Tag: COVID

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Coronavirus, COVID-19 Politics

No Peeing in the Pool

Sorry to be so crass, but this is a crisis. COVID numbers are once again on the rise, just as we thought we were heading back toward some version of normal life. July has been a bad month for the virus, leaving Dr. Fauci saying “We’re going in the wrong direction.” Even Donald Trump’s surgeon general, Vice Admiral Dr. Jerome Adams, has sounded the alarm: The pandemic is “spiraling out of control again.” Adams attributes the surge to the fact that too few people have been vaccinated.

A few years back, when my now teenage grandsons were cute little preschoolers, one afternoon I took them to the local kiddie pool, where we had gone many times before. This day, we walked up to the gate only to find it locked, with a sign expressing regrets that the pool had to be closed for the rest of the day. We couldn’t imagine why the pool would be closed during normal operating hours on a beautiful summer afternoon. But then, returning to our car, we met a father and son who filled us in. There had been a birthday party just a little earlier during which one of the guests had not only done a little #1 in the pool but had done the dreaded #2 as well. Emergency! Pool closed!

There’s a metaphor developing here. One might ask why the pool staff couldn’t have simply scooped out the offending material and gone on with business. It was, after all, just one small heap in a large body of water. What could possibly go wrong? Or one could ask why they didn’t simply rope off the small area where the accident occurred and allow swimmers to enjoy the rest of the pool. One might just as well ask why pool managers post “Don’t pee in the pool” signs in the first place. Couldn’t they rope off a designated peeing section where swimmers could relieve themselves without contaminating the whole pool? The answers to these questions are too obvious to merit discussion. What happens in Vegas may (or may not) stay in Vegas, but what happens in one part of the pool does not stay in that part of the pool. It contaminates the entire body.

And that brings us to several groups whose reluctance to protect themselves and the “herd” are causing this latest crisis. As of this date, fewer than half of all Americans have been fully vaccinated; even allowing for the millions of children who are not yet eligible, we are still far short of the number needed to achieve the long-hoped-for herd immunity.

According to CNN’s Travis Caldwell, Holly Yan, and Dakin Andone–on Sunday, July 25–in 48 states, the rate of new cases in the past week jumped by at least 10% compared to the previous week; in 34 of those states, the increase was more than 50%. Southern California–including San Diego and Los Angeles–is experiencing the highest numbers they’ve seen since February, and hospitalizations in LA County more than doubled in a two-week period in July, topping 700 for the first time since March.

It’s been well established that this latest surge is caused by the Delta variant of the virus, which is the most transmissible version we’ve seen yet. This phase has been given the label “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated, because at least 83% of new cases and 97% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated people (University of Massachusetts Medical School). There have been a small number of “breakthrough infections” among the fully vaccinated; but the cases have been mild, have not required hospitalization, and have not caused death. Conclusion: The vaccines are working.

Americans are known around the world for our rugged individualism; unlike citizens of other countries, notably Asian cultures, our first concern is rarely for the collective body. We pride ourselves on being hardy, independent, and self-sufficient; and many Americans are far more focused on their “rights” than on the responsibilities associated with those rights.

Then there are the libertarians who, as the name suggests, value liberty above all else and who believe people allowed to choose for themselves can be trusted to do right things and act in the best interest of themselves and their fellow citizens. That deeply misguided notion could be debunked by a quick study of human psychology and world history.

The Cato Institute denies that libertarians, despite their fierce insistence on personal choice, have no concern for the effects of their individual actions on others. Their website offers this description:

“To protect rights, individuals form governments. But government is a dangerous institution. Libertarians have a great antipathy to concentrated power, for as Lord Acton said, ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Thus they want to divide and limit power, and that means especially to limit government. . . . Limited government is the basic political implication of libertarianism.”

Although not everyone who advocates limited government and expresses antipathy toward government calls themselves “libertarian,” suspicion and distrust of government has grown exponentially in my lifetime. The dominant argument of the gun slingers who resist even small, common-sense changes in gun legislation is that if the government takes away any portion of the freedom to own firearms, the populace will be left defenseless in the case of attack by the government.

Next in line is the God-will-take-care-of-me group. I’m not disparaging anyone’s faith or religious practice, just saying certain people may need to examine their beliefs a bit more deeply. Those who believe all they need is God to protect them against a deadly virus should ask themselves whether God loves them more than God loved the 650,000 people who have already died. My high school classmate John was a good man and a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great grandfather. Does John’s death from COVID mean God didn’t care about him or that John was not worthy of God’s protection? No.

Since diseases don’t recognize social status or personal virtue, even the best and most powerful are as much at risk as the most evil or powerless. President Abraham Lincoln, widely regarded as our best president and a fine example of morality and honor, lost three of his four sons to disease during their childhood and teen years. One son, Willie, died at age 11, during Lincoln’s presidency, of typhoid fever believed to have been contracted from contaminated water that because of the Civil War then supplied the White House. If Honest Abe didn’t earn divine intervention or immunity from suffering, that doesn’t bode well for my chances.

And these days we can never forget the conspiracy theorists. Many who are refusing vaccination are convinced the government is using a public health crisis as a venue for carrying out such nefarious operations as injecting us all with tracking chips, stealing our DNA, and making people magnetic. If that sounds more like the plot for a science fiction movie, welcome to the 21st century!

Evangelicals were a relatively quiet, low-profile group until President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) “put liberal aspects of his Baptist tradition front and center, whether appealing for racial equality, lamenting economic disparity or making human rights concerns integral to American foreign policy” (Clyde Haberman, New York Times, 28 Oct 2018). Mr. Haberman attributes Carter’s replacement by Ronald Reagan in 1980 to Carter’s fellow evangelicals’ displeasure with his liberal agenda. Their disillusionment with President Carter led evangelicals to put their considerable clout behind Ronald Reagan, also a professed Christian, even though Reagan’s lifestyle–“twice-married, alienated from his children, almost never attended church”–“flew counter to much of what they considered elements of an upright life.”

The contemporaneous birth of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, with its anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality agenda, according to Mr. Haberman made the late 1970s a pivot point for the evangelical voice in American politics. Since then, they have become the most powerful voting bloc in the Republican Party. Also known for their anti-science point of view, their opposition to vaccines should surprise no one.

The last group is less distinct but among the most powerful: those in whom the tribal mentality is most deeply ingrained. Dr. Zeke Emanuel, speaking to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on July 26, sadly informed viewers that only 9% of U.S. hospitals have fully vaccinated staffs, because according to Dr. Emanuel, health care workers are subject to the same disinformation being promulgated among society at large. The divide between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, according to the doctor, has created an in-group/out-group environment in which either having or not having received one’s inoculation to COVID constitutes a “badge of honor” which identifies people with their respective tribes. Absurd as that sounds, it’s a powerful force not easily overcome by facts and logic.

Here’s the problem with all of those who believe vaccination should be a personal choice: They’re peeing in the pool. Remember the old seating arrangement in restaurants: smoking and non-smoking sections? I do. No matter where one was seated in a large room with no solid dividers, some smoke was bound to reach one’s nostrils, and being seated in the last row of the non-smoking section–directly beside the first row of the smoking section–was the same as sitting in the smoking section. There’s a reason restaurant managers no longer use that system. Everyone within an enclosed space breathes the same air, and everyone in the pool is swimming in the same water, because neither air nor water can create its own barrier.

My fully vaccinated status took effect on April 12. I received my two injections of the Moderna vaccine on March 1 and March 29, so April 12 was the end of the two-week post-injection period. According to the CDC and Washington State guidelines, I can now be with other fully vaccinated people, I can travel, and I can shop or eat at restaurants without wearing a mask. And for several weeks, I enjoyed those freedoms; but now, I’m becoming more wary, am more likely to don the mask even when I’m not required. During a shopping trip on Sunday, July 25, I saw more of my fellow Washingtonians masked up than I had seen in several weeks.

Thanks to the half of Americans who foolishly believe their choice to decline the vaccine affects only themselves, it’s highly likely that I will soon have no choice about whether I go out without a mask, travel, or maybe even go all the way back to quarantine. Although the small number of breakthrough infections for vaccinated people have been mild and have not resulted in hospitalization or death, a vaccinated person infected with COVID is capable of transmitting the virus to others. Breaking news: A headline in today’s New York Times says the CDC is likely to announce later (July 27) today a reversal in its mask guidelines, requiring fully vaccinated people to mask up again. Thanks a lot, vaccine rebels!

I want to be clear that I have no objection to mask mandates; I have willingly worn a mask for the last almost year and a half, and I’ll willingly do it again. I simply resent the fact that uninformed, misinformed, and obstinate people are stopping the progress that would be a benefit to us all.

I respect those who are hesitant to receive a vaccine because they fear medical issues may result, but I encourage those people to pro-actively seek answers to their questions instead of simply holding onto their fears while they impede progress. A family member who was recently diagnosed with fibrosis asked her doctor whether that diagnosis should prohibit her from being vaccinated; the doctor firmly replied: “Well, do you want to have fibrosis AND COVID or just fibrosis?” That family member has now received her first dose and will soon receive the second. She’s smart. She sought professional advice and then followed that advice.

