It’s a bit macabre to use somebody’s death as a marker of time, but I was reminded recently that it’s been two years since Kobe Bryant died. Two years! It feels like a few months. The pandemic has been both the longest and shortest time in my life. It’s been marked by huge changes and crushing sameness. It’s transformed my idea of what normal is, and made me question whether I’ll ever feel normal again.
Such an on-point illustration of the high level of fear and consequent demand that everyone - yes, everyone - do whatever is required to keep a person “safe” from a virus where the real lethality and negative outcomes are highly correlated with age and co-morbidities. Toss in some toxic media stupidity and you’ve got a real witches brew of class warfare where masked servants wait on the unmasked hoi polloi.
What’s missing in all the ham-handed government response is an honest assessment of the cost of all this crap. Wiped out small businesses. Years of missed intellectual progress for students. Masking children to their social detriment as developing human beings with who knows what consequences. Deaths of despair up all across the country. Skyrocketing crime as the social fabric of support is closed down.
And all to keep the elite class safe.
And then oh gosh darn it omnicron broke that safety screen and now the vaccinated are getting Covid in droves. No more demonizing those who get Covid - since you got it yourself.
Yes, a tad bitter, this I am. I view all of this as a nasty bit of theater with untold human grief and cost that was never considered or if it was, handily dismissed as not really relevant when saving their own rears was what really mattered.
What would have helped would have been a touch more empathy, a bit more cost-benefit analysis of policy choices, and understanding as well as support for your fellow humans. Yes, we were all ‘in this together’ but had very different COVID’s.
I'm with you on the class warfare perspective. I do believe that policy was mostly crafted around keeping elites safe. Few of the elites were "essential workers" were they? I suppose you could count medical professionals. Still - a very small percentage.
"But whatever the topic, this is the challenge. To recognise our own fears and struggles, but also to look beyond them. To think about what other people are going through, especially if their struggles are different to ours. And to try to make this practice our new normal." <-- There it is right there, and in every discussion.
"That he not busy being born Is busy dying." -Bob Dylan, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
My wife and I are 70+ with conditions that put us at risk. We vaxed and all that but don't want to be among the might as well be dead, in fear of dying crowd. Our daughter came to visit with the youngest grandson. It's been too long. After she got here, she got a call that her oldest son's girlfriend tested positive. When she went home, she tested positive. My wife and I got very sick with the same symptoms but tested negative. Something went thru my extended family (20+ persons) like a Colorado wildfire. Same symptoms, some testing positive, some not. Various states of vaxed and unvaxed. One young man spent a few days in the hospital with a low SpO2.
Tomorrow is not promised. I spent much of my younger years giving death the finger, but now I'm supposed to live with a fear of death that I didn't have with a potential long life ahead of me? I could go at any time, but I live like I'm going to live forever with long range plans that I may not live to realize. I have a friend who couldn't hold his wife of 60+ years hand because she was in an assisted care facility, and he saw her through a glass window before she died because of covid fear. I consider that to be horrible. When I took my daughter to the airport, knowing she had been exposed, I gave her the same big daddy hug she always gets. Bob Dylan's words.
I'm not indifferent to people at risk, but if they are too afraid to live, they should stay home, but not expect me to for them. I drove past a traffic fatality yesterday. I'm not going to quit driving.
I try to address ideas, rather than people when I can, but Z? Well, you said all that needed to be said.
"When she went home, she tested positive. My wife and I got very sick with the same symptoms but tested negative."
Yeah, this is another thing that isn't being talked about enough. I know so many people getting false negatives on COVID tests. Especially with Omicron. Really well said Dave. And I'm so glad you got through it.
So very true. It’s the essence of entitlement to assume so.
I spent yesterday in the presence of an awesome man who had decided, with dignity, to stop dialysis and own his future as he owned his past. I honor his decision while I mourn his absence from my life as an inspiring, quiet presence of integrity. May I spend those final decisions with the same grace.
We are human. No more, no less, and wow how amazing. Your post was wonderful - thank you.
