Kim Chi.

On the occasion of our current political crisis, the new book Hoax, by CNN Anchor Brian Stelter, grapples with the relationship of Fox News and the body politic.

There is talk of Fox News personnel becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the wave of propaganda taking over their news.

Where have they been? Obviously, not watching Fox News.

There are two disturbing issues with the Fox News construct:

1. Where is this propaganda coming from?
Certainly, we know it travels directly from Fox News to the White House, but how and where did it originate, and why is it always diamond-sharp propaganda every time? Where is this stuff coming from?

2. Why is it successful?
Who is bankrolling this echo chamber? Do right-wing “conservative” families buy that much toilet paper and paper towels to provide an endless self-directed supply of democracy-eroding falsehoods? It isn’t a mystery why they listen: no one else is talking to them, and everyone likes to feel heard. The mystery is this: why exactly does it make economic sense? If the answer is simply advertising revenue, then a boycott of companies involved could make for a good democratic intervention: how can you be a good corporate citizen by promoting the lies that undermine the democracy you function in and benefit from? If the answer is funding sources that go beyond commercial products, then we have a nuclear problem. Who supports this funding and whose agenda does it serve?

The irony of Fox News is that it has become everyone’s very own North Korea.

You pay for and invest your time internalizing propaganda: lies, distortions, and the party line.

No one forced it on you. You chose it, and if you examine yourself carefully, you may realize that you chose it out of insecurity and loneliness. If so, you may need to re-examine your own lives.

This is the wrong way to influence a democracy that has increasingly failed to satisfy your needs.

Yes, you can “self-actuate” with hatred—look what you have accomplished through Trump, but why are you moving in that direction? Other than a feeling of victory, what does it serve?

It is a crying, elitist shame that no one has listened to you. Your views have value. Your needs are legitimate, but not at the price of so much suffering.

You are forcing a dystopian America upon us, that will undermine the very principles on which it was founded.

As they did in the Matrix, “uncouple.”

Then, take the pill that lets you believe in yourself and others without diminishment and hate.

I’m listening. Others will listen, too.

Nazis.

It’s a common trope that when the word “Nazi” is thrown around in social discourse, that all bets are off and reason has left the building.

However, with the latest round of persecution inflicted on the DACA kids, it’s time for the point to be made.

Fresh off the Supreme Court rebuke for trying to arbitrarily (i.e. politically) remove the DACA protections for thousands of young people, whose sole recourse would have been to return to countries they know nothing about, the Trump Administration executes new orders to reduce DACA enrollment and shorten protections.

What does this look like? Picking on a helpless minority, through relentless administrative actions? Moving a political agenda at a price to humanity? Taking every opportunity to pervert the legislative system to foster one’s own gains?

It resembles Nazism.

Just how far away are we by analogy to the persecution of the Jews by Nazi Germany? What makes this situation different?

Is our obliviousness to the situation reminiscent of the Emperor’s New Clothes?

Look at the cast of characters.

At the very top, is Mr. Donald, our very own Hitler, though he looks and sounds more like a knockoff Mussolini.

Next is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Donald’s own Hermann Göring, always ready to add a smiling reassurance or a crocodile-apology: Mr. Relative, Mr. Rationalization. ‘Jamal Khashoggi was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

As for some of the nastier members of the ensemble, let’s take Steven Miller “Special Advisor to the President.” He’s a perfect stand-in for Reinhard Heydrich, the “right hand man,” “The Hangman,” and “The Butcher of Prague.” Check out Heydrich’s Wikipedia resume and tell me if the parallels do not fit. Note the similarity in ambition and effort.

Yes, of course Steven Miller hasn’t gone to these extremes, nor, potentially, would he, but what are these people playing at?

Is this for votes, or to assure a continued pipeline of government funds going to those most favored, or for what?…

What makes it acceptable to do these things?

These are people, children, whose situation is manifestly clear. If they return to their countries, they will be faced with economic dead-ends and often violence. Some don‘t even speak their native languages.

What justifies this callousness, and cruelty?

What higher purpose makes this any of this acceptable?

Because someone in the heartland hates immigrants?

Is our country really built on hate?

(At this point, the Black Lives Matter Movement is shaking its head in disbelief that I am even asking this question.)