The simple fact is vaccines work. I bear on my left arm the faint remains of the scar left by the smallpox vaccination I received at age 6. At the time, no one was permitted to enter first grade without that scar; it was the “vaccine passport” of the day. U.S. doctors stopped routinely giving smallpox vaccines in 1980 because smallpox had been eradicated from the world. Smallpox went from being “one of history’s deadliest diseases . . . estimated to have killed more than 300 million people since 1900 alone” (American Museum of Natural History) to fully eradicated within a few decades.

The Immunization Action Coalition says, “Eradicating smallpox prevented millions of deaths and—by removing the need to treat and prevent the disease—saves many countries billions of dollars. Perhaps just as important: it showed the world that disease eradication was possible.”

Polio, another dreaded disease responsible for killing and permanently disabling millions of Americans–including one U.S. President–began its decline in 1955 with the introduction of an effective vaccine, and the U.S. has been polio-free since 1979, according to the CDC. Polio cannot be cured, only prevented; so millions of people are able to walk today and millions more lived to become adults because a vaccine prevented them from getting polio.

Parents no longer live in fear of losing their young children to measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough) because vaccinations for those child-killing diseases have been a routine part of infant care for decades. Yellow fever, HPV, Hepatitis, influenza, and Ebola have also been controlled by vaccination.

French president Emmanuel Macron announced on July 12 that he is “putting in restrictions on the non-vaccinated rather than on everyone.” Those restrictions include being denied access to eateries, cinemas, museums, and public transportation without proof of vaccination. The alternative is to show a negative test result, but that test will no longer be free; it will cost 49 euros. Additional mandates include required vaccination for health care workers and others who have close contact with clients.

Talk of vaccine passports has raised eyebrows and tempers, but vaccine mandates are not new. The smallpox vaccine was required for my fellow first graders and me to start school. I had to show vaccination records for my children as part of their kindergarten entrance requirements. To be admitted to Florida Gulf Coast University, my daughter was required to have a vaccination which had not been among the routine shots given when she was a baby and toddler. Yet I can’t recall any examples of those vaccination requirements becoming political issues.

Bottom line is we’re all swimming in the same pool, so those who choose to exercise their freedom by making careless or irresponsible choices contaminate the water for all of us. John Donne may have put it a bit more eloquently when he wrote “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main[land],” but the simple, clear message from vaccinated Americans to vaccination resisters is “Stop peeing in the pool.”



		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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					Coronavirus, COVID-19 Politics				

			


			
COVID Has a Face

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

Around 25 years ago, my then-husband and I hosted a gathering one evening at our home. We invited several other couples with whom we spent three or four hours eating, talking, and laughing until we cried. As the party was breaking up, one of the men present received a phone call from his younger son, informing him that his older, twenty-five-year-old son had died earlier that evening when the motorcycle he was riding was struck by a car.





Standing in my family room, I watched as the shock registered on the man’s face and in his body. He jumped into the air and did a slight pivot before planting his feet and bending slightly forward in deadly earnest as he listened to the words coming through the phone line. His first verbal response was “NO! Don’t tell me!” I continued to watch as his wife was brought from another room and he gently seated her in a chair, then knelt before her to break the news that her beloved son was no longer living. I watched her face as she registered the shock and went immediately into the denial stage of grief, shaking her head and repeating over and over, “No, not my Richard. Not my Richard.”





I watched as the other guests gathered around them and began offering comfort and support. One of the men volunteered to drive them home, while another said he would deliver their vehicle for them. A few days later, my husband and I walked with them into the room where they would for the first time see their son in his casket. I saw them catch their breath and turn their faces away as they got their first glimpse of his lifeless body, then move closer and hold each other while they both wept.





From that day until this, I have never read a headline reporting a traffic accident in the same way I had read those headlines before. We see them every week, and we feel a certain level of compassion and sympathy. “Oh, that’s terrible. His/her poor family.” But it’s hard to hold onto that compassion or even to experience it at a very deep level when the victim has no face, when the grieving family are just names in the obituary. What that evening did for me was put a face on the headline “25-year-old Man Killed in Accident.” Now when I read similar stories, I see my friend hearing for the first time of his son’s death; I see his wife who for ten minutes couldn’t stop shaking her head and moaning “No, not my Richard.” Dick and Penny are for me the real people whose real suffering gives such stories meaning and impact.





Like everyone else in the country, I read each day and listen each night to the day’s grim statistics: number of new COVID infections, number of deaths on that day, and total number of deaths so far. Also like almost everyone else, I find it a bit hard to be appropriately compassionate toward faceless numbers. I haven’t personally known any of those people, so they’re just vague, faceless statistics. Heartbreaking, yes. Frightening, definitely. Reason for taking precautions, absolutely. But I don’t know them; they’re people “out there” somewhere.





All of that changed, however, in the wee hours of Christmas morning, 2020, when one of my high school classmates lost his battle against the virus. Now COVID has a face: the face of John Mathes. I’d been following John’s progress for a little over a month, as he was placed on a ventilator three times and then removed when there were signs he was going to beat the illness, as he was moved into and out of ICU several times, then to a rehab center, and then back to the hospital. Finally, at 12:30 a.m., as Christmas Eve faded into Christmas morning, in his wife’s words, John was just too tired to fight any longer.





I haven’t seen much of John since high school, but I received updates through mutual friends, saw him and his wife at a couple of class reunions, and for the last few years communicated through Facebook. After graduation, we went different routes: I went off to college and then to various other cities, while he put down deep roots in our home soil. Within a couple of years, he had married our fellow classmate Sharon Warling, and they spent the next 50+ years creating a loving family and being a vital part of our hometown community.





Now when I read the number of daily COVID deaths, I’ll see John lying in a hospital bed, attached to a ventilator. I’ll see Sharon, mostly at home because of visiting limitations necessary for such a highly contagious disease, praying for the miracle that would bring her husband back to her. I’ve never met their three daughters or any of their grandchildren and great grandchildren, but they have lost the rock of their family and must find a way to bring stability back to their own lives while supporting their mother and grandmother as she learns to navigate her new normal and find new meaning and direction, without the partner with whom she’d shared her entire adult life.





John Mathes is more than a number on a list of statistics, more than just one of the 300,000+ people who have succumbed to the ravages of this virus. He’s the guy who played golf in high school and beyond, who always had a big smile on his face, who married Sharon, one of the Catholic school girls who joined us at the public school in ninth grade. They had three daughters, were among the first of us to become grandparents, and may have been the very first to become great grandparents. 





John and Sharon are the ones who took over the job of keeping our class united after Eve–the classmate who organized most of our reunions–died. They sent out emails and started a weekly meetup for anyone in town at Marion’s Pizza. They became the glue that held us all together. He’s the guy with whom I’ve had so many lively political debates on Facebook over the last few years, and I’ve already missed those debates this month while he’s been fighting for his life.





John is not a number on a chart, not just a statistic; he’s a flesh-and-blood human with whom I share a history. He is for me the new face of “pandemic.” Many people still don’t have that face; to them, those numbers are still impersonal. But tragically, before this long, dark winter ends, thousands more will have a face to give definition and urgency to the dispassionate words “COVID,” “coronavirus,” “pandemic.”





As those cold numbers begin to take on flesh, the complaints about rights being violated and government overstepping its bounds become a bit more personal. Could those people look Sharon Mathes–or whoever else it may be that gives the disease a face–in the eye and say they’re being oppressed by the mandate that they wear masks in public? I don’t know how John contracted COVID, but I know that if my wearing a mask or taking other recommended precautions carries even the chance of protecting another family from suffering the devastation that the Mathes family is now mired in, I wouldn’t think of insulting those families by complaining about my “rights” or my “inconvenience.”





Another face that guides my responses these days is that of my former pastor, from the church I left when I moved out of Florida. I’ve read Pastor Jeff’s letters to members as he navigates this uncharted territory of how to have church during a pandemic. Is it safe to meet for in-person worship, or should services be streamed online only? If there are occasional in-person meetings, what precautions need to be followed? How does a leader do the tightrope dance of trying to balance wise judgment and scientific fact with maintaining harmony and good will among parishioners who have differing ideas about how things should be done?





Reading Jeff’s personal and honest accounts of his grappling with the responsibility–in conjunction with the church’s ruling elders–to make the right decisions, knowing that no decision will be met with unanimous approval, has moved me to greater compassion for all leaders who are doing their best to guide us through these unfamiliar waters.





Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee, comes to mind, along with the other governors who struggle to make wise, science-based policies while facing the ire of citizens who resent their efforts and who will flout whatever guidelines and mandates they propose: citizens whose conception of their “constitutional rights” outweighs any consideration of public welfare or the common good.





Government powers must be restrained, of course. Too many countries in world history have been case studies in government tyranny, and we have ample examples of corruption in our own country. Yet in fact, although each of us sees our personal concerns and although those concerns are valid and deserve consideration, it is not only the right but the responsibility of our elected officials to oversee the whole system, to make sure all of the parts function together. They are privy to information to which the rest of us don’t have access, allowing them to see a bigger picture than most of us are able to see. There is good reason to question the wisdom and integrity of individual officials; however, making decisions to insure public welfare is the job those officials are elected to do, and they of derelict of their duty if they don’t do it.





