An Economic Cliff

Last week, Dr. Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column that Americans are facing another economic cliff. This cliff comes not on August 1, when extended unemployment benefits from the CARES act expire, but rather this Friday, when states will cut off that extended unemployment benefit for millions who are collecting unemployment.This comes on top of more and more businesses closing again after states reopened prematurely. Even last week, there were more than a million new unemployment claims, and that will grow in the next few weeks. 

Republicans in the Senate are completely oblivious to the plight of working-class Americans, as they consider another round of disaster relief spending. They want a huge payroll tax cut - threatening the health not only of Americans, but of Social Security and Medicare. And that doesn't help unemployed Americans who - wait for it - are not getting a payroll check. They want to limit the liability of companies who open their doors, forcing employees to work, but not holding companies accountable when those employees contract COVID-19. And, of course, they want more tax cuts for the wealthy.

More importantly, they are resisting more funding for schools, while demanding as a bumper sticker slogan that schools reopen. Again, they simply ignore the facts and recommendations of experts in education, epidemiology, and building systems design and operation. Many on the right actually threaten to withhold Federal money to states/school districts that don't reopen schools fully, while cash-strapped states, who cannot run deficits, are trying to deal with a myriad of public services that the people need in the middle of a pandemic.

So get ready for the cliff.

Privilege in America

We are seeing today the evidence of privilege in the United States of America in two different, but related stories in the news. 

In one, the Attorney General of Kentucky, a Republican, is seeking to charge some 87 protesters who were trespassing on his private yard. Yes, with trespassing, a misdemeanor. But also with a Kentucky felony, "intimidating a participant in a legal process." The protests were over the Attorney General's slow roll of the investigation into the death in February of Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville police.

The second case involves the wealthy St. Louis couple who pointed weapons at protesters on the street in front of their house. In that case, the St. Louis District Attorney, acting within her prosecutorial discretion, is seeking felony charges of brandishing a weapon in public. The Governor has called for the DA to resign, and Trump, along with US Attorney General William Barr, are looking at ways they can intervene in the case.

Threatening and intimidating public officials in the conduct of their duties happens every day all across America, in the demands and threats around campaign contributions. Businesses are looted every day by "private equity" that buys up companies using tons of borrowed money, strips the companies bare - including any employee pension funds - and then sells the remains at a huge profit. Big companies and wealthy people avoid taxes every day, with all sorts of schemes to hide money (see the Netflix movie "Laundromat"). Businesses and the wealthy have their minor violations overlooked all the time.

But if you're poor - white or black or brown or whatever - you get charged with a felony "threatening and intimidating." You get arrested and put in jail for a long time for breaking a window in a business, or blinded in one eye by a beanbag round from a 2nd story window as you're complying with police commands to disperse. You get choked to death for selling loosey cigarettes on a city street or passing a counterfeit $20. You get pulled over for not signaling a lane change in a deserted town on a sleepy Sunday morning, and then put in jail with cash bond for "resisting."

The determination isn't always race or ethnicity, but it's always money.

Reopening Schools in the Middle of a Pandemic

On July 7, President Trump reiterated his call to open public schools this fall. “We want to reopen the schools,” Trump said. “We don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep schools closed. No way.” Apparently he believes that children aren't susceptible to the virus, that they can't carry the virus back into their homes and communities, and that even if they are susceptible, they don't get as sick as the elderly who are frequently after-school caregivers. 

The reality is that COVID-19 is a highly contagious airborne pathogen, and that groups of people in enclosed spaces create a perfect petri dish in which the virus can thrive and spread quickly. Experts in building systems design recognize the contribution of HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems to the spread of airborne diseases. Over decades, they have developed standards for design and operation of such systems in hospitals, where infection control matters. Such systems in operating suites, critical care units, and isolation rooms are designed, installed, and operated under very exacting regulations in order to keep patients and hospital staff safe and healthy. Even in the rest of the hospital, systems use 100% outside air, meaning that no air is recirculated in the building.

Schools, on the other hand, are not designed with the spread of highly virulent airborne pathogens like COVID-19 in mind. There are minimum ventilation standards, and in recent years the concept of ventilation effectiveness has taken hold. That basically means some percentage of the air coming through the air handling system is outside air, and that room air distribution (the registers in the ceiling) are designed and positioned to better mix the air from the air handling system in the room. But the systems don't have the capacity typically to operate with 100% outside air, which is expensive. Besides, only schools built in the last 20 or 30 years are designed with these considerations in mind, and we know that most schools are older than that in most areas of the country.

That said, there are ways to improve ventilation, and thereby improve the indoor environment where students, faculty, and staff spend their days. ASHRAE- the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers - issued a Position Paper in April with recommendations for building systems operation in a pandemic. Those recommendations include installing high-efficiency particle filtration (HEPA filters), a 2-hour outside air flush of the building every morning before opening the building to its occupants, and increased outside air throughout the occupied period.

Yet implementation of these recommendations will not come without a cost:

- Many air handling systems are not sized to accommodate the thicker HEPA filters, meaning modification to filter housings

- Some air handler motors/fans might not be able to operate properly with the increased static pressure introduced by the HEPA filters, meaning replacing motors or fans

- Increasing the outside air to the building means increased costs to heat or cool that ventilation air (called tempering in the business)

- All this also increases personnel costs to monitor and manage the ventilation systems operation

I realize this is pretty dense for the lay person. But these highly technical considerations are essential, in my view, to reduce the risks to our children, their teachers and administrators and custodians and cafeteria workers, all those families, and the community at large. The only question is whether we have the willingness to pay.

Monuments, names and flags

Growing up in Union County, we sometimes would visit Rose Hill with a school class, or a Boy Scout Camporee, or a simple family outing. That was the plantation home of South Carolina's secession governor, William H. Gist, and is now a State Historic Site. Dad used to say that Governor Gist was in our family tree, although I haven't been able so far to trace that connection. We studied South Carolina history in 7th grade at Buffalo Elementary. Our principal, Mr. Burton, taught that class, and took the class on an overnight to Charleston to visit historic sites and even spend a couple of hours on the beach at Isle of Palms. But that's a different story for a different day.

But as a kid growing up, I guess I was especially naive. I look back on conversations and events from today's perspective, and things are so much more clear. It turns out Union County in many ways wasn't the idyllic Southern community. Business leaders were also Klan organizers. Union would have been in the straight shot between Spartanburg and Columbia, but Interstate 26 swings west to Laurens County instead, apparently because some of those leaders didn't want "outside influence." And it took until 1969 to desegregate our schools, 15 years after Brown v. Board of Education.

As a Navy officer back in the day, I served as the Weapons Officer on USS Semmes (DDG-18), one of only a few Navy warships named after men who served in the confederate navy. The New York Times of the Civil War era referred to Semmes as a pirate, because basically that's what he was. I actually chose Semmes coming out of the Navy's Department Head school not because of the name of the ship, but because she was homeported in Charleston.

So when it comes to monuments, military base names, and flags, I can claim that Southern heritage as much as anyone I know. But the "erasing history" complaint doesn't cut it, because very few Americans know the truth about confederate generals like Braxton Bragg or John Bell Hood or A.P. Hill. If my family connection to William H. Gist, and his cousin States Rights Gist, are indeed true, I take no special pride in their open rebellion against the United States of America 160 years ago. While I am proud of my Navy service, including on the Semmes, I celebrated a few weeks ago when the statue of Semmes in Mobile was removed from the public square by city officials.

So I say obliterate those monuments and base names from the public square. That's not erasing history, it's simply eliminating those men from a place of honor they don't deserve. Replace the monuments with symbols of peace and unity. Rename the bases for Medal of Honor winners - Fort Bragg could be renamed Fort Charles George, after PFC Charles George, the North Carolina native and Cherokee who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously after being killed in action in Korea. 

