The Tokyo Olympic Games have provided a pastime for many of us recently. We’ve watched with feelings of awe and pride as our nation’s athletes have competed for gold and glory. The hype surrounding this quadrennial event makes it understandable if some of you have become distracted from alternate international competitions. This little piece should help bring you up to speed
There’s more to international competition than the Olympics
Dan Rather, former news anchor and author, Tweeted recently that Canada has surpassed Israel as the country with the highest vaccination rates among its eligible population. This achievement is worthy of note. It reveals the care that Canadians obviously feel for one another. All the empathetic Canadians deserve their own gold medals. They have valued social responsibility on par with individual liberty. Israel is running a close second, with its citizens poised to take silver. That competition is not yet concluded.
Canada’s national accomplishment is at least on par with America’s most recent one. Namely, providing a home country to billionaire private citizens rich enough to slingshot themselves into space for a few minutes riding personal rocket ships—funded at least partly by avoiding taxes.
What’s a gold medal, a healthier population, combatting starvation, or providing housing security to fellow humans compared to custom-made Astronaut wings, I ask ya?
As a result of it’s love affair with monopolists, America is poised for continued success in the billionaire rocket ride competition. Could a dynasty be in the offing? Who cares that we have never performed that well in luge? What’s a sled compare to a hulking rocket? And rockets can be outfitted for paying customers, too—unlike a bobsled.
Consequently, America’s billionaire class are undoubtedly hard at work spending money to build or do other things no one has ever thought to do. A dubious achievement that used to meet with little fanfare and perhaps even a stint in either a corrections or mental health facility. Who says America isn’t Progressive?
Where America really shines
No country is close to surpassing the United States in this epic struggle for national prestige.
“America, home of the highest number of self-proclaimed Astronauts!”
(At least we can be #1 in something. It sure won’t be caring for our fellow man.)
One can, however, argue Canada’s achievement wins on points for total beneficial impact. I could be wrong.
Some Americans may feel better from watching the most outrageous display of “I got mine” in the history of humankind. I can’t speak for everyone. If you’re one of them, comment below. Let us all know how your life has improved.
A proposed new individual event
I’d like to propose a new event. One that allows betting. I would pit anyone with the social intelligence of the typical junior-high student against our illustrious newest Astronauts — Commanders Branson and Bezos — in one competition (and wager everything I own on the student).
The competition I have in mind? It will be called: Reading The Room.
These first two Tone Deaf Billionaire Bs would not be the only eligible competitors. Anyone who purchases their Astronaut wings (albeit from a very, very expensive box of Cracker Jacks) would automatically qualify for the competition.
Some of us feel apologetic
We do owe a national apology to all the other Astronauts in America’s history. In fact, for what it’s worth, I’d like to extend that apology to all genuine Astronauts, everywhere.They became so after an arduous and rigorous process requiring more than the highly refined skill of vacuuming up other people’s money the way a black hole vacuums up light.
Though I will concede that skill does deserve its own title.
A medals podium? How about a village stocks instead?
That these astronauts weren’t immediately arrested upon landing, placed in stocks at the town center and pelted with rotted cabbages and tomatoes for days—says as much about modern, tolerant, demure, money-whipped America as anyone needs to know.
Come to think of it, that could lead to a whole new event? Hmmm… this has possibilities.
I hope this quick scan of alternate international competitions has increased your familiarity with these unique pathways to national prestige, inspiring you to the appreciation of truly important greatness when you see it.
In June my girlfriend and I took a much needed vacation to New Smyrna Beach, FL. It was our first vacation and first real, prolonged exposure to strangers and crowds in public since the onset of Covid-19 in February 2020.
We had a fantastic week except for one unfortunate episode. It is metaphorical to the Covid response exhibited by some people who act as if their personal liberties are license to infringe on the liberties or lives of others.
Vacation Days
Our days in FL comprised waking early, just after sunrise, to grab coffee and a quick breakfast in the hotel.
We then walked to the beach less than a half mile from our room, where we spent the first cooler hours of the morning lying in the sun with our feet in surf.
After spending a couple of hours in the sun, we walked to a small, friendly open-air bar/restaurant right on the beach. Frequented by locals, the place has the easy-going charm and unpretentious real-world vibe we both love. A regular beach dive.
Wooden picnic tables spread around a sand floor covered by pavilion type tents make up the outdoor “dining room”. On some mornings we happily occupied bar stools at the well-worn bar, enjoying the best Painkillers in town along with our BLTs and French toast.
On our third morning, we got there a bit late, and the bar stools were all taken. No worries. We meandered to a picnic table along one edge, propped up our beach chairs and prepared to enjoy a cold drink, a delicious breakfast, and beautiful scenery made comfortable by an offshore breeze.
Freedom, a Bulldog, and a Cigarette
Four people sat at the table beside us on this morning, along with an English bulldog, like the UGA mascot. It nosed around the ankles of the people seated at the adjacent table, its obnoxiously loud owner oblivious to it. The dog kept nuzzling and licking their legs while the uncomfortable diners tried to push his ugly head away.
The dog’s owner was a loud-mouthed lady with maroon hair, a leathery, scowling face, and sinewy, sun-baked limbs peaking from her cut-off denim shorts and her Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt. She ignored her annoying dog while loudly pontificating about the weather, the town, her love life, and her impatience with the service.
My girlfriend and I rolled our eyes at one another, focused on the good, and put her, the dog, and her noisy play-by-play out of our heads.
After waiting a few minutes, our drinks and food arrived. We shared a quick “Grace” over the meal, sipped at our drinks, and began to salt and pepper our eggs and grits.
What’s Burning?
It was then that we smelled the smoke.
The dog-owner had lit up, and the breeze was wafting the second-hand smoke directly into our faces, our food, and beyond. It incensed me.
My impulse was to jerk the cigarette from between her fingers and put it out on the table in front of her and her friends. But I restrained myself.
Still, I was livid. My girlfriend was equally distressed. She suffers from migraines and we are careful to avoid her most egregious triggers. Cigarette smoke being one of the worst.
I spoke a little too loudly, “Can you fucking believe the nerve of some people?”
“Greg!” my girlfriend shot back at me, careful to avoid an eruption or confrontation.
I demurred, swiveling my head to scan for our server. Catching his eye, I motioned him over and asked about the smoking policy. He said in Florida they allow smoking outdoors at restaurants.
“Even when outdoors is the dining area?” I asked. He sympathized but said he really could do nothing.
I was trying to be just loud enough to catch the inconsiderate smoker’s attention. No dice. She held her cigarette at arm’s length. Directly towards our table!
“Can we move?” I asked the server, motioning with my head to a table further away but in the sun with less shade from the covering tent.
“Of course you can move,” he said.
My girlfriend and I got up, moved our gear, moved our plates, and finally retrieved our drinks.
The thoughtless smokestack never even looked up. She just kept up her steady banter of noisy banality, self-content in her own boorish world.
Once away from her, we were fine. We proceeded to enjoy our breakfast. I didn’t assault anyone and avoided jail in Florida.
Did the woman have the right, the liberty, to smoke?
I concede that, of course, she did. It was both her personal and legal right. The same right she had to bring her dog to this restaurant, which permitted both smoking and dogs.
I’m a libertarian at heart. Hell, she could have shot up pure cocaine and heroin speedballs in the privacy of her own sad little bulldog world. That’s her business.
But when she used her liberty to encroach on mine, she crossed a line. An invisible one, no less real for being so. She could have been considerate to me, my girlfriend and the other patrons and moved to an area where the breeze would blow her secondhand smoke away from, rather than onto us. We had the right to enjoy our breakfast free from her secondhand smoke.
The Covid Situation Is Exactly The Same
Substitute Covid for smoke, and the woman’s secondhand smoke is a great visual of an airborne pathogen. The smoke, its density and intensity representative of a “viral load”.
Are you free to not wear a mask? Of course.
Are you free not to wear one around me when you’ve also rejected a vaccine? Hell no!
Where Liberty Ends and Responsibility Begins
Liberty exists right up to the point when the only possible negative effect or consequence of your actions affects you and you alone. As soon as your “free action” affects someone else, or has the potential to affect them negatively, liberty shifts gears into responsibility. That seems to be an easy and a reasonable test to conduct to determine the limits of your personal liberty as a member of society. Your lame-ass claim of freedom ends at the extent of the consequences your actions can cause to yourself alone.
You aren’t free to drive drunk, or point a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger, or let your GD cigarette smoke pour across my face and food… or infect me with the Covid you’re carrying (possibly without even knowing it.). Because those actions have potential consequences for others.
Who does that?
Who thinks they have the right to do these things?
This story serves as a metaphor if only because the cigarette smoke, like Covid-19, is an airborne pathogen. The Delta variant is more contagious than any known version so far. If you have it, there’s a high likelihood you’re spreading it.
Would you want that done to you?
Or are you one of these idiots who thinks it’s “fearful” to avoid a sickness which is completely, totally, well,… 99% avoidable; if you’ll give up your pathetic, ignorant selfishness and think for one minute about someone besides yourself.
And if you ever smoke next to me, exercising your freedom, then I’m certain you’ll have no problem with however I choose to exercise my freedom to put out your cigarette, right?
# 26 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Tequila can be sipped, savored, and enjoyed like a fine scotch or bourbon if you get an Añejo. Save the blancos and reposados for mixing.
When I was coming of legal drinking age, tequila meant shots, usually with a salt and a wedge of lime. Bartenders refer to these accompaniments to a tequila shot as “training wheels” or simply, “wheels”. The drinker carefully wets the back of the web between thumb and forefinger with the lime, sprinkles on salt, which sticks to the lime juice moistened skin, sucks the salt off, quickly slams the tequila down in a squint-eyed, unpleasant gulp, trying hard not to taste it, then bites hard on the lime to ease the burn. What you taste is salt, fire, and lime.
This ritual, called tequila cruda in Spanish, is what many picture when they think of “drinking” tequila. But you can sip, savor, and enjoy Tequila without all that fuss if you know a thing or two. Aficionados and connoisseurs enjoy fine tequilas this way, not only in Mexico, but the world over. High end tequilas are a cultured luxury equal to the best whiskeys.
The least filtered, least aged are the Blancos and Jovens. Usually clear, these may have added colorants or sweeteners to give them a gold tone. These are good for mixing… only. True tequila comes from the heart of the blue agave plant. Only spirits distilled at a minimum of 51% blue agave qualify. Look for this when buying a bottle or ordering a drink.
Reposados age longer, are usually golden, the color derived from the barrels used in aging, and make fine tequila in mixed drinks.
Añejo (pronounced “On-Yay-Ho”), and Extra Añejos are the highest graded, longest aged tequilas. These spirits have distinct flavor profiles and complexity. Sip, savor, and enjoy these like a fine bourbon or scotch. They are complex, flavorful spirits to be imbibed neat or with a cube or two of ice. Like other well-known liquors, especially scotch, both altitude and soil composition affect the characteristics and flavor of the Añejos. Anyone who has tasted the difference between a crisp Highland and a smokey, peaty Islay scotch whiskey will appreciate the differences between fine, aged Añejos. No wheels required, nor desired. Enjoy!
# 25 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Never pay for top shelf liquor in a mixed drink. You’re only going to taste the mix, anyway. Use house (well) liquor for any mixed drink.
Every bar or restaurant that serves mixed drinks will advertise cocktails that feature high-end, top-shelf liquors. But those high-end, higher priced liquors are wasted in a mixed drink, along with the premium you pay for them, because most of us cannot taste anything but mix and perhaps some “bite” or “burn” from the alcohol. You cannot taste the quality of the liquor so never pay for top shelf liquor in a mixed drink. You’re just wasting money, showing off, or showing off by wasting money.
You should learn how to make your favorite drink at home. Make it with the cheapest liquor you can buy at your local package store. Learn the recipe, the ingredients, and the ratios. As you drink it, notice what you’re really tasting. It will be the mix.
