We might all be forgiven for identifying with Bob Dylan's plaintive verse:
"Well, I'm too old to lose
Babe I'm too young to win
And I feel like a stranger
In the world I'm living in"
Dylan wrote that long before the weird, confusing time we are trying to navigate, tolerate and survive through now. Some days it seems like we are all strangers on a journey to nowhere.
There are serious barriers facing any person who sincerely wishes to develo an honest perspective on the Covid-19 crisis.
Start with the science: Only so much is known. Our best scientists are beginning to comprehend the nature of this illness, how it spreads, and why it attacks different populations differently. They are working feverishly to find answers, but that effort is hampered by hucksters and conspiracy theorists.
The distractions are continuous. All I can suggest is to recognize them for what they are and to try and ignore them. We have plenty of real problems to consider, rather than wasting time fighting phantom political conflicts.
There are documentable facts: The U.S. government had enough warnings that this crisis was coming but was slow to act for a critical period when people died who could have been saved.
Now the government seems to be doing much better. But the contagion is too deeply rooted to avoid an ever-increasing toll, especially among our elder citizens.
The people who work in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are for the most part poorly paid. Many fo them are not highly educated. But their compassion and commitment is helping elderly people make it through the pandemic; they are heroes.
Our first responders continue to answer those 9-1-1 calls and help the people most in need. They are poorly paid, working long hours and they are heroes.
It's ironic and distasteful to hear rich and powerful people trade insults over who is to blame for what. Few of us care for their pointless games; we want leadership, empathy, and real solutions to the real problems facing us.
***
It rained yesterday out here for the first time in a while. it's unusual to get rains this late in the year, so nobody complained. The lawns and fields have already browned except where someone is watering them, so this welcome visitor added a bit of natural green to the mix.
Green is the color of money in the U.S., though modern bills achieve more like a hint of green when it comes to color. Or when it comes to value.
It would have to rain a lot of currency to relieve the stress many households are under.The government may be trying, but the need is too vast.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was clear today in testimony before the Senate: Reopening the country prematurely will lead to preventable "suffering and death."
Meanwhile, not reopening our economy will prolong the financial crisis many families are enduring.
There's nothing proverbial here: We *are* between the rock and the hard place.
***
Every writer knows what I am saying when I say there are good days and bad days for me as a writer. There also are days that are just plain hard. Nothing original emerges as my fingers hunt and peck over the keyboard.
It is not a good feeling when the words you are forming sound like somebody else's words. It is as if your own words were stolen away by an invisible force. It's not plagiarism; nobody is copying anyone else's writing and claiming it is their own.
That has happened to me in the past. On one occasion, when I was early in my career, a writer for the Asian edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review lifted one of my articles and reprinted it word for word under his byline.
I contacted the organization and received an apology.
No, this isn't like that. It's more like the thoughts and feelings I want to convey are being sucked out of me today by a giant invisible vacuum cleaner.
And I am left virtually wordless.
-30-
Green is the color of money in the U.S., though modern bills achieve more like a hint of green when it comes to color. Or when it comes to value.
It would have to rain a lot of currency to relieve the stress many households are under.The government may be trying, but the need is too vast.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was clear today in testimony before the Senate: Reopening the country prematurely will lead to preventable "suffering and death."
Meanwhile, not reopening our economy will prolong the financial crisis many families are enduring.
There's nothing proverbial here: We *are* between the rock and the hard place.
***
Every writer knows what I am saying when I say there are good days and bad days for me as a writer. There also are days that are just plain hard. Nothing original emerges as my fingers hunt and peck over the keyboard.
It is not a good feeling when the words you are forming sound like somebody else's words. It is as if your own words were stolen away by an invisible force. It's not plagiarism; nobody is copying anyone else's writing and claiming it is their own.
That has happened to me in the past. On one occasion, when I was early in my career, a writer for the Asian edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review lifted one of my articles and reprinted it word for word under his byline.
I contacted the organization and received an apology.
No, this isn't like that. It's more like the thoughts and feelings I want to convey are being sucked out of me today by a giant invisible vacuum cleaner.
And I am left virtually wordless.
-30-
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