April 2, 2020
Sheltering in Place
Day 14
“Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Jean Baptiste Alphonse Kerr
Our formal quarantine ends tomorrow.
Little will change; if anything our movement may become even more restricted.
It was not supposed to be this way. After our six-day, overland road trip, we knew we would have to hide out for two weeks. But then our lives would change, become less restricted. The new, normal here in rural nowhere USA would be little different than before we left. Except of course, the weather would be better.
Well the new normal for us and most all other Americans is more of the same. We will be locked down until May 1 at a minimum. I fully expect our movement will be restricted until June 1.
Quarantine is easy here. If we could turn off our wifi and unplug the cable news, we could hide from demons, death, danger and destruction that swirl all around us. We would not be protected from the virus but we could be oblivious, clueless if we chose to be. Until, perhaps we get sick!
We choose to be informed, some days too informed. Andrew Cuomo is our lunch companion every day at noon or so. Wolf Blitzer shows up at five pm. President Trump and his merry band, who everyday ignore their own social distancing guidelines, join us for drinks. Drinks are often juice and club soda these days, though the club soda is running low.
The Internet informs us throughout the day. So despite our isolation, we are fully aware.
For two weeks, we did not go anywhere. But now we need a few things from the market.
Our adult children do not want us to shop. We are too old; it’s too risky they warn. We appreciate deeply their concern and will listen to them. Our son up the hill will shop for us. Our farm provides most all of what we need, but as the lockdown continues our supply of veggies, coffee, cheese, pasta and tomato sauce, staples in any civilized household, have run thin.
We have it better than most here on our farm.
Eventually most everyone will be exposed to the virus, the experts warn. Delaying that exposure will give us time to find ways to treat and defeat it. Hide out, they say, and the virus’ march-across America will be slowed. If you are exposed to it late, medical professionals will be better positioned to prevent or treat it.
Lockdown should save lives.
We have it better than most, far from the epicenter of the disease.
We are hiding on our 250-acre-farm hidden in the hills of Central Vermont. We have no close neighbors that are not family. Even our grandchildren up the hill have kept their distance under the watchful eyes of their appropriately cautious parents.
Our other children and their families are in harms way and we worry about them.
I worry also though about the thousands of passengers trapped on two cruise ships steaming toward Florida’s east coast. I worry about the sailers packed cheek-by-jowl on that disease ridden aircraft carrier docked in Guam. And I worry about the coast guard men and women trapped in floating tin cans in the Caribbean and Pacific who have been suddenly deployed to fight a drug war that has raged for decades and will still be raging long after the pandemic recedes.
First the cruise ship. I dislike cruising though I grew up on the ocean. I like motorboats and sailing, for an afternoon. Get on, get off!
I once spent an evening with another colleague and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean on a large party boat headed up the St. Lawrence north of Quebec City. Dean, a friend, told us privately that night, long before it became public, that he would run for president, at the time a ludicrous idea. Despite Dean’s historic pronouncement, what I recall most vividly about that night was my burning desire to start a mutiny, take over the wheelhouse and get that damn boat back to the dock!
I do not like cruising, sorry Andy and Kristina!
So it is not surprising that I feel deeply for the thousands of passengers, most all of them seniors, trapped on the Zaandam and Rotterdam cruise ships. They are homeless and stateless; no one will take them. Argentina and Chile turned them back. Panama delayed the Zandaam’s transit through the canal. Eventually they relented. So far Florida has said the ships may not dock there but the governor has deferred the final decision to local officials in Ft. Lauderdale.
Perhaps Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Pontius Pilate are related!
It is time to get everyone off those ships.
Whatever happened to: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Ok so this is typically applied to America's once open-arms policy toward immigrants. It should also apply to the thousands of mostly elderly people trapped on those two ships, enemies all around and within.
Our nation has changed. We are wary, no longer welcoming. We are building walls, one-part concrete and one-part ideology.
So I say again let’s get the passengers off those ships. Easy for me to say, critics will argue, from my hiding spot in the mountains. Maybe! But we are isolated here, not insulated. The virus does not recognize walls. It will find us eventually. We have a chance to best it, beat it. Let’s give the people on those ships a chance to beat it also.
The same is true for the servicemen and women on those warships. This deployment smacks of political expediency, an opportunity for a the president to deflect criticism. Two days earlier he announced the virus will kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans. That is bad politics.
The political equation is simple.
Americans killed by the coronavirus will drive the president’s poll numbers down. An all out war against drug cartels will drive the polls up.
The political equation is deadly.
Americans will die needlessly as this policy unfolds.
We should get our troops off those warships. For now we should fight the drug war at home. Let’s not add disease as a new weapon to the drug cartel’s well-stocked quiver.