I also can't imagine spending any more time than I already had to with a seriously mentally ill and violent mother. Summers were hell enough. I have tremendous empathy for children stuck in abusive homes. I understand why self-harm and suicide rates are up.
What we need right now, I think, is a way to break all these problems down into an easier to manage system. A bit like a series of multiple spiderwebs with the lead person at the center. For children in abusive homes or children in situations of intentional neglect, have a system (an actual working system and not the BS child and family services system that’s too overwhelmed to tell their desk from a hole in the ground) of emergency room nurses and doctors who treat the abuse most often paired with pediatric doctors and nurses as well as pediatric psychologists, social workers, and faith-based counseling and caregivers (ALL faiths, not just the standard Christian faith, I could go into some s**t on that) who can help reach the kids who don’t have anywhere to turn or are surrounded by family who don’t believe them because “X would never do a thing like that). And do something similar for all the categories from domestic violence and abuse to gig workers to people too burned out to even function, to the doctors and nurses who will no doubt be burdened with the unwanted companions of PTSS, anxiety disorders stemming from the constant stress their under to everyone and everything else.
Have these small groups set up in every town. Every town has anywhere from a slight to a massive difference from another one. A woman living in Brooklyn, NY is going to have different concerns and different needs from a woman living in San Fernando Valley even if they are both career waitresses and are both in abusive relationships. The biggest issue I have with so many of our (chronically ineffective, inefficient, and sadly underfunded) social systems already in place is that they try to make 4 good cookie cutter approaches and say “that’s good enough” when it’s very rare that anyone actually fits the molds they’ve created.
We need to think smaller not bigger. Break things down by city, hell, break them down by neighborhoods even, and then make sure that each piece of the various “webs” are able to put together effective (truly personally—to the person(s) involved—effective; and please kick the term “cost-effective” out the proverbial window) programs, services, outreach, clinics, etc for the people they serve. And once those proposals are made, have a way for the people they will serve to talk about them, question them, put in their two-cents to make sure those ideas really will be effective before being put into place.
I’m so done with the in-fighting and absolute hypocrisy of our government officials—on all sides of the aisle. I want the power for these programs to be back in the hands of the people they will serve, but to also be protected from corruption. Rich people want to donate? Awesome! But they get ZERO say in how those funds are used or who they help. And if said rich donor has an issue, they can be told to take their money and create their own scholarships or organizations. Same with politicians. Keep the politicians out of the system because all they do is f it up.
I’m rambling, I know. More often than not, I find myself believing that the only way to make the system better is to break it all down and rebuild it, starting with a whole new foundation. I want this country to have the same level of social programs and care for people that The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Holland have. And don’t get me wrong, I know they have their issues, too, but isn’t it long past time that we did away with toxic capitalism—the system that has run our country since the mid to late 1800s—and designed something that actually works? It would help solve far more than Covid, and with each town having a system of doctors and nurses running a kind of oversight of the hospitals—specifically to determine the underlying medical vulnerabilities (chronic illness, autoimmune disorders, birth defects, cancers, etc), socioeconomic vulnerabilities, and living conditions of those patients dealing with Covid in the hospitals, wouldn’t it help to actually reduce the strain on the doctors and nurses treating the Covid-sick? Wouldn’t it give them a greater advantage to have a system that looked at all of that and was able to say “this person has Covid and has been hospitalized 3 different times because of it but when we evaluate their lives we can see that they are living below the poverty line in an apartment building that should’ve been condemned years ago” and then be able to take that information to another string the web where those issues can be addressed? Permanent s a team of environmental, OSHA, and housing lawyers who can fight for that same person to 1) make it known and fight for a change in the bs wages companies—especially factories—like to pay people. (CEOs and corporate executives don’t need that $1M+ bonus. Their workers need to be paid a living wage kind of legal argument); 2) Have organizations akin to Habitat for Humanity be able to come in and either make repairs to the existing structure or build the person a new home where they will be safe and clean and don’t have to worry about rats or roaches or old pipes or mold in the walls, etc; 3) have lawyers who actually shut down and run slum liars out of business and make them pay back their tenants—not a fine to the city, but an actual payment to each and every one of their tenants—for the deplorable living conditions. 4) Have an organization that can help that person get a better paying job that fits their abilities rather than one that fits their on-paper-education.
