So today is my day fifty-four of being shut-at-home trying to avoid catching the pandemic coronavirus. It has been an interesting time. I have to admit, if just a few months ago someone had told me I’d soon be staying inside my house for nearly two months with no end in sight, I would have thought they were crazy.
I discovered this lovely bit of music yesterday when Winnie sent it to me via her WeChat app. This music video “We Are One” has been making it’s way around the world for a while already, but I just now heard it. I think this music and accompanying video is a perfect metaphor for everything happening in our world today, in more ways than one.
It’s no secret, to anybody that knows me, the low opinion I have of the current occupant of our White House. But considering what’s been going on these past several days, I’m wondering if I haven’t misunderstood Trump?
Is it possible he really isn’t what he appears? Maybe he’s not an incompetent demagogue stirring up radical right-wing fanatics? Is it possible that he’s really working a secret master plan that’s about to launch a one-thousand year Liberal utopia in America?
I’m so old I remember watching the classic TV sit-com “M*A*S*H” back when the shows were airing for the first time. The show was a classic in too many ways to count, but part of the draw was the iconic theme song. That song, “Suicide is Painless,” has been running through my head these past few days as I watch the amazing spectacle of right-wing protesters demanding they be allowed to get the coronavirus.
I’ve witnessed a lot of stupid from the right-wing branch of American politics over the past years, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite approaching this level.
So today is day 30 since I’ve been staying at home due to this coronavirus pandemic. While I’m not missing my weekday commuting up to Washington, D.C. I am getting restless. I’m not used to being restricted to staying inside my house for days on end. Especially now as we’re coming into spring weather and the best time to be getting outside for some kayaking, hiking, or just hanging out enjoying the fresh air.
It seems that right now, we have to suspect even fresh air as not being a good thing.
Forced isolation in my house for 21 days and counting has given me a lot of time to think about things. Like; how in the hell was the entire world forced into quarantine literally in a matter of days? How we did get here? How in the hell did a microscopic blob of genome popularly called “coronavirus” manage to take over the entire world so quickly? I decided I needed to build a timeline and map it out.
I took a shot at a timeline a couple of weeks ago in an earlier post, for just five days worth of events. Since then I spent some time researching and working with new web building tools, and finally put it together. What I offer below the fold is over 200 coronavirus-related events, most of which have occurred since December.
Even though this is nominally April Fools Day, I can’t help noticing how few April Fools pranks are actually being played today. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that nothing anybody could do would be disbelieved. Four months ago if you told someone an awkwardly-titled thing called “coronavirus” could cause so much chaos, they wouldn’t believe you.
Our president trump certainly didn’t.
So the world is on fire right now. Stock markets are collapsing, a pandemic is raging across the globe, a buffoon is occupying the role of “Leader of the Free World,” and our supermarkets are out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
But things could be worse – we could be in a Groundhog Day time loop living the same day over and over again. So we need some music for these times.
One of my favorite quotes is an alleged Chinese Curse that states “May you be born in interesting times.” Given what’s been happening this past week, I’d say we are in fact living in interesting times. These times are not particularly the times I’d have chosen to live in, all things being equal.
The most recent interesting thing is, of course, the medically-defined “Novel Coronavirus.” Interesting to epidemiologists at least. Those folks are probably having the time of their lives studying this new and improved virus. The rest of us, not so much.
In Requiem: A Scouts Honor
I grew up in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, leaving Scouting only to join the Navy in 1974. My experiences in the Scouts form some of my best childhood memories and Scouting values helped shape me into the person I am today.
I’ve followed the controversy over the past years about the Scouts with increasing dismay. Then, on Monday February 17, 2020, the Boy Scouts of America filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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