Category: Journal Entry

The Republican Convention – The debates – The vanishing department store – Hurricane Laura – Evening statistics

The Republican Convention is now over.  I’m a bit tempted to brush the matter aside in the same way that Voltaire once deflected an inquiry as to whether Catherine the Great had murdered her husband in order to become the ruler of Russia:  “These are family matters in which I do not mix.”  There were times when one had the impression of alighting upon a family reunion instead of a political event.  This impression was reinforced by Ivanka Trump’s speech on the final night; whenever she referred to various Presidential decisions she consistently used the words “our” and “we.”  Embarrassing as it is to admit, I wasn’t aware that the country had elected her as well when Donald Trump assumed office.  One lives and learns.

But, no – such excuses are too craven.  The task must be faced somehow or other.  Writing about headlines and national events from the privacy of one’s home desktop with no accountability whatever to anyone else may appear to be a soft, cushy job; but someone has to do it.  To begin, then:

I think that even those most kindly disposed towards the GOP must admit that the Convention was plagued by a certain degree of incoherence.  I do not fault it for praising its candidates extravagantly or abusing the opposite party; that, after all, is what conventions do.  The Democrats did precisely the same thing a week before.  But the Democratic Convention did outline certain policies it intends to pursue and constructed a defined platform, whereas the Republican Convention explicitly renounced defining a platform of any kind and concentrated its energies in demonstrating what a wonderful man Donald Trump must be – and so indeed he is, using the word in its literal rather than its derived sense:  it is a wonder that a man such as he could have attained political power at all.  No one appears to have reflected that either in 2021 or 2025 Donald Trump will no longer be occupying the Oval Office and that it would have shown a degree of foresight to indicate the direction in which the party will go after this cherished omnipotence of theirs vanishes from the political scene.

The Convention featured several highlights, amongst whom Kimberly Guilfoyle occupies a very eminent place.  During her exhortation on Monday, she seemed determined to prove that if she could not be persuasive enough or logical enough or compelling enough, she could at any rate be loud enough.  Wagnerian sopranos playing Valkyries must be gaping in awe and envy at her lung-power, and at times I wondered if she had been coached to declaim the entire opera of Götterdämmerung single-handed.  Comparisons of her to Rita Repulsa, Malificent, the Wicked Witch of the West, and other histrionic villainesses rapidly emerged via Internet after her speech (Trump’s beloved Twitter, ironically, being a major supplier of these).  One commentator, possibly indulging in a touch of hyperbole, claimed that he could have heard Guilfoyle from several miles away without going to the trouble of turning his television on.  If she didn’t break the sound barrier, it certainly was not for lack of trying.  Not even Dana White, president of the UFC (who spoke or I should rather say shouted on the final night), a sports organization known for its rather emphatic style of delivery, could outdo her in volume.

Many observers honed in on the glassy-eyed stare with which Donald Trump Jr. delivered the speech that followed, speculating on whether cocaine could account for it.  The simpler explanation is that he, like his girlfriend, had anticipated delivering his words before a live audience and was disconcerted by being compelled to speak virtually.

Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, defied all rules of precedence by speaking at the convention.  Secretaries of State are expected to be non-partisan and to restrict themselves from making political statements of any kind during their term of office.  Several of Pompeo’s predecessors defended the independence of their position with passionate intensity.  But all is fish that comes to Trump’s net.  Whoever acquires an appointment in his administration becomes his crony and automatically does his bidding, with no regard to accepted practice or, it may be added, to personal dignity and self-respect. 

Say what you will about Donald Trump, he does not lack for audacity.  He delivered the concluding remarks from the Truman Balcony, as if daring anyone to challenge his use of the White House as background for a political convention (and was anyone else reminded of Mussolini making the declaration of the Italian Empire in May, 1936, while speaking from the balcony of the Palazzio Venezia in Rome?  No?  All right, then, we can move on).  As for the actual content of his remarks, it clearly does not become so feeble and inexperienced a pen as mine to venture any sort of comment at all.  I shrink from the suggestion of subjecting his words to any set of criteria that is merely mortal.  My imagination instead hastens, with dazzled eyes and hesitant pace, to back away quietly, respectfully, and discreetly from the Majestic Presence, not neglecting the obligatory reverent grovels in the direction of our Supreme Leader – oh, wait, that’s the title of a different national head of state.

It would be unfair to present the Convention as a series of blunders.  Nikki Haley’s advocacy of Trump’s foreign policy was forceful and energetic, but never over-the-top and, for that reason, she was much more effective than the majority of Trump’s groupies.  Jim Jordan took me (and, as I suspect, many others) completely by surprise when he related how Trump telephoned him and condoled with him after the death of Jordan’s nephew in a car accident, speaking to him at length and with great consideration.  I am simply astounded to learn that Trump could be capable of such a degree of empathy.   

Melania Trump (a much more compassionate person than her husband, which quality came through very clearly during her speech on Tuesday) did her level best to re-enforce this impression, and it is true that he appears to have treated her with fidelity, possibly even with affection.  I doubt very much whether his first two wives, had they been allowed to contribute to the proceedings, would have given him such a favorable appraisal. 

For all of the fear-mongering directed at the Democrats throughout the four days, Daniel Cameron, the attorney general of Kentucky, delivered perhaps the only genuinely telling criticism of Joe Biden during the entire convention.  Referring to Biden’s comment that those African-Americans who did not vote Democratic “ain’t black” he gave this spirited response:  “I am not in chains. My mind is my own. And you can’t tell me how to vote because of the color of my skin.”  Biden will have to do a bit of back-pedaling during the campaign to come as a result. 

Dan Crenshaw never mentioned Trump by name in his brief speech, but he is a formidable presence to have on one’s side, analogous to that of Tammy Duckworth for the Democrats:  a former Navy SEAL, who lost one eye as a result of an IED explosion and who was just able to retain sight in the other, but who remained in the Navy for four years after this attack, and who has been awarded two Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart, and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with valor.  He is by no means a puppet of Trump; he has publicly criticized the President on several occasions, notably just last year in opposition to Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria.  His speech spoke of the heroism of those who serve in armed forces and it included a remembrance of the fellow-soldier who saved his life and who then lost his own a few weeks afterwards in another attack from ISIS, a tribute that even political opponents, if they have any humanity at all, should admit to be moving.

There were fleeting moments during the speeches of Cameron, Crenshaw, Tim Scott, and Madison Cawthorn when I could have imagined myself transported to the Republican Party as it was before it had surrendered to Trumpean captivity:  a party that was far from perfect, to be sure, but one which projected a message of optimism and positivity, without a trace of the snarling anger that it now displays towards anyone who ventures a breath of criticism towards its new idol.  But the impression was only temporary; for the most part, the convention was dominated by the obeisances and genuflections its speakers were paying as tribute towards the gilded Ba’al that is Donald Trump.

The death toll from the COVID-19 virus (now rapidly approaching 200,000 and showing no signs of ceasing) and the crippling strain our hospital system is undergoing by treating tens of thousands of additional patients were never mentioned:  that was more or less a matter of course in an event dedicated to showcasing Donald Trump’s triumphs.  Although I’m sure he could have glossed over the matter on this occasion, had he been so inclined.  There are so many to whom he could ascribe the mistakes and the irresponsibility, so that after he distributed the due amount of blame to China, the WHO, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, the CNN network, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Dr. Fauci, Deborah Birx, the CDC, Antifa, and the Democrats generally, there might be a mere trifle of reproach left for himself.  Melania Trump, it is true, did say that her husband would not cease in his efforts to obtain a vaccine;  other than that, a visitor from another planet who dropped in to watch the convention would have no idea that such a virus existed.  For that matter, the attendees grouped upon the South Lawn to hear Trump’s final speech in person appeared as ignorant as my hypothetical extra-terrestrial:  there must have been about 1,500 of them, and they were all standing within inches of one another, with few of them wearing masks.

I am interested to see how Mike Pence will do in his debate with Kamala Harris in October.  His performance in the Convention was on a par with his service as Vice President generally.  Nothing about his speech stood out particularly and it fell far short of that combination of intelligence and vigor that is Harris’s trademark, but it was a moderately good workaday effort.  At no point did he ever become as offensive as his superior.  In short, he has been the same ethereal shadowy presence within the administration that we have hitherto known, and there was no indication one way or another whether he will be able to cope with someone of Harris’s caliber.  Incidentally, Karen Pence, the VP’s wife, steered quite cautiously around the topic of what it is like working in the Trump administration, bestowing upon the President little in the way of praise or dispraise and indeed keeping her references to him to a bare minimum; and I would not be at all surprised to learn that she does not like him very much.

I have discussed the Republican Convention in greater detail than the Democratic Convention – not, as should be apparent, because I favor its candidates but because its quality was somewhat more  . . . uneven, shall we say.  As I remarked after the Democratic Convention was over, the organizers of the event knew from the start that the speakers would have to speak virtually, and the preparation they made to accommodate this circumstance was evident from the first day onwards.  None of the speakers appeared uncomfortable or nonplussed within this new format and they did not resort to rhetorical techniques that would work well before a live audience but would be less effective coming from a person onscreen. 

This is not to say that no speakers stood out.  Who can forget Michelle Obama’s eloquent tribute to her husband’s achievements as President and her withering description of the shameful contrast made by his successor?  Jill Biden, in a more understated way, brought out the basic decency and honorability that has characterized Joe Biden from the onset of his career.  The speech by Gabrielle Giffords could not fail to be poignant by the very circumstances under which it was delivered:  here is a woman who was shot in the head nine years ago and who fought steadily to make a lengthy and painful recovery, presenting the longest speech she has made since the shooting took place.  It would have been understandable if she faltered or hesitated at times.  But she did not.  People behind the scenes said that she worked tirelessly to ensure that her delivery would be seamless onscreen, and seamless it certainly was.  “Inspiring” can be an overused word, but in this case there simply is no other that can describe so flawless a triumph.  And Biden himself, as I noted, shone during the final night.  He was incisive and fiery and energetic, delivering his remarks without a trace of the “sleepiness” Trump continues to ascribe to him. 

Occasionally, too, effects fell flat.  Some of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s jokes were distracting rather than humorous.  John Kasich’s use of a crossroads background while delivering a speech about the nation standing at a crossroads was heavy-handed, and it inspired a minor Internet meme as a result.  Tony Evers, the governor of Wisconsin, wobbled a bit in his brief speech on the third night.  But, in general, there were no major errors and no one gave the impression of being caught by surprise when confronted with the task of speaking before an audience that was not live.

The Republicans, by way of contrast, were in many cases visibly struggling with the new format.  It is easy to make facetious remarks about Guilfoyle’s performance, as I did just a few paragraphs earlier and as many others have done on social media, but there can be no doubt that while she was speaking she had an image of herself being spurred on by a cheering crowd.  She probably would have been ludicrous in any case, but she might have been less so if she were speaking in front of a live audience that was gradually being whipped up into a frenzy by her impassioned words.  (Actually, the picture that that supposition conjures is a bit frightening.)  More typically, however, the speakers seemed simply rather uncomfortable speaking without the presence of others in front of them to provide springboards through their emotional responses:  Kristi Noem, for instance, whose delivery at times seemed zombie-like.  Donald Trump himself, during his acceptance address, was clearly ill-at-ease speaking with the aid of a teleprompter, fettered because he was unable to indulge in his characteristic freewheeling antics in a crowded stadium crammed to the rafters with spectators.

There is poetic justice in this outcome. For months Trump has denied the significance of the virus and has persistently declined to follow the guidelines of Dr. Fauci and the CDC.  Even after the failure of the rally in Tulsa during late June, he continued his attempts to hold a live convention, first at Charlotte and then, after the governor of the state resolutely demanded that the attendees observe the restrictions in effect with regard to large gatherings (social distancing, continual use of face masks, etc.), moving the location to Jacksonville, which eventually proved to be a hotbed of infection to which delegates were unwilling to travel.  It was only a few weeks ago that he caved in at last and realized that the convention must be done virtually if it were to be held at all.  The participants were caught offguard and had to revamp their presentations hastily, and as a consequence of Trump’s obstinacy the Republican Convention seemed clumsier and even at times amateurish in comparison with its Democratic counterpart.

The Convention has dominated much of the week but while today is relatively relaxed the next two months will be swept up in the turmoil of the upcoming election.  Thankfully, Biden has refused to be swayed by Nancy Pelosi and will encounter Trump at all three debates.  The schedule is:

• Presidential Debate 1, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH – September 29
• Presidential Debate 2, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, FL –October 15
• Presidential Debate 3, Belmont University, Nashville, TN – October 22
• Vice-Presidential Debate, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT – October 7

They will be odd affairs.  The participants will be set at podiums at least six feet apart and will have to take care not to invade one another’s body space – a restriction that is bound to make Donald Trump chafe.  Biden, of course, has undergone one debate under such conditions when he contended with Bernie Sanders for the nomination.  Interestingly, Trump has sent mixed signals as to whether or not he will participate.  He has said that he did not trust the Commission on Presidential Debates (it’s a nonpartisan entity).  But since then he has claimed to be “looking forward” to debating with Biden, and there was even talk in June about setting up a fourth debate.  In short, no one knows at this point which course Trump will take; probably Trump himself knows least at all. 

The virus has claimed yet another casualty.  Lord & Taylor, a department chain store that has supplied products for nearly 200 years, has declared bankruptcy and announced that all of its remaining stores will close.  Retailers such as Lord & Taylor were struggling against the shift to online shopping even before the COVID virus caused sales from stores like them to decline – dropping 8.7% in March alone.  More than 250,000 stores that sell non-essential merchandise – such as Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Nike –have been shuttered since mid-March, accounting for 60% of the U.S. retail square footage.

Hurricane Laura did not prove to be “unsurvivable,” as it was described before it made landfall, but the damage it caused in Louisiana and to a lesser extent in Texas was severe.  Over 700,000 residents have no electric power and eight million are still under a flash flood watch.  It is projected to reach our area tomorrow evening.  By this time the wind speeds have dropped down to 35 MPH but the storm still may create tornadoes in its wake. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 24,887,997; # of deaths worldwide: 840,424; # of cases U.S.: 6,094,220; # of deaths U.S.: 185,866.

New treatment for pancreatic cancer – COVID and Californian Latinos – Biden and Harris take the offensive – Well-meant but mistaken advice from Nancy Pelosi – Hurricane Laura – Evening statistics

A study has come out suggesting a methodology for detection of pancreatic cancer in its early stages, when it is much more treatable.  I am glad to hear of this development.  It is a cruel disease.  I lost one close friend four years ago who was afflicted by it.  He actually did get it detected early, quite by accident (he had had a blood sample taken for diagnosing a much less severe ailment, and when it was noted that the white blood cell count was high, the examiners probed further to find the root cause).  The tumor was removed successful and eventually, after intensive radiation and chemotherapy treatment, he went into remission.  These treatments left him very weak, but he led a normal life for the next nine years.  Then cancerous cells returned to his pancreas and this time they proved to be untreatable.  There is a melancholy pleasure in the reflection that I was able to get away to visit him in Chicago, when he was still strong enough to walk, and we spent a day together in the Chicago Botanical Garden.  It was mid-May and the weather up to this point had been rather cool and damp, as it often is in Chicago at that time of the year; but the day we came to the gardens it was sunny and warm, and we could stroll about the paths at our leisure.  Three months later he was gone.

Latinos in California have been particularly afflicted by the coronavirus.  Of the deaths attributed to the virus in the state (well over 12,000), over half of them are Latino.  They are especially susceptible because the majority of them are working in jobs that cannot be performed from their homes:  farm workers, landscape workers, construction workers, truck drivers, bus drivers, shelf stockers for grocery stores, checkout clerks, automobile mechanics, office cleaners, nursing home attendants – all of the occupations, in short, that keep the social machinery operative and that in normal times are taken for granted.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not waiting for the Republican Convention to end before going into attack mode on Donald Trump.  They have each delivered speeches condemning Trump’s response, or lack thereof, to the COVID virus and Harris, in addition, has spoken rather disrespectfully of the Convention itself, stating that its purpose has been to “soothe Donald Trump’s ego.”  I applaud the timing of this maneuver.  Over the past several weeks they have been content to allow Trump to blunder continually and appear increasingly inept without commenting on his record directly; but now that they are formally nominated they are taking a much more active role.   And what better moment to choose than the present one, when Trump and Pence are distracted with trying to wind up the Convention?  I hope that they do not slacken in their efforts over the next two months. The mistake of the campaign on behalf of Hillary Clinton was too great a reliance on the polls.  The polls are certainly favorable, but Biden must not mistake them for a guarantee of victory.

Biden, unfortunately, is saddled with some bad advisors.  Nancy Pelosi has stated that she doesn’t think that Biden should agree to debate with Trump, on the grounds that Trump will “probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.”  While she is perfectly justified in predicting that Trump will behave improperly, she doesn’t seem to understand that if Biden makes an effort to avoid debating Trump, the latter will appear victorious.  No one wins a battle by quitting the field and leaving the enemy in possession.  Biden has said in a subsequent interview that he intends to move forward with the debates despite Pelosi’s counsel; I hope he has the resolution to adhere to this decision.

Hurricane Laura has made landfall in Louisiana, the most intense storm to hit the state in 164 years.  A large portion of southwest Louisiana is under water, with entire communities flooded.  It is now moving north and east, having downgraded to a tropical storm in the process but still striking Arkansas with sufficient force as to make major highways unusable.  The combination of the damage inflicted by the hurricane, the wildfires in California, and a derecho that struck Iowa a couple of weeks earlier, will probably deplete the money available for emergency unemployment aid. 