Hate serves a purpose for the frustrated, and so much of what is done in politics is meant as theater, but these are human lives we are talking about.

And the principle of tormenting the vulnerable should remind us of a history we must never forget. Bad things come from persecuting little people.

When persecution becomes government, all is lost, except the momentary gains.

How can we sleep, knowing others are reinventing history, for the same sordid purposes that led to so much pain?

Pull back the veil of time and call these people what they are.

And shame them.

Post.

This election will be a Balkanized crazy-quilt of local postal incidences. We can only hope they are held together by good people who ensure that the systems in our country continue to flow with integrity.

But does this integrity apply to our patchwork of election officials and the pattern of federal interference with the postal mission?

Who cuts back post office spending ahead of an unprecedented effort of mail-in ballots?

Time to call suppression what it is, and put a stop to it: simply don’t accept it.

The man in the White House has called into question the very bedrock of our democracy, forecasting fraud if he isn’t elected.

With all the anti-democratic actions he is taking, why should we believe him if he claims to have won the election?

I started with a belief in the government‘s inertia—an inertia may still win the day, and protect us all—but at what point does one reach the conclusion that one side is subverting the democratic process?

And let’s not even talk about Supreme Court interventions. My wife asked the other day, when contemplating the climate crisis, “what would have happened, if Al Gore had been elected?”

!

We are at a turning point in American, if not global history, and the gloves are off.

We can accept nothing less than fairness in this election.

—Vote

—Vote early

—Check, check, and double check your polling options

—Accept no interference at the polls

—Let no one take you off the rolls

—Persist

America is counting on you.

The world is counting on you.

You can do this.

We need to win.

Weaponized.

Let‘s examine the exhaustion with dealing with a weaponized government. Who is saying it must be this way? Are you allowing it? Are you accepting an unfair fate? Are you accepting someone else’s definition of your powerlessness?

It has become absolutely exhausting to be a citizen of the United States. Each day, there is a fresh outrage or new perversion of our democracy.

How did this come to pass and how are we letting this be?

Does it all come down to an over-muscled, over-reaching Executive Branch, or is there more at work here?

Will you continue to accept each branch of your government when its actions are turned against you?

If you don’t protest, or resist, or reject, then this is the way it is going to be.

DHS/ICE
Can we protect ourselves and others without losing our compassion?

Does the template of protection require being authoritarian?

Will you remain silent when authoritarianism devolves to fascism?

Congress
Who is pulling these strings?

If they don’t act and they don’t act on your behalf, something is clearly wrong.

Senators and Congresspersons are supposed to balance the opinions of other Senators and Congresspersons.

They are not supposed to move in lock-step.

Who benefits if our governing body does not govern or takes only self-serving action that only inflicts pain?

Yes, there is another way to go.

Courts
Who says it’s ok to pack them with ideologues?

They’re our courts, not the courts of someone with an agenda.

What happened to checks and balances here and a sense of fair play?

If a system of checks and balances has functioned well for decades and suddenly someone throws the baby out with the bath water, then what fundamental shift now threatens our democracy?

Fatigue
The Executive Branch under Trump has been nothing but outrageous. Congress during Trump has acted as an abject enabler or remained gridlocked. Meanwhile, life goes on, needs are unmet, and reality becomes more complex every day.

Who is looking out for us?

We can only take so much negative input, so we have to push back.

Don’t accept the weaponized actions of your government. Remind them who put them there and what they are there for.

Vote them out November 3.

Vote them out and mind the new crop of their replacements.

Curing systemic fascism doesn’t happen by wishing it away, but through constant oversight, consideration and action.

Turn the swords of our government back into plowshares that serve everyone‘s needs—and reject the hateful administration that thinks of nothing else but wielding them.

Why.

After a successful career as a troubleshooter for high-level corporate design and advertising issues, I sought to work more directly on the relevant problems of the world.

As you know, this is a humbling and difficult endeavor—and then COVID balled all issues into one.

I began writing a COVID series of posts in preparation for publishing this blog. I worked up to 100 posts, prior to publication, and I am excited to finally share them with you now.

They will be released in a weekly series of archival posts, along with new contemporary discussions.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room.

The more I delved into the issues of COVID, and explored the outlines of environmental and social issues, I realized that the one entity in the way of all potential progress was the current political administration.

