Politicians, public health officials, and hospitals failed us —
now we will pay with our lives for their fecklessness

Women across our nation are sewing jerry rigged surgical masks in a heroic effort to supply hospitals with the masks that should have been stockpiled but were not. Their stepping-up is America at its best trying to compensate for America at its worst.

We knew a pandemic was coming because pandemics are not rare events. In 1918, the Spanish Flu (which probably originated in China or Manchuria) killed tens of millions. Millions more died in the 1957 Asian Flu, the 1968 Hong Kong Flu, and the 2009 Swine Flu epidemics.

We watched with horror and fear as the 2014 Ebola pandemic burned through West Africa, killing every other victim, and even momentarily made its was to the United States.

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Updated 27 March 2020

Gov. Bullock green lights counties to hold
all mail ballot elections — that’s not good enough!

Gov. Steve Bullock today gave Montana’s 56 counties a green light to conduct all elections by mail ballot. KXLH news in Helena has the story, which is based on a press release issued by the governor. The press release summarized the governor’s four-page directive.

Reading between the lines, the story suggests that Bullock cut a deal with Montana’s Republicans, who have been resisting switching to a mail ballot for the duration of the emergency.

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Note to readers

There’s plenty to write about, and even more things to do before it becomes too dangerous to shop for supplies and perform other duties that require face-to-face interaction with people. According to recent modeling, Montana may reach that point in a couple of weeks. Therefore, I won’t be posting as much while I ready my ship for the storm.

I commend to everyone the closing sentences of Admiral Nimitz’s 1944 letter to the fleet following a typhoon in which three tin cans foundered and other vessels sustained major damage. That typhoon, incidentally, was the typhoon in Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny.

Montana must move to all mail ballot elections
for the duration of the coronavirus emergency

Voting by mail impersonalizes elections. It robs voters of the sense of community they experience at the polls. In the absence of our friends and neighbors, whose presence reminds us our votes affect everyone, it’s easier to cast mean-spirited, selfish votes.

That why, beginning in 1968, I’ve always voted in person at my local poll on election day.

But in 2020, and for as long as the emergency last, I’ll be voting by mail. Self-preservation is one factor. Wuhan Fever is especially dangerous to someone my age with my infirmities. Civic responsibility is the other factor. I have no right to do things that might increase the risk to someone else if I have a less risky alternative.

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Bernie Sanders' decision to suspend his campaign
may depend on Biden's position on Medicare for All

Bernie Sanders lost by landslides in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, yesterday. He’s now a distant second in delegates and votes received. His ability to campaign is crippled by the shutdowns of large gathering designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus from Wuhan. Fivethirtyeight.com puts his chances of winning the nomination at less than one in one hundred.

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Happy St. Patrick ’s Day!

An Irish performance of Pay Me My Money Down

Made famous by Pete Seeger and the Weavers, covered by the Kingston Trio, and now a signature song for Bruce Springsteen, Pay Me My Money Down is an old work song sung by the black stevedores working the Georgia Sea Islands. Folklorist Lydia Parrish collected the song and published it in her 1942 book, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands. This spirited performance was delivered on RTE, the Irish equivalent of our Public Broadcasting Service.

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Biden again trashes single payer health care

Biden, Sanders, promise that gender identity will be
their most important consideration in choosing a VP

After an hour of last night’s Democratic debate, I switched it off. The tone was far too strident for the times. Sanders and Biden stood behind glitzy lecterns while they were interrogated by three moderators hellbent on inciting conflict to goose TV ratings. It was a setting for shouting, not for the kind of measured, thoughtful, discussion we need during the coronavirus crisis.

The candidates should have been sitting a table in a quiet room with subdued lighting, the discussion led by someone with the interviewing skills of Bill Moyers. I finished reading a novel. This morning, I read the debate’s transcript.

For me, the principal takeaways were Biden’s steadfast opposition to the concept of single-payer health care, and both men’s willingness to play gender identity politics with the vice presidency.

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Flathead Electric Cooperative cancels its annual meeting

FEC’s public relations officer, Wendy Ostrom Price, just advised me that last night the board canceled the meeting, which was scheduled for 21 March at the Canvas Church in Kalispell. Let your friends and family know.

I suspect no decision on rescheduling the meeting will be made until the coronavirus crisis is over.

Note to readers

Flathead Memo is standing down until Monday. There’s a lot happening, and a lot to write about — and there’s also a lot to think about. I’m hunkered down at Flathead Memo’s headquarters northwest of Kalispell, sheltered from the wind, snow, cold, and coronavirus, and getting ready to ward off the evening’s chill with a big bowl of steaming split pea and smoked ham soup. Then, figuratively speaking, I’m chilling out while I contemplate our predicament. — James Conner

Biden is doing well, but it’s too soon for
Democrats to give Bernie the bum’s rush

Politico and the Washington Post report that establishment Democrats such as Jim Clyburn and James Carville want the Democratic presidential primary “shut down,” in Clyburn’s words, right now. They’re arguing that Biden’s nomination is inevitable, and that he’ll be damaged if Sanders continues campaigning.

