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In a weak attempt to expand the language capability of my readers, “Hur mår du” is Swedish for “how are you” and in order to see how Sweden is doing, it is time for my monthly Swedish coronavirus update.

To review:

Instead of tight lockdowns, Swedish officials encouraged citizens to use common sense, work from home if possible, and not gather in crowds over 50. Primary schools … open!  bars and restaurants … open!  with people enjoying drinks and crowding streets. Their aim is to slow the pace of the virus, so as not to overwhelm the health care system.

At this point I want to emphasize that they did not close primary schools. I guess Sweden does not have a power-hungry political teachers union, and perhaps Sweden just cares more about educating its young students.

Here are a few of the latest stats from Sweden:

Total cases – 80442

Total deaths – 5743

In June when there was a significant increase in testing, there was a sharp rise in the number of cases to greater than 1000 per day on more than half of the June days. However, in July the number of new cases dropped to <500 (still increased testing) in the second half of the month, and in July the number of ICU admits and the number of deaths are way down. This seems like there could be a glitch somewhere. Why are the number of cases going up, while the deaths and ICU admits are impressively lower? 

To me there can be only two possible answers. Either the increased testing is now picking up a lot of asymptomatic individuals, or the increased testing is identifying a greater number of individuals that are in an age range that does quite well with Covid.

The  age group of 70 and above had 89% of all of the deaths in Sweden. (Yes, you heard me right!) The age group 50-70 had 9.6% of all of the deaths in Sweden. Moreover, one of the reasons for the relatively high percentage of the deaths in the 70+age group is the extremely low numbers of deaths in the <50 age group. In this younger and younger-middle age group there were only 71 deaths (1.24% of all coronavirus deaths in Sweden). Of course, all deaths are tragic, but the bottom line is that very few young people (<50 y/o) died from Covid in Sweden.

From Reuters (7/15/20):

A recent report showed that severe cases of COVID-19 were very rare among both Swedish and Finnish children aged 1 to 19, with no deaths reported. A comparison of the incidence of COVID-19 in different professions suggested no increased risk for teachers.

As other countries face renewed outbreaks, Sweden’s latest Covid-19 figures suggest it’s rapidly bringing the virus under control.

“That Sweden has come down to these levels is very promising,” state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told reporters in Stockholm on 7/28/20.

He also broached the subject of face masks, which the World Health Organization recommends people use when social distancing isn’t possible.

“With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” he said.

So in conclusion like a football team, Sweden stuck to its original game plan even though early on it appeared that the game plan was not working. However like in a football game the final score is not the score at the end of the first quarter, but at the end of the fourth quarter. In summary, Sweden’s plan amounted to social distancing andcommon sense, which California does not seem to have, especially when it comes to school children and sending them back to school for in-person learning.

Adjö

Var försiktig

What exactly is history?

The first definition in the dictionary is “a branch of knowledge dealing with past events.” That seems pretty straightforward to me.

The second dictionary definition  is “a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account.” Again that seems pretty straightforward to me.

Both definitions include “past events.” This term seems self-explanatory . . . things that have occurred in the past.

However, apparently in Illinois, history can have a different meaning . . . a “woke” meaning. 

“Leaders“ in education, politics and other areas gathered in suburban Evanston Sunday, 8/2/20, to ask that the Illinois State Board of Education change the history curriculum at schools statewide, and temporarily halt instruction until an alternative is decided upon.

At a news conference, State Rep. LaShawn K. Ford said current history teachings lead to a racist society and overlook the contributions of women and minorities.

Another “woke” idea! . . . “change the history curriculum at schools statewide.” Why limit this to just one state? Perhaps if history is going to be rewritten, why restrict it? After all if someone were to relocate from one state to another while still in school, would he/she have to retake history in order to learn the “other history”?

This is undoubtedly not the last brilliant “woke” idea. Perhaps next we should consider changing Geography. After all if LaShawn junior can’t remember where France is . . . then let’s just change it’s location!

Or perhaps we should change Math. After all if LaShawn junior can’t seem to get that 6×4=24 . . .then let’s just change that answer!

The possibilities for changes in education are endless if we would all just “woke” up!

It’s Sunday night and it’s been another violent weekend in Chicago, and it’s not over yet. I’ve checked the Chicago stats multiple times during the day today, and each time I look the numbers are higher, and i kept reminding myself that “it’s not over yet!”