And as always, everyone please:
Be Safe
Sheltering in Place
Day 14
“Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Jean Baptiste Alphonse Kerr
Our formal quarantine ends tomorrow.
Little will change; if anything our movement may become even more restricted.
It was not supposed to be this way. After our six-day, overland road trip, we knew we would have to hide out for two weeks. But then our lives would change, become less restricted. The new, normal here in rural nowhere USA would be little different than before we left. Except of course, the weather would be better.
Well the new normal for us and most all other Americans is more of the same. We will be locked down until May 1 at a minimum. I fully expect our movement will be restricted until June 1.
Quarantine is easy here. If we could turn off our wifi and unplug the cable news, we could hide from demons, death, danger and destruction that swirl all around us. We would not be protected from the virus but we could be oblivious, clueless if we chose to be. Until, perhaps we get sick!
We choose to be informed, some days too informed. Andrew Cuomo is our lunch companion every day at noon or so. Wolf Blitzer shows up at five pm. President Trump and his merry band, who everyday ignore their own social distancing guidelines, join us for drinks. Drinks are often juice and club soda these days, though the club soda is running low.
The Internet informs us throughout the day. So despite our isolation, we are fully aware.
For two weeks, we did not go anywhere. But now we need a few things from the market.
Our adult children do not want us to shop. We are too old; it’s too risky they warn. We appreciate deeply their concern and will listen to them. Our son up the hill will shop for us. Our farm provides most all of what we need, but as the lockdown continues our supply of veggies, coffee, cheese, pasta and tomato sauce, staples in any civilized household, have run thin.
We have it better than most here on our farm.
Eventually most everyone will be exposed to the virus, the experts warn. Delaying that exposure will give us time to find ways to treat and defeat it. Hide out, they say, and the virus’ march-across America will be slowed. If you are exposed to it late, medical professionals will be better positioned to prevent or treat it.
Lockdown should save lives.
We have it better than most, far from the epicenter of the disease.
We are hiding on our 250-acre-farm hidden in the hills of Central Vermont. We have no close neighbors that are not family. Even our grandchildren up the hill have kept their distance under the watchful eyes of their appropriately cautious parents.
Our other children and their families are in harms way and we worry about them.
I worry also though about the thousands of passengers trapped on two cruise ships steaming toward Florida’s east coast. I worry about the sailers packed cheek-by-jowl on that disease ridden aircraft carrier docked in Guam. And I worry about the coast guard men and women trapped in floating tin cans in the Caribbean and Pacific who have been suddenly deployed to fight a drug war that has raged for decades and will still be raging long after the pandemic recedes.
First the cruise ship. I dislike cruising though I grew up on the ocean. I like motorboats and sailing, for an afternoon. Get on, get off!
I once spent an evening with another colleague and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean on a large party boat headed up the St. Lawrence north of Quebec City. Dean, a friend, told us privately that night, long before it became public, that he would run for president, at the time a ludicrous idea. Despite Dean’s historic pronouncement, what I recall most vividly about that night was my burning desire to start a mutiny, take over the wheelhouse and get that damn boat back to the dock!
I do not like cruising, sorry Andy and Kristina!
So it is not surprising that I feel deeply for the thousands of passengers, most all of them seniors, trapped on the Zaandam and Rotterdam cruise ships. They are homeless and stateless; no one will take them. Argentina and Chile turned them back. Panama delayed the Zandaam’s transit through the canal. Eventually they relented. So far Florida has said the ships may not dock there but the governor has deferred the final decision to local officials in Ft. Lauderdale.
Perhaps Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Pontius Pilate are related!
It is time to get everyone off those ships.
Whatever happened to: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Ok so this is typically applied to America's once open-arms policy toward immigrants. It should also apply to the thousands of mostly elderly people trapped on those two ships, enemies all around and within.
Our nation has changed. We are wary, no longer welcoming. We are building walls, one-part concrete and one-part ideology.
So I say again let’s get the passengers off those ships. Easy for me to say, critics will argue, from my hiding spot in the mountains. Maybe! But we are isolated here, not insulated. The virus does not recognize walls. It will find us eventually. We have a chance to best it, beat it. Let’s give the people on those ships a chance to beat it also.
The same is true for the servicemen and women on those warships. This deployment smacks of political expediency, an opportunity for a the president to deflect criticism. Two days earlier he announced the virus will kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans. That is bad politics.
The political equation is simple.
Americans killed by the coronavirus will drive the president’s poll numbers down. An all out war against drug cartels will drive the polls up.
The political equation is deadly.
Americans will die needlessly as this policy unfolds.
We should get our troops off those warships. For now we should fight the drug war at home. Let’s not add disease as a new weapon to the drug cartel’s well-stocked quiver.
And as always, everyone please:
Be Safe
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