Social Distance, Shelter in Place, Lock Down

In 1920, when the clock struck midnight that New Years Eve/Day, the world began to change. The year 1920, brought us prohibition, bathtub gin, flappers, shorter dresses and even shorter female hairstyles, while men took on a more dapper style with with wide lapels, pin stripes and fedoras. It was also the beginning of many Americans owning motor cars, radio's and telephones. All of these things changed everything about us, from how we dressed, to how we drank, got around, got our information and how we communicated. The world in fact seemed to be a bright new place in 1920, ushering in products and opportunities which would have a profound effect on our culture, jobs, homes and life in general for all the decades that followed. With WWI over and Henry Ford's advances in manufacturing with the assembly-line, 1920 set the decade up for what looked like unending fiscal and personal success. On the surface America was shiny, but like any year and any decade, there would be cracks in the facade and the shininess would fade. Still though, we were working our way into an unforgettable 20th Century.

Now, looking at 2020, the world once again changed on New Years Eve/Day, but into something far different than what we celebrated a hundred years before. As we said goodbye to 2019 and drove headlong into the new year and new decade, our world and our country were far from a joyous and exciting time and place. Going into 2020, we drug a lot of baggage from the past year that had been building far longer than the previous decade. We brought in political unrest, racial unrest, Constitutional unrest and a loss of morality, faith and humanity as we had become a world in which our own individual self-interest was our goal, we were our own gods and humanity was only an after thought as long as we were getting what we wanted. We had become a world where the only conversations we wanted to have were the ones in which we were agreed with and in which our opinions came out of the mouths of others. We had quit sharing ideas and growing in an effort to be the loudest voice with the only opinion. We were a world of fake news, fear mongers and power hungry, money driven leaders. Worst of all, because we the people had lost a sense of who we were, we became ripe for those who told us we needed to be taken care of, led and controlled for our own "best interest" and safety. We were blindly following those who cared nothing about any of those things, but only the power they could control us with.

Yes, this is what we ended 2019 with and this is what we entered 2020 with. Now, five months into this new year and decade and we seem to be losing ground, losing stability and losing our rights as free individuals in a free country. The worst part, no one is actually taking our stability and rights from us....we are simply willingly handing them over with the misconception that this will keep us safe. Welcome to 2020. My how a hundred years has changed us.

Much has happened this new year globally and much has happened in my life personally. It has all made me very introspective and emotionally frustrated. It is one of those times where I have to get it out or mentally choke on that which I find emotionally breaking. So here it goes:

As we came into 2020, we were still dealing with an unprecedented Presidential Impeachment where the news was fake and the "facts" were fluid, changing as the agenda saw fit. Of course in the end, it was nothing more than a gigantic waste of taxpayers money, congress did no actual work and the American people, regardless of which side of the fence they were on, were forced into the acknowledgement of just how little our elected officials actually cared about the good of the country as they were willing to raise the debt with a legal farce and attempt to destroy an economy that was struggling to get back on it's feet.

Once the impeachment charade was over, there was barely time for Nancy Pelosi to remember that her job entailed more than trying to impeach her nemesis, when we were hit with the Corona Virus (i.e. COVID 19). Now I won't rehash the onset of this virus, the stupidity of those who ran out to buy enough toilet paper to get through the decade or mass hysteria that ensued in the early days of this pandemic. After all, I have already written a couple of blogs concerning that and I am sure you all know by now how I feel about it all.

No, what I want to discuss on this blog is the here and now and the whole lock down, shelter in place, social distancing, killing our economy and making us all angry assholes thing.

For most of the country and I guess a good part of the world, it was at first suggested we "social distance." While the words were familiar, their term is now one that will go down in history as a key phrase to the 2020 pandemic. In my opinion, social distancing was nothing more than common sense and I took it to mean, if you are feeling unwell, don't go to work, don't go to the club, don't go to the store, don't go to school. You should stay home and take care of yourself, thus preventing the spread of your germs. Apparently what everyone else heard was: Run out and shop like there is no tomorrow. Breathe on everyone and become angry if you are not able to buy more than 100 rolls of toilet paper and 25 canisters of disinfectant wipes. I'm not sure how social distancing meant such different things to different people, but in no time, we were off and running with the spread of the virus running rampant.