The number of catastrophes that have been occurring this year seems infinite.  Every time one exclaims “how can matters get worse?” they promptly deteriorate even more.

“Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’?  I am worse than e’er I was. . . .
“And worse I may be yet.  The worst is not
“So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’”

(Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1)

A gloomy entry today!  And I have not even mentioned Jacob Blake, the latest victim of over-zealous law enforcement officers, propelling yet another round of urban violence and sowing mistrust even among the most patriotic African-Americans. When will this vicious cycle end?  It is even more destructive than the virus in the long run.

But perhaps the Republican Convention, scheduled to end tonight, will terminate in an aura of hope or, failing that, will at any rate provide some comic relief.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 24,604,235; # of deaths worldwide: 834,758; # of cases U.S.: 6,045,068; # of deaths U.S.: 184,764.

Recovery – Students returning to schools physically:  pro and contra – New guidelines from the CDC – Preferences of appearances over realities – Evening statistics

I slept well last night and felt almost completely recovered this morning.  I strolled eight miles today without feeling at all tired afterwards, so matters are back to normal.  EB tells me that the new shingles vaccine is supposed to be effective for life, so that after the follow-up shot in October or November I will not have to get it again.  It was encouraging to hear this news; the experience of yesterday was disquieting, though it was happily short-lived. 

Here are two stories illustrating the pros and cons of allowing students to return to schools and to be present in the classrooms physically:

Jana Coomb’s five-year old son was prepared to attend school in Coweta County, Georgia, when the administrators decided to rely on virtual instruction instead.  During one of the online lessons, Coombs saw that her son was struggling with trying to assimilate to a distance learning lifestyle. He became so upset with the experience that he put his head down and cried, using his t-shirt to wipe his tears.  She took a photo of him in this distraught state and posted it to social media.  “I just took that picture because I wanted people to see reality,” she said. 

I sympathize with her attitude.  Not all children take to Internet like a duck to water.  Many will find the experience of learning online a difficult and frustrating experience.  They will also miss out on valuable inter-personal skills if they remain at home all of the time and rarely come into contact with children of their own age outside of their siblings.  It’s difficult for parents as well.  In numerous households both parents are working.  Not all of them have the luxury of being able to work from home.  There can be no doubt that if our educational system goes entirely virtual, its quality will decline in many ways and that some children, particularly those who live in the poorer regions, will miss out on it altogether.

But would Jana Coombs have been better pleased if she lived in the neighboring state of Florida, where parents were allowed to send their children to the schools that reopened this month and where within 15 days nearly 9,000 children were stricken with the virus?  Even though the death toll among this group is low up to this point, no one has any idea what the long-term effects of the virus are.  It is distinctly possible that a significant portion of these 9,000 will have to deal with heart and lung problems for the remainder of their lives.

I’m very glad that I’m not an educational administrator.  The problem seems to me insolvable.  No matter what decision they make, children and adolescents will be adversely affected in one way or another.  My own belief is that gatherings of large groups of people in small enclosed spaces should be avoided at any cost, but I do not delude myself that the cost will be insignificant.

The CDC has made a puzzling update to its guidelines.  It now says that if anyone has come into close contact with a person with a COVID infection but is asymptomatic himself does not need to undergo testing unless he is vulnerable or unless “your health care provider or state or local public health officials recommend you take one.”  I’m simply bewildered by this, and I am not alone.  Among other things, it means that testing criteria will now vary from state to state, or even from county to county.  It sounds like a recipe for complete confusion.  The timing of this announcement is rather suspicious; it came when Dr. Fauci was undergoing surgery to remove a polyp from his vocal cords and thus was not in a position to speak out against it.  “I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is,” he said, after he emerged from anesthesia and learned what had occurred during his absence.  The assumption is that the CDC was pressured from above; and this assumption is bolstered by the general attitude of the current administration towards testing.  Less testing will naturally result in fewer test positives, and thus the official figures will be driven down.  No one will be any the healthier for it, but at any rate matters will appear to be improved.

This preference for decorous appearances over the realities that their surfaces may conceal is nothing new:

“In the proportion that credulity is a more peaceful possession of the mind than curiosity, so far preferable is that wisdom which converses about the surface to that pretended philosophy which enters into the depths of things and then comes gravely back with informations and discoveries, that in the inside they are good for nothing.  The two senses to which all objects first address themselves are the sight and the touch; these never examine farther than the colour, the shape, the size, and whatever other qualities dwell or are drawn by art upon the outward of bodies; and then comes reason officiously, with tools for cutting, and opening, and mangling, and piercing, offering to demonstrate that they are not of the same consistence quite through.  Now I take all this to be the last degree of perverting Nature, one of whose eternal laws it is to put her best furniture forward.  And therefore, in order to save the charges of all such expensive anatomy for the time to come, I do here think fit to inform the reader that in such conclusions as these reason is certainly in the right; and that in most corporeal beings which have fallen under my cognizance, the outside hath been infinitely preferable to the in, whereof I have been further convinced from some late experiments.  Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse.  Yesterday I ordered the carcass of a news anchor* to be stripped in my presence, when we were all amazed to find so many unsuspected faults under one suit of clothes.  Then I laid open his brain, his heart, and his spleen, but I plainly perceived at every operation that the farther we proceeded, we found the defects increase upon us, in number and bulk; from all which I justly formed this conclusion to myself, that whatever philosopher or projector can find out an art to sodder and patch up the flaws and imperfections of Nature, will deserve much better of mankind and teach us a more useful science than that so much in present esteem, of widening and exposing them (like him who held anatomy to be the ultimate end of physic).  And he whose fortunes and dispositions have placed him in a convenient station to enjoy the fruits of this noble art, he that can with Epicurus content his ideas with the films and images that fly off upon his senses from the superfices of things, such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.  This is the sublime and refined point of felicity called the possession of being well-deceived, the serene peaceful state of being a fool among knaves.”  (Jonathan Swift, The Tale of a Tub, 1704)

*NOTE:  Swift here actually uses the word “beau,” which signifies a brainless affected fop whose chief interest in life is clothes.  Since that term is unfamiliar to most 21^st-century readers, I am forced to fall back on a modern equivalent.

No one can do a demolition job as well as Swift, so I give up all attempts at amplification and move straight on to the daily statistics.  These are, as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 24,314,626; # of deaths worldwide: 828,711; # of cases U.S.: 5,998,006; # of deaths U.S.: 183,597.

Aftermath of vaccines – The first recorded COVID re-infection – American universities – The Sturgis motorcycle rally – The Republican Convention – Evening statistics

The reaction to the vaccines was worse than I expected.  I had a low-grade fever during the night.  It subsided in the morning, but left me feeling weak and listless.  The areas where the shots were administered are still a bit inflamed and it was difficult for me earlier in the day to raise my arms completely over my head.  These symptoms lessened as the day progressed, but I could do very little except to rest for most of the day.  It is the worst reaction I can remember, although that may be due in part that I took three vaccines at once, instead of spacing them out over separate days. 

But I am prepared to accept a temporary weakness if it will provide greater resistance to the COVID virus in the long run, to say nothing of the actual diseases that the vaccines are supposed to forestall.  Today confirmation appeared of the first case of a man who contracted the virus a second time, five months after his first bout with the virus and subsequent recovery – proof positive, if any was needed, that an attack of the virus does not confer immunity. The experts say that re-infections will be relatively rare.  The man in question did not have a strong anti-body response, although he had generated a sufficient amount to provide a measure of resistance:  even though he tested positive for a second time, this latest attack has thus far been asymptomatic. It does mean, however, that when a COVID vaccine is developed, we will have to take it periodically, just as we now take the vaccines for flu and shingles.

In a development that seems to foretell a trend if our nation insists on having students reside on campuses instead of resorting to virtual instruction, the University of Alabama has reported more than 566 coronavirus cases across several campuses less than a week after starting the fall semester (about 1.5% of the student population).  The administration implemented rigorous procedures for personal hygiene, face masks, and social distancing.  Testing was performed frequently.  It made no difference.  The sad fact remains that enclosing people in a small area beyond a certain population density is bound to encourage a greater rate of infection, no matter how many precautions are taken.

And in this context I may mention that the results of the recent motorcycle rally in Sturgis are beginning to make their impact.  At this point there are at least 103 COVID-19 cases, distributed among eight states, directly traceable to that event, and there will doubtless by more to come.

I believe I will let the Republican Convention play out instead of doing a day-by-day summary.  I remarked earlier that the members of Trump’s immediate family do not, as rumor had it, constitute 50% of the speakers; but the number of his relatives is certainly very large.  Yesterday the Convention featured Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, his girlfriend; tonight will showcase Melania, Eric, and Tiffany Trump; Lara Trump (Eric’s wife) is the last speaker scheduled for tomorrow; and Thursday will round things off with Ivanka Trump.  By some unaccountable oversight, 14-year old Barron Trump (who, as Wikipedia helpfully points out, is not to be confused with the Baron Trump novels published in the 1890s) was not included in the roster.  And I rather regret that Mary Trump, his niece, does not plan to be present; I have no doubt that she could enliven the proceedings considerably.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 24,042,577; # of deaths worldwide: 822,481; # of cases U.S.: 5,954,705; # of deaths U.S.: 182,357. Less than 40,000 new cases, but more than 1,000 deaths today.  India, incidentally, is having issues as well.  For some time now its daily rate of new cases has exceeded that of both the U.S. and Brazil.  Under-reporting may be on a very large scale:  20:1, according to some experts, which would mean that India’s actual case count is over 50,000,000.  The death toll, however, is quite low: 43 per million, as opposed to 550 per million here.

A morning visit – Lessening restrictions on travel – Manaus beginning to recover – Shots for flu, shingles, and pneumonia – The Republican Convention begins – Kim Jong Un – Jerry Falwell Jr. – Evening statistics

This morning EG and HG invited me to have coffee with them in their garden.  During July the heat was so extreme that sitting outside for an hour or so was out of the question, but the weather during August has been more typical of the summers here:  warm, certainly, but not unbearable.  The garden has become profuse with growth, replete with zinnias, hostas, tomatoes, and squash, among others.  HG said that since most other activities have been curtailed she has been spending a great deal of time tending to the plants and cultivating several new ones; some of the additions have been, so to speak, accidental, sprouting from seeds that were in the compost. 

We discussed several matters.  EG and HG have become grandparents for the third time, and HG went up to New York to visit her daughter for a few weeks.  The quarantine restrictions, therefore, affected her very little, since she was staying there for over two weeks and was not traveling anywhere outside of her daughter’s residence outside of visits to the hospital.  She told me that there was no evidence of checkpoints, even though she drove over the George Washington Bridge to reach her daughter’s residence, which is somewhat to the north of New York City and close to Long Island Sound.  The delivery came off very well and the restrictions imposed by the virus did not interfere much with the usual procedures.  The only recommended restriction that they received was not to take the infant out in a stroller, because people instinctively stop to hover closely over a new-born infant to admire him or her.  Instead, a new mother is instructed to carry the baby close to her chest, facing inwards.  This account, along with my own recent experience in Jim Thorpe, makes travel (at any rate travel within the country) appear somewhat less problematic than it was formerly. 

We touched upon other topics as well:  the success of the Democratic Convention, the difficulties confronting the Republican Convention (which began today), and various activities that we are still able to pursue locally.  EG and HG kayak a great deal, particularly in the Occoquan River in the area of the Bull Run Marina.  HG has expressed an interest in going up Old Rag, so we will try to do so at a date in late September, when the temperatures should be cooler but which will still be well before the season for the leaves changing color, at which point the route becomes much more crowded. 

EG and HG had been on a tour of the Amazon well before the virus had been heard of, and their cruise included a visit to Manaus.  During the spring this city was stricken horribly by the virus, resulting in the hospital system strained beyond its capacity, patients being turned away, gravediggers being forced to inter people hurriedly in trenches.  But now, without any intervention, the ravages of the virus have begun to recede.  Manaus has not imposed any restrictions, and yet it is now returning to near normalcy.  Immunologists are wondering why.  There are many theories – the relative youthfulness of the population, an early establishment of herd immunity on account of the initial virulence of the virus upon the city’s population – but no one really has an answer.  There is a measure of hope in this episode.  Some have speculated that certain other areas that were among the most severely affected by the COVID virus are relatively safe now.  New York City may be among these.

We spoke also of recent experiences in shopping for food.  When I said that I had not been at Whole Foods (a popular chain in this area, notable for selling exotic foods at somewhat esoteric prices) for months on account of the lines there, HG told me that it was best not to go during the so-called senior hours, early in the morning.  The optimum time instead is mid-day, when the number of shoppers is considerably lower.  I found this to be true, for when I left them I went over to the local Whole Foods store, which is just a few minutes’ drive from their house.  I got in without any difficulty at all and was able to search for various items at leisure.

Upon returning home I went to the local CVS to obtain various vaccines:  flu, pneumonia, and shingles.  I have been putting this measure off for some time, but there is general agreement that such vaccines improve one’s chances against catching the COVID virus.  The main reason I’ve been dilatory about the matter is that I tend to react badly to the shingles vaccine.  My arm remains sore for a few days and I frequently come down with a mild fever – not severe or long-lasting, but decidedly inconvenient.  Still, such symptoms have not previously interfered with my normal activities and under the circumstances it’s best not to neglect any preventative measure.  The shingles vaccine requires a follow-up within two-to-six months, so I will have to remember to get the second shot in late October or early November.

Since I have mentioned the Republican Convention, I will say that it is starting off better than might be expected.  At first it was rumored that about half of the speakers would be members of Trump’s own family.  That turned out to be an exaggeration; the selection of speakers actually displays a certain degree of diversity, with a combination of prominent politicians and an assortment of others from various walks of life.  Interestingly, although Kellyanne Conway announced that she is stepping down from her position of counselor to the president yesterday evening, she is still listed among the scheduled speakers.  Trump secured the nomination tonight (although his formal acceptance will occur on Thursday evening), with Pence as his running mate, and thus the remainder of the convention can be devoted to emphasizing the themes of law and order, plans to re-energize the economy, and of course a few harangues against Biden and the Democrats generally. 

There were occasional slip-ups, to be sure.  For instance, at one point Trump proposed that his supporters should chant “Twelve more years!” instead of “Four more years!”; which is a fairly suggestive indication of how his mind works.  Setting aside the difficulties he might encounter in overturning the 22^nd Amendment, it is characteristic that he apparently plans to hold the reins of power even when he is 90 years old (well, 86 anyway, but who’s counting?). 

Then, too, he has issued a warning that November’s elections would be “rigged,” while presenting no evidence – evidence to back his various assertions never having been, to borrow a term from bridge players, his long suit.  If Biden manages to obtain a majority in the electoral vote (he almost certainly will obtain a majority in the popular one), he may still have to be prepared for a struggle to get into the White House, since Trump has more or less declared that he will not leave it no more what the election results might be.

In writing about Donald Trump it came into my head by some odd association or other to see how matters are doing with another well-known national leader, namely, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.  He has appeared in public only a few times since April; and a few observers are speculating that these appearances have been faked and that he may actually be in a coma, with his sister Kim Yo Jong quietly taking over his position.  Transitions of power from one family member to the next have been fairly mysterious in that country for some time.  It was months before the North Koreans heard officially that Kim Jong-il, Kim’s father, had died and that his son had taken his place.  It is not encouraging news:  Kim Yo Jong has shown no indications whatever towards favoring reform and, in her efforts to cement her hold on the country, she may prove to be its most ruthless dictator yet.

Jerry Falwell Jr. is being pressured to resign from Liberty University.  He has received criticism ever since he posted a photo of himself via Instagram of himself and an unidentified young woman, both with unzippered pants and in an attitude suggesting intimacy.  In addition, a man named Giancarlo Granda today claimed that he initiated a sexual relationship with both Falwell and Falwell’s wife, Becki Falwell – which is fairly versatile of him.  I find Falwell’s sexual adventures relatively unimportant in comparison with his reckless disregard of the safety of the students several months earlier, brazenly ignoring the restrictions imposed by the state officials and re-opening the university despite their warnings, an action that promptly led to several students getting infected with the virus.  But at any rate the university administrators are trying to get rid of him now; and even though it’s a bit late in the day and done for the wrong reasons, one cannot do other than hope that they will prevail.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 23,800,659; # of deaths worldwide: 816,514; # of cases U.S.: 5,914,682; # of deaths U.S.: 181,094.  The daily case count increase is still in the neighborhood of 40,000 and the number of new deaths something over 400; one hopes that this lowering trend, such as it is, will continue.

Revisit to the American Chestnut Land Trust – The concept of the rentier – Lori Lightfoot of Chicago – Preparations for the Republican Convention – Optimism and Donald Trump may prove incompatible – Evening statistics

The American Chestnut Land Trust sustained a great deal of damage from the Isaias storm, but it is recovering rapidly.  I joined AD and others to hike along the southern portion of the park today.  The trails are intact and not much washed out, although the raft that is used for crossing the creek has been swept away by the storm.  We covered about 10½ miles, with perhaps 1500 elevation gain.  And afterwards, as usual, we snacked together on the fresh produce AD supplied from the local Calvert County foodstands.  The peaches especially were delicious.  The fruit was greatly appreciated, for the day was very warm, and humid as well; and we were all tired by the end as a result of hiking in the heat, even though the trails are well-shaded.  It was a relief, however, to pace along paths that are more or less rock-free after several days of hiking on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania.  The area is as beautiful as ever, with the luxuriant vegetation of the lowlands close to the Chesapeake Bay.  And afterwards, upon my return, I rested for a bit, read a bit, did some laundry, prepared dinner.  It was a quiet, uneventful day, whose pleasures were greatly amplified by meeting again with various friends from the Wanderbirds.

