More Than Death Rate

                                                                                                    written 19 July 2020

                                                                                                published 26 July 2020

                                             

            After creating the world's worst pandemic response, Trump and his Republican sycophants are concerned about their re-election.  Pretending everything is normal, they claim Covid is like the flu (it isn't), that 99% of people survive (actually 4% die), and children are less affected (relatively true).  Trump wants schools to open, tweeting the CDC is "lying" about the pandemic.  Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany expanded: "When the president says open, he means kids being able to attend each and every day at their school.  Science should not stand in the way of this."  Interesting priority.  However, medical science keeps discovering the virus's own truth.

            "People who recovered from Covid-19 may lose immunity to the disease within months, suggesting the virus could reinfect people.  Levels of virus antibodies peak about three weeks after the onset of symptoms then swiftly declined, confirming a growing body of evidence that immunity to Covid-19 is short-lived.  'Most importantly, it puts another nail in the coffin of the concept of herd immunity,' said Prof Jonathan Heeney, at the University of Cambridge."  (The Guardian, 12Jul20, by Ian Sample)

            "According to the World Health Organization, about 80 percent of infections are mild or asymptomatic, bolstering the belief that only the sick and elderly need isolate themselves.  But thousands of people say they have been wrestling with serious Covid-19 symptoms for months.  Many people reported 'brain fogs' and concentration challenges.  Some have experienced hallucinations, delirium, short-term memory loss, or strange vibrating sensations when they touch surfaces.  Others have problems with their sympathetic nervous system, which controls heartbeat and breathing."  (The Atlantic, 4Jun20, by Ed Yong)

            "The death rate from Covid-19 is not the whole story.  When looking at patients who had survived a critical encounter with Covid-19, British researchers found that almost two-thirds suffered strokes, and over a quarter were left with damage resulting in dementia.  From limb amputations to heart attacks to permanent brain damage, the blood clots caused by infections with Covid-19 are often devastating.

            It seems that no matter how many news stories run at this point about teenagers dying, people in their 20's losing a limb, or young people left with lasting lung or heart problems, the idea that this is an 'old person’s disease' has been so baked in that it can’t be dislodged."  (Daily KOS, 26Jun20, by Mark Sumner)

            "Yet another bizarre symptom of Covid-19 is ischemia of the fingers and toes, a reduction of blood flow that causes red or purplish lesions at the ends of the digits.  Dubbed Covid toes, it can be painful and can lead to tissue death.  It’s showing up mostly in younger people."

            "Some people with Covid-19 develop dangerously low levels of oxygen in their blood but otherwise don't feel sick.  The condition, called silent hypoxia, can quickly cascade into serious breathing problems and damage to other organs."  (Elemental Medium, 17May20, by Robert Britt)

            "Clinical experience has shown the pathogen does much more than invade the lungs.  It attacks the heart, savages the kidneys, crawls along the nervous system, occasionally reaching the brain, creates blood clots, and inflames blood vessels throughout the body.  It mostly spares the young, but doctors have reported an inflammatory reaction with cardiac complications among children.  'We were all thinking this is a disease that kills old people, not kids,' said David Reich, of Mount Sinai Hospital."

            "The disease’s devastation comes from two intertwined causes.  The first is the harm to the endothelial cells that line blood vessels, leading to clots that can range from microscopic to sizable.  Patients have suffered strokes and pulmonary emboli as clots break loose and travel to the brain and lungs.  Inflammation of the endothelial cells lining blood vessels may help explain why the virus harms so many parts of the body."

            "The second is an exaggerated response from the body’s own immune system, a storm of killer 'cytokines' that attack the body’s own cells along with the virus as it seeks to defend the body from an invader.  'Our hypothesis is that Covid-19 begins as a respiratory virus and kills as a cardiovascular virus', said Mandeep Mehra, of the Harvard Medical School."  (Washington Post, 12May20, by Bernstein and Cha)

            Covid-19 is a serious problem.  America deserves competent national leadership.  Instead, Republican support of Trump's fragile ego keeps killing people.