Social distancing then went from use common sense, to now you all are going to shelter in place. This was the step where the government decided that we couldn't be trusted to use common sense, so they were going to get a bit heavy handed and start enforcing laws that didn't exist and spread the word that the government and not the people were in charge. Now in all fairness, the people did act a fool over the social distancing, so we basically handed them the authoritarian governmental grounding that they gave us. The shelter in place was the beginning of school closings for the year and a limiting of numbers of people who could gather in any one place. It started at 250 and gradually made its way down to 6. I was afraid I was going to have to start kicking people out of my house.

Finally, we went into full on lock down. I have hated this terminology from day one because it is subliminal terminology which brainwashes us into believing the government can legally control us in the guise of "protecting" us. Without written laws on the books they cannot, but that did not and does not stop them from trying to intimidate and over reach. Lock down is a term used in prisons as a means to control a population. In the last couple of decades, it has made its way into our mainstream thought processes as a term of "safety" in instances such as school shootings. The bottom line though....lock down is still a means to control a population and control us they have.

During this lock down, we have been forced (again...no laws on the books and completely unConstitutional) to shut down businesses, social gathering places and we even been prohibited from having graduations, funerals and church services. We have been forced to wear masks even though "science" tells us that they can cause more health problems than they solve and people have been encouraged to turn on one another and rat out their friends, family and neighbors to the "authorities"  if they "think" they are breaking non-existent laws. Meanwhile, our economy that was just about back on it's feet has all but tanked. Small businesses are dying, big businesses are losing ground and all the businesses that were gradually coming back to the United States in the last few years, may have to leave again, just to survive. And even though all of this started months ago, we are still being forced into government mandated restrictions based in nothing but their say-so. Blessedly, some are wising up and realizing we can't continue this crap indefinitely, but certain governors of certain political persuasions are dragging out the reopening states, business and the economy as long as they possibly can. Why?

While I have never been a conspiracy theorist, this whole situation would have any thinking person doing just that.....thinking. Never in history have we had a pandemic that has caused this kind of behavior from the leaders or the people. You have to ask yourself,  if  with the media we have, are we being given the actual facts? With the corruptness we have seen from congress, are the media being given actual facts? When you have medical professionals and scientists who can't agree on things as simple as the safety of wearing a mask and mortality numbers are not agreeing, you have to wonder just what the facts are? Yet we as a people, seem to cringe with each media report even when many of those reports have been debunked. We are so fear obsessed that we are throwing our rights out the door, for the promise of a little safety. We have gone from being the land of the free and the home of the brave, to the land of the controlled and the home of the afraid. You do realize that we are not the first people to be afraid of something. We are simply the first people to hand over our rights because of that fear.

Believe me,  I am not saying that COVID-19 isn't real and that it can't kill people. What I am saying is that COVID-19 has been a convenient excuse to cultivate fear and hysteria, to make the people dependent on the government, to pass legislation in bills that might not have passed otherwise (Nancy you naughty girl) and to conveniently change the rules of an election year and how we might possibly "be allowed" to vote. It has also set the stage to change how our children will be educated, how we shop and what will be available for us to shop for and even how we will be able to do business.....if many even have businesses left. It's all a little too iffy for me to fall into what the government would like me to believe. I have too many questions and there simply aren't enough accurate answers.

Now I know that there are those of you who have lived in fear since the moment you heard the word "virus." In fact, I know there are some of you that haven't been out of your homes except for extreme needs since March and you are extremely angry with those who do go out (unless they are deemed essential...another word I hate.) I also know that as you read this, you are already thinking of all the stats, articles and statements from medical professionals that you can argue back at me with. To you I say, don't bother. I have read so much on both sides and I really don't believe much on either side. I also am not going to argue this with anyone. These are my thought and my feelings.....and maybe they will be my undoing, but I refuse to spend my life as a prisoner of fear. I have social distanced, sheltered in place and even locked down. I am done. Now, like it or not.....from this day forward.....I'm going to live my life. Now where's my flapper dress and my automobile? I'm going to town......and ain't that the bees knees! ;)

