Two Dear Friends Survived Coronavirus

Two of my friends have had coronavirus and survived. I'm so thankful. So far no one I know has died or had to be admitted to the hospital. May it continue this way

The True Story Of Rin Tin Tin

      At the end of World War I some American soldiers found a German Shepherd wondering on the battlefield in France. They established that he was with the French Army.

      An American soldier took a liking to the dog. He brought it back to his home. He let a start-up movie studio called Warner Brothers make 30 or so movies with the animal. A pouch made Warner Brothers great! He became the highest-grossing movie star of that decade. He was named Rin Tin Tin.

A Brilliant Podcast On Coronavirus

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2020/04/03/how-long-will-americas-lockdowns-last?utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-04-03&utm_content=article-link-8

A Friends Eloquent Comments On This Crisis

Hello Jack:

Thank you for the German proverb  of ”Nothing matters more than staying alive.” The Germans were very wise. I remember seeing a lot of World War II movies in my youth like “Patton” that were grand Hollywood productions with a star studded cast where Americans were the victors and handily beat the enemy because success and self aggrandizement were lapped up eagerly by the American public!! However, the rare movie like “Anne Frank’s Diary” a factual depiction of a young girl’s rendition of her family’s fears and struggles” while they were holed up in an upper level modest apartment with very limited food and water in occupied Germany was something that made the blood run cold and was never a box office success like the other wartime movies.

We, are today living Anne Frank’s life holed up in our homes living in fear and uncertainty of the very existence of our lives but our enemy is not the powerful German SS. Our enemy is quiet, stealthy, and deadly and infinitesimally smaller at 1/10,000th of a millimeter that is invisible to the naked eye. Our enemy is consequently able to move across the world with ease creating tremendous havoc in its wake. This is a very insidious and terrible enemy that truth to say I still believe came out of a Chinese lab. Their precursors included the SARS virus that were not as deadly but it appears the  Chinese nailed it this time. It is also the reason why the  Chinese were able to contain it so quickly after appearing impotent at first as even if they had the antidote that I am sure they do (after all they planned and perfected their coup over many years of failed attempts), they are definitely not going to share it with the world are they?? Are we going to be the silent victors who triumph in the end over this mortal enemy like Anne Frank who survived till a ripe old age or will we become the forgotten ones that history will gloss over as a passing afterthought? Time will tell. 

Andy

Coronavirus Could Kill 3.5 Million In Iran

NEED TO KNOW IRAN A Tin Ear Iran has become an epicenter of the novel coronavirus. Infection rates, death rates and the number of senior officials who have contracted the illness are high and probably underreported. Politics might have played a part in the spread, the New Yorker wrote. The outbreak occurred as leaders wanted citizens to celebrate the anniversary of Iran’s revolution on Feb. 11 and vote in the parliamentary elections 10 days later. They even went so far as to prevent doctors and nurses from wearing face masks and taking other protective measures to avoid causing panic, the Washington Post added. A combination of “cynicism and ideology” kept Iran from acting sooner, Foreign Policy magazine reported. Officials allowed Chinese flights into the country, for example, as other countries blocked them. They likely permitted those flights in part because Iran is dependent on Chinese investment and assistance amid American economic sanctions. But China can’t help Iran now from the economic consequences of the virus, which might also be worse for Iran than elsewhere because of the mullahs’ inaction. The Iranian economy had already contracted by 9 percent last year due to the sanctions. Recently, Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey have closed their borders with Iran, squelching growth even more. Chinese flights stopped Feb. 23. The pandemic might be the “black swan” event that topples Iran’s conservative mullahs from power, wrote the right-leaning American magazine National Review. In addition to the worsening economic woes, Iran’s ruling class are aging and infirm, a demographic especially vulnerable to the virus. Most importantly, Iran’s leaders appear incompetent and out of touch. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, for example, recently called off a major speech traditionally delivered on Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. The Atlantic magazine wrote how many Iranians asked why Khamenei couldn’t have delivered his speech on television, raising questions about whether the man who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini either had the virus or had holed up in order to protect himself as his people suffered. Meanwhile, the American drone strike that killed the military commander Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s slow response to accidentally shooting down a civilian airliner in January had already undermined a lot of popular support for politicians in Tehran. And when Khamenei has made public statements, he has repeated conspiracy theories alleging that the US created the coronavirus, using Iranian genetic material to tailor it to target Iranians specifically, reported Al Jazeera. At the same time, researchers at Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology have estimated that as many as 3.5 million Iranians could die of the virus, wrote Deutsche Welle. What to do? The US recently offered help but was rebuffed. That’s even though many believe the US still shouldn’t lift sanctions, such as argued here in this Bloomberg opinion piece. However, standing by as millions of ordinary Iranians perish won’t lead to closer bonds if the regime falls. W

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