Thus far according to CBS Chicago the death toll is 17 with 32 wounded. 

Those killed included:

-a 9y/o boy who was playing outside his home

-a 10y/o girl who was hit by a stray bullet while sitting in her home. 

-a 1y/o who was riding in a car

Help me here! What we seem to have is chaos, and a mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who refuses outside help. The shooting victims this weekend in Chicago are black . . . not predominately black, but overwhelmingly, and perhaps 100% black. The mayor herself is black. What does she say to the mothers of the 9 year old, the 10 year old, and the 1 year old? Can Mayor Lightfoot say, “I did the best I could.”?

Obviously not, and it’s not over yet! 

8/2/20

10p.m in Chicago

Usually the front page of my local “newspaper” emphasizes only bad news For example, the latest Covid stats, with an emphasis on how many have died, or the bad unemployment numbers, etc.

However today there was a side column on the front page whose headline that brought a smile to my face not only when I first read it in the morning but also for the remainder of the day whenever I again thought about it.

First a little background:

From January, 1915 until January, 1917, Balboa Park in San Diego was the host for the Panama California Exposition, which basically was meant to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal. A central exhibit of the exposition, “The Story of Man through the Ages”, was assembled under the direction of noted archaeologist Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett of the School of American Archaeology. After the Exposition closed a group of citizens led by George Marston formed the San Diego Museum Association to retain the collection and convert it into a permanent museum, with Dr. Hewett as the first director. The name was changed to “Museum of Man” in 1942 to emphasize the museum’s concentration on anthropology. Since I have lived here the Museum of Man has been a truly iconic museum in San Diego . . . until now … as the Museum of Man is now the “Museum of Us!”

Apparently for some “woke” reason, a group of goody-two-shoes has decided to put the kibosh not only on the history of the museum, and its focus on anthropology, but also on the meaning of the word “man.”

I suspect that the “board of trustees” of the now “Museum of Us” were educated in the now woke public school system, as apparently they are not aware that a single word, in this case “man,” can actually have more than one meaning. (I can almost hear the so called “board of trustees” responding, “Really? We didn’t know that!”)

The following are the definitions for the word … man:

1. an adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman. 

   2. a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man.

   3. the human individual as representing the species, without reference to sex;  the human race; humankind: Man hopes for peace, but prepares for war.

   4. a human being; person: to give a man a chance; When the audience  smelled the smoke, it was every man for himself.

It appears to me that the “board of trustees” was convinced by the “we are sooo correct” group that there could only be one meaning for the word, “man.”

Perhaps the next time I am in Balboa Park, I will go over to the Museum of Us . . . No, not to go inside, but rather to give the “bored” a dictionary. I doubt that I will ever be going inside again!

BTW: The rumor is that next this group will next be arguing to change some of the wording in the Bible, such that “ the food miraculously supplied to the Israelites in the wilderness. Ex. 16:14–36 will henceforth be called . . . “Us-na!”

Yes, this is an Aretha Franklin song from the 1970s that I think has particular relevance today. To my way of thinking I think that this word is not in the vernacular of a lot of the youth of today. One might ask why? 

Could it be that this is the fault of the schools? Absolutely! In a lot of the public schools of today, ‘Respect’ is neither taught or learned, as teachers have little motivation to demand respect (actually, they cannot demand respect from the students in today’s world), and students have little incentive to show respect.for most teachers . . . Why should they?

Could it be that this is the fault of the parents? Again absolutely. For the most part, the parents of today do not demand respect from their kids. Why is that? To me the answer is multifactorial . . . too busy, demanding respect is not P.C., single parents are often afraid to demand respect as if they do, they risk losing any control over the child. 

However for whatever reason this lack of respect has filtered down into our society.

Them: “The hell with what you think. You must think my way. I have no respect whatsoever for your thoughts on the matter. It’s my way or the highway . . . actually that’s not true . . . there is no highway. It’s my way!”

For instance, one might think that a statue of Columbus is a reminder of an historical part of our culture. 

Them: “Too bad for you and those that think like you. You are old-fashioned, old man! I don’t like that statue of Columbus, and so it is coming down. I do not respect your opinion on this matter . . . F-you!” 

To that one might respond, “Perhaps we should talk this over, and allow the majority decide what to do, if anything,with that statue.”

