Just Because

JUST BECAUSE we want to maintain contact and some interaction with each other, we meet each Wednesday afternoon at the home of our friend who is house bound as he continues to deal with medical issues which limit his mobility. There are four of us who try to keep open the “sacred” Wednesday gathering. Each of us have various medical issues whether it is cancer, kidney and diabetic issues or complications following eye surgery—the list never seems to end. Invariably, each of us give a “weekly” medical report, focusing on our respective maladies.  Our fifth “compadre” has been closely confined to home although we do try to keep in touch by email and phone.  Additionally, during these “gatherings” we are bound to rehash the latest adventure of the Alabama football team, making claims of superior knowledge of what should have been done that was not evident during the game. Basketball is now beginning to creep into the conversation as the season looms closer. Critiquing the athletic exploits of Alabama does consume a measure of our time together. We tend to meet for about an hour or until our “host” informs us that it is time for him to get down to the business of eating his dinner. Off we go until the next Wednesday rolls around!

Prior to the ravishes of COVID, there were five of us that met daily at a local pub for drinks as we brought another day closer to closure. It was and has been JUST BECAUSE we had a mutual respect and interest in one another that kept our time together habitual. Each of us come from quite diverse backgrounds and life experiences. Four of us are retired Professors at The University of Alabama and one is a retired Director of a county department of Human Resources. Among the four of us who left the university, one was from English, another from Mechanical Engineering, another from Geography and I had been on the faculty of the School of Social Work. While we have varied political orientations, the one coalescing factor was a mutual disdain for the previous president and his bombastic behaviors. I know there was a time when my wife was asked about our “little tradition” and she supported it as something that allowed me to have some time with friends and to an extent, like-minded individuals. Friendship is ever so important as we travel through the journey of life. In most cases, family will always be there to support, cajole, and prod us to do what we should and need to be doing. Friends, on the other hand, may come and go, but those that remain are critically important as the waning years continue to build up. Of the original group of five, two of us are in our early 80’s and the others are in there mid to late 70’s. At some point in the not-too- distant future, the bell of lifer is going to ring; therefore, clinging to the friendships that we currently enjoy allows us to have some measure of stability and saneness. JUST BECAUSE that is what friends are for and what friends provide without any imposition of conditions.

As we get older, I believe, it allows us to spend some time reflecting on where we have been and what we have accomplished. Further, it allows us to reflect on those relationships that have been important throughout life’s challenging times as well as the good times. It has been some of those relationships that have been there to sustain us and keep us moving forward. As the years move one, we find ourselves holding on to those relationships that are still available. How many of past relationships are no longer possible because the other person is no longer with us. Keep your friends and, yes, your family, close and let others know how important they are to and for you.  JUST BECAUSE!

Potential crisis in healthcare....

A recent article in The New York Times stated: “Covid-stricken Alabama had more deaths than births last year, a first in its recorded history.”  This is an oft-repeated reality throughout the country, but especially in the southern states. It is also a draconian realization that these are the same states that have the lowest vaccination rates and the largest numbers of anti-vaxxers. It does not take the wisdom of Solomon to find a direct correlation between the number of deaths and the failure to be vaccinated. As I noted in an earlier article, the rallying cry by the unvaccinated is that they have the right as an individual to make that decision. There is a modicum of truth to such a position, but it falls into the realm of indefensible when it impinges on and affects others.

A substantial number of the unvaccinated proclaim that they have an inalienable right to decide whether to be vaccinated. They often bring the Constitution into the flimsiness of their position, yet fail to recognize or admit that in the Preamble to the document to which they refer, it states: “We the People of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union…promote the general welfare…”  It does not state to promote one’s induvial welfare. There have been a chorus of outcries since the president’s recent Executive Order mandating vaccination or testing for employers of one hundred employees or more. These same individuals claim that it is an overreach by the president and an impingement on individual’s right to decide yay or nay. It undermines one’s freedom of choice and that is not within the purview of what the role of the government should be. Well, does such a mandate not promote the general welfare? There is a myriad of examples which support the promotion of the general welfare of all the people. We all must abide by various laws, rules and regulations which have been established to foster a more perfect union. Whether they be behavioral expectations relative to operating a motor vehicle, signing a contract, holding another accountable, determining paternity, entering marriage, being vaccinated against specific diseases, etc., most people abide by the law, rule, or regulation. Only then, is there a semblance of a “more perfect union.” 

