That understandable world…slipping away

There seems to be an untoward urgency to get through what we, as a nation, are enduring. Patience, it’s been noted, is a virtue, but virtue seems in short supply. Social media is full of complaints of boredom and loneliness, perhaps spurred by the President’s own impatience with a flagging economy—a concern he seems more troubled by than any concern for the thousands of Americans suffering and dying of COVID-19.

There is probably nobody alive who has any recollection of the Spanish Flu of 1918 that so devastated the world’s population. The stories told about that pandemic seem more focused on the numbers of its quick spread and the casualties left in its wake than the pain and suffering of those who survived it.

But a lot has transpired in the intervening 102 years. We’ve become a smaller world with a larger population. We’re in constant touch with people we don’t know. We spend more time on Facebook than we do visiting across the fence with our neighbors. Our businesses operate on a world stage to such an extent that cultural practices and traditions have been altered to serve commerce. World travel is a given for many people. We’re as likely to make a restaurant recommendation in some small burg in France as we are in our own hometowns.

We spend more time watching television than we do reading. News from around the world arrives at a record pace—with many of its consumers not seeming to care about its origin or veracity. Information is gobbled up without much thought or reflection and is then passed on to audiences of similar political views. Or it is manipulated to be used to inflame the anger of those we oppose. There was a time when a rolled-up paper arrived on your doorstep and families shared pages devoted to world, national and local news; sports; home and garden; crossword puzzles; opinion and letters.

There is at least one generation that has no idea what the “funny papers” are.

I believe that COVID-19 will change the world immeasurably, definitively on many levels. In reality, it already has.

Each of us is likely soon to know a victim of the virus, which personalizes it to a painful level. The tears we shed for strangers on the evening news will, in time, be shed for family members, neighbors and distant friends. Perhaps because of our government’s failure to respond in a timely manner, it can be assumed that we are far from the virus’s peak. Dr. Anthony Fauci has talked in the range of hundreds of thousands falling to this disease. Some predictions run into the millions.

As a nation, we are understaffed, under-equipped and underfunded to deal with anything of this catastrophic nature.

Trump balked at $1 billion for ventilators, yet has stated that he will ignore Congressional restrictions of his personal use of the monies, and is promising the airline industry $70 billion. There are many who believe politics should be left out of any pandemic discussions. It’s not going to happen. It can’t happen. Important, relevant decisions are needed from our governing agencies, our elected officials. Yet given that charge, appropriations that seem downright frivolous or self-serving have been written into a package that sorta-maybe will give American adults a taxable $1,200. The Dems and the Repubs seem to agree only that each member of their cabal deserves a raise. Really?

Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s secretary of the treasury, is a former hedge fund manager who believes that the stipend is enough to provide financial security for a family for four months. Again. Really? His contempt for Americans is astonishing, especially since he probably spends that on a business lunch that—Oh, shock!—he likely bills back to the Treasury for reimbursement. (I humbly suggest he relinquish his table at Bistro Français and sit on a curb with a paltry sandwich and talk to the homeless veterans who have no voice.)

Mnuchin’s actions are the standard operating procedure for the boys in that club and, to paraphrase George Carlin, you and me, we ain’t members of that club. We weren’t invited.

The fact that Trump doesn’t seem to have an ounce of sympathy or compassion for the American people whose suffering could have been lessened had his Administration been paying closer attention, doesn’t stop him from being a cheerleader for economic recovery—key to his re-election, which is foremost in his feeble mind. The President’s behavior is so abhorrent in the face of such tragedy as to be almost unbelievable. He plays to his base, urging its evangelical clergy to defy common sense and conduct church services. At heart he has nothing more than a country club mentality whose affluence dictates an I-got-mine attitude. Screw the rest of us.

In dealing with what is the most horrific event since 9/11, he routinely attacked the press and claimed the pandemic to be a hoax foisted onto the world by the Democratic party. Then he, in all his worldly wisdom, said that this blip on the medical radar would miraculously disappear after the 15th person contracted the disease. In the meantime, he and his minions tried to blame the Democrats for Trump’s impeachment that kept him distracted from the rigors of his gilded office. Apparently he was not distracted enough to keep him from hosting his insipid “aren’t-I-great” rallies, fund-raising parties, and his taxpayer-funded golf trips.

