Common Sense with Paul Jacob

The Saddest Thanksgiving

We are social animals. We need human interaction, not just interaction with our “screens.”

So, no wonder suicide is a rising problem during the lockdowns.

Jon Miltimore, writing at FEE, focuses on one country known for its suicide-tolerant culture: Japan. “Suicide Claimed More Lives in October Than 10 Months of COVID-19 in Japan, Report Shows.” Though the island nation had seen lowering levels of suicides for years, the lockdowns to prevent the spread of the Wuhan contagion have apparently reversed the trend.

“The 2,153 suicides reported last month are about 600 more than the previous year, CBS reports, with the largest gains coming in women, who saw an 80 percent surge in suicide,” Miltimore informs.

Though these United States do not publish timely stats, reports from specific locales suggest that suicide is rising in America, too.

And this is not surprising.

If one were to “follow the science” — or sciences, in this case sociology, social psychology, etc. — one would have predicted such an effect. The “social distancing” model for pandemic mitigation is the perfect recipe for inducing suicidal ideations in social animals like ourselves.

Most at-risk are those with depression problems already, orother social trauma — or “merely” have trouble making friends. Government-mandated distancing just makes it harder for those who really need to make connections, but have trouble doing so.

Add on the holidays — a traditional time for familial bonding and social conviviality, but really tough for those alienated from same — and we are in for a bumpy sociality crisis.

Lockdowns are anti-social. This holiday season, reasonable, usually-healthy people might want to reach out, repeatedly (if only “virtually”), to those who need what many states now prohibit: human contact.

For humanity’s sake. For our friends’ sake.

This is Common Sense. Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags covid, suicide

Today

Czech, Slovak

November 25, 1975, Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands.

On the same month and date 17 years later, the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia voted to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia (officially disjoined as of January 1, 1993). This split has been called “The Velvet Divorce” (following, in style and method, “The Velvet Revolution”).

Thought

Václav Havel

Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.

international affairs

Good Relations with Genocide?

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 24, 2020
5 Comments on Good Relations with Genocide?

Joe Biden, China, communism, human rights

“Beijing is trying to convince the incoming Biden administration that the U.S.-China relationship can be smooth and positive,” writes Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, “but only if Washington dumps the Trump administration’s policies, ignores China’s worst behaviors and pretends everything is fine.”

It is more than a little scary because “pretending” is one of the political establishment’s greatest skill-sets. Plus, the columnist reminds that “calls for the Biden administration to reverse course are coming not only from China but also from . . . former secretary of state Henry Kissinger” and a “range of interest groups.”

But “yielding to China’s demands,” Rogin warns President-Elect Biden, “would be going against a majority of Americans in both parties and breaking Biden’s campaign promises to stand up to [Chinese leader] Xi.”

Consider “Beijing’s naked economic extortion of Australia,” argues Rogin. “If Biden intends to repair alliances, he should realize that allies like Australia want support for resistance to China’s bullying.”

So, what does China want?

“A Chinese official gave the Sydney Morning Herald a list of the conditions it expects in return for lifting harsh sanctions on Australia’s agricultural and mineral export industries,” Rogin explains. “. . . Australia must stop exposing Chinese Communist Party influence efforts on its soil; shut up about Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Uighurs; open its doors to Chinese tech companies; and quit calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.”

Rogin notes “concern in Asia” about whether Mr. Biden will return to the Obama Administration’s weak stance on China, which “would allow serious problems to fester, raising the long-term risk of just the kind of serious conflict both countries would like to avoid.”

How “good” should our relations be with nations engaged in genocide, such as China?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Tags China, Communism, Joe Biden

Thought

John Wycliffe

This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.
From the Prologue to the 1384 translation into vernacular English of the Vulgate Bible, by scholastic philosopher John Wycliffe and his colleagues. On May 4, 1415, The Council of Constance posthumously declared Wycliffe a heretic, and commanded his writings be burned. In 1428, by order of Pope Martin V, his corpse was exhumed from consecrated ground and cremated, his ashes scattered into the River Swift.

Today

Happy Birthday, Baruch!

November 24th marks the birthdays of philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632) and three influential Americans: ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1868), self-help writer Dale Carnegie (1888), and conservative editor, writer, and television personality William F. Buckley Jr. (1925).

education and schooling ideological culture

Disparate Outcomes, Desperate Logic

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 23, 2020
6 Comments on Disparate Outcomes, Desperate Logic

“Virginia AG’s office finds elite Loudoun STEM school discriminates against Black, Hispanic students,” declared The Washington Post headline.

Falsely.

On Friday, Attorney General Mark Herring — another blackface-wearing state government leader — issued a 61-page report, saying “the Office of Attorney General Division of Human Rights finds there is reasonable cause to believe that Loudoun County Public Schools’ administration of the Academies of Loudoun program resulted in a discriminatory disparate impact on Black/African-American and Latinx/Hispanic students.”

Though the investigation found the admission process to be “facially-neutral,” The Post informs that the program “in fact barred from admission qualified Black and Hispanic students who applied during the fall 2018 cycle.”

Yet blacks and Latinos were not barred.

This year, 7 percent of black applicants were accepted and 11 percent of Hispanics. True, the acceptance rate for Asians was 13 percent and 15 percent for whites. But this gets tricky. Given their percentage of the overall student body, Asians were 42 percent overrepresented in the applicant pool, while blacks were 4 percent underrepresented, Latinos 6 percent, and whites underrepresented by a whopping 23 percent.

“We request that Loudoun County Public Schools eliminate its discriminatory practices,” the report concludes. But . . . it did not stipulate any specific form of discrimination. Rather, it instructed the school district to work with the Loudoun County NAACP “to begin developing revised policies within 60 days.”

What sort of revisions are likely?

Lower the entry requirements, reduce testing and “take into consideration the principle of geography/socio-economic equity.”

You see, the problem they’re trying to fix isn’t racism, but the lack thereof.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts