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Long road to ‘normal’ despite economic progress

As the nation began the process of “reopening” slowly but, we all hope, safely, there was encouraging news on the economic front. About two weeks ago, nearly 25 million Americans were receiving unemployment benefits, the Labor Department reported. By Thursday, the number had decreased to about 21.5 million. We are making progress, then. How long before we are back to “normal?” Not for a long, long time, possibly. Along with Thursday’s encouraging report, the Labor Department had some disquieting numbers. Though the general trend was toward more people going back to ...

U.S. Supreme Court’s decision far from a ringing endorsement

Local and state officials reveling in their power to enforce dictates they claim are needed to battle the coronavirus pandemic may well have felt a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld their authority. In a way, it did. But look more closely at the ruling: It came in an emergency appeal filed by the South Bay United Pentecostal Church, near San Diego, California. Church leaders had objected to limits on the number of people attending services. A statewide order had limited houses of worship to no more than 100 worshippers at a time, or 25% of a particular church’s ...

We need help policing the police

Sometimes we wish we could “rewind” something we have just seen, because we can’t believe our eyes. What we thought we saw can’t be what really happened, we reason. Dozens of times during the past week or so, the media has permitted us to take another look at what occurred March 25 in Minneapolis. There, a black man, George Floyd, was arrested for a non-violent offense. He was taken into custody by four police officers. He was handcuffed, then forced to lie prone on the street. While two officers held him down, a third knelt over him, with his knee pressed hard onto ...

Unemployment rate unsustainable

About 156.5 million Americans are categorized as members of the civilian labor force. At least 41 million people who can work and by definition want to are unemployed. In other words, approximately one of every four people able to work is not employed — and is being supported by the rest. That is unsustainable even in the short term. Money does not grow on trees. In truth, the numbers probably are even worse. The 41 million people referred to above are only those who have filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the past couple of months. Nearly 5.9 million others were ...

Your spellers provide valuable lesson to elders

Plenty of the headlines these days are Bad news with a capital “B.” What seems to be going on all around us is disheartening, to say the least. An occasional ray of sunshine breaks through, however. Consider the national spelling bee: Earlier this year, organizers of the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee announced the event would not be held this year, because of the COVID-19 epidemic. Each year, the country’s top young spellers compete in local and regional events for the right to go to Washington for the national competition. Imagine the disappointment of youngsters who ...

Third world countries still need our support

President Donald Trump’s announcement that he is cutting U.S. funding for the World Health Organization has been condemned throughout the world. Critics insist that a healthy WHO is essential especially now, as the COVID-19 pandemic rages. But the question is whether the WHO, a United Nations affiliate, really is doing the job for which it is designed. Clearly, it is not. That was demonstrated earlier this year when WHO officials backstopped the Chinese Communist Party in maintaining that the COVID-19 outbreak had been contained and was not a serious threat to the rest of the ...