Despite his not anticipating the Coronavirus nor initially being even responsive to it, he had already dismantled an agency his predecessor had in place that was prepared to both detect and respond. Trump’s pathetic hatred for President Obama reveals not only his racism, but his pathological denial of anything approaching truth, let alone justice, and may result in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

After insisting that he knew COVID-19 was a pandemic from the get-go, Trump seemed eager to add insult to injury by naming his son-in-law to lead the troops into battle against the plague. Jared Kushner, whose arrogance is only surpassed by his ignorance, isn’t fit to carry Anthony Fauci’s stethoscope. We can only hope his incompetence doesn’t lead to the same failing result as his so-called Middle East peace. J. William Fulbright would have had a field day analyzing this mess, this disturbing marriage of arrogance to power.

Geri and I have different approaches to many things and the current crisis is no exception. I get angry, perhaps to mask my own fear of contracting the disease, and I seem always to remain skeptical, if not downright pessimistic. Geri weeps for the stricken and in her grieving maintains a bright optimism as she tries to find a plausible reason for the suffering. Rather than look to some supernatural force in this instance, she is suggesting that this virus is earth’s immune system at work.

She points to the fact that carbon emissions have been remarkably reduced—the sky and the air we breathe benefiting the most. While that bodes well for the momentary delay of the increase of global temperatures, Geri is most pleased that there are dolphins in the waterways of Venice, Italy. They are there after only a few weeks of the cessation of polluting factors in those famed canals. I think that is terrific.

Unfortunately for us, the powers-that-be don’t give a Tinker’s damn about dolphins or blue skies. In fact, they even deny the very science that is proving us to be our own worst enemy.

Iain M. Banks, a Scottish author and essayist, made this observation in his 1993 novel, Complicity: “The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what we are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others.”

A certain disconnect that seems pertinent was explored by Albert Camus in his 1947 novel, The Plague. In it, the rich and the poor are severely separated by circumstance. Both share a desire to survive, but the privileged have the wherewithal to do so.

I feel fortunate to live in a town that’s small enough to have a real sense of community. Differences in this dot on the map melt in the presence of need. We have barely noticeable class divisions. We depend on each other for goods and services, friendships and goodwill. We drink together in our bars and sit next to each other for the plays produced by a talented cast of local actors at our two theaters. It seems that not a day goes by that somebody isn’t asking for help for somebody else. We tend to oblige as we can, opening our wallets to pull out a five or a twenty. A website, Livingston Fights the Coronavirus, was created within days of the initial outbreak to help deal with the vagaries of the pandemic. It offers advice, resources, alerts, solace and even a Zoom class in baking focaccia.

But we are hurting as a nation, as a people. Some have lost their jobs, their livelihoods, their sense of a secure future. Hopes are being put on the back burner as we struggle just to survive. There are businesses in each of our towns that may never again open their doors, neighborhood restaurants that lack the resources to continue in their quests to offer alternatives to the cash-rich chains. I fear we may become accustomed to our isolation and not emerge to even shop as we once did. We may be allowing ourselves to become prisoners of Amazon.

Tapping into my wife’s optimism, I hope to see our humanity triumph over adversity. Our social distancing will lead—someday soon, I hope—to more ardent nearness. Maybe this imposed lack of human interaction will lead to a deeper understanding of each other, our communities and our nation.

We might even discover that our helping each other in this time of crisis might translate into a universal practice that does not play second fiddle to greed and is not motivated by crisis.

Illustration by Michelangelo and Courtney A. Liska

A Recipe for the Sequestered

Stay home. Read. Surf the internet. Bake cookies and/or bread. Do crossword puzzles. Write a poem. Watch your favorite movie over and over. Call an old friend. Make mac ‘n cheese or your mother’s meatloaf. Clean under the kitchen sink. Tell your children stories about your grandparents. Wash your hands frequently. Design the garden you need to plant in the coming weeks. Organize a junk drawer. Find something to laugh about. Apologize for something you wish you hadn’t said. Tell somebody you love them.