I want a better world than the one we have and I believe there’s no better time to start than now. But I’m not the person who could stand up and have anyone listen. Ideas I have plenty of, but power to make a change or have someone who could make that change, I sadly do not have. Hell, maybe it’s all a little too fantastical for the US right now. 🤷♀️
You are talking about decentralization - during a time of increasing pressure to federalize everything. Decentralization would be great. But, too many are interested in holding outsized power and decentralization challenges this.
And on the issue of break it all down and rebuild it - you are in good company. George Carlin said toward the end of his career that the only way forward was to burn it all down and start over. My only problem with this idea is that I don't think we have the kind of people in the US at present who would be willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to create a democratic republic crafted around the rights of the individual citizen. Everybody wants to rule the world.
The trouble with tear it all down and rebuild it is that it's Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You don't know what you're going to get. We might not like it at all. With the crew we've got now, that almost a guarantee.
Sad but true. And as for that closing line of yours, it takes me back to the song. Every time I hear or read that phrase, I hear Tears for Fears singing it.
If there is anything I love about my life, it's that I grew up during a renaissance of sorts in the arts, comedy, music, film - so much wonderful exploration and experimentation. It was a glorious era and I wanted it to last forever. Alas, here we are in the era of corporatized, canned, commercialized (fake - yes, I'm looking at you autotune) arts. And now, to make things even more interesting, all art must run the gauntlet of woke censors. Art is supposed to tell the truth and help us evolve. How can it tell any truth at all if it is being sanitized by the high priests and priestesses of correct thought?
I came to the following conclusion a few months after the pandemic: "Panic is futile, and often dangerous. Denial is stupid, and often dangerous. Fear about danger has survival value."
Such an on-point illustration of the high level of fear and consequent demand that everyone - yes, everyone - do whatever is required to keep a person “safe” from a virus where the real lethality and negative outcomes are highly correlated with age and co-morbidities. Toss in some toxic media stupidity and you’ve got a real witches brew of class warfare where masked servants wait on the unmasked hoi polloi.
What’s missing in all the ham-handed government response is an honest assessment of the cost of all this crap. Wiped out small businesses. Years of missed intellectual progress for students. Masking children to their social detriment as developing human beings with who knows what consequences. Deaths of despair up all across the country. Skyrocketing crime as the social fabric of support is closed down.
And all to keep the elite class safe.
And then oh gosh darn it omnicron broke that safety screen and now the vaccinated are getting Covid in droves. No more demonizing those who get Covid - since you got it yourself.
Yes, a tad bitter, this I am. I view all of this as a nasty bit of theater with untold human grief and cost that was never considered or if it was, handily dismissed as not really relevant when saving their own rears was what really mattered.
What would have helped would have been a touch more empathy, a bit more cost-benefit analysis of policy choices, and understanding as well as support for your fellow humans. Yes, we were all ‘in this together’ but had very different COVID’s.
So well said. Yep, I agree completely.
I'm with you on the class warfare perspective. I do believe that policy was mostly crafted around keeping elites safe. Few of the elites were "essential workers" were they? I suppose you could count medical professionals. Still - a very small percentage.
"But whatever the topic, this is the challenge. To recognise our own fears and struggles, but also to look beyond them. To think about what other people are going through, especially if their struggles are different to ours. And to try to make this practice our new normal." <-- There it is right there, and in every discussion.