It will be seen both from the above account and from preceding entries in this journal that I am leading the life of a rentier.  It is difficult to translate this word.  Technically it describes a person living upon income from property or investments, but the French word has overtones that are lost in English.  It conveys the sense of being at ease with life, free from concerns about earning a living, and sometimes it can also convey an impression of an idler.  I have been fairly industrious for the greater part of my life and I do not feel particularly guilty about taking matters more easily in my retirement, but it is true that my manner of living is now being largely sustained by the efforts of others. Others are working to produce the monthly allotments from my pension and interest payments obtained from my savings.  Then, too, many people are at work so that I can enjoy such peaceful pleasures and quiet safety.  Several guard the streets along which I walk and drive, and it is thanks to them that I sleep at nights in the reassurance that no one will attack my neighborhood while I slumber.  I cannot, therefore, feel any great respect or liking for those who have been maligning the police in recent months; and I feel particularly resentful of those whose lives are as sheltered as my own who march in protests to defund the police.

Which brings me to the case of Lori Lightfoot, mayor of Chicago, the very same who insisted receiving personalized haircuts while banning all visits by Chicagoans to barbers and salons during the height of the lockdown restrictions.  She recently ordered police to stop protestors from gathering at her home, saying that “in the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis . . . I have a right to make sure that my home is secure.”  Her desire for security is understandable but she doesn’t seem to realize that, as the city’s mayor, she has an obligation to ensure the security of her fellow-citizens as well.  Rioters have been looting the city now for months on end, with one shop-owner describing conditions there as being “under siege.”  Many Chicagoans, and especially many black Chicagoans, have expressed great resentment at her refusal to take action against the rioting that is wreaking havoc in the city, especially in the poorer neighborhoods.  In the words of Bishop Aubrey Shines:  “I was born and grew up in Chicago and it pains me to see the city torn apart like this. What a callous, tone-deaf thing for the mayor to say, and how hypocritical of her to ban protesters by her house but not bothering to ban the rioting that is burning her city down. Chicago deserves better! The people who’ve been assaulted and lost income because of Black Lives Matter deserve better.”

In the meantime, Donald Trump is preparing for the Republican Convention; and frankly, he will have a difficult time in outdoing the splendid performance of the Democratic Convention this past week.  Biden looked anything but “sleepy” – Trump’s favorite put-down for him – by the end of the four-day Convention this past Thursday and even his political enemies concede that, on a personal level, he is a man of high moral character.  Nor is it possible to place him in the “radical Left” whom Trump likes to conjure as a bogeyman to guard against.  It was a nice touch that the selection of Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate was announced just a day after the hundredth anniversary of women winning the right to vote.  And of course the inclusion of several Republicans who have been alienated by Trump’s administration promises to broaden the Democrats’ voting base considerably.

Trump has promised to deliver an “optimistic” message, but what is there in his record that inspires optimism?  Setting aside the abysmal handling of the situation created by the coronavirus, the economy has faltered, millions are currently unemployed; little has actually been built of the much-vaunted Wall between the U.S. and Mexico (and at this point Mexico is actively attempting to prevent people leaving the U.S. to enter on account of concerns over the virus); and while Trump may advocate a well-funded military, many military leaders loathe him for his high-handed treatment of their agencies.  There is also the question of how the Republicans are going to be able to adapt to the new combination of virtual and live presentation.  The Democrats realized from the start that much of their format would have to be virtual, and accordingly they spent weeks of preparation to ensure that their speakers would show to advantage when discoursing from a screen rather than upon a podium.  Trump, on the other hand, wasted months in his insistence on searching for a city that would be willing to host a traditional convention; and now he and his supporters must hastily scramble to imitate the Democrats’ mastery of the new medium. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 23,576,642; # of deaths worldwide: 812,157; # of cases U.S.: 5,873,298; # of deaths U.S.: 180,580.  Less than 40,000 new cases today!  And a little over 400 deaths.  These are considerably lower than the figures of the last several weeks.  Will it be possible to keep up this lowering trend?  It certainly is high time.  The average rate of infection for the global population at this point is 0.3% but in the U.S. nearly 1.8% of the population has been infected.  The average American is thus about six times as likely to be infected with the virus as a member of the global population at large. 

Advantages of wearing face masks – Re-opening of schools – Second wave of COVID in Spain – Evening statistics

Since so much has been written about the discomforts of wearing face masks, it is only fair to point out a few advantages.  When I visited Beijing in 2000, the pollution was so severe (and it has gotten only worse since then) that many residents wore masks to screen out the dust particles in order to spare their lungs.  Even though the atmospheric conditions here are much cleaner, the air can get fairly dry and dusty during the summer.  Wearing a mask during mundane tasks such as, for example, mowing the lawn under such circumstances helps to prevent one’s throat from drying up as a result of dust inhalation.

Another result of wearing a face mask out of doors is rather surprising:  I find that drivers going over driveways and crosswalks are more likely to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians with masks.  I have no idea why this is so; I merely record what I have observed, both from my own experience and from what I have been told by others  It is a most unexpected fringe benefit, but obviously it is one that I accept gratefully.  In general, drivers in the greater metropolitan area of D. C. are not over-courteous towards pedestrians.

It appears that most schools will be re-opening this semester, although at least some portion of the classroom time will be online.  For the colleges and universities, money is the main factor.  Colleges have already lost billions of dollars nationwide in trying to provide virtual instruction this past semester.  The cancellation of intercollegiate athletic events for the fall semester has also been a blow to their scheme of finance.  Then, too, parents and students are beginning to wonder whether the benefits are worth the risk:  enrollment has declined already.  One of the many unforeseen consequences of the COVID virus is its effect on our educational system.  It is impossible at this stage to predict what the end result will be; but there can be no doubt that the long-term impact on our schools will be enormous.

Spain is having a second wave of virus cases.  It had one of the most stringent set of lockdown restrictions, which seemed to have tamed the virus; but once the restrictions were lifted the number of cases has been rising much faster than those of any of its European neighbors.  It has been getting more than 3,000 new cases daily for much of August; whereas the daily rise at the end of June, when the restrictions had just ended, was between 100 and 150.  The official number of deaths from the virus is 28,813; the excess death rate suggests that 44,596 is a more accurate figure (approximately 1 per 1,000 of the country’s population). 

Still, the situation is less severe than it was during the spring.  The mortality rate is considerably lower.  The number of deaths over the past week is less than 150; on April 2^nd alone the death toll was nearly 1,000.  Most of the transmission is among younger people, and more than three-quarters of those who tested positive are asymptomatic.  Only around 3% of current cases require hospital treatment, less than 0.5% need intensive care, and the current death rate is only 0.3%.  In a way this news is encouraging.  It suggests that a second wave of the virus, if it occurs here, may be less severe than the first.  But of course no one knows what the long-term effects are – whether, for example, the asymptomatic positives sustained any heart damage as a result of their infection.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 23,359,690; # of deaths worldwide: 807,689; # of cases U.S.: 5,840,869; # of deaths U.S.: 180,152. 

Tasks after returning from travel – The Democratic Convention – Biden’s closing speech – Donald Trump on New Zealand – The risk of dying by COVID in the U.S. – Jacinda Ardern – North Korea recalls dogs – Evening statistics

How much must be done after returning from a trip, even a short one!  When driving back home yesterday the malfunction indicator light went on.  This is an invention by automobile manufacturers for which, if there is any divine justice at all, they will undergo years of purgatory during the after-life.  It says in effect, “There’s something wrong with your engine, but we’re not telling you what it is”:  not the most reassuring message to receive while driving along an interstate highway.  So I took the car into the shop – it was due for a filter and oil change in any case.  The issue turned out to be trivial and was fixed easily.  There was also tending to the garden, which had run to seed a bit in the short time I was away, mowing the lawn, shopping for groceries, preparing food for the next few days, and making bread as I was down to a few slices left of the last loaf.  None of these tasks took a long time individually, but they did add up. 

So much has happened this week, and I lacked the space in my previous entry to touch upon the events at large.  The headlines listed here are by no means inclusive; it simply is impossible to cover them all without writing several pages.  Of course the main event of the week was the Democratic Convention.  It was an unusual convention in many ways.  To begin with, the speeches were delivered virtually.  But the Democrats managed to turn this seeming handicap into an advantage.  The speakers were posed for the camera with great care:  lighting, focus, voice amplification, musical interludes – all were perfect.  I am not being sarcastic when I say that it was a brilliant piece of stage-management.  Just contrast it, for example, to the fiasco that occurred at Tulsa two months earlier.  In general, the Democrats seem more adept at incorporating new technologies into their campaigning technique than the Republicans.  One is reminded of the campaign in 2008, when Obama gained headway by (among other things) his superior deployment of Internet. 

There was a brief diversion when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed Bernie Sanders as the nominee, but that actually rather pleased me; it made the event seem less like a coronation than it might otherwise have been.  Sanders, though, is a non-starter.  His idea of problem-solving is to throw money in every direction and in order to do so he would print endless amounts of dollars until the currency becomes as worthless as the deutschmark in the Weimar Republic. 

In the event, Biden secured the nomination, and now the confrontation against Donald Trump can begin in earnest.  In fact, it has begun already.  Biden has somewhat changed his tactics; not that he has any reason to regret his former policy of giving his opponent enough rope, but at this point he has calculated that it is safe to go into a more aggressive mode.  His remarks on Trump’s handling of the virus during his acceptance speech were withering, though no less than what Trump deserves.  Even Fox News went out of its way to praise the effectiveness of his speech.

The other unique feature about this convention is the number of people from the rival party who participated.  Some, no doubt, are operating on the principle of deserting a sinking ship; but I believe that several are motivated by an honest indignation at how Trump has trashed the Republican Party.  It cannot be pleasant to decide to work for one’s political opponents, after all.  In order to repair the damage done to the Republican Party, Trump must be defeated, so soundly that he never can hope to re-emerge.  After he is gone from the scene, the restoration can begin.  From their point of view, joining the campaign against Trump is as necessary as a surgical operation:  painful, certainly, but it must be done if there is to be any healing at all.

However, Donald Trump invariably has methods of calling attention to himself under any set of circumstances.  He has done so this week by deploring the “surge” of the virus in New Zealand.  How unexpectedly modest of him!  Surely he cannot fail to be aware that the rate of infection in our country is, at the most moderate estimate, more than 50 times as great as theirs?  And since our proud record of accounting for 25% of the virus cases worldwide and over 22% of the deaths, when we comprise a mere 4% of the global population, can largely be laid at his door, why does he hide his light under a bushel and slight his own achievement?  I’m assuming at any rate that he looks upon it as an achievement.  He certainly hasn’t shown any sign of shame about it.

To be fair, there is so much under-reporting in nearly every country that the American percentages may have to be downgraded by a few points.  Brazil, for instance, could be under-reporting by a factor of 10, according to some experts.  If so, its case count would exceed ours, even though its population is only about two-thirds the size of our own.  Then again, under-reporting is going on in this country as well.  At this point the aggregate death count from all causes in our country is more than 200,000 over the median, which suggests that the official number of deaths from the virus is under-rated.

In any case, even accepting the official figures as is, COVID-19 is now one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.  The CDC has said that heart disease and cancer, which have been around since before any of us were born, are the only two causes of deaths currently ranking ahead of a virus that didn’t even exist a year ago.  An American is eight times as likely to die from the virus as a European.

Since Trump has mentioned New Zealand, I may single out for his attention an episode concerning Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern some months earlier.  She was dining with a friend and when they arrived at the restaurant they were told by the management, who did not recognize her, to wait outside until a table became empty, in conformance with the imposed restrictions.  Ardern quietly retired.  When the management became aware that it was the Prime Minister they had ordered about in this way, they hastened to invite her in.  But she declined, on the principle that if she did not observe the restrictions imposed on others, the restrictions would become worthless.  Her example is one of the main reasons that the toll of the virus in New Zealand has been so low in comparison with that of other countries.

It is not only Trump who is incapable of demonstrating such restraint.  I cannot imagine any American politician behaving in such a manner – certainly not Hillary Clinton, and probably not Joe Biden, who already has displayed unexpected reserves of arrogance during his campaign.  They may call themselves servants of the people, but they look upon themselves as an aristocracy.  They have consistently betrayed themselves into revealing their conviction that they are not bound by the rules that they have imposed upon their constituents.

Admittedly, our leaders are not as bizarre as some others.  Kim Jong Un recently ordered all pet dogs to be confiscated, claiming that they are a display of Western decadence.  The probabilities are that he is imposing this edict as a result of the food shortages that continually plague North Korea.  In this way he can ensure that the dogs will no longer consume food needed elsewhere; indeed, it is a distinct possibility that several of them will wind up as a food source themselves.

There are so many other news items that occurred over the last few days:  record heat in the West (several successive days of triple-digit temperatures in some cities), colleges being forced to close after re-opening on account of students and staff promptly becoming ill, COVID cases occurring in one state after another among attendees returning from the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, protests seething in Belarus over the recent election – but enough!  I think that spending hours on the rockiest and most unrewarding of trails in Pennsylvania is preferable to reading too much news these days.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 23,096,647; # of deaths worldwide: 802,318; # of cases U.S.: 5,795,337; # of deaths U.S.: 179,153. 

Vacation at Jim Thorpe – Staying in a hotel under the current conditions – Hiking on the Appalachian Trail – Evening statistics

So I am back from my excursion into Central Pennsylvania, and whether I can conflate everything into a single entry, goodness only knows.  I will do my best, but, as the French say, even the most beautiful woman cannot give you more than she has.

This interval falls into five categories:  the nature of the location where I was staying, the experience of staying at a hotel under the current conditions, the hikes I took during my stay, the headlines that caught my attention, and the daily statistics.

I stayed at the town of Jim Thorpe, PA.  Its original name was Mauch Chunk (actually pronounced “mack chunk”).  It was founded in 1818 and acquired its new name in 1954.  The story of how it got the name is curious.  The man after whom the town was named was one of the great athletes of all times; some claim that he is the greatest on record.  It would be impossible to list all of his achievements here:  suffice it to say that he won both the pentathlon and the decathlon in the 1912 Olympics, played professional baseball, professional football, and professional basketball with equal facility, and excelled at horseback riding, dancing, and bowling as well.  He was of Native American descent (both of his parents came from mixed marriages, but they identified as Native Americans and brought him up in their traditions) and he had to undergo many challenges to achieve what he did:  an orphan at the age of 16, poverty, and of course racial prejudice.  It would be gratifying to add, in light of how he managed to become such a brilliant success, that he had a perfect character, but – alas!  He was succumbed to alcoholism early in life, and he was thriftless and improvident in money matters, so that when he died he had little to leave to his wife and children.  He was to be buried at Shawnee, OK, where the townspeople had spoken of raising a memorial fund on his family’s behalf.  But they were so dilatory about it that his widow lost patience and, learning that Mauch Chunk was seeking to attract business, surreptitiously arranged with the city officials to have him buried there.  Not only did she receive some much-needed financial support from this transaction, but the city renamed itself in his honor.  One could wish, however, that they decided to call the town “Thorpeville” or “Thorpeton” or some such variant so that there would be less confusion as to whether “Jim Thorpe” refers to the man or the town.

Mauch Chunk, to use its original name, was originally a mining community, but it also became a resort town; at one point it was second only to Niagara Falls in the number of visitors it received.  It is easy to see why.  It was somewhat like Harpers Ferry in many ways:  a small town with one main street tucked amid mountain ranges and filled with florid architectural styles from eras that preceded the blight of Bauhaus.  It even contains an old opera house that is now (or was, until the virus altered matters) used for musical performances.  Before the town acquired Jim Thorpe’s remains, it underwent a severe depression – which actually worked in its favor, for the town was too poor to afford the demolishment of the buildings, even though they were falling into disrepair and plans had been made to pull them down. 

The hotel at which I stayed is another historic building.  The original building was erected in 1833, but it was burned in a fire in 1849.  The owner, not at all daunted, rebuilt the hotel, and the 1849 structure remains in place today.  It is a hotel, therefore, in the style of the 19^th century.  It is so pleasant, when one desires to use the stairs instead of an elevator, to ascend and descend along a carpeted staircase that runs up and down the main part of building, instead of being shoved into a gloomy metallic stairwell concealed at the building’s back corner, giving the impression that going up and down stairs on foot is a vaguely shameful affair.  The walls have varnished wooden panels, porticos run along the building’s exterior; awnings decorate the windows.  In short, the style of the building has an exuberance that is distinctly lacking from the greater part of the American urban landscape.

Although I had booked a room for myself only, the room I received was large enough for four.  It had two double beds, an abundance of cabinet space and drawers, a sizable bathroom, and amenities such as a refrigerator, a coffee-maker, etc.  The only impacts from the virus were, first, the absence of maid service (one had to make one’s own bed, but there was a sufficient supply of soap, shampoo, and so on for the entire stay), and second, the strict enforcement of wearing face masks.  When I dined out I used outdoor seating, but for breakfast, which was served at the hotel, I ate inside.  I was a bit apprehensive about this at first; but every second table was marked as not in use, which meant that I was well over six feet from anyone else eating in the restaurant, and all of the waitresses wore face masks every minute – so it appeared reasonably safe. 

