Author: Henry

Long before the Coronavirus or the “Wuhan Virus”, as our Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, calls it, or Trump calling it the “China Flu”, there were other pandemics. 

The bubonic plague hit the Eastern Roman Empire in 542, killing between 25 million and 50 million people. They called it the Plague of Justinian after emperor at the time, Justinian I. 

(Pay attention, Xi Jinping)

In 1347 it returned and killed one third of the European population. That’s 18 million people. It wasn’t named for one person, though. People had become more sophisticated. They blamed it on a whole people, the Mongols. 

In those days they tossed, not just dead bodies into rivers, but the near dead, too. 

They might have called it the Flea Plague or the Rat Plague, but the part fleas and rats played in spreading it wasn’t discovered until 2002. 

It could also have been called The Italian Plague, blaming Italians who, in fleeing the pandemic, carried it with them throughout Europe. 

(Are you reading this, Michael Pompeo and Donald Trump?)

It came back for a third time in 1900 or so, starting, according to some reports, in San Francisco’s Chinatown. That resulted in The Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese were easy to blame, already known as “The Yellow Peril” for working for low wages on the California railroads as well as the Sonoma wineries. 

That pandemic stumbled around the world for years via sea ports (sailors, you know). It sputtered out 347 miles down the coast in Los Angeles in 1924, the start of the LA movie industry, which some call a plague even today. 

A few years earlier, as WWI ended, the Spanish Flu arrived, infecting 500 million people, 27% of the world population, and killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million, or 5%; the ability to document deaths hadn’t improved much in 1500 years, probably because people were dying and being buried faster other people could count them.

Spain was tagged with that pandemic because it hit Spain really hard. Today’s historians think it really started in Etaples, France or at a British Army base in Ft. Riley, Kansas.

Or in Northern China, from where Chinese laborers brought it to Europe when they were recruited to replace European workers who had gone into the WWI military. We could rename it The Chinese Flu, I suppose. That would certainly get Spain off the hook.

A common denominator of pandemics has always been fear and abuse of the sick. There were no cures, so self-protection became the brutal and only way to survive.

Wars or other natural disasters bring people together as the best way to survive. Pandemics do the opposite; people separate to survive.  The lack of stories about the Spanish flu, historians believe, is because the survivors were deeply ashamed of how viciously they treated the sick. 

News stories emerging from Italy today tell of healthcare workers leaving the sickest Coronavirus patients unattended in order to save others. They tell of mortuary workers refusing to pick up the dead bodies for days out of fear of catching the virus. 

There are differences and similarities between our Coronavirus pandemic and previous pandemics. Some US leaders, like Governor Cuomo of New York and almost all other state governors, are encouraging people to help each other as they self-isolate. Others blame the evil Nancy Pelosi and the even evil-er Washington Post and New York Times for faking the whole thing.

There are news stories about lines forming outside of gun shops as people stock up on extra guns. There are also news stories of restaurants around the country donating meals to people.  

Another difference, and this may be the game changer, is communication. In previous pandemics, people who self-isolated lost contact with each other, adding to fear and abuse of the sick. Their means of communication were limited to smoke signals, semafores, carrier pigeons and, at best, morse code. 

Unlike all those past pandemics, today we have cell phones, radio, TV, streaming, and social media. So we can connect with each other even as we separate from each other. We can use all this technology to assuage fear, to direct medical help, to pass laws for financial help, to provide everything from food to succor, to give each other sympathy, laughs, stability, and hope. 

To physically isolate, but emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually unite.

We can evolve from the horror and brutality of past pandemics. The question is: will we?

Yes, it’s killing people. Yes, it’s crashing stock markets. Yes it’s destroying economies. Yes, it’s reminding everyone of the 1918 flu. 

But there are positives. 

Take Facebook for example. Sure Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea of Facebook from the Winklevoss twins. Sure he has used it to monopolize and monetize your personal information. And sure, there’s virtually nothing you can do about it. 

But while you’re sitting alone in forced or self-imposed quarantine because of the Coronavirus, you don’t have to feel like you’re in a prison cell. You can use Facebook to communicate with your friends. You can twitter, maybe even with your President. You can connect through Instagram, Tinder, and TicTok. You can shop at numerous stores including the local grocery and connect with others in a wide variety of ways.  

