Skip to main content

WAKE UP AMERICA

 Wake up to the crushing wave of new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths raging across America with abandon.

Be honest, we, none of us, are taking this 2nd and more deadly wave of COVID-19 as seriously as we did in March.

It was then that we scrambled for home delivery services, that we self-quarantined, that we stopped church, sports, concerts, movies, bars, restaurants, and in-store shopping. 

The pandemic slowed and almost stopped in places like NY, NJ, and CT.

We stopped seeing our Doctor, delayed elective surgery, testing, and hospital visits.

We discovered the ease and efficiency of online shopping and Zoom for family facetime.

In a word, we changed our lives to preserve our physical health at the expense of our financial health.

Now, what, we're entering the critical winter season when flu hits its peak, the forecast for new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are staggering and we're barely emerging from an economic recession if not a depression.

The question remains, what comes first, our health, or our job?  The answer is we don't have to choose, we can have both.

This requires sacrifice, inconvenience, and discomfort. It requires putting aside our rights and doing what's right.

In the UK during the Nazi blitz in1940, Churchill's didn't request that the citizens turn off their lights at night, go to the subway stations during air raids, use food stamps and work overtime in munition factories, he demanded it and instituted serious penalties for those who didn't comply. 

Churchill was a leader and an orator, a man who understood the seriousness of the national predicament and didn't hesitate to do the right thing for the survival of the country without concern for individual rights. The Brits responded, they not only took Churchill's dictums to heart they became volunteer wardens, donned helmets, and helped enforcement. It was either that or roll up in a fetal position, suck your thumb and wait for the Nazi juggernaut to invade.

COVID-19 is our juggernaut, it is here, and it's spreading. 

What are we going to do about it?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

TRUMP-OUR OWN WILLY LOMAN

  "Death of a Salesman is not set during the Depression but it bears its mark, as does Willy Loman, a sixty-three-year-old salesman, who stands baffled by his failure. Certainly in memory, he returns to that period, as if personal and national fate were somehow intertwined, while in spirit, according to Miller, he also reaches back to the more expansive and confident, if empty, 1920s, when, according to a president of the United States, the business of America was business. And since he inhabits ‘‘the greatest country in the world,’’ a world of Manifest Destiny, where can the fault lie but in himself? If personal meaning, in this cheerleader society, lies in success, then failure must threaten identity itself. No wonder Willy shouts out his name. He is listening for an echo. No wonder he searches desperately back through his life for evidence of the moment he took a wrong path; no wonder he looks to the next generation to give him back that life by achieving what had slipped so un...

IT MUST BE SUNDAY

" Life is like a river, if you cannot let go of the past, it will drag you down the stream.” ―Amit Ray I've Been Thinking... A few months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about life when he said to me: “Maria, if you want something new, you are going to have to first get rid of the old. It’s the only way to make room.” Damn, I thought. Ain’t that the truth? One of my big New Year’s resolutions for 2020 was to clear out the old in every area of my life. I had made a promise to myself that this would be the year I would take a hard look at how I was living my life: my beliefs, my attachments, and all my stuff. I started sorting through things from my office, things from my time as First Lady of California, things from my parents, things from my kids (do yourself a favor and do not save all of your kids’ school things like I did), and so many other things that had found their way into storage when life got the best of me. In fact, I was already in the thick of shredding, di...

PLEASE GOD, SAY IT ISN'T SO

Pause. Breathe. BY MARIA SHRIVER   It’s okay not to be okay today. I certainly wasn’t okay when I went to bed. I hit the hay way too late. I ate way too much. I bit off my nails. I didn’t have the evening I thought I was going to have. It felt reminiscent of 2016 at times. It was a total roller coaster. (I'm writing this as the election has yet to be called.) I know most of us are waking up feeling confused, sad, angry, bewildered. Most of all just exhausted. We’ve all been through a lot, and while we have been through it together, we have also all gone through it in our own personal way. It’s brought up so much for so many, so go easy today.    Put your hand over your heart. Feel it beating, close your eyes. Breathe.    Honor yourself for making it to this moment. For having made the effort to make your voice heard, even if you didn’t get everything you wanted. Honor the fact that you stepped up. You were a part of history. Think about that.    For me...