Tag: COVID

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Pot is Bubbling

CREDIT: CNN.com

This country, like most around the world, has its haves and its have-nots. Only a blind fool would argue that those with money, influence, and the right skin color don’t have it easier than those with none of the above. There’s no official caste system in the United States, but there are two Americas — two judicial systems, two kinds of law enforcement, two healthcare systems, two tax systems, two educational systems, two voting systems, two media ecosystems — two kinds of democracy.

CNN.com

Our Constitution proclaims lofty ideals, meant to apply to all of the American people. But too often those ideals are circumvented by money and influence. Too often, poverty is a permanent position. Poor and under-educated people are useful to those in power, and can be more easily controlled — or provoked. They can be pushed around, kept in place by sub-standard pay and work conditions and lack of healthcare, kept in place by restricted voting rights, fewer voting locations, and cartoonish gerrymandering. Voting by mail? Don’t be silly. That’s reserved for important people.

Those without influence or power have few options for expressing their frustrations. Senators don’t take their calls. Congressmen are at lunch with lobbyists. The people don’t have lobbyists. Most in power pay little attention to the people, until things boil over.

The pot is beginning to bubble.

Governors and cabinet ministers and federal and state agency heads are not out of work, nor are they particularly or personally impacted by a disease that’s ravaging communities, overloading our hospitals, shutting down small and large businesses of every stripe, putting millions out of work, and disrupting our children’s education.

Too often, our leaders sound like Governor Mike Parson of Missouri, who said this week: “These kids have got to get back to school. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

Because that’s how this virus works. Nobody else will get the disease. Just the children — your children — and they’ll be fine. Nothing to see here. Get your brats in school. And get the teachers and support staff in there, too. Shut up. Move along.

This attitude comes from the top, from a president who sees the opening of schools as the critical pivot point to opening the economy, the only chance he sees for his re-election. Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary who’d like to privatize the education system, echoes the president’s sentiments. Open the schools. Or else. I am the boss of you.

I’ve got news for them: Schools are not going to open next month in places where this disease is running rampant. Those that do open in those areas will have very few kids and very few teachers. They will be battling quarantines, shutdowns, and disruptions every day. People will not risk their children’s health, no matter who tells them to do it. Mothers and fathers can take to the streets, too, believe it or not. I’ve seen it.

The pot is bubbling.

Two systems. In one, convicted felons like Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort are escorted from prison in nice suits and allowed to serve their sentences at home because the threat of COVID is too great for men of their stature to be in prison. The thousands of others who remain behind bars, many convicted of lesser crimes? They’re on the wrong side of the divide. Sorry. No power, no money, no friends in high places? Suck it up. Wash your hands.

Two systems. In one, the nice uniformed police officer pulls you over in your nice car and politely issues you a ticket — or a warning. In the other, you’re tackled on the street by unidentified men in camouflage carrying automatic weapons and thrown into an unmarked van. No arrest warrant, no reason given. America!

I haven’t seen the country this angry, this divided, since the late 1960s. The pot is bubbling. And the man at the top is preparing to turn up the burner, planning to put more unmarked, unidentified troops from Customs and Border Patrol in more American cities, hoping as hard as he can that protesters will come out to help make great television for the rubes who fear the scary BLM peril and the Marxists and the Antifa, and who love seeing them get beaten and tear-gassed on Fox News. Law and order!

We’re living in historic and momentous times. The choice is coming for all of us. Stand and be counted or watch a wave of authoritarianism roll over us. Two systems. Two ways forward. One future. Our choice.

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Rhodes College and Baptist Announce COVID-19 Prevention Partnership

CREDIT: Photo courtesy Rhodes College

Photo courtesy Rhodes College

Running a college is a tough business at the best of times. But in the midst of a global pandemic, ensuring the health and safety of all students is of paramount importance both on and off school grounds. With that in mind, Rhodes College is pursuing a partnership with Baptist Memorial Health Care to create a thorough prevention plan for the 2020-21 school year.

Baptist will assist Rhodes with developing and implementing a safety protocol, which will have five key areas of focus: prevention, symptom monitoring, testing, care and tracing, and a resource center.

“As we began planning for the fall semester, our planning committees quickly identified the need for additional healthcare resources,” says Rhodes College president Marjorie Hass. “This relationship with Baptist will provide our campus with resources normally found at a large research university with an academic medical center. Most importantly, our students, faculty, and staff will be supported and cared for by physicians and providers from one of the nation’s top integrated healthcare networks.”

