Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Into Madness and Out

a face in the wood
Lime Kiln Canyon, California

mind control
    Has your life begun to resemble some distant remembrance of an old sci-fi plot? 
     A pandemic, world wide worry, and a lunatic in the White House? 
      Dear ones, we are going deep into the forest and there are many questions about this journey.

    Four decades of reporting, producing and documentary making has toughened my skin and tested my soul, but when I saw a recent set of photos of empty streets, arenas, shelves, religious shrines and places on this globe where people were not, it gave me a jolt. 
    A virus is taking control of how we live. It is a terrorist, a war fighter invasion and it challenges our thin wall of civility. 
    We all have a stake in this, as all of us are vulnerable. Regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, identity, nation, age, or whatever, we are the same. Something new, unknown, and unseen has, in days, changed how we live and has rewritten our fears.

the mad king
   As we face an emergency on a potential level unseen in over a hundred years, the Trump administration has blown it. That is not surprising, but it is unforgivable! 
   No testing kits. No advance prep. No cohesive strategy. Trump is the president who fired the national security council expert on pandemics. He is the man who has downplayed the epidemic. He is the man who stood in front of doctors and raved about "how people were so surprised at how much he knew" about medicine.
    Donald Trump is delusional, inept and a clear and present danger to us all.
    His vanity, and his desire for re-election has made him even more dangerous. He's interested only in the stock market, reasoning that is his ticket to re-election. God help us! 
    He tells us it will just "go away," after first comparing it to just another attempt to get rid of him. He lies about statistics. If only some rational cabinet members would invoke the 25th Amendment, Section 4 and put the fool in a straight jacket and send him to Walter Reed and a padded cell. The man is ill. His brain is a congress of demons of greed, ego, deceit and fantasy. 

  
our common good
     If ever in our lifetime, this is something that  profoundly demonstrates we are all brothers and sisters, children under the same sky, residents of the same globe, and vulnerable to something that as yet we have little or no control of. 
     Blame and recrimination are unavoidable and necessary, but our purpose now should be to follow the advice of the medical experts and do what we can to lower and attempt to control the spread, to act with intelligence and civility. 
      We know not to buckle to terrorists because that gives them a victory, but this terrorist is a virus and we must employe intelligence and change things about our personal contact. There will be disruptions, but with time and proper procedures we will get through it. Already the number of cases in China are beginning to decline.
      In the meantime we are best advised to take our information from good sources, recognized medical sources, the World Health Organization, the CDC, state and county Health Departments. Be careful with the information that comes from social media and friends.
      While this medical emergency plays out we must remember the lowest humans among us will try to take advantage. There will be hustlers, cheats, price gougers, political manipulators, healers and the like. Don't be fooled. 

 the bright side
      My mother used to say, in all things, look on the bright side. She could say that and believe it, even after burying 3 of her four children. 
      So let's watch to see how all the children of this planet respond, and look for those movements, actions, events and developments which demonstrate once again, our unique human quality at over coming and surviving.

      Since we've traveled so deeply into the dark woods and  pondered such a heavy load, how about a celebration of life and vitality. Let's wander on and find an antidote.....

green renewal











    Take good care of yourself and loved ones.

      See you down the trail. 

10 comments:

  1. He is the one who suspended travelers from China on 1/31/20, way before other countries acted and was called a racist for it. He is the one who is protecting our southern border, recently blocking over three hundred Chinese from entering illegally. He is the one who right now is stopping hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from freely crossing our southern border and bringing Coronavirus - Yes, if virus is that kind of world problem, they will be bringing it - spreading it through our California communities. And again he is being called a racist for that foresight.

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    1. He's also the one who called it, quote -- "the new hoax".
      Please explain that one for me.

      The man is a fool.

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  2. Well, I don't think it's coincidence that 'Anonymous' above is anonymous. Do you often get delusional trump trolls here?
    I'm wintering in Seattle, turns out to be something of a mistake; it's the epicenter of Covid-19 in the US. Schools are closed, all sports/large gatherings are banned, stores all have empty shelves where sanitation supplies reside.
    So far, there seems there is absolutely nothing that trump does will bring opposition from the once-reputable republican party. November is our only chance, and congressional action when he declares the election invalid (or try to cancel the election before it happens).

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  3. I don't think Trump is capable of anything other than fulfilling his agenda. The other "stuff" is just a distraction for him. Thankfully, there are some people around him who show him what to do in critical situations. He plays golf, tweets, looks after his hair and thinks about Donald Trump.

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  4. There is no excuse for disbanding our defenses to pandemics. Saying he's keeping "others" from coming in a infecting "us" is overlooking one of Tom's points, that we are all in this together. Our citizens are still allowed to fly other places, potentially infecting "them" in the name of business. Please, let's not think that we are somehow above being part of this problem.

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  5. Once again you have nailed it Tom. The Madness of King Donald has jeopardized us all. By rights it should dethrone him.

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  6. Excellent assessment, Tom, and exceptional photos. I don't know if it's only the big-box stores suffering panicky overbuying. Just returned from the little "corner Arab" store 1/8th mile away and he had full shelves of cleaning products, toilet paper, OTC sinus medicines, aspirin etc. Yet Walmart, 4 miles in the other direction, offers only bare shelves in those areas. I still run by Walmart for local wines because they charge only half what my Arab does, but we must try to trust our neighboring small businesses --even though no sensationally dramatic buying brawls erupt in them. You don't see them advertised or telecast on the news. They are owned and operated by smart people who came here for a better life. Trump is simply a biological misdirection.

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  7. Thank you for the well developed analysis. It was clearly and appropriately stated.

    PipeTobacco

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  8. Dear Tom: So well said. Astute, insightful and chilling to the bone. How can it be so seemingly impossible to stop the machine that supports this monster?

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