The rats are going to war against each other. We told you this was going to happen.
I come home and douse myself in lavender oil. I feel namelessly anxious, and keep breathing deeply, constantly aware of the inhale and exhale. Seems like there is not enough air to breath, and so much to release.
“Medics are working on an unresponsive, pulseless male.”
Some of these tropes are familiar, but we have not seen this movie before. Right now it is just a movie, a thing on a screen thousands of miles away if it were ever real anyway. Here I am “protected.” Protected from the riots in Minneapolis, New York, Atlanta. But as Covid19 showed us, there is no hiding from a potent virus. Maybe here we feel safe, but it’s really just lying in wait.
We wonder, does the Lion of Justice, also lay waiting?
“The juxtaposition of the two milestones — the toll of the pandemic and the promise of a new space future — was a matter of happenstance, but they intersected in other ways as well. NASA was forced to put in place special measures to ensure that the astronauts did not come down with the virus or take it with them to the International Space Station, and it told space fans who would normally turn out in large numbers to watch such an event to stay home and instead tune in online.”
<Coronavirus : In Space>
We have had many of what we call ‘dumb deaths,’” said Pablo Villaseñor, a doctor at the General Hospital in Tijuana, the center of an outbreak. “It’s not the virus that is killing them. It’s the lack of proper care. You hear of one patient dying because he didn’t get the proper care — and then another one and another one — and you try not to become paralyzed,” said Dr. Villaseñor, a rheumatologist who said he had to learn how to suit up to treat coronavirus patients by watching a video on YouTube.
How did I meet Larry? asked Dr. Faucci. “He called me a murderer and an incompetent idiot on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner magazine.”
The killer Asian hornets are going after bees in Canada and researchers are still hopeful that with the help of beekeepers and the public, they would be able to hunt down and eradicate the new hornet before it could become established in the Pacific Northwest. But he also said the region, which appears to offer a hospitable habitat for the hornet, may need to prepare for the possibility that the insect is around for the long term.
(Bookended by tragedy)
Minneapolis is on Fire and all those Melatonin-deficient Melanies are being told to go put a sock in it.
#Icantbreathe
In Hong Kong the protestors are being pushed to their limits and if newspapers are publishing articles about the protests ending, what future does democracy really have on that small island? I ponder the question, What if I was a Hong Kong national stuck elsewhere due to the pandemic. Would I would I go home?
Probably not.
In a German restaurant, the sommelier lifts his mask to smell the wine, and all the patrons gasp.
I fight for clarity, 400 Years of injustice and this explosive moment in U.S. history, shedding light on entrenched disparity and
Fistfuls of American soil
Crawled in under a fence
SpaceX captures the flag —
“I hope this is not a bad day.“
Each of us are an offering to the one world tree, a ripple of new prayers.
Correct your ability to let go, and let go.
Let’s go.
Focus on the hotspot.
The new trend on Tinder — Social Distancing doesn’t mean I don’t like you. It’s just a new way of interacting.
I go to the park with my inner circle and we share food and beverages, against the governor’s recommendations. But these people are my friends here, the closest thing I have to family. As we share sips it feels now like sharing the blood of our savior Jesus Christ, the god of trust.
Here we are hit the hardest, and like that, we will come back the smartest.
It’s that simple, he says, but also that hard. Simple to say, but getting people to do it — now that’s hard.
It is once again up to US.
Not Happy Days Are Here Again.
What we are confronting now is the foundations of this country. Our history. Basic discrimination and a demand for justice. Where is the progress here? This is not an isolated incident. It’s about the same situation happening again and again and again. The name changes, but not the color of the skin. Who is dying of this virus? Who is dying at the hand of justice? There are a disproportionate number of deaths here, injustice in the justice system. The country is better than this.
Or else, it is really just a tinderbox on fire.
Here on this 91st day we have crossed a threshold. It is no longer just about the virus. It is about riots and racial unrest. This came to light now. It was exposed with Covid. But it was already there longtime. These are not disconnected situations.
Today there are 1,755,763 people on the books infected with Covid19 in America.
Today there are 103,475 people on the books who have died from Covid19 in America.
We are these people. We the people.
Days of light and dark. Where we’ve come from, and where we need to go. Here we are, somewhere in the blind twilight of the middle ground. Our better angels holding us up, while our devils try to pull us down.
One of the most important things in life, says the Governor, is to know what you don’t know.
And that is a lot. This is why we must remain humble. All you young superheroes, release your arrogance and conserve your strength; we will need you in the years to come. Here we are designing the airplane while we’re flying it, and someday you will all need to be its pilots.
There are 100 private hospitals in New York City.
There are 11 public hospitals in New York City.