Leading the charge on Baptist’s end will be Dr. Stephen Threlkeld, co-director of Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis’ infection prevention program and a Rhodes alumnus. “This is a wonderful opportunity to help one of the country’s finest institutions welcome students, faculty, and staff back to campus safely,” he says. “We feel a tremendous responsibility to help our community weather the COVID-19 pandemic. This partnership is a natural extension of the tremendous investment we have made into educating, treating and protecting people from COVID-19, and we are excited to help Rhodes get back to educating its students.”

Through the partnership, Baptist will provide regular symptom monitoring that includes contact tracing and contingencies for a community occurrence of COVID-19. A virtual care clinic for positive cases will also be created in conjunction with the Rhodes Student Health Clinic. All returning students, faculty, and staff will be tested prior to the Fall and Spring semesters.

The hospital system will also advise Rhodes on procuring the necessary personal protective equipment and best sanitation practices for public areas, in addition to other services. If proper safety conditions are met, Rhodes plans to resume in-person classes in August.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

This American Carnage

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. We are one nation … We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny. The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans. — President Donald J. Trump

He lied.

In his Inaugural address, his first public speech as president, minutes after taking the oath of office, Donald J. Trump lied. We didn’t know it was a lie at that point, but it soon became clear. He lied again the next day — about the size of his Inauguration crowd — in the face of all photographic evidence to the contrary. And the lies haven’t stopped since. 

According to the official count kept by The Washington Post, he has lied more than 18,000 times to the American people to whom he took an oath of allegiance. Prevarication comes as naturally as breathing to the mentally wounded child-man who occupies the White House. And now, we’re discovering the price for the complete absence of leadership, honesty, and integrity that Trump has brought to the highest office in our land. The bill has come due.

We are not one nation. We do not “share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.” The United States, the country Mr. Trump swore he would reunite and lead to unprecedented heights of glory, is divided like never before. Rage, disgust, ridicule, protest, name-calling, lying — and violence — are now the tools of our public discourse.

More than 100,000 of us have died in four months from a still-raging COVID pandemic for which the president takes “no responsibility,” despite ample evidence that he downplayed the danger for weeks, allowing the virus to gain a larger foothold. He then played state governments against each other to compete for medical supplies, rather than organizing a coordinated national response to a national crisis.

More than 42 million Americans have lost jobs, mostly due to the pandemic, and the president focuses on the stock market, saying and doing little to comfort working Americans facing bankruptcies, evictions, farm foreclosures, and health crises.

Another round of police killings of African Americans has led to protests in 150 cities. In response, the president ridiculed the nation’s mayors’ and governors’ attempts to deal with their situations and called on them to “dominate” the streets, adding, “If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

Once again, the president chooses to pander to his angry white base, ignoring the voices of those calling for police reform and justice for all, ignoring those calling for peace and remediation and compromise. Ignoring the fact that this isn’t a dictatorship where an autocratic leader “dominates” the citizenry. Where was this urge to dominate three weeks ago, when hundreds of angry, armed protesters marched the streets and invaded government buildings across the country? Why was the president actively encouraging those protests?

The truth is, this president has never tried to unite us. He has played to his base, and only his base, from Day One. Everything is politicized and polarized — immigration, healthcare, religion, the free press, climate change, international relations — even the wearing of medical masks. Pick a side, America. It’s what the president wants. Let’s you and him fight.

On Monday evening, as a crowd stood peacefully protesting outside the White House, police in riot gear suddenly moved in, using tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets to push the crowd away from the area. The protesters — and the media members covering the protest — were indiscriminately targeted and herded down the block. The reason? The president of the United States wanted to get his picture taken at St. John’s Episcopal Church, just across LaFayette Square from the White House. The crowd was in his way.

After the area was cleared of pesky Americans peacefully exercising their Constitutional right to free assembly, Trump and a crew of family members and aides walked across the square to the front of the church. Trump silently held up a Bible (upside down) for a minute or so, as though it were an auction item and he was awaiting bids. He didn’t say much. That’s because he was mainly there for a photo op: “President stands in front of church holding Bible.”

Mission accomplished, the motley crew hustled back to the White House, no doubt eager to see how the stunt played on cable news.

Mariann E. Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., was not impressed. “He did not pray,” she said. “He did not mention George Floyd, he did not mention the agony of people who have been subjected to this kind of horrific expression of racism and white supremacy for hundreds of years. We need a president who can unify and heal. He has done the opposite of that, and we are left to pick up the pieces. This was a charade that does nothing to calm the soul and to reassure the nation that we can recover from this moment.” Amen.

Sinclair Lewis once wrote: “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.” Or maybe a Bible? Lewis was right, and now the world watches in horror as the once-proud United States of America dis-unites, as the country we love descends into chaos and disorder, as traditional international alliances are torn asunder, as long-standing treaties, defense pacts, and trade agreements lie in ruins.