They have become so radical and aggressive in their actions (increasingly so, if that is even possible), that I knew I must address them directly.

I didn’t intend this effort to become so political, but the politics of this administration have steadily guided my hand.

And so, I write thoughtfully about the Orange One.

I am afraid the most important effort we can make this year is to peacefully vote the current administration out of the White House, as well as their astonishingly craven and morally bankrupt enablers in the Senate. I say this with a heavy heart. Even with special interests, everyone is supposed to work for everyone else—not solely for themselves.

There are much more productive projects to engage in for the planet, than having to vote out a malignant administration.

Now, ending that malignancy is the most important effort you can make: domestically, globally, and historically.

It’s a forced error and we must correct it.

Vote, vote, and vote again. (Not in the same election, of course: just...keep on voting.)

Our vote is a miraculous experience, resonating—in one instant—both locally and globally, touching more people than we’ll ever know.

Once we vote and reestablish some semblance of balance, we can get on with what is truly important—addressing and mitigating global climate change and other forms of environmental degradation.

Our lives depend on it—certainly, the quality of our lives—but to complain about the discomfort of the temperature in a room that is burning is the height of folly—something we, unfortunately, are all too eager to do.

Face it.

We aren’t doing anything about climate change. Oh, at least we have eyes on the problem, but our economic reason for being is on a collision course with disaster and our best efforts to prevent it are tragically exemplified by the current regressive administration.

It is remarkable, and resolutely sobering, to understand that collectively, this is the best we could do. It earns a resounding F minus.

“Everything” else is much more important than this environmental reality that affects “everything”. When the Orange One is gone, we’ll have a great deal of healing to do.

With a functioning Congress, we can focus on what truly matters. What matters most is not returning to the oblivious way we functioned in the past, but to learn from this massive global crisis and refashion a world that emphasizes the preservation of life and health and a sustainable economy.

They go hand in hand.

We will have to listen, reflect, and care, as never before.

There will be a surfeit of fear. There will be the gnashing of teeth and the tearing of hair, but when the tantrums subside, I hope we find the will to seek blue skies and clear horizons.

The alternative is too horrible to accept, and in any case, what are we here for if not to do better...and to heal the world?

(I know we can do this.)

I‘ve started my journey. I hope you’ll join me.

Together, we can begin.

Isolated.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

A strange thing has happened to our cars, with COVID.

After more than 135 years of being a conveyance,* our cars are now a habitat.

They are both bubble and bathyscaphe,** from which we now explore the world.

Before, the issue was: how can we escape this necessary mode of transit that gets us from point A to point B?

Can’t we find another way to get around, without the need for fossil fuels?

Can’t we use less energy?

Instead, cars have become the space-lock and rocket-pod between the ensured safety of our homes and the unknown danger of performing essential errands.

They too – in and of themselves – are now our constant ‘destination.‘

We go to the car.

Yes, we take walks, yes, we go to the grocery store and stand in line, yes, we get out of the car to pick up takeout at restaurants.

But, we don’t – GO – anywhere anymore: the car doesn’t – TAKE – us anywhere that, upon arrival, we get to BE – which was the whole point of a trip, before COVID.

It takes us here and there, but we never really leave it.

It is our vital means to weather and explore the new world we are in.

We take our “being inside” with us.

*”History of the automobile,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile

**”Bathyscaphe,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe

Misguided.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

I fear successfully reopening is going to take more than we have.

I was shopping at my favorite modern five-and-dime store, and I saw a disaster in the making.

It was uncomfortable.

A line snaked twenty-feet to the cash register, where two harried cashiers worked at their best to process customers, some with shopping carts literally brimming with items.

The line was bunching: the cashiers weren’t processing fast enough. The air was thick and muggy.

When I asked the manager why he didn’t open another lane he said, “social distancing,” meaning he couldn’t have three cashiers so close to each other and, he felt the need to add, that there were only 45 people in the store, meaning that he was following all the regulations.

...Oh...

Ok, so then it’s ok to have all 45 people bunched in line trying to check out: families, children...all in masks, but some people coughing?

How about adding another cash register at six feet apart, or simply moving the one you have six feet from the other?

And while we are at it, could you please consider moving to a ‘touchless’ point-of-sale system.*

How are we going to accomplish more difficult things if managers can’t reconcile two issues – let alone three – at the same time?