"And That's The Way It is"

"And that's the way it is." This was CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite's famous nightly news sign-off for years. When you heard it, even as a kid, it gave you sense of security and familiarity, like somehow Cronkite's reporting of the news would not only keep us informed but also keep us safe. You also had the belief that if Cronkite was reporting it, then it was as up to the minute as it could be back then and that it was the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We trusted Cronkite to come into our homes every night and tell us the good, the bad and the ugly of what was going on in the world, but mostly, we trusted that he was telling us the truth. It was definitely a simpler time.

I think it was a mixture of growing up with news journalists and anchors like Chet Huntly, David Brinkley and Cronkite, and my love of writing that set my once desired career path when I was pretty young. I wanted to be a news journalist. I liked trying to see the world through another's eyes and I wanted to give people the truth that they might not get from any other source but me. Yes, I had grand delusions about what journalism was like and what it was destined to become.

As a young and naive college student from a small town in the mid west, my freshmen and sophomore years of going after my journalism/mass media degree were far more of an education than I ever dreamed they would be. Yes, there were those pesky prerequisites that we all had to have, but a couple of pieces of my writing allowed me to get into a couple of upper journalism classes ahead of schedule. It was in one of these classes that my journalism dreams died. We had a professor that at the time I despised and blamed for killing my dream, but in retrospect, am glad he did. He drilled into us that journalism was not about us, telling our stories the way we saw them. No....it was about us telling the stories the way our bosses saw them. We were told to forget humanity, feelings and sometimes even the truth. We were told that we would be given stories to research and report on, but at the end of the day, the producer would have the final say on what we actually reported. It was made clear to us that we would have to check our emotions and even our ethics at the door in this career, because our careers would rely on how much we were a team player and how willing we were to tell the stories we were told to tell.

This particular class started out with 60 students. By the end more than half had dropped the class. I have no idea how many journalists eventually came from this class, but I do know that I was not one of them. This professor had quite proficiently and permanently killed in me the desire to ever be a journalist. Now please, let me preface this by saying, I know quite a few journalist. Most are really good people with ethics and integrity, but trust me when I say, it took some of them years to find a job where they could face themselves daily in the mirror and a couple simply took the name they made for themselves in journalism and became bona fide writers of stories. Their stories. I commend them highly.

Sadly, the days of Cronkite's comforting sign-off and ethical journalistic style have been replaced by 24 hour drive-thru news. No longer is the news about quality, but about quantity. Who can get it out the fastest, put the best spin on it and who can make it the most sensational. In essence....it has brought us to the birth of "fake news," which is now a thriving commodity.

If you are a person of any years, then you will remember when we had three major news sources. While in competition with each other, they all brought their own special journalist or type of reporting to the table and the country was pretty much divided in thirds as to where they got their news. And funny thing, if you watched your local news on ABC, then chances are....that is where you also watched your world and evening/nightly news too. We were also a country of loyal viewers to whichever outlet we chose. And while we were usually used to our anchors being stoic purveyors of the news, there were times when we got to see the humanity behind the professional facade, like when President Kennedy was assassinated or when President Reagan was shot. They were a breed we rarely see anymore made of ethics, talent and a desire to get the truth to the people.

I honestly believe journalism within the news media began to change when big money began controlling news outlets and thanks to cable tv, big money began buying and promoting 24 hour a day news. We suddenly went from world news approximately twice a day for 30 minutes each, to world news 24/7. Who knew there was that much going on in the world to support such a thing?

It has always been a belief that those with money and those in government hold the ear of the news media, meaning that they have always had some sway in how the media reported. Examples of this were back in the day of movie studios with big money, basically owning their stars. The media were often paid a pretty penny to look the other way when a married star was seen out with someone who was not their spouse, when an unmarried starlet became pregnant or when an openly gay star was kept tightly closeted. Another example was when Kennedy was president. It was well known by those in his circle and his office that he was carrying on at least one affair, but somehow this was a well kept secret by the media and not until after his death was his extra marital life made public. Unfortunately, these closely guarded media secrets are child's play compared to modern day media. Back then they weren't lying, they just weren't talking. Now a days though, they are lying, misleading and rushing to judgement without facts.

