Just to be clear.
A story comes to mind from a friend who was struggling to understand Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? It’s the title of a book by Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D., useful to educators trying to understand how to help all their students. Continue reading
“Dozens of National Guard troops were positioned on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday night . . . The appearance of a band of troops at one of the nation’s most iconic monuments came as protests escalated throughout the nation in response to the police killing of Floyd, an African American man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.”
In the video I watched this morning, a man on his knees before armed and shielded guards asked for reform. “I just want reform. Reform. . . . Will you shoot me?”
In what world does a man have to get down on his knees to beg for simple respect, for fairness, for justice? For all.
In what reality, other than a YA dystopian nightmare, does the Lincoln Memorial resemble Tiananmen Square?
Maybe some are too young to remember that such visions were once something white Americans thought only happened in Other Countries, dangerous autocratic countries ruled by bullying dictators and communist regimes gone vile.
Maybe, some actually think that man who defied Chinese tanks was asking for it?
“Set off by the death of pro-reform Communist general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social changes in post-Mao China, the protests reflected anxieties about the country’s future in the popular consciousness and among the political elite. . . . On June 5, the suppression of the protest was immortalized outside of China via video footage and photographs of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square via Chang’an Avenue. The ‘Tank Man’, as it became known, became one of the most iconic photographs in the 20th century. As the tank driver tried to go around him, the ‘Tank Man’ moved into the tank’s path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position in front of the tanks, the man was pulled aside by a group of people.
Although the [identity and] fate of ‘Tank Man’ following the demonstration is not known, then-paramount Chinese leader Jiang Zemin stated in 1990 that he did not think the man was killed. Time later named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.”—Wikipedia
I could, and do blame a national failure to prepare and national irresponsible and careless and largely absent leadership. I acknowledge that those in the White House have interfered with progress rather than led the way, but surviving this pandemic is also about us all. It’s not enough to blame Trump for his failures if we fail to do what little we can to ensure we and our nation survive. It is not enough to assume a vaccine will solve the problem—it certainly is not a time to pretend the pandemic does not exist.
If everyone, absolutely everyone, did what they were supposed to have been doing during the past couple of months, the United States would be like New Zealand, which had zero new cases in the last ten days. Instead, most people cheat a little bit or a lot. Too many Americans think the rules do not apply to them personally. We like to brag about our “rugged individualism” and claim we have the best of everything. In truth, this is is our entitlement speaking. A month of rigor and we might be clean. Instead as a result of carelessness, we live in the United States, where despite a call for people to stay home and maintain social distancing for the past ten or twelve weeks, over two hundred thousand (200,000) Americans were diagnosed in the past ten days, and over nine thousand died. Many of them were health care workers, grocers, and meat plant workers because of lack of proper protective gear, unmasked customers, and unsafe working conditions. People of all ages, ethnicities and in every state have died in the United States at the rate of about five in one hundred cases. The relative death rate is much higher for people of my age, for poor people, for people of color, but no one is immune.
Armed men invaded state capitals to demand their right to move freely despite the pandemic, and they were encouraged to do so by man incapable of leadership. Contrast that with unarmed citizens using the First Amendment rights to assemble, demand redress, and report on these events are tear-gassed and clubbed. Both risk their lives. I know which group earns my sympathy and respect.
“Where’s the bottom?” cries Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun. (She is the younger sister of Walter Lee Younger, hoping to defy her tenement upbringing and her sharecropper grandparents and become a doctor.) Where, indeed, if we fail in our civic duty? What can it mean to be patriotic if citizenship demands sacrifice we are unwilling to honor? Some have given their lives for our country, yet we are unwilling to stay safely at home? We choose to attack those who merely want justice, those who look like they might expect fairness?
It is more than our bodies that wander while seeking the promised land.
A former student, recently become a doctor, admits “there has been a lot of hostility towards Asian-Americans and I am lucky that this has not affected me as much, but I fear for my family members and other members of the community. I aspire to be a positive representative for Asian-Americans and to help break down that hostility.”
She was an excellent student, and insisted, since before she even began her medical training, that she wanted to help those who struggle to find good care. She since recommitted to working with under-served populations. May she be granted the freedom to fulfill her goals.
Put a knee to the ground instead of on anyone’s neck.
(CNN) “Americans have been protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police for days on end in dozens of cities throughout the United States.
“While tensions between police and demonstrators have heated up in many places, some officers have shown solidarity with the movement by hugging protesters, praying with them, mourning with them, and taking a knee to honor Floyd.”
