Thank you Mr. President for not causing a panic

US covid cases: 6,788,647
US covid deaths: 200,217
Cases per 1 million: 20,484
Death per 1 million: 604

A discount not worth taking

 A discount not worth taking

In their rush to get the 737 Max into the skies, Boeing execs hit upon a marketing ploy. They offered Southwest Airlines, considering purchasing two hundred of the 737 Max, a million dollar per plane discount if Boeing was required by the FAA to have pilots take flight simulator training on the Max. This would cost the airline time and money getting the Max operational. So Southwest bought into Boeing’s scheme, not demanding simulator training as part of its huge purchase. Boeing successfully lobbied the FAA to approve of the Max without having to incur pilot simulator training by falsely claiming the Max was just a minor upgrade to the most current 737, the NG. It wasn’t. Its design flaw, engines so large they risked stalling the plane in flight, was catastrophic.

The FAA, cutting corners itself, said ‘Sure’ and everyone benefited. Southwest got the Max operating on schedule to increase profits. Boeing avoided a million dollar a plane penalty while increasing its profits. The FAA saved money and manpower not extending the approval process; relying instead on Boeing expertise and honesty. But 347 passengers and crew on two foreign airlines paid a steep penalty…their lives, when the defective and criminally certified airplane foiled two airplane crews’ valiant efforts to keep the Max planes from their death dive. Had Southwest execs simply told Boeing to forget the discount offer, demanding that the substantially different Max require pilot simulator training, those 347 folks would still be walking around. And Boeing would not have traded a few billions in quick profits for the so far $18 billion and rising cost of doing right what they should have from the get-go.

That’s American capitalism at work…cutting corners which sometimes cuts down lives.

Is Trump trying to get us all killed?

After following politics for nearly 70 years, I never thought the unthinkable: Is the president trying to get us all killed? No, not all 330 million of us. But enough to strike fear in every citizen who values life in this country. It started early in the most unpresidential of the 45 administrations under which we have been governed. Promoting life over death has never appeared in the Trump Play Book. But death constantly hovers over every important issue.

In foreign affairs Trump spoke of ending our forever wars but ended none. He came close enough to starting a new one with North Korea that Defense Secretary James Mattis slept in his clothes and prayed at the National Cathedral over Trump’s threat to visit ‘fire and fury’ upon North Korea. Trump withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, the most war saving measure in a generation, nearly igniting a second new war when Iran wouldn’t cave to his belligerence. Assassinating Iran’s top general and getting thousands of Iranians killed with crippling sanctions would have triggered massive retaliation had Iran the means. No wonder the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock hand just 80 tics away from Nuclear Winter.

But it’s on the domestic front that Trump’s death dance entered new territory. He campaigned on abolishing Obamacare which saved tens of thousands of lives bringing health insurance to 20 million. When pandemic struck, Trump didn’t fret the hundreds of thousands dead or destined to die. He split the country in two by covering it up, claiming it was a Democratic hoax, a nothingburger, to protect his re-election chances. He’s even given a death sentence to some of his most fervent supporters by packing them into his mask free rallies, while he brags about his being protected at the distant podium of fear and loathing. He’s encouraged Health & Human Services official Mike Caputo to warn “shooting will begin” if Democrats contest Trump’s inevitable re-election. Dozens dead in millions of burned out Western acres made nary a dent in climate denier Trump. “It will get cooler…just you watch”. When called out over his science denial, Trump replied “I don’t think science knows”.

Never before have these words applied to a president: “After me, the deluge”.

Bears covid party nearby demonstrates covid rise in DuPage

Before I saw the 30 or so 20 somethings packed shoulder to shoulder sans masks on a front lawn a few hundred feet from my house, I heard the radio blaring the return of Chicago Bear football. Rounding the corner running errands I was shocked to see a sight here not seen since early March. It helps explain why DuPage is among 30 of Illinois' 102 counties on the covid spike list. The Bears won and, who knows, may be headed for the Super Bowl. If so, wonder how many of those fans might miss it, headed for degraded health or even the crematorium.

My 911 Anniversary Lament

The anniversary of the 911 attacks is laser focused on the 2,977 killed, over 6,000 injured and the economic loss of the World Trade Center and its businesses. There is no mention of the hundreds of thousands killed, including 8,366 U.S. military and contractor personnel, and millions maimed or displaced by senseless wars against Afghanistan and Iraq that kicked off the War On Terror. These wars ushered in the era of perpetual war which added more millions of dead, injured or displaced in Libya, Syria and Yemen. It would be more appropriate to use the 911 anniversary to confront the horrendous path of murder and mayhem the U.S. embarked upon to satisfy our collective thirst for revenge.

But rather than focus on the perpetrators and their support system coming out of Saudi Arabia, the U.S. pivoted to exploit the 911 attacks to remake the Middle East in its image at the point of a gun. The road to Iran, we were propagandized, led straight thru Afghanistan and Iraq. But nineteen years after waste and defeat in both countries, we refuse to leave. We’re essentially at war with Iran, assassinating their top general and imposing crippling sanctions that kill just as ruthlessly as bombs. It would not take much of a miscalculation on either side for an all out shooting war to begin.

We should use the 911 anniversary to confront these issues. We should honor the victims by striving to get out of the perpetual war business. Besides the 8,366 killed and hundreds of thousands damaged in body and mind, we’ve squandered trillions in treasure better used to solve monumental problems at home like pandemic and resulting economic collapse.

That’s what comes to my mind on each anniversary of 911.