With the recent surge brought on by the Delta variant, the number of people being hospitalized has increased to problematic proportions. ICU beds are fully occupied, hospitals are overwhelmed with the numbers, ambulances cannot discharge patients, the problem just continues to get worse and worse, and people are dying because there is no room for them in a hospital. A recent headline of an article in the Montgomery Advertiser read: “After 43 hospitals turn away Alabama man who needed ICU bed, obituary urges COVID vaccines”. What a sad indictment on our country’s lack of preparedness for dealing with this pandemic. How could our healthcare system get to such a state that a person is turned away by over forty hospitals in three states and dies in a hospital over two hundred miles from his home? We have gotten here, in large part, because of the millions of Americans who refuse to be vaccinated, then come down with the virus, and then become hospitalized. Again, the problem is more acute in the southern states. States have turned to triaging admissions and making decisions based on best potential outcomes. Undoubtedly, more individuals will die because of the lack of space or lack of staff. Those non COVID patients who need a bed are being turned away because the beds are often occupied by those who contracted the virus and refused the vaccine. Let me note some of the headlines in recent articles in The Washington Post: “Four patients, two dialysis machines: Rationing medical care becomes a reality in hospitals overwhelmed with covid patients,” “Unvaccinated covid patients are straining hospitals like mine, where I had to turn a cancer patient away,” “I was supposed to have life-saving surgery. Tennessee’s covid-19 surge cost me a hospital bed”. These are just a few of the articles that point to the crisis that exists in our hospitals. This reality begs the question, do those who refuse to be vaccinated deserve to be treated at the expense of non-COVID patients.? Do they deserve to take one of the finite ICU beds in hospitals throughout the country?

 In an article in TIME magazine, titled “In desperate need of more hospital beds,” the author makes the case for an increase in bed-capacity in the nation’s hospitals. Often the availability of beds is not the problem, but the lack of trained staff, especially Registered Nurses. The nursing shortage is a grim reality of this pandemic for a variety of reasons. The overwhelming issue for many nurses is simply being burned out from the onslaught of cases day in and day out with little or no relief in sight. ICU nurses who typically care for two to three patients are expected to care for ten. Undoubtedly, the quality of care can be compromised. The use of traveling nurses has created another major hurdle for hospital administrators as they attempt to staff their hospitals. The cost of a traveling nurse can be astronomical and reach up to $250 per hour being paid to the organization that has the contract to provide the nurses. A small rural hospital does not have the budgetary capacity to absorb such costs. The problem is not limited to just the small rural hospital, but also to those facilities in urban areas. One health care system has four hundred openings for bedside nurses that have gone unfilled. In the State of Mississippi there are 2,000 fewer Registered Nurses than there were prior to the pandemic.

 Another piece to the reality is seeing those who refuse the vaccine being caviler in their behavior. Packed stadiums, concerts, bars, and restaurants bring to the fore the very real potential for additional surges and drains on the healthcare systems. Those working in these systems see friends, neighbors, family members putting them in danger as they continue to care for those who come down with the virus. Considering this, many are leaving the healthcare and allied professions and taking different career paths. The following articles bring this into focus: “US public health workers leaving in droves amid pandemic burnout,” included in the Guardian; “COVID-19 creates dire US shortage of teachers, school staff”, an AP News article; and numerous sources referencing shortages of medical and non-medical staff throughout the fabric of the healthcare system because of the recent Delta surge. Shortages are real. “When hospitals are understaffed, people die,” a warning included in an article in The New York Times.

 Due to the number of hospitalizations, scheduled medical procedures are not being done or postponed, i.e., mammograms, colonoscopies, cancer treatments, etc. What will be the ramifications of these conditions going untreated or undetected? Will more people die from inattention? Will mental health concerns begin to surface more frequently such as depression anxiety, and even suicide? The health care system is a finite system and has the capacity to only go so far and do so much. This reality should not be lost in the current climate.

