Franklin Country death rate from Covid: .0066

I've been looking at the Ohio "Dashboard" for Covid this morning. The state fatality rate is .012 from Covid with 922,143 cases and 11,695 deaths. If your loved one has died of Covid, that's 100% for your family, however, closing down the state and listening to terrifying news every evening for .012 death rate seems callous for the rest of us, especially the elderly who can't see their families, and the young adults whose careers and businesses have been shattered.

Now a look at the counties. Huge differences in cases and death rates. Our three largest counties are

Franklin (Columbus, the largest, has gained 13.2% since the 2010 census), death rate .0066

Cuyahoga (Cleveland which was the largest in the 2010 census, but has lost 3.5% in a decade) death rate .013

Hamilton (Cincinnati) death rate .0069

Franklin Co. had the most cases, and the lowest death rate.

I looked at the race/age/poverty figures, and Cuyahoga (Cleveland) is older, with a larger minority population, and higher poverty rate. I'm no expert in statistics, but the spread between the races appears much smaller than the age spread. Because the co-morbidities increase with age, this could be the reason. In developing countries, for instance, the death rate is lower than the U.S. and Europe even though they don't have as good a health system. They have younger populations. (And maybe they were allowed to use HCQ?)  My friend Anna Loska Meenan, a retired physician, says India’s death rate is a fraction of USA, and they can buy HCQ over the counter.  Trump was right and was demonized by the media and the medical establishment.

https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards?

Blaming Trump?

On Facebook a friend was complaining about unusual helicopter activity in his Cleveland Tremond neighborhood—he was sure someone was after illegal immigrants and that was all Trump’s fault.  Now I see that the FBI has arrested a possible terrorist who was planning to target the July 4 activities which brings out thousands in Cleveland.  Don’t know if that was the activity, but it might be worth it to say thanks to the FBI for stopping another Boston bombing, Jim.

Update:  Muslim. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/02/terror-suspect-arrest-cleveland/750294002/

http://abc7chicago.com/suspect-accused-of-plotting-cleveland-terrorist-attack-on-4th-of-july-arrested-abc-news-reports/3691045/
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/07/02/cleveland-july-4-attack-fbi-makes-arrest-alleged-terror-plan-cleveland/750345002/
https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/crime--law/cleveland-terror-plot-fbi-makes-arrest-says-attack-was-planned-for-fourth-july/r97ODUG3ynjERr5gAAdtTO/

Conestoga trip to Cleveland

Today our Conestoga group toured the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a visit with the CEO Greg Harris, ate in the new lunch area, and saw the newly installed (July) Power of Rock film in the renovated I.M. Pei spectacular building. Harris is a charming story teller in his early 50s, obviously in love with his job, and told us about some of the exhibits, including the wedding invitation on which Doc Pomus wrote the words for "Save the Last Dance for Me." He had polio... as a child and couldn't walk, let alone dance, but at his wedding he watched his bride dance with others, and then wrote that song, covered by many, and known by just about everyone who came of age before the 90s. Probably not a dry eye in our group after that one. We had never been there (opened 22 years ago), but it's well worth the trip and brings millions of tourist dollars to Cleveland every year, offsetting the original and renovating costs many times over.

Then we boarded the bus for a short drive to tour the Christmas Story (film) house. The film about Ralphie and his family is based on the book of Jean Shepherd's semi-fictional anecdotes in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. Years after the 1983 film, the house came up for sale on E-Bay and was purchased, then renovated and additional property was bought for a museum and gift house. It opened for visitors in 2006.  It's now quite a popular tourist spot, yet the neighborhood remains much the same.  The docent/employee guide told us that Cleveland was chosen for the set (Shepherd was from Hammond, IN) because Higbee's was the only department store willing to allow them to film the scenes of visiting Santa. That was a year Cleveland didn't have snow, so that is artificial in the Cleveland scenes--and the guide explained how that was done.  Other scenes were filmed in Canada, and there are a few inconsistencies based on the 2 locations, according to our guide.

When rivers catch on fire

On Wednesday at Lakeside, John Hartig told us about rivers that catch on fire--the Cuyahoga, Buffalo, Rouge and Chicago. The Chicago River caught on fire so often it was a tourist attraction in the 19th century. The only one I'd heard about was the Cuyahoga since it happened in 1969. But what surprised me was he said there were no photos of this fire--it was not considered unusual at the time, and the photos usually shown to illustrate it are from a fire in the 1950s. Can you imagine that happening today--there'd be so many phone photos and videos of it there would be no problem documenting it. http://www.environmentalcouncil.org/priorities/article.php?x=264

It is wonderful to see the recovery of these 4 rivers, and learn about the people, sometimes just one, who stepped up to save them. However, as lovely as the wetlands, parks, birds and fishing areas are that have replaced the factories, they will never create the jobs and middle class wealth that the much maligned industrial era did.

