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Coronavirus Shrouds Easter

The Coronavirus outbreak has closed down the world, at least as we know it.  From the Far East into Europe and North America shutdowns, lockdowns, and stay at home orders are the norm.  And for good reason; COVID-19 poses the most dangerous global Pandemic since the 1918 scourge which killed millions. 

Easter is upon us and both the rituals and rites and joyful religiosity of the Season are strangely absent save for  some chocolate bunnies in the supermarkets.  Church services are banned; in this case Palm Sunday and Easter, the holiest most hopeful days of the Christian calendar, can’t be publicly celebrated since gatherings are forbidden.      

Yet this is not the order of some dystopian alien dictatorship which has seized our world while 

we were watching Netflix, but rather the sober realization of policymakers that we had better not

fool around with Covid-19.  

Clearly the atmosphere remains surrealistic in our cities, schools and stores. 

So from the USA to South America, Australia, South Africa and even India; We are Closed.   Wuhan, China where the deadly virus started in November faces a socio/political Purgatory which still continues despite the happy talk by Beijing’s Marxist mandarins that the health emergency is largely solved.  

China’s lack of transparency has deepened and obscured the overall crisis.  Beijing’s mendacious regime may still face its “Chernobyl Moment” when the full truth emerges!  And it most certainly will. 

Western Europe remains the epicenter of the deadly virus with Italy, Spain and France

facing the largest mass casualty events since the Second World War.  Britain and Germany are not too far behind.  France has used draconian police powers to keep people off the streets, to

protect them from this unseen enemy.  Even senior citizens need permission passes to take walks during the day!  Vibrant cities such as Paris are ghost towns, bathed in beautiful Spring days!

Just a year ago during Holy Week, Notre Dame cathedral, the iconic Gothic masterpiece which has graced Paris for nearly a millennium, suffered a terrible fire; the heart of France was ripped but her Soul has yet more to endure from further calamities with the pandemic.  

The USA now too confronts a frightful onslaught of Corona, with the virus sweeping major urban centers such as New York and New Orleans.  New York has become an eerie place.

Again the jarring changes come not from atheistic regimes but from the cold hard dictate of

“The scientists” who in the name of our salvation, are vigorously guarding our health. 

These experts are being followed with near theological rigor. 

Indeed Netflix has become the new deacon and holds our attention with droning vespers of vivid entertainment and mini-series.   While I will refrain from saying Hooray for Hollywood, let’s be happy that given this Sports Free Spring there is some entertainment.   

The U.S. Economy which stood powerfully at its bright zenith; has now been eclipsed by Planet Corona.  As publisher Steve Forbes suggested on FOX, the economy has been put into an induced coma.  Stopping for a time before its revival.  But a revival soon it must be.  

The sudden shutdown loss of more than nine million jobs, through no fault of the companies or the workers, remains a grim consequence of the government/Governors health shutdowns. People are hurting and want to get back to work.  Small business and farmers deserve a chance.  Health care workers, doctors, truckers and food store staff deserve a shout out!

New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan in a special message to Christians and Jews in the New York Post underscored that as a country, a state and especially “for us as a city, are ‘passing over’ from contagion, fear, infection, isolation and suffering, to unity, healing, recovery and a renewed life.” Cardinal Dolan added that both the message of Passover and Easter underscored the point of salvation.

Now as a wartime president, Donald Trump has marshaled a Public/private sector initiative and coordination not seen in the USA since WWII.  What used to be rightly called the Arsenal of Democracy during WWII, will become the Engine of American Revival and Renewal in our times. 

  

But it’s now Spring!   Easter is a time of rebirth and reawakening, for our societies worldwide

and for our battered economies.  Donald Trump stressed, “We have to open our country again!”  This is certain. We eagerly await the green light to get going again!

Comment du Jour

Coronavirus--Stormy Clouds Ahead for Europe, USA

Truth is often stranger than fiction.  If somebody suggested a thriller novel plot set to the backdrop of gyrating stock markets, falling oil prices, rising tensions with Iran, amidst a spreading worldwide health pandemic, all juxtaposed to a contentious American Presidential election, most literary agents would gruffly scoff, “it’s too far fetched.”  Perhaps, but look at the news.

The Coronavirus, which started in China late last year in Wuhan has since mushroomed into

a full fledged flu epidemic from the Far East to Western Europe and Middle America.

Corona or more properly COVID-19 has dramatically changed day to day life and drastically  reduced business activity, shut schools and Universities, and cancelled sporting events.

Even James Bond, or should we say his latest movie No Time to Die, has been postponed due to 

the Corona.

The 24/7 media and especially social media has turned the crisis into a near frenzy of information, disinformation and often simply information overload.  People are nervous and rightly so given the dire health predictions and infection rates.

There are serious medical and economic storm clouds ahead for Europe and the USA--Italy, France and Spain have seen the worst of the pandemic.  Now it is in the United States and Canada and spreading.

STAY SAFE!

