Point of View

It Is All So Predictable by Al Sikes

July 9, 2020 by Al Sikes 1 Comment

News is now mostly thematic. If Trump is for it, I am against it. Or, if Trump is for it, I am for it or at least will find the good.

Two of the nation’s most venerable newspaper are thematic. What journalism schools shaped their talent? And this disease of dogmatism has metastasized to affect most organs of news.

On March 6, 1981, Walter Cronkite, the venerable anchor of the CBS Evening News, signed off for the last time with “And that’s the way it is.” He had ended each newscast with that parting phrase for nineteen years. Much of the nation nodded in approval. Now approval is thematic. If the political or ideological theme is right, then the facts as reported and the news interpretation is right.

Frightfully, this credulous response by many news consumers to thematic offerings has spread to public policies in response to the threats posed by the coronavirus. Trump has so ineptly handled his role that news interpretation has become binary. Anything that Trump says is per force wrong even though he is at the top of the hierarchy that includes the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) among other health agencies. And if the news story is about the action of a red state Governor, it must be wrong. There was even a period of time when Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York was being promoted to be Joe Biden’s running mate because he made such an appealing TV narrator. Themes rely on good narratives and narrators.

Good journalism needs skeptics — gullibility not wanted. And when the prevailing opinion is running strong and group think is the addiction, good journalism is especially important. Skepticism needs oxygen.

President Trump is a divider. I believe democracy needs leadership that seeks to unite.

But binary journalism similarly divides. People not knowing which news outlet is rigorously seeking the truth fall back on their comfort zone. And, this is far from a comfortable moment in our nation’s history. We need diverse voices in finding our way through complexity.

Concurrently, we have a tidal surge called social media. While it allows for disparate voices, a good thing, it mostly yields to anger when politics is the subject. While anger can cut through the ambient noise it also depletes. We should turn down the screeching guitars on Twitter.

There is an underlying irony. I am not suggesting that the pre-Trump Press was a model of objectivity, but I will certainly argue that he has weakened what is the pivotal “fourth estate.” Anger always exacts a price and it is frequently objectivity.

For some time now, and certainly since the spread of the virus, unknown has been at the center of the news. What a gift to true journalists. They, using the power their audience gives them, can question, search, analyze and deduce all the while trying to verify or re-verify the facts and their interpretation. And let me add, Trump is a part of many of the stories, but infrequently is he the story. Of course, there is nothing that delights him more than to be the story.

Cronkite signed off 39 years ago. In case there are journalists who aspire to the standard, “And that’s the way it is,” find news organizations with similar aspirations. But we should all keep in mind that real news organizations will only exist if there is a demand for them.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al recently published Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.

Farewell to the Washington Deadskins by J.E. Dean

July 8, 2020 by J.E. Dean 1 Comment

At a World Series game last year, one fan displayed a sign reading, “Bring Football Back to DC.” That’s how bad the team has performed in recent years. Gone are the years where the waiting list for season tickets was more than 40,000. Gone are the days when Monday mornings each fall included a discussion of the team’s performance the day before. In a word, the team has become the Deadskins.

It did not have to be that way but when ownership of the team shifted from Jack Kent Cooke in 1999 to Daniel Snyder, things went South. The team has been mismanaged throughout his tenure and, not surprisingly, it has lost with remarkable consistency. In short order, one-time fans, such as this writer who grew up in the Washington suburbs, quit watching the games. The 91,000-seat stadium, built in 1997 to accommodate part of the waiting list, soon sported empty seats. The waiting list disappeared. Then Mr. Snyder, brilliant executive that he is, decreased the number of seats at FedEx field by 9,000 to reduce his embarrassment. This move hasn’t solved the problem. In 2019, the average attendance at Washington home games was only 65,488, suggesting that some fans buy the $157 tickets but no longer bother to attend. Did I hear someone say, “Dead team walking?”

While Snyder was orchestrating the destruction of a once successful team, he steadfastly ignored calls to change the team’s name. “We will never change the name of the team. As a lifelong [racial slur deleted] fan, and I think that the [racial slur deleted] fans understand the great tradition and what it’s all about and what it means . . .. We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. NEVER—you can use caps.” Incredibly, Snyder also claimed the name honors and respects Native Americans.

This week, prompted by the Black Lives Matter movement but, perhaps more importantly (to Snyder), after FedEx requested a name change, Snyder relented. After all, FedEx paid $205 million in 1999 for the naming rights to the team’s stadium. And if the team is to build a new home, FedEx sponsorship may be needed (despite FedEx CEO Smith reportedly putting his minority interest in the team up for sale). Nike also has removed all team merchandise from its online store. Snyder is not as oblivious as he has sometimes appeared. He announced he has initiated a process to change the team’s nickname.

If there is an NFL season later this year, expect Washington’s team to take the field with a new name. That’s a good thing. And hopefully, Kansas City’s team, fresh off from winning the championship, will follow suit. And about those baseball teams in Cleveland and Atlanta. . ..

Who might oppose a name change? None other than President Trump, never one to ignore a divisive issue. Here’s the Presidential Tweet: “They name teams out of STRENGTH, not weakness, but now the Washington Redskins & Cleveland Indians, two fabled sports franchises, look like they are going to be changing their names in order to be politically correct. Indians, like Elizabeth Warren, must be very angry right now!” His view here is not new. In 2015, he said he thought “Indians” thought the name was a “positive.” Right.