• Yes – you can have 45 people in the store.

• No – you can’t have them forced into checkout all at the same time.

• Yes – you can have social distancing for your cashiers.

• No – you can not have only two cash registers open.

Because we can’t sit around breathing each other’s air simply because a company is looking in the wrong direction.

They owe us better than that.

A crowded line is often unpleasant. A crowded line in COVID could be more unpleasant still.

* Daiso, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daiso

**This Elavon point-of-sale system is unfortunately a COVID-friendly disaster: it requires multiple unnecessary steps using a stylus and has no place for the stylus to go.

It guarantees time-wasting fumbling with every transaction and adds to both the wait in line and the chances for contamination.

It’s interesting that Elavon is now promoting “contactless payment options.”

This prior system has got to go.

Miasma.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

More than not touching your face, or washing your hands, we’re looking out for miasma.

Technically, a miasma has a foul smell, but in High School English, I learned the meaning as an “unhealthy atmosphere.”*

Once, a misplaced concept predating germ theory (because proponents thought the miasma itself was causing disease, as opposed to the undiscovered germs within it)** now, a miasma containing millions of droplets of virus has us again on the defensive.***

And we can create it in our own homes and places we congregate. 

Apparently, loud talking for one minute suspends 1,000 droplets of virus in the air for eight minutes or more.***

And you don’t want to walk into this cloud and breathe it.

This miasma. 

I am hoping this doesn’t mean people who talk loudly while wearing their masks. It seems you have to talk loudly just to be heard. 

Yet, this makes it all the more important for everyone to wear a mask in the first place. 

Otherwise, a person could cause a miasma. 

And I would have to breathe it. 

And so would you. 

** “Miasma,” Lexico powered by Oxford, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/miasma

* “Miasma Theory,” Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory

*** “A minute of loud talking can generate more than 1,000 coronavirus-laden droplets that linger in the air for 8 minutes, new research shows,” Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/loud-speech-coronavirus-droplets-study-2020-5

Can we stop all this nonsense with homework?

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

It’s hard enough navigating the COVID crisis without reams of unnecessary homework.

Yes. No one has to lug an unwieldy backpack to school anymore, but the “psychic” backpack remains, and with it, its oppression.

Studies everywhere are questioning the nature of homework, and it’s important that we identify different kinds and different contexts.*

Reading a story, so everyone can participate, is one thing.

Endless standardized textbook problem sets – to keep up with district or state mandated pacing – is another. Should our children be grist for a textbook mill, or are they unique pages of their own, to be read, tended to, and shared?

We can debate quantity, and practicing problem sets, but as a staple of American education – as the method is currently practiced – it has gone too far.

It is said that the rests between the notes are what makes the music.

Children need more time between moments of relevance to make their own.

* “The Cult of Homework,” Joel Pinsker, The Atlantic, March 28, 2019 https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/homework-research-how-much/585889/ ...among others.

Daisy.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

On my morning walk, it is apparent that “Daisy” drew an asphalt heart.

It’s a big heart, long enough for everyone in this pandemic.

This is my clue that she is the artist.

And it’s drawn in chalk, which expresses itself quickly and well, even if it’s susceptible to rain, and water, and tears.

Notice that it is multicolored, inclusive of everyone, and vibrant, because it is full of life.

I’m hoping both parents supervised, because it is drawn in the middle of the street, but the street is quiet, with lots of neighbors and passersby with strollers, who will get to see what Daisy made.

Also seen on my walk.

Whoever you are, Daisy, and wherever you are, thank you for including us in the heart.

It’s a future we should contemplate, just like Daisy with her chalks, on the asphalt of a quiet neighborhood street, in COVID time.

---

Coda: The heart is gone now, washed away by a sudden May rain. It’s totally gone now, but the sentiment is still there.

All it took was someone to express it.

Wireless essentialness.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

Remember the Digital Divide – that some have internet and some do not?

BIG talk of that in the ‘90’s and 2000’s that virtually disappeared as soon as every kid (and everyone) had a smartphone.

No problem anymore.

They all have phones and gaming systems.

No kid will let anything get in the way of their access to the internet.

Fugettaboudit.

Right?

