Pandemic Journal - Day 80

Eighty days since Virginia, anyway, declared a pandemic and things went whoopsie daisy and everything fell down, many people are acting like the Covid virus is gone. Maybe it is, I don't know.

Today is my birthday. I celebrated by going out to Supercuts for a haircut. My Covid Cut is no more. My hair looks much better and feels much better, too. The stylist wore a mask, and I wore a mask. The hair around my ears is a little long but I attribute that to the mask. Well, that and the fact that I don't have a regular hair stylist anymore, and haven't for 18 months. In other words, I'm used to my hair looking irregular and a bit "off" these days. 

Just maybe not quite as "off" as it looked with my Covid Cut.

My husband did not want me to go out for this haircut. We are still trying to physically distance ourselves from others. It is not ideal, but it is what it is. And I really wanted a haircut.

In other matters, the latest civil unrest seems to have quieted somewhat but I feel it rumbling still beneath my feet. There are rumblings from the white folks whose nose are out of joint because their Civil War statues have been vandalized and are now slated for removal. I consider this an inappropriate rumbling - the statues aren't being destroyed, after all. They will end up in a museum or something somewhere. They shouldn't have been up there anyway. You don't celebrate a lost cause. And my great-great grandfather was a Confederate soldier, so my say is just as valid as anyone else's. Get rid of the ones that celebrate the generals and Jefferson Davis, anyway. Review the others individually and see if there is any merit to having them remain. Memorials to local war dead may be ok, I don't know. I'd really like to see the black community consulted on that.

The rumblings from the Black Lives Matter movement is necessary and a needed demonstration showing that change in the minds and hearts of people of all color is not just desirable but necessary. This is especially true if we're all going to continue living together in this great big melting pot - and I'm not talking about the U.S., I'm talking about Earth. 

Of course, some would just as soon we not all live together in this melting pot, and I'm afraid some of those are in power. I never thought the day I'd see fascism and white supremacy gain such a foothold in this country, but here it is, slapping me and everyone else in the face. I find it odd that the people in the right - who tend to be the white supremacists - are so quick to call the people on the left "fascist." Do they not know what the word means? 

Let me break it down for you: fascism is bad. It is not, generally speaking, a liberal stance. Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy. It is what the Nazis practiced. We fought a war against it. If you are against fascism, then you are anti-fascist.

Liberal policies do not use dictatorial power or forcible suppression of opposition. Yes, liberals are intolerant of the intolerant. Jerks should be treated like jerks. But aside from that, liberal policies seem to me to hold the moral high ground. We want mothers to be able to feed their children, we want everyone to have health care and not have to go into bankruptcy over it, we want everyone to have what they need.

The president wants to make what he calls "Antifa" (meaning "antifascist") a terrorist group. Shouldn't most Americans be against fascism? Fascism is in direct opposition to the American experiment. But he calls the white supremacists "very fine people." I don't know how anyone can reconcile these two things in their mind and determine that anti-fascism is wrong and white supremacy is not. Apparently people do.

I claim no answers to these ponderous questions. I cannot make society better except for in my little part of the world. Have I done that? I don't know. I have tried. I tried to for years to write articles sympathetic to all sides, but I live in a mostly white, rural (and Republican) area. I tried to make black issues a subject of discussion from time to time, but mostly I was left hanging. Sometimes I lucked out and called out something and someone else picked up the mantle and ran with it. But I'm not sure it really created change. 

Today's society moves so quickly from issue to issue, always putting out the fires of the moment as spotlighted by the media, that is easy to see things left behind. A good example locally are the slave cabins at Greenfield. The county wanted to tear them down to build an industrial building. The Historical Society, by and large, shrugged and didn't put up a fight. I wasn't writing for the paper then so I started writing letters every week objecting to the moving of these historical objects without some kind of plan. Finally, folks took notice and they formed a group. I was too sick at the time to do much else but I hope that my letters helped bring attention to the issue, but maybe all they did was piss off the county supervisors, I don't know. I know it upset a few of them because they told me so. (They are all white and male.)

At any rate, the cabins were moved and saved, but their historical value diminished considerably because they were moved. That was six years ago now, I think. And there they sit, untouched, unrepaired, with no contextual markers, no anything, because the locality does not make this a priority. I don't know how to make it a priority again, I really don't. I guess if the roof falls in on one of them, someone will pay attention. I don't know if that would be different if the structures had some other significance. I mean, the county let a company tear down a house George Washington supposedly slept in and we didn't even blink. 

None of that has to do with a man being killed by a police officer and the ensuing demonstrations and protests. It's just background information that shows how little I know about the subject. Asking me for advice on race relations is like asking a potato how an apple grows. I have basic ideas about how things could or might operate, but getting them to that point will take more detailed investigation than I have the ability to perform.

So we stand at this crossroads. Some say this will be a turning point for Civil Rights. I hope so, in a good way. It may be that things grow progressively worse, especially since #45 has called upon the military and threatened our own citizens with our own Armed Forces. This has not gone over well, but I don't see soldiers stepping down from their positions to say, "That's a line I will not cross, Sir." I see retired officers stepping up, and I see reminders that the Armed Forces members serve the U.S. Constitution, not the Commander-in-Chief, but I'm not convinced that most members understand the difference. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me a soldier follows orders, whatever they are, whether he or she agrees with them or not. I have never been a soldier but my father was one, and I know he sure expected his orders to be followed.

I expect to see the Covid numbers rise. It is almost 14 days since Memorial Day, when people really started gathering. This was followed by the protests. So what will we see 14 days from now? Will the Covid numbers rise?

Right now we have 40 known cases in my county. We have 33,000 people. That 0.121% of the population with Covid, and those are only the ones we know of. That's less than the flu, for sure, but we have vaccines for the flu. We have no immunity against Covid. 

This county has had 3 people die from Covid, two of whom I knew, and I just learned last night that my husband's cousin's grandson died from Covid.

This illness is still with us. Just because the media has turned its attention elsewhere doesn't mean it is all over and it has disappeared. Maybe it had worn itself out and the warmer weather will kill it off. I do not know. I am not an epidemiologist. But as long as there are active cases being reported, and numbers continue to mount (we've had 110,000 die last I heard), my husband and I will be cautious, and we will wear masks.

This pandemic is not yet over.

Neither is anything else.

Happy birthday to me.