Locally, the West Seattle bridge was closed this year because of cracks and structural instability, and it will remain closed until at least 2022. The bridge was part of a major thoroughfare, and its closure has posed an inconvenience for probably thousands of commuters. Our local government made the decision to close based on engineering data because it is their responsibility to act for the public good. If they had simply informed the public of the structural problems and advised against using the bridge, knowledge of human nature should tell us that hundreds if not thousands of people would still be driving across it because it’s their normal route and the g-d government has no right to tell them where they can and cannot drive. They’ll make up their own minds, thank you very much.





The tell-us-what’s-happening-and-then-let-us-decide method of handling matters of public safety seems to be the choice of many who feel the government has gone too far in imposing restrictions to limit the spread of COVID. Yet history has shown that such an approach rarely if ever ends well and that those same people would lash out at the government for being too lax and for abdicating their duties if restrictions were to be loosened and the death toll to rise even more.





My heart goes out to our governors and local law makers who must do their jobs in the current polarized atmosphere, knowing they’re “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.” Dr. Fauci has received death threats and a few months ago said he had hired security for himself and his family. He expressed disbelief that a doctor–one who took an oath to “do no harm”–would find himself needing protection for doing his job.





To Pastor Jeff, Governor Inslee, Dr. Fauci, and the many others charged with the enormous task of saving lives and leading others to act safely, whether they want to or not, you have my highest respect and support.





“Make America Great Again” needs to change to “Make America Compassionate Again,” “Make America Responsible Again,” “Make America Moral Again,” or “Make America United and Cooperative Again.”





The stage has been set. There will be more John Matheses, and there will be more grieving widows like Sharon Mathes; those are unavoidable facts, largely beyond our power to control. What is within everyone’s power is to take the personal responsibility to keep the number of Johns and Sharons as low as possible. We’re overwhelmed, but we’re not helpless. Everyone has a duty to be part of the solution. It’s going to be a long, dark winter; but I want to be here to see next winter.





Wear the damn mask!  


		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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All Lives Matter, but     Some Matter More

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

It was a grand spectacle. It could have been staged by a Hollywood producer. The helicopter landed on the lawn near the majestic staircase, the COVID patient emerged dressed elegantly in a suit and tie, he ascended the staircase in the fashion of dictators and strong men everywhere, and like dictators and strong men everywhere, he posed on the balcony facing his adoring public. After defiantly removing his mask and stuffing it into his pocket, he stood at attention for several minutes, basking in the light of the cameras. There were no smiles, no warmth, no friendly gestures, just a posture of strength: his COVID victory lap.





Then he turned to enter his temporary home–also a work place to hundreds of people–unmasked though still contagious and having been visibly laboring to breathe during the entire photo op. But that’s not all. According to reporters, he required videographers to re-shoot the scene of his entering the White House, to be sure they captured just the image he sought to project. All of this time, he was unmasked, in close proximity to those required to assist him and carry out his wishes; but apparently those lives don’t matter. Neither do the lives of the Secret Service agents required to take him on a Sunday afternoon joy ride in a hermetically sealed vehicle. 





Hours before leaving the hospital, he wrote these reassuring words: “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life.”





You heard the man.





Child, don’t be afraid of COVID. The parent whom you loved is gone. You will never again feel the warmth of those loving arms or see the smile on the face you cherished. Your parent will not be present for any of the milestones in your life: at graduations, you’ll see an empty spot in the audience; at your wedding, there will be no celebratory dance with that parent; at every holiday gathering, you’ll see an empty chair where your beloved parent would have sat. You may be forced to live with reduced income, maybe even in poverty, because that parent was a family wage earner. You’ll relive the loss for as long as you live, but don’t let this dominate your life.





Parent, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve laid your precious child to rest: the one you brought into the world, maybe nursed at your own breast, tenderly cared for and provided for, and watched in wonder and amazement as they grew. At every new stage of life, the love you thought couldn’t possibly be any greater became even more intense. You fiercely protected your child from every harm, cared for them during sickness, bandaged the wounds of childhood accidents; and then one day, your child encountered an adversary  against which you and your doctors were helpless. All you could do is let the disease ravage their body until there was no breath left in it. But you know, hardly any children get COVID; they’re almost immune to it. Your child’s disease was just a fluke, bad luck. So don’t let this dominate your life.





Spouse, don’t be afraid of COVID. The person you loved died alone, with only a FaceTime or Zoom farewell, with no loving touch or comforting presence. But hey, thank goodness for technology, right? Imagine how bad it would have been before we had smart phones and computers. This person to whom you pledged your love and fidelity, with whom you were traveling through life with all of its joys and sorrows, for whom you’d have stepped in front of a bullet, is gone. Never again will you feel the warmth of their body or see the adoration in their eyes as they look deeply into yours; never again will you feel the safety and reassurance you found with them at your side. Your financial circumstances may be reduced without their income, and you may have to raise alone the children you brought into the world together. That gaping hole in the middle of your chest will never completely close over, but don’t let this dominate your life.





Friend, don’t be afraid of COVID. That person you shared life with, laughed with, cried with, danced with, got into mischief with is gone. They died alone, without you or their family members physically present to give comfort and a farewell kiss. The empty chair, the ghostly vision, the heartful of memories, the boxes full of photos are all you have left to remind you of the special love you shared. Your friend may be one of the tens of thousands who didn’t have to die, who would still be alive had there been competent national leadership to get this virus under control as all other nations have done. But it is what it is, so don’t let this dominate your life.





Uninsured and underinsured Americans, don’t be afraid of COVID. If you test positive, no helicopter will land on your lawn and whisk you off to the world’s premier medical facility. You won’t be looked after by a dedicated team of doctors, you won’t be given expensive cutting-edge treatments, you won’t have a private suite of rooms. In fact, you’ll be lucky to get any treatment at all, because the person gloating in front of the cameras about having conquered his own illness, through expensive cutting-edge treatments which you and I paid for, has consistently attempted to strip you of the insurance which might have provided you a basic level of treatment and has lawyers in court now arguing to leave millions of you without any insurance. But don’t worry; he’s fine. He beat it, thanks to you and me. So don’t let this dominate your life.





Business owners, don’t be afraid of COVID. Your business may have gone under because of the shutdowns and the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, or maybe you’re struggling to hold onto the last shreds of what was your livelihood. You’ve had to watch your employees apply for unemployment because you can no longer write the checks by which they have provided for themselves and their families. But you’ll find something else, and so will your employees. Just get out there and live the American dream. If you work hard enough, you will prosper. Times have been tough, and they’re going to be tough awhile longer, but don’t let this dominate your life.





Unemployed workers, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve lost your job because of a pandemic and the reckless, irresponsible handling of it, but thank goodness for unemployment checks, eh? And how about that one stimulus check you received? You remember, the one that came months ago, with the “president’s” signature. You can’t pay your rent or mortgage payment, you worry every day about how you’ll feed your family, you struggle to make the car payment and buy insurance and fuel for the vehicle. But be creative, man! Consider this time a gift: learn a new skill, take a trip, write a book. Whatever you do, don’t let this dominate your life.





Essential workers, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve been out there every day since the beginning, ringing up sales at grocery stores, home improvement stores, banks, and gas stations. You’ve been verbally and physically assaulted by frustrated, angry customers who don’t want to wear masks or who can’t understand why they are limited to purchasing only one package of toilet paper. You’ve gone home every day with the knowledge that you may have been exposed to the deadly virus and if so are exposing your family to it as well. But be grateful you have a job, and don’t let this dominate your life.





Exhausted health care workers, don’t be afraid of COVID. You’ve been the ones in direct contact with the more than 7 million Americans who have contracted the virus, and you’ve witnessed the deaths of the more than 211,000 Americans who were not so lucky as our “president.” You’ve worked extra shifts, often without proper equipment because our national leadership did not use all of the available resources to produce sufficient PPE for both you and your patients or the extra respirators and other equipment you needed to provide the level of care your patients required. You go home every day bone weary, praying you’ve protected yourself well enough to avoid infection and praying you’re not taking home anything that might endanger your family. You struggle to suppress the scenes of trauma dancing in your brain so that you can go to sleep and be renewed for another day of the same–with no foreseeable end. You push aside dark thoughts of ending your own life, as others in your field have done, because the stress and the pain have become unendurable. But hey, don’t let this dominate your life.





Precious wife, whose husband died of cancer in March, don’t be afraid of COVID. Your husband didn’t have COVID, but the skilled care facility where he was being treated had to be locked down because of the pandemic, so he died alone. In his mental confusion, caused by dementia and the drugs he was receiving, he thought you had abandoned him. You who were married to him for over 50 years, you who walked beside him, you who worked with him during the years you both served marginalized people and anyone else who needed your help, you who loved and cared for him throughout his life and during his illness. In the end, you had to say goodbye on the phone, with him not understanding that you were still there and still loved him.





Dear cousins, who were unable to visit your mother, my aunt, during the last few months of her life, don’t be afraid of COVID. Your mother was one of the most loving and giving people I’ve ever known. Her home was always open to family, and her nieces and nephews knew we could count on her to show us a fun time. She, of the twelve siblings, was the one who stayed close by and cared for our grandmother during her final years. She was a leader in her community, taking the initiative to found a library when she learned that the small town you moved to didn’t have one. She didn’t have COVID, but she too was in a care facility that had to be closed to visitors because of the pandemic. So after almost 90 years of living for others, she died alone.





