Viral Spring #10: Culture Wars

-- By Tom Phillips

Sweatshop 

While the Culture Wars rage between conservatives and liberals in middle-American battleground states, here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan they've gone intramural.  Though nearly everyone's to the left of center, in this fifth week of quasi-quarantine some people are starting to lose it with strangers. The main issue is wearing masks, which Governor Andy has ordered everyone to do unless they can stay six feet from their neighbors.  Most people are complying, but not all. 

Masks are mainly to protect others from catching the virus.  Wearing one makes a statement; not wearing one makes another.  Enforcement is up to the individual.  The cops are totally uninvolved.

My wife Debra takes it seriously, and more.  Since masks became mandatory she has turned our dining room table into a sweatshop, turning out cloth masks for family, friends and neighbors.  We wear them religiously on our daily walk in the park.  Those who don't get a long "look" from Debra.  That's her form of enforcement. I just look away.  Others are much more aggressive. 

Viral Spring #9: Hoop Solitaire

-- By  Tom Phillips 

What do you miss most in this Viral Spring?  I asked that question at a recent social-distance gathering with three other people, and got four different answers.  Working, partying, going to church were three.  Mine was: Sports.

April is the coolest month, for both players and fans -- winter sports climaxing just as baseball returns. Pro basketball and hockey teams scramble for playoff spots. The outdoors warms, the boys of summer fly north, and the buzz of spring training becomes the roar of Opening Day.

Not this year.  Baseball, basketball, hockey are all stilled.  Tennis courts stretch empty in the parks.  Playgrounds are closed.  Here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the only sound of sporting life seems to emanate from a backyard on 111th street, where the thump of a basketball on concrete is followed by the clang of a shot off the rim. 

It's me, playing Hoop Solitaire.

I've been shooting balls through hoops for 70 years, starting in a suburban driveway on Long Island.  I hoped to be a star, but I had limited value to my high school and college teams, because the only skill I worked at was shooting.

My game is Hoop Solitaire.  And suddenly, it's the only game in town.

Viral Spring #8: Passion in a Pandemic

Andrea Mantegna:  The Crucifixion 

-- By Tom Phillips

Why do we call the events leading up to Easter the "Passion" of Jesus Christ?  Many people think “passion” refers to the strong emotions Jesus felt during the last days of his life. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word originates in Christian theology, and its first meaning is simply “the suffering of pain.”  Its second definition is “the fact of being acted upon, the being passive.”  It's an idea that takes on new meaning in this Pandemic year, with no defense but distance from a deadly viral foe.

Viral Spring #7: A Little Night Music

-- By Tom Phillips 

President Trump is not the only one tweeting in the wee hours. With the campus of Columbia University emptied of people by the Coronavirus, a congress of American Robins has flown in for their spring break and mating season.  At midnight they perch in trees and bushes, on fence posts and statues, and sing their little heads off.  

Viral Spring #6: Comes the Revolution

--  By Tom Phillips 

Newsweek Photo 

Somebody tell Bernie --Socialism is here.  

The White House last night said it will authorize $100 billion in emergency funds to reimburse hospitals and health care providers for treating uninsured people.   Universal health care, courtesy of the Coronavirus.  

The government is sending guaranteed income checks to everyone, and paying our medical bills.  And by the way: Immigrant farm workers, documented or not, are now classified as "essential workers" by the Department of Homeland Security. They are "critical to the food supply chain."  

Democrats could never win these battles -- the opposition was too entrenched.  So the revolution comes from the right, tinged with fascism.  

Viral Spring #5: Chickens Home to Roost

--  By Tom Phillips

Socio-economic effects of the Coronavirus in the US:

The society that had everything in the 1950s, the envy of the world, has become the society that has nothing -- at least, not what it needs.

Viral Spring #4: Gimme Shelter

-- By Tom Phillips

Following the advice of anxious family and friends, I have decided to curtail my reporting jaunts in the neighborhood, and concentrate on sheltering in place. I still go for walks, but plan them so they can be solitary or with my wife. I hang out the window to join the ovation for local health care workers at 7 p.m. each night.  I read the papers, go to classes and conferences via Zoom or Google Hangouts.  And we watch TV, something we rarely do in ordinary time.  At last I'm getting my money's worth from the cable company.   And TV has changed my life. 

Today I watched Governor Andy Cuomo's daily briefing -- an hour-long monologue with Power Point graphics popping up before he even starts talking about a topic. He knows what he's going to say and likes to underline it with a simple caption like STAY HOME. 

Cuomo's soaring popularity shows how quickly perceptions change in a crisis. This is the same governor whose autocratic, power-grabbing, know-it-all, Andy-centric, self-aggrandizing antics have made him so tiresome to New Yorkers in his interminable third term.  The difference is that in a crisis, autocrats become assets.

Since when does a governor of New York get to appeal for National Unity?  Since when does a governor of New York tell other states to send medical supplies and personnel, and promise to return the favor when the pandemic comes to them?  Since the breakdown of the federal system is when.

Cuomo begins with obligatory praise for the president's help, then details how thoroughly the federal government has bungled the crisis -- telling the states to fend for themselves and then sending FEMA in to outbid them for medical supplies.  When are we gonna get those ventilatahs??  When the US gets its act together, probably not in time. 

Since when does a governor share his family life with a national audience?  Not since Mario Cuomo spoke to the 1984 Democratic Convention has any politician's devotion to his mother been so widely shared.  Not to mention Andy's tender care for little brother Chris -- a sweet guy, and strong, but "not as strong as he thinks he is." Stay home, bro, says Andy.  And that means you too, America.    Amazingly, I'm convinced, shamed into compliance. Andy has done what my family and friends couldn't do... keep me off the street. 

If he were running for president, this is how he’d do it.  But I believe him when he says he’s not.   A good Democrat, he would rather see the party lose than tear it apart.  There’s always 2024.  The problem is, he won’t have the virus as his running mate.

-- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips