If you’re a business owner, employee or retiree who found it tough to crack a smile this past week — join the club.
When I was a junior at Penn State, I had a front-row seat when legendary singer-songwriter John Prine performed on campus.
Wear masks
This is another plea to our community — young and old — to take social distancing seriously.
I sure hope this coronavirus crisis comes to an end soon.
You’re the crazy one!
Kansas last week was the first state to shut its public schools for the remainder of the school year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Virginia followed suit on Monday. Other states — Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware — extended their closures until late April or mid-May while saying lon…
With the U.S. economy running on all cylinders, enter the coronavirus. Whatever you think of this virus and how people label it — a chastisement from God, a Chinese biological weapon, a wicked strain of the flu, its economic damage is considerable having slayed and flayed an 11-year, unprece…
One month ago, President Donald Trump expressed great confidence in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,” he said, “that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” Now the United States has more tha…
Before covid-19, I would speak every Sunday before thousands of people gathered for church from across the Washington, D.C., area. Now the scene is vastly different. I stand alone on a stage in a cavernous room, staring into a camera surrounded by vacant seats. You’d think it would be hard t…
Infected overflow
“I hope u get it and soon pass away,” a reader emailed me in response to my March 14 column highlighting President Donald Trump’s chaotic and confusing contribution to the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak.
While it’s all-hands-on-deck fighting the invasion of an alien virus, it’s an ideal time to fight our continuing invasion of aliens, too.
The wholesale damage that the coronavirus is inflicting is enormous and indiscriminate. No corner of life is untouched, and virtually no system remains undamaged.
Party of life?
Let’s set this up
For many of us, the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic registers in new awkward work-from-home arrangements and the struggle to keep our cooped-up kids productively occupied.
Every four-year-old knows the official coronavirus drill by now.
The tension between the media and technology industries has long been characterized as a fight for users’ attention. The more of it they have, the greater the opportunity to sell new products and services.
We can’t believe we even have to say this but here it goes: Grandparents must not be sacrificed to save our economy.
The dirty rotten crooks.
To the editor: All actions taken to combat this virus are centered around “social spacing” and accented by closing of all non-essential businesses. Our government, on all levels, is closing businesses and activities that may have individuals congregating in large groups, which can, with phys…
Titanic Trump
To the editor: Last week, I received a message through Facebook about Nancy Pelosi and her Pinocchio nose as a result of all the lies she tells. The message should have included her other terrible actions. The list is long and based on evidence but her followers will never face the truth. He…
Apply now
As cases of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) continue to pop up across the United States, you’ve probably heard phrases like “flattening the curve” and “social distancing.” But what do they mean?
Over the past 24 hours or so, President Donald Trump has signaled a desire to reopen the American economy despite the accelerating spread of coronavirus. He’s suggested that he might reverse strict measures instituted over the past week-plus sooner rather than later.
The COVID-19 epidemic is inflicting grievous damage on American lives and the economy. It may also mark a decline in U.S. leadership in the world. If so, the loss will be particularly regrettable, because even more than the other injuries, the diplomatic harm will have been senseless and sel…
Even before the novel coronavirus appeared, many American families were falling behind on student loans, auto loans, credit cards and other payments. America’s debt overhead was pricing its labor and industry out of world markets. A debt crisis was inevitable eventually, but covid-19 has mad…
What does “essential” mean?
Grow up
Even before the coronavirus sent the stock market reeling, the economy was weaker than most press reports were admitting. Most of the new wealth created by working Americans is going to the very wealthy and nothing that the current administration is doing is likely to change that. Without ne…
No masks
Just as the Great Recession revealed the need for better long-term financial regulation, the unfolding COVID-19 national health emergency reveals the need for better state-level public health policy.
In its wake, the Coronavirus has disrupted and closed businesses, schools and even churches, while every professional sports league has suspended operations. The NCAA has canceled their celebrated March Madness basketball tournament, a first in its long history.
Nothing sticks to Donald Trump. The teflon Don sounded again like one of those old vinyl phonograph records worn out because it’s been used so many times.
It is yet another sign of our political dysfunction that a government that dithered for weeks before getting serious about fighting a global pandemic now can’t take a few days for thoughtful debate about how to spend a trillion dollars to deal with the economic fallout.
There is no point in denying reality, which has become clear with frightening speed: The U.S. and global economies have gone from fairly robust stability to free fall. There is hope that public health measures may succeed in halting the virus, the downward slide may be arrested — and normal …
AOAA risk
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Geraldine “Geri” L. Yordy Evans, 80, passed away Friday, March 6, 2020, in Las Vegas, Nevada, after a three-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
The United States will be hit hard by the coronavirus. But it has a secret weapon that could lessen the health impact: the way we live.
Misled public
Just in time for the nationwide observance of Sunshine Week, the Pennsylvania Legislature has given us an unequivocal reminder (no irony intended, just business as usual) of why we must keep the spotlight of public scrutiny trained unrelentingly on our government.
Two or three times a year, falling trees knock out power at my home, in a heavily wooded section of Central California. When outages stretch over several days food in our refrigerator goes bad, cellphones run down, and flashlight batteries fail. Sometimes roads are impassible and my wife and…
Hospitals
When a coronavirus infection advances through the body in more severe cases, the lungs begin to fill with fluid and breathing becomes difficult. In a hospital intensive care unit, lifesaving ventilators can help a patient survive by pumping oxygen into the impaired lungs. But what if thousan…
Shortly after President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel got into a bit of hot water when he observed to an interviewer, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
Parents’ responsibility
A coronavirus epidemic is now inevitable in the United States, but appropriate, large-scale public health measures can still forestall the worst scenarios. Similarly, economic damage is inevitable, yet large-scale monetary and fiscal measures can prevent the worst from happening in that realm.
At least 56,000 schools across the United States are closed or planning to close in an urgent effort to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Some 29.5 million children in grades K-12 will be affected, with impacts not just on learning but also on the health and well-being of many stude…
Only 15 miles from ALEC headquarters in Arlington, Virginia lies a relic of a bygone era: the Lorton Workhouse and Reformatory. Originally built in 1910 by the very prisoners it would house, shortly after its opening it became the home of the Silent Sentinels – women who stood in front of th…
Coal region smart
To the editor: Who could imagine that a microscopic pathogen so small that it can only be seen by an electron microscope capable of seeing things on the molecular level could suddenly sweep across the globe and bring such illness, death, fear, panic and havoc? It reminds us humans how fragil…
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