I wonder how all of you felt when you saw the man on the balcony say, “I’m fine. Maybe I’m immune? So get out there. Don’t be afraid.” Did you feel that this man cared about your loved one? Did you feel that he cares about you? Did you feel that this man deserves to live in the People’s House another four years while you and I pay his bills so that he can go on not giving a damn what happens to any of us?





Francine Prose, in a Guardian article, says what many of us have felt and thought:





“We’d like to believe that suffering instructs and ennobles; that our grief, fear and pain increases our sympathy for the grief, fear and pain of others. But again, Donald Trump seems to be ineducable, impervious to shame, guilt, or any sense of personal responsibility, unaffected by anything except vanity, selfishness and reckless self-regard. Certainly, the experience of having his blood oxygen level drop so low that supplemental oxygen was required must have been alarming, and yet the president continues to believe that bluster is the best medicine.”





Our nation is on code blue. It’s our choice whether we pull the plug on our democracy or wake up and work like hell to resuscitate it. We can’t allow these 211,000 lives to be lost in vain. Starting now, we have to elect responsible leaders, and then we have to be responsible leaders and followers. Our lives and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives depend on what we do in the next 28 days and beyond. Voting is only the beginning. Our new president (please, God!) is going to need our cooperation and support. It’s up to us to put the “United” back in “United States of America.”


		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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Where My Nose Begins

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

I grew up in the age of folksy sayings; there was a catchy aphorism for just about anything a child could think of. A couple of my mother’s favorites were “Pretty is as pretty does” and “God helps those who help themselves.” Obviously, expressing universal truths in pithy sayings was effective, because I remember many of them–along with the lessons they taught me–now that I am many years past childhood.





One such saying which is replaying in my head repeatedly these days is “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Swinging one’s arm is a common act, for a variety of reasons; and it’s one in which the government and our fellow citizens would typically have no say. However, if the arc of my swing intersects with part of another person’s body, that person’s right not to be assaulted must be given equal weight with my right to swing my arm, and that person’s right will limit my right. Seems logical.





If there were a word counter that could calculate the number of times a particular word is spoken in our country, I’d bet “rights” would be thousands ahead of the next most common. But what’s sad about that thought is that most of the time when an American is talking about rights, it’s about their own personal rights and those of their “tribe”; equal weight is not given to those outside their sphere.





There’s a very large, very loud contingent of Americans who adamantly claim their right to own firearms–any number and any type they choose–because Second Amendment (Don’t get me started!). Not only does that claim ignore the language and limits stated and implied in the amendment itself, but it callously ignores the “noses” of others whose rights should be given equal consideration. My grandchildren have the right to feel secure in their schools; they have the right to go to school each day without having to fear that they may leave in a body bag; they have the right for active shooter drills not to be part of their required curriculum. Limiting a few of the gun lovers’ rights would help to insure our children’s rights, but many are too self-centered to see it that way.





Did early settlers in the American South have the right to build large farms to support their families and make strong communities? Of course they did. Did they have the right to travel across the ocean and kidnap fellow human beings and force them to do the hard work of the plantation with no share in the profits? Well, no. Did early European settlers have the right to come to this continent and establish communities in harmony with the native inhabitants? I would say yes. Did they have the right to kill many of those natives and drive the rest onto reservations so that they could have the whole place to themselves? Well, no.





If I may digress for a moment from examples within our own country, did displaced Jewish people have the right to return to their land of origin and establish themselves as a nation? I believe they did. Do they have the right to bulldoze homes and communities of those natives who have been there continuously since antiquity? Do they have the right to displace these people from their ancestral lands? Do they have the right to bulldoze Bedouin villages, home to people who want nothing more than to live in peace and enjoy simple lives, to operate schools in which children can be educated? Do they have the right to establish their own nation by destroying another one? NO, they do not.





Humans are the cruelest breed.





To return to my main subject, the banner under which the conservative movement has marched over the last several decades is Right to Life, or the hoped-for revoking of Roe v Wade. Yet when these same advocates of protection for the unborn are confronted with the right of immigrant children in detention centers to be released from the cruel circumstances in which they’re being held and returned to their parents, the only response is “Meh! They wouldn’t be there if their parents hadn’t tried to enter the country.” When confronted with the fact that “Black lives matter,” their response is “All lives matter,” even though their attitudes toward many other groups belie that statement.





It’s enough to make one think unborn lives are not really their concern after all. Could it be that advocating for the rights of embryonic humans is a smokescreen? Could it be that they’re using an emotional appeal to gain more support for their “conservative” agenda? Could it be that they’re really just pulling at some people’s heartstrings in order to gain more power for themselves and their party? I wouldn’t go so far as to assign motives to people I don’t know, but I think those questions are worth considering.





I’ve often quoted Thomas Paine, writer of many influential pamphlets during the American Revolutionary period, because I think he had the most clear-eyed view on human rights that I’ve read. In Paine’s 1792 book “Rights of Man,” he opines that all humans have two categories of rights: natural rights and civil rights.





This is his definition of natural rights:





“Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.”





In the previous paragraph, he has discussed the Genesis account of creation, not as a religious sectarian, which Payne was not, but as a philosopher explaining the origin of this category of human rights. Our natural rights, according to Thomas Paine, were given to us at our individual creation, and every human receives exactly the same endowment. Thomas Jefferson expresses the same idea in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” We all know by now the problems with those words; but taken at face value, they echo Paine’s statement of natural rights and equality of all humans.





It’s also worth noting that, even in this initial statement, Paine includes the caveat “which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.” Even our God-given rights, according to the great thinkers, have limits; and that limit is “where my nose begins.” At no point in history have humans ever been recognized as having unlimited personal rights, although our actions certainly speak louder than those words–to use another familiar folksy saying from my youth.





Paine goes on to explain the concept of civil rights:





“Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.”





Thomas Jefferson put it this way in the Declaration of Independence: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”





The purpose of government, then, according to both Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, is to protect our natural rights. As Paine says, security and protection are the benefits we gain from being part of a civil body, since we are individually not always capable of protecting ourselves and insuring our own security. I think I feel another old saying coming on: “There is strength in numbers.”





Paine goes on to add another caveat: “It follows, then, that the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.” In other words, if I can execute one of my natural rights on my own–and my exercise of that right is “not injurious to others,” the government does not have the authority to take over that particular right.





Thomas Jefferson lists our natural, or “unalienable” rights, as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He uses the words “among these,” meaning that these are just three examples, not a comprehensive list.





Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau–among others–called this concept of natural and civil rights, and the relationship between the two, the social contract. Individuals who wish to enjoy the security and protection of a civil body enter into a contract with that body. I believe the most important thing to remember here is that a contract is an agreement between two parties which is binding on both parties. In other words, we each have a responsibility in the forming and maintaining of that “more perfect union” that the writers of our Constitution envisioned.





So what does all of this mean to us right now? If you’re one of those who believe you have a right to go wherever you want without a mask, I would say you’re wrong. You have a right to be maskless any time you are alone or in the open air with no one else less than six feet away from you, but you do not have the right to refuse wearing a mask in a public place where other members of our civil body will be in close proximity. I would also say you do not have the right to discount the information given by people who know more about the subject of disease than you or I know. Those experts do their part to uphold the social contract by sharing their expertise with the rest of us, and my ignorant opinion is not equal to their scientific research. The same principle applies to following social distancing guidelines and limiting our number of contacts. Wait, I’m thinking of another not-so-old saying: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”





America is leading the world in COVID infections and deaths. That’s not the way we’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world! We are a civil body, and what affects one of us affects us all. There is no “God-given” right–not in any of our governing documents, not in any religious text, and not in common-sense thinking–to ignore medical guidelines meant to protect the whole civil body. It just doesn’t exist, and if it did, it would be superseded by the greater good of keeping the whole body alive and healthy.





It’s not about you. Or me. So here’s my final wise saying, not so very old but it will be by the time this is over: “Wear the damn mask!” Oh, yeah, and for God’s sake put it over your nose.


		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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Bread Crumbs, Q Drops, and Code 17

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

Many years ago, home alone on a Saturday morning and in search of entertainment, I  came across a movie called Capricorn One, about an elaborate hoax to fake a Mars landing. Kidnapped flight crew, secret sound stages, special effects, and a desperate escape through the desert–it has all the makings of a thriller. This movie was my Intro to Conspiracy Theories/Conspiracy Theories 101 class. Because it had never before occurred to me that perpetrating such a grand hoax could be possible–let alone that anyone would have reason to do such a thing–I admit I was intrigued for weeks. It raised questions about the moon landing and everything else I had ever read about NASA, space exploration, and the integrity of our government and its agencies.





To be clear, when I say “intrigued,” I do not mean I ever believed the notion of grand hoaxes perpetrated by NASA or questioned the legitimacy of our country’s advances into space travel. I mean I was intellectually curious: curious to know why anyone would propose such an idea, curious to understand what kind of mind questions verifiable scientific fact, curious to know whether such a hoax could be pulled off.