Trump The Businessman

                                                                                                    written 12 July 2020

                                                                                                published 19 July 2020

                                                                                                

            In summer of 2016, Lynn and I went to the Boonville Fair to see the sheepdog trials and spent the rest of the day taking in the fair.  We chatted with the three older fellows sitting the Republican booth, wanting to know what they liked about Trump, their party nominee.  They all stated his being a businessman gave them confidence.  Four years on, we can examine the question: is Trump a good businessman?

            Trump has gone to great lengths to keep his business history secret, using lawsuits and extensive non-disclosure agreements.  Candidate Trump promoted himself as successful and independently wealthy, therefore immune to corruption.  However, as a public figure, a strong light has been brought to bear, revealing a different picture.

            Even as we spoke to the three Republicans, Trump was committing campaign fraud by laundering illegal hush money payments to a couple of porn stars.  His fixer lawyer eventually pled guilty and is now serving time.

            The Donald J. Trump Foundation was established in 1988, with funds mostly from donors other than Trump.  In 2016 The Washington Post reported several potential legal and ethical violations, such as alleged self-dealing and possible tax evasion.  The New York State Attorney General investigated and notified the Trump Foundation that it was in violation of New York laws regarding charities, ordered it to immediately cease its fundraising activities in New York, and banned the entire family from charitable operations for life.  (Wikipedia)

            Trump Shuttle airline, launched in June 1989, was never profitable, and ceased to exist in April 1992, leaving Trump owing between $25 and $35 million.

            A story in the Times punctured the mythology surrounding Trump's business career.  Based on Internal Revenue Service transcripts of Trump’s tax returns from 1985 to 1994, his core businesses racked up losses of more than $1 billion in a ten-year period.  During 1990 and 1991, the story said, Trump’s losses were so large that they “were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years”. (New Yorker May 10, 2019)

            Trump filed bankruptcy six times on over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York: Trump Taj Mahal (1991), Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino (1992), Plaza Hotel (1992), Trump Castle Hotel and Casino (1992), Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004), Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009). (Wikipedia)     

            Trump has a history of stiffing contractors, creditors and partners, tying them up in expensive lawsuits rather than dealing honestly.  In 2004, Trump asked for $500 million from Deutsche Bank, the only bank still willing to lend to him, to build a skyscraper in Chicago.  Deutsche Bank determined that Trump was massively inflating his assets, telling them his net worth was about $3 billion, when he was actually worth $788 million.  One of their senior investment bankers cautioned that Mr. Trump should be avoided because he worked with people connected to organized crime.  Nevertheless, the bank made the loan.  Shortly before the bulk of the loan was due in November 2008, Trump sued the bank to avoid repayment, demanding $3 billion in damages.  Despite this, Deutsche Bank has made further loans to Trump totaling $2 billion, allegedly laundering Russian mob money, the subject of one of the lawsuits the Supreme Court recently decided against Trump.

            Trump Steaks, launched in May, 2007, folded two months later. 

            Trump University ran a real estate training program from 2005 until 2010.  New York State authorities declared the use of the word "university" violated state law, and Trump failed to obtain a business license.  In 2013 the state of New York filed a $40 million civil suit claiming that Trump University made false claims and defrauded its students.  In November 2016, Trump paid $25 million to settle the cases. (Wikipedia)

            Trumps' niece, Mary Trump, recently published "Too Much And Never Enough", describing Trump's chronic lying and cheating, including the alleged defrauding of US taxes when the estate of Fred Trump Sr., who died in 1999, was devalued from almost $1 billion to $30 million, cheating Mary out of her share of the estate.

            Trump is a businessman as a gangster is a businessman, without ethics or regard for the rule of law.  He has corrupted or bankrupted every business he has touched, and he's doing that same to America. 

Compassion Is An Experience

                                                                                                    written 5 July 2020

                                                                                              published 12 July 2020

                                                                                                

            Humanity is in the middle of an evolution of consciousness, awakening from our illusion of separation, making an unprecedented dimensional shift, from racism to equality, patriarchy to co-creation, duality to unity.  

