things in mind:

1. Mistakes will be made.  We have to accept that, and we have to not blame the people who make them. 
2. We need to focus on the future.  We need to help each other to do the best we can today and tomorrow.  The past can wait until it’s over.

An example of the first: Bill Gates’ foundation is spending billions of dollars to help construct factories to produce seven of the most promising coronavirus vaccines.  Mr. Gates knows that billions will be wasted on factories for vaccines that don’t work, but he also knows that when we figure out which of the vaccines does work, factories will be ready to produce them right away, instead of having to waiting to build the factories once we know which vaccines work.

.@Cubs. Convention Photos of #Cubs Greats. Today Mike Fontenot.

With the season delayed, what better thing to do than to post photos of Cubs greats from Conventions over the years.  Today it's Mike Fontenot - from 2010 and 2019.

 I'll be posting more every few days.  Next up - Billy!

North Macedonia Joins @NATO – And That’s Good.

As we all focus on Covid-19, there are other things happening in the world, some of them good.  One happened in late March, when North Macedonia became the 30th nation to join NATO.¹

I am sure that Russia either will object or has already objected to North Macedonia joining NATO.²  They will give the normal “reasons”: Russia is being surrounded by enemies.  These are lands in which Russia has a natural and historical interest.

The President Does It Again. Sigh.

At a time when we need leaders in Washington who can reassure us and inspire confidence, we have a president who seems to think that one of the more urgent uses of his time is to fire the inspector general of the intelligence community who determined, last year, that the whistleblower’s complaint about President Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine should be forwarded to Congress.  I don’t know whether the inspector general’s determination was right or wrong.  That's not the point.  The point is that now is not the time to fire him.

#Coronavirus Travel Bans and Keeping the United States a Single Noun

I agree with Steve Chapman in today’s Chicago Tribune (“The right to travel within the US should not be a casualty of the coronavirus”) that the travel bans some governors are trying to impose on residents of other states are wrong – and almost certainly illegal [see Update below].  Before the Civil War, United States was a plural noun, as in “the United States are.”  The Civil War and Abraham Lincoln made the United States into a single noun, as in “the United States is.” 

In his Second Inaugural, Lincoln called on all of us “to bind up the nation’s wounds.”  That is what we need to do today.  We must not let Covid-19, and our reaction to it, turn back the clock.  We are in this as a country, and by helping each other, we can get through it as a country.
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UPDATE (4/5/20 10:10 am): My comment about these travel bans being "almost certainly illegal" was wrong.  Per Eugene Volokh, who knows what he is talking about, they "are likely to be upheld."  Sorry for getting it wrong.

Solving the Covid-19 Crisis with Proposals You Would Have Made Anyway

As our leaders suggest solutions for the problems caused by Covid-19, it is fascinating how many of the proposals are ideas those leaders would have suggested without Covid-19.  Texas is saying abortion clinics aren’t essential businesses, while New Jersey says that gun shops aren’t essential.  And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suggested retroactively repealing the SALT deductibility limit for 2018 and 2019 as a way to get more disposable income to people.¹

Overall, I think the proposals you might want to give the most thought to are ones made by people who would not have suggested those ideas before Covid-19 but who think they may be appropriate now.
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¹ I suppose it would give money to people, though almost of it to rich people.
UPDATE (3/31/20 12:24 am): I deleted footnote 2, which I decided was not in keeping with the spirit of my post of March 23, 2020.

We Need More Capacity in the Medical System. And It’s Going to Cost Money.

It is clear we need more capacity in the medical system.  More rooms; more ICU units; more equipment.  On hand and ready to use.  If you cut things too close, you may not have enough in an emergency or a pandemic.  

But if we want more capacity, it is going to cost money, and somebody is going to have to pay for it.  We don’t have to argue about that now.  Other things are more important at this point.  But we are going to have to discuss it in the future; when this is over.  Because more won’t be free.

We Didn’t Ask Our Parents About World War II – Or Our Grandparents About the Spanish Flu

As our parents in the Greatest Generation have died, we have berated ourselves for not asking them what it was like during World War II.  Not just our fathers, who went to war, but also our mothers, who stayed at home.¹ 

But as coronavirus/Covid-19 spreads, I am feeling another missed opportunity:  Not only did we fail to ask our parents about what it was like during World War II, we didn’t ask our grandparents or great-grandparents what it was like during World War I² and the Spanish Flu.   The Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 50 million people around the world from January 1918 to December 1920, including 675,000 in the United States.  The former was double the number of deaths in World War I.  The latter was more than five times the number of deaths the United States suffered in the war. 