Jim Thorpe has the advantage of being close to various parking areas for the Appalachian Trail, which is the chief reason I selected this location; the drives from Wind Gap and Port Clinton were less than an hour apiece, and the drives to Lehigh Gap and Little Gap were 30 minutes at the most.  Here are the hikes I did (note that they are all there-and-back hikes):

Monday (8/17):  Wind Gap to Wolf Rocks/Wind Gap to Leroy A. Smith shelter (22 miles, 3000 feet).  This hike fall into two parts.  I drove from my place to the Wind Gap parking area and I first went north to Wolf Rocks, which is the point I had reached coming from Delaware Water Gap earlier.  This part was frankly a nuisance.  After the climb out of Wind Gap the path consisted almost entirely of broken rock.  I enjoy a rock scramble to reach a summit, but going over a path that is level but that requires continual maintenance of one’s balance every minute is another matter.  In the end one spends more time paying attention to the rocky path than to the surroundings.  This went on for seven miles on end, with only occasional intervals of the path becoming smoother.  There were no views to speak of either.  I was glad when it was over.  The part that went south to the shelter was better – quite rocky in many places, but several intervals of more comfortable walking and a good number of overlooks.  Since the drive to the parking area was over 3 hours, plus another hour of driving to Jim Thorpe itself, and since I had spent about 7 hours on the trail, I did not do very much after checking in at the hotel and dining.

Tuesday (8/18):  Lehigh Gap to Little Gap (11 miles, 1700 feet).  This hike was the best of the hikes on the trip in many ways.  It does not sound like much going merely by the figures, but ascending from Lehigh Gap involves a challenging rock climb.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I have no doubt that a thru-hiker carrying 40-50 pounds on his back must quail at the sight.  In fact, I know that this is the case, because I was sufficiently curious to look through some of the accounts of thru-hikers online.  Here is an impression from one of them:

“As promised, the trail was steep, and then it stopped being a trail and started being a rock scramble, and then, honestly, a far too difficult rock climb. It took me awhile, and I had to take my pack off and lift it up once, and it was hard, but I was able to navigate the rocks, their limited handholds and footholds, all the while trying not to notice how tiny and far down the bridge I just crossed looked in the background.

“The rocks, however, became unreasonably difficult. When I neared what I hoped was the ‘top’ of the rock climb, I reached a point where I was simply unable to navigate the rocks in whatever way must have been intended. I could see what I needed to do, but with a pack on, there was just no way for me to do it.”

Well, there actually was a way to do it, but of course the pack that I carried was considerably lighter and less bulky.  There are certain advantages to day-hiking.

An alternate path, the Winter Trail, leaves the AT to bypass the rock climb and go up to the ridge somewhat less steeply, and is as a result somewhat longer.  It rejoins the AT at the top of the ridge.  I took this trail upon returning.  The ascent up the rock climb was a delight, but descending it would have been a torment.

After the rock climb the path became fairly level and very pleasant.  Part of it follows an old road along the mountain ridge, with many extensive views.  The views are impressive rather than inspiring, for they overlook an area where extensive zinc mining has taken place and there is a good deal of industrial activity in the valley below.  It was only after passing a transmission tower and descending to Little Gap that the trail became rockier – but there it made up for any deficiencies in that respect that it had lacked earlier.  It was in truth a weary slog, and I was glad to make use of a gravel road on the return journey that led to the tower again and from there to the less rocky portion of the trail. 

Since I ended relatively early and since the drive back to town was about 30 minutes, I was able to relax and sight-see a bit during the afternoon. 

Wednesday (8/19):  Little Gap to Leroy A. Smith shelter (21½ miles,, 1900 feet).  The best parts of this hike were the beginning and the end, i.e., ascending out of Little Gap and descending.  The ascent goes up a talus that is less challenging than the ascent out of Lehigh Gap but is not without interest.  The descent is a good deal less troublesome than I expected; the trail markings are much easier to spot going down in this location.  Other than that the trail was a mixture of rocky stretches and easier stretches, fairly level, but with very little variety and no overlooks to speak of.  Despite the length, I was less tired at the end of this hike than I was with the hike on the preceding day.

When I came back to Jim Thorpe at about 6:00, lines were forming outside many of the local restaurants of people waiting for tables to become available.  This is a slower process now on account of the virus; all restaurants are limited to half of the number of tables they used before the virus restrictions came into place.  I did not wish to stand outside for minutes on end after hiking 7 hours or so, and in any case I was not in the mood for a dinner prolonged by the business of ordering the food and waiting for the check to arrive after eating, so I used a place that provided takeout instead.  The amount they gave me was enormous – far too much to be eaten at a sitting.  I reserved about half of it to use for dinner on the following day after my return home.

Thursday (8/20):  Port Clinton to Game Lands Road (10½ miles, 2000 feet).  The parking area for the hike involved a detour of about only 2 miles from the route back home.  It began with a steep climb from Port Clinton but was fairly level afterwards.  It may be noted that this is something of a pattern.  The greater part of the Appalachian Trail that runs through Pennsylvania is concurrent with the Blue Mountain Ridge, so it remains reasonably level until it approaches a gap in the ridgeline.  Much of this particular section was pleasant walking, but some parts were very rocky indeed, and I took a tumble that luckily resulted in nothing worse than a bruise or two.

I am not overly impressed by the clubs that maintain the AT in northern Pennsylvania.  I realize that the COVID virus is interfering with trail maintenance to some extent, so it is not surprising that many parts of the trail are overgrown (sometimes to the point that it is difficult to discern a path at all).  But blazes are a different matter.  They frequently occur at distant intervals and, worse still, are sometimes absent at junctions.  Several unmarked paths and old roads intersect the AT; and on occasion, when there is no marking, one simply has to guess which way to go.  (This is one reason why blazes should occur at frequent intervals – anyone who makes a wrong choice will soon be able to determine from the absence of blazes that he needs to turn back.)

At this point about 40 miles of the AT remain for me to complete the entire amount for the state.  I am going to try to make different arrangements for this segment.  The portion of the AT that runs between Port Clinton and Lehigh Gap is said to be the most scenic part of the AT in Pennsylvania, and for that reason alone I would wish to go through it more leisurely.  Also, some parts are supposed to be especially challenging and should be taken at a somewhat slower and more cautious pace than what I generally use.  I am going to investigate hiking with someone with an interest in the area, so that we can set up a shuttle between the beginning and end points of the hike or, failing that, looking at the possibility of obtaining a shuttle service once I complete a section to drive me back to my starting point. 

This entry is already beginning to be of inordinate length, so I will defer the discussion of the headlines for another day.  They form a rather interesting contrast to what has been happening to me on a personal level (but then again, they usually do).  Chief among them, of course, is the Democratic convention.  But, rest assured, Donald Trump will not remain in the background if he can possibly help it.  He has successfully drawn attention to himself by his remarks on the “surge” of the virus in New Zealand.  Just today, for instance, New Zealand has had 5 new cases (in contrast to 44,970 in the U.S.) and its death toll has risen to 22 (in contrast to our 177,394).  Even taking into account that New Zealand’s population is only about 1.5% the size of our own, I’d say that they’re doing rather better than we are.

Statistics, including that of today as of 8:00 PM: 

8/17 – I was too tired to collect these, for obvious reasons (see above for a description of this day)

8/18 – # of cases worldwide: 21,277,559; # of deaths worldwide: 782,990; # of cases U.S.: 5,657,079; # of deaths U.S.: 174,941.

8/19 – # of cases worldwide: 22,555,667; # of deaths worldwide: 789,948; # of cases U.S.: 5,698,774; # of deaths U.S.: 176,283.

8/20 – # of cases worldwide: 22,848,030; # of deaths worldwide: 796,330; # of cases U.S.: 5,745,721; # of deaths U.S.: 177,394.

Cooler weather at last – Travel preparations – Death of Robert Trump – Effects of the virus in New Zealand – Evening statistics

The long succession of hot days has finally been broken.  It was cool enough to warrant putting on a light jacket this morning and even during the warmest part of the day it never went above the mid-70s.  It was also very wet, at least during the morning.  There was gradual clearing throughout the day and by the evening the sun was shining through the clouds.  The grass has grown rapidly as a result of the recent abundance of rain, and I was glad that it became sufficiently dry during the evening to enable me to mow the lawn.

I was all the more pleased because I will be departing tomorrow for a brief stay in a Pennsylvania mountain resort town to make up for the disrupted trip that I experienced earlier this month.  I will be staying at the town of Jim Thorpe (named after the athlete) for a few days, and from there I will continue my project of covering the portion of the Appalachian Trail that runs through Pennsylvania.  Jim Thorpe is conveniently located close to many of the trail’s parking areas.  Much of today was spent preparing for the trip – not only packing, but planning how much of the trail to cover each day and obtaining detailed directions to each of the parking areas.  It will be a good deal easier to explore the trail without having to worry about the time constraint imposed by driving »3 hours back home after the hike is completed.  I plan to keep track of the news and the daily statistics during my travel time, but I won’t be able to post write-ups until my return.

Robert Trump, the brother of the President, died yesterday after a brief stay in a hospital.  The President spoke of him with genuine emotion, somewhat to my surprise.  He appears to be on distant terms with his sisters and he actively disliked his elder brother, but he evidently was much closer to his younger brother, to the extent that he is capable of any degree of affection.  I have spoken much of my dislike of the man, but I sympathize with him in this case.  So, incidentally, do Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; rivals to him as they are in the upcoming election, they lost no time in extending their condolences to him.  For a brief moment we have been transported to another world, in which good manners and kind-hearted words have not been utterly banished from the scene of American politics.  It has been many years indeed since anything like that has happened, so we may as well savor it while we can.

One curious feature is that the cause of death is not mentioned in any of the articles reporting on his passing.  The speculation inevitably arises:  could the cause of death have been the coronavirus?  It would indeed be a cruel irony if the disease that the President has consistently trivialized swept away one of the few people he cares for.  One source, however, said that he had been suffering from blood flows to the brain following a severe fall.  At this point no one knows for certain.  

New Zealand has delayed its elections by two weeks.  It went 102 days without any new infections, but then they started to re-appear in Auckland.  No one at this point has been able to track down the source.  It does not, to be sure, involve a large number of people at this point and there is hope that the majority is within a single cluster that can easily be contained, but it is a letdown for a country that had good reason to believe that they had subdued the virus at last.  Jacinda Ardern consulted the leaders of all parties before making this decision.  The recent outbreak caused a good deal of disruption, forcing cancelations of debates and community events; and even the opposition parties welcome the delay, so that they have a chance to re-organize.   She has added that there will be no further delay, even if the outbreak expands.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 21,816,571; # of deaths worldwide: 772,708; # of cases U.S.: 5,565,931; # of deaths U.S.: 173,096.  Less than 40,000 new cases today and a death toll just under 500:  bad as it is, it is the best daily result we’ve had for many days. 

The legend of Antaeus – Hiking in Shenandoah – Convivial moments with friends – The questionable efficacy of our virus tests – The Russian vaccine – South Africa’s COVID policies – Evening statistics

After six hours of being on the trails and an additional six hours of driving yesterday I was, unsurprisingly, not especially lively when I awoke this morning.  I kept dozing off before I roused myself sufficiently to get dressed, and even then I felt like returning to bed.  But I had agreed to meet with AD and some other friends to hike in Shenandoah, and this turned out to be a good thing.  I have already mentioned how on certain days I would begin the day feeling rather under par, and then the effect of exerting myself on the trails would perk me up.  There is a Greek legend about the giant Antaeus, a son of Gaea the earth goddess.  When he wrestled with Herakles the latter tried to throw him down to the ground to defeat him.  But since he drew strength from contact with his mother, he promptly sprang up again ready for another round.  The only way Herakles could prevail was to hold him in a bearhug in a manner that lifted him from the earth entirely.  We all need contact with our mother earth from time to time; and I have known of more than a few who retreated to a cell of their own manufacture, shrinking from the outside world with fear, and who seemed to me to be choking like Antaeus in Herakles’ grip as a result of their lack of contact with it.

The weather was what AD called “ducky” – i.e., the moist sort of weather that appeals to waterfowl such as ducks and geese.  But it was delightfully cool along Skyline Drive:  the first genuinely comfortable temperatures I have enjoyed for many a long week.  After all, it turned out to be not so very wet; we had a brief shower as we started, but it soon tapered off and for the remainder of the hike there was no additional rain, even though the skies were clouded.  We started at the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center, going along the Dickey Ridge Trail to its northern terminus just before the park entrance and taking the Fox Hollow loop upon our return.  We hiked about nine miles in all.  It was muddy, of course, but not unduly so.  Walking along the Dickey Ridge Trail felt almost like walking on a road after my recent experiences in Pennsylvania.  The portion of the Appalachian Trail that runs through Pennsylvania has a reputation of being unusually rocky and, alas, its reputation is fully justified.  It was such a relief to be on a path without any scree, where the rocks are for the most part set well into the earth and whose surfaces are not irregular, so that I did not have to concentrate on maintaining my balance most of the time.  The wet weather discouraged other visitors.  There were not many other cars parked at the Visitor Center and we met very few people on the trail.  By the time we came to the Fox Hollow loop, however, the weather was somewhat dryer and more people were in the park.  Several were on the loop and when we returned to the Center the parking area had many more cars. 

And afterwards, of course, we snacked together and AD regaled us with peaches and melons and grapes from the numerous food stands in Calvert County, where she resides.  I especially enjoyed the peaches. The ones obtainable from the supermarkets seem to have no more resemblance to peaches such as these, recently plucked from a tree just as they turn ripe, than a stuffed bird has to a live one.

It occurs to me that hikes of this sort can operate as a kind of substitute for COVID-19 testing.  Fatigue is one of the main symptoms of the virus, and anyone afflicted with it is therefore not likely to be able to undertake the sort of hike I have just described.  The incubation period is two weeks, which means that sometime about August 29^th or 30^th I can declare with a clear conscience that I was not ill on August 15^th.  That may not sound very helpful, but I can’t see that taking a test for the virus and obtaining its results five or seven days later is much more useful. 

Russia remains the comically inept country described by Nicolai Gogol two centuries earlier.  I have already commented on the vaccine it has developed – which said vaccine, incidentally Vladimir Putin is promoting among his compatriots as part of a protection plan.  My doubts about the effectivity of a vaccine that has had so little testing before it is being distributed have received confirmation from a most unexpected source – namely, the Russian medical establishment.  In a survey of over 3,000 employees in the Russian medical system, 52% said that the vaccine was developed too hastily and with insufficient testing, and that they would never take it themselves.  Putin has publicly declared that he trusts the vaccine without any reservations and that one of his own daughters has taken it.  This in itself raises an interesting question, because Putin has never confirmed the identity of the two women said to be his daughters and he rarely refers to them at all.  A president advocating a vaccine that has been insufficiently tested in an attempt to assert Russian superiority and who offers, as evidence, testing on one of his alleged daughters who may not actually be his own, while the medical professionals of his nation recoil in distrust – we seem to be in the same country as that of Gogol’s Dead Souls, published in 1842:  a country mired in corruption, where impoverished and broken communities are decked out in grandiose costume, whose inhabitants indulge in displays of boastfulness without even an attempt at verisimilitude, done not merely to reinforce deceit and fraudulent schemes but out of sheer exuberant delight of their inventiveness in lying.

We Americans are not lacking in charlatans and buccaneers, both clerical and secular, who attempt to portray themselves as larger than life and not bound by ordinary rules – and Heaven knows, a nation that has elected Donald Trump to high office of its own free will has little to boast about – but there is at any rate a rationalistic strain in our heritage to strives to moderate the effects of their frolics and insists on bringing facts and verifiable data to the foreground.  Such an impulse seems to be completely absent in Russia, no less today than as it was in the times of the Czars.

South Africa is lifting nearly all of its restrictions, even as its case count continues to rise.  It is true that the number of active cases has taken a downward turn, and this trend has been consistent for over a month.  The number of new cases on a daily basis has also been declining (it was well under 5,000 today; it was over 14,000 less than a month ago).  President Cyril Ramaphosa says that the virus has “peaked” and that it is now feasible to end the restrictions, which have been causing a great deal of economic hardship.  These restrictions include bans on selling alcohol and tobacco, domestic travel, and the closure of many businesses.  South Africa’s lockdown has been one of the most stringent in the world, so that the lifting of some of its restrictions may still be the equivalent of a lockdown somewhere else.  Both international travel to the country and gatherings of more than fifty people are still prohibited. (Nothing like our own recent motorcycle rally in Sturgis would be permitted there, for instance.)   As an interesting side note, the ban on alcohol has had an unexpected benefit:  the crime rate in South Africa has plummeted. There is some justification for President Ramaphosa’s decision, but he is taking a big risk all the same.  South Africa at this point accounts for half of the COVID-19 cases on the continent.  But at least he is not acting out of bravado, like some national leaders such as President Bolsonaro of Brazil.  He urges the South Africans to be on their guard and to be scrupulous about wearing masks in public.  He is at any rate taking the virus seriously and seems prepared to restore the restrictions if a second wave of the virus occurs. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 21,592,094; # of deaths worldwide: 767,935; # of cases U.S.: 5,529,289; # of deaths U.S.: 172,585.