. . . and another: ” ‘In that moment, it wasn’t about kneeling to appease anybody,’ an officer said. ‘I was kneeling because I wanted to show my people I’m with them in solidarity. … It would have ate me up if those protesters were like, “Kneel with us, kneel with us,” and I said, “No.” It would have ate me up.’ ” They knelt in Santa Cruz, California and Portland, Oregon, in Des Moines, Iowa and Washington DC, in Flint, Michigan and Spokane, Washington, in Germantown, Maryland and Coral Gables, Florida. And protesters thanked them, blessed them because their mission is to protect and serve. “Walk with us!” the public said to police officers all over our nation. They bowed their heads in thanks and walked in pride.
Respect.
more . . .
The Washington Post Editorial: “Even amid the tear gas, the rubber bullets, the sirens, the fires, the standoffs, the looting, the “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons,” the best of America has been visible. People who were angry and scared have acted with peace and compassion, defusing situations by protecting and embracing — sometimes literally — those whom others in their position might have feared.”
And a voice of justice and compassion “Biden, in speech to the nation, denounces President Trump’s actions against protesters and vows to heal racial wounds” He reminded me what national leadership sounds like.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”—Abraham Lincoln
A few seconds after I took this photo yesterday, the eagle backed off from his kill.
from the news:
“I took six rubber bullets, but do you know what didn’t happen to me?” Elizabeth Ferris, a 36-year-old Georgetown University student, told The Washington Post. “No one kneeled on my neck.” Continue reading
Do you know where your food has been, who touched it, who breathed or sneezed on it, how it was prepared?
Annia Ciezadio insists in The Washington Post “The safety problem for restaurants isn’t the dining room. It’s the kitchen.” Restaurant employees work in close quarters and are too rushed to take proper safety precautions, most do not have health care coverage and cannot afford to remain home when they are sick. They work anyway.
And managers do not stop them. They want cheap labor.
Undocumented labor is in a particularly tough position when it comes to staying home while sick. In many restaurants they are the invisible workers doing the hardest and dirtiest tasks such as using high pressure sprayers to clean dishes (and blowing mist into the air all over the kitchen). In my county 84% of those diagnosed with coronavirus are Hispanic. As in many places in our country, the main outbreaks have been in animal processing plants, locally that is seafood. The work is hard and even dangerous, and proper precautions to ensure both food and worker safety are perhaps lacking?
[Years ago ICE came through my county, and all my Hispanic students, whether documented or not, stayed home from school. The vice principal, contrary to law, had called the federal agency to report them. The principal had a fit because the job of public schools is, by law, to educate the public not to question citizenship. It was a question that as a teacher I did not ask. In the mean time on that long ago day, every restaurant in the county temporarily closed. I used to tell my students, themselves often called upon to work hours well beyond the legal limit for their age, that the only way many businesses stayed open was because of their labor and the labor of undocumented individuals. We do not want to pay.]
Sensible precautions seem too difficult even for some home cooks and bakers. I was reading an article online about the best way to separate eggs—removing the yolk from the egg white. In the comment section people complained the preferred method of removing egg yolks by sifting through fingers was annoying because they would then have to wash their hands right after.
I thought: you mean you do not wash your hands every time you touch eggs?
I wash my hands before I begin cooking and any time I handle something raw, especially eggs and even the carton they come in since I was taught to be cautious of Salmonella. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that 79,000 cases of foodborne illness and 30 deaths each year are caused by eating eggs contaminated with Salmonella.”
We cannot even rely on health care to take proper health care. Decades ago when half my family was diagnosed with giardia, a parasite carried by mountain beavers, the local clinic did not report the infection to County Health. But I had looked up regulations and so I reported it. The county had not had a report, the nurse said, in a couple of years yet the pharmacy that filled my prescription said they filled that prescription several times a week.
When my husband managed a grocery store (and was still eating meat) he stopped buying meat from his own store because he’d witnessed how his butcher handled product. When he later worked in a deli he only ate sandwiches he had prepared himself because one of his co-workers picked his nose while making sandwiches. That popular deli was regularly cited for health violations, the produce guy failed to clean his cases for months at a time (Gary wound’s buys produce there either), and there were rats that came out at night. One Whole Foods in Portland stank so bad near the meat department that I spoke to the manager about the smell. Gary speculated that the “diaper” under their meat cases was not being properly changed out. It was bad the next time too, and we stopped shopping there. Before the pandemic we had a wonderful Thai meal, but Gary won’t return to the restaurant because tables and dishes were not clean. We have seen servers handle both food and money without washing hands, despite what we fear lingers on bills. Of course these days most businesses will not accept paper money for fear of passing illness.
A dollar bill probably isn’t the greatest danger we face while eating out.
Too many do not even understand the most basic truths about illness. A friend said she never got a flu shot because she never vomited. She did not know that influenza is a respiratory illness.
