Hunting Quail

In my teenage years I used to hunt quail.  True- they were cute, I was young and dumb…, and there wasn’t enough meat on them to make a sandwich.  But it was fun!  The problem.  When a covey of wild quail flush in a 2 second flash -- in every direction -- it is startling.  There are just too many easy targets to pick AND then focus a shot on.  One can completely fail in that brief opportunity to put an hors D’oeuvre on the table.

Today, most of that feeling of exhilaration is still with me when I read my two daily newspapers while listening to C-span and taking bathroom breaks with short, balanced and credible readings of my ‘The Week’ magazine.   So many easy targets, so little time, and so little chance of anyone really appreciating the accuracy of the game I to be bagged. And with today’s covey of Covid19 news stories…there is LOT to bag - and for me to wind bag about.

No longer being young, or so dumb, there are so many targets on each page and in every minute of C-span, that I want to drop my keyboard, go outside and hunt quail (or a great horned owlet) with a camera.  My biggest dilemma is how do I want to spend my remaining days of health, fitness and life on this amazing planet.   Do I spend this beautiful spring day tending my home’s garden of Eden (and eating) and the nearby natural parks that are now endangered by invaders of mask covered littering humans, non-native invasive plants, and increasingly non-native animals?  Or sitting at my computer shooting down false claims?  At least with my outside efforts I feel like I’m making a little difference while getting healthy and fit in the process.  Inside I don’t feel like I’m doing any of these.

Today’s paper yielded a new warning of yet another invasive organic threat other than Covid19 or conspiracy theories.  The new threat?  “Murder Hornets” in Washington state in the Washington Times.  As I read about this threat two consecutive C-Span callers warned our nation about “the head of WHO” being “terrorist murder” and Governor Como being a “mass murder”.  Do words really matter?

As I write this now the Supreme Court is dealing with the dilemma of free speech and human security.  This was paralleled by an article in both papers regarding human freedom of movement and protest in face of human security cautions against Covid19.  Do I now rant about the trilemma? The folly of protecting both freedom and security when laws are based on the concept of independence…and then using our freedom irresponsibly?  Or, do I rant on the new catchword “patchwork” describing the covey of different city, county, state or nation policies regarding testing and tracing.  Which then brings up three other related “T” target temptations.  Truth, Trust and Technology.   Trump and some of his conservative minions want to put China on Trial for US deaths because of China’s “lies” on Covid19 – while Trump’s Thousands of lies over 3 years and last 4 months has killed Thousands of Americans (a hypocrisy shocking enough to make me want to tear up my “I give a SHIT card” (origin of word “Store High In Transit”).

Earlier this morning on C-span the Chief officer of the Medical Health Care Association, Dr. David Gifford, an ‘expert’ on the links between public health and medical needs of people living in Assisted Living (where my wife has worked for over 20 years) and nursing homes (now a primary Covid19 target), made one false and dangerously misleading statement among all the other insightful statement he offered.  A caller asked about the distinction between the virus being spread in droplets or being air borne.  The respected Dr. didn’t explain that the droplets that we normally associated with a sneeze or cough (that usually won’t go more than 6 feet from the perpetrator) is not the microscopic droplets carried significantly further in a breeze.  This distinction is vital for the best preemptive measures on spreading the virus publicly.   How much should we Trust our experts?  Trump?  Are policy makers being Truthful?  Can we trust the tests?   One Post op-ed suggested we all take a character Test…after this is all over.  Good idea! 

With over 50,000 Americans dying each year in hospitals with disease they didn’t walk in with in the early 1990s, the first time in history the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association met was in the middle of that decade.  How many people today make the distinction between the functional concept of ‘public health’ and the “Health Care System” most advocate for?  A ‘system’ (and I use that word very loosely in this context) is really a sick care system.  Which does little to actually prevent most of the sicknesses it cares for.  

Testing and Tracing… the new “flatten the curve” campaign relies on Truth, Trust, and Transparency…[see previous blog with more details on this].  Trump is expecting each state to develop its own strategy and trusting corporations and research facilities in the US to come  up with the best technologies for both.  Mean while his administration failed to attend a global “virtual vaccine summit” to “quickly develop vaccines and drugs to fight” Covid19.  Trump just said “we did everything right”  He said “we” want China to be “transparent”. OMG…you can’t make this up!  You don’t have to. 
We do have to grasp the concept of comprehensive local, national and global solutions.    If you doubt that please study the global eradication of Smallpox.  This globally coordinated WHO campaign took the same amount of time as our nation’s focus in putting a man on the moon.  An astounding mission (of vision, planning, management and execution) that costs one thousand times more than the global eradication campaign.  A mission that globally eradicated a virus that took more human lives last century than all the wars, revolutions, genocides and homicides…combined!!!

Trying to keep my rants under 1000 words I’ll stop after this next predictable and inevitable sentence.

If we fail to fund and achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals before the year 2030. The pandemics and other biosecurity threats we will face will have ZERO respect for national borders or patchwork efforts.  Please read the summary of the 1980 Bipartisan Commission on World Hunger… and burn it into your memory before making any personal decision or political vote.  

“In the final analysis, unless Americans -- as citizens of an increasingly interdependent world -- place far higher priority on overcoming world hunger, its effects will no longer remain remote or unfamiliar.  Nor can we wait until we reach the brink of the precipice; the major actions required do not lend themselves to crisis planning, patchwork management, or emergency financing... The hour is late.  Age-old forces of poverty, disease, inequity, and hunger continue to challenge the world.  Our humanity demands that we act upon these challenges now...”    Presidential Commission on World Hunger, 1980.