Some zip codes are over 50% positive with Covid19.
These are the outer boroughs, outer meaning not inner, meaning not Manhattan — this has significance in certain circles. You can’t socially distance on an elevator in public housing. But we have to get deeper, also.
At the end of his briefing the Governor pulls out a pen and signs the legislation putting into order Death Benefits for the frontline workers who have died in this pandemic. He says they gave their lives out of love, out of a sense of duty.
Loving, loving, loving.
I help him write that history, even though many of them were also just paying rent.
This is our nation’s history, hundreds of years of fundamental injustice. Inequality and discrimination in public health and the criminal justice system. Let us organize a parade together, let us come together to bury our dead. Let us give ourselves what you give us not, a sense of pride, a respectable place in this world.
They charged up the hill when they knew the enemy was firing. They were not Black, White, Latino frontworkers. They were Americans, they were New Yorkers. They were linked by the commonality of humanity. Their better angels said, get past your fear, get past your weakness. Don’t stay at home. Rise up. Be stronger. Be better than you think you can be yourself. Get in touch with your strength.
They gave their strength, they gave their lives. We did it. We acted as one. People from all over the globe. Many different languages. This is New York, and we’re in it together. We showed the world what that means even as Washington did their damndest to break us up.
The Governor is speaking from his heart for all to hear. For a moment I want to question something that feels like romanticism. Instead I throw my hands in the air and say Hallelujah.
Hallelujah Jesus.
Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu.
I never meant to cause you any sorrow.
I never meant to cause you pain.
Institutional injustice. A face pressed up against the asphalt. Onlookers, asking for a pulse. An officer above him, as proud of his physical prowess as a kid earning a karate belt. Except then it changed from Code 2, to Code 3. Then an ambulance showed up. Pages and pages of evidence.
Dr. King.
Like this we call to the Good Doctor. We are sick, Dr. King. Can the community rise to the occasion? Our better angels are circling overhead in Minneapolis, sitting on the clouds as they sing their purple rain.
We need people to rise above themselves, says the Governor.
Help. Protect. Respect.
Despite the risk. Please help us.
Violence allows people to talk about violence. Don’t give them that indulgence. That is the lesson of nonviolence that Gandhi gave us. Get in touch with our strength. Learn from that strength. Violence obscures the righteousness of the message.
Love. Not Hate.
The virus of discrimination and racism is ever-present. But if we can beat this coronavirus, we can beat anything. We can do anything. Just think about that.
But don’t be violent. Be productive.
I stand by with the protestors, he says. Enough is Enough.
Put Bill 50a on my desk and I will sign it today. Let the legislators convene by Zoom and I’ll put it into order. The best way to say No as an elected official is to say that I can’t. But I’m not saying No. I’m saying Yes.
From Day 1 (and here we are 90 days later) my number one focus has been the number of deaths. We can fix deficits and shortfalls on the budget and all sorts of other things. But the one thing we can’t fix are the number of deaths. That’s what keeps me up at night.
(Then I have a vision, I see the Governor cheering himself on, up the hill, right into the firing enemy. And this is how it is. He isn’t asking you do anything he hasn’t done himself. The strength he is speaking of, he knows it’s there because he’s found it.)
Now all the barber salons need a Covid19 seal of approval. Have you had a test lately?
Public health is public knowledge. We’re not going 0-100 here, let’s just start with 15.
It’s not the virtual Mayor, it’s the real Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. A little less than ideal, perhaps, but there he is smiling.
The Governor finishes his briefing by reading off the names of all the black men that have died at the hands of police brutality since 1991, beginning with Rodney King. The history of police brutality, as it has been revealed in the advent of personal media and mobile recording.
Dr. King —
Let us bow our heads and pray.
I hear your anger, your fear, your frustration. People deserve answers and accountability.
Perhaps the police did encourage the violence. We are all a coiled sort of anxiousness ready to spring. Restless and rentless. Scenes from a country in free fall. A black eye from a rubber bullet.
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Like that the President inadvertently pays homage to his lineage of white supremacy and the words of segregationist George Wallace, a famous character in the Southern race riots of the 1960s, who, after having a bullet put through his spine, appeared to have turned towards God and asked for forgiveness.
All those young hoodlums, shaking spasms of violence.
“You are ordered to disperse immediately.”
In the background we hear a high-pitched Karen: Black. Lives. Matter.
Say his name !
Doctor King.
The boogaloos with their Hawaiian shirts and igloos are waiting on the horizon of the apocalypse.
There are two types of people that become police officers, it seems: those who believe in the rule of law, and those who spent their childhood being picked on.
What we need to heal is not a fact.
Nameless anxiety, a fervor.