On the Appalachian Trail again – Increasing sense of isolation and possible social events to mitigate it – Evening statistics

Normally I sleep very well, but there are some nights when I awake very early and cannot go back to sleep.  Last night was such a night, and when I awoke at 2:30 AM and could not fall asleep again, I decided to put my wakefulness to some use.  So I prepared and ate an early breakfast, packed my knapsack with lunch and water, and left the house at about 4:00 in order to reach one of the Appalachian Trail parking areas in good time.  I was the parking area at Rte. 183 by 7:00, which meant that I had the better part of the day for pursuing my goal of completing the entire AT of Pennsylvania.  I covered 9¼ miles before returning, or 18½ miles total – not a bad haul.  The temperature on the ridgeline was cooler than it was in the parking area, even though the difference in elevation was not enormous.  It is breezier at the top, however, and that tends to disperse a good deal of the humidity.  Despite the gray clouds that floated overhead from time to time, there was no rain.  Most of the trail in this section was fairly level, but very rocky in spots.  Still, the rocks were neither wet nor slippery, and there were no boulder fields, like those on segments a little further south and west.  It is a remote area; during the entirety of the hike I met only three others on the trail, though I was hiking for about six hours.  This segment has no striking overlooks, but it was quiet and peaceful, the sunlight shining through the leaves making dappled patterns on the ground.  Birds were calling, though somewhat more muted than they were earlier in the spring.  At one point I came across a snake on the trail, but it was not a rattlesnake (it moved too swiftly for me to identify it with confidence, though it may have been a garter snake) and it evidently was no more eager for an encounter than I was; it thrust its head behind one of the bushes and quickly slithered away in nervous haste.

Social activity is picking up.  It’s all very tentative, of course, and everyone concerned is proceeding with caution.  Still, I have invitations to a local four-day hiking event in late August, a probable trip with friends to Maine in September, another possible one with another group to southern Virginia in early October.  There are differences from such excursions in the past.  We will all be getting tested for the virus beforehand; we will sleep in separate rooms instead of sharing with a roommate the way we usually do; we will be wearing masks when we socialize indoors.  There are details to be worked out, such as how to shuttle people safely.  For traveling to Maine we will have to drive through New York, and in order to do so each of us will have to fill out a Traveler Health Form to have in readiness in case we are stopped at checkpoints.  However, it appears that people who are simply driving through the state will be given a notification that they do not have to quarantine.

I’ve been severe in my comments about people who fling safety to the winds and congregate in crowds, but I can understand their motives to some extent.  I’ve been more fortunate than the majority, since I’ve been able to meet up with people from time to time to hike alongside them or (when the weather was more temperate) to sit with them out of doors; yet even I have felt pulled down by the enforced isolation and the loss of social functions since the virus started.  Just yesterday when I met PF, she and I joined in lamenting how all of the travel plans we had made earlier in the year for interesting trips in the company of several friends had to be canceled.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 21,335,163; # of deaths worldwide: 762,402; # of cases U.S.: 5,475,581; # of deaths U.S.: 171,496.  The news today has been mainly a repetition of the news of several days past, but California now has over 600,000 COVID cases.  The recent downward trend has been completely effaced; today’s number of new cases exceeds 60,000.

Burke Lake and Lake Mercer – A fortuitous meeting – Testing in West Virginia – Our lost window of opportunity – Effects of school re-openings – Evening statistics

It’s not a good idea to be confined indoors all day long.  I was aware of this for the past two days, yet remained inside all the same, discouraged by the seemingly permanent heat.  But it rained a good deal this morning and the temperature went down to below 80 degrees.  It was still quite humid, of course – muggy, in fact – but at any rate I was not wilting when I went out.  I did not wish to drive a great deal, for it was well after noon before the rain was over, so I went on the double loop around Burke Lake and Lake Mercer, which is something between 11 and 12 miles total. It’s a good walk to have in reserve.  I have done it many times, and I have referred to it in previous entries.  It’s only about a 15-minute drive from my house and, even though the lakes are artificially formed, they are quite scenic.  The waterfowl were active today, not surprisingly:  ducks, geese, a few loons here and there. 

I met my friends PF and DF on the path connecting the two loops.  They live even closer to the lakes than I do.  I have not seen them since February at least, possibly much earlier.  Their daughter (whom I have mentioned before, as being a prominent surgeon) recently married and posted many striking photos of herself and her husband at the ceremony on Facebook.  PF told me that there were only ten attendees in all and that most of them quarantined in Snowshoe, WV, where LF (the daughter) owns a property, before the ceremony took place;  and thus they were able to sit in close proximity without fear of consequences.  Other than that, PF and DF go out very little; they will go out to walk around the lakes, but nowhere else.  They do not even go to the grocery stores, preferring to order their food from a local store and have it delivered.  I have done my own grocery shopping, but I can understand their point of view:  one of my acquaintances earlier this year came down with the virus, a result from, as he deduced by a process of elimination, a visit to a supermarket.

PF also told me that although the hospital where her daughter works do not provide tests for their employees, West Virginia has several facilities where one can get tested for the virus at any time and obtain the results in fifteen minutes.  That is quite a contrast to the situation here.  When I took a test in preparation for my trip to New York (which later got canceled) I had to hunt for a place that would perform a test for people who had no symptoms and had not associated with people infected by the virus, and I did not receive the results until five days afterwards.  It is surprising that testing is so much more difficult to obtain in Virginia, considering that the state governor used to be a physician.

It certainly felt good to get out in temperatures somewhat more moderate than those of the past several weeks.  I daresay I shouldn’t wish for cooler weather too ardently, for our nation as a whole is losing its window of opportunity to curb the virus during the summer months.  The virus is more active in cooler temperatures and is more contagious indoors than outdoors, so that as winter approaches and people venture outside less, the potential for its spreading increases.  It was not so very long ago that getting the rate of infection to slow down seemed to be a genuine possibility.  But it was completely spoiled by the premature re-opening of most of the states, along the inability of the majority of Americans to refrain from congregating in crowds at the drop of a hat. 

Some of them, of course, are not doing so of their own free will.  More than 2,000 students, teachers and staff members across five states have been quarantined after at least 230 positive coronavirus cases were reported just after the schools reopened.  There has been a 90% increase of COVID cases among children within the past four weeks.  None of them had any choice in the matter.  I’ve mentioned the concerns of a friend who teaches in a private school; she and many others are very reluctant to go back to live teaching on account of the risk of infection, but their concerns have been all but brushed aside by the school administrators.

And if all of the above were not enough bad news, I regret to say that there is more to come:  Stephanie Meyer has just announced that she will be writing two more books in her Twilight series.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 21,062,471; # of deaths worldwide: 752,580; # of cases U.S.: 5,413,938; # of deaths U.S.: 170,352. 

The long heat wave – Kindness of neighbors – Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate – Trump seemingly dumbfounded – Harris assumes the offensive – Evening statistics

This entry is mainly political; not much happened on a personal level.  I was a little more active today than I was yesterday, but not by much.  The chronic heat is beginning to affect me.  Usually during the summer we have occasional spells of more moderate weather to mitigate the days of extreme heat, but for this summer the tropical temperatures have been more or less continuous – though it is true that the nights have cooled down a little since July.  I will try for more activity tomorrow.  Also, I will be spending a good part of next week in central Pennsylvania, where the hiking I’ve planned for the excursion should keep me in harness.

There was one pleasant episode today.  My neighbors have been encouraging their children to learn about gardening and they have successfully grown several vegetables.  As often happens with home gardens, they came up with more produce than they were able to use all at once.  The children said that the extras should be given to their neighbors, and as a result I among others was presented with two handsome specimens of squash. 

Joe Biden has picked Kamala Harris as his running mate:  a good choice, it seems to me.  Her outlook has been described as progressive, but she never seemed comfortable with the extreme Sanders/Warren contingent of the party.  In addition, she has spent years as a district attorney with a reputation for being severe on violent offenders.  She is not likely, for instance, to sympathize with those who advocate an over-lenient treatment of felons.  Of course the fact that she is the first black woman to be selected on a presidential running slate played a part in determining Biden’s selection; but, more importantly, she is intelligent and well-spoken and, being twenty years younger than Biden and appearing younger still on account of her undoubted energy, she will probably infuse a much-needed dose of vigor into the Democratic campaign.  It is even possible that she may talk Biden out of his strange delusion that every single one of the black Americans – all forty million of them – vote and think alike. 

In person she displays such a dramatic contrast to so many politicians who have recently been in the limelight that it seems remarkable that she and they are in the same profession.  There is evidence of a strong bond of affection between her and her husband; she has a warm relationship with her stepson and stepdaughter and also, rather surprisingly, with her husband’s first wife; and she and her husband have a net worth of slightly under $6,000,000 – comfortable, certainly, but not excessive for two people in well-paid professions who have put savings by over the years.  She has not gotten rich through kickbacks or book deals or delivering over-paid lectures at universities; and this, to my mind, is a point very much in her favor.

Harris is not an especially surprising choice – her name has been mentioned for months as one that Biden was mulling over – and yet her selection appears to have taken Trump by surprise nonetheless.  Generally he has excelled at denigrating his opponents by means of a single adjective – Hillary Clinton as “crooked,” Biden himself as “sleepy” – but, mirabile dictu, he seems to be at a loss to come up with a telling insult for Harris.  Since personal insults are his principal means of conducting a campaign – he is quite incapable of voicing a sustained debate, on any issue – some experts are speculating that Trump is fumbling and is at a loss as to how to pursue his re-election.  I hope it is so, though this may be wishful thinking on their part.  Whatever else may be said about Donald Trump, he is not likely to give up power without a prolonged struggle.  I could wish that the polls were less favorable towards Biden, because the numbers might lull him and his supporters into smug assurance of victory, just as they did with Clinton in 2016.  If I were among Biden’s advisors I would be urging him to pursue the campaign on the assumption that the voters are undecided and that every effort possible must be made to sway their opinions by November.

Harris herself, I’m happy to see, seems to be operating on this principle.  She has lost no time, for instance, in assailing Trump for his disastrous reaction to the coronavirus.  I could summarize what she said, but I don’t think her actual words can be improved upon:  “This virus has impacted almost every country, but there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start.  His refusal to get testing up and running, his flip-flopping on social distancing and wearing masks, his delusional belief that he knows better than the experts — all of that is the reason an American dies of Covid-19 every 80 seconds.”

The Democrats need to keep hammering on that point relentlessly, just like the Roman statesman Cato who ended all of his speeches in the Senate, on whatever subject, with “Ceterum censeo delendam esse Carthaginem”:  Carthage must be destroyed – in other words, Trump has to be turned out of the White House at any cost.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 20,785,729; # of deaths worldwide: 751,541; # of cases U.S.: 5,359,563; # of deaths U.S.: 169,112.  The recent downturn appears to have been only temporary; we’re back up to over 50,000 new cases and well over 1,000 deaths for the second day running. 

Donald Trump on the Spanish flu epidemic – How does Trump spend his spare time? – Trump and the Republican Party – Russian vaccine – Election in Belarus – Evening statistics

Jane Austen was in the habit of occasionally recording odd remarks from her acquaintances and one occurred when she asked a certain Mrs. Digweed her opinion of a collection of parodies that had recently appeared (the “Rejected Addresses” by James and Horace Smith).  The response was rather cryptic:  “Oh! dear, yes – very droll indeed – the opening of the House! – and the striking up of the Fiddles!”  After Austen puzzled over it for a while she commented, “What she meant, poor woman, who can say?”   

Observers today might have a similar reaction to a remark made by Donald Trump to the effect that the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 “probably ended” World War II.  World War II began nearly twenty years after the epidemic ended.  Presumably he meant to say World War I.  There was some overlap between the last months of the war and the first several months into the epidemic.  The epidemic began in February, 1918 and the war ended in November, 1918.  The first wave of the epidemic was relatively mild, however, and the second wave did not begin until August, 1918.  October, 1918 was the deadliest month of the entire epidemic.  Some historians have argued that it tipped the balance in favor of the Allies, since the morbidity rates among Germany and Austria were considerably higher, and that it might have prodded the German belligerents into declaring the armistice.  Did Donald Trump really mean to imply all of this?  Who can say?

It wouldn’t be worth making such a song and dance about, I suppose, were it not for the fact that Trump’s paternal grandfather was a casualty of the epidemic; and one would expect him, for that reason alone, to be a little more knowledgeable about it.

One wonders what Donald Trump does for amusement during his spare time.  Clearly he does not read.   Politics did not play a major role in his life until the last decade.  One can say with a certain amount of assurance that he has no interest whatever in philosophy.  He does not go to the theatre; at least, I have not heard of his attending any performance since he came to Washington.  Despite the recent photo showing him posed with Bible in hand in front of a church, he has no interest in religion.  It is indeed difficult to imagine a man more diametrically opposed in outlook to Christ in every respect.  He probably doesn’t listen to music.  It is doubtful that he has glanced at works of painting or sculpture, and it is an open question whether he can distinguish a picture from a table.  In all probability he does not even notice trees, flowers, bushes, shrubs, grasses, and other flora; to him they most likely appear as blurs in the background.

The only pursuits that seem to awaken his interest are golf and, to a lesser degree, amorous dalliance with women.  These latter pleasures, possibly, have palled on him to some extent as a result of too much repetition.  Now that he is in his seventies he does appear to have sown his wild oats of the past fifty years or so, and has so far subsided in his relations with Melania as to become mere man and wife, without the polygynous sidelines that characterized his first two ventures into marriage.  Although he has been so magnanimous as to praise the sexual attributes of his daughters in public he has not, as far as I know, personally availed himself of their charms.  There remains one other activity that animates his features, causes his eyes to brighten with ardor, infuses something approaching genuine fervor in his voice and mien, and makes him, for the moment, a better, stronger, finer man; and that activity is – golf.  There is nothing wrong with the game itself, of course.  I have no doubt it can inspire the same sort of enthusiasm in some men and women that hiking inspires for me.  Nonetheless even here Trump’s motives are mixed:  he owns several golf courses, and it is unclear whether he cares more for the game for its own sake or whether he looks upon it primarily as a money-making concern.

His political opponents will say that he is a typical man of the Republican Party, but that is not so.  He bears the same relation to the Republican Party that the adelgid bears to the hemlock and the emerald ash borer bears to the ash tree.  He has infiltrated what was once a vigorous and flourishing growth from within, and has caused it in the space of a few years to droop and wither and fall into premature decrepitude. There is nothing to be done now except to uproot the entire trunk, branches and all, and discard it as one disregards rotted wood; and, possibly, in future, to plant seedlings here and there that can restore the species in a manner that will enable it to resist such invasive parasites more effectively.   

To be sure, Trump is not the only national leader who thinks only of his self-aggrandizement at the expense of every other consideration.  Today Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has developed a coronavirus vaccine and will begin mass inoculation, possibly as early as October.  Even the scientists in Russia are skeptical about its effectiveness, and those in other nations are nearly unanimous in expressing their doubts.  At this point only a few dozen people have tested it out.  In the U.S. vaccines entering final-stage testing require studies of at least 30,000 people apiece.  Issuing a vaccine that has not been sufficiently tested, like this one in Russia, can cause potential harm in a number of ways.  It can give people a false sense of immunity, allowing them to become infected unawares and spreading the disease still further, and it can even make them ill in its own right.  This vaccine is not the first one that Russia has produced without controversy.  It claimed also to have developed two Ebola vaccines during the 2014 epidemic in West Africa.  The African nations, however, eyed them with distrust and said in effect, “We are needy – not desperate,” and waited for vaccines developed along more orthodox methods before inoculating their citizens.  One wonders whether Russian medical science has advanced much since the days of Dr. Lysenko.

And then there is Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who recently ran an electoral race against the dissident Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.  In his defense it must be said that, officially, he received the majority of the votes, but it has been whispered that the methods of tabulating them have not been altogether free from coercion.  In any case, spirited sort that he is, he will not allow a mere election to interfere with his prerogative.  He used the simple but effective method of threatening his rival’s children, who were spirited out of the country to Lithuania for their safety; and their mother at length followed them in order not to be separated from them for the rest of her life.  Lukashenko had already thrown her husband into jail. 

Generally I include some aspects of personal life to counter-balance the fairly gloomy view of the world that the headlines have been encouraging for months on end, but I’m a bit out of sorts today.  The hike scheduled for the Vigorous Hikers was Leading Ridge, the steepest climb in Shenandoah National Park, ascending 1700 feet in 0.9 miles.  I like the hike very much under certain conditions, but I was not up to doing it in 90-degree heat.  The weather is supposed to cool down a bit later in the week, so I will venture somewhere or other then and in that way attempt to restore myself to a more equitable state of mind.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 20,500,383; # of deaths worldwide: 744,367; # of cases U.S.: 5,304,062; # of deaths U.S.: 167,563.  Our downward trend has been reversed.  Today we saw over 50,000 new cases and over 1,300 new deaths.  The mortality rate is now about 3.1%, so there is a slight improvement in that respect.  About 500 of deaths occurred in Florida and Texas.  Virginia’s case count is now over 100,000. 

My mother’s assisted-living facility – Running errands – The motorcycle rally in Sturgis – Developments in college football – Evening statistics

It’s been a relatively quiet day.  I saw my mother in the morning.  The facility where she lives is doing an excellent job of protecting the residents from infection.  Visitors must register whenever they enter, and even residents leaving the building temporarily have to undergo a temperature scan upon re-entering.  Sanitizer is available in the main corridors and surfaces are wiped clean on a continual basis.  No one to date in the facility has come down with the virus, which is a tribute to the rigor of their precautionary measures.

