3.27.20
Sheltering in Place
Day Eight
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Brown says I should be willing to die to help jump start the American economy.
For the record, I am not willing to die to save the American economy. I am not willing to die at all.
Americans 65 and older should be willing to give their lives so General Motors can resume making quarterly dividend payments, the light-in-the-head Texan politician argued. I am 71, he is 69-years-old. He likes GM more than I do.
If Dan Brown follows his own advice and we abandon self quarantine and social distancing and return to work before medical experts tell us it is safe he will be killing Americans. There will be no economy to save. His advice is criminal.
There is no need for his dangerous foolishness. All any of us have to do have to do is follow the simple CDC guidelines and wait while our brave and brilliant health care professionals wrestle Covid-19 into a manageable box. Some of us will die but far fewer than if the country listens to the bone headed counsel of the Texas lt. governor. Meanwhile, the economy will recover. GM shareholders will get their checks.
I watched in horror yesterday as a New York emergency room doc made an on-air plea for more life-saving ventilators on a video smuggled from her hospital. The video showed a refrigerated tractor trailer backed up to a loading dock ready to receive bodies from the presumably overflowing hospital morgue.
If hospitals do not get the equipment they need, doctors and nurses will be making on-the-spot decisions about who gets to live and who gets to die. All this was unfolding while General Motors and the Trump Administration were haggling about the price of manufacturing 80,000 ventilators, the very equipment the New York hospital needs. The deal fell apart because General Motors did not get its asking price.
Dan Brown wants us to die for these guys. Not me!
My wife’s 98-year-old uncle lives with his 90s-something partner in a Long island retirement community ravaged by the virus. Six have died and 25 residents and staff have gotten the bug. Meanwhile they are sheltering in place, having meals left outside their door. It is scary and tragic. For now, they are well.
Dan Brown would sacrifice them or at least risk their lives because they are old and unable to contribute to the American economy. What about past contributions? My wife’s uncle is a vibrant, soft-spoken, retired physician who made a career in nuclear medicine. He is an American hero. He worked with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos during WW II and spent his post war years as a respected research scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Less than three years ago we played doubles tennis with him on red clay in New Hampshire. I laughed with him every-time he cursed like a 17-year-old when he missed a backhand or drove a short serve into the net. He worked to make America great for eight decades. I plan to celebrate his 100 birthday. So stay home Dan Brown.
Meanwhile, we remain healthy. The house is clean, the animals well fed and the snow is FINALLY melting. This means Vermont’s fifth season is upon us: “mud season.” The ruts on our gravel road are deep and sloppy. If the virus had not locked us down, the mud would have. Perhaps spring is coming.
Summer has arrived for Vermont school children. Governor Phil Scott has canceled school for the remainder of the year. Distance learning is scheduled to begin next week. Compliance with that mandate will surely be uneven. Nevertheless it was the right call. Scott, a Republican, is a responsible leader. He will not risk the health and safety of any Vermonter.
This means that our four grandchildren who live 900 feet away will be homeschooled for the next couple of months as they have been these last two weeks. When we emerge from quarantine healthy and recharged, we will help with the schooling. Our effort, educating children, will help make the economy strong.
Take that Dan Brown.
Be safe!
Sheltering in Place
Day Eight
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Brown says I should be willing to die to help jump start the American economy.
For the record, I am not willing to die to save the American economy. I am not willing to die at all.
Americans 65 and older should be willing to give their lives so General Motors can resume making quarterly dividend payments, the light-in-the-head Texan politician argued. I am 71, he is 69-years-old. He likes GM more than I do.
If Dan Brown follows his own advice and we abandon self quarantine and social distancing and return to work before medical experts tell us it is safe he will be killing Americans. There will be no economy to save. His advice is criminal.
There is no need for his dangerous foolishness. All any of us have to do have to do is follow the simple CDC guidelines and wait while our brave and brilliant health care professionals wrestle Covid-19 into a manageable box. Some of us will die but far fewer than if the country listens to the bone headed counsel of the Texas lt. governor. Meanwhile, the economy will recover. GM shareholders will get their checks.
I watched in horror yesterday as a New York emergency room doc made an on-air plea for more life-saving ventilators on a video smuggled from her hospital. The video showed a refrigerated tractor trailer backed up to a loading dock ready to receive bodies from the presumably overflowing hospital morgue.
If hospitals do not get the equipment they need, doctors and nurses will be making on-the-spot decisions about who gets to live and who gets to die. All this was unfolding while General Motors and the Trump Administration were haggling about the price of manufacturing 80,000 ventilators, the very equipment the New York hospital needs. The deal fell apart because General Motors did not get its asking price.
Dan Brown wants us to die for these guys. Not me!
My wife’s 98-year-old uncle lives with his 90s-something partner in a Long island retirement community ravaged by the virus. Six have died and 25 residents and staff have gotten the bug. Meanwhile they are sheltering in place, having meals left outside their door. It is scary and tragic. For now, they are well.
Dan Brown would sacrifice them or at least risk their lives because they are old and unable to contribute to the American economy. What about past contributions? My wife’s uncle is a vibrant, soft-spoken, retired physician who made a career in nuclear medicine. He is an American hero. He worked with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos during WW II and spent his post war years as a respected research scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Less than three years ago we played doubles tennis with him on red clay in New Hampshire. I laughed with him every-time he cursed like a 17-year-old when he missed a backhand or drove a short serve into the net. He worked to make America great for eight decades. I plan to celebrate his 100 birthday. So stay home Dan Brown.
Meanwhile, we remain healthy. The house is clean, the animals well fed and the snow is FINALLY melting. This means Vermont’s fifth season is upon us: “mud season.” The ruts on our gravel road are deep and sloppy. If the virus had not locked us down, the mud would have. Perhaps spring is coming.
Summer has arrived for Vermont school children. Governor Phil Scott has canceled school for the remainder of the year. Distance learning is scheduled to begin next week. Compliance with that mandate will surely be uneven. Nevertheless it was the right call. Scott, a Republican, is a responsible leader. He will not risk the health and safety of any Vermonter.
This means that our four grandchildren who live 900 feet away will be homeschooled for the next couple of months as they have been these last two weeks. When we emerge from quarantine healthy and recharged, we will help with the schooling. Our effort, educating children, will help make the economy strong.
Take that Dan Brown.
Be safe!
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