 The perplexing frustration is that there is an answer to this ever-growing problem. If individuals who are unvaccinated would become vaccinated, then we could begin to get some control over the chaos that seems so prevalent in today’s healthcare. Such chaos has been exacerbated by the substantial number of unvaccinated individuals. As the public continues to get more comfortable with not wearing a mask or social distancing and avoiding the vaccine, the numbers will continue to spike and at some point, could well lead to the system imploding. Let us not let it get to that outcome. No none wins in such a scenario.

It is my freedom to . . .

As you pull into the Target or Walmart parking lot, you finally see what, you believe to be, an empty parking space. You do not take your eyes off the space and hope to get there before someone else takes the spot. As you wheel into the presumed space, you abruptly apply your brakes because there sits a shopping cart. Over-and-over we are confronted with the inability of individuals to accept some modicum or responsibility and place the damn shopping cart in one of the areas provided throughout the parking lot. Why has it become so difficult for so many to “do the right thing?”  Why have we become a society so fixated on being self-serving and selfish? Why has “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” become a vestige of the past? Why do we not care about the possible results of our “:me-only” actions?

Not placing a shopping cart into the proper place is one thing but putting the lives of countless thousands into jeopardy is a whole other matter. According to an article in Forbes magazine, why are approximately 40 percent of adults, who identify themselves as Republicans, adamantly refusing to get vaccinated? Why do they not seem to have the slightest concern for the welfare of others by their reckless decision-making? It has been stated by those who are refusing to be vaccinated that they have the freedom to make that decision and cannot be forced to do otherwise. Indeed, there are many freedoms that we enjoy. Freedom, by definition, is to have the ability and/or power to act or think as we desire without being hindered or restrained. We certainly have the freedom to vote, worship, work, play, etc. as we wish, but freedom does not give license to encroach upon the freedoms and rights of others. A current candidate for the U.S. senate seat in Alabama, Katie Britt, has been quoted as saying that “freedom is the solution, not the problem.” That plays well in ultra-conservative Alabama, but I would question the validity of the statement. Freedoms are controlled and limited through a variety of means.

For example, you do not have the freedom to drive your car at a speed exceeding one hundred miles per hour in a school zone where the limit is twenty-five miles per hour. If you choose to do so, you may suffer the consequences as well as put others in danger. There are traffic laws that we are all expected to obey for the common good. Further, if you are a parent, you do not have the freedom to chain your child to a tree for hours on end. If you do such a heinous thing, you will pay the consequences. There are laws to protect children from such actions. You do have the freedom of speech, but that does not extend to infringing on the rights of others. You do not have the freedom to yell “fire” in a crowded theater if there is no evidence of a fire. You do have the freedom to assemble with other like-minded individuals, but not if your intent is to riot, burn, demolish, shoot, and steal at others expense. You do have the freedom to worship as you choose, but not if your worship includes sacrificial rituals that endanger the lives of children. You do have the freedom to own guns, but you do not have the freedom to sit in a hotel room and shoot and kill those attending a concert in the area below your room’s window.

The point is that freedom is not an absolute. There are circumstances, conditions, rules, laws, and regulations that place boundaries around the very concept. In the above definition of freedom, it was noted that everyone makes his or her own decision as to how they act and think about what they can do and what they will do. Yet, if there is a can do, there is also a cannot do and it is at this juncture that differences arise. Although a person may have the freedom not to wear a mask, social distance, or get vaccinated that freedom is not sacrosanct. I also have the freedom to do those things and it is my belief that those in authority have the freedom to impose controls and limitations on freedom when the common good outweighs the individual freedom. There is precedent for such action. Children cannot attend school unless they show proof of having received certain vaccinations. There was a period in the history of the United States when individuals who were sick with tuberculosis were placed in government-operated sanitoriums. They did not have the freedom to refuse to go. As noted, speed on the highways is controlled by law enforcement. Riding in a car requires everyone to wear a seat belt. Children are to be placed in child safety restraints in cars. Pets are to be feed and cared for by their owners.

There must be a measure of controls and limitations established by a society for there to be a semblance of organization and adherence to a common goal. Everyone cannot be left to their own devices or chaos will reign. Let us hope that common sense will prevail and that more individuals will come to realize that their current stance is foolish and deadly. As I have mentioned, to go beyond societally imposed controls and limits can have consequences. Those who continue to flaunt their “freedom” about Covid, and the vaccines may well pay the ultimate price as may those around them.