Even in classics, the mix will overwhelm the finest liquor
Some classic cocktails, martinis, and high-balls comprise one liquor, usually 1 to 1.5 ounces in the pour, and one mixer. Think gin and tonic, classic vodka or gin martini, whiskey sour, etc. Even when ordering these drinks, resist the temptation to go top shelf. The ratios are not 1:1in a bar. The mixer will overwhelm and drown the alcohol.
Instead, show your sophistication by ordering “well” or “house” liquor in your mixed drinks. Never pay for top-shelf liquor in a mixed drink. If you want top shelf liquor, learn to drink it neat or with a rock or two. Some scotch whiskey aficionados will add a drop or two of water. Literally. They can taste the difference in flavor profile from that minuscule amount. I don’t have that kind of palate. You probably don’t either.
So, if these connoisseurs of high-end, top shelf single malts can tell if a drop or two of water is added, what do you think happens to that top shelf liquor when you add a couple of ounces of freshly squeezed lime juice or simple syrup to the glass? Do you think the character of the liquor changes? Its complexity, taste (including where on your tongue you notice the taste), and finish are all compromised. Be smart and keep that money in your pocket for slow sipping and savoring of the finer liquors—neat. Never pay for top-shelf liquor in a mixed drink.
# 7 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: If you’re a guy, hold doors open for women. For that matter, if you arrive at door first, hold doors open for anyone. This way, if you meet the rare woman offended by your offering, you can explain, ”Hey, I hold doors open for anyone when I get to the door first.”
This is, or at least used to be, self-explanatory. I’m not talking about sexist chivalry, here. This is just good manners. This is what gentlemen do. Gentlemen hold doors for women.
I would stop holding a door for a woman who asked me not to, out of respect for her wishes, but it would feel odd to me.
For that matter, hold doors for everyone
In daily practice, I hold doors for anyone and everyone if I get to the door first. Sometimes this turns me into the doorman for a few minutes. Those few seconds lost have never cost me anything of importance. Usually, I get a small sip of feeling good about myself for performing a small act of considerate kindness. I don’t view this as a grand gesture. It is not a statement about the comparative strengths of the sexes. Gimme a break.
Gentlemen hold doors for women and others just to be good people. There are plenty of good people in the world, but not enough of us consistently act like it. This is one hell of an easy way to act like it.
Feels weird to make a blog post about something so self-evident. Almost as strange as writing one about wearing a mask during a pandemic, or getting vaccinated to stop its spread.
But times are different now. Politeness and consideration are at a premium. Human decency is rare as gold bullion. Being nice without a selfie stick or camera crew is apparently passé. Set yourself apart. Go old school. Hold a door.
# 85 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Know why you like what you like. Learn to identify the feeling of liking something before you have the words to tell yourself you like it. That resonance, that connection, that is your home.
This one has been staring at me for a couple of days. I know what I mean by the tip I offered months ago when I created my list and posted it, but this one captures so much.
What you like defines you
Why do you like that? Why don’t you like this? Can your likes change—become weaker (?), or stronger? If they can change, did the thing formerly liked change? Or did the former “Like-er” change? Important stuff.
We all start in infancy as blank slates. Yes, I know, the argument of nature vs. nurture. Sure, sure. Still… I have no Grateful Dead genes that make me resonate to that frequency, nor any Russian genes I’m aware of that make the slow, deliberated, painstakingly detailed accounts of Dostoevsky so appealing and full of life and truth to me.
So, as for the accumulation of culture—which is really a fancy word for group or social liking of a thing—I’m on the nurture side of that debate. We like what we like because we get exposed to it by someone who convinces us that people like us like stuff like this. There’s a kind of peer pressure to like most of the things we choose.
[That, and the size of the menu in proportion to the size of our appetites, and whether we find good entrements (palate cleansers) between samplings.]
There are also degrees of liking a thing. You may wear the tee-shirt, but not kill bats on stage and drink their blood. (You can look up the old Ozzy Osbourne legend somewhere… Google it.)
So, Greg, you’re 300 words in and haven’t told me a damn thing about why I like some stuff and not other stuff.
True, dear reader, we are halfway down a proper electronic page and I cannot tell you what to like. I can, however, urge this—Don’t let anyone else tell you either!
We all got our first likes because someone pushed sweet mashed pears into our baby mouths before they spooned in disgusting pureed lima beans. Someone played Mozart, or Miles Davis or Metallica before Beethoven, Benny Goodman, or Bad Company.
We first gain likes and tastes from the people around us who expose us to them and usually because they like them too. (Maybe not with babyhood pears, but you catch my drift).
Here’s the rub
At some point, earlier or later, I don’t know, you will want to pay attention to whether or not you’d like Led Zeppelin at all if that delectable girl in the yellow overalls didn’t look so good wearing that logo emblazoned across her beautiful… t-shirt (what did you think I was going to type?)
My mom was a member of the Columbia Records club. This was back when dinosaurs roamed North America and people still had turntables on which to extract sound from round plastic platters. She got several albums a month, and she used to sit dreamily and play one album called Go To Heaven by a band of long-haired men, standing in a cloud on the cover, wearing cheesy looking, white, polyester-velveteen Lawrence Welk suits.
Alabama Getaway and Don’t Ease Me In off that record sounded like countrified crapola to my 13-year-old ears. Hearing it made me gag and flee the premises, long before I got to hear Lost Sailor and Saint of Circumstance.
I couldn’t stand it! Yuck! 13-year-olds ought not be judged too harshly for underdeveloped anything. Puberty makes for a cloudy filter.
But I did like her Fleetwood Mac, and Rickie Lee Jones, and Little Feat albums. I even liked Jimmy Buffett, and I wanted to like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young because they had the coolest album cover. (You know the antique looking, sepia-toned album where they’re posed with a dog, and Crosby cradles a shotgun, and Neil is draped with bandoleers and a pistol, and a guitar is lying on the ground — Deja Vu—and it looks like Matthew Brady took the photograph right after the battle of Antietam or something).
God, I loved the look of that album cover because I was crazy for all kinds of Civil War stuff. That picture was so cool! Who cared about hippies floating in white John Travolta suits in a cloud!?
But the music, Jeez! My misanthropic mom would get drunk, put on Teach Your Children and slur, “Hunnneee, jusss lishen to theesh wordzz. Thish iss evertheeen I wanna shay to you kidzz.”
