14 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.
SWNSQA California woman who
abruptly went into labor de-
livered her baby in the front
yard—an event captured by
her doorbell camera. Emily
Johnson and her husband
live just five minutes from
the hospital, so they didn’t
rush when her contractions
started. But when they finally
did head out, Johnson got
as far as the car before she
realized she wouldn’t make
it. “I’m just like, ‘This is my
spot,’” she said. By the time
emergency responders ar-
rived, she had given birth to
a son on her front lawn—and
had a video to prove it. “I just
laid back in the grass and
took a nice, deep breath,”
Johnson said. “But man, do I
never want to do this again.”
QA British
man is
offering an
unusual
chauffeur
service
with an
armored personnel carrier
he calls the Tank Taxi. Merlin
Batchelor bought the 15-ton
vehicle for $35,000 and
restored it. Friends, “then
friends of friends, and then
people I didn’t even know”
started asking about rides, he
said. Batchelor now makes
about $1,000 per job driving
people to weddings, funerals,
and other events. “As you
drive along the street, there’s
so many people smiling,
laughing, pointing,” he said.
Insuring his armored vehicle,
he noted, is cheaper than
insuring his Honda Civic.
QA Peruvian family’s pet dog
that angered neighbors by
repeatedly killing and eating
their ducks, chickens, and
guinea pigs turned out to
be an Andean fox. “We had
thought he was a purebred
puppy,” said Maribel Sotelo,
who bought “Run Run” from
a small pet shop in Lima.
He initially played well with
neighborhood dogs but be-
came more aggressive as he
grew. Run Run has since run
off, and wildlife officials are
now looking for him.It must be true...
I read it in the tabloids“Profound pandemic fatigue has led to the irresistible notion that the
pandemic end is nigh,” said Eric Topol. A serious new surge of the
Delta variant in Europe should warn us that we’re “in denial” about
what lies ahead this winter. Cases are surging in both sparsely vac-
cinated Eastern European nations and countries such as Ireland and
Belgium, where vaccination rates exceed 70 percent. Denmark, which
lifted all its pandemic restrictions in September after vaccinating more
than 86 percent of everyone over 12, has reinstated vaccine passports as
Covid resurges. In many countries, it is unvaccinated children and teens
who are primarily spreading the super-infectious variant. The coming
of cold weather and waning vaccine effectiveness after six months are
also contributing. In the U.S., less than 60 percent of the population
has been fully vaccinated, and with many parts of the country spurning
masks and distancing as people move indoors, cases are already spiking
in several states, especially in rural areas. The holidays will accelerate
that trend. Unless we “heed the European signal” and ramp up vaccina-
tions, boosters, and other mitigation efforts, history will repeat itself—
and “we will probably face a fifth wave.”Chris Christie is trying to pull the Republican Party “out of Donald
Trump’s grip,” said Alex Shephard. “But it’s a doomed project.” The
brash, bigmouthed former New Jersey governor seemed to be a vi-
able contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, but
Trump—with far more brazen and even reckless rhetoric—stole his
brand. Christie reacted by endorsing Trump and displaying such meek
deference he “came off like Trump’s servant.” While serving as Trump’s
debate preparer in 2020, Christie caught Covid and nearly died. Now
he is exploring another presidential run and telling Republicans it’s time
to stop obsessing over that lost election and move on. But the time to
stand up to Trump was in 2016, or at least in the aftermath of Jan. 6.
Today, any Republican who rejects Trump, including Rep. Liz Cheney,
is being condemned for treason and exiled. When Trump savaged the
13 House Republicans who voted for President Biden’s infrastructure
bill, the GOP stripped them of committee assignments. Meanwhile, the
Republican base is consumed by “insane conspiracy theories” about the
election and vaccines. So, Christie’s “halfway rebuke of Trumpism” will
gain no traction. It’s Trump’s party now, from top to bottom.After more than a year of soaring violent crime, “law and order could
be making a comeback,” said Madeleine Kearns. Minneapolis voters
this month rejected a proposal to replace the police department with
a “Department of Public Safety,” and for similar reasons, New York-
ers elected as mayor Democrat Eric Adams, a Black former NYPD
captain. He “promised to correct chaos with order.” Last year, the
Big Apple suffered through a 97 percent increase in shootings and a
45 percent increase in murders. Cops say they feel “demoralized,” yet
in response, outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio slashed the NYPD’s budget
by $1 billion—and leftist activists demanded even deeper cuts. Adams,
however, wants “more, not fewer, NYPD officers on the street,” and
supports a less intrusive version of “stop and frisk.” He opposes the
state’s lenient bail reforms and refuses to back down to Black Lives
Matter activists who threaten to meet more policing with “riots” and
“fire.” Across the country, voters have turned on politicians who caved
to anti- police arsonists and looters. Adams, who “has chosen pragma-
tism” over liberal dogma, has a chance “to bring his city back from the
brink—and bring his party back with him.”What Europe’s
Covid wave
tells us
Eric Topol
TheGuardian.comNYC’s new
law-and-order
mayor
Madeleine Kearns
NationalReview.comChristie’s
belated
awakening
Alex Shephard
NewRepublic.com“Communities built around obsessive interests online spill out into real life.
Helping create a mob makes people feel powerful, and membership in a mob
makes people even more fanatical. Those are intense incentives not just to act like lunatics but to
develop messianic ambitions. Members of mobs don’t need individual courage, because member-
ship in the collective gives them a sense of power, false accomplishment, and security. The rest of
us had better learn how to deal with the madness of crowds. To defeat them, we will have to get
better at being brave ourselves.” Chris Stirewalt in TheDispatch.comViewpoint