At Cacapon State Park – Travel via public transportation versus travel by car – A quiet Thanksgiving celebration – Consumer spending – Trump causes more difficulties for his supporters – The European Parliament and Russia – COVID steadily accelerates – Evening statistics
The past few days have not been without incident, but I have been arriving back home so late or so tired (or both) that trying to make daily entries was simply too much of an effort.
On Tuesday I went with the Vigorous Hikers to Cacapon State Park in West Virginia. This hike was not, in the past, a favorite of mine – chiefly because three miles of it is along a gravel road that leads to Cacapon Mountain Overlook, which is a very popular sight among tourists. We generally have done the hike in the summer, to take advantage of the swimming it offers; and it was not pleasant to walk on the road with cars passing by in both directions and churning dust in the air as they passed. But, as it happens, the road is closed to automobiles from November to April, and under such circumstances the hike becomes much more satisfying. The park center is located in the shadow of a folded mountain ridge, and the views of the valley as one ascends are more extensive in this season, when the leaves have fallen. The route we chose actually ascended the ridgeline twice – both of the ascents are steep and challenging, especially the second one. The Cacapon Mountain Overlook is the highlight of the hike; it is the highest point in the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia and its vista comprises the mountain range going through four states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. We had a splendid day, cold at the beginning but steadily becoming warmer, with clear and intensely blue skies throughout. However, after 16 miles, 3000 feet of elevation gain, and 2 hours of driving in each direction to the trailhead and back, I felt fairly drained by the time I returned home.
From Wednesday to today I was without a car. The malfunction indicator light went on during the drive home from Cacapon, so I took it to the dealership on Wednesday. The mechanics needed more than a day to complete the diagnosis, and of course they were closed on Thursday, so I could not obtain the car again until late this afternoon. In the meantime I had to rely on public transportation. It is illuminating to see to the extent to which residents of American cities are dependent on cars for traveling. You can get to where you want in most cases via public transportation, but it takes longer – significantly so at times – and it requires a good deal more planning. Thus on Thanksgiving, when I visited my friends DC and JC in Franconia, it took several hours to go to their house and back, whereas it normally takes me less than a half-hour to get there by car. In fairness it must be noted that the day was Thanksgiving, when the buses and trains have a restricted schedule. Similarly, today I went to an informal reunion among acquaintances from high school days who live in the area. The meeting took place close to the Glenmont station, at the northernmost station end of the Red Line, and I had to travel from Vienna, the westernmost station of the Orange line – a journey of well over an hour, not counting the bus rides to the Vienna station and back from the Vienna station upon my return. By car the total transportation time in both directions is well under 90 minutes.
My relatives had a Thanksgiving celebration in New York, but I was unable to attend because I’m in the middle of having work done on the electrical system in my house. Still, as the above notes indicate, I was not without resources. I have in fact celebrated the previous two Thanksgiving Days with DC and JC, and we have always enjoyed being together during this time of the year. It is somewhat less stressful for my own part as well; traveling to New York during the week of Thanksgiving is exhausting, whether by car, train, bus, or airplane.
I have made a strenuous effort to avoid the stores, as I generally do on Black Friday. It appears that on this occasion I am not alone. The number of shoppers who have gone to stores in person is lower this year than usual. Many prefer to order online instead. This doesn’t mean that sales are down – quite the contrary. Many households have saved money over the past two years, due to spending less on travel and entertainment; low unemployment rates and increases in wages have also been important factors. They now have money to spend, and they are doing so enthusiastically. Consumers have been shopping earlier this year and retail spending in October was up 1.3% over a year ago. Online shopping has gone up to a record $5.29 billion this Thanksgiving, a 2.9% increase over the amount spent last year.
The unfortunate advocates of Donald Trump are frantically working at damage control after he dined at his club with Kanye West, who has recently been under fire for his avowed anti-Semitism, and a somewhat incongruous fellow-guest: Nick Fuentes, a notorious white supremacist. Trump later claimed that Fuentes had been invited by West and that he himself was taken by surprise when West unexpectedly brought Fuentes with him to the dinner. It seems very unlikely, to put it mildly, that either the security staff at Mar-a-Lago or the Secret Service personnel looking after an ex-President were unaware of Fuentes’ identity, or that they would have failed to inform Trump of the fact. “This is a fucking nightmare,” said one longtime Trump adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of stoking the former president’s ire at “disloyal” people who criticize him. “If people are looking at DeSantis to run against Trump, here’s another reason why.” They have another problem to contend with as well: E. Jean Carroll has filed a suit against Trump for sexual assault, under the Adult Survivors Act, a new law in New York that opened a one-year window for adult victims of such attacks to file claims. As the case gains momentum, at least a few women who supported Trump in the past are bound to be alienated from him.
The European Parliament designated Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. The move is largely symbolic, since the European Union does not have a legal framework in place to back it up. Still, as a mere observation, it is so innocent and so honest that it amounts to a very good thing for a parliament to say. Unfortunately, the U.S. State Department has not followed suit. Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria are designated as terrorist sponsors, but up to this point Russia has not been added to the list.
Where is COVID in the midst of all of this? The omicron variant is now a year old, but it is driving COVID case counts higher in many places, forming a prelude to a wave that experts expect to soon wash over the U.S. As of Tuesday, new COVID cases averaged around 39,300 a day, which is far lower than that of last winter. However, this figure is a significant undercount because of reduced testing and reporting. About 28,000 people with COVID were hospitalized daily and about 340 died. Dr. Nicholas Vasquez, a physician in Phoenix, said that his hospital admitted a growing number of chronically ill people and nursing home residents with severe COVID this month. “It’s been quite a while since we needed to have COVID wards,” he added. “It’s making a clear comeback.”
Today’s statistics as of 9:30 PM – # of cases worldwide: 645,626,817; # of deaths worldwide: 6,635,241; # of cases U.S.: 100,456,053; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,104,743. The number of COVID-related deaths in this country is still disproportionately high – over 16% of the global total, when we account for only 4% of the global population. The U.S. ranks 58th in the list of countries of COVID cases-to-population ratio, but ranks 16th in the list of countries by COVID mortality rate.