OMG!! Please No! — Likes can change
I hated C,S,N,Y then. Association, ya know?
Though, I LOVE their music now. Different association… ya know?
The same reason I now love all things Grateful Dead. I had to grow into it. Then it grew into me.
So, sometimes early exposure doesn’t take root. Germination takes longer. Circumstances change, and then, bam! You hear something, or see something, or taste it, and it’s like tasting and seeing and hearing home. Like gathering up fragments of self that complete you. I know, weird.
But, they say there’s no accounting for taste. And truly there isn’t. If you will put on your Indiana Jones hat and do some personal archeology to dig up the reasons you’ve buried and kept your own personal treasures, you’ll learn a hella lot about yourself.
Fact is, your likes and loves will tell you more about yourself than your dislikes.
Shove over, I’ve invited God in
Probably shouldn’t drag God into a story already crowded with Jimmy Buffett, my drunk mom, Rickie Lee Jones, and bandoleers, butI see [Him]asdefined (bad word, I don’t think [He] can be defined adequately, else the whole God idea shrinks, but it’s the best word we’ve got)by what [He] likes, immeasurably more than by what [He] dislikes. Just like you and me are defined more by what we like and allow in than by what we hate and keep out.
It’s the opposite of the way evangelical Christians think of God and themselves. These define themselves by what they oppose, what they’re against, what they resist and are afraid of. They never crack openSong of Songs, the most beautiful ode to physical, sexual love ever written (“kisses sweeter than wine”). It just sits there unread and unappreciated in their bibles. They conveniently forget Noah got drunk (after preserving humanity), David committed adultery—and murder (and was still called a man after God’s own heart), Jesus turned water into about a hundred gallons of wine at a wedding, and Peter denied Jesus (but Jesus restored him again over fish tacos on the beach).
They forget God loved everybody, EVERYBODY so much, [He] paid the ultimate price to win us back. I don’t imagine [He’s] trying to keep anyone out on technicalities like who they love. [He’d] prefer to outfit us all in white suits, invite us to stand in a cloud, and Go To Heaven. Or maybe my God is just bigger and more full of Grace and Mercy than yours. I dunno. Or maybe I’m wrong. But I’d rather be wrong believing in God as revealed Love. Maybe you’re unflawed, and you’re loved for your perfection. That doesn’t apply to me. But because God loves flawed me as much as [He] does, my only response is to trust [Him.] That is what faith is all about, after all. The heart’s response to a God showing and proving [His] Love.
If you’re curious about my brackets around masculine pronouns in reference to God, it’s because of my uncertainty of how to think of God and gender. I think of God as Father, the only real Father I’ve ever known. But God is called El Shaddai in the Hebrew scriptures, too, which means “the Breasted One”, or nurse. I love that image—of God being the source of life and growth and sustenance, of comfort, and warmth, and security, the way a nursing mother is to her infant child. You are welcome to your own images. I am convinced in my heart that my brackets aren’t offensive to [Him], or Him. End of disclaimer.
Back to the topic at hand—Here’s an unlimited credit card
Learn to identify what you like, on your own terms. Evaluate your preferences to see if you picked them up as the price of admission to some tribe or other, or thinking they’d be the key to some girl’s heart.
What do you like, the real you? Imagine you have an unlimited credit card. Your preferences and tastes are the only ones you need consult. You start with an empty iPod, empty media shelves, and an unfurnished home—no pictures on the walls, nothing in the pantry, fridge, wine cellar, or liquor cabinet. What’s parked in the driveway? What do you get? What do you like? Not—what does your wife, husband, lover like? No. What do you like?
Go ahead, you have my full permission to fill your life with as many of those things you can. On the way, you’ll answer the question: Why do you like that? It may be this simple. You just do! It resonates. And it scratches the persistent itch, uncovers the empty spot, and fills up the void. Because it caresses your heart; and sings you, rocks you, swaddles you, envelops you, whispers you—home.
It may as simple as the idea enshrined by Mick Jagger—
“I know it’s only Rock n’ Roll, but I like it… yes I do!”
~ Rolling Stones: It’s Only Rock n’ Roll
Mick likes Rock n’ Roll, and that like defines Mick. What defines you? What do you like?
One day, I’ll invite you over to my own imaginary bare-floored, yoga-pillowed pad where we can have church listening for the whisper of God, blasting my collection of studio and live Dead performances on my megawatt stereo system, while we drink Napa Valley wine and Russel’’s Reserve and Grok out on all my Van Gogh and Monet and Mondrian paintings. Or maybe we’ll “ooh and aahhh” over my library of thousands of volumes of curated literature, housing everything from Brené Brown to Zane Grey.
You’ll like it. Or at least I will.
What did you ask? Oh, yeah, that Aerosmith you hear coming from the other room? Oh, that’s just my girlfriend rocking out on the sounds she likes. She calls mine alternately “Grandpa” or “Sleepy” music. If you prefer the Demon of Screamin’ to my sleepy tunes, you are welcome to plug in your headphones. To each his own. I can’t tell you what to like, I can only ask you to tell me, why do you like it?
4 days back to reality, I’ll keep seeking secret gardens of Paradise (Photo of sign outside Third Wave Restarant, New Smyrna Beach, FL by Author)
Day 4 of re-entry remains surreal. After so long, the things my girlfriend and I are able to do again, because we’re fully vaccinated, are without any doubt, fun things to do. We’ve missed them. But we know they weren’t necessities. They’re indulgences. Our life together is built on fundamentals that aren’t extravagances. 4 days of vacation is extravagant. More so after nearly 2 years without one.
Nevertheless, the odd realization is how the normal crowd of people, other patrons, other guests, etc. remains almost invisible. Despite the conventional wisdom that humans are social and we need each other, my response has been the opposite. So for me, if that trope is true, it’s only true in very small, hand-selected doses.
Who I Do See
I’ll tell you who I do see. The hostesses, waitresses, and bartenders. I see the check-in staff. The Latina who brought up fresh towels to our room caught my attention more than a dining room full of people in the restaurant, or a beach full of sun worshippers.
These previously under-appreciated persons who are the engine of our consumer-driven services economy are indispensable and deserve more…attention, appreciation, and pay.
I’ve always been a good tipper. I guess it’s because being a good person to me feels better than being an a** (check that, not good person). But, I’ve become an exorbitant tipper. In light of Covid, and the roles these selfless people played and the price many of them paid, even with their lives, how can any decent human in America re-enter normalcy and do less?
Day 4 of re-entry, and if you’re reading this and your normal gig is service to John Q. Public, like me, I want you to know I see you. I appreciate you. Without you, my enjoyment isn’t as great and my experience of your establishment isn’t either. And if you’re reading and service isn’t your normal gig, come off the hip, Yo!
This may sound really cold after so long under the shadow of Covid protocols, but the truth for me is, I don’t miss the crowds. I don’t miss elbowing around with other people. The crowds don’t increase my sense of sociability or enhancement of “life”.
But the service personnel…they are a different story. You are the ones who make the experience of a great meal out…great, or a fantastic hour of conversation at a bar so enjoyable with your skills hand-crafting cocktails and your wisdom to recommend the perfect drink.
Day 4 of re-entry and I’m seeking re-connections to the madding crowd, but so far, I don’t feel connected. The madding crowd is still just that.
Right & Wrong are sometimes hard to discern. Other times not at all. Once you’ve decided, do not be Switzerland.
# 56 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: If a Hitler-like figure shows up in your life, or in the world, do not be Switzerland.
This tip is on my list because I don’t do neutral well. Being that way has worked for me. This history makes it natural for me to encourage you to shun neutrality, too. Sometimes things are black and white. Sometimes there is truth…and lies. In those times, I believe you should be objective, have a large perspective, but do not be Switzerland.
If, like me, you’ve ever been accused of having ”strong opinions”, it’s because you aren’t afraid to speak them. You may take that accusation as a compliment. I do. I mean, who wants to be known as the guy with ”weak opinions”?
Are you neutral because you are unsure, or because you’re afraid?
But, if taking a stand is something you struggle with, let’s consider your situation. Is your difficulty in thinking through a problem, coming to a conclusion, and choosing a side? Or does the fear come from revealing your position, once chosen?
Do you feel intimidated to speak up? If so, ask yourself if it’s because you are unsure of what is right and wrong in the issue at hand, or because you are unsure of yourself?
I can’t know for sure, but I want to believe Switzerland’s leaders knew right from wrong, but they feared the onslaught if they broke official neutrality. They were unsure of themselves, and whether they could withstand the storm of reprisal.
This is an important distinction. If you are unsure of the issue, due to complexity, or nuance, that can be solved by objectively regarding the evidence on both sides, and by an enlargement of your perspective. You can try to see the issue from every side.
Do this remembering there is room in life for a plurality of views. There is a time to be objective. An impartial, nonpartisan mindset assists in this information gathering stage. I’m glad it’s that way. One of my favorite historians, Will Durant, says that being philosophical boils down to having a “large perspective.” I also like that idea.
Widen your perspective to become a more objective thinker
The wider our perspective, the better thinkers we are about all sorts of problems. The more important the issue, the more we should gather and evaluate evidence for ourselves, pro and con, before reaching conclusions. Propagandized spin won’t do. That’s not evidence.
But as much as we may try to incorporate every point of view, and as objective as we strive to be, in the end we are left with our own perception of right and wrong. The scale will tip in one direction or the other. And forgive me if you feel this is too binary, but some things aren’t gray. Sometimes you are faced with actions or issues that are right or wrong. In those times, neutrality on your part may encourage and reinforce the wrongdoer. And encouragement and reinforcement are the neighbors of aiding and abetting.
Redefine success and increase your confidence
So, if your real uncertainty isn’t over the conclusions you reach, but over yourself, this is precisely the opportunity you need to change that. In this case, re-define success. Success is not changing the other person’s mind. It is speaking yours. Regardless of the response. And this success will beget confidence, which will beget further successes.
These opportunities are precisely the chance to prove to yourself that you are the kind of person with the backbone to stand up for what you see is right, and to resist what you believe is wrong.
Once you’ve been objective, enlarged your perspective, and reached your verdict, do not be Switzerland. Don’t cop out. What you gain in self-respect and self-esteem will more than make up for what you lose by resisting the wrong side.
True Justice is Moral, not merely Legal. It treats everyone’s interests equally. (Adobe Stock image: licensed by author)
# 51 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: Treat people as if their interests are exactly as important as yours. They are. (But they are not more important.)
The Golden Rule has a couple of variations that condense to the same thing. The interests of people are relative and equal. This being the case, morality requires that you treat people as if their interests are exactly as important as yours. Any deviation is the essence of moral failure.
To be moral, moral codes must be based on truth. At a casual glance, when contemplating aphorisms like, ”All men are created equal…”, the discriminating among us (and I use that term in the positive sense of one who has refined tastes and exercises good judgment), may argue about its veracity. By some metrics it doesn’t appear to be true at all.
Yet, in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, this is one of the enumerated ”self-evident” truths. But, the careful observer recognizes the obvious. There is a disparate distribution of talent, physical attributes, mental aptitude, socio-economic standing, and opportunities for improvement and advancement between humans.
When I compare myself to LeBron James, or Stephen Hawking, or Yo Yo Ma, I see some pretty glaring inequalities. And those exist at the physical, mental, and talent levels. What about differences on the socio-economic ladder between myself and the wealthiest ”10%” who own more than the bottom 70% combined?
EgregiousWealth Inequality is a Particular Kind of Immorality
The following graphics show that the top 1% owns 31.4% of US net wealth as of the 4th quarter of 2020. The population from the 90th to 99th percentile owns 38.2%; the 50th to 90th percentile, owns 28.3% of net wealth; and the bottom 50 percent owned only 2% of the nation’s net wealth. Yay Capitalism!
