Surge Summary: A range of thoughts inspired by the coronavirus and subsequent lockdown. And a hopeful world about the resilience of the American people.
by Nathan Clark
The advent of the global pandemic of Covid-19 has brought changes to life on so many levels, both here and abroad. Four months ago we were all riding the wave of a superhot stock market and economy, recovering from an incendiary presidential impeachment, and watching with detached amusement as the Democratic presidential field self-winnowed and slunk off behind the barn like a dying cow.
Then the virus hit, with vengeance. American life as we knew it became entangled in the coils of pandemic constriction, and like a giant Anaconda, it slowly and relentlessly squeezed the life out of most aspects of our Land-of-the Free existence. No more traveling, no more family and friends visiting, no eating out, no sports, no school, no entertainment industry, no human contact, our faces obscured so others can no longer recognize our expressions of fear, loneliness and frustration. Faith-based activity was relegated to tiny illuminated screens, 40 million meaningful jobs vanished, and with it all sense of normalcy.
Perhaps the worst part of this viral plague is the endless uncertainty. We suffer through daily briefings by people who supposedly know more than we do about such things. But the amount of contradictions and reversals, exacerbated by a President with the attention span of a gnat and a bee in his bonnet to always be the center of the known universe (you ain’t, Don) is driving us buggy. If those three insect references in one sentence don’t indicate to you the level to which the virus has affected my contemplation, you have termites inside your cranium.
Here are a few random observations on the consequences of Covid from my perch on the perimeter of sanity:
– Those of you who feel compelled to express your Covid frustration by driving your vehicles with more highly-agitated, aggressive recklessness than usual, please tie a red ribbon signifying ‘death wish’ around your radio antenna, so I can avoid you as you self-eliminate on our roadways. I never dreamed that roads much-less congested due to Covid would be increasingly perilous. Will these highway fatalities be counted as ‘Covid deaths’, I wonder?
– I am boycotting any business establishment that sells refreshments and prominently posts a ‘No Public Restrooms’ sign on the door when they have a perfectly functional Public Restroom which is locked, because apparently Covid is in there growing on the tiles. I drive 1,000 miles a week for my job, and will NOT give you my business while you deny letting me DO my business. There is no easier place to disinfect than a public bathroom, with all its hard, impervious surfaces.
– The same goes for the entire state of Massachusetts, where my job takes me frequently. They have shuttered all their rest areas, all public toilets in the businesses and buildings that are ‘allowed’ to be open, and every place else you can imagine. As if everyone’s bladder suddenly vanished with the advent of Covid. I will make EXTRA effort to relieve myself in every creative location I can in Massachusetts, as a form of non-violent protest. Apparently, their nitwit governor thinks he can regulate everyone’s bodily functions by executive order. What a piddling notion.
– To all of the toilet paper hoarders who CREATED shortages by acting like the Buttocks Apocalypse was about to ensue like some Mad Max movie, I hope that when you finally put it all up for sale on Ebay to recoup your money, the market is glutted with product and you wind up stuck with it forever…On your shoe, so we know who you are…
– To all the restaurants, eateries and small businesses who have been crushed by this imposed embargo, I promise to frequent you every chance I get, in hopes of staving off closure. You did nothing to deserve this, and the sooner cashflow returns, the better. You are a crucial and treasured part of our community, and we ARE all in this together.
– That said, to all those authoritarian ‘leaders’ in government who decide when and where people can resume life and commerce, and have shown a penchant for keeping the clamps on extra-long while the economy tanks and multi-generational businesses go extinct, I hope you are stripped of your power and shown the door for dereliction of duty. As virulent and nasty as this ailment is, the idea of sacrificing the national economy and generations of hard work by dedicated entrepreneurs in order to achieve zero deaths is a horrendous tradeoff. In 1968, 100,000 Americans succumbed to avian flu in a pandemic that claimed 1 million victims globally. No shutdowns occurred, and we survived and thrived. There IS history with this type of problem, and how to manage it. If it was really your job to ‘save’ us from all activity that can result in death, then why are cigarettes legal?
– Can hospitals please get back to being hospitals, and treating non-Covid problems? I have a 70-something neighbor with appendicitis, who was told to go home and wait 3-4 weeks for surgery, due to Covid priority. The delay of a few days when I had appendicitis as an adolescent nearly cost me my life when it burst and filled my abdomen with sepsis. There are countless others like my neighbor, waiting indefinitely for medical treatments while Covid priority is leaving entire hospital wings with unused rooms and essential medical services and staff idle unnecessarily.
