I'm sorry for the loss of your brother. Like the world isn't weird & scary enough one a 'normal' day.
This, too, shall pass. I am disgusted by politicians who incite the anger in people as they scrabble for votes.
You are right--I truly believe most people are good. Most--when faced with doing good or not--we usually always choose good.
We're not very good, as privileged people if any color, to appreciate what we have. I read about a village in Africa where Jimmy Carter's foundation had all but eradicated the guinea worm--a life threatening parasite that lives it's life in human hosts. All it took was education and getting clean water to these people and their lives are turned around. You don't see that on the news.
My kids are driving back home from Richmond VA this week after my SIL finished (finally) his medical education and is coming home to a 'real job'.
I saw the rioting in Richmond and kind of freaked out. My daughter said, "Yeah, it was really stupid and really blown out of proportion. We're fine."
I do not watch the news. Don't have to, DH has it on 24/7 when he's home and I cannot bear it. I'm actually in Dr. ordered 'news lockdown'. I do a once a day checkup on what's going on and then refuse to read/listen to more.
I hope you can find some peace amid the crazy. I hope that for all of us.
GREAT post!! Of course, all lives matter! And sadly, when stuff like common flu, for which there are vaccines--take many lives--this new virus has taken us to new humbler levels.
It's become a political mess, which it shouldn't be. Our gov. has waffled back and forth between 'mask freedom' and minimal shutdowns and opening things up too soon--we've rolled backwards to moderate risk from low risk.
I am immunocompromised due to a year of chemotherapy, DH is also immunocompromised due to being an organ transplant patient. we wear our masks and sometimes are the only people in a store who are. People either don't believe that COVID is real or they simply don't care. I simply stay in 'my own lane' and mask up for the sake of myself and others.
I have neighbors who openly flaunt the 'social distancing' thing. Joke was on them, sadly, somebody with COVID was at the most recent party and now 20+ people are freaking out b/c they chose unwisely.
My oncologist told me that he felt there would be a vaccine in this calendar year...and 40% of the population will NOT avail themselves of it. He was disgusted.
Your post was great. I hate the political/racist/hatred filled ways people are handling this. Not all--but enough. (Of course the news channels fill the air with horrible sights. I blame them for fueling the fire.)
Thanks midkid. I was pretty afraid when I saw it was too late to erase that post. I was overall mad, and I apologize to everyone for that fact. I just lost my bro a few months ago, and am grieving that, and find I can get so angry at our inability to take responsibility, our criticism and our whining. We are our own worst enemy. Any one of us here, no MATTER our politics, knows that most folks on this forum are such good people. If they lived next door and we were in trouble I swear there isn't a one of them that wouldn't be on our doorstep to help. These times are so hard on so many.
Cuomo makes my own Gov (they are both Dems and so am I) look bad. At least there are some rules in NY about testing for personnel at nursing homes and some rules about who can return and how they can be treated and housed. As to the elderly, I am there, at 78. It is my humble opinion that, for the most part, we live way too long. We live past our physical and mentally ability to sustain ourselves and care for ourselves, and we become dependent on a system that is ruled by the almighty dollar whether that is our own inadequate USA system, and a system in a government-provided health care. We live to become a burden on our children who themselves are aging, who often have reached the age of the empty nest, when they are free to travel and enjoy a bit of life before their own time comes. We put them in the position of quite literally wishing we were dead. Covid-19 is a gruesome pandemic. We are choosing not to recognize that, and not to address it, and there will be a dreadful price to pay for that choice. "Wait until the Fall. I suspect (as an old retired nurse) that we haven't seen ANYTHING yet. When they stop picking our food we will be in trouble. Stock in some canned fruits and veggies. You may need them. Buy a bag of rice; you may need it. And the "price" for our whining and ignorance and refusal to take responsibility won't only be paid by the elderly, but by us all if this particular virus morphs to spread and KILL the young. Read up on 1918 flu. And then wonder what would happen if all those people hadn't died, just population wise. Between WW I and the flu we had a real cull by a "natural enemy" such as we haven't had since. This may become just such an equal opportunity bug. There are few good answers. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Avoid crowds. Protect the vulnerable. I say this, though pictures on the TV already prove to me that we won't do it. As to the larger question of whether the elderly really matter? We honestly are but one more animal upon the face of the earth, vying for territory and breeding rights. We are born, we live and we die, and we have enough of a cerebral cortex to know those facts. We have seen times when the elderly and the babies were quite literally left at the side of the road. Yes, in our own lifetimes. And it is likely happening today in other countries in our world. I don't have a whole lot of room for "politics" in these large questions anymore. I am uncertain which of us here would want to take on the job of our own Gov. be he a Dem or a Republican. I haven't met anyone really with ALL the answers. Still waiting for that. I know I don't want the jobs. Nor the condemnation. I know I don't have many answers to serving in the times of a Pandemic, nor in any other. And I know that NO MATTER what I did, nearly one half of the populace would be ready to condemn me and criticize me and make me the whipping boy for whatever went wrong in their personal lives. But, basically, that's life. And then we die.