That film was produced in 1977, so obviously conspiracy theories are not a 21st-century phenomenon, and they were not even a 20th-century phenomenon. It does seem, however, that conspiracy theories have proliferated and gained traction more in the last decade than in all the other decades of my life.





Q Anon is one of the hot groups right now chasing some wild theories about the inner workings of our government. Recently, after hearing the name mentioned so often, I realized I didn’t have a clear understanding of who or what this group is, beyond the obvious, that it’s pretty crazy. So I found some articles in reputable publications (I refuse to visit Q Anon sites) and educated myself. If, like me, you’re not quite sure what Q Anon is or whether you should rush out to sign up, here’s a little of what I learned.





The core belief of those who identify as Q Anon followers is that the United States is governed by a “deep state” made up of Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Although that would certainly explain a lot about what’s happening right now, we’ve advanced from Conspiracy Theories 101 into the post-doctoral courses: Conspiracy Theory Meets Twilight Zone. An August 20 New York Times article adds, “Members of this group [also] kill and eat their victims in order to extract a life-extending chemical from their blood.” So for the sake of brevity, let’s call them the SWPCs (Satan-worshiping pedophilic cannibals).





It’s pretty hard to imagine such far-fetched stuff going mainstream, but it has done just that. The same NYT article says social media platforms have been flooded with misinformation propagated by this umbrella “for a sprawling set of internet conspiracy theories that allege, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.” It’s also known as a “big-tent” conspiracy theory, so it’s an equal-opportunity clearing house for all types of wackos.





And that brings us to the least shocking fact of all: Donald Trump is at the center of this madness. In fact, Donald Trump is the hero they are trying to rescue from the grips of the deep-state SWPCs; or, as ABC News puts it, he is their “crusading savior.”





Most of the people I hang out with, when Q Anon is mentioned, will respond with either a furrowed brow and a “Huh??” or an eye roll and a “Pffft.” The scary thing, however, is that since I’m rather selective, as I imagine you are, about the people I hang out with, my circle is probably not an accurate sampling of the population at large. The list believed to be part of the SWPC Clique include, but is not limited to, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, Pope Francis, and the Dalai Lama (New York Times 8/20).





Various sources estimate the number of Q Anon followers–that is, the ones who actually believe Tom Hanks and Barack Obama worship Satan and eat children–in the hundreds of thousands to the millions. So while your immediate circle of friends may not include any QAnon types, that person behind you in the grocery store checkout line, the person ringing up your groceries, that sweet old couple next-door, your hair stylist, your dentist (I’ve always suspected they’re aliens), the people in the house down the street that you tell your kids to stay away from, or even the slightly odd person sitting on the pew beside you (pre-COVID of course) scrolling on their phone during the minister’s sermon. If the estimates are accurate, we’re all sure to encounter a few.





So what is it that these followers are following? “Q” is allegedly a high-ranking intelligence officer who has infiltrated the deep state in order to expose and destroy it. The person first started posting on an Internet message board in October 2017 under the name Q Clearance Patriot, later shortened to just “Q.” Q is the Department of Energy’s designation for Top Secret Restricted Data, National Security Information, and Secret Restricted Data–meant to suggest that this person has access to all of the most highly classified information possessed by the United States intelligence community.





No one knows who this person is (that’s the Anon part), but he or she sends out coded information as marching orders to the faithful. Q posts these coded messages on Internet boards; the posts are called “bread crumbs” or “Q drops.” There are even Q drop apps which collect all of the crumbs and notify the user when a new one arrives, for the highly organized wacko. The number 17 is important, because Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet and also one DT has used several times, which makes it an obvious choice for use in coded messages. Are you with me so far? Am I with me so far? This is deeply disturbing territory we’re in here.





It’s not certain whether Q is a single individual, a group, or an identity that morphs over time; but all who follow believe they are engaged in a global war against an evil cabal, which will “soon culminate in ‘The Storm’ — an appointed time when Mr. Trump would finally unmask the cabal, punish its members for their crimes and restore America to greatness” (New York Times 8/20). Hmm, does this mean MAGA is also code?





This Storm thing reminds me of “The Rapture,” something I was taught as a child in church, not exactly a conspiracy theory, but with some similarities. The story goes that Jesus will some day, when least expected, sneak up on us and beam up all of his favorites, then rain down death and destruction on all the poor saps left behind.





But back to the SWPCs and those faithful soldiers helping Donald Trump win the war against them, this is stuff that Rod Serling and Stephen King might be proud to have written; but as real-life politics, one must wonder just who the hell believes it. And more importantly, why? What does anyone gain by accepting weird fiction as reality?





In elementary school, I read the tall tales of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Throughout my school years, we read about the deities of various countries, most notably Greece and Rome. There was a whole horde of gods and goddesses in each of the mythologies, created by pre-scientific people as explanations for natural phenomena for which there were so far no more sophisticated explanations. Those myths survived science to become literature that captures our imaginations with epic tales of intrigue, personal rivalries, sex, and war.





After President Kennedy was assassinated, conspiracy theories abounded, because humans always crave explanations when tragedy strikes; we need something that makes sense of a senseless act. According to some theories, he was still alive but gravely wounded. I met someone who told me she had heard first-hand from a family member that the wing of the Dallas hospital in which Kennedy had “allegedly” died was closed for months afterward, suggesting he was still there. I even heard that Jackie married Aristotle Onassis only because he owned a private island where she could keep her invalid husband. And then of course, there was the whole string of theories about who really shot him and why.





The thing that makes tall tales, epic stories of mythology, a faked Mars landing, and a dead president who wasn’t really dead relatively harmless is that they are either clearly fiction or they’re isolated theories confined to small groups or to individuals. What Donald Trump and the modern Republican Party have done for conspiracy theories is to take them mainstream. The number of followers is huge and growing daily.





Just this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene won a Georgia primary for a seat in Congress; and most pundits think she has a strong chance at winning in the general election. So Q Anon goes to Congress. It doesn’t get much more mainstream than that. These people will make the Tea Party look like a tea party.





Second on the not-at-all-shocking list is that Donald Trump likes these people because they like him. When asked at a White House briefing what he thinks of them, he responded, “I’ve heard these are people that love our country. So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.” Well, then, they’re okay. DT’s sole criterion for a person or group’s legitimacy is how much they like him. His buddy Vlad calls him frequently, Kim Jong Un writes him beautiful letters, and Q Anon peeps like him. What else is there to know? Meanwhile, he spins his own conspiracies that Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are not natural citizens and–this morning’s gem–that Joe Biden was not born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 





There is just one word of caution which I think should be mentioned here. Like the term “fake news,” which was coined to name a specific type of information of which all should be wary but now is the aspersion cast at anything unfavorable to our own biases, “conspiracy theory” can also lose its meaning if used indiscriminately.





There’s a difference between an alternate theory and a conspiracy theory. Alternate theories are often breakthroughs that lead us to “think outside the box,” to open our minds to possibilities. Conspiracy theories have no redeeming value. When a thinking person questions the accuracy or legitimacy of a mainstream opinion and decides to challenge it, that person does some research and presents their alternate theory grounded in the factual evidence which led to the theory. That theorist will make a logical argument to explain and defend the validity of their conclusion. A conspiracy theorist can make no such argument because conspiracy theories are never based on fact.





By definition, a conspiracy theory can’t have factual evidence to support it. Brittanica.com defines the term as “an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small, powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.” Such theories, then, seem to be the concoctions of suspicious minds, not the conclusions of rational thought.





In science, a theory is 





“a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts. The theory of gravitation, for instance, explains why apples fall from trees and astronauts float in space. . . . A theory not only explains known facts; it also allows scientists to make predictions of what they should observe if a theory is true. Scientific theories are testable. New evidence should be compatible with a theory. If it isn’t, the theory is refined or rejected.” (American Museum of Natural History website)





Conspiracy theories are closer to paranoia–“suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification”–than to scientific theory (definition from online dictionary). Isn’t it interesting that many of the same people who call wearing a mask to prevent the spread of disease “living in fear” see watching message boards for coded messages about Satan-worshiping pedophilic cannibals perfectly reasonable. They ain’t afraid of nothin’.





My favorite Friday night TV show in the early 1960s was The Twilight Zone, though I often slept lightly after watching it. At the beginning of each episode, Rod Serling, the writer of the series, looked into the camera and laid the premise for what was to come. His introduction changed slightly over the years, but this is one version which seems eerily relevant today: 





“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.”





Most days over the last four years, and most intensely since January of this year, I’ve felt we crossed that line and are deep into the Zone. I don’t recall Rod Serling telling viewers how to get out of the Twilight Zone; but I fervently hope we can find the map, because I’ve had enough of living in a world where everything feels surreal, where I don’t even recognize my native country, where citizens are divided into warring tribes, and where we have a president who fans the flames of division. Enough.





Vote on November 3 like your life depends on it. (It does.)







		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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Demon Sperm, Hydroxychloroquine, and Demonized MDs

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

In case you may have been vacationing on Mars these last few months and haven’t quite caught up on the news here at home, we’re in the midst of a pandemic and the United States of America is losing badly in its fight against a disease called COVID-19. Our White House squatter, Donald Trump, has botched the government’s response to the point that finding a way out of the mess we’re in seems depressingly out of reach.