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Greens on the ballot turn Dems a bright hue

Seven Montanans claiming to represent the Green Party have filed for four statewide offices and one legislative district.

Montana’s Green Party has not endorsed any of these candidates.

At least two of the candidates, John Gibney and Gary Marbut, seem to have little legitimate claim to sharing the Green Party’s values and platform.

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Flathead Democrats fail to field candidates in
four house districts, and one senate district

Filing closed at 1700 MDT today. In the Flathead, two Republicans are getting free passes to Helena: Matt Regier, running for his third term in HD-4, and Greg Hertz, the termed out speaker of the house who is the only candidate on the ballot for SD-6, whose incumbent, Al Olszewski, is running for governor and not for re-election to the legislature.

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Update: Jerry O’Neil primaries Frank Garner

Last day of filing for elective office in Montana

Filing closes at 177 MDT this afternoon. Steve Bullock announced this morning that he’s running for the Senate. News sources on Twitter report he’ll file at noon. I’m sure a made for television rally is planned.

PSC Commissioner Brad Johnson filed for Montana Secretary of State, a job to which he was elected in 2004 but lost to Linda McCulloch in 2008.

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Flathead County’s heath department’s coronavirus
website is not good enough and may be misleading

We do not yet have extensive information on the extent to people in Montana have been exposed to, or infected with, Wuhan Fever (Covid-19). That’s because very little testing has occurred. According to Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services, just 11 persons have been tested. No test result has come back positive for the virus, but because so little testing has occurred (a shortage of test kits, highly restrictive testing protocols; see Hanage) the lack of a positive test result should not be considered proof that Montana is essentially Wuhan Fever free.

Therefore, since they don’t yet know enough to know whether Montana is in big fever trouble, public health officials should not paint a rosy picture of the situation. But Flathead County’s heath department seems not to have gotten that common sense message. On its coronavirus webpage — which lacks a date and time stamp — the department asserts:

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Did MSNBC’s Brian Williams commit the
biggest numerical error in the history of journalism?

No. A Kalispell story on the 1981 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens was at least ten orders of magnitude worse — but Williams’ on the air error was still a whopper.

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Did Bullock really change his mind on running for the senate?
Or was he just playing hard to get from the gitgo?

We may not immediately know the answers to those questions, but whatever happened, it seems increasingly probable that Monday Bullock will file for the senate seat now occupied by Republican Steve Daines. Bullock himself has remained mum, but the number of pro-Bullock stories and opeds — David Leonhardt’s in yesterday’s NY Times, for example — in the last week reek of a coordinated buildup to a dramatic late minute leap into the race.

Some accounts report that Chuck Schumer, who flew to Montana to talk to Bullock, promised Gov. Steve that if he ran, he would get all the help and money he needed. That’s consistent with the premise that Bullock planned all along to run but was holding out to maximize his negotiating power with Schumer and the Democratic Party senatorial campaign committee.

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Biden’s time has arrived

Goodby Joe? Whoa! No! It’s Hello, Joe, way to go!

After he face-planted in Iowa and New Hampshire, I reckoned Joe Biden’s last hurrah was over. To the tune of Jambalaya, here performed by Marceau Camille, I wrote two verses saying it was time for him to step away from the parade. Then Joe triumphed in South Carolina and ten Super Tuesday states, and I had to write lyrics celebrating his resurrection.

Mauritius born Camille learned his craft playing in the Mauritius Police Band. He’s now based in Sydney, Australia, where, at the 2009 Fiesta Tropical, he recorded this upbeat, relaxed, version of Hank Williams’ classic song. The prancing cowgirls, on which he kept a wary eye, are a bit much, but the musical arrangement, especially the tempo, is first class.

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It’s been an eventful 36 hours

Sometimes one big news story after another in a narrow time frame jackhammers the brain into near numbness. The last 36 hours was one of those times.

• Joe Biden’s campaign sprang from the grave and now may bury Bernie under an avalanche of nostalgia for the Wall Steet dominated Obama administration.


• Steve Bullock now seems inclined to take a crack at the senate seat currently occupied by Steve Daines. If so, he’ll nullify the good faith hard work by John Mues, Wilmot Collins, Cora Neumann, and John Knoles. And there’s no guarantee he can beat Daines.

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Things are going down today faster than I can write about them

Amy and Pete admit defeat, go for Joe. The DNC’s torpedo Bernie campaign looks like a murder-suicide pact that could bring us four more years of Brother Orangehair. Whitney taps an aging farmer without any elective office experience as her running mate. The Dow shoots up like an overpacked Roman candle. The CDC withholds information about testing for the Wuhan Fever virus.

Not a dull Monday — but a Monday that dulls the brain. The sun is shining. I’m taking a walk to clear my head. I’ll start writing after dark and a bowl of freshly cooked Tex-Mex chili. Check back around midnight.

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