So-called “stomach flu” is not influenza, but what is more accurately labeled gastroenteritis, inflammation of the digestive system—food poisoning—usually caused by food contaminated with a virus or bacteria—pickers who do not have access to proper restrooms, packers who do not properly wash their hands, preparers who sneeze without a mask, food that is unwashed or improperly stored or handled. Our food is often unclean and many Americans do not know how to manage food properly, or do know and fail to do it consistently.
My final offer for lower credit card interest rates came via a phone call just the other day. That’s not the last time I will receive it because despite the sincerity of the young woman’s tone and message and her assurance that they have been trying to contact me several times and this is my last chance, she’s lying. (And I really do not care about lowering my credit card interest rates because I have paid off my credit cards each month since my sons graduated from college.) My other credit card sent me a letter lowering our credit line because we’ve failed to use our card. The New Yorker keeps making their final offer—today it was $5 subscriptions—but then they will back in a couple of weeks offering me a tote bag to subscribe. The New York Times too. A few years ago I did not want information about aluminum siding because I have cedar shingle siding. I do not want a lot of things that telemarketers persist in offering—not replacement windows or senior housing or life insurance. Limited time offer. For a few weeks in March and April, we received no sales calls at all, and Gary and I looked at one another and said: Well, there’s something coming from the coronavirus. Continue reading
The most frightening shipping experience I’ve ever had was when I flew from Portland to Sacramento and the airline lost my dog. (Don’t fret, this story ends okay.)
I was delivering Cutter to his new home. He was entered in a dog show the next day, so he was impeccably washed and groomed and a very sweet boy besides. I had his information taped on the top and three sides of his kennel, and a placard wired to the door. (All of this would later be found to have been meticulously removed in transit.) Continue reading
There are the things we are not doing just now, but more interesting are the things we may never do again, the things we might do less often, and what we might do instead. But first, confession.
Yes, it’s true I ordered yarn. The colors at left are close to how they will look when they arrive tomorrow, except the color at the bottom is not gray (as it might appear); it’s a pale smokey violet, one of my favorite colors that I use often in warps of all colors. And the terrible thing is that none of these colors works into either of the warps I am considering next. “Strawberry” wants reds and pinks and a particular soft sage green. “Carnival” wants variegated super-bright primaries plus spectrum green all in the same yarn.
We have not attended a party or traveled more than we absolutely must to get food and mail and for my root canal. We venture out in masks and sanitize before touching anything. We strip down and wash all our clothing when we get home again. We have not seen any family members except online, and not often enough even there. We have, once each, been handed things on the beach—a shell, a scrap of paper—by people we know and who have been self-isolating. We held our breath while that exchange occurred. We washed carefully after. We did not touch our face.
I think we never need to enter Safeway again. When we were in college in Seattle, the local Safeway was a terrible place, Pike Place Market was perfect, but there were no local farmers markets as there are in Seattle now. Safeway was always being sued for unfair and illegal employment practices, losing those suits, and then going right on doing underpaying women employees or violating other laws. Gary went to the local Safeway the other day for the first time in over two months. As a former grocer he was genuinely distressed by both the running of the store and the carelessness of customers. Costco and Natural Foods and even Freddie’s have offered better shopping experiences. I miss the Portland Farmers Market very much, and we might go again someday. Someday soon, I hope. A day trip the way we used to two times a month to buy vegetables. The Market is set up with fewer, spaced-out stalls and with limits on the number of shoppers allowed in order to maintain distancing.
We do not need paper napkins ever again, and we’ve been using the same roll of paper towels for three months. It is only half gone and I think should last us through the summer. Gary uses a paper towel to wipe out my cast iron pans. I use a piece of a paper towel to wipe up egg white from cracking eggs on the counter. The sponges and cloths and napkins go into the washing machine.
Gary has not bought a lottery ticket since January, but he probably will again when it’s safe to touch a keypad. We rarely ate out—not at all now—but probably even more rarely in future. Hotels? Will we visit the Kennedy School and The Sylvia Beach Hotel? Drive to Victoria to stay at Elaine’s? Perhaps we will. Movies in theaters on the other hand? Good riddance. I have always thought that films people insist “must be seen on a big screen” must also be weak if that is the only way they are impressive. I can sit closer to the my TV in a dark room, turn the sound up too loud, and mimic the movie theater experience without people talking behind me or a man coughing on my neck. Live theater on the other hand will revive, at least I hope so. There is a critical connection between performers and audience, an experience impossible to replicate at home.