            "The Alphabet Versus The Goddess", by Leonard Shlain, gives a good explanation of how we became locked into the myth of separation.  The two hemispheres of the human brain process information differently.  The left half is a difference engine, working like a serial processor, where sequence and distinction of differences define perspective.  Logic, thought, and the story of individual self, reside in the left brain.  The right half is a synthesizer, working like a parallel processor, evaluating multiple inputs simultaneously.  Visual, audio, and a sense of the whole, are perceived in the right brain.  

            Shlain suggests that the rise of alphabetic literacy, over 3500 years ago, created a preference for left brain perception of the world, overshadowing the value of right brain perspective.  An alphabet is entirely symbolic, where the shapes have no relationship to meaning.  Letter and word sequence are critical to meaning and a reversal of elements changes the meaning completely.  Sequence and symbols are processed in the left brain.

            The development of alphabets was a powerful tool for communication across space and time.  But increased alphabetic literacy coincided with the rise in nation state domination, misogyny, and the assault on nature and nature religions.  Human culture has been increasingly distorted by the preference of the left brain perception of separation.  This accelerated with the development of the printing press 550 years ago, dramatically increasing literacy.  The industrial revolution amplified this cultural imbalance to a global scale, producing the current suicidal economy which believes killing people and the planet for profit makes sense.

            Moving forward by walking requires movement from first one side and then the other.  Progress in consciousness demands similar balancing movements.  The major religions arising in the last 2500 years all point to a need to expand beyond the left brain egoic self to include the right brain experience of the whole.  Shlain suggests this has been accelerated by recent technological developments, starting with photography over 200 years ago, then radio, and now video over the internet, allowing increased communication by the right brain processes.  The net result is an expansion of compassion and awareness of our fundamental interconnection.

            The two most widely reproduced photos are a picture of a nuclear mushroom cloud, and the picture of the Earth taken from the moon in 1968 on Apollo 8, both engendering an awareness of global unity and common fate.

            In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14 year old black boy, was beaten to death in Chicago for allegedly flirting with a white woman.  His mother demanded the funeral proceed with an open casket, to show what had been done to her son.  The wide spread newspaper publication of those photographs helped expand the growing civil rights movement at the time.

            In 2004, American service men torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison, proudly took souvenir photos with their cell phones, which one shared with his father, who was so disgusted, he shared them with the world.  Much of America had the same reaction of disgust, and our national policies changed.

            The cell phone video of the casual murder of George Floyd went viral on the internet, with global reaction.  No dialogue was required, just witnessing the actual event as it unfolded brought the experience into people's hearts.   

            Compassion is an experience, and once felt, it is difficult to ignore.  Humans are hard wired for the right brain qualities of empathy and compassion.  In the last decade, medical science has discovered mirror neurons, which fire both when we act and when we observe the same action performed by another.  They activate when we witness other people's actions and emotions, thus "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.  They play an important role in feelings of empathy and compassion (Wikipedia).

            Compassion is our human birthright, despite the fact that our society devalues those feelings.  The gross failings of our current culture blaze across the daily news.  The only true thing about the past is that it is no longer here.  Compassion must be our guide to creating a better world.

Two Month Check In

                                                                                                    written 28 June 2020

                                                                                                   published 5 July 2020

                                                                                                

            When the economy began reopening on 1 May, US Covid-19 case count stood at 1,091,038, with 57,266 dead (source: worldometer).   One month later, the case count had risen to 1,828,784, with 105,926 dead.  As I write this on 28 June, the case count is 2,5615,703, with 128,237 dead.  We are still number one in the world.

            The 7-day running average of daily cases dropped from 29,459 on 1 May to 20,903 on 27 May, mostly because of a steep drop in cases in the New York metro area.  But daily case count average began increasing again as the virus spread into other areas of the country, today hitting an all-time record of 38,811.  The running average of deaths per day, which tends to lag new cases by several weeks, trended down from 1800 the beginning of May to a low of 578 on 25 June, but today has risen to 873.

            Since economic reopening began, US deaths per capita have increased 95%, with only 15 states (2/3 Democratically controlled) posting a lower rate of increase.  Seventeen states (2/3 Republican controlled) have a per capita death rate increase twice the national average, and five have increased more than 3 times as fast: Arizona, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and South Dakota.

            California's primary hot spot is Los Angeles county, with 46% of the state's cases, and the 10 southern counties together account for 78%.  In Mendocino county, cases have risen from 12 on 1 May, to 30 on 1 June, and today reached 76, a 250% increase each month.  This rate of increase is expected to grow as the tourist economy opens further.  No one has died to date, but community transmission is already in the Ukiah valley.  

            As much as Republicans would like to believe that the virus is diminishing, or that testing creates more cases, the reality is growing worse in a majority of states.  In hot spots around the nation, out of control infection growth is causing hospitals to sound the alarm as they hit capacity and staff fatigue, just like we saw in New York and Italy months ago.  Republican governors in Arizona, Florida, and Texas are beginning to admit they have a problem.  Some states are partially reclosing, or pausing plans for further opening of their economy.  

            Having reduced infection in their area, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced a 14-day quarantine on people traveling from states with out of control infection, defined as greater than 10% positive test rates: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North and South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington.  The European Union is considering a quarantine on anyone traveling from the US, Brazil, or Russia, where infections rage unabated, due to failed leadership.

           Because Trump did not create the virus crisis, he can't spin it to his advantage, therefore, he pretends it doesn't exist.  Control of Covid briefings was taken away from the CDC, and then canceled for weeks.  His recent pep rallies, hosted in the middle of Covid hot spots, packed people inside with no social distancing or masks.  At his Tulsa rally, he declared testing created too many cases, and directed his staff to slow down testing, despite all medical advice to the contrary.  Over $14B of Congressionally approved funds for testing has yet to be distributed.  Trump planned to cut testing in Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Texas, but political backlash from the recent spikes forced a change. 

            If a person's actions cause the death of another, it is involuntary manslaughter: a felony.  Anyone enabling such actions is also guilty.  For intentional actions, the penalties increase.  Trump is probably not intentionally trying to kill people: his personality disorder seems to preclude him from believing anyone other than himself is actually real.  However, the Republican "leaders" keeping him in place are not so stunted, and must accept responsibility for continuing to allow his destruction of our country.  At the very least, they should all be voted out of office.

            In 2016, Trump proved he can con all Republicans some of the time.  His dedicated core shows he can con some Republicans all of the time.  As the virus eats into the heartland, we will see if he can continue to con all Republicans all of the time.

Warriors Wanted

                                                                                                    written 21 June 2020

                                                                                               published 28 June 2020

                                               

            Current discussion about police reform desires a shift from the "warrior" culture as currently expressed by aggression and domination.  But writer, consultant and activist Margaret Wheatley, in a Daily Good interview on June 17th, 2020, excerpted here, describes a different type of warrior. 

            "The warriors arise when something needs protection.  At this time, it is human capacities of 'human spirits': our generosity, our creativity, our kindness.  The tradition of spiritual warriors or peaceful warriors occurs over and over again in history.  We are standing on the shoulders of millions of other people who have trained as warriors.  There's no such thing as a casual warrior.  You have to have a level of dedication that is really unusual these days."

            "Warriors for the human spirit are committed to serving people but vow not to add to aggression and not to add to fear.  We want to be the embodiment of the best qualities of human beings: presence, good listening, confidence that isn't based on arrogance.  We want to be there for others not for our own glory.  A warrior for the human spirit is someone who makes a commitment to stay.  Who practices compassion and insight wherever they are.  Who knows they can't do anything without community." 

            "We feel more acutely the despair.  The sadness is overwhelming for us because we're staying in the world and we're trying to be there, open to what's happening with people's suffering, the egregious abuses of power going on now.  That openness brings our recognition of how much suffering is going on.  We talk a lot about how to maintain a sense of humor, as part of our actual skill set, to deal with the despair and the sadness."  

            "I am never going to be free of despair because this is a despairing time.  This is a time worthy of despair.  But I'm not afraid of my despair.  I recognize it is part of the price I pay for being awake and therefore I know I have alternatives.  If I'm witnessing this despair, how can I serve?  How can I get out of myself and the self-protection and find ways to be of service?  With warriors-in-training, it's what can I do right here, right now?  What we're offering is the reminder of what it means to be a good human being."  

