Observations and random thoughts
By WILLIAM LEDFORD
The light at the end of a long, long, long tunnel is there! I can see it faintly now but I can definitely see it! On Tuesday, Nov. 3, two weeks away, we vote for the people that will govern us for the next two and/or four years. Well, some of us will vote that day but not me as I’ve already voted absentee, yep, I voted by mail. I didn’t trust my carrier, that’s another story, so I dropped mine off in the slot marked outgoing mail at the local branch of the USPS. I’ve done my duty, now you do yours. Vote!
I was bored so I’ve been watching a little football, very little baseball and I watched some action but mostly highlights of the Lakers beating the Heat in the Disney World/ESPN “bubble” to achieve their 13th NBA Championship (with an asterisk!). I dunno if there’ll actually be an asterisk attached but this a very strange time we’re living in. Wish I had a bubble to live in.
Speaking of football, I like the new name of the Washington NFL franchise this year. The Washington Football Team. Has a nice ring to it, yeah? It took way too long for it to become a reality and now that it has I can almost hear the sweet, sweet sounds of…the Atlanta Baseball Team, the Cleveland Baseball Team, the Chicago Hockey Team and the Kansas City Football Team. I’m patient, I can wait.
And baseball. Being a Yankees fan I hated seeing the Dodgers make it to the World Series but I enjoyed knowing that they beat Atlanta to get there. Tampa beat my Yankees so I’m not rooting for them and since both teams can’t lose, I’ll not be watching any of the Series this year. “The Mandalorian” Season II starts in a couple of weeks. Baby Yoda!
If you thought we were out of the woods and all turmoil had ceased, not quite yet. There is another debate scheduled for this coming Thursday. After the first debate our walking super spreader President managed to infect the White House staff, his family and other people that attended the show introducing his Supreme Court nominee. I thought, I hoped, I prayed that we were done with debates. Not! Oh well, I have other entertainment services. I’ll find something interesting to watch.
I think by now a great many Americans have heard the President or his spokespeople state that were it not for President Trump’s actions two and a half million people could be dead. That statement was made in March 2020 by a British epidemiologist using a computer model as a worst case scenario if absolutely nothing was done. President Trump and his people took that as gospel and still utter the statement without seemingly understanding why they say it. I believe that the Trump Administration has treated the pandemic as if it were the flu and or a cold and will simply go away. It won’t. It hasn’t. Or more to the point, it ain’t going nowhere.
My opinion? There have been a series of missteps in the early stages of this virus and we are paying the price. I believe we gave tons of PPE to China in the early days and then forced our medical professionals to recycle their safety gear, we didn’t isolate any of the probably infected people returning from Europe and Asia and elsewhere so they went home and infected others and the Administration will not, or has not, issued a definitive statement regarding masks and seem to be counting on dangerous thing called “herd immunity”. One thing that’s not stated by people favoring this behavior. Many, many people have to be exposed. The results? A heckuva lot more than the 225,000 dead and counting when this is published. My opinion? It’s up to us and our local leaders to work hand in hand to keep us safe until a proven reliable vaccine is widely available.
Wear your masks, wash your hands, distance, sanitize, stay safe. Let’s get through this thing together.
Ledford is an EBCI tribal member currently residing in Albuquerque, N.M.