“A huge majority of respondents in The Post’s early May poll — 82 percent — said they opposed the reopening of movie theaters more than any other category of business (with gyms not far behind). Another mid-May survey found that even if the cost was the same, only 13 percent of respondents would prefer to watch a first-run movie in a theater as opposed to their living rooms.”—The Washington Post
We obviously have internet, though no cable or other regular television. That decision was made last summer. We paid to stream a movie the other day, the first time we’d done that. Though we watched at midday and the room with our television is bright with windows and two skylights, the experience was good. We will likely do that again. We also have Netflix and Acorn and BritBox at the moment, which collectively cost considerably less than our old cable bill. Amazon is a concern. We have Prime, but are trying to use only the videos and MarketPlace for Gary’s used CD orders. Eventually, despite a future without Mrs. Maisel, we will cut Prime. Putting entertainment where our voice says?
Going forward, I have been running. Saturday I managed eight minutes in two minute intervals. This morning I will pull out new shoes and try for ten minutes [I managed eleven and am now running every other day with very gradual increases in time]. I have running tights and my Ghost 12 shoes and will fake the rest. Though I kept gear, I discovered that I have no sport bras, not a single one saved. So I went online to Title Nine the other day and ordered a bra. It will be June before I have it. In the past, I always felt I had to earn the right to purchase gear, and I did myself harm by not starting out with the right shoes, bras, and running tights. Not this time. I will do better.
Today is Memorial Day, the day we are supposed to honor those who fought (and died) for the safety of our nation. Among my immediate relatives are my father who fought in the Army as far as Germany, and my aunt who was a Marine in San Francisco. My mother-in-law and father-in-law also served during WW2.
For all the flag-waving and whining about “freedom” I think the people protesting the lockdown mean for others to die for them, while they refuse to rise to this challenge. I know some people who are barely inconvenienced at all while others work in hospitals and grocery stores and delivery, dangerous occupations. I know people working from home and families with no income at all. I know people who ignore the rules about travel and distancing and also those with preexisting conditions that make them particularly vulnerable and cautious.
One hundred years ago communities struggled to cope with a disease that had no vaccine or reliable treatment. The communities and entire cities that practiced rigorous social distancing, isolated the sick, and those that took these unpopular precautions longest, faired best. Fewer people died and local economies bounced back faster where the isolation lasted longest. We have, in fact, a great deal of evidence to support a conservative approach to reopening. It isn’t merely computers modeling what the future is likely to bring, it is the lived experiences of great and great great grandparents.
Human beings have always existed in groups. We are not solo individuals but communal. We agree to rules in order to better support one another. One of our rules should be that we do what is best for everyone over just what is good for ourself, that the old and sick and frail should not suffer due to the heedlessness of the young and strong and selfish among us.
We should follow the rules established for everyone, even when we think we know better because most often we do not know any better.
I was afraid to take a photo of the entire halo for fear of damaging my camera. But that half circle at the top of the image? That was a circle around the sun. “RIngs around the sun are caused by cirrus clouds — high altitude clouds that form above 30,000 feet. Cirrus clouds form when water droplets condense around tiny mineral particles in the air, then freeze. The clouds appear to form a ring around the sun — or the moon — when light reflects off the ice crystals and refracts by passing through them.”
Memorial Day weekend and the sky is dangerously clearing. We might have wished that rain we woke to at dawn had gone right on. Our state is opening up next Tuesday, and the official word is: please stay home this weekend. That means that all the most aware and considerate people will stay home, but the self-important so-and-sos will be here. The whimbrels are already taking precautions. I’ve been working hard on stories cutting and fiddling, trying to catch every single error before sharing. Since I had a bowl of ice cream yesterday, I regained a pound.
But I have begun running.
When I first began running on April Fools Day of 1995, I was fully prepared to fail. Gary and I had always walked, but I am short and short-legged—nothing resembling a runner’s body. I had tried running once before in the 1970s, wearing totaling inappropriate shoes and overalls. It did not go well.
The head coach of the cross country team used to insist that cross country required no special equipment. He meant no protective gear or balls or bats, nets or courts. But running does require larger shoes, good socks, non-chaffing clothing, and for nearly all women a proper sport bra. [Fair warning—the rest of this post is mostly about running, literal running.] Continue reading
The Atlantic‘s advice for the class of 2020
This year’s college graduates are having a very different graduation season than they probably imagined. At The Atlantic, we’ve been trying to help the class of 2020 retain at least one ritual: the commencement speech.
Here are a few words of wisdom for the graduate in your life:
That whole career-track thing you’ve been worrying about? Fundamentally interrupted. Don’t see this as a void; see it as a permission slip.
— David Brooks, Atlantic contributing writer and New York Times columnist Continue reading