If all men are created equal, and if everyone’s interests are equal, how is this happening? It may be legal, but is it moral? (Image from https://www.statista.com/statistics/299460/distribution-of-wealth-in-the-united-states/ screenshot by author)
And to add insult to injury, the share of wealth going to the top is increasing as depicted by this graphic:
The rich get richer, the poor poorer. Yet everyone’s interests are equal. This is everyone’s moral failure. (Image from https://www.statista.com/statistics/299460/distribution-of-wealth-in-the-united-states/ screenshot by author)
Of course, I could have saved your time and some screen space by just summarizing the current state of Capitalism in the US with this familiar graphic. One wonders where these traditional, mythical images come from?
Ouroboros. When society, especially economically, refuses to treat everyone’s interests as equal, this is what happens. (Adobe Stock Image: licensed by author)
All men are created equal? Really? How so?
Faced with these inequities, whence comes the certitude expressed, that all men are created equal? Or, on what moral basis are we enjoined to love our neighbor as our self? Or, for what reason are we to do unto others as we would want them to do unto us?
It is because the self-interest of every human being is equal. The lowliest peasant or serf in history had interests as important to him or her as those of the gaudiest Lord or Czar. It may have been ”legal” for a Lord to exploit and use the serf, but it was immoral.
Similarly, today, it may be legal for capitalist billionaires and their corporations to pocket for themselves the wealth created by employees they hire and pay as cheaply as possible. It may be legal to exploit and despoil the environment, stripping it of resources faster than they can be replenished. Laws may allow or even encourage taking advantage of local real estate, utilities, and infrastructure, at little or no cost in resultant tax revenues back to the community and state. But such behavior is reprehensibly immoral, nonetheless. Let’s agree to call it what it is.
It is a special gift of the ultra-wealthy to hide their immorality behind law, and do so to almost universal social acclaim. And yet the interests of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos are not more important than the interests of the person just hired at minimum wage to scrub the corporate toilets.
Where is our Moral Courage?
Every dollar pocketed by selfish exploitation is an evidentiary document at the bar of Moral Justice, legal though it may be by custom or culture. We just happen to live at a moment in history when we celebrate the immoral as champions, rather than castigate them as villains.
This is possible because for decades now the West has lost any voice of moral courage.
In his famous speech at Harvard in 1978, Alexander Solzenhitsyn, the famous Soviet dissident, and Nobel Laureate said this:
”I have spent all my life under a Communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale than the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses. And it will be simply impossible to stand through the trials of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure.”
~ Alexander Solzenhitsyn, speech entitled, A World Split Apart Harvard, 1978 (emphasis mine)
Our Interests are Equal – The Moral Act Like It
Self-interest is relative. Mine may not mean much to you. But my interests are certainly important to me. Just as important as yours are to you.
This is the basis of equal treatment and the basis of equal love. My hopes and desires and needs are not more important than yours or anyone else’s. They are important to me for reasons of my own. And yours are the same. They are important to you for reasons sufficient to you.
When we acknowledge this, and treat each other accordingly, we’re operating on the basis of truth. We are affording each other the respect and recognition born of interests that are of equal value.
In any dealings we may have together, I don’t expect you to treat me as if my interests are more important than your own. Don’t expect me to make my interests subservient to yours, either. They are equal. We may choose to negotiate and compromise. There may be give and take, but if either of us elevates and imposes our interests above the interests of the other, we are guilty of that which constitutes the entire essence of moral and ethical failure, regardless of our justifications, of so-called ”legality”, and regardless of our stock portfolio or checking account balance.
And let us hold each other to account. Let us act as if our interests have value. And let us think about these things in our business dealings, in our purchases, in our valuation of the character and actions of others, especially when evaluating the wealthiest, who routinely extract from you every penny of interest they can. Just because something is legal does not mean it is right. Remember this and as far as is in you, treat people as if their interests are exactly as important as yours. Because they are.
So, I’ve had Covid for a week now. I caught it from my girlfriend. We believe we know where she got it but we cannot know for certain. We now have firsthand knowledge of and experience with Covid we did not want. I am sharing some of our experience and some of my thoughts about it for your consideration, and in the hope you can avoid it. I am not a doctor. This story is not any attempt to give medical advice or even offering a medical opinion. Nor am I suggesting that either my own experience, or that of my girlfriend is normative. This is just a personal, anecdotal account of our firsthand experience with Covid.
For over a year, we have followed every protocol. We have always masked up in public. My girlfriend has been masked around her 90 year-old mom this entire time. She has not entered her home for more than 5 minutes, and has not ridden in a car with her. With the exception of an Extreme Experience driving event at Charlotte Motor Speedway on March 28th, we have engaged in no public activities not necessary for life. (The event did an outstanding job of implementing and enforcing mask requirements, distancing provisions, and sanitization between each driving session).
Climbing in to that sweet Ferrari. Notice the masks and sanitizers.
How It Started
My girlfriend started showing symptoms, notably a dry cough, on Saturday, April 3rd. We were driving home from a family gathering to celebrate her mother’s 92nd birthday. The weather was beautiful and mild. We ate a pot-luck picnic lunch outdoors on the back deck of her sister’s home. Of the 18 attendees, we were part of a small group of 5 or 6, not yet vaccinated. 2 of those had already received their first vaccination shots. My girlfriend and I wore masks, even outdoors, out of abundance of precaution. (This turned out to be wise. I can report that everyone present is fine.) When her cough started, accompanied by a pretty severe headache, we chalked it up to having been outdoors, in pollen, in a breeze, in dropping temperatures for more than five hours. It had to be some sort of allergy, right?
But the next day, and especially Sunday night, she knew something wasn’t ”right”. She lay curled on the couch, coughing frequently into her pillow, suffering with a headache she couldn’t quite get to fade even after 24 hours and the normal headache meds. Because of our precautions, we did not consider that it was Covid. After a decent night’s sleep, she went on to work on Monday. She has a separate office where she was able to remain distanced from co-workers.
The test and result
When her cough was persistent and more frequent on Tuesday, April 6th, she went in for a test. The positive result surprised us both. While waiting for results from the test, the doctor who saw her also ordered a chest x-ray. He wanted to rule out bronchitis or pneumonia due to her cough and the difficulty he observed in her breathing. Thankfully, her lungs were clear.
