The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us what we look like, which is not not as we may have wished ourselves to be. Although life-saving vaccines are free and easily available everywhere now, less than a third of Americans are fully vaccinated; around 45 percent have had one shot to date.
That leaves a huge swath of the population unvaccinated, and many of them have no intention to fix that.
Therefore, more people will get sick, more people will die, and the mutated virus will almost certainly make a comeback by fall and winter.
That means we are in but a brief window of time when we can feel free to resume life as we lived it pre-pandemic. As I move around the Bay Area, signs of renewal are everywhere. The cafes and bars are crowded; the freeways bustle with traffic.
There are far fewer masks on people in the streets and parks. Fans are returning to the baseball and basketball games; concerts are next. The kids are returnzing to school.
When friends show up, they're not masked, and we might even meet inside the house.
Perhaps the most important change of all -- we can hug each other for the first time in 15 months.
But in the back of the mirror, dark shadows lurk. Elsewhere in the world, the virus is striking down people at lethal rates. It's mutating and spreading like wildfire. Instead of the so-called "vaccine hesitancy" in the U.S., much of the world yet has little or no access to vaccines.
BTW, I hate that term, vaccine hesitancy. The right words would be idiocy, ignorance, selfishness. Seeing this in the mirror tempers any sense of relief or joy.
Another dark wave is coming.
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So nothing is resolved yet in the monumental case of Facebook v. Trump. One of the world's biggest companies is censoring the former president, and it is exceedingly difficult to criticize that decision.
The problem here is that something much bigger than free speech is at stake, but our path forward is being obscured by those who believe in the Big (election) Lie.
Those blocking our view of reality include David Horowitz, the former leftist turned right-wing extremist. An insightful new analysis of his sad and dangerous decline into an apologist for Trump is authored by Ronald Radosh and Sol Stern in the current New Republic.
I urge you to read it.
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The headlines:
* As the Virus Ravages Poorer Countries, Rich Nations Are Springing Back to Life (NYT)
* Our Friend, the Trump Propagandist: David Horowitz (New Republic)
* Instagram fuels rise in black-market sales of maids into Persian Gulf servitude (WP)
* A federal judge has ordered the release of a legal memorandum the Trump-era Justice Department prepared for then-Attorney General William Barr before he announced his conclusion that President Donald Trump had not obstructed justice during the Russia investigation. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the Justice Department had obscured “the true purpose of the memorandum” when it withheld the document. [AP]
* Scotland's electoral bid for independence vote too close to call - poll (Reuters)
* CDC: Only 32% of Americans Fully Vaccinated (CNN)
* Teenagers Are Struggling, and It’s Not Just Lockdown (NYT)
* While Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up about 6% of the U.S. population, they represented a meager 0.9% of federal, state and local elected leaders in 2020. “Our nation is made stronger when its government looks more like the people it represents,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) in a news release. [HuffPost]
* Everything Screams Inflation (WSJ)
* Entire U.S. West Coast Now Covered By Earthquake Early Warning System (NPR)
* Officials work to counter vaccine hesitancy among Latino evangelicals (WP)
* As COVID-19 rages in India, scientist warns further waves 'inevitable' (Reuters)
* U.S. birth rate falls to lowest point since 1979 (WSJ)
* Limiting police officers’ qualified immunity isn’t the only change needed to achieve real police reform (WP)
* How scientists are using a 'romantic solution' to save endangered white abalone (Reuters)
* Drone footage shows that great white sharks are more common on California beaches than you might think. (LAT)
* Nature at its craziest: Trillions of cicadas about to emerge (AP)
* Scientists struggle to understand sea-level risks posed by Antarctica (WP)
* Michigan Wants to Close Oil Pipeline Under the Great Lakes. Canada Says No. (WSJ)
* White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help meet climate targets (Reuters)
* Netanyahu fails to form a governing coalition (WP)
* Man Has Never Given Single Definitive Yes To Any Invitation He's Ever Received (The Onion)
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