Mount Rushmore
President Trump gave an excellent speech for the Fourth of July celebration this year. And it is hard to believe after mouthing all the good things that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln said about the equality of all men, he would put in jeopardy the lives of millions of his people by not following the recommendations of his health officials. All his beautiful talk about the ideals of the American past leaders is negated by the action of not wearing a mask and following social distancing to save from the dangers of COVID-19. With all his excellent words, they are all negated by what he does of not wearing a mask and telling his people to help each other against this vicious virus. I listened to his speech on the heroes of the country that not only transformed the world with ideals of the equality of all men. It is a nation from whom we Filipinos also profited from the ideals which transformed the world.
VP Joe Biden is the presumptive candidate of the Democratic Party and is leading President Trump in the polls. But nothing can be sure about the results of this election this November. And if Joe Biden wins, will he be able to remedy the problems that President Trump will leave behind? Joe Biden is a Catholic but he has not been following the teachings of the Church in his votes on the questions of abortion.
Will he have the stamina to correct the problems that President Trump will leave him in the next four or eight years. He says that he wants a woman for vice president. He has a lot of choices and hopefully the choice that will come out is someone who can help get votes and if possible succeed him. The wisdom of two four-year terms is apparent here when a president acts unpredictably. Our single six-year term has been good to us but we do not know what the future has in store for us. God bless America and the Philippines.
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COVID-19 has given the whole world plenty of problem but the Americans are suffering a lot more than others. In a sense the autocratic nations like China have fared better. They were able to tell their citizens what to do. Where there is freedom, it becomes more problematic. The results between New York and California were very different even though their state governors gave the same instructions. It seems the New Yorkers followed their governor more strictly. In this country the results have also varied but not to a significant degree. For example Cebu has been plagued with bad results compared to the cities of Mindanao like Cagayan de Oro.
Masks seem to be the critical element in spreading or rather the prevention of spreading of the virus. The next is distancing from others because this virus has the uncanny element of sometimes being asymptomatic. Talking to others seems to be the way the virus floats from the mouth of the infected to those without infection. In the wisdom of President Duterte, he is unsure of the safety of anybody until we get a vaccine that is safe and effective. Rumors are that there is already a vaccine that is in the third stage of testing – i.e., that it is already being tested on 20,000 volunteers. If this is successful then we have a vaccine that can be manufactured on a large scale. If this is successful we can have a tested vaccine by the end of this year.
President Duterte is not interested in having schooling without this vaccine. As far as he is concerned, the students can take a year off. (However, private schools have to have an income, otherwise, they may not be able to survive.)