New Zealand: The Lucky Country in Politics – Follow-Up

A follow-up on yesterday’s post: With New Zealand now under lockdown, the New Zealand Parliament cannot meet for the next four-plus weeks.  So, the Parliament, which has a Labour-led majority, is setting up a special select committee to follow and examine the government’s performance while Parliament cannot meet.  It is expected the committee will meet by video conference three times a week.  The committee will be chaired by – the leader of the opposition National Party.  With a national election scheduled for September.  A lucky country, indeed.
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Note: Once again, I am simultaneously posting this on both of my blogs.

Once Again, New Zealand is The Lucky Country – In Politics

[This is being simultaneously posted on my other website, too: A Different New Zealand]

In December 2016, I wrote a post entitled “New Zealand: The Lucky Country – In Politics”.¹  Well, it is still true.  New Zealand has closed its borders and will be instituting a shelter-at-home order Wednesday at 11:59 pm, New Zealand time.  But what makes them a “lucky country” is two things.

One, the Labour-led government’s plan seems pretty decent, and they now seem to be doing it reasonably well.^2,3  Two, in the words of The Spinoff, a New Zealand website:

Government Leaders Need to Emphasize That, While Some of Us Stay at Home, Others of Us Need to Go to Work

As more and more shelter-at-home and shutdown orders are issued, the emphasis in the orders is how we need to stay at home, isolate ourselves, and dramatically reduce our contacts with other people to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  All of which is well and good.  But at the same time, the orders exclude grocery stores, drug stores, etc.  And we are assured that we don’t need to hoard because those stores will be open.

But what I have not seen are statements of how important it is for workers in those stores to go to work; i.e., while the rest of us protect ourselves by reducing contacts, we need them need to keep exposing themselves to all the contacts that their jobs require. 

Social Distancing – And Thanking Those Who Are Doing the Jobs That Let the Rest of Us Do It

We are being told to social distance.  Not just to stay away from sick people but to decrease the number of all people we come into contact with.  Society as a whole needs to increase its social distance.  And the reasons make sense, as can be seen in this article: “Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to ‘flatten the curve.’”  If we decrease the average number of social contacts we have, we slow down the spread of coronavirus. 

Which means that everybody who can increase their social distancing should do so.  Events and get-togethers that are not critical should not happen.

But there are things that are essential.  Food stores, doctors’ offices, drug stores.  They need to be open, and we need people to work in them.  And we need to thank the people who are doing the jobs that need to be done – while the rest of us increase our social distancing so the average social distance increases, and we all get through this together.

Blogging Through the Coronavirus

I probably won’t be blogging as much in the next few weeks, though with social distancing, etc., I may have more time.  Also, in whatever comments I make on current events, I will limit my criticisms to ones that are potentially useful, as opposed to ripping on people for being stupid or dumb or whatever (though there is a lot of that going on at all levels).

In looking at information on the coronavirus, one thought might be to limit what you look at to smart, thoughtful people.  That may cut down on your fear and will save you a lot of time.  Two people I would suggest following on Twitter.  First, and perhaps most important, because this guy knows what he is talking about: Scott Gottlieb, MD, director of the FDA from 2017 to 2019 (@ScottGottliebMD).  Second, Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo).
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UPDATE (3/15/20 11:05 am): Corrected the link to Megan McArdle.  Once again, it's @asymmetricinfo.

Coronavirus. Europe Travel Ban. What Kind of a Country Do We Want to Be?

On Wednesday evening, I tweeted my thoughts about President Trump’s address to the nation on the coronavirus situation.  What I’d like to do here is look at his address, and the ban on travel from Europe (technically, the Schengen zone), from a different point of view.

The Economist publishes an annual installment of “The World If” articles.  The articles are about things that could happen in the future (or might have happened in the past), some good, some bad, and what might be (or have been) the consequences.  Alternate history articles, in a manner of speaking.  One of the articles in 2017 was about the risk that the United States, and other countries, face from a prolonged loss of electricity.  It’s low risk, but if it happens … wow.  Here are some excerpts from the article:

“On March 13th 1989 a surge of energy from the sun, from a ‘coronal mass ejection’, had a startling impact on Canada.  Within 92 seconds, the resulting geomagnetic storm took down Quebec’s electricity grid for nine hours.  It could have been worse.  On July 23rd 2012 particles from a much larger solar ejection blew across the orbital path of Earth, missing it by days.  Had it hit America, the resulting geomagnetic storm would have destroyed perhaps a quarter of high-voltage transformers ….