Of course elderly lives matter, as do all human lives. This article was written in very early May by the former governor of NY...........who's saying an 'investigation' into Cuomo's horrible decisions about sending Covid-19 positive patients into nursing homes in NYS is needed. Has such an investigation been undertaken? I don't think so, and Cuomo is STILL defending his actions as of June 23rd. He easily could have sent the patients to the Javits center or the Comfort ship he ASKED for to begin with, but never used.
Cuomo needs to resign, but that won't happen. For some reason, he's still a popular figure in NY. Unless you have a loved one he's responsible for killing, then it's another story.
I'm sorry for the loss of your brother. Like the world isn't weird & scary enough one a 'normal' day.
This, too, shall pass. I am disgusted by politicians who incite the anger in people as they scrabble for votes.
You are right--I truly believe most people are good. Most--when faced with doing good or not--we usually always choose good.
We're not very good, as privileged people if any color, to appreciate what we have. I read about a village in Africa where Jimmy Carter's foundation had all but eradicated the guinea worm--a life threatening parasite that lives it's life in human hosts. All it took was education and getting clean water to these people and their lives are turned around. You don't see that on the news.
My kids are driving back home from Richmond VA this week after my SIL finished (finally) his medical education and is coming home to a 'real job'.
I saw the rioting in Richmond and kind of freaked out. My daughter said, "Yeah, it was really stupid and really blown out of proportion. We're fine."
I do not watch the news. Don't have to, DH has it on 24/7 when he's home and I cannot bear it. I'm actually in Dr. ordered 'news lockdown'. I do a once a day checkup on what's going on and then refuse to read/listen to more.
I hope you can find some peace amid the crazy. I hope that for all of us.
((Hugs))
GREAT post!!
Of course, all lives matter! And sadly, when stuff like common flu, for which there are vaccines--take many lives--this new virus has taken us to new humbler levels.
It's become a political mess, which it shouldn't be. Our gov. has waffled back and forth between 'mask freedom' and minimal shutdowns and opening things up too soon--we've rolled backwards to moderate risk from low risk.
I am immunocompromised due to a year of chemotherapy, DH is also immunocompromised due to being an organ transplant patient. we wear our masks and sometimes are the only people in a store who are. People either don't believe that COVID is real or they simply don't care. I simply stay in 'my own lane' and mask up for the sake of myself and others.
I have neighbors who openly flaunt the 'social distancing' thing. Joke was on them, sadly, somebody with COVID was at the most recent party and now 20+ people are freaking out b/c they chose unwisely.
My oncologist told me that he felt there would be a vaccine in this calendar year...and 40% of the population will NOT avail themselves of it. He was disgusted.
Your post was great. I hate the political/racist/hatred filled ways people are handling this. Not all--but enough. (Of course the news channels fill the air with horrible sights. I blame them for fueling the fire.)
As to the elderly, I am there, at 78. It is my humble opinion that, for the most part, we live way too long. We live past our physical and mentally ability to sustain ourselves and care for ourselves, and we become dependent on a system that is ruled by the almighty dollar whether that is our own inadequate USA system, and a system in a government-provided health care. We live to become a burden on our children who themselves are aging, who often have reached the age of the empty nest, when they are free to travel and enjoy a bit of life before their own time comes. We put them in the position of quite literally wishing we were dead.
Covid-19 is a gruesome pandemic. We are choosing not to recognize that, and not to address it, and there will be a dreadful price to pay for that choice. "Wait until the Fall. I suspect (as an old retired nurse) that we haven't seen ANYTHING yet. When they stop picking our food we will be in trouble. Stock in some canned fruits and veggies. You may need them. Buy a bag of rice; you may need it. And the "price" for our whining and ignorance and refusal to take responsibility won't only be paid by the elderly, but by us all if this particular virus morphs to spread and KILL the young. Read up on 1918 flu. And then wonder what would happen if all those people hadn't died, just population wise. Between WW I and the flu we had a real cull by a "natural enemy" such as we haven't had since. This may become just such an equal opportunity bug.
There are few good answers. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Avoid crowds. Protect the vulnerable. I say this, though pictures on the TV already prove to me that we won't do it.
As to the larger question of whether the elderly really matter? We honestly are but one more animal upon the face of the earth, vying for territory and breeding rights. We are born, we live and we die, and we have enough of a cerebral cortex to know those facts. We have seen times when the elderly and the babies were quite literally left at the side of the road. Yes, in our own lifetimes. And it is likely happening today in other countries in our world.
I don't have a whole lot of room for "politics" in these large questions anymore.
I am uncertain which of us here would want to take on the job of our own Gov. be he a Dem or a Republican. I haven't met anyone really with ALL the answers. Still waiting for that. I know I don't want the jobs. Nor the condemnation. I know I don't have many answers to serving in the times of a Pandemic, nor in any other. And I know that NO MATTER what I did, nearly one half of the populace would be ready to condemn me and criticize me and make me the whipping boy for whatever went wrong in their personal lives.
But, basically, that's life. And then we die.
Sorry for you losing your brother!
Cuomo needs to resign, but that won't happen. For some reason, he's still a popular figure in NY. Unless you have a loved one he's responsible for killing, then it's another story.