The United States of America is caught in what’s known in psychology as The Drama Triangle. Bear with me. Here’s a quickie Wiki explanation: “The drama triangle is a social model of human interaction – the triangle maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. The drama triangle model is a tool used in psychotherapy, specifically transactional analysis. The triangle of actors in the drama are oppressors, victims and rescuers.
Read More“As he looked over the protective equipment [in a retooled mask factory in Phoenix], the Guns and Roses rendition of the Paul McCartney song ‘Live and Let Die’ blared over loudspeakers. Searches for the song exploded on social media and critics were quick to take note. ‘I can think of no better metaphor for this presidency than Donald Trump not wearing a face mask to a face mask factory while the song ‘Live and Let Die’ blares in the background,’ the late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel wrote on Twitter.” There was a video that accompanied the story which I played for eleven of its thirty-one seconds, when a thought struck me. Remember seeing pictures of U.S. presidents at the beginnings of their terms? They almost, to a man [sadly], look invigorated, enthusiastic, ready to hit the ground running. Four years later, or eight, no matter what has gone down in the nation or the world, they almost, to a man [sadly], look exhausted, determined, and with much more grey hair than they had on Day One.
Read MoreI am beginning to think I live in a country, maybe even a world, populated by Veruca Salts, and that we are being battered by yet another virus. For those not in this particular know, Veruca Salt is the supremely spoiled British girl in the Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Julie Dawn Cole brought her to stunning, whiny, tantrumy life in the 1971 film starring Gene Wilder redubbed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You know which one I mean, She of the “IwantitNOW,Daddy!” refrain. Maybe the world isn’t overrun by Verucas, but there are enough Verucas, and their wheels are squeaking loudly enough that it’s giving me pause, and a little bit of a headache. “It’s the economy, stupid,” says the Lincoln-wannabe in The White House. “The economy. The economy. The economy.” Maybe if he keeps saying it loudly enough it will drown out every other voice, the voices of reason.
Read MoreThe congressional district that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, represents is the hottest of the coronavirus hot spots in the entire country. Her policy positions, she said, have only been affirmed by the damage the coronavirus has inflicted, disproportionately, upon lower-income populations. In a Fox News Town Hall, the Arrogance-in-Chief said, “At some point we have to open our country. And people are going to be safe. We’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned about the tremendous contagion. But we have no choice. We can’t stay closed as a country. We’re not going to have a country left.” In that same conversation, Mr. Trump upped his death toll numbers; we’ve already long surpassed his original estimate—all the while assuring us that we will be safe.
Read MoreLaurie Garrett predicted the coronavirus. Frank Bruni asks “What Does She Foresee Next?” Straight up, she “expects years of death and ‘collective rage.’” That makes sense. Facts, and the feelings they engender. Got it. “What Garrett has been warning most direly about—in her 1994 best seller, “The Coming Plague,” and in subsequent books and speeches, including TED Talks—is a pandemic like the current one.” Simple math. 2020 – 1994 = 26 years. Yep, more than a quarter of a century.
Read MoreAutomatic weapon-toting protestors paralyze the capitol of Michigan. Upstate New Yorkers protest that they’re not New York City. The Governor of Maryland has called out the National Guard to protect the state stockpile of personal protective equipment from theft by the Feds. Today’s Coronavirus Outbreak aggregator says, “The timing and the extent of lockdown restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus have prompted a raft of lawsuits across the United States. All manner of rights are being asserted. Individual rights. Commercial rights. Free speech rights. Property rights. In Los Angeles, for example, a diverse group of small businesses, including a gondola service, a mariachi band and a pet grooming spa, have sued in federal court.”There is a subtext to all of these actions, no, maybe two.
Read MoreFrank Bruni said it beautifully. “Republicans are not drinking bleach, but they are drinking the Kool-Aid.” I’m worried. And because my mother was a world-class worrier, I gave it up decades ago. It made no sense to me to compete with her when I couldn’t possibly. But now, I am worried. I’m worried that we’re allowing the data spin doctors too much leeway. Not that any of us is turning into a Republican, but that the Kool-Aid fumes are affecting our reasoning. “Flattening the curve” has become newly-minted shorthand that doesn’t mean what we want it to mean, no matter how much we want it to mean it. What we’re actually looking for is not a curve in motion at all. We’re looking for NO curve, a flat curve, a curve-less curve.
Read MoreThe always-brilliant Jennifer Finney Boylan noted in her opinion essay on Sunday “The Curious Incident of No Dog in the White House,” “Much has been written about what might be generously described as Donald Trump’s lack of interest in dogs, and as the election of 2020 slowly draws near, it’s a subject worth considering again.” Her brief history of dogs of The White House is well worth your reading time. “Donald Trump is, in fact, the first president since William McKinley [1897-1901] not to have a dog.” That’s 123 years. I think I’ve figured out why, and it’s not because of his stated reason when someone tried to give him a dog. “Mr. Trump told Ms. Pope he was too busy for a dog. Later, he told supporters he didn’t need one. Because ‘that’s not the relationship I have with my people.’” What? I think it’s because Donald Trump is actually a Cheshire Cat. With salaams and deep apologies to The Cheshire Cat.