Then all the coffee shops closed, and people were stuck in their homes, and I don’t know if you can do remote classroom on your PlayStation.

You certainly can’t do it on your phone – or, no one has figured out yet how to do it.

(It would have been a universal place to start.)

However, just having a device doesn’t mean anything – as any district handing out a thousand netbooks will tell you.

You need bandwidth, including bandwidth for the other family members stuck in your house, who – if they are lucky and employed – are using a ton of it for videoconferencing.

Cheesy-Bits will not do it. You need big bytes.

And where are those bytes?

Not in rural areas, despite explicit promises by the telecoms to provide them with services. (See recent status here.)*

And not with people who have tight expenses.

The pricing charts for broadband from our monopoly wireless companies are not helpful to those trying to to have something left over at the end of the month, especially if we are talking about a family.

Some people are having to drive miles to parking lots in order to snag WiFi broad enough to do their professional work or classwork, with some students missing weeks of instruction, while sorting out their access.**

Is this fair?

No.

Internet is a lifeblood, even more so when our lives are confined to our homes.

* “Mapping Broadband Health in America 2017,” Connections2HealthFCC, fcc.gov, Broadband Gaps in America

** “Parking Lots Have Become a Digital Lifeline,“ by Cecilia Kang The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/technology/parking-lots-wifi-coronavirus.html

Heart illustration licensed from 123rf, 91026665.

WiFi icon by Baboon Designs, US, The Noun Project, https://thenounproject.com/search/?q=%20829902&i=829902

Food, fast.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

PBS just ran a segment on the plight of Bangladeshi garment workers trying to survive in the midst of the COVID lockdown.*

It seems our ceasing to buy fast fashion in shopping malls throughout the country has something to do with whether these workers have rice on the table.

This means the world’s retailers just stopped making product, shipping product, and in some horrible cases, paying for product, leaving millions of Bangladeshi workers with nowhere to turn.**

Is it necessary for our world to consume fast fashion – garments whose lifespan is limited to as little as 10 wearings – all so workers at the end of the supply chain can eat?***

Is there a balance and can we find it quickly?

Or, is it just a tap: ON, they eat, OFF, they starve?.

This brings up the issue of responsibility, not just in the context of planetary responsibility, but also a consumerist responsibility.

Do I have to exploit someone to have a washing machine or a toaster oven?

Do people have to starve if I suddenly stop buying something?

A Bangladeshi garment worker in the PBS segment sat in the street, eloquently protesting her condition. She said her children’s school expected fees and that her landlord expected rent or he would throw her family out into the street.

These sentiments could have been expressed by a laid-off tech worker in San Francisco.

Globally, we all have the same needs, human needs.

It’s time we started making it possible for everyone to live, especially when everyone is in crisis.

* Densely populated Bangladesh faces immense infection control challenge, PBS NewsHour, May 15, 2020, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/densely-populated-bangladesh-faces-immense-infection-control-challenge

** Covid-19 Tracker: Which Brands Are Acting Responsibly toward Suppliers and Workers?, Worker Rights Consortium, https://www.workersrights.org/issues/covid-19/tracker/

Note that H&M is one of the companies who committed to pay in full for orders completed in production, making them one of the “good guys.”

*** How to buy clothes that are built to last, The New York Times, September 25, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/sustainable-clothing.html

Can we get serious here...about the math?

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

How many tables and seats can make a menu or venue sustainable?

Take the theater or ballet: Can you really function with people every three or four seats?

And restaurants: with only half the tables?

And bar and brew pubs: are you kidding me?

Is it even possible to do this?

Now think.

What if we all wore masks, good masks, and seasonably, or all the time?

Could it be every three seats, or every other seat?

“Rigid” Theatre Seating: 6 feet apart.

“Clump” Seating: In natural “clumps,” approximately 6”. Pretty disastrous, unless you can cheat the distance and fill more seats (see near empty rows 5, 7, and 8.)

Could the restaurants be three-quarters rather than half full?

Would this make a difference?

What would this mean for the life of regular people?

Or, would we have the top end gravitate to negative-pressure rooms and be served by vaccinated and tested waitstaff for their “regular” dining?

Food carts might work, but a normal restaurant? With normal rent?

We will adapt: we will make many adaptations, but in the end, the question is not, ‘will there be a plate half empty or half full’…but will there be a plate at all?

