June 16, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 88 After almost five months of wondering when the Covid-19 pandemic will be over and restaurants, bars, ballgames, concerts, weddings and funerals will safe again there are three possible answers: 1) When a vaccine is created, approved, distributed and administered. 2) When a treatment is determined to be efficacious and widely available to all who develop the virus. 3) When the population is determined to be immune and the virus is no longer a threat to widely spread through our communities. Say it ain’t so! These are our only options? Yep. There is no magic bullet, no miraculous cure, no superhero dropping from the sky to rescue humanity from the evil clutches of the Covid-19 demon. Superman and Batman have abandoned us. Captain America: where are you? Americans do not want to hear or read that the coronavirus will continue to control our lives for the next year or two. They want a quick fix, a superhero with a super-cure. Americ
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June 13, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 86 When did it become desirable to be a fascist? Benito Mussolini was a fascist. Emperor Hirohito was a fascist. Adolph Hitler was a fascist. Mussolini, Hirohito and Hitler killed millions in the name of fascism. We fought a world war in Europe and Asia to drive the fascists from power. Some 405,000 American soldiers, sailors and marines died fighting fascism on European and Asian soil. Why are Americans still massing in the streets to protest racial injustice? We fought a war 160 years ago that was supposed to end discrimination, racial injustice and slavery. The north won, the confederacy lost, slavery was banned. About 650,000 Americans died on both sides in the bloodiest and deadliest conflict in our history. Why then do so many Americans embrace the confederate flag? And why are fascist Nazi symbols flaunted at far right rallies? Racism and far right ideology are alive and well and empowered today by President Donald Trump. M
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June 11, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 84 Seniors must upgrade their technology and skills to successfully navigate the new world in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Failure to do so will leave them isolated, lonely and vulnerable. The Covid-19 virus has made smart phone and tablet technology essential for seniors. For many, especially those who have been locked-down alone, it has been the only way to communicate with friends and family, follow the news, check on finances, visit with a doctor or watch a video or film. For these Covid-19 shut-ins, it makes the world a little less lonely. My generation obviously did not grow up with laptops, iPhones, Netflix and Amazon Prime. As I stare across the room, I can see the shelf containing our somewhat dusty World Book encyclopedia, the Google search engine of my day. The books have not been opened for a decade or more. There is some good news. A 2017 survey by Pew Research revealed that the digital divide between young and old is shrink
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June 9, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 82 Adult children are worried about killing their parents. Their heartfelt concern is endearing. It can at times be annoying. Welcome to yet another coronavirus backflip, a reversal of roles in familial relations. Parents are supposed to worry about their children. But kids are in charge now and many older Americans are following rules of Covid-19 behavior designed by their deeply-concerned 20 and 30-year-old offspring. Our four adult sons have been very loving but firm in a quiet, controlling manner since the virus rocked the world in March. We have friends whose children have been much tougher; establishing rules well beyond the CDC guidelines and getting angry when their parents stray from them. I first noticed the phenomenon back in late March when we were in quarantine following our drive across the country. Our second son and his girlfriend were hunkered down in Brooklyn as New York was emerging as the coronavirus epicenter. We begged
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June 7, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 80 Silent white voices kill! Black lives are at risk in lily-white, deep-blue, politically correct Vermont. Racism is lurking in our communities and white voices here must loudly and forcibly speak out against racial injustice whenever it rears its ugly head. I am an older white man and have benefitted from a lifetime of white privilege. No cop ever hassled me on the street even when I was a teenager and surely up to no good. No one ever assumed I was a criminal because I did not look like them. I was raised in Rhode Island in the 1950s. It was diverse back then but it was also one of the most racially and ethnically segregated cities in the north. Everyone I knew as a kid was an Irish catholic even though East Providence where I lived was 80 percent Portuguese. South Providence was black, federal hill was Italian. The only time we ever met was to play against each other on the basketball court in the CYO league because we were all Catholics.
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June 5, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 78 If you have not received your Covid-19 stimulus money yet, check your trash. Or your recycling bin! If your trash and recycling have not been collected in the last week, that is where you will find your money, most likely hidden behind those coffee grounds you were supposed to put in the compost. You will not recognize your money. It did not come in an official US government envelope. It does not look like your tax refund check or those pesky notices from the IRS demanding an extra $10.26 discovered during a $1,000 audit of your 2018 return. It does not look like anything mailed out by Medicare or the Social Security Administration. It looks like junk mail. And you have to wonder if that is an accident. Is it possible someone, somewhere in government does not want us to get our stimulus money? Do not rummage through your trash looking for a check. This week some four million Americans who do not have banking information on file with th
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June 3, 2020 The 73rd Year Day 76 America needs baseball! Big league baseball: the Mets, White Sox, Astros, Nationals even the lowly Marlins, Royals and Pirates. We need them in our living room every evening all summer long. Little league baseball. We need to head to town to see our grandkids move from T-ball to parent-pitch to the watch-out-a-10- year-old has the ball and is on the mound league! Ok, I need this. I need the diversion. I need to remember or at least, I need a reminder. This is summer. Summer is about baseball. How can it be summer without baseball? For me, it is unimaginable. My 73rd summer, no baseball. As you read this post do not look for any more subtle or blatant metaphors linking my ramblings to the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing unease in our streets or the idiot in the White House. I am putting those horrors aside for one day; giving it a rest as my adult kids have suggested. This post is not exactly upbeat but it is not open-up-a-vein reading e