Them: “No!”

I could go on with other examples . . . For instance, Confederate names on Army bases. Rather than allowing the woke crowd of the young disrespecters  to unilaterally decide, perhaps we as a country should discuss this issue.

Them: “No, we are right, and again there is no highway!”

Major League Baseball is apparently in discussions about whether to scrap the entire season. After a few pics of players kneeling during the National Anthem, my answer as to whether MLB is going to continue its season is . . . “I don’t care!” I was raised as a White Sox fan, but, even as I got older, I was only rarely able to go to the White Sox games because Comiskey Park, where the White Sox played, was on the South Side of Chicago, which was too dangerous even back then. However the final straw came when B.O. jumped on the White Sox bandwagon. At that point, I jumped off. I suppose that you could refer to me as a ‘fair-weather fan,’ but Chicago rarely has fair weather.

The NBA season? Don’t know, and don’t care. LeBron James can spread his liberal spiel, but not on my TV set. At the first NBA game on 7/30/20 everybody took a knee during the national anthem. Everybody included players, coaches, and refs! No, I did not watch that game . .. oops! Darn!

Which brings us to the NFL. Really, the only real question is whether to give the NFL a chance . . . either tune them in until the first National Anthem kneel-down, or just assume that the kneel-downs will be occurring right from the git-go, and never turn on the NFL games in the first place. As of now the oddsmaker’s line is 3:2 on favor of ‘never turning them on.

Personally, I hope that both MLB and the NFL cancel their seasons, and then my protest will be silent. However as a consequence of no pro-sports, ESPN might go belly-up. Unlikely . . . yes, but one can always hope.

I want to thank the cities of Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington for the strong work they are doing for President Trump. 

WHAT?? Am I crazy? Liberal cities doing something for Trump? 

Let’s think about this for a minute.

Yesterday our leftist newspaper had an editorial bashing Trump’s use of federal troops to protect federal property in Seattle and Portland. That editorial only got my fellow conservatives fired op. (Yes, there are still conservatives and pro-Trumpers in SoCal!)

So what do you think happens in the rest of the country, especially in the Heartland when normal Americans see the idiocy of Seattle and Portland played out nightly on TV? I think that they are saying to themselves something akin to: “No way do I want this to happen in my town, my city, or my state. It appears to me that President Trump is trying to control these situations, as it is apparent that the Democratic mayors and Democratic governors are impotent.”

Likewise, the same thing is happening in Chicago where the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, is obviously a light-weight who is totally befuddled on what to do. 

Whether President Trump actually sends in any feds to try to control the situation in Chicago is irrelevant as long as the mayhem in Chicago stays in the news. (Thank you, Mayor! Thank you for being incompetent!)

Actually, this weekend was a relatively good weekend for Chicago … only 59 shot and 3 dead!

In November 2020 it is extremely unlikely that Trump will win Oregon, Washington, or Illinois, but the  happenings in Portland, Seattle, and Chicago are just as good as campaign commercials for him in the rest of the country.

So again I say, “Thank you Portland and Seattle!”

What is the definition of a hero?

According to Dictionary.com: a hero is a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

I think that James Craig is a hero. 

“Who is James Craig,” you might ask.

James Craig is the Chief of Police in Detroit. He was recently interviewed on the Tucker Carlson Show because Detroit has distinguished itself. It is a big city run by Democrats that has avoided the chaos and the turmoil of “lawful” protests evolving into “riots.” When he was asked why this is, his answer basically involved the following three things:

First, he said, “We don’t retreat here in Detroit. We’re just not gonna do it. You saw the images … of streets where there was lawlessness, looting, burning. No sign of police officers. We weren’t giving up ground to the radicals. We just didn’t do it.” (This in contrast to Seattle where CHAZ was allowed to take over city blocks. This in contrast to New York City where damage, destruction, and looting were widespread and monumental.)

Second, Chief Craig mentioned the support that the police get from the mayor.

“So when you talk about what’s different here, we have a city that has stood together and oh, by the way, I know there’s a lot of conversation about the mayors in some of these big cities. Our mayor stands with this police chief, stands with this police department [and] we are not going to tolerate this uptick in violence. That’s key.” (This in contrast to Chicago and New York where the mayors seem to relish insulting and talking down to police in their city.)

Third,the people that live in Detroit apparently are not afraid to speak out against the thugs that are the ones encouraging violence.