A fair fight ...

Back in the summer of 1961, I, along with some other undergraduate students at Wheaton College, went to New York City to work with some of the street gangs.  Specifically, the street gangs were in East Harlem, an area with one of the highest rates of juvenile crime in the country.  I, along with another fellow, was assigned to work with the Turbans whose territory included the area around Lexington Avenue and 110th Street.  Most of us were housed at the Biblical Seminary of New York in very, very spartan rooms and given $3.00 a day to pay for food.  Needless-to-say, we did not earn any money to take back for fall semester.  In fact, two of the other guys and I took jobs with the Burns Detective Agency to supplement our meager earnings.  Most of our assignments involved crowd control at concerts held at the Forrest Hills Stadium out in Queens.   Although I did “guard” the beer at Piels brewery in Brooklyn one Sunday night!

At Wheaton we had a chapel service every Monday through Friday morning and attendance was mandatory.  One of the chapel speakers during the spring semester, was Jim Vaus, the founder of Youth Development, Inc. (YDI).  He had a very compelling story based on his life of organized crime on the west coast.  He worked directly for Mickey Cohen, the Al Capone of the west.  Vaus, the son of a Methodist preacher, was a self-taught electronic genius for that time.  His involvement with organized crime was to intercept the results of horse races by two minutes.  During the two-minute interval other criminals would go to a bookie parlor and place bets.  They were, indeed, making a killing.  Vaus along with his wife, were on their way to the airport for a flight to St. Louis.  He was going to set up the same devices in that city to intercept all races east of the Mississippi River.  The haul for organized crime would have been staggering.  They had time to kill, so she convinced him to stop at one of Billy Graham’s tent revival meetings.  Well, to make an extremely long story a bit shorter, Vaus “walked the sawdust trail”, did not catch the plane, and the next day informed Cohen that he was quitting—something you do not do, voluntarily.  He then began giving speeches in a variety of venues, including prisons.  At a prison in Pennsylvania, an inmate came to him and said, “why come here, you need to help us before we get here”.  This put Vaus on course to find the area in the country in the late 1950’s that had the highest rate of juvenile crime.  That area was East Harlem in New York City.  He left his family in Oregon, moved to the back of the first floor of a tenement building and built a workshop in the front portion of the flat.  He would give electronic demonstration in the workshop, but also at schools and began to establish a measure of confidence with teenagers in the area. He also hired Piri Thomas, an indigenous Puerto Rican who had served eight years at the infamous Sing Sing prison.  for killing a cop.  Being a convicted felon who had done “prison time” gave him a measure of respect with the members of the gangs.  To this day, I still do not understand what led to his release.

When it became known that two rival gangs were about to “go down” Piri would get the leaders of each gang and one other person for each gang, take them out to an island in the East River and have them have a “fair fight” No weapons were aloud, just fists, but more times than not it brought the potential of a deadly “rumble” to a halt.  The rules to be followed were the same for each side in the conflict. 

Now, let us extrapolate to the present stated and self-serving nature of the GOP.  Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, seems to be hell bent on constantly changing the rules.  As we all have witnessed. None more blatant than his position on Trump’s role in the January 6th Insurrection.  On the one hand denouncing the president’s role in the Insurrection and on the other voting not to impeach.  Holding up the process until after Trump was no longer president and then stating that impeachment cannot apply to a person who is no longer the president.  Further, state after state continue to introduce and pass legislation to change the rules for voting.  What is the GOP afraid of?  Why can they not engage in a “fair fight” and see who wins.  Changing the rules is unbelievably unfair, unethical, immoral and simply, wrong.  Additionally, the Supreme Court seems to be laser-focused on dismantling the Voting Rights Act, piece by piece.  Witness the latest decision regarding the Arizona modifications.  Associate Justice Alito stated that discrimination alone is not a reason to declare the law unconstitutional.  Guess he never read or understands the premise upon which the Voting Rights Act became law in the first place. 

I know there has been a great deal of hysteria on both sides of this issue, but all that I am proposing is to make the fight a fair one.  To make the rules and stand by them.  To give all people the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. To refrain from being a pawn in the hands of the ex-president.  To stop behaving like a group of children who did not get their way, so they pick up their bat and ball and go home.  Come now, let us reason together—is that too much to ask?