Compare that to being quarantined back in 1918 without computers, cell phones, and the internet. Now that was isolation.

OK, calling that a positive may be a stretch. But there are other bright spots, particularly in politics.

The President’s statements about the US having plenty of “beautiful” test kits and that anyone who wants to be tested can be, are now exposed are infantile lies. 

Right now there are around 1 or 2 million Corona test kits for a population of 320 million. That’s one reason people who think they might have the virus can’t get tested by their doctor or, better yet, by an at-home test kit from the drugstore. Nope. Anyone who has cold symptoms with a high fever and a dry cough, has to first call country or state authorities for permission to be tested, then, if tests are available, be tested, which will take 48 to 72 hours, allowing plenty of time to infect others. And, many of the tests are not “beautiful”; they have produced false results. 

According to Atlantic Magazine, as of 4:00 PM Monday, March 9, only 4384 people in the US have been tested. “By this point in its outbreak, South Korea had tested more than 100,000 people for the disease, and it was testing roughly 15,000 people every day. The United Kingdom, where three people have died of COVID-19, has already tested more than 24,900 people.”

What’s worse, Europe could have sold us tons of tests that did work – four months ago, in December – but our government’s policy was to refuse to buy them. Instead they took weeks just to design their own – flawed tests – and weeks more to produce them and put them to work protecting the country. So now a lot more people than might have are going to catch the virus than would have, pointing a finger directly at Trump’s policies and incompetence.

Good for Democrats; bad for Republicans.

Because health care is so expensive, many poorer people in the US will not seek it during this pandemic. They will get sick and possibly die, not to mention spreading it, increasing public pressure for a wider, less expensive healthcare system.

Good for Democrats; bad for Republicans.

Because few Americans are paid when they are on sick leave, especially in this gig economy, many are less likely to stay home and self-quarantine if they are sick, thereby spreading the disease as well as risking their own health. As a result, voters will be more interested in a candidate who supports paid sick leave.

Good for Democrats; bad for Republicans.

Because of the Trump Administration’s policies toward illegal immigrants, they are not likely to report having Coronavirus, not to mention getting medical help, guaranteeing a wider spread of it. 

Good for Democrats; bad for Republicans.

The 1918 flu started discussion in England about universal health care; Churchill was one of the first proponents. Over a hundred years later, the US is still considers it anathema. But discussions about a public option and other ways to bring health insurance to those without it will certainly ramp up now. 

Good for Democrats; bad for Republicans.

Unless, the President adopts the Democrats approaches and policies as his own and introduces them now, with predictable fanfare and self-aggrandizement. That might tick off the Democrats but, hey, isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

He pulls out his brother’s old school tie, grey flannels, and a blazer, as well other the necessary items for a short trip to Rhode Island; shaving kit, shirts, 2 sweaters – 1 cotton, 1 wool – and a pair of polished shoes.

When they were kids growing up there, Rhode Islanders had a saying: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

It had to do with the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean and the temperature on land, or something like that. All he remembered was how fickle the weather was, blizzards in April and rain in December, and everything else in between.

And that was before climate change.

While he’s packing, the TV shows a Kobe Bryant memorial. Thousands of people, stars like Christian Aguilera, Alicia Keys, and Beyonce performing, Michael Jordan and Shaq O’Neal speaking, thousands at the stadium and millions at home sharing tears and laughter. The country had been in mourning since January 26, when the basketball superstar died in a helicopter crash.

According to UN estimates, 7452 die in the US on a typical day. Some are revered superstars; some are just normal people. Some have millions of mourners, some have no one, some in between.

He’s packing for a memorial for one of the in-betweens, which describes most of us. We are born, go through our formative years, have careers, if we’re lucky we have families, grow old and say goodbye. Two or three generations later, few people will even know our name, unless it’s on a gravestone or memorial somewhere.

His son picks him up and they head up route 95 to Greenwich, Connecticut where they pick another son and a daughter who had trained out from New York. All of his kids are out of the nest and on careers and trajectories of their own and this Rhode Island trip is one of those rare occasions where they can all be together.