While Others Talk About Coronavirus, I Talk About Kris Bryant

The Chicago Tribune had a long and interesting interview with Scott Boras yesterday.  His comments on the Cubs are particularly interesting.  Obviously, Mr. Boras has a viewpoint.  He wants to get the most money for his clients because, among other things, that is the way he gets the most money for himself.  Also, once you get to the level Mr. Boras is at, getting the most money for your client is winning.  And people, especially competitive people like Mr. Boras, like winning.

Which brings us to his comments on the Cubs.  First, he talks about Greg Maddux and the Cubs in 1992: 

“As Greg Maddux neared free agency in 1992 after seven years with the Cubs, he hired Boras and instructed him: ‘I want to win.  I want to win no matter what.’

Bernie and Fidel

Like a lot of people on the left, though possibly more than most, Bernie Sanders has a Fidel Castro problem.  The problem is that Senator Sanders likes him – or, at least, he wants to like him.  Fidel said all the right things.  And he supposedly did all the right things: educating the kids, providing health care to everyone, transforming society.  (There was the lack of freedom, political prisoners, etc., but some people on the left sort of skip over that.) 

The difficulty for this view is that, regardless of what may have happened before 1990, things have gone downhill since the Soviet Union collapsed and money from Moscow stopped coming in.¹  But that apparently hasn’t stopped Senator Sanders from believing, as he said on “60 Minutes” last month:

Joe Biden’s Big Problem: “Why Is Joe Biden’s Son Working For a Ukrainian Energy Company?”

Actually, former Vice President Biden has a number of problems in his campaign, but then so does Donald Trump.  I have made my thoughts about President Trump pretty clear over the last several years, so I won’t go over them again.  Other than to say: Would you trust President Trump if he said he had your back in a fight?

But back to former Vice President Biden.  One of the big brouhahas regarding the former Vice President’s campaign is the job and money that his son, Hunter, got from a Ukrainian gas company while Vice President Biden was in office.  Some people may think this is a manufactured controversy, dug up only now to embarrass former Vice President Biden and hurt his campaign.

Well, it’s not.  It was a problem when it happened.  See this post, “Why Is Joe Biden’s Son Working For a Ukrainian Energy Company?”, from May 14, 2014.  It should have been dealt then, but neither former Vice President Biden nor the Obama administration did anything about it.  And now, former Vice President Biden has to deal with it today – or lose to President Trump in November.
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UPDATE (3/10/20 9:20 am): Cleaned up the wording in the last sentence. 

Theo Didn’t Want Joe Back. Joe Didn’t Want to Stay. Now We Will See How It All Turns Out.

When Joe Maddon’s Angels¹ traveled to Mesa on Monday to play the Cubs at Sloan Park, things were great.  According to Paul Sullivan:

“Like almost every reunion these days in professional sports, Joe Maddon’s return to Sloan Park on Monday afternoon was filled with hugs, laughter and a little revisionist history.”

But then Paul Sullivan asked the question a lot of people have asked:

“But if everything really was as great as Cubs players and Maddon insisted before Monday’s Cubs-Angels game in Mesa, then why did Maddon have to go?

Leaving Afghanistan – This Time It’s Probably for Real

Last weekend, negotiators for the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement which, if implemented, will result in some US forces leaving Afghanistan this year and the rest next year.  I had a few comments, but instead of writing a long post on the agreement and whether it is good or not, etc., I’m just going to list those comments:

1. While some reports called this a “peace agreement,” peace seems unlikely.  The only way there is going to be “peace,” in the sense of no fighting, is if the Taliban wins – and that would not be a peace worth the name.

Where Are the Syrian Refugees Going to Go?

While Joe Biden’s comeback on Super Tuesday and Covid-19 (aka Coronavirus) take up all of the available media space in the United States,¹ a serious problem is developing in Syria/Turkey/Greece.  As Syria, with Russia’s help, tries to regain the territory around Idlib (the last bit of Syria that the Syrian government doesn’t control), Syrians who have been displaced by the civil war in Syria and who have taken refuge in Idlib province have no place to go except Turkey.  But Turkey already has upwards of four million Syrian refugees, and they don’t want any more. 

I realize that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government are not nice people and that democracy/freedom is slowly disappearing in Turkey, but it’s hard not to appreciate, at least to some extent, Turkey’s position. Turkey already has millions of Syrian refugees.  How many more are they supposed to take?  In 2016, after the flood of Middle Eastern and other refugees into Europe, Turkey and the EU entered into an agreement whereby Turkey would limit the number of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers going into Greece and the EU would provide funding to care for the refugees.  In other words, the EU has been paying (bribing-?) Turkey to keep Syrian refugees in Turkey, instead of allowing them to pass through to Europe.