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Etiquette of social distancing

Dr. Steven Pergam is like a Miss Manners for the age of coronavirus. His job title, after all, is “Infection Preventionist.” His Twitter avatar is a drawing of him with virus microbes floating in the air around his head. He’s been practicing the disease-avoidance strategy called “social distancing” for years, long before the arrival of the coronavirus thrust this new etiquette on the rest of us. “When I see a railing, I do think, ‘how many people have touched that?’ ” said Pergam, an infectious disease specialist at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. ...

Facing coronavirus facts in the age of ‘truthiness’

There’s an old song by The O’Jays that seems especially apropos to this moment. The refrain goes: “Those lies done caught up with you this time.” The song was about a faithless lover getting her comeuppance. But it also works as a verdict on so-called conservatives in an age of looming pandemic. At this writing, there have been, according to a New York Times database, 747 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 — caused by the novel coronavirus — in the United States; 26 of the afflicted have died. Meantime, the stock market has dropped like a boulder from a cliff, colleges are ...

Boy Scouts and inevitable bankruptcy

Thousands of former Boy Scouts and their parents are now wondering how an organization with nearly $1 billion in net assets and over $200 million in annual revenues can go bankrupt. Was it financial mismanagement that led to this bankruptcy filing? No, the Boy Scouts of America has done a very good job of managing its assets. Another kind of malfeasance led us to this place. Since its founding in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has been targeted by criminal pedophiles seeking access to boys. For the same reason that Scouting is popular with boys, it is popular with criminals who want ...

Competent government is important

And now we know, really know, why government is important. Even why politicians are (gulp) vital. Our lives, our families, our jobs, our recreation, our vacations, our schools, our religious observances — and our investments – are turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, and the worst hasn’t occurred yet. Experts are saying if no quick action is taken, hospitals could be “slammed” in two weeks. There aren’t enough nurses, doctors, lab technicians, beds or ventilators to handle what may be just around the corner. And what about the people who must go to the hospitals ...

What we lose by the closing of community department stores

Five years ago, the sad goodbye to an icon began when Macy’s decided to close its flagship location in downtown Pittsburgh. The void, alas, still remains. For most of that building’s storied 110-plus years, until Macy’s took it 15 years ago, it was Kaufmann’s department store: A place where parents, whether working-class or well-to-do, took their babies to get fitted for their first pair of shoes; or purchased their communion dress, prom dress, wedding gown, back-to-school clothes; or bought them the sheets, furniture, pots and pans they needed to start their adult lives. ...

Bolton owes lawmakers the truth

John Bolton might know the truth, but he’ll have to answer for his silence to Congress. One would think that given Bolton’s humble upbringing as a Baltimore native from a working class neighborhood, he’d feel empathy for those who oppose a president hostile to his own city. As a teenager, Bolton received a merit scholarship to the prestigious McDonogh School, a Baltimore County institution famous for its academic rigor and emphasis on integrity. The school’s honor code reads as follows: “I will not lie, cheat, or steal. I will respect the rights and well-being of myself and ...