Trump isn’t a law-and-order president. He is the polar opposite of both of those things. He generates chaos. He has created a dystopia. He is a disaster. We are a country with a mad king at the helm, enabled by toadies and grifters and garment-kissers of every stripe.

This is American carnage.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Blue Skies From Now On

Tuesday morning. I’m sitting on the deck, coffee at hand, dogs lying at my feet, alert for squirrel intruders. The sky is as blue as sky is allowed to be. Not a cloud, not a contrail. The trees are fully leafed, green as the first green. Flowers are flushed with color, birds are singing — cardinals, Carolina wrens, white-throated sparrows. The air is clear and sparkling. Spring is … magnificent.

I can’t help but think the reduced number of vehicles roaring around the city and the relative absence of jet planes overhead has given us a glimpse of what the world could be if we cleaned up our act and learned something from the current madness. What if we took climate change seriously? What if we reduced pollution in substantive ways? Not by banning air travel or cars, but by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. What if we learned to let more local goods and services be delivered to our door, instead of driving all over town for them? What if we gained some insight and perspective from this forced downtime we’re all living through?

I inhale deeply, grateful for the ability to do so, when so many are fighting to breathe — grateful I still have a job and a column to write. I say a quiet prayer for the sick and for those working to help them get better — and for those keeping our groceries stocked and our mail delivered and our city safe. I pray for the small businesses struggling to stay afloat. Including the one I work for.

The disease, this COVID-19, it seems far away on this gorgeous morning, but the numbers don’t lie: Around 45,000 people in this country have died; that’s nearly one-quarter of the deaths worldwide. The United States is ground zero, and much of the country hasn’t reached a peak or plateau of cases yet.

Still there is an understandable push to “reopen,” to get the economy back on track. On April 16th, President Trump laid out some guidelines for states to follow in order to restart their economies: “States should have seen a decline in COVID-19 cases for 14 days; reports of symptoms that might represent undiagnosed COVID-19 should have been in decline for the same period; and hospitals should have enough capacity to handle cases without operating in crisis mode and have a ‘robust testing program’ for health care workers.”

The president added that the guidelines “will allow governors to take a phased and deliberate approach to reopening their individual states. Governors will be empowered to tailor an approach that meets the diverse circumstances of their own states,” Trump said. “And some states will be able to open up sooner than others.”

Pretty sensible, actually. Good job, Mr. President.

But no. The very next morning, Trump tweeted out that residents of Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota should “LIBERATE” themselves, and encouraged protests against those states’ governors.

What the hell? Why would the president lay out specific guidelines for states, then encourage people to protest against them the very next day? It’s almost like Trump wants to get people stirred up, like he wants Americans to fight with each other, like he wants chaos and divisiveness. Surely that can’t be true. That’s like something Putin would do.

Or maybe he’s just nuts.

However we got it, there’s plenty of chaos to go around. The stock market is roller-coastering, mostly down. Oil prices have sunk to negative levels. (In a classic “Gift of the Magi” situation, gasoline prices are at rock bottom, but we can’t drive anywhere.) And now, encouraged by the president, bands of protestors, many carrying assault weapons (because the ‘Rona is scared of guns, y’all), are marching and horn-honking and megaphoning — demanding their rights to go get a haircut and eat at Olive Garden and reopen the country — now!

And you and I, my friend, as Southerners, live in the heart of “reopen country.” In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp has decreed that gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, beauty shops and salons, barbershops, body art studios, and more will be able to open this Friday, April 24th, despite that state’s still-surging infection rate.

In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves is lifting the stay-at-home decree and opening the state for business on April 27th. Reeves says he believes his state has hit a plateau. (I do not believe that word means what you think it means, Tater.)

And Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has announced that on May 1st, Tennessee businesses can begin to open up, with the exception of counties with their own health department, where the local officials will have jurisdiction. For those of us in Shelby County, that means our timetable for reopening will be controlled by our locally elected leaders. I’m cool with that.

But around the country and around our state, the human Darwinism that’s been ongoing for a few weeks will ramp up to a new level. Some businesses will open; some will open in a limited way; some will remain closed until their owners are convinced their employees and customers are entirely safe and comfortable being around others.

Some people will take the president at his word and LIBERATE themselves from wearing masks and social distancing (if they ever did either) and fearlessly go back to normal, the liberal hoax finally behind them. Others will keep an eye on the local case numbers, the rate of infections, the deaths — and the calendar — and will model their behavior accordingly.

Count me in the latter group.