Any Functioning Adult – 2020
We got out yesterday, for a walk with a purpose. Anne had produce four of her DIY face masks. She packaged them with some of the newly rediscovered professional masks, dredged up from the depths of our dungeon. We trooped up to the post office, to mail her package. While, I waited outside, Anne ventured into its confines, all the while trying to maintain a safe social distance. Inside, she met an NYC medical school student, now home for the duration. He said that the school had just last night graduated its senior class, throwing those students into this developing firestorm. I hope that her meeting doesn’t come back to bite us?!? The poor postal worker was wearing a face mask and gloves, all the while complaining about her heart condition. Immediately afterwards, I doused Anne with hand sanitizer.
It was such a beautiful day that we decided to extend our walk. A neighbor and former colleague hailed us as he drove by, as he was coming home from work. He turned his truck around so that we could talk. I lamented to him about all of our travel plans that are now kaput, while he filled me in on the goings on at Boeing. Any employee who can work from home is now doing so. The classified nature of his work makes his working from home impossible.
Consequently, he has been dubbed an “essential” employee. A designation, which still allows him to work. There has been some illness about, but so far only in other buildings. There is a lot more tele-conferencing going on and meetings are now limited to ten people. He expects that this will all change, once the first case arrives in his area.
The mail had arrived, by the time that we had returned home. Among the junk, there were two items of note: Yet another glossy cruise catalog (Really?) and a postcard entitled, “President Trump’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America.” This was in all caps and in the largest font printed on the card. It was actually from the CDC, but that fact was relegated to the card’s lower right corner. The message on its back was a laundry list of personal health actions that have been oft repeated throughout this epidemic (You should know them all by now.) and have been contravened by many of Trump’s own public statements.
In this vein, news has come to me that Trump’s reelection committee has issued a cease and desist order, directed at a Democratic PAC’s advertisement (See below). In this ad Trump in his own words voices over a graph that shows the number of Coronavirus cases in America versus time. Including statements like, “This is their new hoax”, “We have it totally under control”, “It’s one person coming in from China”, “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear” and “When you have 15 people and within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” It ends with his statement, “No, I don’t take responsibility at all.”
The US will in two days¹ have more COVID-19 cases than either China or Italy.
- Today—Is this what Trump always meant by “America First?”