With the beginning of big money media outlets and 24 hour news, no longer was it just three big names clamoring for viewers and ratings. Suddenly CNN came to play and eventually MSNBC and FOX. They were all big media backed by big bucks and everyone of them wanted a substantial share of viewers and the ratings. In my humble opinion, this was the beginning of the end for real news and real journalists. News was now a commodity and it was being sold to the highest bidder any way they could sell it.

Now jump ahead 40 years to 2020. Most things are supposed to get better with time and age, but the news media and news reporting simply have not. The news media has sold their soul over and over and allowed themselves to become a laughing stock with unprofessional journalists, stories that were rushed for headlines only to find out there was no truth in them and in the last decade, the news media has admittedly become politically partisan, leaving out bipartisan stories or twisting the stories giving them a partisan slant. We have had well known and once respected journalists such as Brian Williams, Jayson Blair and Dan Rather, falsifying information and concocting stories based in conjecture or sometimes based in nothing by lies.

Today though, the worst problem we seem to have with the news media is the partisanship of the media since 2012. You would have to be blind or completely delusional to not see that the news media has been squarely behind the Democratic party. While the Republicans are often chastised for their wealth, it largely seems to go unnoticed that much of the money behind these news corporations come from the pockets of multi-millionaire/billionaire Democrats. It only makes sense that a Democrat, or anyone for that matter, who puts millions into a "business" is going to expect that their agenda both political and otherwise be carried out. Those Democrat $$ also drift into the pockets of lobbyist, senators and not surprisingly if the truth be told, an ex-president or two.

Throughout history, money has talked and in today's Democrat owned and run news outlets, it speaks volumes. Examples of this are sensationalized stories of race riots, gun stories and a boy wearing a Make America Great Again hat at the United States Capital. Down played or completely left out in these stories where fair and equal facts of the other side of the story. These race riots were caused by people rushing to judgement and fanning the flames of unrest without having all the facts. While you will hear all day every day about the people who illegally get guns or steal guns from family members and try and shoot up a mall, school or church, you seldom hear about the law abiding gun owner who stopped a shooting or kept a shooting from escalating because they themselves were carrying. And CNN as well as others have hopefully learned a valuable lesson about jumping to conclusions and out and out making up stories to fit their political agenda as they are being made to pay Nick Sandmann for trying to ruin his name and character.....without fact one to substantiate the allegations.

I think a sad truth that many of us are starting to realize though, is that just like back in the days of Cronkite, there are those that trust CNN, MSNBC and the other major outlets. They believe what they are being told every minute of every day. Unlike the days of yesteryear though, where all three outlets basically reported the same stories with the same basic facts, today there are many outlets, some major and some maybe even more factual but much smaller, at the touch of our fingers. We also have a library of research sites from the government to local information with our phone and our computers. We are not just stuck with the word of one outlet, and yet many refuse to fact check or research. Some won't even read beyond the headline and you can bet these news sources are counting on that.  If CNN, FOX or quite sadly.....social media says it.....then of course......it must be true. This is how fake news grows and this is how it gets into the impressionable and sometimes stubborn recesses of our minds. It is a brainwashing of half truths, lies and agenda driven propaganda that we the people soak in like a sponge and repeat and share as if gospel.

While yes, this is all my opinion, it is also based in fact. Anything I have said here can be researched and quite honestly, I hope you take the time to just do that. In fact, I hope you take the time to start doing that with a lot of "news" stories that seem to have a one sided feel, because you can bet, there is always another side which might give you a more even, fair and factual view of the story. And aren't you kind of tired of letting big money, big news media and social media do your thinking for you?

So there it is. I guess I am rather glad that I took the path I did. I would never have been happy having to write what I was told and my career would have likely been over before it even started. I am kind of a rebel like that. Yes, I would much rather be here writing "my" truth and knowing at the end of the day, I have always been as honest as I could be and as ethical as I could be, with my soul still in tact. .And that's the way it is.