            "It's an illusion to avoid something that is so real and present in our emotional bodies.  How could you not feel despair when you're really taking in what's happening now?  The work of the warrior is to fully take in what's going on because when we do, we discover the qualities we need: compassion, gentleness, non-aggression, and clear-seeing.  You fully witness what's going on.  Your heart opens, you feel compassion for others, and end up with a very satisfying life."

            "The events of the past few months have convinced many people that we are already losing the systems and losing the planet.  The question now is: as things get worse and worse, what is right action?  What do we do?  Who do I choose to be?  Where can I still give service?  Where can I live a meaningful life?"

            "We need to be working with our children and our grandchildren now for them to know what it means to be a fully alive human.  We need people being people.  We need people recognizing our greatest human capacities: our consciousness and awareness, our ability to love, our ability to work together in harmonious ways and our ability to care about one another rather than just the self.  This is what's been eradicated in global culture, consumer culture, political culture.  I want us all to really focus on enlivening those qualities in ourselves and making sure now that we're bringing them to our children and grandchildren as well."

            "You could start with that, but the first work is to start a conversation among like-minded others.  Then you get into the possibility of what could we create here in our community?  I use Theodore Roosevelt's statement: Do what you can, where you are with what you have."  

            For the full interview go to: http://www.dailygood.org/story/2533/

            We are experiencing an evolution in human consciousness, each of us challenged to be the best of humanity in response to the worst. 

We All Have Responsibility

                                                                                                    written 14 June 2020

                                                                                                published 21 June 2020

                                                  

            The origin of the word "sin" is an archery term, meaning "to miss the mark'", "off target", or "go astray".  In this form, it is an evaluation of a specific attempt, rather than the categorical judgment usually associated with the punitive religious meaning.  If I miss the mark on this effort, I have another chance the next time.  The only requirement is the intention to improve. 

            Derek Chavin, an officer with 18 violent complaints on his record, is charged with 2nd degree murder for killing George Floyd.  Assisting in a crime, before or after, is also a crime.  Tou Thao, with 6 violent complaints on his record, stood watch over the crowd while Floyd was killed, and is charged with aiding and abetting.  Two other officers, Alex Kueng and Thomas Lane, trainees with less than a week on the job, helped hold Floyd down.  They are also charged with aiding and abetting: marked for life because they trusted their superior officers. 

            In America, where the ideal is equal protection under the law, this entire event was a sin, missing the mark.  The death of George Floyd was not a unique event, but the response has been, and America may have hit a tipping point, with the intention to do better.  The protests are widespread and ethnically diverse.  Ubiquitous smart phones capture activities that used to happen in relative secrecy, allowing the whole world to see firsthand, sometimes while it is happening.  This allows innate human compassion to rise up and say, "This must stop now!"  

            For the benefit of the group, members and leaders of a group have responsibility to call out corruption within their group, because corruption by a few taints the entire organization and destroys trust within the institution and within the larger society.  This response is beginning to happen around social justice, but it must happen within politics as well.

            Republicans have always been the party of the wealthy, but they used to have other values as well, such as family values, rule of law, honoring the Constitution, patriotism, and democracy.  But the rise of Trump, and the endemic corruption of his brand driven egomania, has dragged the party away from those historic values.  What line could Trump cross that would finally provoke a tipping point within the party about his excesses?  The party leaders are narrowly focused on maintaining political power, but the mass of Republican voters may have other concerns. 

            Is democracy still a Republican value?  Are Republican goals so narrowly crafted to benefit the very wealthy that they know they can never win a fair election?   Republican leaders have admitted this to be true, and use extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression to maintain control.  The recent Georgia primary had hour long lines in predominantly black urban areas, and no lines in white areas.  The recent Iowa primary was mostly vote by mail, with high voter turnout and no problems in execution, but Republican leaders passed legislation to prevent that from every happening again.  Do rank and file Republicans accept cheating as a value?  

            In Wisconsin, Republicans required in-person voting during a pandemic, risking the health of poll workers and everyone wanting to vote, in the hopes of preserving an unpopular judge, who lost anyway.  Is disregard for the lives of citizens a value?   We know from experience that this is a corporate capitalist value, but are Republicans voters willing to risk their lives for the upper 1%?

