Harvey Loc: Pioneer, CA

Yes - we lived there in it's high times - there was still Nevada style gambling till '53 - I'm lucky to have seen what my life would be if I stayed there - moved to CA - 60 mi inland from SF and started a much better life. Been married 62 yrs to the "Boss" 4 girls -8 grands 4G+4B -5 great grands 2B+3G

Chuy Loc: OUT OF TOWN

Your lucky you came out alive.

Chuy Loc: OUT OF TOWN

I'm speechless!

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

A great read. I think there are a lot of folks who think this present scourge is something like the common flu, but it is more like the 1918 pandemic. Barry's description of young healthy men coming down with symptons in the morning and within hours be bleeding from their ears and dead by the next morning should be sober warning for all. Barry's book on the Mississippi flood of 1927 is also a very worthwhile book.

tomcat

The problem with these folks that are trying to compare flu deaths, etc to COVID-19 deaths is that they either don't understand or will not acknowledge the "exponential rate of increase" that COVID-19 has. Yes, more people have died from the flu, but given the same time frame, the rate of death from COVID-19, if left unchecked, would be staggering. The exponential rate of increase from the flu is not even a significantly sloped line. So they are comparing history to the present and with that method of comparabilty you have no basis of validity. So go ahead and have your social gatherings, card games, pool parties, etc.---but just don't ask for a respirator or a hospital bed. Instead leave them for the innocent people who accidentally acquired the virus.

tomcat

The problem with these folks that are trying to compare flu deaths, etc to COVID-19 deaths is that they either don't understand or will not acknowledge the "exponential rate of increase" that COVID-19 has. Yes, more people have died from the flu, but given the same time frame, the rate of death from COVID-19, if left unchecked, would be staggering. The exponential rate of increase from the flu is not even a significantly sloped line. So they are comparing history to the present and with that method of comparabilty you have no basis of validity. So go ahead and have your social gatherings, card games, pool parties, etc.---but just don't ask for a respirator or a hospital bed. Instead leave them for the innocent people who accidentally acquired the virus.

Tex-s

The suicides were not based at all on false hope. The colony's founding was/may have been, but the audio (easily found online) clearly shows that Jones broadcast a message of despair, telling congregants that the FBI / CIA / American / Guyana police were coming to 'kill' the group.

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

Right. And beside all that, even with deaths from ALL causes, there are still more people on this wearing out planet today than there were yesterday. Nature is losing.

Tex-s

I live in rural Texas, but it is VERY possible our surrounding communities have already had COVID fly through, back in December. My wife was hospitalized over the weekend with an acute stomach bug and I had a nice chat with the attending physician.....

As it happens, a local oil company sent several high level execs, several mid level managers and several low level laborers to Wuhan Province in November. (It was, as I understand it, sort of like a foreign exchange kind of meet-up) Fast forward 2 weeks and one of the laborers presented locally with an unknown upper respiratory illness. Tested negative for flu, for strep, for everything. Two weeks later, virtually all of the people on the crew and their families and several hospital employees were also sick. Two more weeks, Christmas break, and half the kids in the school in which I teach, as well as several teachers have the 'viral infection'. No one died and no one ever suggested not returning to school.

I'll not be shocked if more than half of my school tests positive for COVID antibodies in a month's time. Actually, I'm hoping that is the case. It it is true, we will have direct evidence that COVID paranoia is overblown and that we don't need to destroy the world economy to handle it. If true, we just take big steps to protect the vulnerable and continue building, teaching, creating and providing goods and services for one another and keep government from being the savior and the warden.

tomcat

Whoa Dude!! You are totally off base about people injecting themselves with the flu. I am a retired biochemist that worked in the vaccine field. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that you will get the flu as a direct cause of receiving the vaccine. Any viral DNA/RNA is rendered inactive during the manufacturing process. In laymen's terms, what you do get are "pieces of protein", aka antigens, that activate your white cells, creating the antibodies that attack the flu virus if you get exposed to it. I have really simplified this for an easier explanation. A person getting the flu vaccine may have a reaction to egg proteins that are sometimes used to grow the viruses and that reaction can mimic the flu. Also a person may indeed come down with the flu after receiving the vaccine, but only if they already had acquired the flu prior to getting the vaccine or they were infected with a different strain than the vaccine was prepared from. Again, the flu shot will not and cannot give you the flu no more than a tetanus shot will. So wherever you got your information from is incorrect.

dwmoar Loc: Oregon, Willamette Valley

Stop with your stupidity for once. For God's sake do you always act like a little child.

dwmoar Loc: Oregon, Willamette Valley

Why because all good businessmen bankrupt casino's, or is it because they all go through multiple wives or cheat on them, or maybe because they know how to lie and cheat and blame it on others. Trump's only achievement is he is a big fat FAILURE.

Delderby Loc: Derby UK

I think you missed the point.

Chuy Loc: OUT OF TOWN

Only when I communicate with you, how else could I get you to understand and why does it have to be a little child?

Chuy Loc: OUT OF TOWN

The next four years are going to be really hard on you, talk about childish and stupidity, you just took home the trophy.