Read MoreOne hundred days since the first recorded coronavirus diagnosis in the U.S., and counting. One million documented cases of coronavirus infection in the U.S., and counting. One Chairman of the U.S. Coronavirus Task Force visited the Mayo Clinic yesterday—and refused to wear a mask, and, unfortunately, counting. Annie Karni writes, “American Bridge, a progressive group, called for Mr. Pence to be removed from the coronavirus task force, which he oversees. ‘He just didn’t care enough about the health and safety of doctors, nurses, and patients to follow their guidance,’ said Kyle Morse, a spokesman for the group. ‘Pence, like Donald Trump, thinks the rules don’t apply to him.’”
Read More“In the seven weeks since the president promised that anyone who needed a test could get one, the United States has conducted about 5.4 million [coronavirus] tests, far more than any other country, but still the equivalent of only about 1.6 percent of the total population.” The percentage of the population hasn’t changed since the last time I did the math a couple weeks ago. “Rather than one coordinated federal response, the Trump administration has been engaging on an ad hoc basis as states take the lead.” Since then, Mr. Trump has promised ventilators would go to Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, El Salvador, Ecuador.
Read MoreI remember the progression well. First, it had no name. Then, it was the plague. At one point, the gay plague, graduated to GRID, gay-related immune disease. Eventually, AIDS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. You might think it stopped there, but it didn’t. As research continued, a distinction was made between HIV and AIDS. Just because someone was HIV-positive, it didn’t mean they had AIDS. Time wore on. AIDS patients got a big dollop of humanitarianism and were changed to PWAs, people with AIDS. At that point, it was still a game of Russian roulette. Most who had it died. The process eventuated to PLWAs, and I recall taking a deep, deep breath when I learned what it signified: People Living with AIDS. Implicit was, of course, that they weren’t all necessarily dying. It was a huge mental shift that, once it occurred, took its place immediately in the collective mind. Mostly because it was a relief. Almost everyone knew someone who was positive, whether consciously aware of that fact or not. PLWAs. Well now, we have come to the same stage with SARS-CoV-2 a.k.a. the coronavirus.
Read MoreWhat is a true priority in this dystopian dream we’re living? In today’s Coronavirus Outbreak news aggregator, I read this: “Early in 2018, 30 microbiologists, zoologists and public health experts from around the world gathered at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva to draw up a priority list of dangerous viruses—specifically, those for which no vaccines or drugs were in development. It included “Disease X”: a stand-in for all of the unknown pathogens, or devastating variations on existing pathogens, that had yet to emerge. The coronavirus now sweeping the world, officially SARS-CoV-2, is a prime example.” Once again, I’m relegated to basic math. 2018? It’s 2020. What did we do, or what did the 30 worldwide wizards do with those two years? It wasn’t because they didn’t want to do something. They did.
Read MoreWell, I think that each of us carries an aspect, and serves the rest of us, of the collective emotionality of humankind. Because of my own personal experience with death and grief, I default to Sad. I know people whose default reactivity—especially to collective experience—is Mad. I know others who default to Bad a.k.a. Fear. You take my point. That’s why when Opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie writing in “Mitch McConnell Is Not as Clever as He Thinks He Is,” opined, “When banks, corporations and wealthy individuals need bailouts, the Republican Party is there, pen in hand. ... But when ordinary Americans need help to pay their bills, and when states—which can’t run deficits—need help to avoid fiscal collapse, the Republican Party is much less interested,” I was utterly astonished that I defaulted to Mad.
Read More“When things aren’t going smoothly for President Trump, his go-to move is to change the subject to topics that cheer his supporters and drive his critics into paroxysms of outrage.” When my mother used to use this same technique at my childhood dinner table, my brothers and I dubbed it the Look, There’s Haley’s Comet Defense. She was brilliant at it. “Choking off legal immigration is just one aspect of the administration’s longstanding agenda that’s being cast as a pandemic response. In the midst of the crisis, the administration has plowed ahead with non-Covid priorities that, in more normal times, most likely would have met with fierce pushback.” Okay, I get it, we’re distracted.
Read MoreHere’s as good an international analysis as any I’ve read: “As the calamity unfolds, President Trump and state governors are arguing not only over what to do, but also over who has the authority to do it. Mr. Trump has fomented protests against the safety measures urged by scientific advisers, misrepresented facts about the virus and the government response nearly daily, and this week used the virus to cut off the issuing of green cards to people seeking to immigrate to the United States.”In the words of Dominique Moïsi, a senior adviser at the Institut Montaigne, a Paris think tank, “America has not done badly—it has done exceptionally badly.” Contrast this with the level-headed leadership of Angela Merkel speaking to the German Parliament, “Let us not squander what we have achieved.”
Read MoreEpidemiologists are now saying that the first death from this particular coronavirus was in Santa Cruz, California on February 6th, not on February 29th in Seattle, as we’d all been told. That was 73 days ago. Not even a full business quarter. The Times Coronavirus Live Updates goes on: “In a little over two months, the economy would grind to a halt, nearly the entire country and much of the world would be ordered to shelter at home and life would be transformed for nearly the entire planet. In that time, more than 40,000 Americans have died, part of a global toll of 172,000—a number that most likely vastly underestimates the true count.” Viruses are like that.
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