Others in the extended family arrive at a large Airbnb his daughter had booked. There are two more daughters, some nieces and nephews, grandchildren, and more. He gets the single room, because he’s the last of the “old guys” now. Cancer had taken the oldest brother away in 1996; several few weeks ago a heart attack took this brother. Now there is no-one between him and the cliff.

His brother’s eldest daughter arranged for the memorial service, his sister-in-law still on the roller-coaster that events like this put us on. The church is nearly filled; his brother was that kind of guy, liked by everyone he met, and he had met a lot of people. He wears his brother’s school tie and sees a few others dotting the pews. The service is short and very New England stiff-upper-lip. He listens as the minister encourages people to share happy memories of his brother who is in a happy place now, and he remembers the classic Tom Hanks line, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

Of course, at the reception afterward, guess who breaks the rule while giving a welcome speech. But his New England roots take hold and he gets through it, telling a funny story from their childhood.

Later, at the family dinner, he continues following the minister’s advice with more stories of a man for whom old school ties meant so much, for whom the quiet elegance of integrity and understatement were as ingrained as his innate ability to make puns (the humor of choice for smart people – “and very punny puns”, he thinks – the only pun he could ever come up with, which he did, numerous times).

On the ride home, the stone walls and delicate beauty of New England architecture race past, bringing memories of high school football games, the tie and coat dress code, and a culture that taught one over-riding rule: be a gentleman – no lying, cheating or stealing, respect others, do the right thing. Old school, to be sure. Old, old school.

As New England recedes and is replaced by hi-rises and dense traffic, he thinks about the old school tie in his suitcase. He’ll put it in his bureau in the drawer with other mementos from his youth, rarely to be used again.

Bloomberg’s performance in his first debate was a non-performance. Was he a deer in the headlights, or a posh autocrat genuinely surprised by insubordination from the riff-raff?

It’s hard to tell, because he was very passive in the face of some blistering personal attacks. Of course, if you’re being nailed for sexism and racism, I guess there are few good retorts.  

“Good one, Elizabeth, but you’re just a histrionic woman, so who cares!” (No, he didn’t say that).

On the other hand, a multi-billionaire scoffing at plans for correcting financial inequality didn’t work, either. 

“This is ridiculous…we tried that…it was called communism.”(Yes, he said that. And nope, we never tried communism). 

So, calm down, Mr. Mayor, and get ready for the next debate.

On the other hand, maybe Bernie and Elizabeth and Pete could calm down a little bit, too. It’s one thing to deride an economic system where people live paycheck to paycheck, hold two, even three, jobs to survive, and where inequality is a real and devastating problem. And it’s one thing to attack politicians who lie, cheat and steal to accumulate their wealth. 

But it’s entirely another thing to attack people who have achieved wealth honestly. 

What’s wrong with being that kind of billionaire? I’d love to be one. I’d like my kids to be billionaires – the whole family, my friends, my neighbors.

When I was in my formative years, being a millionaire was the height of success. Of course, that was when a dime bought you a cup of coffee. Today coffee is twenty times that at Starbucks. Which explains why Howard Schultzis a $3 billionaire. 

Billionaires are the new millionaires. Inflation. 

But billionaires are now bad guys if they run for President, at least according to Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, and others.

I don’t know how much he spent on the first Presidential campaign, but George Washington was one of the richest guys of that era. So were Jefferson and many of the early Presidents, except for Adams. 

That was way before millionaires. (I wonder if they were called “hundredaires” or “thousandaires” then.)  

Politicians weren’t automatically hated for their money until recently. In fact, Roosevelt was loved by most of the country. Not so last week where “billionaire” became an epithet.

Buttigieg- “A billionaire who thinks that money ought to be

the root of all power”. 

Warren – “A billionaire who calls women “fat broads” and “horse-faced lesbians” and, “Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.”

Sanders – “billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg seeing huge expansions of their wealth while a half-a-million people sleep out on the street tonight.” He also accused Buttigeig of being support by “46 billionaires.”

I could understand their anger if Bloomberg had gotten his money by lying, cheating, stealing, and self-dealing like a Mafia Don. But he didn’t. He went from paperboy to billionaire by following the rules. 

