Wall Street Journal (December 17)
“History is on speed-dial these days, and the latest seismic shift is Japan’s announcement Friday of a new defense strategy and the spending to implement it.” Credit for this historic change goes to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “for taking the political risk to educate his country about the growing threats from China and North Korea and how to deter them.”
Tags: China, Defense strategy, Educate, Historic change, History, Japan, Kishida, North Korea, Political risk, Seismic shift, Spending, Threats
New York Times (July 9)
“Japan’s longest-serving prime minister became perhaps the most transformational politician in the country’s post-World War II history,” even though he “never achieved his goal of revising Japan’s Constitution to transform his country into what the Japanese call a ‘normal nation,’ able to employ its military to back up its national interests like any other.”
Tags: Abe, Constitution, History, Japan, Longest-serving, Military, National interests, Normal nation, Politician, Prime minister, Revising, Transformational
Moscow Times (August 9)
“Smoke from wildfires burning across Russia’s largest and coldest region has reached the North Pole for what is believed to be the first time in known history.” The forest fires have been “fueled by hot weather and a 150-year record drought” and “already emitted a record 505 megatons of carbon dioxide.”
Tags: Burning, CO2, Drought, First time, Forest fires, Fueled, History, Hot, North Pole, Record, Russia, Smoke, Weather, Wildfires
Financial Times (August 7)
“As Japan and the US square-off tonight for the gold medal match in Olympic baseball, the Yokohama air will be equal parts thick with history, humidity and the rich possibility of humiliation.” Drastically important, both countries will be competing in what is “a cherished national sport, a national obsession, a mirror to the national soul and a century-old metaphor for the swash and backwash of the two nations’ relationship. A Japanese win in Yokohama will settle and old, old score.”
Tags: Baseball, Cherished, Gold medal, History, Humidity, Humiliation, Japan, Olympic, U.S., Yokohama
Chicago Tribune (December 27)
“But a new year is upon us. Let us allow a sliver of optimism to carry us into 2021, a year that deserves its own chance — and perspective. Because whatever challenges it has in store, this moment in history can still be embraced as a best time to be alive.”
Tags: 2021, Challenges, Chance, Embraced, History, Optimism, Perspective
The Guardian (October 11)
Weekly new Covid cases rose alarmingly in the UK from 116,000 to 224,000 leaving the UK perched “at a ‘tipping point’ in the Covid-19 crisis.” Only swift action will “avoid history ‘repeating itself’” according to deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam” whose “stark warning” emphasized that “the worst is yet to come if we do not ‘all act now’… and that the approach of winter made the situation even more grave.”
Tags: 000, 224, Alarmingly, Cases, COVID-19, Crisis, Grave, History, Swift action, Tipping point, UK, Warning, Weekly, Winter
USA Today (October 7)
The “superspreader” event in the Rose Garden will go down in history. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the “maskless Supreme Court nomination ceremony turned into a form of biological attack on the top echelons of U.S. government.” Symbolic of “America’s failing response to the novel coronavirus,” the event was “a sad brew of hubris and misapplied science.” White House officials and guests mistakenly thought “they could frolic in a kind of virus-free bubble, exempted from the preventative measures that have reshaped and constrained the lives of millions of average Americans.”
Tags: Biological attack, Bubble, Ceremony, COVID-19, Failing, Frolic, History, Hubris, Maskless, Nomination, Pandemic, Rose Garden, Superspreader, Supreme Court, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (September 7)
“The stock market barely faltered in the 1918-20 pandemic,” but history is not repeating itself. The similarities are misleading. “Yes, the markets have bounced back, just as they traded higher in the months after the pandemic’s start 100 years ago. But a careful analysis of the two periods shows that economic uncertainty has been far higher during the current pandemic than it ever was then.”
Tags: 1918-20, Economic uncertainty, Faltered, History, Misleading, Pandemic, Similarities, Stock market
Business Insider (May 2)
“April was the best month for stocks since 1987. But this stand-out performance” may be misleading. “History is rife with many examples of bear rallies that give way to even deeper losses.”
Tags: April, Bear rallies, History, Losses, Misleading, Performance, Stand-out, Stocks
Chicago Tribune (February 25)
Devastating fires at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the National Museum of Brazil offer “yet another reminder of the fragility of humankind’s greatest creations and the stark reality that centuries of culture and history can be wiped out in minutes.” The tragic events signal “a need to redouble our efforts toward greater digital preservation of our most important cultural resources.”
Tags: Brazil, Culture, Devastating, Digital preservation, Fires, Fragility, History, Humankind, National Museum, Notre Dame, Paris, Tragic
