Another hike in Sky Meadows – The outcome of the E. Jean Carroll case – The approaching end of the national state of emergency – Evening statistics
Another hike yesterday, this time in Sky Meadows with various friends and a stop at a winery afterwards. We had wonderful weather, despite the humidity; most of the hike was well-shaded and there was a breeze blowing almost continually. Even though I have been to Sky Meadows many times, it looks so different in the various seasons; today, with the tree leaves creating a canopy so dense that sunlight was filtering through in shafts, it was scarcely recognizable as the place I visited a mere six weeks ago.
There has been, if not a triumph of justice today, at any rate a mild degree of attainment in that direction. The jury in the E. Jean Carroll case, after a relatively short three hours of deliberation, has declared Donald Trump to be guilty of battery and defamation of character. It is a very small victory, since the penalty is only monetary and the amount that he is to pay ($1 million in damages, $1.7 million for reputation repair, and $280,000 in punitive damages, for defamation) represents so minute a fragment of his holdings that he would undergo no substantial hardship even if he were to pay the entire amount without hesitation, which of course he won’t. After the verdict was announced, he erupted into a storm of fury and has vowed to appeal. But what else is to be expected? He didn’t even bother to testify on his own behalf; he simply trusted that the judge would meekly accept his abuse and that the jury would cave in the moment he issued orders to dismiss the case. And truly, when I reflect upon the number of absolutely spineless men and women he encountered during his administration in Washington, not to mention the legions of associates and employees he habitually bamboozled in his numerous business dealings, I cannot feel any surprise at such an expectation on his part. Not a single one of his rivals for the Republican nomination will venture to criticize him for being accused of rape. “There’s not really an incentive for Trump to modify or normalize his behavior,” Harrison Kerr wrote in an article for 19FortyFive. “Why would he? In fact, I suspect his popularity would wane if Trump normalized; Trump’s appeal, in large part, depends upon him acting more outlandishly than his contemporaries.”
The end of the state of emergency is swiftly approaching, internationally as well as nationally. Last week, WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee met and decided that the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) should end because of declining Covid-19-related hospitalizations and deaths, and high levels of immunity in the population. “For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend,” WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday. The end of the public health emergency, which has been renewed thirteen times, since the pandemic began, does not mean that COVID can be dismissed idly. It is now on a par with an especially bad season of influenza, and it should be borne in mind that the less than half of Americans receive influenza vaccines (I myself did not start taking them until relatively recently). But, with COVID vaccinations now in wide use and new therapeutic methods available, a hopeful note has been sounded and it is steadily growing in resonance. In the words of Dr. Fauci with regard to the disease: “If you are vaccinated and boosted and have available therapy, you are not going to die, no matter how old you are.”
Today’s statistics as of 9:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 687,959,850; # of deaths worldwide: 6,871,929; # of cases U.S.: 106,772,583; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,162,474.