Churlishness in the Time of Pandemic

Yesterday while walking I heard this on a podcast I like:

People do not deserve to die because they vote the wrong way or have opinions that are unfashionable.* 

I thought about the kind of comments I hear now and again, not just on social media, but yes, mostly on social media. Like if someone we don't like--typically a politician or maybe a public figure--gets sick, maybe catches this Covid 19 virus--there's a kind of gleeful gloating. I heard it when Boris Johnson was stricken with the coronavirus. I've heard it about Rush Limbaugh's Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. I'm pretty sure I'd hear it if Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi got the virus.

It's human nature, I guess. But maybe we need to push back against our human nature. 

I'm reading a book by C. S. Lewis called The Abolition of Man that I admit is way above my pay grade. But what little I do grasp so far is this: There's a higher law, not just for one religion or another, but that simply exists. Being aware of and even conforming to this law is what makes us human. Though Lewis was a Christian, he's not even talking about Christianity. He calls it the Tao--a kind of objective set of values that transcends and yet permeates all doctrines. It's the thing which elevates us, that distinguishes us from animals, that enables us to choose to be good, to be decent, to be kind or generous or sacrificial. To jettison this higher law is to become less than human. That's what he means by the abolition of man.

I'm still trying to get my head around this (will probably have to re-read a few times), but I think there's something to this. Maybe it's what Jesus was tapping into when he told his followers to love their enemies. And so on a practical level, when people we despise suffer, even if we can't genuinely wish them well, at the very least, we shouldn't celebrate, shouldn't gloat. To do so makes us less human.

There's a famous saying, probably attributed to any number of people but which I first heard years ago in a book I was reading by a missionary named Amy Carmichael: 

Let nothing be said about anyone unless it passes through the three sieves: 

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

This is neither religious nor secular advice. But I think it's good advice.

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* Podcast

Mad Dogs & Englishmen Episode 262

Kevin D. Williamson and Charles C. W. Cooke

Restaurants in the Time of Pandemic: Remembering Walt's Wharf

Many good memories of Walt’s Wharf. I first heard the gospel here, sitting in the fish market, on break, and became a Christian a year or so later. It was January 1979, around midnight, in a studio apartment where I lived by myself, down the street from Walt’s on 13th and Electric.

A few memories. My favorite lunch-break meal was mesquite-grilled salmon sandwiches, open-faced on sourdough, seasoned lightly with paprika and a squeeze of butter. I was hired first as a hostess, then graduated to waitress along with my friend Karen. We wore brown skirts with cute flowered aprons tied at the waist and gold puffed-sleeve peasant blouses. Karen and I housesat for another waitress one summer in an apartment on Main, down a ways from Walt’s. There were fleas and goldfish. There’s a story.

Karen has her own tales to tell.

So sad about the closure. This is going to be a very hard time for independently-owned restaurants.

There will be more.

Face Masks in the Time of Pandemic

I hate face masks. 

One of my girlfriends texted a picture of herself grocery shopping the other evening. She was wearing a green bandana over her face, and she said, "I thought of you as I hurriedly chose my produce." 

I replied, "Don't you just hate this?" and she said, "I thought you might hate it the most, taking away your greatest pleasure...squeezing produce." 

And I said, "And smiling at people."

That's the saddest part. When this whole thing started, I texted my kids this: "Don't forget to smile at strangers. And say good morning." 

That was before the face mask decree. 

I have always felt that making eye contact with strangers, smiling at them, was my small way of making this world a better place. Now, suffocating beneath a stupid mask, people have no idea if I'm friend or foe.

I guess we just take this thing one day at a time.

Facebook Doesn't Get Irony

Early this morning after my second cup of coffee and a quiet time of reading and prayer, I checked Facebook on my phone to see what I'd missed over the last eight or so hours and happened upon a post from a member of a private group I belong to (see first screenshot, below).

The post oozes with both irony and rage--a good brew for some early morning repartee. I posted a quick response, one I thought was both witty and ironic in its own right (particularly because I'm a white woman), then rose from the couch to start my day.

About 10 minutes later, I checked back in to see if anyone liked my witty remark. Sadly, no one had seen it because Facebook's censors didn't approve (see second screenshot, below).

Facebook apparently does not "get" irony.

Tattling in the Time of Pandemic

I've been reading about Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti's recent announcement in which he encouraged residents to "snitch" (his word) on non-essential businesses that aren't complying with requirements to shut down during this Covid 19 crisis. The good mayor even said something about a reward for such snitching, though details are sketchy.

A cursory Google search on this story so far shows only "right wing" media reporting on this story (I use scare quotes because you never read about other media outlets being labeled as left-wing).

A closer look takes me to a Google Doc form provided by the City of Los Angeles which allows people to report so-called non-essential businesses who are violating the stay-at-home order. I don't see any such form for "snitches" to report regular people who, for example, are walking outside without a mask or something. Let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

Yes, we're scared. Most of us alive today have never experienced something so monumentally terrifying as this once-in-a-century global pandemic. So we're willing to temporarily suspend some--no, many--personal liberties.

But how far do we want to go, not just personally but societally? The fact that this story is apparently only alarming people on the right is telling. Let's hope that changes and more people--left and right--sound the alarm.

Like the opening of Pandora's Box, something like this--"snitching" on our fellow citizens, even for a supposedly good cause--once it's accepted by the community, could easily mutate into a society of real "snitches." This is apparently happening today in parts of Europe: they're called "Corona-Snitches" (link in comments).

Free societies who accept such policies do so at their peril.

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For Further Reading

"Corona-Snitches Thrive in Lockdown Europe" (Politico)