Dispatches from Vilnius

I don't know about you, but I don't feel more at ease knowing that the president has brought in his kids to restore calm and order to the pandemic sweeping across the country.  Ivanka was on hand for his briefing to a specially selected group of " small business owners " at the White House.  Maybe she helped him write the speech as it showed a level of empathy we haven't heard from the Donald before.  Meanwhile Jared labels the White House coronavirus battle a " success story ," despite deaths now topping 60,000 with more than a million cases reported nationwide.  For the Donald it is all about the pitch, but does he really think his kids will save him? We have not seen this level of nepotism since Bill Clinton named Hillary to head the health care panel in his administration.  Republicans balked then but are mum now as Trump actively consults Javanka on key issues and has Jared leading Middle East Peace and coronavirus business task forces.  Iv...

After yesterday's White House press briefing , Joe Biden looks pretty damn good!  Little wonder so many persons are endorsing him so far outside the election, including Mitt Romney.  Well, sort of anyway . Granted, Joe has been known to stick his foot in his mouth, but nothing like we have seen Trump do the past 6 weeks at the press briefings.  Trump has pitched everything from hydroxychloroquine to tanning beds and now disinfectants as a cure for coronavirus.  Mostly, the president is greeted with stunned silence, but more and more doctors are speaking out as to the dangers posed by these crazy suggestions.  A thorough hydroxychloroquine study isn't due out until next week, but initial results of studies conducted in the US show that not only does the anti-malaria drug not cure coronavirus, but it can be very dangerous for anyone with cardiovascular diseases. Fact is that the vast majority of persons who have died from coronavirus had  pre-existin...

Inside the infamous laboratory As anger and resentment mount, countries are looking for scapegoats to vent their frustration on.  The US is of course taking the lead , blaming China for not reporting the virus soon enough, hiding badly needed information and altering its figures.  Trump has even gone so far as to promote the popular conspiracy theory that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. To this point WHO has supported China, although it has said that Chinese authorities could have been more forthcoming as the virus wasn't officially reported until December 31, 2019, and then not viewed as being particularly virulent.  It wasn't until January 22 that WHO convened an emergency meeting in which Chinese health experts presented evidence that the virus was indeed being transmitted by human-to-human contact.  A three-week lag that might have gone a long way to helping other countries be better prepared for the outbreak, namely Japan, So...

The Swedish model is getting a lot of buzz these days, and I don't mean Elsa Hosk .  Unlike most of the Europe. Sweden chose to pretty much go on with things as normal, believing they would lick this nasty virus with "herd immunity."  According to Hans Bergstrom , it isn't working, but that's not stopping the state epidemiologist from declaring victory, largely because he is under the impression Swedes believe they don't need a government imposed lockdown to stay safe. The numbers don't match with the view, however.  Sweden has far more deaths per capita than its Scandinavian and Baltic neighbors, and its numbers are spiking, not plateauing as state health officials claim.  But, don't tell American conservative bloggers.  They love the Swedish model because it fits with their belief that lockdowns produce no better results. The interesting thing about the state's leading epidemiologist is he didn't even factor asymptomatic carriers wh...

In what can only be described as an "unpresidented" move, Trump urged his supporters on twitter to "liberate" Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia, where he claims the lockdowns are too severe. Trump probably feels he is himself a victim of these lockdowns, essentially having been placed under house arrest until health experts deem it safe to reopen society.  He hasn't been able to stage any rallies or go play golf, his two favorite pastimes.  He's stuck inside the White House where the only contact he has with the outside world is through his press briefings and twitter feed.  That's rough for a man who is used to basking in the adulation of his supporters. However, you would think his advisers would ask him to tone down the rhetoric, especially given that fully two-thirds of Americans are very worried about facing an open society again in the age of coronavirus. Throughout this crisis, Trump has played to his base.  In late February, he was ca...