Nifty architectural figure courtesy of the amazing Pimp my Drawing site.

(I just gave him COVID “gear.”)

Demographics.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

A very interesting reality is emerging from the progress of this pandemic.

Different “populations” are experiencing the pandemic differently.

People of color or lower socioeconomic class have been hit disproportionately.

Reasons range from a preponderance of preexisting conditions to inadequate health care.

But the really interesting perception is that these individuals can not afford to stop working, so they are (and have been) at constant risk of infection.

Is this fair? Having a sacrificial class of people?

Look further.

We have “first responders” without access to adequate supplies and gear, and in many cases, not even access to health insurance.

We have the suddenly unemployed, by the millions. (What, exactly is supposed to happen when your entire industry—shuts—down?)

We have parents now coping with work (or no work) and children at home.

We have children who can not experience society or interaction outside the family, if they are lucky enough to have one.

We have the elderly, locked in, isolated, and dependent as never before.

What of all these cohorts: these demographies?

These people...this new “us.”

Separate all the discussions of command and control (“Do this,” Do that,” “Reopen,” “Stop reopening”) what are we doing about these people?

These people who count.

These people who matter.

Do not reduce them to a weeping undifferentiated whole, pleading upward, with a hand out.

See them as they are and come to their aid.

“Family” icon by Adrien Coquet, The Noun Project, https://thenounproject.com/search/?q=man%20woman%20child&i=1034122

I just modified it to give the family black eyes and add a male child.

Boxing Gloves licensed from Shutterstock, 1136886392.

Clarity and Chaos.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

It seems we can’t process more than one idea at a time.

First, we had “shelter-in-place,” so we sheltered.*

Now, we have “reopening,” and no one knows what to do.

People are walking around in a daze of unconsciousness, “Is it over?” Are we done?”

Left to their own devices, they simply do not know what to do, and leaders who chronically misunderstand the problem are reducing it to a binary two-step: “Do it,” Don’t do it,” “Do it, “Don’t do it...”

“Hurry up.”

“You’re not doing it fast enough.”

Reducing the situation to a faucet does nothing to focus on the merits or the realities of the situation, like sufficient testing, PPE, and the latest pandemic pie-in-the-sky, contact tracing.

(That’s sufficient testing, PPE, and contact tracing.)

A binary approach shirks every responsibility and is for people who don’t know how to do something more productive.

It avoids the helpful questions: who, why, when, and how, and leaves us leaderless and to our own devices.

Chaos through ignorance.

The clarity is, X exposures to COVID equal X+ more exposures in a unit of time.

Let’s find our way to clarity before chaos sinks in again.

The “bullet”...a modest proposal.

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

I have a modest proposal.

Since single-use bags are back with a vengeance (i.e. COVID) and China is not too happy about taking our recycling any more, and apparently they throw away the most plastic in the ocean anyway—so let’s try something simple that we can do.*

Let’s stuff our plastic bags into a significantly smaller plastic bag.

That’s right.

Instead of casually bundling the bags in a bigger bag and dropping the loose ball in recycling, let’s stuff it and compress it—as tightly as we can.

In California, our newspapers come sheathed in these cool tubular ‘newspaper‘ bags. For us, they are perfect. Maybe you have them, too—although we can’t count on people having physical papers today.

We collect these bags and stuff all of our plastic wrap into them, tying them off when full. Then, into recycling.

Now, we’re stuffing the gazillion single-use bags retailers are forcing us to use, until this pandemic is finished. We can’t always choose paper (though we try) and we do use those for composting.

Now, I’m not really sure how sound a suggestion this is.

Logic dictates, it “contains” entropy. The bags have a greater chance of “staying put,” holding together, not fouling the trash sorting systems, or flying away to be eaten by sea turtles.

a: should stay “put“…b: will go elsewhere

Maybe not.

Maybe the industry can weigh in here.

My feeling is that they have bigger fish to fry, and that plastic bags are considered hopeless. That’s why we have all these initiatives to simply ban them.

The current count is a trillion bags used each year** with only one-percent recycled.***

That’s...uh...10,000,000,000 bags elsewhere.

Ten billion…a year…each year…and that is just plastic bags.

So, while we find the will to take single-use plastic seriously— and, BTW, if not now, when—let’s stuff our bags in a tightly compressed “bullet.”

