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.