If ever someone got more attention than he deserved, other than our current president, it is probably Bill Gates. He's been viewed as one of the seminal geniuses of the PC revolution, along with Stephen Jobs, when in fact neither one of them had much to do with the development of the personal computer and accompanying software other than to successfully market it.  Their "genius," if you can call it that, lies in their entrepreneurial skills, not their programming or even their development skills. Gates moved out of Jobs' sizable shadow, when the apple founder died nine years ago.  The media has come to treat Gates as a modern-day Marshall McLuhan, having helped realize the late Canadian philosopher's "global village."  The funny part is that Gates didn't even design the platform on which this village is based.  That credit belongs to Gary Kildall and Tim Paterson. As far as Jobs' personal computer, that credit should go to Xerox PARC, w...

No one likes to deal with cold hard facts, which is why Dr. Fauci is walking a tightrope at the White House.  This was made painfully apparent the other night as Jake Tapper grilled him on State of the Union.  The good doctor tried his best to dance around the subject of the slow response, but in the end admitted that "if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives."  This wasn't what our malevolent narcissistic president wanted to hear, retweeting the puerile statement, "Time to #FireFauci." The problem of course isn't Fauci, but a president who continues to look at his Friends and Fox and conservative social media sites for advice.  This time, how to handle Fauci?  He's apparently in constant communication with Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh and his favorite pastor, Robert Jeffress, to name a few.  Hardly the kind of inner circle that should make any of us feel comfortable. Jeffres...

If there is anything positive to come out of this worldwide pandemic, the sky is bluer, the grass is greener and the water is clearer.  The Venetian dolphin story was too good to be true , but other tales of wildlife sauntering into quiet towns has happened, even if it is not completely out of the norm.  However, there is no doubting that air quality has improved with more persons staying indoors.  New Delhi has recorded its best air quality in years. Most countries are allowing their citizens to enjoy the outdoors but to stay close to home.  This means car traffic has decreased, public transportation has been limited, and airline traffic has ground to a virtual halt.  You have to wonder why we don't do this for two weeks each year to give the earth a chance to flush out some of the filth we create. I kind of like this lockdown.  I've always preferred to work from home.  When I do go out, it is nice to see less traffic on the road, as the dri...

I'm not sure if this is what the White House had in mind by staging sports events, but I supposed for so-called wrestling fans, WrestleMania  in a virtual black box is better than nothing. Given that it is a staged event, Vince McMahon could have always gone with gameplay , which I imagine is what die-hard fans are playing right now. Same goes for any other sport.  They all have gaming editions.  Madden Football is famous for predicting Super Bowls, although it seems it got a bit carried away here .  Given the high price owners pay for star athletes, it is only a matter of time before computer animation replaces the real thing anyway. The President had called the commissioners of the various sports, plus Dana White and Vince McMahon, to discuss the matter.  People were a bit curious why Dana and Vince were included, since they are more promoters than they are "commissioners," but Vince had recently launched the XFL , a spring professional football...

Jared has now assumed center stage in the war on coronavirus It really is hard to ascertain what is going on in the Trump White House to reach this level of folly .  The only thing I can think of is that Trump thought Pence was being too soft on Democratic governors and has called in Jared to be the enforcer.   States have repeatedly begged the federal government for more emergency medical equipment, but to this point have been slow in getting it.  In the case of New York, by far the hardest hit state, Trump and his surrogates have even questioned whether Cuomo is inflating his numbers.  Jared has similarly disputed the governor's numbers, claiming he will be monitoring hospital needs in the state.  This is something the state already does.  Governor Cuomo went to great lengths yesterday to describe the procedure the state has in place to create a central supply store of surplus equipment, which the state can provide on an as-need b...

I thought it was an April Fools joke at first, but apparently Trump actually admitted he screwed the pooch if not in so many words.  He now claims he knew all along the severity of the crisis, but wanted to be America's cheerleader , downplaying the crisis so as not to be a negative nelly.  I guess this was his way of saying he didn't want to create a panic. Of course he quickly turned to hyperbole by saying this is "the worst thing that the country has probably ever seen," discounting the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 that saw over 675,000 deaths in America alone.  We can only hope this one won't be so bad, as that was a far more significant percentage of the population.  Or, the fact that we went through a horrible Civil War in which 25 percent of the Southern white male population was eliminated, as well as countless others, mostly due to disease and starvation. No, Donald, this isn't the worst thing the country has ever seen, but you made it demo...