Sighs, Control and the Next 50 Years

Sigh.......

Yep that is where I am currently at. I am not quite as melancholy as the sigh might indicate, moreover I am at a crossroads and trying to muster every bit of energy I have to do battle with.....myself. 

I was looking back through my blogs at all the "changes" that have happened throughout all of these years. One thing I noticed is that life just seemed to happen to me and I kind of just allowed it to leave me dazed and to knock me off my axis. Oh yes, I blustered and blew about it and at the time did even take steps to control the chaos that is often my life, but at the end of the day I might as well have had WELCOME written across my forehead as I was little more than a doormat for my life and the people in it.

Much has happened in this last year that has shaken me to my very core. Who knew that when I was served with an eviction notice that it would not be the worst event of the year? I know I was certainly shocked as my life went into hyper speed with new and literally terrifying daily updates. My life felt like I was in the drivers seat of a car without breaks and I really wasn't sure if I wasn't going to crash and burn before all was said and done.

I am nothing though if I am not resilient. I was able to put the brakes on my life and stop the crash and burn. I was also met with some truly difficult facts about who I was as a person and who I wanted to be going forward. Strong people don't allow others to dictate their life choices or allow themselves to be actively manipulated or walked all over. Apparently, all the people commenting to me on just how strong I really was, were dishing out nothing but FAKE NEWS and at some point I had bought into the hype.

The reality is, in small pockets of my life, I am extremely strong. In anything having to do with David, his life, his health and his home/security....I am the David to the worlds Goliath. Sadly, that is where I think my strength and my ability to handle my own world end. Rather than be strong with the rest of my world, I found myself being controlling.... and who controls? Those of us who feel absolutely out of control and in complete chaos. The very definition of.....ME! In fact, if you look my name up in the dictionary......

When my latest life update occurred, so did a lot of realizations about who I am, where I have been and where I plan on going as I move forward. In fact, there were moments when I questioned if "forward" was even a possibility. You will be happy to know....it is....because I am making it a possibility. I also realized that I am tired of life pulling it's surprise attacks and trying to change me. Granted, there are many things in life I have zero say in and zero control over (i.e. other people, freak accidents, the fact that Larry Hagman died and they will never bring back the original Dallas), but what I do have some say in and some control over is my life and how I act/react to situations and what I will and will not allow in my life.

While all of this on the outside looking in seems pretty normal and some are probably scratching their heads and wondering why this is such a revelation to me, the truth is......I have been on the inside looking out for so long and just simply so accepting of the unacceptable, that for me.....this is a true revelation.

Of late I am learning the true meaning of words such as "acceptance," "detachment" and  "forgiveness." I am learning not only their meanings but also how they work in my everyday life and I can honestly say it is helping second by second. It's a good thing too as my life is about to leave behind the slow steadiness of summer and propel it's way into the beginning of school and the onset of fall. Even saying that I can feel the anxiousness well up as I think about the uncertainty of the future and all that I think I need to accomplish. I am no happier though if I sit here and focus on the past and try to make sense there. While I am a huge believer in the fact that you have to acknowledge your past before you can successfully navigate your future, thus far.....my future hasn't always been so successfully navigated, so I have decided to try something different. I have decided to live in the present, take advantage of the moment....whatever it has to offer and leave the past and future to themselves as controlling, fixing or changing either one of them is completely out of my skill set.

Let's be real, this living in the moment, acknowledging the moment and appreciating the moment are quite frankly hard, as I am not wired to think like that. What I have noticed though, is the more I focus on the here and now and what I can control/fix in my own life, the less I focus on others and the more I stay out of other peoples lives and give them the opportunity to control/fix their own. Crazy....right?

So....yeah.....this is pretty sighable stuff as I make the choice to move forward as a better me and work on controlling only that which I can control (me) and stop letting the world, circumstance and others control me. This maybe the thing that actually brings on the true change that I have been searching for all these years......and not a moment too soon. After all....I am 55 and I plan on getting the next 50 years right!