In apparent contrast to Portland, Craig told Carlson, citizens of Detroit are “fed up with these radical protests.”

“I’m not to talking about these peaceful protests … [I mean] these misguided radicals that have tried to incite violence in our city,” the chief said. “They said, ‘We’re not going to put up with it.’ (This in contrast to those that live in Portland and Seattle who seem to be afraid to speak against those that are intent on destroying their cities.)

James Craig then summarized, “We’ve got a couple of things. We got a great police department, great leadership, but we have a community that stands with us and said, ‘enough is enough.'”

You can view his interview on YouTube . . . it’s worth watching to see what an actual hero looks like.

Of course the radical activist group, “Detroit Will Breathe” is calling for James Craig to resign. After watching him on TV, my guess is that he will resist and not fold . . . as that’s what a hero would do.

Facebook has taken down a video posted by right-wing news site, Breitbart, and retweeted by President Trump, showing a doctor at a press conference vehemently making claims that antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine is a “cure for Covid.” The Facebook post had allegedly racked up 17 million views before being removed. . . .Hmmm!

Luckily I was able to view this post before it was censored, and listened to the entire “press conference.” The best part was a fervent plea by a black primary care physician basically begging that hydroxychloroquine be given a reprieve from politicians who are not doctors. She also challenged Dr. Fauci to stop his aloofness on the drug (he had famously said, “we need to do controlled studies”) She wondered out loud if he had ever treated a Covid patient. FYI,  the answer is undoubtedly, “no.” In a retort to Dr. Fauci’s haughty demeanor, she stated that she was seeing 10+ Covid patients a day, and had prescribed hydroxychloroquine hundreds of times with excellent success and no significant side effects! In fact she and many of her clinic staff are presently taking hydroxychloroquine 200 mg. twice a week for prevention. . . . Hmmm!

Then just this morning I read about an article in Newsweek by Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology at Yale as well as the director of that school’s Molecular Cancer Epidemiology Laboratory. He argues in an op-ed that “the data fully support” the wide use of hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment of COVID-19.

“When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective,” Risch argues in the column.

Risch adds that multiple studies over the past several months have demonstrated that the drug is a safe and efficacious treatment method for COVID-19. . . . Hmmm! (I guess that it would be very difficult to censor Newsweek at this point!)

Recently I read about a study treating for severely ill Covid patients with hydroxychloroquine. The study was out of Henry Ford hospital in Detroit, and the mortality of patients treated with this drug was half compared to those without this drug. That sounds very impressive to me, but I have not read about these results in our local paper. . . . Hmmm!

Does anyone think that the pooh-pooling of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 has anything to do with the fact that in March, 2020 President Trump came out in favor of using that same drug? . . . Hmmm!

As most of you are aware, I do not watch much television, but I read something today about a reasonably large group that potentially may be another small group of Trump 2020 voters.

From Townhall:

There had been a show on A&E called ‘Live PD’, created by Dan Abrams. It was a better version of COPS that began airing in 2016. It had dozens of crews following police officers from all over the country, allowing them to cut.

When Black Lives Matter came on the scene, ‘Live PD’ offered something that could not be allowed to survive because it showed :

(I a) that cops are decent human beings; 

(b) at times offered how hard this job can be in certain  situations.

The show ran against the narrative that cops were all quasi-Nazis, so the network axed it. 

“Live PD” which followed  police on their rounds in multiple cities simultaneously, averaged about 1.9 million viewers for its Friday and Saturday night episodes, and repeatedly re-aired on other days. It spawned several successful spinoff shows, also canceled.

The result of that woke move . . . Ratings for A&E Network have plummeted since it canceled “Live PD” on June 10, a sign of how much the network relies on law-enforcement programming.

Average prime-time viewership for A&E between June 11 and July 19 was 498,000 people, down 49% from the same period last year, according to data from Nielsen. In the key demographics of adults 18-49 and 25-54, the declines are 55% and 53%, respectively.

A&E lost nearly half its viewers (via WSJ), and this cannot be good for any TV station!

Now that it’s viewers are Alienated and Estranged, A&E will soon no longer considered either Affluent or Established.

Perhaps the final chapter of this story will be Chapter 11 (one can only hope!), and if so the moral of this A&E saga will be:

“Go “woke” and go broke!”