I’m sure we aren’t the only ones to feel surprise and dismay at a positive result during their Covid experience. The fact is, there are many like us, who have followed every protocol. Like us, they never wanted an experience with Covid. The news, and the side effects of social disruption were more than compensatory for the effort to avoid any firsthand experience with Covid infection.
Still, our lives are now impacted by those who did not take the virus seriously, did not take precautions, and who could not be bothered to inconvenience themselves. To some degree, we are all victims of all the far-reaching effects of this pandemic. There’s no sense whining about it. But, when you believe the science, try hard, act consistently, and persevere in the effort to stay healthy and to keep from making others sick, you feel surprised and angry when you get this damn virus anyway. It’s a kick in the guts. A Covid experience was definitely not on my bucket list.
We followed all these measures, and yet…It only takes one infected person not following every measure, all the time to give the virus a transmission point.
When the test confirmed Covid, she left work to begin the doctor and CDC recommended home care and the 10 day quarantine (from the onset of symptoms). Which should technically end today or tomorrow. But, she has not had a straight line recovery. The first couple of days looked very good. On Wednesday, she was wracked by coughing fits, a bad sore throat, muscle aches, and malaise that kept her in bed until 4:30 pm that afternoon. She only got up for a couple of hours to eat a light snack and then went back to bed. It was well past noon on Thursday before she felt like getting out of bed again. Over-the-counter TheraFlu or DayQuil helped suppress her cough, though these undoubtedly contributed to her fatigue.
How it’s going and what we’re doing
From Friday through bedtime last night (Sunday), she is improving. But we have arrived at the 10th day since the onset of symptoms, and she is not symptom free. She is still sick. I can hear her coughing in bed as I write this. The coughing isn’t as frequent or violent as the worst days, but a 10 day quarantine is clearly not applicable to her. Day 10 is not a magic threshold. She would have no business driving a commute to sit in an office for full day. So, our Covid experience reveals some potential discrepancies in the official advice. To be fair, the CDC guideline of a 10-day period is given as a minimum in the absence of a fever for at least 24 hours and when exhibiting improvement in symptoms. So, there is some flexibility. And, thankfully, her office is not pressuring her yet.
My girlfriend’s youngest daughter is a nurse who has served and treated hospitalized Covid patients, and has seen some die. And her own Covid experience wasn’t limited to her role a a front-line health-care worker. Early this year, she lost her grandfather to complications from Covid infection.
She encouraged us to use a cocktail of vitamins C and D along with Zinc to help boost and support our natural immune responses. Emergen C Immune + is a product ready-made with those components, so we take two packets each daily. We are taking a low-dose aspirin every day to counter-act Covid’s blood-thickening effects. Other than that, as I mentioned my girlfriend has used a cough suppressant. Two nights ago, I took 2 Alleve before bed for relief of what felt like swallowing shards of broken glass. So far, the sharp pain of that sore throat has been the worst of the experience symptomatically for me.
This could have been much, much worse
Thankfully, even though my girlfriend has lingering symptoms 10 days in, both our cases are on the mild side of the scale. In comparison to millions who have been hospitalized and the nearly 600,000 in the US whom Covid has thus far killed, we are lucky! We don’t need a hospital. We won’t need funeral arrangements. But we most certainly could have. And this virus that is still in both our bodies, if transferred from us to other unwitting hosts, could produce drastically different symptoms and drastically different outcomes. My symptoms this morning are the same as I’d usually have in mid-April since I battle seasonal allergies. I’ve been able to keep up a walking regimen of a couple miles a day for most days.
If I didn’t know I had Covid, and if I worked in an office, I would have been there. I’ve coughed maybe 30 times total during the week. In contrast, my girlfriend has had multiple coughing-fit episodes. She may rattle off 30 or more coughs per event. Thankfully, her breathing has remained steady and unimpeded (if you don’t count the times she can’t stop coughing for a minute or two). But her energy level is a 3 on a 10 point scale. 3 days ago, she didn’t want to get out of bed at all. So a 3 is improvement. As I write this, every few minutes, she coughs a few times to try to clear her throat and the top of her chest.
Asymptomatic spread still a thing
As I mentioned above, if I didn’t know for a fact that the mild scratchy throat, rare cough, and barely noticeable muscle aches I’ve experienced were from Covid, I would not think twice about it. That’s the insidious thing. This study shows that almost 6 in 10 Covid cases are coming from spreaders who are themselves asymptomatic. Like me, those asymptomatic spreaders would have no cues to either be tested or quarantined.
Masks make sense in a shared environment when 6 of 10 cases is transmitted by an asymptomatic carrier. Since certainty is that elusive, is a mask too much to ask?
I’ve spoken to one doctor who believes these asymptomatic spreaders represent millions more Covid cases that will never show up on any database. Hearing this in the beginning, and believing it, I acted as if I was a carrier. As mentioned above, my girlfriend and I both did. We didn’t act that way because we were afraid we would get Covid, we acted that way because we were afraid to ”give” it, unknowingly. The safest, least intrusive, most humane, and most loving thing we could do for our families, neighbors, front-line workers, and strangers was to act like we could infect them, and behave and distance accordingly. Now, unfortunately, our Covid-induced behavior is not an act.
Next for us, vaccines
I see this as a moral imperative: I’d rather die trying to save other’s lives, than live and risk inadvertently killing them.
Still if there was a guarantee that our experience is the worst Covid can do, getting vaccinated would be a foolish and unnecessary risk. Almost any reasonably healthy person can tolerate a week of aggravating cold symptoms. But there are no guarantees. This same virus, or some variant of it, has killed millions around the globe and 600K here at home. In my view, that makes vaccination a moral imperative. Not because I’m worried about what it may do to me, but because I don’t want to be the nexus point in a contact tracing sequence that eventuates in someone else’s death. Being an accomplice in the death of another human being is not a firsthand experience I ever want to have.
Without a doubt, there are millions of asymptomatic carriers in the United States who are implicated in tens of thousands of deaths. They just don’t know it for certain, or don’t want to admit it. The lack of anything more than circumstantial evidence is not an acquittal.
”Don’t put that on me!” you say. Where should I put it? And if you don’t want that “put on you”, get vaccinated. Simple.
