Part One: THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil   India   South Africa

June      9     1093    4732         1185      246         82

           10       982    5163         1300      388         48
           11       904    4951         1261      394         74
           12       791    4603           843      389         70
           13       702    4229           890      309         69
           14       331    3263           598      321         57
           15       425    3415           729      395         88
           16       849    6592         1338        ?           57
           17       809    5264         1209      341         49
           18       747    5123         1204      342         63
           19       719    5066         1221      366         94
           20       573    4428           968      307         46
           21       267    3338           601      426         53
           22       363    3880           748      312         61
           23       863    5465         1364      468        111
           24       808    6071         1103      424        103
           25       649    5179         1180      401          87
           26       663    4893         1055      381         48
           27       512    4547           994      414         73
           28       285    3463           555      384         43
           29       346    3415           727      417         73
           30       764    5072         1271      506       128
July       1       676    4857        1057      438         92
             2       687    5155         1277      377         95
             3       616    5170         1264      444       108
             4       254    4494         1111       610         74
             5       251    3572          535       421       173
             6       378    3573          656       474       111

Summary:

• The USA had 50,584 new cases yesterday.  Soon, the new deaths will begin to show larger numbers.  Yesterday we were #3 to Brazil and India.
• India replaced Brazil at #2, 22,510 new cases vs 21,486.
• Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil was bachi'd:  he tested positive for COVID-19.  Still at it, though, for he said he took hydroxychloroquine and now feels better.
• What is bachi?  I think it derives from Japan, but is commonly used in Hawaii:

bachi

Local Word of the Day LWOD is "bachi." Locals version of bad karma. Slam any local with this word before they do something they shouldn't do, and they might think twice (Just make sure you not the instigator). Be care full of what you do for wrong reasons:

• Three months ago one of my postings thought that the appropriate person for this fate was Donald Trump:

COVID-19:  A Fitting Bachi

• On January 3 my blog was titled:

WHO BECOMES PRESIDENT IF TRUMP AND PENCE ARE SUDDENLY NO MORE?

• That would be an ultimate irony, for the answer is Nancy Pelosi.
• Finally, let me speculate on the next jump in new COVID-19 cases.  In times of pandemic, one must to strengthen the economy would be opening up schools.  There is no way elementary school students, usually spending the whole day in one room, will be constantly wearing masks.  In the Orient, some schools provide face shields:

• For some reason, face shields in the U.S. are only used by hospital front-liners.  I have a face shield.  A proper face shield is more comfortable than a face mask.  A shield covers the mouth, nose and eyes, the entry points for any virus.
• As schools open up in August, look for another uptick in cases and, thus, more coronavirus deaths by September into October.  Red (Republican) states will be hurt more than blue (Democratic) states because decisions on opening up schools will be a local decision.  Republican governors and education administrators will lean to whatever Trump is advocating:

• That map look familiar?  Add Florida with sycophantic Governor Ron DeSantis, and you just about have where the current hotspots are today because of the initial efforts to open up the economy.

About all those recent shootings--can you believe just this weekend, 65 people shot in New York and 87 in Chicago--blame what you want, but the primary reason is that police officers have pulled back on enforcement for fear of getting fired.  Add the group that was released from prisons to reduce the potential for COVID-19 outbreaks, and you have a second cause.

Notice the skin color of all those children accidentally killed?  Watch Dave Rubin, a Jewish liberal, interviewing Larry Elder, a lawyer who graduated from the University of Michigan, a libertarian radio host, who also happens to be an African African.  Elder has a point about fatherless black families that is rarely said on television, but is a primary cause of the previous paragraph.

All the pain with COVID-19 and racial unrest, but the USA is still a pretty good nation.  Yet, are we in growing trouble?  I think the answer is yes.  Read my posting of 28April2020.  Here is a portion:

Was America great before the invasion of COVID-19?  Yes, in many ways, as for example, we have the most powerful military in the world.  But has it been worth spending, each year on war, as much as the next seven nations, combined?

All that even though we don't have a mortal enemy today.  Yes, our economy seemed to be doing better than anyone else's when the Pandemic came, but at what expense?  Our infrastructure, health, education, environment....?

A Pew poll:

Are you doing better than the previous generation? The Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., asked nearly 43,000 people in 38 countries around the globe that question this past spring. Residents in 20 countries said people like them were better off than they were 50 years ago. In Vietnam, 88% felt better off, followed by India (69%), South Korea (68%), Japan (65%), Germany (65%), Turkey (65%), the Netherlands (64%), Sweden (64%), Poland (62%) and Spain (60%). Overall, 43% of people in those countries said they were better off.

Where was the USA?

The U.S. was among the other 18 countries in which people said they were actually worse off than half a century ago. In Senegal, 45% felt this way, followed by Nigeria (54%), Kenya (53%), the U.S. (41%), Ghana (47%), Brazil (49%), France (46%), Hungary (39%), Lebanon (54%) and Peru (46%). Venezuela, which has suffered from political unrest and economic turbulence in recent years, was last on the list. 72% people said they felt worse off than 50 years ago (with Mexico, Jordan and Argentina also down there).

Another Pew poll taken last year showed:

Here is a New York Times summary of:

The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940 is written by Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca and Jimmy Narang

Part of the problem, maybe even a good share of the blame, can be placed on President Donald Trump.  Look for Too Much and Never Enough:  How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, that tell-all book by Mary Trump, where she says that cheating is a way of life for her uncle. Tomorrow I will present part two, focusing on the threat of China.

The Year 1943:

• Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured.

• Pentagon dedicated, the world's largest office building.
• In the U.S., shoe rationing.
• February 21:  German U-boats sink eleven ships.
• British Mark I, first programmable computer, used to crack German code.
• Rodgers and Hamerstein's Oklahoma opens on Broadway.
• In Warsaw, 13,000 Jews killed and the remaining 50,000 deported to extermination camps.
• U.S. Army contracts the University of Philadelphia to develop the computer ENIAC.

• Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter.
• Dr. Josef Mengele became medical officer at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
• June 20-23:  Detroit race riot kills 34 (25 Blacks and 9 Whites), with hundreds injured and huge property damage.
• U.S. Women's Army Corps.
• British/Canadian planes bomb Hamburg, killing 42,000 and destroying 280,000 buildings.

• September 3:  Allied invasion of Italy.
• September 8:  General Dwight Eisenhower announces surrender of Italy

Hit songs from 1943 in 17 minutes.  #1 tune of the year was Paper Doll by the Mills Brothers.

Of course, racism is not an American monopoly.  Watch this:

Tropical Storm Christina formed yesterday in the East Pacific, should attain Category 2 hurricane strength over the next few days and head for Hawaii.  However, not to worry, colder waters will weaken the storm, which should dissipate before getting close to the state.

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