STAY HEALTHY!

STAY ALERT!

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                                          Miami Beach Museum

The now world famous Wolfsonian Museum has emerged as a repository of
Art Deco and Twentieth Century Moderne.  Situated in Miami Beach, what can
only be described as an eclectic collection ranges from Classic Art Deco to
Propaganda Posters and World's Fair memorabilia.

The Wolfsonian is based on the extraordinary collection of Micky Wolfson
the Museum's visionary founder.  Holding more than 180,000 objects the
Museum is connected to Florida International University (FIU).

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Miami Beach
Art Deco in Sunny Florida


The South Beach district of Miami is one of America's best known,
authentic and geographically compact regions.  From the 1920's
through 1940's the iconic area along Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue,
and surrounding streets saw a proliferation of Art Deco and later
Streamline Modern structures.

According to the Miami Beach Design Preservation League there
are over 800 buildings in the relatively small area which fit the
Art Deco architectural style.

The Essex House Hotel dates from 1938 and is a work of the renown architect
Henry Hohauser.  The Essex while Deco also uses the curved streamlining form.

                  The Deco Post Office, still very much in use, remains an icon

                   The newly reopened Cardozo Hotel, is right on Ocean Drive.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

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                       Countdown for Christmas

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Central Europe’s 1989 Freedom Tsunami

Thirty years ago on 9 November 1989, the world suddenly changed.  Mass civil and religious demonstrations rocking East German cities created a political Tsunami which soon reached Berlin.   

Berlin, the divided city and German capital at the epicenter of the Cold War, would see an

unexpected performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” as throngs of East German comrades

suddenly rushed towards the Berlin Wall and finally breached the barrier.

Yes on that November night, the Joshua Trumpet sounded, and the Wall came tumbling down.  As in a Fairy Tale the Wall had fallen…the evil force was seemingly gone, banished.  Germany would become reunited a year later in peace and freedom.  Europe would be whole and free.

Yet these extraordinary events just didn’t happen by chance but through a rare combination of 

Spiritual, Political and Economic factors.  The stars had to be aligned just right!

What were called the socialist states, those counties abandoned to Stalin’s charms at Yalta and condemned to a forgotten fate behind what Churchill would call the Iron Curtain, suddenly erupted in a frenzy of freedom to break away from Moscow’s icy grip.

The election of Pope John Paul II, a Polish pontiff was the first step.  This was a decade earlier in 1978 when he became the first non-Italian Pontiff in 400 years and energized a religious  reawakening in Poland where the People’s Republic could never totally subdue the Catholic Church.  Besides a Polish Pope, Central Europe’s largest nation also saw a free trade union movement Solidarity emboldened.   

Ronald Reagan, elected president of the USA in 1980, formed the second building block.  

The Reagan Administration unapologetically confronted Soviet communism and didn’t flinch

in supporting NATO.  Standing before the Berlin Wall in June 1987, President Reagan challenged the new Soviet leader, “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this Wall.”  At the time the speech was largely met with smirking contempt on both sides of the Atlantic.     

Indeed Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Soviet leader wavered and then blinked at the critical moment.  And West Germany’s  Chancellor Helmut Kohl focused his vision on reunification, again at the crucial moment.  Freedom would soon prevail from Poland, to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.      

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid particular tribute to Germany’s neighbors;

“Without the courage of the will to freedom of the Poles and Hungarians, the Czechs and Slovaks, the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe and Germany's reunification would not have been possible.”

Having seen the Berlin Wall a decade before these momentous events it would be nearly inconceivable that this austere and brutal cold concrete barrier which ripped through the heart of one of  Europe’s great cities would ever fall, short of a major conflict.  

The Wall and the entire formidable inter-German barrier dividing the country for that matter, solidified systems and ossified ideologies.  It stood as a silent testament to terror for a quarter century.

Behind the Wall stood the German Democratic Republic, the dour socialist satrap which

needed a barrier to keep its comrades in. 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a momentous and memorable address in Berlin stated, 

“East Germans knew they weren’t alone.  They knew they had a partner.  And they took heart from the soaring words of leaders and deeds of Presidents Truman and Kennedy and Reagan.”

“They saw kindred spirits all across the world.  They saw them in Poland, the march for Solidarity. They felt the prayers of Pope John Paul II,” he added. 

Yet German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned, “the values on which Europe is founded, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, human rights, they are anything but self-evident and they have to be revitalized and defended time and time again.”

Secretary Pompeo added, “let us also not take lightly the threats to our freedoms, the challenges that we all face from regimes, regimes that rule instead of govern, regimes that crush rights instead of protect them, regimes for which this anniversary is a fearful warning, not a cause for celebration.”

Transatlantic solidarity and values bound the U.S. and Europe together during the Cold War.  Sadly, over the past twenty years the focus of shared security and political interests has blurred. 

Clearly, the USA working in multilateral tandem with our NATO partners still offers the best defense for America’s own security.