We
live in hard times. We must contend with a silent killer that forces us to lock
ourselves up in our houses, keeping us away from friends, family, and the
greater community at large. We can't go out to a ballgame, a restaurant, a
movie, or even to a house of worship. The stock market tanked in an awful
hurry, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 35 percent of its value
over the course of five weeks in February-March. That's a big blow for folks
who were planning to retire this year. An astounding 3.3 million Americans filed
for unemployment the week of 16-20 March, nearly five times the previous
record. Hard times, indeed.
You
know all this because you're living it, too. Nevertheless, what none of us need
is someone telling us that the wheels are coming off the wagon. It's disappointing
that the Washington Post chose to do just that in an article on Monday, 23
March, entitled, "Pandemic tests whether America can rise to the
occasion." Disguised as a news article, this thinly veiled editorial articulated
everything seemingly wrong with our response to the Coronavirus crisis,
inferring that our current political and social climate has the United States
on the brink of permanent decline.
Thanks
for the pep talk. As it so happens, events by now have caught up with most of
the insinuated pit falls and stumbling blocks, which might make one wonder why
the article, essentially guesswork, was written in the first place. It's important
for all of us to be especially vigilant in determining the true state of our
country's current affairs, especially when we try to navigate the voluminous
and frequently conflicting information that bombards us every day and
compounded even more so by the fact that many of us are cut off from the rest
of the world.
Perhaps
this might be helpful. It seems to me that much of the opinion writing about
our current public health crisis isn't really about the effects of the
Coronavirus at all. Rather, it appears that many op-ed writers and TV
commentators are using the pandemic to peddle their own version of the world
which is (go figure) thereby confirmed by current events. We have no leadership
at the federal level because of the Coronavirus. We're all socialists now
because of the Coronavirus. The United States is no longer a great country
because of the Coronavirus.
There's
no doubt that our colleagues from the Post would have included the fact that
the U.S. now has the most cases of the virus, which didn't become a fact until
a few days later, to offer further evidence that we're just a mess and
(apparently) we should be consigned to the dustbin of history. I saw this the
other day in an op-ed, which noted that countries like Singapore and Germany,
both democracies, have few cases than us. I think the point of that article was,
since we're not the leader in everything, especially when we make ourselves out
to be, we must be crap.
It's
too bad the numbers don't add up. Numbers are a funny thing. Historians of the
Holocaust know this especially well. One need look no further than the
scholarly debate over the fate of the Jewish community in the Polish village of
Jedwabne during the Second World War. The historian Jan Gross offered
compelling evidence to show that Polish villagers locked some 300 Jews in a
barn and set it on fire. This revelation set off a firestorm of polemics in
academia, with some scholars arguing that substantially fewer people had been
killed, maybe just 80 or 90. The reader is left with the conclusion that
killing 80 people is much less odious than killing 300 because, after all, it
was fewer.
So,
if you want to use numbers to prove a point, you have to be pretty careful
doing it. Suffice it to say, a serious journalist should think twice before
claiming that some countries have done a better job at containing the virus
than others because they have fewer cases. They also have fewer people. As a
matter of fact, Germany has more cases per million people than the United
States does. Singapore has substantially fewer, but it's also 20 percent smaller
than the combined size of the five boroughs of New York City. Maybe it should
have fewer.
I
don't make this point to defend our handling of the crisis, but I am saying
that even respected journalists and their newspapers (to say nothing of the
Internet yappers and the so-called TV pundits) are unsure of the future and how
this will all play out, so it would be good to remember that all they're doing
is guessing. What can we do? Pay attention to what's happening in your own
community. Look out your window. Do you see riots in the streets? Yes, well,
you don't. People, by and large, are keeping their distance socially. Of
course, some aren't. On the other hand, my version of social distancing isn't
yours, and yours isn't that of other peoples'. Nobody wants to get sick. Like
you, most people are doing the best they can for their friends and their loved
ones.
We also have a great opportunity. I
have seen some posts on Facebook that have endeavored to keep folks thinking
positively, but none more succinct and appropriate than this, which appeared in
my feed courtesy of Mr. Jim Harrington, who was a year ahead of me at Fordham,
back when the world was new:
"Friends,
the pages of history are being written. It's time for all of us to show the
might of the human spirit. And inspire generations to come. Be kind. Be
generous. Be smart. Be courageous. Be encouraging. And most important, be
respectful of the rules, especially that all-important golden rule. We are all
in this together. Let's unite and be the very best versions of ourselves. This
is our moment to be astonishing. With Love, Your Cremo Family."
I
have nothing to add to that, it's spot on. Jim Harrington, btw, is currently
the Chief Marketing Officer at Cremo, a company based in Laguna Beach, CA,
that, since 2007, has been making all sorts of men's grooming products. I don't
know anything about their merchandise, but Jim has always been a stand up guy, so
that says something. Here's their web site if you care to have a look: https://cremocompany.com/
Finally,
kudos to the French luxury firm Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) for managing
in less than three days to begin producing plastic bottles of hand sanitizer
for Parisian hospital staff. By the time you read this, LVMH, which normally
specializes in luxury items such as bags, accessories, jewelry, trunks, and all
sorts of high-end stuff, will have donated 12 tons of the gel. American
companies like 3M, Ford Motor Company, and General Electric, are also working
to churn out health-care items, but I thought the speed at which LVMH acted was
pretty impressive.
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