"That he not busy being born Is busy dying." -Bob Dylan, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
My wife and I are 70+ with conditions that put us at risk. We vaxed and all that but don't want to be among the might as well be dead, in fear of dying crowd. Our daughter came to visit with the youngest grandson. It's been too long. After she got here, she got a call that her oldest son's girlfriend tested positive. When she went home, she tested positive. My wife and I got very sick with the same symptoms but tested negative. Something went thru my extended family (20+ persons) like a Colorado wildfire. Same symptoms, some testing positive, some not. Various states of vaxed and unvaxed. One young man spent a few days in the hospital with a low SpO2.
Tomorrow is not promised. I spent much of my younger years giving death the finger, but now I'm supposed to live with a fear of death that I didn't have with a potential long life ahead of me? I could go at any time, but I live like I'm going to live forever with long range plans that I may not live to realize. I have a friend who couldn't hold his wife of 60+ years hand because she was in an assisted care facility, and he saw her through a glass window before she died because of covid fear. I consider that to be horrible. When I took my daughter to the airport, knowing she had been exposed, I gave her the same big daddy hug she always gets. Bob Dylan's words.
I'm not indifferent to people at risk, but if they are too afraid to live, they should stay home, but not expect me to for them. I drove past a traffic fatality yesterday. I'm not going to quit driving.
I try to address ideas, rather than people when I can, but Z? Well, you said all that needed to be said.
"When she went home, she tested positive. My wife and I got very sick with the same symptoms but tested negative."
Yeah, this is another thing that isn't being talked about enough. I know so many people getting false negatives on COVID tests. Especially with Omicron. Really well said Dave. And I'm so glad you got through it.
Thanks Steve.
“Tomorrow is not promised.”
So very true. It’s the essence of entitlement to assume so.
I spent yesterday in the presence of an awesome man who had decided, with dignity, to stop dialysis and own his future as he owned his past. I honor his decision while I mourn his absence from my life as an inspiring, quiet presence of integrity. May I spend those final decisions with the same grace.
We are human. No more, no less, and wow how amazing. Your post was wonderful - thank you.
I especially appreciate your closing comments.
I also can't imagine spending any more time than I already had to with a seriously mentally ill and violent mother. Summers were hell enough. I have tremendous empathy for children stuck in abusive homes. I understand why self-harm and suicide rates are up.
What we need right now, I think, is a way to break all these problems down into an easier to manage system. A bit like a series of multiple spiderwebs with the lead person at the center. For children in abusive homes or children in situations of intentional neglect, have a system (an actual working system and not the BS child and family services system that’s too overwhelmed to tell their desk from a hole in the ground) of emergency room nurses and doctors who treat the abuse most often paired with pediatric doctors and nurses as well as pediatric psychologists, social workers, and faith-based counseling and caregivers (ALL faiths, not just the standard Christian faith, I could go into some s**t on that) who can help reach the kids who don’t have anywhere to turn or are surrounded by family who don’t believe them because “X would never do a thing like that). And do something similar for all the categories from domestic violence and abuse to gig workers to people too burned out to even function, to the doctors and nurses who will no doubt be burdened with the unwanted companions of PTSS, anxiety disorders stemming from the constant stress their under to everyone and everything else.
Have these small groups set up in every town. Every town has anywhere from a slight to a massive difference from another one. A woman living in Brooklyn, NY is going to have different concerns and different needs from a woman living in San Fernando Valley even if they are both career waitresses and are both in abusive relationships. The biggest issue I have with so many of our (chronically ineffective, inefficient, and sadly underfunded) social systems already in place is that they try to make 4 good cookie cutter approaches and say “that’s good enough” when it’s very rare that anyone actually fits the molds they’ve created.
We need to think smaller not bigger. Break things down by city, hell, break them down by neighborhoods even, and then make sure that each piece of the various “webs” are able to put together effective (truly personally—to the person(s) involved—effective; and please kick the term “cost-effective” out the proverbial window) programs, services, outreach, clinics, etc for the people they serve. And once those proposals are made, have a way for the people they will serve to talk about them, question them, put in their two-cents to make sure those ideas really will be effective before being put into place.