            The Republican party is now embarking on a grand experiment.  To promote Trump's re-election, in spite of scientific medical advice to the contrary, they are planning large indoor campaign rallies and their national convention, with no masks or social distancing.  They bet the pandemic is of no concern, and they are willing to risk the health of all of their people.  Party faithful, many elderly and overweight, will be packed inside for hours in loud cheering masses: a perfect recipe for a super spreader event.  These folks will then go back home and infect everyone else, with hospital results showing up within a month.

            For the cult of Trump, this test of party loyalty is comparable to drinking the Kool-Aid in Jonestown.  What does it take for Republicans to say "this has to stop?"

Transcending The Myth Of Separation

                                                                                                      written 7 June 2020

                                                                                                published 14 June 2020

                                                                                                

            For thousands of years, "fear of other" has shaped society and civilizations into patterns of domination, control, hate, oppression and war, perpetuated by the Myth of Separation: the illusion that "self" is isolated and thus threatened by everything that appears as "not-self".  

            Over that same interval, enlightened individuals, inspired by deep compassion, have taught the power of love over fear.  The core of Christ's teaching is "love the other as yourself": The Golden Rule.  As testimony to its universality, this teaching is found in every spiritual tradition around the world, an expression of unity reality which experiences all form arising from the same fundamental source.  The journey from separation to unity, from fear to love, is the history of human civilization, still unfolding today.

            The founding of America was part of that journey and a radical social experiment at the time.  The US Declaration of Independence, stating "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal," and the US Constitution intending to "form a more perfect union", institutionalized equality under the law.  Even though the nation's founders almost limited legal equality to just land owners, and did limit it to men, generally white men, over time the integrity of the initial purpose has extended the equality franchise to include women and people of color.  Obviously, this is still a work in progress, and the Myth of Separation has not been put to rest.  

            Everyone has now seen video of four white "peace officers" killing George Floyd by asphyxiation while he was down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind him.  Without a doubt, those white men did NOT see George Floyd as "one of them".  He was "other", to be feared and dominated by force.  The fact that all four officers are now charged and in jail is a good first step, but it is important to recognize that this specific event, and racial injustice in general, though outrageous, is a symptom of the Myth of Separation and "fear of other", which corrodes our society in many ways simultaneously.

            The Minneapolis police department had already received numerous complaints about officer Derek Chauvin, the man directly responsible for George Floyd's death.  

Fearing bad publicity, the department chose to protecting their own and hid the actions of bad cops, sacrificing the larger community, destroying trust and accumulating grievances.  

            The Myth of Separation inspires misogyny, hatred of women, and the systematic economic devaluing of women, casting half of humanity as "other".  Economic inequity, where three white men own as much as the poorest half of America, is institutionalized separation, literally devaluing the "other".  Class systems that divide the "other" by religion, income, education, or neighborhood are another form of endemic separation.  This fosters the idea that some people are disposable, relative to the larger good.

            The Myth of Separation supports the dominant consumer economy's rapacious destruction and contamination of the environment by projecting the "other" onto everything non-human, building acceptance for sacrifice zones devoid of life.  The raw materials of the Earth are not necessarily feared, but are clearly not loved, or considered with sacred regard, being despoiled with apparent impunity.  All living creatures are defined as pests to be eradicated, or resources to be processed, for the generation of short term profit for a few.  The valuation of whole ecosystems is limited to how these systems benefit humanity alone. The issue of climate change casts the entire planet as "other", despite being essential to all life, now bringing humanity to a tipping point.  We can no longer be so numerous, so powerful, and so ignorant. We must transcend the Myth of Separation.

            Fortunately, we can all play a part.  While I have little real power to change anyone else, I am the only person who can change my own perspective.  Thus, it is incumbent on each of us to recognize when we are operating from fear within the Separation Myth and make the conscious shift from fear to love, actually living The Golden Rule.  This will require changing every aspect of our culture, a massive undertaking.  However, every day we see more clearly how the culture of fear is killing us all, and we who are alive today are here to accomplish this task.