Other than that I spent much of the day on various errands – although, since I undertook most of these on foot, I find by consulting the pedometer app on my cellphone that I covered well over 11 miles today.  I went out on relatively short excursions to various places (including a lab for the routine annual blood test), but there were many of them and they added up to a significant amount of mileage.

Regrettably, the discretion displayed by the people running the facility where my mother lives seems to be in short supply in the nation at large.

The motorcycle rally in Sturgis is progressing as expected.  At this point there have been 84 arrests, 226 citations, and 18 crashes – a somewhat higher amount of arrests and citations than those of previous years but not unusually so.  No social distancing has been in evidence and only a relatively small number of attendees are wearing masks.  They have come from all over the nation, and after the event they will naturally disperse back to their homes in every state in the country, so we may expect a fairly significant surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in the next few weeks on the basis of this event alone.

Two of the largest college athletic conferences, known as the “Power Five,” are showing a most unexpected display of common sense:  they will probably cancel their 2020 football season games.  The National Junior College Athletic Association has already announced that its close-contact fall sports, including football, would move to the spring semester, and the University of Connecticut canceled its 2020 season games.  These concessions to concerns about students’ safety do not sit well with our Chief Executive, who has already pushed for colleges to re-open in the fall and who has now tweeted “Play College Football.”  But in this respect he is a worthy representative of our country, which has had a long history of emotional involvement in games that is far out of proportion to their intrinsic importance.  Football, baseball, basketball, golf, tennis – they can all be quite entertaining, but there is no justification for the 8- and 9-figure incomes lavished on the participants, particularly when the majority of the spectators are living from paycheck to paycheck. Such sentiments would sound like heresy to the majority of my compatriots; so the spectacle of our President urging college students to endanger their health and those of spectators crowding the stadiums should excite no surprise.

There has been no shortage of warnings about the dangers of congregating in large numbers and the advisability of avoiding events that involve people crowded together in close proximity; and yet Americans as a whole seem to find it impossible to forego rallies, sports events, protest marches, large parties, and heavily crowded bars.  Is it any wonder that Canadians and Europeans don’t want to receive visitors from a country whose people so recklessly disregard considerations for their own health and those of others?

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 20,238,926; # of deaths worldwide: 737,900; # of cases U.S.: 5,251,416; # of deaths U.S.: 166,192.  This is the second day with less than 50,000 new cases and well under 1,000 new deaths – which would be a comforting trend, were it not for the recent rally in Sturgis and the rallies to come during the months preceding the election. 

On the AT and in Sky Meadows – A cherished memory – Residual damage from Isaias – The question of re-opening schools – Evening statistics

Although I was not especially tired after the end of yesterday’s hike, a reaction set by the evening.  I went to bed early and even after I arose this morning I felt a bit drowsy and out of sorts.  But my energies revived when I met with AD and three others in the morning for a hike that took us from the Fred Thompson Wilderness to the Appalachian Trail, where we headed north towards Sky Meadows, went down the Ambassador Whitehouse Trail to the Paris Overlook and back, continued to the Old Trail (the former route of the AT, which was re-routed to form more connections with the trail network in Sky Meadows), went up along the Old Trail back to the AT, and retraced our steps to the cars – between 11 and 12 miles in all and perhaps 1600 feet of elevation gain.

The area has many memories for me, and one in particular recurred to both AD and myself as we went down the Ambassador Whitehouse Trail.  Many years ago, in winter, we had had an ice storm and the day following it was cold, raw, and foggy – not the most inviting sort of time for hiking, I will admit.  When I pulled into the Vienna Metro I was told that the bus trip had been canceled on account of the large number of people who bowed out.  AD said that she was willing to organize a carpool hike for anyone who was willing.  Only myself and two others were (JK, who was one of them, was also a member of our group today; the fourth, who came from Sri Lanka, was living in the U.S. at the time but has since returned to his native country).  So she set up a route in the Sky Meadows area, part of which involved going down the Ambassador Whitehouse Trail to the overlook.  For the most of the hike the atmosphere was misty, dun-colored, and eerily silent, like the land in Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci” where no birds sing.  When we came to descend to the overlook, however, the clouds lifted, sunbeams pierced through the fog and quickly dispersed it, the sky became richly blue, the snow on the path began to glow in the reflected light, and the ice encasing the twigs and branches of the trees that arched over us shimmered and shone like crystal.  The entire process took no more than a couple of minutes. After we paused at the overlook, took in the view, and passed on, the clouds closed in again and the sky became gray; the timing of the clearing was such that one could imagine that it was done entirely for our benefit.

 It was one of those magical moments that occur only occasionally even to those who go out of doors often, and only to those who are prepared to receive it when it comes:  a moment when the entire world seems luminous and full of wonder and of beautiful things, when the earth itself appears to be smiling upon all of creation and the blood in one’s veins throbs in intensity, as if responding to an invitation to a joyous dance.  This reaction is not quite the same as religious ecstasy, but it can easily be confused with it.  Such a moment is generally associated with ascending the summits of mountains and looking downwards upon the ridges and valleys below, and it probably does occur in such settings more frequently than elsewhere; but it can occur in other situations as well, always provided, as I say, that those to whom it is offered are ready to accept it when it presents itself.

AD told me that the tornados following in the wake of Hurricane Isaias caused considerable loss along the coastal areas.  In Calvert County many of the beaches along the bay and the roads leading to them were flooded, and driving in that area remains difficult on account of the numerous road closures.  Several houses were without power for many hours.  The storm’s swath was heavily localized; further inland, when I live, it manifested itself merely as several hours of steady rainfall followed by a clearing and with little residual damage. 

Governor Ned Lamont, of Connecticut, is vigorously pushing for re-opening of schools to avoid a “lost year.”  He has unveiled a framework for all Connecticut students to have the ability to access in-school, full-time instruction for the upcoming year and announced last week that the state would provide an additional $160 million to help school districts open safely.  Similarly, Governor Cuomo in New York is paving the way for re-opening schools in his state as well.

I suppose my own attitude towards the idea of students attending school in person under the current circumstances can readily be discovered.  I look upon it is little short of insanity.  I am well aware that not all students can obtain quick access to workstations on which to log on in order to obtain instruction.  I am aware that this issue poses particular problems for poorer neighborhoods, where students’ parents may be unable to afford the necessary electronic equipment and the monthly payments for routing services.  I am aware that online instruction is probably less effective than in-person instruction for a substantial number of children, such as those with ADD.  But with all of these considerations, the risks are too great.  Nearly 100,000 American children to date have been infected by the virus.  Dozens have died from it.  It is quite conceivable that many more will have heart damage for life as a result.  The teachers as well as students will be undergoing continual risk if they take to the classrooms.  I have a few teachers among my acquaintance, and there is not one of them who regards the prospect of being in a room full of potentially infected children without dread. 

Already we have seen the results of schools being re-opened in Georgia.  The incidence of COVID cases has spiraled in students and teachers alike.  One school alone had nine cases in the course of a single week.  Nine cases may not sound like much, but it is nearly 0.5% of the school’s student population.  Factor in the highly infectious nature of the disease, which is accelerated by situations involving several people indoors in close proximity to each other, and the very short time it took for these first infections to appear, and it requires no great powers of calculation to extrapolate the devastation that will result in the course of a few months.

I am ranting too much, I suppose.  Since I am not a student, teacher, or parent, I can give only an outsider’s point of view – though it is not wholly unconnected with me or with others in my situation, since a greater number of people at large being infected increases the chances of getting infected oneself. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 20,008,255; # of deaths worldwide: 733,345; # of cases U.S.: 5,198,650; # of deaths U.S.: 165,592.  Strangely enough, today was an improvement for us:  less than 50,000 new cases and only 509 deaths – to think that we are reduced to describing over 500 deaths in a day as “only”!  But it is an improvement over the past several days when we’ve been getting over 1,000 deaths in a day, and I must faithfully record it as such.

The Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania – Plans to complete the AT in the state – Good news of Governor DeWines – Bad news from Sturgis, SD – Issues with metrics – Evening statistics

I was on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania again today, from Rte. 501 to Rte. 183 and back:  9¼ miles each way or 18½ miles in all.  Less than 2000 feet of elevation gain total, but it felt like more because it was very rocky.  One section that goes on for a quarter-mile was nothing but rocks; which, however, offered fewer difficulties than the rocky patches closer to Swatara Gap:  their surfaces were flatter and only a few of them were loose.  Also, the temperatures were pleasant (it never rose about 80 degrees on the ridgeline) and the gnats were much less troublesome.  There were a few overlooks giving views of the valley to the south (which does not appear to have a name).  It was a good deal less frustrating than the hike I did earlier between Rte. 501 and Swatara Gap; the trail is better maintained in this area and there was no undergrowth on any portion of the footpath.  Towards the end (i.e., close to Rte. 183) I came across a marker commemorating Fort Dietrich Snyder, a lookout post in the earlier days of settlement when there was constant tension between the newcomers and the Native Americans.

At this point I have 82 miles to go if I am to complete the entire AT through Pennsylvania. I have planned a short trip from August 17^th to 20^th that will, if all goes well, enable me to complete about half of that.  Forty miles does not sound like much to hike in the space of four days, but it must be taken into account that all of the hiking that I can do at this stage consists of there-and-backs; there is no possibility of shuttling with anyone or of obtaining transportation after reaching the end of a segment.  The only way I can get back to my car after I complete a segment is to do the original hike in reverse.  That means that all of the AT in Pennsylvania from Boiling Springs to anywhere in the north that I’ve completed so far I have had to do twice over  The projected trip will thus involve an average of 20 miles a day, or 80 miles total.  But I will be staying in an area close to the various trailheads, and I’m hoping that the greater amount of daylight hours at my disposal on account of the reduced amount of driving will make for more relaxed hikes.

In a reassuring development, the results of Governor DeWines’ COVID test apparently produced a false positive.  He has been re-tested and the results are negative.  He still is taking precautions, although in light of the second test results he probably will not undergo a complete quarantine.

In a development that is not in the least reassuring, a quarter of a million motorcyclists from all over the nation on converging on Sturgis, South Dakota, with the full blessing of Kristi Noem, the state’s governor, for the annual national motorcycle rally.  Those American bikers, you never can keep them down.  Many are not wearing masks, which, for that matter, are not required for the event.  One couple who claims that they will take appropriate precautions observed, “It looked like South Dakota was plateauing mostly.  It will be interesting to see what it looks like in two weeks.”  Interesting – well, that is one way to describe it, I suppose.  The residents of Sturgis are not particularly enthusiastic about this notable experiment.  Daniel Ainslie, the City Manager, shares their concerns but says that he is powerless to intervene.  “We can’t block off the entrances to our community, and so on a daily basis we’re getting hundreds of thousands of people saying, ‘It doesn’t matter what happens, we’re coming to your town.'”  It sounds like a description of a military invasion.

I’ve been listing metrics at the end of each entry; but, as I’ve frequently observed, caution has to be used about these figures.  EB has sent me an article stating that the number of deaths in excess of the average for previous years – a more reliable metric – is about 37% greater than the number of deaths listed as being attributable to COVID-19.  Sometimes the virus is not diagnosed in time; sometimes, also, it precipitates other conditions that can have fatal results (heart attacks, diabetes, etc.). 

Similarly (although the article does not go into this), the number of people infected with the virus is probably greater than the official estimate, possibly much greater.  Many people may have the virus without realizing it. Quite a number of people have not been tested, and even for those who have, it is not possible to get tested on a daily basis.   I took a test myself on July 13^th as part of the preparation for traveling to New York (which got canceled later, unfortunately) and it came out negative, but that is no guarantee that I am free from it now.  I fret about this particularly whenever I visit my mother’s assisted-living facility.  That is one reason that my visits have been relatively short and infrequent.

With these caveats, here are today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 19,794,206; # of deaths worldwide: 728,786; # of cases U.S.: 5,149,663; # of deaths U.S.: 165,068.  We have had just under 1,000 deaths today and well under 60,000 new cases, which is an improvement.  Speaking of unreliable metrics – Brazil’s official case count now exceeds 3,000,000 and its death toll has surpassed 100,000; but the actual figures in both instances are probably much higher.

Plans for the AT Vista – Memories of episodes from previous ATC Conferences – Advantages of winter hiking – Biden’s recent interview – Evening statistics

Even though organizations have suspended various activities for the next several months, they are making plans for future events.  I learned today that the Appalachian Trail Conservancy will be holding the “AT Vista” conference for August 6-9 of next year, at the SUNY campus in New Paltz, NY.

The ATC previously sponsored conferences every two years that lasted for a full week, and these included lectures, performances, partying, and (of course) hikes.  I attended only two of these.  I unfortunately was unaware of their existence until some years ago.  I went to one in Winchester, VA (2015) and one in Waterville, ME (2017).  After 2017 the ATC found that setting up a conference lasting a full week was no longer economically feasible.  But it was reluctant to give up the event altogether, so it established a planning committee that finally announced that a modified version of the conference, called the AT Vista, would begin in 2020 and then be held, as before, once every two years.  They ran into some difficulties, of whose exact nature I do not have the particulars, and eventually the first AT Vista was postponed to 2021.  The postponement occurred well before the pandemic became an issue.  But at this point the date for the event has been confirmed on their website and soon they will be issuing calls for volunteers.

I was still working during 2015 and the situation at the office at the time was such that I could take off only three days for the ATC event in Winchester.  It was an astonishing feat of organization.  Each day attendees had a choice of 60 hikes in the area in which they could participate, of varying degrees of difficulty.  Each hike had two leaders.  A rather small subset of these were 15 miles or greater, and I was a hike leader for one of these longer hikes during each of the three days that I attended.  Even though the summer was relatively mild, the particular week in which the event was held turned out to be the hottest of the year.  There was one hike indeed (mentioned previously in this journal) during which I called the group to halt after ascending from Manassas Gap to ensure that everyone had a chance to hydrate properly.  Sometimes, too, it was necessary to gently urge the hikers onwards when they appeared to droop and flag.  One of the hikes that I led began at Panorama in Shenandoah National Park, where we went south to Mary’s Rock, then to the Pinnacles, and then to Stony Man.  By that time we had already ascended 3500 feet or thereabouts, and some of the hikers in the group tentatively asked if there was a possibility of shortening the hike.  I said that was, but that we would soon be approaching Hawksbill, the highest peak in all of Shenandoah and one of the best viewpoints in the entire park, and that, having traveled all this way to get there, it would be rather a pity to miss it.  Some of the hikers in the group were quite eager to see it, and in the end all of them agreed to do the complete route instead of going back to Skyline Drive and waiting for the rest of us to return.  I suppose I was rather a stern taskmaster on that occasion, but one has to be sometimes.  I was not at all enthusiastic about the idea of dividing the group and allowing some of them go unguided back to cars we used for transport. In any use no one came to grief, and even the most fatigued members of the group admitted afterwards that getting to the viewpoint at the top of Hawksbill was worth the effort.

I was retired by the time of the 2017 conference in Maine and I therefore was able to attend for the entire week.  I was supposed to lead for four days, but one of the hikes got canceled because no one signed up for it.  The other days I simply signed up for hikes to follow.  I completed over 55 miles of the Appalachian Trail in Maine during the combination of hikes that I led and hikes on which I was a follower, and on the last day I signed up for a hike in Camden Hills State Park that would end at a winery, where we would be able to some sample some wine and sit at our ease before being transported back to our lodgings at Colby College.  It promised to be relatively relaxing and trouble-free, coming as it did after several other hikes that were frankly rather arduous (such as the one that went over the Bigelows). 

Unfortunately one of the hike leaders ran into car trouble at the last minute and was unable to attend.  The organizers noted that I had led hikes earlier in the week, so they turned to me and asked me to act in the leader’s stead.  I protested that I did not know the route and that indeed this was first time I had been in the state at all.  “Oh, no problem,” they said, “your co-leader is a native of the area and has done this hike many times; all you’ll need to do is support her.”  I still felt rather dubious about the matter, but I agreed.  The hike was 9 miles, with only 1500 feet of elevation gain; but the first part involved scrambling up a rock wall and going over a series of boulders.  By the time we traversed this section it became quite apparent that three of the hikers in our group would not be able to complete the route as planned.  So my co-leader took me aside.  “You’re faster than me,” she said, “and I know the area well.  I’ll take the three others back via a short cut.  You lead the rest along the route originally planned.”

And there I was, in the middle of an area I did not know, with the safety of six or seven others to attend to.  We had very good maps and there were not an undue number of trail junctions – but still, it was difficult to be completely at ease under such circumstances.  We did have a beautiful view at one point of Vinalhaven Island from an overlook, where we had lunch.  Then we moved on and at one point we came to a small flattish meadow at the top of a hill, where the trail we were on came to an end.  There was supposed to be a trailhead for a second trail at the other end of the meadow, but it was not visible from the point where we had ascended.  So I told the group to wait a bit while I explored.  Eventually I found it, at which point I returned and led the group there.  After we passed this trailhead it was a straightforward descent to the winery, to my great relief.

But even after we arrived at the winery I was not quite free from apprehensions, for my co-leader and the three hikers in her care were not present, even though they were taking a route that was two miles shorter than the one I had led.  What were we to do when the bus transporting us arrived if she didn’t show up by then?  But there was nothing that could be done except to wait, sample the wine, and enjoy the amenities of the place.  All turned out well in the end.  My co-leader came with the others about a half-hour afterwards – she had been forced, as she confided to me afterwards, to have several rest stops along the way to accommodate one of the hikers, who had greatly over-estimated her powers of endurance.  It was a beautiful hike, with extensive views of dense forest extending directly to the edge of the coastline and the islands in the distance strewn along Penobscot Bay; but relaxing it certainly was not.

