The last debate – Eric Trump defends his father “not wisely but too well” – Another hiking incident – Recollections of a well-known missing hiker case – Evening statistics
The debate of last night was not the fiasco I was anticipating. The threat of the mute button appears to have affected both candidates – can we make this feature a permanent one for all future debates? Trump in particular showed considerable restraint in comparison with his previous performance. As for Biden – he will never be a great debater and his energy seemed to flag in the second hour, but he made his points with conviction and he managed to slip in some good one-liners, as evidenced in the following exchange about the coronavirus:
TRUMP: We’re learning to live with it.
BIDEN: We’re dying with it.
Kristen Welker must be commended; she refused to be bullied or to be deflected from her line of questioning. At the same time, she did not draw attention to herself; she concentrated on delivering an actual debate between the two candidates and she was far more successful in this respect than the previous moderators.
Trump’s answers to her questions were what might be expected, although he did not make a spectacle of himself in the manner of the first debate. Truth, as should be evident, is not a high priority for him. Perhaps that is the case for any politician, but his disregard for it at times has to be heard to be believed. He said, for instance, that we’re “rounding the corner” as far as the virus is concerned, quite a startling claim in view of the fact that cases are rising in 34 states, hospitalizations have increased in 37 states, and the average daily rate of increase in new infections has been about 59,000 ever since August. What a good story Trump has to present to us – if only those pesky statistics didn’t get in the way.
At any rate it is over, thankfully over. No one will change his mind about either candidate as a result, but at least we can end the cycle of debates on a much more sedate note than the one with which it began. One might even go so far as to say that last night’s debate added an element of respectability to the proceedings. The first debate made us a global laughing-stock, so it is a relief to see our electioneering system redeemed to some extent by this one.
Whatever else may be said about Donald Trump, his children certainly have the quality of loyalty. Whether they have the quality of intelligence as well is . . . debatable. Here, for example, is Eric Trump, leaping to his father’s defense concerning the latter’s recent interview with Leslie Stahl: “Who can blame my father for walking out on Leslie Stahl and 60 Minutes? That show is simply a waste of half an hour.” What am I missing here? Has CBS revamped its schedule on a whim and changed “60 Minutes” to “30 Minutes”?
There is news of another hiking incident, this one concerning a missing hiker. Such reports are a warning. As the journal indicates, I hike a great deal, and I don’t always notify people in advance about the route I plan to take if I hike alone, even though I know that I should. Sam Dubal, an assistant professor at the University of Washington, was reported missing on October 12th after he didn’t return from a hiking trip in Mount Rainier National Park. He had left on the 9th and was supposed to return the following day. He was 33 years old, in good physical condition, and an experienced hiker, but in the nine days that followed the report searches from rangers, volunteer hikers, and helicopter crews for him found nothing. His relatives believe that he is still alive and are urging the park service to continue the search, but his chances for survival are minimal at best by this time.
In 2017, when I attended the Appalachian Trail Conference, one of the hikes I led took me past the location where Geraldine Largay had last been traced. I admit that I was curious to see it, for her story had been repeated many times among the hiking community. She was hiking the AT four years earlier, starting from Harper’s Ferry and intending to end at Katahdin, for the most part in company with another, more experienced hiker. But her companion had to bail out in New Hampshire on account of a family emergency, at which point Largay continued on her own. In central Maine she left the trail to relieve herself and then was unable to find the trail again. The woods there are very dense and it is easy to get lost even if you step as little as fifty feet away from the trail. When she realized that she was lost she went up to higher ground, presumably in the hope of getting a better cell phone signal, but also, unfortunately, venturing further from the trail. Finally she set up camp in a location about 2 miles from the trail and waited in hopes that a search party would find her. They never did, despite their best efforts. It was only two years after her death, from exposure and starvation, that a logging company surveyor accidentally came across her campsite and her remains.
I could hardly believe it when I passed the area in question. I had imagined it, from the reports I read earlier, to be an almost impossibly remote place, miles away from any human habitation. In fact, the trail at that point is close to a stream. Had I been in such a situation, I would have aimed for the stream and followed its course. In one direction the stream comes to the end of a forest road within 100 yards from her probable point of departure from the AT. In the other direction it lets out onto a second woods road about 1½ miles away. In either case I would have walked along the road until I found an occupied house or a car driver. But of course it is easy to pass judgment. She was alone, she was prone to anxiety attacks, the woods in that area are nearly impenetrable, and it is not easy to think clearly under such circumstances. There are currently 23 people listed as missing on the National Parks website, which makes for grim reading. In several cases the missing person left his or her car at a parking area and began hiking, never to be seen again afterwards. Searchers are often hampered by not knowing in which direction the missing hiker went.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 42,459,408; # of deaths worldwide: 1,148,687; # of cases U.S.: 8,743,389; # of deaths U.S.:229,273. Today we experienced an increase of 77,646 new cases, the highest daily increase to date.