Until recently, that was the American Dream.  

Bill Gates is another example. He made his fortune by bringing something new to the table. Ditto Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos is worth $150 billion because he invented a new retail model. Warren Buffet made $88 billion by sage investing.

There’s an irony to this piling on. With “Citizens United”, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates of money from corporations to buy and control politicians.  Now comes a guy with so much money he doesn’t need “Citizens United” money. He cannot be bought – or controlled – by anyone.  

And he’s attacked for having the money to remain independent.

There are lots of reasons to vote against Bloomberg: “stop and Frisk”, arrogance, old-school sexism, lack of charisma, lack of empathy for the poor, among others. 

But working your way up from paperboy to billionaire shouldn’t be one of them.

It looks like the Democratic Presidential contenders, those who a left, are locked and loaded, ammunition at the ready.

The ammunition against Bernie is his age, his angry-old-man, no-compromise rhetoric, his free college, free healthcare, housing for the homeless, lack of support for gun control … 

For Warren, it’s her age, her “fight!, fight!, fight!” rhetoric, free college and healthcare, taxing people with over $50 million net worth, increasing taxes on corporations…

There’s Mayor Pete’s youth, his candor about being gay, his unpopularity with blacks and hispanics, his small city government experience…

Amy Klobuchar has ideas that are solid, but not exciting, a reputation of spewing vitriol at her staff, a record of over-zealous prosecuting of blacks when she was a county attorney…

Tom Steyer has no political experience, none. He does have a lot of money, but as of this writing, only 2% backing nationally…

Tulsi Gabbard has less than 1% backing, so…

And then there’s aging Joe Biden, he who was on the wrong side of the school busing issue, the guy with the longest career in politics, but that includes some big mistakes, and who looked like a deer in the headlights during some the debates. Oh, and his numbers are melting like ice cream on a summer day… 

And finally, there is the really, really, really old rich guy, Mike Bloomberg, the one who made “stop and frisk” famous, the guy with a history of racist and sexist comments, the one is trying to buy his way into the Presidency one hundred million at a time… 

Those are the candidates and at least some of the ammunition each is firing at the others. The common flaw: not one is perfect.

The sniping has increased in recent days as moderate democrats shake in their boots at the possibility that Bernie might go all the way and liberals shake in their boots at the possibility he won’t. Both extremes shake and shiver at the lack of democracy in a billionaire – their billionaire, to be sure – actually blowing every other Democratic candidate away, like leaves on a front porch. It seems so incongruous to them, a Democratic billionaire. Not since Franklin Roosevelt has a Democrat come from big money.

And through it all, Trump’s people are quietly hoping the fighting continues, just as it did in 2016. But now, instead of just Hillary and Bernie taking each other down, all of them taking all of them down. It’s a Republican dream: a repeat of the bitter anger that depressed Democratic turnout and left an astonished Trump alone at the finish line.

And that will happen, unless the Democrats disengage their circular firing squad.

Here’s a novel idea for Democratic candidates: concentrate on what you can and will do for the country instead of what others can’t or won’t do. 

Bernie’s idea of universal healthcare isn’t new; it’s already successful in numerous other countries. He has, for years, worked on legislation with both Democrats and Republicans. He’s genuine, authentic.

Warren’s plans are well thought out and will help solve many national problems. She, too, is the real deal.

Klobuchar is highly electable, smart, and pragmatic.

Pete is clearly brilliant and part of the next generation of leaders.

Steyer is self-made and laser focused on Climate Change- THE problem of our time, heck of all time.

Bloomberg is self-made and has successfully governed the biggest city in the country.

Biden has real experience on the national and international stage, has been there and done that for decades, with grace and civility. 

Gabbard… Ok, not much there, compared to the others.

The common asset: they’re all good.

As each competes by targeting the others’ flaws, they are fully capable of convincing voters that not one of them is good enough to be President, that Democratic voters should just throw up their hands and walk away as many did in 2016. Trump’s dream.

They are also capable of choosing the person who, although not perfect, will do the most good for the country, who will solve, not all, but many of the myriad problems we face as a nation and a world. 

And a great example why perfect is the enemy of good.