Much as I praise the pleasures that hiking can provide, I realize that they are not for everyone.  Someone directed my attention to the following article in The New Yorker from an author whose attitude towards braving the elements and ascending the heights in order to experience the delights of natural phenomena is  . . .  somewhat different from mine:

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-non-hikers-terms-and-conditions-for-hiking

Actually, I can relate to the author’s comment about lying on a couch during the winter while receiving texts about the hikes from anyone crazy enough to go outside, because I also tended to go out of doors less often until I was 40 or thereabouts, and I didn’t really do winter hiking on a regular basis until I became a member of various hiking groups.  It was only after several hikes with others that I learned that hiking in the winter has certain advantages.  There are no insects, for example, and one’s footing can become easier than it would be in other seasons:  mud patches become less slippery when they are frozen over and rocky paths can provide smoother walking when covered by two or three inches of snow.  If you keep moving you scarcely notice the cold.  Stopping for meals, admittedly, is a bit more problematic; it’s not always easy to cope with fingers stiffening from the cold after removing gloves or mittens to handle the food.  But even that is less of an issue in a shelter or even in an area where boulders or tall trees screen you from the wind.

All of this reviewing of various hiking memories has diverted my attention from the headlines, which may be just as well.  My confidence in Joe Biden’s ability to defeat Donald Trump continues to plummet.  He was interviewed last night, and during the broadcast he not only made numerous gaffes but he also appears to have learned nothing from the backlash he received from his earlier comment that African-Americans who do not vote Democratic “ain’t black.”  It is quite apparent that he continues to regard the African-American vote as being in his pocket, and he also continues to alienate this bloc by blurting it out so unreservedly. It may be true that African-Americans as a group tend to vote for Democratic candidates, but not all of them do by any means; and Biden’s condescending assumption that he will automatically get their support might impel a substantial number not to vote at all. 

Biden is a man of contradictions.  On a personal level, he is superior to his rival in every conceivable way:  aa a husband, as a father, as a man of business, as a friend, as a colleague, as a politician.   But when he takes to the podium he seems determined to show that he can outdo Trump himself in arrogance, and if he doesn’t quite succeed in this objective, it certainly isn’t for lack of trying.

There is little else to report of much value.  The talks about the next stimulus check have come to nothing; the two parties could not reach an agreement in time for the August recess for Congress which is, of course, sacrosanct.  Jerry Falwell Jr. is on “indefinite leave” from Liberty University for having been caught with his pants down – or at any rate unzipped – alongside an unidentified mistress (pity he wasn’t forced out earlier, in late March, when he so foolishly and haughtily overrode the state officials’ pleas to keep the campus closed during the pandemic).  The video that Trump made earlier falsely claiming that children are “almost immune” to the COVID virus have been removed by Facebook and Twitter acting in concert, stating that its posting is against their policies concerning dissemination of misinformation.  But that appears to make little difference in practice, for school authorities in nearly every state have announced their intention to reopen schools during the next few weeks.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 19,552,905; # of deaths worldwide: 722,932; # of cases U.S.: 5,094,759; # of deaths U.S.: 164,075.  We’re back to an increase of over 60,000 cases.  The death rate continues to be over 1,000 per day.  At this rate there is no way that the total death toll will be less than 250,000 by the end of the year.

The McLean Loop – Trump, Biden, and the Bible – Travel restrictions lifted – The Beirut explosion – Governor DeWines – Evening statistics

I wished to be out and about today, but I still was reluctant to drive much after the adventure of the past Sunday (about 500 miles of driving in all).  In the end I went on the McLean Loop, which after all requires some effort, being about 17 miles long, with 1700 feet of elevation gain.  It is somewhat better to do this hike in winter than in summer:  the undergrowth is less of an issue then.  But it’s a lovely hike, with many vistas of the Potomac flowing alongside the Potomac Heritage Trail and afterwards of the leafy glades via the Pimmit Run and the Pimmit Run Valley Trails.  There is some road walking, but even that goes through pleasant neighborhoods and it is a relatively small amount of the hike as a whole.  The weather remains very warm, and humid as well, but it is not as oppressive as it was before and in the shaded woodlands I scarcely felt the heat at all.

The campaign rhetoric is beginning to heat up.  To that end, Trump has claimed that Biden is “against God” and that Biden’s ultimate goal is to “hurt the Bible.”  And who could possibly challenge Donald Trump about such a grave matter?  Has he not shown us in his own person how much he cherishes such institutions?  After all, what better way is there to honor the Bible than to throw a bishop out of her own church temporarily in order to set up a photo shoot that she and the majority of her congregants openly declare to be a profanation?  Although I must do him the justice to admit that he is observant to this extent:  with respect to the corporations he’s surreptitiously been running from the Oval Office ever since he became President, he certainly agrees with James that all giving is good and that every gift is perfect (Epistle of James, 1, 17). 

The U.S. State Department has lifted the “Do Not Travel” advisory for U. S. citizens.  It has been in effect since March 19^th.  Since, however, since Canada, Mexico, and the European Union have restrictions of their own about receiving travelers from the U.S., most American travelers still have to put their plans on hold.  It’s been estimated that the international travel industry will not fully recover until 2024 at the earliest.

The cause of the explosion in Beirut has been explained.  The explosives came from a ship, the Rhosus, that originated from Georgia.  It was never supposed to be in Beirut at all.  It was loaded with 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, a powerful explosive used in quarries and coal pits, that was destined for Mozambique.  The Rhosus made a stop in Beirut under the direction of its owner to try to earn extra money by taking on several pieces of heavy machinery. But that additional cargo proved too heavy for the Rhosus and the crew refused to take it on. The Rhosus was soon impounded by the Lebanese authorities for failing to pay port fees, and never left the port again.  The cargo was transferred to a warehouse, but the captain and three other crew members were detained in Beirut for eleven months on account of Lebanese immigration restrictions until finally being able to obtain release – in 2014.  That means that tons of explosives were sitting in a warehouse for seven years.  The port authorities appear to have forgotten about them entirely until the explosion occurred. 

Governor Mike DeWines of Ohio has tested positive for the COVID virus, the second governor to contract it (the first is Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma).  He has no symptoms but is planning to quarantine himself.  He has received praise from Republicans and Democrats alike for his response to the pandemic, which is quite unusual for any state governor.  It is the seventh most populous state, but is only fourteenth on the list of the states’ virus counts. 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 19,233,867; # of deaths worldwide: 716,457; # of cases U.S.: 5,028,791; # of deaths U.S.: 162,726.  There is not much change in the relative positions of the nations in the world with respect to one another (although Colombia’s case count now exceeds Spain’s), but many sad milestones have been passed today:  the global case count is now over 19 million; the U. S. case count is over 5 million; India’s case count is over 2 million. 

City and suburban walking – National obesity rates – Difficulties confronting nomination ceremonies – Evening statistics

A brief entry for a relatively uneventful day.

Although it was very warm today, at times going up to the mid-80s, it seemed blissfully cool and refreshing in comparison with the temperatures of the past month.  I walked mainly on the streets because the dirt trails are still a bit miry from the storms of yesterday.  Even now, with many offices open again, traffic is a good less dense than before.  Skies remain much less hazy than they usually are at this time of year.  People seem a bit more conscientious about wearing face masks at this stage.  I’m less worried about getting infected in the open air than I am whenever I enter an office or a store or any other interior, but still I use a face mask for city and suburban excursions outdoors. 

Unfortunately the production of a vaccine will not restore matters completely.  The development of one looks promising, but if and when it comes out our country will still be hampered in its recovery by another health issue:  obesity.  Vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies are less effective in obese adults than in the general population.  Ours is one of the heaviest populations in the world, possibly the heaviest of all.  It has been estimated that more than 40% of American adults are obese (defined as being with a body mass index of 30 or more) and 9% are morbidly obese (a BMI of 40 or more). 

In the meantime the forthcoming election is undergoing difficulties on both sides.  Neither candidate is able to determine a safe place where they can accept their nominations.  Trump is considering giving his acceptance speech at the White House on August 27^th and Biden has scrapped the plans to accept the Democratic nomination in Milwaukee.  Accepting the nomination at the White House may be considered a violation of ethics laws but it is possible that they will be waived under the circumstances; it certainly makes more sense for him to do so there than to hold another rally in the style of recent one in Tulsa.  The Democratic Convention in Milwaukee has been in planning for over a year, but again a big rally seems inadvisable and Biden can hardly be faulted for his decision not to risk his supporters’ safety unnecessarily.  We will simply have to undergo the process of candidate nominations with less fanfare this year than usual.  I can’t see that we will be any the worse for it.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 18,956,424; # of deaths worldwide: 710,036; # of cases U.S.: 4,973,155; # of deaths U.S.: 161,581.  Our daily rate of increase is less than it was the previous week, but it is still over 50,000 and our daily death toll was over 1,200.  At this point over 1.5% of the national population has been infected by the virus. 

Effects of Isaias – The annual physical – Star signs and sleep – States’ test-positive rates – Explosion in Beirut – Evening statistics

An annual physical in the mid-afternoon certainly breaks up the day.  And much of the morning it was raining very heavily, the result of being on the fringes of the area affected by Hurricane Isaias.  The streets were certainly wet but they were not flooded.  Our area was only moderately affected in comparison with the coastal regions; it simply rained a good deal during the night and continued until about 11:00; then it tapered off and gave way to a sunny afternoon.  The lower temperatures and reduced humidity made for very pleasant walking.  But between the heavy rain in the morning and the physical in the afternoon, there was not much opportunity for going out.  I simply strolled about in the city for a bit once the rain was over; there was not sufficient time to drive anywhere. 

The physical itself presented a contrast to previous ones.  Normally when I go to the doctor’s office the waiting room is crowded with people.  Today there was only one other person in the waiting room when I entered, and no one else came in after me.  As a result, I did not have to wait long after the administrative staff recorded my insurance information; it had to be updated because I have recently switched to Medicare.  After the nurse saw me and took the usual measurements, there was not much delay in seeing the physician either.  Are people becoming more reluctant to enter doctors’ offices for fear of infection?  Today’s physical was the most expeditious that I can remember, even in previous years when I was able to obtain appointments early in the morning and was the first one on the list of patients for the doctor to examine. 

The initial results were satisfactory:  temperature – 97.7 degrees; weight – 138 lbs. with shoes on; heart rate – 57 per minute; blood pressure – 116/68, no EKG abnormalities.  All of which was pleasant to learn.  The physician did inquire about the slight weight loss since the last physical, but I accounted for it by saying that the recent lack of social events meant that I was eating a good less party food and also that I was out on the trails more frequently than before in order to fill up my time; and he seemed satisfied with that explanation.  I still have to go out for blood analysis, and my physician also recommended seeing a dermatologist once every three years to verify that I am free of potentially cancerous moles.  So I will have to make appointments for those this week.  I also will have to arrange to get various vaccines this coming month:  those for shingles and pneumonia, in particular.

There is an article full of suggestions about the best accoutrements to help people sleep better – based on their astrological signs.  It seems those born under my sign are considered the lovers of the zodiac and that I therefore – not having a significant other to sleep beside –  would sleep most comfortably with a body pillow.  I don’t think I’m going to rush out to get one, though.  We Libras are very skeptical.

The WHO says that states and/or countries should not re-open until their test positive rates are below 5% for 14 consecutive days.  At this point only 15 states meet that criterion and, regrettably, neither Virginia nor Maryland are among them.  They are not doing as badly as most others – a little over 6% in Virginia and just under 6% in Maryland – but we cannot be said to have completely flattened our curve.  The District of Columbia is doing well, however:  just under 2%.  One of the problems is that people simply are not heeding the health officials’ pleas to stop attending large social gatherings.  Even in New Jersey (which is one of the 15 that have been testing under 5%) police recently had to break up a gathering of over 700 people at a house rented out via Airbnb.  It took the police nearly 4½ hours to fully clear the residence.

An immense blast occurred in Beirut, with shock waves that could be felt as far away as Cyprus.  At least 78 people were killed and 4,000 wounded.  Many people’s apartments are now windowless or destroyed altogether. The state energy company’s tower block headquarters in east Beirut was badly damaged. The exact cause is unknown but a mass of combustible chemicals stored in a warehouse might have triggered it.  President Trump has declared it to be an attack but at this point, without any evidence of hostile agency, there is no reason to suspect that it was anything other than an accident.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 18,682,667; # of deaths worldwide: 703,116; # of cases U.S.: 4,917,630; # of deaths U.S.: 160,257.  Today saw over 50,000 new cases in the U.S. but that is still less than the new case increases of 60,000-70,000 we’ve been sustaining recently.  The death toll, alas, was well over 1,000 again. 

Online schooling – Banking via drive-in – Let no man put asunder – Focus on Mississippi – Tragedy in Atlanta – Lake Urmia – Evening statistics

Kindergarten will be starting soon for the daughter of one of my neighbors; but happily, it is all online. As we both remarked to one another, children are by no means immune to the virus – and the teachers certainly aren’t.  My neighbor says that his daughter has very little problems of adjustment, because she’s already been accessing Internet for some time. 

The temperature never rose above 90 degrees all day and although it could have been a few degrees cooler without harm it was quite tolerable in comparison with the searing heat of much of July.  Yet few people were on the streets today.  When I was out I saw long lines of cars for the banks’ drive-in windows.  Bank offices are still closed in the area, so drive-in service is now the only way one can handle transactions that are not covered by ATMs.

An enterprising young bridegroom apparently has taken his philosophy of life from that of the Defendant in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury:

But this I am willing to say,

If it will appease her sorrow,

I’ll marry this lady to-day,

And I’ll marry the other to-morrow!

Actually, according to the Youtube video circulating the rounds, he didn’t bother to marry the first of the ladies in his life; he merely impregnated her before marrying his second.  The pregnant woman crashed the wedding to vent her fury at him, at one point shouting “Anthony, I know you hear me!”  Both the groom and the bride, however, never gave her as much as a glance during her outcries and voiced their wedding vows without missing a beat.  The cleric officiating at the wedding displayed an impressive degree of professional composure.  He appeared to regard such behavior as normal and went on conducting the ceremony as if there had been no interruption at all. 

Yet another hot spot has developed in the South.  Nearly one in four of every person tested for the virus in Mississippi has turned out positive over the past two weeks.  The state has been more or less open for several weeks; spacing in bars and restaurants has few restrictions and is very loosely enforced, and most of the counties have no mandates to wear face masks. 

Many individual tragedies are mounting up, as may be expected.  Justin Hunter, a 17-year old high school student from Atlanta, along with his father and mother, tested positive for the virus about two weeks ago.  He was asymptomatic, but his father died from the virus on July 26^th and his mother followed on July 30^th.  He has no idea of how they contracted it, since all three went through daily precautions to protect themselves, including the wearing of face masks whenever they went out.  It seems unimaginable to be forced to watch each parent die within the space of four days and to be forced to quarantine while they are buried.  He is displaying more fortitude than I would have been capable of at such a time of life, gratefully recording their final words of love to him and resolving to “keep going and get a scholarship and get my schoolwork done.”  Eugene and Angie Hunter were happily married for 35 years; they and their son together appear to have been a model family.  How merciless the virus is!  Surely they of all people could have been spared!

The discrepancy between Iran’s official case count and what the case count might be in reality (the estimates of outsiders say that the figures could be anywhere from 3 to 15 times greater than the numbers actually reported) has already been noted, but it has other difficulties as well.  Decades of over-use of water from lakes such as Lake Urmia, once one of the world’s largest salt lakes, has drained them.  Lake Urmia is now a tenth of its former size as a result of the dams constructed along the rivers that flow into it.  Shahi Island (where one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons is buried) is now an island no longer; it has become a peninsula as a result of the dwindling water levels.  Boating, once a source of a good deal of tourism, is no longer possible there.  There is some effort on the part of the government to restore the lake and prevent it from going by the way of the Aral Sea (one of the many environmental disasters created by the late, unlamented Soviet Union).  But at this point the increasing salinity of the water has given rise to numerous salt storms.  These salt storms pose a serious threat to the eyes and the lungs of at least 4 million people who live in the area. 

 Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 18,424,187; # of deaths worldwide: 696,794; # of cases U.S.: 4,861,522; # of deaths U.S.: 158,906.  Another day with less than 50,000 new cases.  The death toll today was 545 – far too high, of course, but much better than the increase of over 1,000 that we’ve been seeing for several days previously. 

A tale of two adventures – The hike at Delaware Water Gap – The mishap at the hotel – Dealing with the travel agency – Recovery – Unexpected communication from the IRS – Energy bill – Strategy for future hikes in northern Pennsylvania – Shopping at the new food market – Farmer’s Market on Sunday – The virus makes inroads, here and abroad – Tropical Storm Isaias – Wildfire in California – Evening statistics

Today’s entry will be quite a long one, on account of two adventures yesterday, one quite pleasurable and one, alas, very much the reverse.