Part of the problem is there’s so much conflicting information and disinformation being circulated, and Americans don’t seem to be doing a good job of sorting through the deluge of facts and opinions and deciding which ones to believe. And who can blame them? It’s hard to know, especially since we had never heard of COVID-19 until 2019, so we lack the advantage of prior experience as we strive to understand and respond in ways that will help keep us alive and healthy.





I’m not an infectious disease expert, but I do have some knowledge of critical thinking processes. For me, step one is establishing my basic premise, which is that my medical expertise is zero; therefore, any opinions I form or actions I take will have to be based on what I learn from people who have more expertise than I do, which in this case just means they know something. But since even experts often disagree, deciding which ones have greater credibility is a challenge and requires sharpening those critical thinking skills I mentioned.





Adding to the confusion, often experts disagree not only with other experts but also with their own previous positions. Many people, when they see that a recognized expert has changed a previously held position throw up their hands and exclaim “See, this is all a hoax!” They then dismiss everything the person has ever said and label him/her a fraud. But let’s think about that. Does a professional’s changing their mind diminish their credibility, or might it enhance our confidence in them? Many people would never admit to having changed their minds because they fear looking foolish, so they’ll double down on disproven ideas for the sake of saving face. One who admits having been influenced by newly discovered information should be applauded for having the honesty and courage to accept and act on new ideas.





In George Washington’s time, “medical theory of the day recommended that bleeding be administered in conjunction with emetics to produce vomiting and purges such as calomel (mercury). The idea was to debilitate the body to the point where the disease had nothing left on which to work” (encyclopedia.com). President Washington was bled, with his consent and at his request four times during the illness that preceded his death. Bleeding, or bloodletting, was sometimes done by leeches (yeah, the creepy-crawlies) and sometimes by making small incisions in the body. Joseph Kennedy–patriarch of the Kennedy clan that included a President, a Presidential candidate, and a long-serving Senator–ordered a lobotomy done on his then 23-year-old daughter Rosemary to “fix” the behavioral problems caused by her “mental retardation.” The results were not good, and Rosemary lived the last 63 years of her life in an institution.





Doctors today would face malpractice suits and have their licenses revoked for such treatments, but doctors in the 1700s and early 1900s were not committing malpractice; they were simply acting on the best research available to them.





Even in my own lifetime, much has changed. Castor oil and enemas were my mother’s go-to home remedies for pretty much whatever ailed us; I did not use those treatments on my children. When my children were babies, everything they touched was supposed to be sterilized: yep, in a pan of boiling water. By the time my grandchildren were born, washing things in hot water or running them through a dishwasher cycle was deemed sufficient. When I was a child, the treatment for a fever was to wrap up tight in flannel pjs and several blankets to “sweat it out.” When my children were feverish, I was instructed to remove clothing and blankets to allow excess body heat to escape.





Today’s medical science progresses by the day, not the year; therefore, theory and practice can change quickly, making it even more crucial that we learn to be discerning about whom and what we choose to believe. 





Scientific research is a complex, time-consuming process for which most of us lack knowledge, skill, or patience. I think most of us would do well if we simply follow this checklist: (1) Who said it? (2) Who published the information and what is the date? (3) What are the person and the publisher’s biases? (4) What supporting evidence does the writer or speaker offer as the basis for their positions? And does that evidence pass the “smell” test?





That’s enough for my limited attention span, so let’s talk about those four questions.





First, who said it? Personal credibility is everything. What do you know about the writer or speaker? Do they have a reputation for honesty and integrity? Are they known for their expertise in the medical field? No one in the world is an expert on everything, though I’ve known a few who purport to be. Some people have a way of speaking that says “You have just heard the final word on this subject. There is no need to look further or check out my answer. I reside among the sages of the ages and I’m always right on every subject.” Remind you of anyone you know? I could name a few, but I won’t digress. The point is, some people can sway you to believe them simply by the confidence and authority with which they speak. Don’t be swayed. Look them up. See what else they believe or have done or what credentials they possess.





When a doctor stands on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building, wearing her white coat and surrounded by her medical colleagues in their white coats, and makes this statement, it might seem to carry authority.





“This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. I know you people want to talk about a mask. Hello? You don’t need masks. There is a cure. I know they don’t want to open schools. No, you don’t need people to be locked down. There is prevention and there is a cure.”





Wow! In just nine short sentences, she has contradicted everything the experts have been telling us for months: We don’t need masks, there is a cure and its name is hydroxychloroquine, and we don’t need to practice social distancing. There’s a choice to make here. We can believe this doctor, because she is after all a doctor, and doctors don’t lie to us, right? She has the credentials, so I should assume she knows more than I do. But still, she’s going against Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, the CDC, and the WHO; so shouldn’t I at least check her out a little further?





Google, who is Dr. Stella Immanuel?





One of Google’s responses, from an article in The Daily Beast:





“Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.” 





Oh. Well, in that case, I may as well call my neighbor of years ago who had a tradition of rewarding himself for surviving another work week by drinking himself into a stupor every Friday night. Though he did provide some neighborhood entertainment, no one would have gone to him for information, even when he was sober.





So now it’s Dr. Fauci vs. Dr. Immanuel. Dr. Fauci’s education, experience, and high honors could be an entire article on their own, so I’ll sum them up with this link: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/director. Among other things, he has directed the National Institutes of Health and served under six presidents from both parties, and she believes medical conditions can be caused by dream sex with demons. I’ve made my choice: I’m with him. Yet the “president” praises her and goes on Tweet rants against him.





Choices are not always this clear cut, however, even for me. Maybe my local doctor is a skilled, ethical professional who tells me something which does not agree with mainstream positions. I’m still going to go with the guy who has the  broader scope of experience and access to more relevant data and therefore the wider lens through which to view the situation. At the very least, I won’t discount what the higher-ranking expert says based on one bit of information even from another person I respect.





Next is the publisher and currency of the information. Just as individuals have reputations, so do publishers. It’s unfair to paint any group with a single brush stroke, including “the media.” Certain media outlets are known for adhering to journalistic ethics and standards, and some are not. Know which are which. Look up the publication if you’re not sure. Then look at the date on the material. If it was published in March of this year, it’s highly doubtful that it’s still relevant. We’ve lived ten years since March 2020. Whatever the date, keep looking to see whether you find newer information.





Third is the question of bias. And don’t say they don’t have any biases; we all have them, so having a bias is not always bad. I’m pretty biased toward my own children and grandchildren. My grandchildren are definitely cuter and smarter than yours. That bias is harmless enough, because you’d say the same thing to me. Media biases are a bit more problematic. When CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News present a story, we expect them to give different slants on the story determined by their corporate biases. Fox News is well known for supporting Donald Trump, whereas MSNBC is equally well known for disdaining him. CNN falls somewhere between the other two, though it’s moved far closer to MSNBC. It helps to know that. It also helps to bear those attitudes in mind when we hear stories from them about COVID-19. Fox News will echo Trump’s latest bluster: it’s a hoax, it will magically go away, or whatever. CNN and MSNBC will present the stories as they have researched the facts, though with a heavy dose of personal opinion from the anchors and guests.





Viewers must also beware of confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information because it agrees with our own biases and not believe information, regardless of how credible the source, because it forces us to question our previous ideas. Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th-century French philosopher and writer, in his 1957 book Existentialism and Human Emotion, defends the premise “Existence precedes essence,” by which he means each of us chooses our own existence and shapes our own reality strictly through the choices we make. Sartre doesn’t use the term “confirmation bias,” but he suggests it repeatedly by arguing that humans do not help themselves by seeking advice or direction from others because they will always interpret what they find to suit themselves. Confirmation bias indeed, and it applies to our choice of news and information sources as much as to anything else.





Fourth, we need to examine the evidence presented as proof of the writer or speaker’s claim. No matter how well credentialed a person is, their word is not enough. My mother’s favorite saying, “Because I said so,” is not a convincing scientific argument. Actually, it wasn’t very convincing for my mom either, but that’s a subject to take up with Oprah. Never accept any information based on the word of one person. If they can’t cite evidence, they aren’t worth listening to.





Always ask “Where did you get this? What is your source?” Any responsible person will willingly refer you to their sources. If they don’t have any, disregard whatever they say–even if they have a string of letters after their name or an impressive title. When Donald Trump speaks into a microphone “This will go away. It’s going to go away,” without offering any evidence of how it’s going to go away or what anyone is doing to make it go away, pay no attention to that person behind the mic–even though he’s the “president.” Or especially because he’s the “president.” The higher the office the greater the duty to speak responsibly. No one’s word stands alone as proof.





And since all evidence is not equally credible, it’s important to weigh the evidence presented. What is the source? Is it current? What is the bias? Is it politically motivated? Motive is key when examining evidence. When it becomes clear that information is being presented in an attempt to gain political advantage, that is a red flag. Even if the information is factual, the part that’s relevant to public health has to be looked at separately, apart from the political spin. When Donald Trump says over and over “It will go away,” it should be clear to anyone with normal intelligence that he’s working on getting himself re-elected, not on protecting your health and mine.