Deception and lies...

Over the past several weeks and even months, I have gone through periods of contemplation about what to include in the next blog.  Needless-to-say, there have been any number of subjects and events that have occurred during this period that would warrant some discussion.  One arena that continues to receive a great deal of attention focuses on the divisions that are so prominent throughout the country.  A recent article in The New York Times, discussed the way in which the country has become so divided, both politically and geographically.  The prevalence of division can also be based on religious differences, socio-economic differences, cultural differences, sexual differences, and the list goes on and on.  Certainly, there is something to be cherished in the differences amongst people—we all do not need to think alike, look alike, believe alike.  Healthy discord makes us all stronger, but strident discord makes us all distrustful and alienated.  Do we insulate ourselves from those who are different?  Perhaps we do and this insulation tends to breed a myopic view of life and what makes up the various nuances of existence. 

 As I have reflected on the tenor of the times, I have been drawn back to November 18, 1978.  Many might recall this is the infamous day that over 900 souls left this earth at the direction of the Reverend Jim Jones, the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple.  On this fateful night, Jones had come to the decision that he would test the loyalty of his followers to lay down their lives for the cause and for him.  The cause as he described it was to create some type of socialistic utopia amid a jungle in Guyana, a small country in South America.   The settlement became known as Jonestown and it was in this enclave that babies and children were given a poisonous concoction that led to death within about a five-minute time period.  Jones believed that if the babies and children went first, then families would have no reason to continue living and would voluntarily take their own life by drinking the cyanide-laced punch.  Some did escape and they have become the source of the information that has been forthcoming about what took place in the far-removed jungle enclave.  In her book, A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception and Suicide at Jonestown, Julia Scheeres wrote that he wanted the world to think this was some uniform decision that his followers made to willingly killed themselves, but that can certainly be contested.  There was a line of guards with crossbows and another line of guards behind them with guns to make certain that the suicides and murders happened.  Does raise the question of how voluntary the decision to die was among the members of the cult.  In the conclusion of his Rolling Stones article, “13 Things you should know about the cult massacre”, David Chiu stated that much of what was promised to the followers of Jim Jones were a myriad of lies and misinformation. The phrase, “drinking the Kool Aid has been popularized following what took place at Jonestown.  While this term has been characterized as offensive, it does lend some measure of credence to people blindly following a person, a belief, a conspiracy or something that is odious and unfounded.

Bringing this into the current climate in our country, it seems as if there are a significant number of individuals who are believing the lies and misinformation that has been son obvious over the past several years.  During the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, The Washington Post identified 30,573 false or misleading statements made by him.  Perhaps the most onerous lie, deals with the results of the most recent election won by Joe Biden.  Trump has repeatedly made claims that the election was stolen from him due to fraudulent state voting practices. Following the election at least 86 lawsuits were filed by Trump and others contesting the results in several states and none were found to have merit.  Some of these lawsuits were filed in courts where judges nominated by Trump presided, yet they found no reason to support the claims that were being made.  Regardless, this has not stopped the claims from being repeated over and over by Trump and his followers.  The “Big Lie” has become a rallying point for the Trump faithful and the adoration shown to him by bright and thoughtful individuals has been nothing short of amazing.  It is believed that confronted in a private context, many of those who publicly support the “Big Lie” would agree that it is unfounded.

To combat the loss of the presidency, the House and the Senate, several states controlled by Republican legislatures and governors have enacted laws that are geared to suppress the voting by certain groups of people.  The states of Georgia, Florida, Texas and others on the horizon have attempted to curtail the opportunities for people to vote.  Voting is one of the most sacred components of a free and open democracy and to do anything to diminish that right is unconscionable.

The relationship between what took place at Jonestown and what is taking place today is ever so apparent, yet perplexing.  How did so many adults die by following a dictum propagated by their leader and how can so many believe what a leader says when he has lied or misinformed over 30,000 times in four years? 

Some who read what I have written will not agree and might take offense to the connection I have attempted to identify.  That is OK, but I would ask that each of us stop and reflect on where we are and where do we want to be in the future.  Are some “drinking the Kool-Aid” rather than stepping back and looking at what is being said and what is being expected.