LifeItself

This is what I just wrote to my Spanish friend, Pedro P., who reacted wisely to a  piece by George Monbiot.  Just to make it crystal clear, I want to be in the Light and think pleasant, peaceful thoughts.  They are essential to my biological survival. "Well, dear Pedro, when I listen to most people, and listen carefully to what they have to say (a very rare skill nowadays, when every human bonobo tries to outshout all other bonobos with their logorrheic narcissistic performances), I see and feel the shreds of a brightly painted fabric torn into small random pieces, stirred and thrown up into the air, and falling on me silently like snowflakes.  Each fabric snowflake may make sense, but together they certainly do not. And the person who throws these flakes at me feels reassured by the sheer number of them; the more the truer.  Scientists excel at scattering around the oft-unedited products of their subconsciousness that are self-contradictory, illogical flake-by...

First the good news. Lacking leadership, guidance and resources, most of my fellow Americans are stepping in, wearing those masks and practicing social distancing. Here in Texas, Governor Abbot abandoned pretending that he is a blind fool, and ordered mandatory masks, $250 fines for not wearing them (including a text message on my phone from the Texas disaster warning system), and bar closures. The Houston Medical Center, where I recently went, looked like a ghost town. We need to think a lot harder about reopening schools, rather than bars. In my Hayes county, practically everyone wears masks in stores, even in Home Depot, whose pro-Trump CEO does not seem to get this simple message: if you care about the economy, wear a bloody mask and make sure that together we will not be overwhelmed by the fear of the virus, and will resume sending our children to school, visiting doctors and dentists, start flying, visit hotels and  frequent outdoor restaurants. Right now, this broad attitude...