Our Freedom Fighters

Locked down, lonely, frustrated, showing symptoms of cabin fever, we all venture into this seemingly void of a future.

Today, where I am, we plan to travel to a nearby farm and pick up some quail chicks. You can't tell the sex of quail chucks, so you just have to hope you get lucky and have a bunch of females. We want them for their eggs, small but nutritious, for the children.

Chicken eggs, like butter and other staples, are getting hard to find.

Besides, it will do us all good, cabin feverish as we are, to get outside and breathe some fresh Northern California air.

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Our first responders and care-givers are our heroes these days, as well they should be. Our EMTs respond to the 9-1-1 calls that come in or to the steady requests from health-care facilities to transport patients from one location to another.

Some of these patients have COVAD-19.

At the clinics and hospitals, our doctors and nurses wear protective equipment as they evaluate the ill, identifying likely coronavirus victims and segregating them from the others. The virus has become the leading cause of death in some parts of the U.S. and overseas.

As we celebrate these workers, rightfully, let's not forget another group who are on the front lines -- the journalists covering this epidemic. They are our eyes and ears, telling us daily what they see and hear.

They also are holding our elected officials accountable as some of them try to wiggle their way out of responsibility for acting too slowly to recognize this threat and react to it in time to save lives. We have lost loved ones due to their irresponsible behavior and lack of leadership.

We have in this country a First Amendment to the Constitution. It is not second or third, it is the first. It guarantees, among other critical rights, the freedom of the press. That freedom is essentially absolute.

It means that we as citizens have a corps of freedom fighters for the truth representing us in this time of crisis. Not surprisingly, some of them are falling ill from COVAD-19. For the most part, they have to work remotely, far from their souces, which complicates their work immensely.

Because I spent my career as a journalist, I feel compelled now to defend my former colleagues as they carry on their important work. They do so at a time there are those who falsely label them the "enemy of the people" who deliver "fake news."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

These people, dear reader, are among the best friends the people will ever have.

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