Rarely is one piece of evidence a sufficient basis for an important decision. The legal terms “preponderance of evidence” and “beyond reasonable doubt” suggest that evidence needs to be weighty enough to persuade reasonable people that a wrong has been done, and typically, Exhibit A all by itself is not enough to do that.





This week, I was out exploring walking paths around my new home and came to a place where I saw a possible route that was on the other side of the road from where I was standing. Trying to decide whether I should cross over, I looked around and observed there were no vehicles in sight. Based on that bit of evidence alone, it should have been perfectly safe to cross the road. It was a fact, not fake news, confirmed by my own observation–a primary source. What could possibly go wrong?





Well, there were a few other pertinent facts: (1) I was close to a sharp curve in the road, so I couldn’t see more than maybe 20 feet beyond where I was standing; (2) it’s a main road, heavily traveled; (3) I’d estimate the average speed of the vehicles I see go past me is maybe 50-70 miles per hour; (4) I do not move at 50-70 miles per hour; (5) therefore, because of the speed difference and the limited visibility, by the time I could see a vehicle coming toward me, it’s highly unlikely I could get out of its path; (6) because of the limited visibility, by the time a driver could see me, it would be difficult to avoid hitting me. The preponderance (weight) of evidence was not sufficient to remove reasonable doubt that crossing the road at that particular place was safe, in spite of the initial fact that I saw no cars coming.





Americans are an independent lot; our rugged individualism, though prized by many, is actually one of the main obstacles right now to our conquering this crisis. Lots of people are fond of saying “I’m entitled to my own opinion.” I would say yes and no to that. Yes, I am entitled to think for myself, but no I am not entitled to follow my own inclinations when my actions may negatively impact others. Citizens of more collectivist societies understand that principle, and those are the countries which currently have COVID under control, while we’re in the midst of a raging forest fire.





An opinion is not just whatever thought pops into my head or what I read in an Internet meme or some isolated article from a marginal “news” outlet or what I feel in a given moment. An opinion is a carefully considered interpretation of facts. Two or more people may look at the same facts and reach different conclusions, but opinions to be valid must begin with facts (not just one fact), not feeling and not hearsay.





We’re in dangerous times. What you and I do today will determine whether some people will live to see tomorrow and will shape the lives of those who do survive this crisis for years to come. Making a few sacrifices now seems a small price to pay for a healthier future. I saw a clever meme today on social media: a picture of two dogs with talk bubbles over their heads. One dog asks “Why are humans wearing muzzles?” The other dog replies “Because they couldn’t sit and stay.” Surely we can be better than this.





Don’t believe everything you hear and wear the damn mask.


		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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					Palestine Politics				

			


			
Where My Nose Begins

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

I grew up in the age of folksy sayings; there was a catchy aphorism for just about anything a child could think of. A couple of my mother’s favorites were “Pretty is as pretty does” and “God helps those who help themselves.” Obviously, expressing universal truths in pithy sayings was effective, because I remember many of them–along with the lessons they taught me–now that I am many years past childhood.





One such saying which is replaying in my head repeatedly these days is “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Swinging one’s arm is a common act, for a variety of reasons; and it’s one in which the government and our fellow citizens would typically have no say. However, if the arc of my swing intersects with part of another person’s body, that person’s right not to be assaulted must be given equal weight with my right to swing my arm, and that person’s right will limit my right. Seems logical.





If there were a word counter that could calculate the number of times a particular word is spoken in our country, I’d bet “rights” would be thousands ahead of the next most common. But what’s sad about that thought is that most of the time when an American is talking about rights, it’s about their own personal rights and those of their “tribe”; equal weight is not given to those outside their sphere.





There’s a very large, very loud contingent of Americans who adamantly claim their right to own firearms–any number and any type they choose–because Second Amendment (Don’t get me started!). Not only does that claim ignore the language and limits stated and implied in the amendment itself, but it callously ignores the “noses” of others whose rights should be given equal consideration. My grandchildren have the right to feel secure in their schools; they have the right to go to school each day without having to fear that they may leave in a body bag; they have the right for active shooter drills not to be part of their required curriculum. Limiting a few of the gun lovers’ rights would help to insure our children’s rights, but many are too self-centered to see it that way.





Did early settlers in the American South have the right to build large farms to support their families and make strong communities? Of course they did. Did they have the right to travel across the ocean and kidnap fellow human beings and force them to do the hard work of the plantation with no share in the profits? Well, no. Did early European settlers have the right to come to this continent and establish communities in harmony with the native inhabitants? I would say yes. Did they have the right to kill many of those natives and drive the rest onto reservations so that they could have the whole place to themselves? Well, no.





If I may digress for a moment from examples within our own country, did displaced Jewish people have the right to return to their land of origin and establish themselves as a nation? I believe they did. Do they have the right to bulldoze homes and communities of those natives who have been there continuously since antiquity? Do they have the right to displace these people from their ancestral lands? Do they have the right to bulldoze Bedouin villages, home to people who want nothing more than to live in peace and enjoy simple lives, to operate schools in which children can be educated? Do they have the right to establish their own nation by destroying another one? NO, they do not.





Humans are the cruelest breed.





To return to my main subject, the banner under which the conservative movement has marched over the last several decades is Right to Life, or the hoped-for revoking of Roe v Wade. Yet when these same advocates of protection for the unborn are confronted with the right of immigrant children in detention centers to be released from the cruel circumstances in which they’re being held and returned to their parents, the only response is “Meh! They wouldn’t be there if their parents hadn’t tried to enter the country.” When confronted with the fact that “Black lives matter,” their response is “All lives matter,” even though their attitudes toward many other groups belie that statement.





It’s enough to make one think unborn lives are not really their concern after all. Could it be that advocating for the rights of embryonic humans is a smokescreen? Could it be that they’re using an emotional appeal to gain more support for their “conservative” agenda? Could it be that they’re really just pulling at some people’s heartstrings in order to gain more power for themselves and their party? I wouldn’t go so far as to assign motives to people I don’t know, but I think those questions are worth considering.





I’ve often quoted Thomas Paine, writer of many influential pamphlets during the American Revolutionary period, because I think he had the most clear-eyed view on human rights that I’ve read. In Paine’s 1792 book “Rights of Man,” he opines that all humans have two categories of rights: natural rights and civil rights.





This is his definition of natural rights:





“Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.”





In the previous paragraph, he has discussed the Genesis account of creation, not as a religious sectarian, which Payne was not, but as a philosopher explaining the origin of this category of human rights. Our natural rights, according to Thomas Paine, were given to us at our individual creation, and every human receives exactly the same endowment. Thomas Jefferson expresses the same idea in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” We all know by now the problems with those words; but taken at face value, they echo Paine’s statement of natural rights and equality of all humans.





It’s also worth noting that, even in this initial statement, Paine includes the caveat “which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.” Even our God-given rights, according to the great thinkers, have limits; and that limit is “where my nose begins.” At no point in history have humans ever been recognized as having unlimited personal rights, although our actions certainly speak louder than those words–to use another familiar folksy saying from my youth.





Paine goes on to explain the concept of civil rights:





“Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.”





Thomas Jefferson put it this way: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”





The purpose of government, then, according to both Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, is to protect our natural rights. As Paine says, security and protection are the benefits we gain from being part of a civil body, since we are individually not always capable of protecting ourselves and insuring our own security. I think I feel another old saying coming on: “There is strength in numbers.”





Paine goes on to add another caveat: “It follows, then, that the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.” In other words, if I can execute one of my natural rights on my own–and my exercise of that right is “not injurious to others,” the government does not have the authority to invade that particular right.





Thomas Jefferson lists our natural, or “unalienable” rights, as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He actually uses the words “among these,” meaning that these are just three examples, not a comprehensive list.





Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau–among others–called this concept of natural and civil rights, and the relationship between the two, the social contract. Individuals who wish to enjoy the security and protection of a civil body enter into a contract with that body. I believe the most important thing to remember here is that a contract is an agreement between two parties which is binding on both parties. In other words, we each have a responsibility in the forming and maintaining of that “more perfect union” that the writers of our Constitution envisioned.





So what does all of this mean to us right now? If you’re one of those who believe you have a right to go wherever you want without a mask, I would say you’re wrong. You have a right to be maskless any time you are alone or in the open air with no one else less than six feet away from you, but you do not have the right to refuse wearing a mask in a public place where other members of our civil body will be in close proximity. I would also say you do not have the right to discount the information given by people who know more about the subject of disease than you or I know. Those experts do their part to uphold the social contract by sharing their expertise with the rest of us, and my ignorant opinion is not equal to their scientific research. The same principle applies to following social distancing guidelines and limiting our number of contacts. Wait, I’m thinking of another not-so-old saying: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”





America is leading the world in COVID infections and deaths. That’s not the way we’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world! We are a civil body, and what affects one of us affects us all. There is no “God-given” right–not in any of our governing documents, not in any religious text, and not in common-sense thinking–to ignore medical guidelines meant to protect the whole civil body. It just doesn’t exist, and if it did, it would be superseded by the greater good of keeping the whole body alive and healthy.





It’s not about you. Or me. So here’s my final wise saying, not so very old but it will be by the time this is over: “Wear the damn mask!” Oh, yeah, and for God’s sake put it over your nose.