I’m so done with the in-fighting and absolute hypocrisy of our government officials—on all sides of the aisle. I want the power for these programs to be back in the hands of the people they will serve, but to also be protected from corruption. Rich people want to donate? Awesome! But they get ZERO say in how those funds are used or who they help. And if said rich donor has an issue, they can be told to take their money and create their own scholarships or organizations. Same with politicians. Keep the politicians out of the system because all they do is f it up.
I’m rambling, I know. More often than not, I find myself believing that the only way to make the system better is to break it all down and rebuild it, starting with a whole new foundation. I want this country to have the same level of social programs and care for people that The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Holland have. And don’t get me wrong, I know they have their issues, too, but isn’t it long past time that we did away with toxic capitalism—the system that has run our country since the mid to late 1800s—and designed something that actually works? It would help solve far more than Covid, and with each town having a system of doctors and nurses running a kind of oversight of the hospitals—specifically to determine the underlying medical vulnerabilities (chronic illness, autoimmune disorders, birth defects, cancers, etc), socioeconomic vulnerabilities, and living conditions of those patients dealing with Covid in the hospitals, wouldn’t it help to actually reduce the strain on the doctors and nurses treating the Covid-sick? Wouldn’t it give them a greater advantage to have a system that looked at all of that and was able to say “this person has Covid and has been hospitalized 3 different times because of it but when we evaluate their lives we can see that they are living below the poverty line in an apartment building that should’ve been condemned years ago” and then be able to take that information to another string the web where those issues can be addressed? Permanent s a team of environmental, OSHA, and housing lawyers who can fight for that same person to 1) make it known and fight for a change in the bs wages companies—especially factories—like to pay people. (CEOs and corporate executives don’t need that $1M+ bonus. Their workers need to be paid a living wage kind of legal argument); 2) Have organizations akin to Habitat for Humanity be able to come in and either make repairs to the existing structure or build the person a new home where they will be safe and clean and don’t have to worry about rats or roaches or old pipes or mold in the walls, etc; 3) have lawyers who actually shut down and run slum liars out of business and make them pay back their tenants—not a fine to the city, but an actual payment to each and every one of their tenants—for the deplorable living conditions. 4) Have an organization that can help that person get a better paying job that fits their abilities rather than one that fits their on-paper-education.
I want a better world than the one we have and I believe there’s no better time to start than now. But I’m not the person who could stand up and have anyone listen. Ideas I have plenty of, but power to make a change or have someone who could make that change, I sadly do not have. Hell, maybe it’s all a little too fantastical for the US right now. 🤷♀️
You are talking about decentralization - during a time of increasing pressure to federalize everything. Decentralization would be great. But, too many are interested in holding outsized power and decentralization challenges this.
And on the issue of break it all down and rebuild it - you are in good company. George Carlin said toward the end of his career that the only way forward was to burn it all down and start over. My only problem with this idea is that I don't think we have the kind of people in the US at present who would be willing to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to create a democratic republic crafted around the rights of the individual citizen. Everybody wants to rule the world.
The trouble with tear it all down and rebuild it is that it's Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You don't know what you're going to get. We might not like it at all. With the crew we've got now, that almost a guarantee.
Exactly!
Sad but true. And as for that closing line of yours, it takes me back to the song. Every time I hear or read that phrase, I hear Tears for Fears singing it.
If there is anything I love about my life, it's that I grew up during a renaissance of sorts in the arts, comedy, music, film - so much wonderful exploration and experimentation. It was a glorious era and I wanted it to last forever. Alas, here we are in the era of corporatized, canned, commercialized (fake - yes, I'm looking at you autotune) arts. And now, to make things even more interesting, all art must run the gauntlet of woke censors. Art is supposed to tell the truth and help us evolve. How can it tell any truth at all if it is being sanitized by the high priests and priestesses of correct thought?
Agreed! Half—if not all—the songs about the Vietnam war would be banned or censored or destroyed if they were released nowadays.
I came to the following conclusion a few months after the pandemic: "Panic is futile, and often dangerous. Denial is stupid, and often dangerous. Fear about danger has survival value."