How many thousands of dissertations will be written about the many ways that this Pandemic has affected us as a society? Here's something that many of us are noticing in my neighborhood. I live in a diverse St. Louis City neighborhood with houses that are often more than 100 years old. These house typically have front porches designed with lots of room for people to spend time on them, but (I suspect) some combination of air conditioning and TV has caused many of these porches to be vacant much of the time. My neighbors and I are seeing a resurgence in the use of these front porches by people seeking to socialize. Increasing numbers of families are out of their porches visiting with each other, visiting with neighbors and chatting with strangers passing by on foot.
I haven't quantified this, but it is apparent and it's a beautiful thing to behold. As a photographer, I would be tempted to use my long range camera to capture a collage of these highly-social images, but I don't want to invade the privacy of my neighbors. Are other people in other neighborhoods around the U.S. noticing anything similar?
Over the past 15 years, people have chuckled when I told them that I don't pay other people to cut my hair. I use a Flowbee. [I can imagine people laughing as I write this].
I was introduced to Flowbee by a well-coiffed gay man, the head of HR at a prominent law firm, who told me that he and many of his friends used a Flowbee to cut their own hair. Yes, it seems ridiculous that people would cut their hair with a device connected to a vacuum cleaner but it does a nice job giving a layered cut quickly and easily (I merely trim around my ears with a trimmer after using the Flowbee). I've saved 15 years of paying someone else to cut my hair and it is immensely satisfying that I no longer need to schedule haircuts - I can cut my own hair whenever I want, and sometimes that is 2 am.
I'm getting ready to cut my hair again today, and it occurred to me that many people out there might want to consider this option, especially in the age of COVIC-19. I'm not getting paid anything for this post, but I am adding this link to Flowbee in case you are interested. As I expected, they are backlogged with orders because of coronavirus. Apparently, others are catching on.
I’m looking at the “protesters” in Michigan and ruminating on the nature of civil disobedience versus civic aphasia.
By that latter term I mean a condition wherein a blank space exists within the psyché where one would expect an appropriate recognition of responsible behavior ought to live. A condition which seems to allow certain people to feel empowered to simply ignore—or fail to recognize—the point at which a reflexive rejection of authority should yield to a recognition of community responsibility. That moment when the impulse to challenge, dismiss, or simply ignore what one is being told enlarges to the point of defiance and what ordinarily would be a responsible acceptance of correct behavior in the face of a public duty.
It could be about anything from recycling to voting regularly to paying taxes to obeying directives meant to protect entire populations.
Fairly basic exercises in logic should suffice to define the difference between legitimate civil disobedience and civic aphasia. Questions like: “Who does this serve?” And if the answer is anything other than the community at large, discussion should occur to determine the next step. The protesters in Michigan probably asked, if they asked at all, a related question that falls short of useful answer: “How does this serve me?” Depending on how much information they have in the first place, the answer to that question will be of limited utility, especially in cases of public health.
Another way to look at the difference is this: is the action taken to defend privilege or to extend it? And to whom?
One factor involved in the current expression of misplaced disobedience has to do with weighing consequences. The governor of the state issues a lockdown in order to stem the rate of infection, person to person. It will last a limited time. When the emergency is over (and it will be over), what rights have been lost except a presumed right to be free of any restraint on personal whim?
There is no right to be free of inconvenience. At best, we have a right to try to avoid it, diminish it, work around it. Certainly be angry at it. But there is no law, no agency, no institution that can enforce a freedom from inconvenience. For one, it could never be made universal. For another, “inconvenience” is a rather vague definition which is dependent on context.
And then there is the fact that some inconveniences simply have to be accepted and managed.
Why is it that so many on the political left feel the need to twist Donald Trump's words or even tell lies about what Trump said in order to attack him? On April 24th, the Internet blew up after Trump discussed the potential use of disinfectant to treat people suffering from COVID-19 infections. Many FB and Twitter posts falsely claim or suggest that Trump told members of the public to drink disinfectant or inject themselves with disinfectant. Trump did not say or suggest either of these things.
Before I proceed, I should make clear what I think of the President. In my opinion, Donald Trump is a pathological liar. He is a proudly ignorant. He is a xenophobe and a narcissist. He is modern day philistine. He lacks empathy for real people and he is a bully with mob boss tendencies. His ignorance, lies, inaction and incompetence throughout the month of February failed the American people as the Corona Virus to spread throughout the United States. I've seen ample evidence to prove all of these things. These are some of the many reasons Trump will go down in history as an abysmally incompetent politician.
"So I asked Bill a question some of you are thinking of if you're into that world, which I find to be pretty interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're gonna test that too, sounds interesting. And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So you're going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we'll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that's pretty powerful."
[As he made his statement, Trump repeatedly looked at Bill Bryan, the head of the science and technology directorate at the Department of Homeland Security]
Over the past months, Trump has shown hostility to science. On April 4, Trump brashly touted the use of a malaria drug for COVID-19, even though the drug had never been subject to double-blind studies. Despite these serious shortcomings regarding science and medicine, Trump did not suggest that people should ingest or inject disinfectant. Trump was wondering out loud whether coronavirus could be cured using disinfectant. He said (looking at Bill Bryan), "So it'd be interesting to check that." He wasn't telling people to get treated using disinfectant, as he recklessly did regarding Hydroxychloroquine.
Here is my suggestion: Whenever people on the political left concoct or embellish facts as they attack Trump, they lose credibility. When they do this, they open themselves up to accusations that they have Trump Derangement Syndrome. Most importantly, when they take liberties with facts, they are doing the same thing Trump often does and this risks losing potential November votes from people from the political center and right.
It is my hope that we on the left would become more self-critical about our own reckless use of accusations. Truly, there are plenty of good reasons for condemning Trump without making shit up.
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