Like the bumper sticker on my truck says, we are one nation with one flag, or as when we pledge allegiance, we are One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Masks

We have known for months that masks reduce the spread of COVID-19. That theoretical knowledge is supported by empirical evidence from nations like South Korea, where masks in public are almost universal.Yet here in the United States, we have some people with some aversion to masks, with some laughable reasons to not wear them. Here is a sampling:

- "Masks are hot." Yes, they do make a person feel warmer. But think about that the next time you want to tell a mother to put a blanket over her baby's head while breastfeeding.

- "Masks make it hard to breathe." Yes, imagine how difficult breathing is in the surgical suite for all the doctors, nurses, and techs when you get wheeled in for your knee replacement or heart bypass or hernia repair. They wear masks for hours at a time in order to protect you, all the while performing intricate tasks, often under extreme pressure.

- "Masks interfere with God's Breath of Life." My theology speaks of a God who can give life even when we do everything to reject that gift, can be present everywhere even when we "kick God out of schools," whose Grace is present even before we are aware of it. If God gave us the intellect to figure out how to protect ourselves and those around us from a virus, then I'm sure God can deal with the Breath of Life concern.

- "Freedom." Well, there's much to be said about this attitude. But let's focus on the notions of freedom held by the Founders of our nation, especially as they are documented in the Declaration of Independence. Many think of the Declaration of Independence as some libertarian catechism. But the first specification in the indictment against King George III is this: "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." That's not exactly a cry for individual freedom! That several of our states (Pennsylvania, Virginia, and others) are called "Commonwealth" is the acknowledgement that there are circumstances where the "public good" outweighs the desires of the individual.

So, just wear a mask. Yes it's hot, inconvenient, slightly uncomfortable. But don't do it for yourself, do it for those you encounter in public.

Policing and the Bill of Rights

The Preamble of the Constitution says that we the people created the United States of America in part to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility. At least four of the ten articles in the Bill of Rights specifically limit the power of the government in policing and administration of justice.

The Fourth Amendment's protection of the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures is at the heart of law enforcement activity. In my opinion, any seizure of a person that results in that person's serious injury or death at the hands of police is unreasonable, except in the most extreme circumstances. 

That is why, in my opinion, we need strict Federal use of force standards for police and the end of qualified immunity. We need to move investigation and prosecution of alleged police misconduct, including the death of any person in police custody, out of the hands of local investigators and prosecutors. We need to end cash bail, as in my opinion cash bail violates the Eighth Amendment. 

The Congress must act now to impose far-reaching, aggressive controls on policing and the operation of our criminal justice system in order to secure the rights of the people.

Good Order and Discipline

In his resignation letter, former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer cited the well-worn phrase "good order and discipline" as being central to his decision to resign. What exactly is "good order and discipline," and why is it important to the military mission?

Good order and discipline suggests that there are well-established, understood rules and principles that govern conduct in the military organization. It goes beyond mere regulation, to a deeper commitment to honesty in carrying out and reporting on one's duties. It speaks to not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well, recognizing a deeper need to do the right thing for the right reasons. In the specific case of the Navy SEAL, the regulation that prohibits posing with an enemy corpse, as if it were a hunting trophy, codifies a deeper moral statement about the value of human life.

The military professional sees "good order and discipline" as essential to mission success. The armchair soldier, on the other hand, learns about the military from bad movies or bad books or politicians with bad ideology, The civilian "expert," often described by the epithet "chickenhawk," sees rules as impediments to the soldier doing his job, which is simplified as "killing people."

And what happens when the inexperienced commander-in-chief, with his distorted view of the military, decides to "have this sailor's back"? How does this undermine good order and discipline? Well, it's quite simple. Now the rogue military member's unlawful behavior is excused, because the commander-in-chief says the rules don't matter, treaties are meaningless, and the law of war is just some bleeding heart liberal construct.