This piece first appeared in The Chronicle, 12/27/21
“Waist Deep in the big muddy, and the big fool says to push on.” Pete Seeger
The Fool referred to in the above lyric was President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, despite sober assessments (The Pentagon Papers) that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, continued escalating a conflict that eventually cost 66,000 Americans (and close to a million Vietnamese) their deaths between 1964-1968. Johnson’s leadership failure cost him his Presidency, which seems like a small price to pay weighed against the cost to those who lost a child, a spouse, a father or a mother in a senseless war.
Two of my favorite quotes about human beings come from the late great basketball coach John Wooden, whose UCLA teams dominated college basketball during the Sixties. Wooden was always more than a coach, being equal parts coach, preacher and philosopher.
Wooden quote 1: “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.“
Wooden’s words augmented
Seeger’s. Two weeks before Christmas, we
are “Waist deep again in the big {viral} muddy,” but this time the muddy isn’t
the rice paddies or jungles in Southeast Asia, but a preventable disease
ravaging every community in the world. Like
Johnson, against all rationale and scientific advice, our President has ignored
any attempt to control the spread of the disease. He doesn’t even mention that 3000 Americans
are now dying each day from a pandemic he made worse by denying it was a
problem and refusing to take measures to control its spread. While the President tunes up his golf swing
as the death toll in America alone is approaching an astounding 300,000
lives!
This brings to mind a second Wooden quote, “Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who’ll argue with you.”
Whether you like the President or not is irrelevant, but my God, you have to listen to others who know more than you do. That the President politicized a disease appalls me, and that so many of his supporters did not grasp that they could like the President but not agree with him about the virus concerns me.
The same goes for the Governor of California and the Mayor of San Francisco. Those two hypocrites ignored their advisories and availed themselves of family gatherings and fine French meals. Decades ago, I swore off membership in any political party when I realized neither had the monopoly on truth. Has our leadership served us well? Let the chips fall where they may. I think not.
It didn’t have to be this way. In the early 1980s, as the first signs of the HIV epidemic began to surface during Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, C. Everett Koop,
a deeply conservative and Republican man, thought by his critics too conservative to protect the nation’s health, was the United States Surgeon General. In stark contrast to his moral pre-disposition, Koop did battle with the socially conservative politics of the Reagan Administration by taking action to slow the spread of AIDS in the United States. At the time, those who wrongly branded the affliction a “Gay Man’s Disease”
dangerously said that AIDS was God’s punishment for living sinful lives. Koop, though likely not one to be comfortable with Gay Men’s lifestyles and under tremendous pressure not to take effective action, let medical science and intellectually honest guide his response to the disease that today is known as HIV. Koop did not succumb to callous prejudice or political favor, and he saved tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives by doing his job to protect the American People. Take that, Mr. President, Governor Newsom, and Mayor Breed!
As for those who believe the Pandemic is a
conspiratorial hoax, all I can say is, “Please take your place at the back of
the vaccine line.”
As for our own, Governor Brown, I’ve
heard more than a few shots directed at her, but I applaud the Governor’s
steadfastness. It is not politically easy to shut down a state, and there is
terrible hardship when you close schools, businesses and churches. We want to blame the messenger, Governor
Brown, but perhaps the better response should be “Thanks,” because we’ve been
fortunate so far that Oregon’s Covid-19 infection rates have been lower than most
other states. More Oregonians will
survive to tell the tale. Amen.
Risk is part of life, and it isn’t
for me to tell you how to live, but I believe it makes sense to keep your guard
up. And seriously, people, all we’re
talking about is a mask, some hand sanitizer, and keeping away from larger
groups. It isn’t that much to ask. I encourage all to stay vigilant and protect
themselves and others. Even with an
effective vaccine, it will take a while to stop the virus, so unless you meet
the standards identified below for “Exceptionalism,” I encourage all to
keep the mask on, mingle less, and maintain all possible safeguards. You may be young and healthy, but your
grandmother isn’t.
You Are Exceptional if you can:
Jump up in the air and not come
down.
Walk on water.
Deposit your body waste with no
smell.