The takeaway
Now that I have violated my girlfriend’s HIPA privacy and given way too much information about my own health status, what, you may ask, is my point? Am I just trying to elicit sympathy over a tickling cough and a sore throat?
These are fair questions. I’m sharing our Covid experience with you, in the hope you will to think about what it feels like to have an experience forced upon you that you not only did not want, but tried your best to avoid. That feeling is not a good one. It feels like a violation. I want to blame someone, even though I know that won’t roll back the clock and it won’t make me or my girlfriend recover faster.
I am angry and concerned, or maybe angry because concerned, about the potential long-term effects this bout with Covid may be setting us up for down the road. What other future firsthand experience might some careless person have seeded into us that won’t bloom for months or years down the road? This study from London’s Oxford University raises concerns about neurological and psychological effects. Our Covid experience may extend well past the CDC quarantine period. The Covid experience for some is already of an indeterminate duration.
Long term effects of COVID 19 brochure template. These are what have been identified as potential threats down the road. Fun, huh?
I’m guessing if you’ve made it this far in my account, you’re at least somewhat concerned about Covid yourself. You probably wear a mask. Social distancing feels normal to you now. You may already be vaccinated or you’re leaning that way. I hope all of that is true. I also hope you will use your influence and your example of good and loving decisions to help instruct, guide, and persuade the unconvinced. This pandemic can still be a catalyst for positive, constructive change.
Covid changed my political views
It has certainly changed me, most notably my political views, in some very good ways. (Although now it has changed my medical chart for the rest of my life, in a very bad way). For me, the pandemic moved fuzzy ideas about the shared, inter-connected aspects of health and sickness, (and therefore of health care,) out of the abstract, and into sharp-edged, practical reality. Politics gets very real and very personal when your own life is on the line. Politics is the crucible where the ideal meets the practical and the necessary.
Here in the real world, where 99% of us don’t have a private Island or a floating city where we can retreat and hide out away from the great unwashed, teeming masses, we share air. We share spaces intimate enough, compact enough to make each other sick. Some of those shared spaces and experiences are voluntary acts of will. At other times, proximity to other humans is part of a job description, the income of which cannot be forfeited just because symptoms appear. And that person who cannot afford to stay home when they might be coming down with something, might be patient zero for the next viral assault that makes Covid-19 look like a trip to Disneyland.
Starting to see Health Care as a different kind of right…
I had unsuccessfully tried to get my head around the notion of health care as a right before the pandemic. I had always thought of rights as those entitlements to which we are born, simply for being born. Thinking this way, I could not see how the right to health care is something one is born with. Most of the rights we typically consider inalienable are those we believe to be ”ours,” possessed by the individual, and not to be taken from them. Liberty, for instance, is much easier to take from a person, than to give to them. It is impossible to give someone the pursuit of happiness, as any parent knows. You want your child to be happy. You give your child opportunities. Good parents encourage their children’s interests and pursuits. But no one can give another the pursuit of happiness. That pursuit can be taken away, however.
So, I thought of rights in this way, as possessions. And thus thinking, I reasoned that while health can be taken from a person, health care is not something a person is born possessing, and therefore not a right that can be taken away. I thought of it as a privilege – a useful one, a humanitarian one, even a desirable one – but a privilege, nonetheless, and not a right. And from the standpoint of the individual, that may still be an accurate way to look at it. However, if considering the question from the view of the public good, the entire equation changes.
…One with a different primary beneficiary
My experience with Covid, began as a witness and observer. Now, I’m numbered among the human flotsam swept up in its flood. The watching, and now, the experiencing, have produced a new conviction. I now believe Universal Health Care is primarily for the public, social, and national good.
It is not primarily for the individual at all. Of course, the individual benefits. But that is a proximate end to the ultimate goal of protecting society. I am now a born-again advocate for immediate, universal, mandatory health coverage (to the extent allowable – while maintaining personal and privacy protections). Every member of society deserves protection from whatever sickness any one member may contract, thereby endangering all. A single, uncovered member places society’s health at risk, through lack of access to care, treatment options, or at-home, out-of-work, sick pay. If we are willing to pay taxes to a government that buys state-of-the-art weapons to defend us from military enemies as a social good, then we should be willing to pay taxes for the government to defend us from biological, viral, molecular enemies.
A common objection, the product of bad thinking
Many are opposed to universal health care, or socialized-medicine, or single-payer systems (or whatever politically charged label can be slapped on) because they believe a person is being freely given something of value (health care) that is not free to provide. They feel the common and understandable disdain that many of us share over handing out goodies to people who won’t or can’t earn the goodies for themselves. And not content to stop there, paying for those goodies by taking the costs from the people who are working and earning the same goodies for themselves, but are involuntarily forced to pay for someone else’s too. It doesn’t seem fair. That view, once entrenched is hard to dislodge.
We should be able to talk about this so we can prepare for the future
But is it fair to subject workers and earners (and therefore taxpayers) to sickness or death, because one person cannot afford health care to treat a sickness that exposes all the taxpayers, who together, could have afforded to pay for the treatments, thereby protecting not just that individual, but all of themselves? What is fair about that?
We will botch our way through this pandemic…limping all the way to the finish line. Although, according to our last President, we’ve been ”rounding the turn” for what amounts to the world’s longest-running, continual Nascar race in the effort. But, what happens when the next pandemic hits? Wouldn’t you rather some of your taxes go to protect you from an uninsured person coming to work sick and killing you or a loved one? These are at least issues to talk about without accusing each other of wanting to turn the country into the Soviet Union, for God’s sake.
How it’s going…and what’s ahead for many of us
Our firsthand experience with Covid is soon to involve the battle my girlfriend is going to face with her work over the timetable for her return. She’s coughing now. She’s still sick. She is certainly still symptomatic from the same viral murderer that is going to kill as many of us as we allow to do so. Thankfully, she has work provided health insurance. But she has no mechanism to appeal to paid sick-leave, or an allowance for full-time work-from-home until there is a complete cessation of symptoms and production of a negative test. She has hit the 10 day mark, and she is still coughing. Hers is an individual case, but is not likely to be unique in those terms. Her duplicate could be the cough you’ve been hearing in the cubicle next to yours all morning.
