Thoughts of a retired physician

  Today is Reclamation Day. Conservatives have framed freedom, patriotism, and the American flag as concepts they own and that liberals despise. They do not own them and liberals do not despise them. As such, I want to offer some thoughts on why these ideas belong to all Americans. Freedom first; let’s use the Covid-19 pandemic as a lens. We are in the midst of a global catastrophe that requires application of science and public health principles for control; these principles must be enacted in such a manner that everyone shares the responsibility for them, from the individual up to the national level. The use of masks is central for control of the pandemic and yet has engendered resistance from many Americans. The libertarian and conservative stance is that government has no right to limit their liberty by requiring that they wear a mask. By taking this position they pose a risk to themselves and a risk to others for coronavirus infection.  There is an old saw that says “Your liberty

  Another week has gone by and another year in the history books. The wheels on the Trump bus have come off and he is riding on the rims. Multiple Republicans are now distancing themselves from Trump (that took only four years, but whatever). Trump wanted a second debate, angrily backed out when it was made conditional on being a virtual debate, then jammed a town hall in on NBC when Biden at the exact same time had a town hall scheduled on ABC. The result was dueling town halls in which Trump was laid low by a genuine interviewer (Savannah Guthrie) while Biden was collected, rational, and stayed beyond time to answer questions from the audience with no cameras rolling. Crash and burn, Trump. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic continues. The United States has experienced an excess of deaths between March and July 2020 of some 225,000, of which at least 150,000 could be attributed to COVID-19 . When compared to 18 other countries, the USA had excessive all-cause mortality which the aut

  Well, with news occurring at the speed of light, keeping up is a challenge. So today I will write a short post about two important books I recently read. Kurt Andersen is a journalist who has written for Time , The New York Times , and Vanity Fair among others. He has written several novels but the two books I am writing about today are nonfiction: Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History , published in 2017, and Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History , published in 2020. The books are linked in that the first very much helps explain the second. Fantasyland helps us understand what has been called American exceptionalism. In my opinion, American exceptionalism is really American loopiness because we are a nation that wants to believe myths and conspiracy theories rather than, well, facts. Andersen shows that we have always been this way. Our forebears needed no stinkin’ internet to be gullible, poorly informed, and susceptible to a wide variety of

  Why am I reminded of the satiric BBC show of the 1960s That Was The Week That Was ? Except the past week was not satire, it was reality and reality coming at you with the speed of an artillery shell. I feel like Alexandra Petri -- every time I blink some new horror appears , over and over again.As she says, my fragile system can only take so much. To recap briefly, one week ago Donald Trump hosted a Rose Garden event to present Amy Coney Barrett, his nominee to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. There are numerous photos and videos of the event with several hundred people in attendance. There is no social distancing and few are wearing masks. This in the midst of a pandemic of coronavirus, violating the reasonable public health measures to lower risk of infection as well as, well, common sense. Forward to Tuesday and the first presidential debate. Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University and the presidential debate commission set ground rules for

  Each day, as we approach the election, seems like a year. On social media, the ramp-up of opposing posts began long ago and seems to approach an asymptote. A few thoughts on what is happening and what I am doing to navigate these perilous times. Engagement is important and that takes many forms. I have contributed money on multiple occasions to Democratic candidates because, unfortunately, money drives politics. If you have not read Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money: The Hidden History of Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right you need to do so. America has struggled with inequality for many years but the rise of a plutocratic caste of billionaires, intent on amassing ever more wealth and power, seems to me to be central to why we are so polarized today. Sadly, the concept of “one person, one vote” is perverted when a small number of plutocrats can tilt the field away from democracy. Fat cats of the Daddy Warbucks stripe, such as Charles Koch, use their money to finance so-cal

  , Rest in peace, RGB. Rest in power, RGB.We have the watch.

  The view from my window today is terrible. Smoke fills the air, the air quality index in Altadena is 280, and California seems to be aflame. In addition to California, Oregon is also burning, there are fires in Washington State, and other parts of the West are also in crisis due to wildfires. California alone has over 3,000,000 acres burned, an order of magnitude worse than 2019.  A witty saying is that denial is not a river in Egypt. The denial of climate change, which is worsening the fire situation in the Western United States, comes from several sources. The primary funding for denial of climate change has come from the fossil fuel industry. Jane Mayer’s book Dark Money , published in 2016, remains a classic in revealing the immense sums of money spent by fossil fuel sources such as the Koch brothers. The big oil companies additionally spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying (translation: buying votes in Congress and state legislatures) to be certain that government polic