The first adventure perhaps doesn’t quite deserve the name, for it was planned in advance.  I spent the better part of the day on the Appalachian Trail starting from Delaware Water Gap and going south.  I can thoroughly recommend this area.  Delaware Water Gap is not, to be frank, worth a special trip in itself, though it is pleasant enough.  I had visited the town during the winter (en route to a trip to New York) to hike on the AT in the northern direction, which goes along a ridgeline that features a woodland pond (which I saw when it was frozen over, the ice-covered surface glittering in the bright sun and forming a strange contrast to the brilliant blue sky above) and lovely views of the Delaware River meandering through the valley below.  The southern route is equally scenic.  It begins by circling past a small lake that at this season is covered with water lilies in full bloom, so densely that from a distance it looked more like a garden bed than a lake. The trail then goes up Mt. Minsi with views of the same river valley I had seen on my previous hike in the area, but looking at it from the south rather than from the north.  The trail passes several other areas with similar views, as well as one clearing that is used to launch gliders, with a view of the town of Stroudsburg below.  I went as far as Wolf Rocks, whose view at the top is not as breath-taking as the guidebooks say – the trees obscure a great deal and the views along the way are much more extensive – but it is an enjoyable rock scramble.  Butterflies were flitting about everywhere along the ridgeline, chiefly tiger swallowtails and black swallowtails. 

There are certain caveats to hiking here.  The blazes are a bit sparse in places.  It probably is best to go on a weekday, since the ascent to Mt. Minsi is quite popular and it was fairly crowded on a Saturday.  Also, one should try for a day with somewhat more moderate temperatures.  Unlike previous hikes on other parts of the Pennsylvanian AT, the temperature was not much cooler on the ridgeline than it was at Delaware Water Gap below and there were not many breezes.  I felt quite drained when I reached the summit of Mt. Minsi and I took a rest at the most appropriately named Lunch Rocks (a perfect place to stop and eat, as the name indicates, with a beautiful view to the north and with reasonably flat and smooth rocks to sit on).  After that I felt re-energized and I continued further than originally planned, going about 9¼ miles before turning back.  I was not worried, however, for I had plenty of time, the hotel being only about 25 minutes away from where I had parked, and any difficulty I might encounter would be filling in time for the evening after dinner – or so I thought.

And here is where my second adventure began.  I went up to the Travel Inn, and it was not at all prepossessing:  a single-level motel with exterior entrances for all of its rooms, very shabby and unkempt, with several beaten-up chairs reposing beside some of the rooms’ doors.  And the glimpses of the people I saw going in and out of the rooms were no more reassuring:  one young woman who emerged, for instance, had bare arms that were tattooed to the shoulder.  Well, I thought, I’m not going to have a particularly comfortable night here; but it’s only for one night and I’ll be out early in the morning, so it will be no great matter. 

But when I went up to the check-in counter I was told that the inn was sold out.  I protested that I had made a reservation in advance, but that made no difference:  there was nothing in their records and all of their rooms were booked.  Later on the hotel manager returned from various errands; she was more sympathetic than the reception clerk (whose reaction was simply to shrug the matter off) but she said that nothing could be done. 

So there I was, after a hike of over 18 miles in the summer heat, eagerly looking forward for an opportunity to wash my hands and face, take a shower, and get a chance to lie down a bit before eating dinner, only to be told that I had no option of doing any of these.

In desperation I called Orbitz, through whose agency the reservation was made; and this proved to be a great mistake, though not as great as that of using Orbitz in the first place. 

After going through their menu options and then waiting 15 minutes, I managed to break through and make contact with someone, only to be disconnected a couple of minutes later.

The second telephone call started out a bit more productively.  The woman I spoke with expressed sympathy, took the precaution of getting my number in case of disconnections, spoke with the hotel personnel, confirmed that getting a room there was impossible, contacted the reservations department to explain the situation, and then transferred me to speak with them directly. 

All of these procedures took some time, of course.  I was beginning to feel that the situation was becoming more and more surreal:  sitting on a battered chair beside a run-down motel with the cell phone continually glued to my ear, getting occasional curious stares from people emerging in and out of the various rooms, intent on hearing the disembodied voice emanating from the other end, which one could easily imagine to be a communication from some sort of ghost from the spirit world.  To make the analogy complete, the name of the reservation agent to whom I was transferred was Caspar.  (NOTE:  this is an allusion that most people under 60 will not understand.  There was an animated cartoon to be seen on television when I was growing up called “Caspar the Friendly Ghost.”  It was not at all a good show, but it attained a certain degree of popularity.) 

Alas, my Caspar may have been ghost-like but he was not friendly or at any rate not helpful.  First he insisted on contacting the Travel Inn people again, even though the agent I had spoken with previously had already done so.  After he re-confirmed that there was no possibility of my staying there (a fairly time-consuming process), he went to the business of trying to find a hotel in the area.  To do this he naturally had to put me on hold.  From time to time we got disconnected.  I must do him the justice to admit that he called back whenever that happened.  Occasionally I received what might be called progress reports – that he had contacted such-and-such a hotel, but had been placed on voicemail.  Finally he came back to me saying that the closest place he could find was a certain hotel in Easton.

Now a hotel in Easton, as I discovered afterwards, would have been not at all a bad compromise.  It was between 15 and 20 miles away from my current location, and the drive to the point I planned to park for the hike on the following day would have been no more than an hour.  If I had been prepared for such an eventuality I would have accepted the arrangement without question.  I was not so prepared.  I had never experienced anything like what I was undergoing now.  I had been on the phone for over an hour (that sounds like an exaggeration, but the phone records bear me out on this point), I had been disconnected three times running, and for all I knew, Easton could have been on the other side of the state.  I could not at this point place the slightest reliance on Caspar’s competence.  I was dusty, thirsty, tired, disheveled, and thoroughly out of humor in consequence.  So I told him, “Do you know what?  Forget the whole thing.  I’m going back home.”

And that is what I did.  I regretted the hour I had wasted on the phone, which would otherwise have given me more daylight to drive in, but it may have worked out better for me in the long run; it was already past 6:30 when I departed and traffic was quite light by the time I got on the road.  For that matter, the appearance of the Travel Inn in Wind Gap inspired no very great desire to remain there for the night and it is even possible that I had a lucky escape.  This shift in attitude did not occur at the time, of course.  I was bitterly calling down maledictions on Orbitz through much of the drive home.  At one point I stopped at a gas station for re-fueling and while I was there I picked up a bottle of lemonade at its convenience store, so that thirst at any rate could be alleviated.  It was only after I reached my house just before 10:30 – I made better time than I expected – that I was able to regain a degree of genuine composure.

There I was able to eat a little of the food I had previously prepared for the trip – I was too tired to eat much – and also to get a brief glance at the mail that had arrived in the afternoon.  One of these was a tax refund, quite an unexpected one.  I had made out my taxes in March, calculated that I owed taxes to the IRS, and went to a tax professional to ensure that I had calculated correctly.  (She actually was able to lower the amount due to some extent.)  I have no idea what caused the IRS to give me this bonus, but of course I’m not complaining about it.  I was sufficiently curious to examine the signature – but no, Donald Trump was not claiming the credit for this one, as he had done for the stimulus check; it was signed by the Department of Treasury official. 

The other important piece of mail was my monthly electric bill, which was lower than expected.  I have, after all, been running the air conditioner continuously over the past month in the face of the unrelenting heat of July.  But then again I keep the thermostat at 77 degrees – anything below that is too cold for me – and that means that it usually isn’t running much during the night. 

In the morning today I weighed myself and discovered that, not surprisingly, I lost a couple of pounds after the experience of yesterday, with so much hiking and driving for hours on end after the hike and so little food after the drive.  But undoubtedly much of the weight loss was water.  It will probably be restored by Tuesday, the day scheduled for my annual physical.  Well, I mustn’t allow my physician to believe that my body mass index is lower than usual, I suppose.

This episode shows, incidentally, that it is theoretically possible for me to go any point available for parking for the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania, complete a planned hike, and then return home all in one day.  The parking area at Delaware Water Gap is at the longest distance from my house of any of the parking areas for the AT in the state.  But it simply is too wearing to do such a three- or four-hour drive after a hike of several miles and two or three thousand feet of elevation gain.  One of the reasons that I spent a long time on the trail yesterday (over six hours) is that I believed that I would be staying overnight at a place nearby and that there was therefore no particular reason to hurry.  I could take rest breaks as I needed, linger at overlooks, stop to pluck berries from the bushes, and so on.  That belief turned out to be an illusion, of course, but the hike itself was a very relaxed affair as a result.  During the more recent explorations of the Pennsylvanian AT, I would have one eye on the clock on account of being anxious to end the hike at a time that allow me to drive back afterwards without encountering too much traffic.  Even Harrisburg, which I have to drive around for any of the parking areas east of the one on Rte. 850, can get quite congested during rush hour.  If I am to complete the remainder of the AT in Pennsylvania, as I wish to do, I will have to arrange for some sort of accommodation east of Harrisburg when hiking there.  I will, however, be careful to take a printed copy of my reservation with me whenever I travel and I will contact the hotel in advance to confirm any reservation I may have made online.  I also definitely will not be using Orbitz again.

Since I was not able to hike today in the AT as planned, I turned my attention to other matters.  I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to visit the new food store that opened last week.  It had been advertised as a “new food store experience.”  It was a bit of a disappointment.  Its selection is fairly good, but most of its produce is packaged in bulk, with too much in the packages for a household of one person to be able to use up before spoilage.  Most of the fish they offered was frozen.  The store was full of customers, however, and it certainly was gratifying to see a new store opening up in an area that has plenty of food markets already and doing such a thriving business. 

Also, when I went to the post office to mail my check to the electric company and to the bank to deposit my IRS check, I noticed that the Farmer’s Market is now open on Sundays as well as Saturdays, which is a recent development.  I had wanted to pick up some cherries at the new store but I decided against it when I saw that the minimum I could buy was two pounds; but I was able to obtain a more manageable amount of the Farmer’s Market.  Now I have some for the next few days without having to worry about eating all of them in time before they spoil.

Hotels that have no vacancies and are obliged to turn would-be guests away, new stores filled with customers, Farmer’s Markets running twice as frequently as before – all of these indicate that our economy is doing rather better than the official reports suggest.  If so, the administration can claim some justification for the course it has pursued in our reaction to the virus.  But quite a heavy price has been paid.

A glance at the statistics shows just how heavy it has been.  I was too tired to log in and obtain the statistics for yesterday, but I find that in the course of a day and a half that our case count has increased by over 90,000 and the death toll by over 1,500.  The death toll per day for the country has been over 1,000 for six consecutive days.  California has more than 500,000 cases.  Florida’s daily case increase is continually 10,000 or more.  New York, of all places, is offering some bright spots.  The state’s test-positive rate is 0.9% and even for New York City the test-positive rate is 1%.  The state’s number of hospitalizations is the lowest it has been since mid-March and it has sustained only three deaths as of yesterday. 

Of course, we are not the only nation having difficulties.  Even Vietnam has recently endured an increase in cases of 50% and has lost six people to the virus – quite a low amount for a nation with over 97 million people; but a severe disappointment to one which until recently has had a triumphant record of no deaths from the virus at all.  Australia has declared a state of disaster in Victoria, which contains Melbourne and is the second-most populous state in in the country.  Melbourne now has a daily curfew from 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM.  Residents may shop only for essential items and they are not allowed to go more than three miles from their homes.  South Africa’s case count exceeds 500,000.  Colombia’s case count has overtaken that of the U.K.  India’s daily case increase exceeds 50,000.  Mexico has had a case increase of nearly 10,000 in a day.  It has the third-highest mortality rate of world nations,

There is also a most bizarre report of 40-odd passengers and crew members being infected after two Arctic cruises on Norwegian ships completed earlier in July.  Why anyone would be taking a cruise under the current conditions is something of a mystery.  The crew members have all been quarantined but the passengers were discharged before the coronavirus cases were diagnosed, and now Norwegian officials are scrambling frantically to trace them and direct them to quarantine before they infect others.  I rather think that they will discover that there’s no method of putting back that mushroom cloud into the nice, shiny uranium sphere.

But of course one can’t be focused on the coronavirus all of the same time, and Mother Nature, among others, is apparently seeking diversions of her own.  Hurricane Isaias threatens to affect the entire East Coast.  It has already hit the Bahamas and caused great amounts of flooding there.  It is currently off of the Florida coast and slowly heading towards the Carolinas.  Governor Northam is anticipating massive flood damage in the coastal areas of Virginia and has declared a state of emergency in advance.

Then there is the Apple fire in the Cherry Valley of California, a wild fire that has already covered over 20,000 acres and has forced over 7,800 people in Riverside County to evacuate.  It has no containment at this point.  Much of its northern and eastern edges are in rugged hillsides inaccessible to fire-fighting equipment.  The hot temperatures and low humidity make it likely that the fire plumes will increase, despite the efforts to combat it.

All in all, being denied a room in a hotel on account of a reservation mishap seems rather a trivial matter in comparison with what’s been going on in other parts of the world.

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 18,220,978; # of deaths worldwide: 692,365; # of cases U.S.: 4,813,640; # of deaths U.S.: 158,347.  This is going to sound paradoxical but there is actually a hint of good news in these figures, at least from the national point of view.  We actually had a case count increase of less than 50,000 today.  And the nation’s deaths now account for less than 23% of the world’s total, whereas before they were well above 25%.  It is something of a commentary on the state of affairs that figures such as these can be classified as an improvement on what has been going on earlier.  Modified rapture, as W. S. Gilbert would say.

A welcome rainfall – Walking in town – A new business venture – Plans for a short trip – Dr. Fauci at the coronavirus panel – Evening statistics

Rain at last!  And the best kind:  not a torrential downpour that lasts half-an-hour or so and then dissipates, resulting in most of the rainfall draining off quickly, but a gentle, steady soaking that penetrates the soil and will go a long way to mitigate the effects of the hot weather of the past several weeks.  In addition, the moderating influence will last for some time; there are no 90-degree days in the forecast for the next 10 days.  I was able to shut down air conditioning and open the windows to air out the house for the first time in weeks.  It’s still quite humid, of course, but it’s a much better than the tropical heat we’ve been enduring for the greater part of July.

Walking in the rain is not at all uncomfortable when there is no wind and one is equipped with a broad-brimmed hat (mine is a Tilley) to keep the rain from one’s eyes and an umbrella as well.  I went about town to do a few errands.  People are still a bit careless about wearing a mask out of doors; however, they do step to one side when they are approached from the opposite direction.  Many people were out enjoying the more comfortable temperatures in their front yards, including several families with children.  In one shopping area I noticed the newly opened food market (Lidl).  There was a long line of people waiting to get in, so I did not enter; but it was heartening to see that a new commercial venture was doing so well.  I will probably check it out next week – in the early morning, naturally, when it will be less crowded.

As I mentioned earlier, the trip to New York had to be canceled.  I had planned, however, to stop at Wind Gap for a day upon my return and do a little hiking in Northern Pennsylvania.  I had the option of canceling the hotel reservation but in the end I decided to go through with it.  In a way it will be a type of information-gathering excursion – I am curious to see what it is like staying in a hotel at this point.  Since I will be on my own in the hotel and since I will be doing solitary hiking while I’m in the area, the risk of infection is not great.  I have taken some precautions, however, that will perhaps strike observers as wary to the extent of being comic.  In particular, I have packaged a sufficient amount of food so that it turns out that I’m unable to find any place where I can obtain dinner or sandwiches for lunch in Wind Gap, I will have enough to eat in the evening, to say nothing of the afternoons during my hikes.  I know that it sounds unduly fussy; but Wind Gap is quite a small village and I have no idea how the pandemic has affected the operation of its eating places.  Even in normal times such matters can be problematic in some American small towns.  I remember one vacation I took about three years ago, when I stayed in Gatlinburg with some friends to hike in the Smokies.  We rented a cabin and, even though we went out to dinner every night, we prepared breakfast for ourselves in order to get an early start and of course we packed our lunches as well.  In order to obtain the groceries we needed, we had to drive to Pigeon Forge, which is about five miles away.  Gatlinburg, of course, is a tourist town taken to the extreme – just imagine a place that has at least four shops featuring Wild West photo shoots but which has no grocery stores anywhere either inside the town itself or within five miles past its borders!  Still, I do not want to be caught flat-footed.

I will depart tomorrow, hike in the afternoon, check in during the evening, stay there overnight, check out, hike some more in the morning, and then return.  It’s unlikely that I will be in a position to upload to my blog during my travels but I plan to take notes all the same and write up an entry for both days on Sunday.

In testifying to a coronavirus panel for the House of Representatives, Dr. Fauci said that the reason European countries are seeing decreasing rates while we are not is that they have been much more aggressive about lockdown, even to the extent of shutting down their economies by 95%.  In addition, he expressed cautious optimism about the development of a vaccine.  The interview also demonstrated, if any further proof was needed, that a queer kind of stupidity appears to be the most important qualification for any prominent politician.  The most contentious moment occurred when Representative Jim Jordan (Republican, Ohio) tried to press Fauci on whether the government should limit protests against racial violence; Fauci said that all he could say was that any kind of activity that involved being in a crowd is a bad idea.   “I don’t understand,” he added, “why you’re asking me as a public health official who should get arrested or not.” 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 17,744,811; # of deaths worldwide: 682,192; # of cases U.S.: 4,705,045; # of deaths U.S.: 156,742.  The U.K. is no longer on the list of the top ten nations with the highest case counts.  It has been displaced by Iran, whose case count is over 300,000.  Columbia and Saudi Arabia are rapidly approaching these levels as well. 

It has been a difficult month for us on a national level, and the next month promises to be harder.  If we don’t manage to get our rate of increase under control, the number of COVID-19 cases will be augmented by between 1.5 and 2 million and the number of deaths from the virus by over 30,000 at the end of August.