We have all been devastated by this plague in one way or many. We are an incredibly resilient, resourceful and creative nation when it comes to problem solving, and we will overcome this challenge like we have all others before. Let’s please keep it in proper perspective, give it no more nor less gravity than it warrants, and do everything we can to extend grace, understanding and assistance to those around us. There is no collection of people I would rather face a crisis with than my fellow Americans.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
Image: Image: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/; https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=288550&picture=restroom-closed
Surge Summary: A range of thoughts inspired by the coronavirus and subsequent lockdown. And a hopeful world about the resilience of the American people.
by Nathan Clark
The advent of the global pandemic of Covid-19 has brought changes to life on so many levels, both here and abroad. Four months ago we were all riding the wave of a superhot stock market and economy, recovering from an incendiary presidential impeachment, and watching with detached amusement as the Democratic presidential field self-winnowed and slunk off behind the barn like a dying cow.Then the virus hit, with vengeance. American life as we knew it became entangled in the coils of pandemic constriction, and like a giant Anaconda, it slowly and relentlessly squeezed the life out of most aspects of our Land-of-the Free existence. No more traveling, no more family and friends visiting, no eating out, no sports, no school, no entertainment industry, no human contact, our faces obscured so others can no longer recognize our expressions of fear, loneliness and frustration. Faith-based activity was relegated to tiny illuminated screens, 40 million meaningful jobs vanished, and with it all sense of normalcy.
Perhaps the worst part of this viral plague is the endless uncertainty. We suffer through daily briefings by people who supposedly know more than we do about such things. But the amount of contradictions and reversals, exacerbated by a President with the attention span of a gnat and a bee in his bonnet to always be the center of the known universe (you ain’t, Don) is driving us buggy. If those three insect references in one sentence don’t indicate to you the level to which the virus has affected my contemplation, you have termites inside your cranium.
Here are a few random observations on the consequences of Covid from my perch on the perimeter of sanity:
– Those of you who feel compelled to express your Covid frustration by driving your vehicles with more highly-agitated, aggressive recklessness than usual, please tie a red ribbon signifying ‘death wish’ around your radio antenna, so I can avoid you as you self-eliminate on our roadways. I never dreamed that roads much-less congested due to Covid would be increasingly perilous. Will these highway fatalities be counted as ‘Covid deaths’, I wonder?
– The same goes for the entire state of Massachusetts, where my job takes me frequently. They have shuttered all their rest areas, all public toilets in the businesses and buildings that are ‘allowed’ to be open, and every place else you can imagine. As if everyone’s bladder suddenly vanished with the advent of Covid. I will make EXTRA effort to relieve myself in every creative location I can in Massachusetts, as a form of non-violent protest. Apparently, their nitwit governor thinks he can regulate everyone’s bodily functions by executive order. What a piddling notion.
– To all of the toilet paper hoarders who CREATED shortages by acting like the Buttocks Apocalypse was about to ensue like some Mad Max movie, I hope that when you finally put it all up for sale on Ebay to recoup your money, the market is glutted with product and you wind up stuck with it forever…On your shoe, so we know who you are…
– To all the restaurants, eateries and small businesses who have been crushed by this imposed embargo, I promise to frequent you every chance I get, in hopes of staving off closure. You did nothing to deserve this, and the sooner cashflow returns, the better. You are a crucial and treasured part of our community, and we ARE all in this together.
– That said, to all those authoritarian ‘leaders’ in government who decide when and where people can resume life and commerce, and have shown a penchant for keeping the clamps on extra-long while the economy tanks and multi-generational businesses go extinct, I hope you are stripped of your power and shown the door for dereliction of duty. As virulent and nasty as this ailment is, the idea of sacrificing the national economy and generations of hard work by dedicated entrepreneurs in order to achieve zero deaths is a horrendous tradeoff. In 1968, 100,000 Americans succumbed to avian flu in a pandemic that claimed 1 million victims globally. No shutdowns occurred, and we survived and thrived. There IS history with this type of problem, and how to manage it. If it was really your job to ‘save’ us from all activity that can result in death, then why are cigarettes legal?
We have all been devastated by this plague in one way or many. We are an incredibly resilient, resourceful and creative nation when it comes to problem solving, and we will overcome this challenge like we have all others before. Let’s please keep it in proper perspective, give it no more nor less gravity than it warrants, and do everything we can to extend grace, understanding and assistance to those around us. There is no collection of people I would rather face a crisis with than my fellow Americans.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
Image: Image: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/; https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=288550&picture=restroom-closed
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