		


	


	

		
		


			

		


		
	


	






	



	


		
			

				
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Living in Responsibility

		


			

		


		
	





	


		


			

Americans love to talk and sing about their freedom. Two days ago, we indulged in our annual orgy of wearing red-white-blue outfits, shooting off fireworks, and smugly proclaiming “’Merica!” Amid all of the hype, what gets lost is that we as a nation have achieved freedom for some by stripping it from others. The elephant in the room is the fact that we have built an empire on stolen land and used stolen humans to help with the construction.





What also gets lost in the hype is the balance between freedom and responsibility. I have recently made a long-distance move and have become an apartment dweller for the first time in many decades, so I’m learning a lot about freedom and responsibility. I have the freedom and the right to play my TV set any time of the day or night at whatever volume I choose, but I have the responsibility to be courteous to my neighbors and give them the freedom to listen to their own TV programs, not mine. Since I now live in a state where recreational marijuana use is legal, our community standards respect the right of residents to smoke pot but ask that they take the responsibility to be considerate of neighbors who may be sensitive to the smoke. (I don’t smoke.) I collect the leaves that I sweep off my deck in a dustpan and dispose of them in my trash rather than sweeping them off the edge, because they would litter the patio of the neighbor whose apartment is below mine.





The U.S. response to the coronavirus has been inept to say the least and a national disgrace to be more accurate. The current dearth of intelligent, responsible leadership is the leading cause of our failure to flatten the curve, but close behind is the mass of freedom-loving Americans who never got the memo that freedom is balanced by responsibility. Then throw in the twisted thinking of the loudly vocal evangelical faction who love to sprinkle their conversations with cherry-picked Bible phrases, and you have a pretty good picture of how we got where we are.





I’ve reached the point where if I hear one more person say wearing a mask or social distancing constitutes “living in fear,” I’m sure my response will not be very Christian. It’s true that the expressions “fear not” and “do not fear” appear often in the Christian Bible as God assures humans God has their backs and they can rely on God’s love. II Timothy 1:7 is often cherry-picked and referenced: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Okay, let’s think about that.





First, the word “fear” has a broad range of meanings; all fears are not the same. Fearing God doesn’t mean being terrified of God; it means holding God in awe and reverence. Phobias are irrational fears. I’m claustrophobic, and I could not rationally explain to you why being in a closed space–or even thinking about being in a closed space–sends my blood pressure soaring, starts my stomach churning, and makes my skin crawl and almost break a sweat; but that’s what happens. There’s a whole list of things people fear with no rational explanation.





Fear of death is one which nearly all humans share. Even those who don’t fear a dark afterlife have some qualms about how their deaths will occur, whether they’ll suffer at the end, and other understandable concerns. Fear of public speaking has sometimes been ranked even higher in prevalence than the fear of death, because we all share the dread of looking foolish and sounding stupid.





Then there are what I would call healthy or survival fears, those which contribute to our longevity. I fear walking or driving too close to the edge of a precipice; I’ll never be one of those who die by falling off a cliff while trying to capture the perfect selfie to post on social media. I live very close to several freeways; I’m careful what times of day I venture onto them in my car, and on no day will you find me walking across them. Why? Because I fear being flattened by a fast-moving vehicle. Whenever possible, I try to stay away from sick people, and it didn’t take a pandemic to make me wash my hands frequently. I do these things because I fear being sick. These survival fears cause me to use caution and take responsibility for my own well-being.





“A spirit of fear” is, I think, different from any of the types of fears I’ve mentioned; and I agree it’s unhealthy. A spirit of fear is what psychologists might call paranoia: “a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary). Although we toss this word around casually and humorously to designate some things to which we are hyper-alert, paranoia is a serious mental disorder. It can be an aspect of drug abuse or of a mental illness such as CPD (chronic personality disorder) or schizophrenia.





I believe we can all agree that living in a “spirit of fear” is unhealthy, regardless of one’s religious persuasions. However, using reasonable caution and taking responsibility do not in any way equate to “living in fear.”





Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is referenced in an article by CNN’s Holly Yan: “But the CDC director said everyone can help stop this deadly pandemic. It just takes personal responsibility.”





And that brings us back to where I started: remembering that our freedom demands responsibility. Henry David Thoreau begins his famous 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience” with these statements: “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe- ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”





This is one of the clearest arguments for personal responsibility I’ve ever read. He agrees with the adage that what we would call small government is preferable to the alternative of big government, then takes it a step further by saying his first choice would be no government at all. He’s not advocating anarchy, however; he’s saying a responsible citizenry doesn’t need laws to make them behave ethically. The caveat for having no government is learning to govern ourselves, to take responsibility for our own actions and their consequences.





I’ve been wearing a mask in public for several months, even before masking up became state law in Washington. In spite of the state mandate, I still pass people in the grocery store who smugly stroll the aisles unmasked. I haven’t asked any of them to explain their reasons, because that’s not my place; but I’d wager at least a few of them are in the group who see a requirement to mask up as an infringement on their personal freedom. This is another group that makes me want to scream, but I digress.





When one claims one’s rights have been infringed on, that person ought to be able to clearly name the specific right that’s being violated. Perhaps someone can help me out here: exactly what freedom do I as a U.S. citizen have that is taken away by my being required to wear a mask? I’m stumped. But I’m reminded of a saying I heard often when I was growing up: “Your freedom to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.”





That’s a folksy way of saying none of us has unbounded freedom. In fact, we’d all do well to remember that our laws enumerate far more things which we do not have the freedom to do than rights which we are at liberty to exercise. It’s illegal to shout “Fire!” in a crowded place unless the shouter has actually seen flames or other evidence of a real fire. It’s illegal to park my car in a spot reserved for people with disabilities. It’s illegal to have sex with someone without first securing that person’s consent to be a willing partner. And the other prohibitions which govern our daily interactions fill volumes.





Then there’s the list of mandated actions meant to protect ourselves and others. I can’t legally drive my car or ride in someone else’s car without wearing a seatbelt. Parents can’t legally transport their young children without adhering to very detailed instructions on how those children must be secured in the vehicle. In some states, helmets are required by those who ride bicycles and motorcycles.





Every law on that last list has also been hotly contested and disobeyed, just as the mask law is now, because “freedom.” It took “Click it or ticket” to get many people to comply with the seatbelt law, and of course the persistent beepers on newer cars have also been quite persuasive in making people buckle up just to stop the noise. Hospitals have gotten involved in making sure parents own and know how to use car seats for their infants by refusing to discharge a mother and baby until the baby has been properly restrained in the right kind of seat. So obviously the mask law is not the first to draw the ire and defiance of liberty-loving Americans, but it is perhaps the one for which disobedience has the most widespread consequences.





Refusing to wear my seatbelt might place me at greater risk for injury or even death when involved in an accident, and refusing to wear a helmet might cause my own head to be severely injured were it to crash to the pavement. Those are serious consequences for defying laws requiring simple actions, but they affect a small circle of people: myself, my family, and whatever medical professionals are required to assist me. Refusing to wear a mask, however, has the potential to affect the dozens of people I pass in a store, plus their close family members and associates (some of whom may be in high-risk categories), and to place an additional strain on medical resources necessary for those people’s treatment. That one little pebble can cause a wide circle of ripples.





Our current national leadership is ignorant and divisive. They’ve chosen to politicize a public health crisis rather than create a coordinated system for effectively slowing down and eventually ending it. Our governors are overwhelmed by the enormity of the decisions and responsibility not normally delegated to them and besieged by those in rebellion against their attempts to carry out their duties. That leaves you and me. It’s on us. Those of us who wish to retain our cherished freedom have to grow up and take the responsibility to govern ourselves and to willingly follow reasonable guidelines for protecting ourselves and others. The downfall of democracy is that, as a friend recently put it, “ignorance and misinformation are given the same weight” as expert and informed data.





One of the individual responsibilities that fall to us right now is the decision of whom to believe. Such statements as “we have so many cases because we’re doing so much testing” are too plainly stupid to merit a rational response. By that line of thinking, I guess the way to reduce teen pregnancies is to ban pregnancy tests. As we hear so often these days, “You can’t fix stupid,” but you can learn to ignore it and not allow your own decisions to be guided by it. It’s true that there’s lots of conflicting information and a wide range of proposed solutions to this crisis; and yes, the experts sometimes change their positions and recommendations. But so what? COVID-19 was identified in 2019. Cancer has plagued humanity for decades at least, yet the information and recommended treatments continue to vary and conflict as new research becomes available.





The first step to “flattening the curve” and eventually doing away with this plague is to act not as Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives but as human beings who live in a close network where individual survival depends on herd responsibility, not herd immunity. To achieve the 70% to 90% immunity rate required to reach the level of herd immunity, several hundreds of thousands more people would have to die. If we instead work toward herd responsibility, we can save lives and become a better, more evolved group of humans.





Keeping our distance from people during this time is not living in fear. Wearing a mask in public is not living in fear. Staying home when going out is not necessary is not living in fear. Washing our hands often is not living in fear. Doing those things is living in intelligence, reasonable caution, and personal responsibility; and those are the qualities that will save our lives and our nation.





Want to be patriotic? Stop whining and wear the damn mask!