Sledgehammers kill

You haven't heard of this case, but I saw the sentencing story of the 14 year old on Cleveland TV news today so just Googled "sledgehammer murder" and was shocked by how many stories came up that weren't the story I was looking for. OK. 2 black teenagers killed the parents of a white woman who had been attacked by the 18 year old and hospitalized. It happened in April 2013. Imagine the hate crime accusations if the victims had been black and the perps Hispanic, Asian or white? In this case, no mention of the race of the teens was even noted in most of the stories I browsed. Only when I found a news account with photos of their attackers did I find that out. This is not a game of "gotcha" keeping track of black on white crimes; only an observation that the media tries to whip up hatred only when it works for them.

Time to remove sledgehammers from the market along with pressure cookers and box cutters. They are just too dangerous in the hands of crazy people.

The puzzle for which there is no answer

The Public Servants Center

There's a new $189 million juvenile justice center in Cuyahoga County. It has a $23,000 custom-designed conference table and private gym for the judges. Some people have the decency to say they are embarrassed; other say they aren't sorry. I hope disturbed and delinquent children are impressed enough to ask how they can get in on this scam of the public.

Fascinating radio lead in

While driving to the coffee shop this morning, the radio announcer provided the lead in to two news stories, but by putting them in one sentence, he created a startling word picture.

"A stench returns to a Cleveland neighborhood and the President still hasn't made a decision on Afghanistan."

Stench indeed. And the smell of politics is overwhelming that of the dead bodies hidden by a serial killer of women. He'll sit on it until he gets his way with health care, endangering the lives of our military and Afghan allies. The man has no shame.

Is it hate yet?

Eleven black women have been murdered by Anthony Sowell (I'm not even going to say allegedly since he buried them in his back yard) in Cleveland. Sowell was released from prison after serving 15 years for attempted rape. Given his current crime streak, I'm guessing that charge was a plea bargain for doing something a lot more serious. So I'm wondering, were these hate crimes? Did he speak hate speech before he strangled and raped them? If Sowell were white, or the women were lesbians, someone might call them that. But these days, even the grossest, most heinous crimes must be politically correct--unless of course, we've lumped the victim and the perp in the same box. President Obama jumped the gate immediately when his black Harvard friend was stopped by police for breaking into his own home and refusing to show ID when asked, but the murder of 11 Cleveland women doesn't deserve a peep because the perp wasn't white.

Fourteen women are missing within the city's 4th district. A victim advocate group and a councilman are demanding an investigation. It's a little late for those women, but maybe it will remind people--both relatives (who don't report them missing) and police--that even druggies and prostitutes deserve someone to care and a resolution of the crime that killed them, if for no other reason than to get the creep off the streets.

Michael Belkin has written a number of articles on this crime and others, and in today's WSJ had an article about Tonia Carmichael whose body was identified.

He must be the messiah

The dead are rising in Cleveland, missing aunts are found in Boston, homeless in Columbus have addresses, a birth certificate is miracuously found and declared valid in Hawaii. And money--it just appears from nowhere, no one, no how--follow the money.

See James Taranto: Beloved Aunt: America is fed up with compassionate conservatism. Is heartless liberalism the answer?

Clearly Obama is anything but a soft touch. In fact, his blasé attitude about deporting his beloved aunt and bankrupting fellow Americans [coal story] is downright chilling. Maybe a period of heartless liberalism is a needed corrective after eight years of compassionate conservatism. But here's the big question: Would Obama be as brutal in defending America's interests as he is in pandering to xenophobes and global warmists?

Dear Samuel Swann

I'm a big fan of free-circ serials and newspapers, and today I saw CityNewsUSA (serving Cleveland, Akron and Columbus) for the first time. I'm a retired librarian, and at one time I'd planned to write an article about the role of free-circs in the information food chain, lamenting that they aren't indexed (at least they weren't in 1999). They are an excellent source of news, advertising, and a good market for writers, but without being indexed, they are a hard to find segment. I gave up that project before I retired in 2000. By then I had collected about 40 that served our metropolitan area--pets, recreation, sports, leisure, politics, religion, fashion, home decor, cooking, parenting, book reviews, etc. Perhaps the internet advertising has solved the print indexing problem.

I was very impressed by your article "Making the Grade; gaps still exist between urban and suburban grad rates," on p. 8 of the Oct-23-29, Columbus edition. I just blogged on that topic two days ago, referencing a Columbus school teacher, the Wall Street Journal, and a current book review. Columbus and Cleveland were in the bottom five of 50 major cities. The WSJ article used the study you cited commissioned by America's Promise Alliance.

I am a big booster of marriage and parental involvement as the #1 best reducer of poverty and poor academic performance by children, and was glad to see that you included it as

The biggest reason we have so many drop outs in Cleveland is lack of parental involvement and the failure of the middle schools to continue the grammar school educational process."

I know your paper is a heavy supporter of Obama-Biden, however, I don't see this as a resource or funding problem as you also suggested. The Ohio parent who sued a few years ago was in a district that had much higher graduation rates with lower per-pupil state funding. For instance, Obama wants universal day care beginning in infancy, when we're already spending $11 billion on child care for at risk children, and it hasn't made any difference. How can children of poor single mothers compete with children from in tact homes with biological, married parents? (I'm speaking statistically--this is not to say individual single parents can't or won't do a good job.)

Keep up the good work of reminding parents that children need their involvement to succeed--and I would add a reminder that Uncle Sam is a poor step-father.