Maybe it will help.

It’s not going to hurt.

* Throws the most plastic away: https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most-with-plastic-waste

** One trillion bags a year: http://www.earth-policy.org/mobile/releases/plastic_bags_fact_sheet

*** Only one-percent recycled: https://www.5gyres.org/plastic-bags

Note: These are 20” plastic “newspaper bags.” Maybe the more common ~12” “doggie” bags could work as well. Though, a blizzard of stuffed doggie waste bags might cause confusion and alarm for the recycling staff…so…some warning, maybe…if we tried this on a large scale.

The future?...

[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]

I’ve invested in pool noodles.

Yes. I think pool noodles are going to be a big thing, as we keep practicing social distancing.

Just think. No dirty looks. No uncomfortable interactions when somebody stands too close.

Just let the pool noodles do their work.

And just think how much money I‘ll make by getting in on this early.

After all, that’s what so many others are doing.

Why do you think there hasn’t been more mobilization of needed supplies, especially to first responders?

Negotiation, that’s why. Rather than respond, let’s negotiate, and drive the prices up.

So, I should get into it, too. Don’t you think?

I mean, why not?

Why else don‘t we have the supplies that we need?

Incompetence? Scale of need? Finite resources?

Or a network of prior, private relationships forged out of supply and demand?

What is more important: these relationships and the network of stability they bring, or satisfying the unstable needs of a crisis?

What is lost and what is gained?

Perhaps, pool noodles.

Will we have them when we need them?

For a virtuous story utilizing the same concept of problematic supply chains—or standing them on their ends through a network of trust—please see David Gelles’ piece in the New York Times entitled: “Marc Benioff’s $25 Million Blitz to Buy Protective Gear From China.”

Nifty architectural figure courtesy of the amazing Pimp my Drawing site.

(I just gave it COVID “gear.”)

Everything. Revisited.

[This post is from a series written during the first days of the COVID crisis.]

What are we going to do about everything? 

Some (many) are out of work. Some live with the fear of a first responder never coming home at night. Some are sitting at home doing nothing. 

What does it take to walk in someone else’s shoes, when it is so hard to find your own?

We live in peace. We live in fear.

We navigate the surreal and try to provide a buffer for our children. 

It’s a quiet assault on our perspective—with sudden janglement—like the attack of some predator. 

Time will tell, but, as Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic Park: The Lost World,  “Oh, yeah. ‘Oooh, ahhh,’ that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming.”

Will it get worse. And what is worse?

Walking Dead worse?

Everything is shouted at you, like some 1930’s headline.

Leaders bluster and complain like some three-year-old unhappy that the birthday cake has been taken away.

Other leaders (successfully) talk to us like kindergarteners. Is this the best we can expect?

In between are the dispatches from the front: the exhausted health care worker, the worried doctor, the parking lot penguins clumsily moving on land in protective gear to gently administer nose swabs. 

Will a toilet paper fort solve anything?

Is there such a thing as having too many puzzles?

The puzzle of this pandemic will be broken into many pieces, and from those pieces, a solution will arise. 

But when.

Is there such a thing as a sustainable economy?

[This post is from a series written during the first days of the COVID crisis.]

Some theories regarding life on earth, following a climate collapse, posit that 90% of the world’s humanity has to disappear before the planet can sustain us. 

No wonder this doesn’t come up in an election year. 

The sudden question in this pandemic is what do we do, but the more interesting one is where do we go from here?

‘Right back to where we were,’ posits Capitalism. 

‘But with more human services,’ posits Socialism. 

But who speaks for the Earth, who, in this case is just really us?

Can we have businesses that sustain?

Pruned of their mad dash prior to the pandemic, can businesses find their way to a “steady state,” with new equations for survival?

And what of telecommuting and cars?

Doesn’t this great pandemic experiment unmoor us from our buildings?

Honestly, what do you really need an office for?

To get your kids out of your hair? So someone hierarchical can take a meeting?

Is this worth killing the world for and, honestly, don’t you like the improvement in the traffic?

The biggest issue, though, other than our impending doom, is the millions of people who are economically suffering. 

Can’t we imagine a world where they are “sustainably” employed?

Can’t we focus on that world now?

They need it and we need it: now.