ldsuttonjr Loc: ShangriLa

Professor Hofstadter, though wrong about the 1960s, would be right about today: We truly are shutting down America and harming a great many Americans, based on the worst fears that have not been true and are not on the horizon. We are scaring the hell out of the citizenry. A few additional statistics help counsel a lowering of our national temperature: The vast majority of deaths from the v***s are of people over the age of 70 with underlying frailties. The focus on New York where, of course, most of the media is based, is also flooding and distorting the picture for the rest of the country. Of course we need to pay attention to ground zero, which is New York. But what happens there is not what is happening everywhere. For example, our most populous state, California shows 149 deaths, 11% of the total in New York. Texas, our second most populous state, shows nothing like the death toll in New York, with 47 deaths, about 3.5% of the total in the Empire State.

Again, our plea: Look at the numbers, look at everything, rationally, and let us reclaim a sense of proportion. In the early 1990s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that our country was defining deviancy down. Today, we are concerned about defining pandemonium up. We have a problem. Rather than engaging in “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy,” as Hofstadter warned, we should focus our solution on it without upending everything else. Paranoia and overreaction do not suit our democracy well.

William J. Bennett

Pariahjf

Doesn't explain the infection rates in Montana, Idaho, Utah (which is exploding right now), Alabama, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Wyoming. Less populated states, but starting to show more cases by the day.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Some people are so enmeshed in this crisis that they can no longer see the forest for the trees. Too much cable news 24/7 reporting. Korea launched a couple of missile tests last week and no one paid any attention to it. I have v***s fatigue which is like my impeachment fatigue. Who can we trust to tell us the t***h? The first thing to do... Turn off the Boob Tube.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

No doubt you are thrilled to report this, aren't you? A pragmatic perspective on this is verboten.