As a one-time Washington fan, I doubt the name change will restore the team’s popularity. My team, if you can say I embrace one these days, is the Ravens. My memories of attending games at the old RFK stadium, however, are still with me. These include watching the team’s once-famed marching band play “Dixie” before each game. This loathsome practice offended the African American fans in the stadium, of which there were many. The practice ended in 1964 after a fan appealed directly to the team’s President to stop.

My memories include moments that were at the time magical, such as the team’s win in the 1983 NFC championship game against Dallas and a 1966 game against the Giants in which a combined total of 113 points were scored. Memories also include numerous players being carried off the field with concussions and other injuries and, of course, numerous drunks some of whom appeared to have vocabularies consisting exclusively of obscenities. When my son was young, I took him to a few games, but quit after an encounter with one such inebriated fan, a fellow with a pathological hatred of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Next year will see the demolition of the old RFK stadium, the site of most of the team’s glory days. Mr. Snyder hopes to build a new stadium on the grounds of the old one. He hopes that bringing the team “home” to DC will reignite interest in the team. Maybe he’s right. But, to get permission to build a new stadium in the city, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser says, the odious name must go. That, and of course, money, I’m afraid, are the main reason Mr. Snyder has “come around.” Sad.

I frankly don’t care if the new stadium is built, what new name is chosen, or even if the team starts to win. I will, however, welcome the “monument” to racism that the team’s name currently represents, being toppled. I also hope the Ravens trounce DC soundly next time the two teams meet.

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant. For more than 30 years, he advised clients on federal education and social service policy.

The Balance of Life by Jamie Kirkpatrick

July 7, 2020 by Jamie Kirkpatrick 2 Comments

I was chatting with one of my neighbors the other day and she said she felt out of kilter, that the balance of her life was off. She felt like she was listing one way, then the other, that she was never on an even keel, maybe even in danger of going under. I knew exactly what she meant. I feel it, too.

I’m not much of a sailor—in fact, I’m not a sailor at all—but isn’t there a point at which a ship that is so far over in the water can’t right itself? The point at which gravity inevitably takes over and we do a slow roll, ending up keel to the sky? The moment when our equilibrium is irretrievably gone and our ability to rebound—our resiliency—is lost? Seems to me we’re awfully close to moment. Call it our human tipping point.

These days, everything is coming at us at warp speed: the great political divide; a global pandemic; an economic meltdown; our long and sad history of racial injustice. Big things. So when the little things start to happen—as they inevitably do—we’re already listing so far to port or starboard that it’s the little thing—the ice maker that won’t make ice or the flat tire or the telemarketer who calls at dinner—that sends us ‘round the bend. When everything else is roiled, the weight of that final straw might be negligible, but it can be enough to sink the ship.

I’m sure all this isn’t a new or original thought; in fact, it’s likely an over-worked metaphor, one that made Malcolm Gladwell a rich man years ago. But sometimes all it takes is a simple conversation with a friendly neighbor to crystalize a thought, to bring even an over-worked metaphor into focus. Physical balance is not complicated: it’s a condition in which different elements are equal or at least in the correct proportion. But human balance—emotional balance—is much more complicated. Each of us assigns differing values to those conditions that affect us so what’s a relatively minor inconvenience to you might be a deal-breaker or head-on collision to me. But now, or so it seems to me, there are so many meteors in the current shower heading our way each day that it’s almost inevitable one will crash into us and send up one of those life-extinguishing dust clouds that did in the dinosaurs. The tipping point has become the breaking point.

Mine is generally not a gloom-and-doom nature. My glass is almost always half full. But with each passing day, the half-full portion seems to grow smaller and I worry that I’ll wake up one morning like Eeyore: a pessimistic, gloomy, anhedonic, thistle-eating old grey donkey that can’t help but see the worst in everything and everyone. As much as I like Eeyore the character, I don’t want to become him; the wee wife would not be pleased. No; I want to be more like Anne of Green Gables: cheerful in the face of disappointment, always able to see the rainbow that comes after the storm.

So how do I regain my equilibrium, my balance? November 3 might help; so would a vaccine; so would racial reconciliation. But these are big things, almost beyond my ken. I guess I’ll have to start smaller: fix the screen door, put another coat of varnish on the gunwales of the canoe, weed the garden. I really don’t want to be out-of-balance any more; I need a dose of what my neighbor—a former consultant—calls ‘change management.’ I can take some pitch and yaw—after all, that’s life—but please, Lord, keep my kilter within reasonable limits. Is that too much to ask?

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with a home in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Snapshots of Daily Life: Zhang by George Merrill

July 5, 2020 by George R. Merrill Leave a Comment

On August 6th of 1945, I learned how consequential little things are.

That day, my uncle explained how a tiny, invisible atom, something a million times smaller than the head of the pin, contains power of incomprehensible magnitude. It destroyed an entire city, and later we’d learn the explosions annihilated between 90,000 to 146,000 lives. Survivors would suffer lingering effects of radiation. Rapt, I listened to my uncle describe this macabre event. It frightened me.

Seventy years later, on June 28th of 2020, I first read about a Chinese philosopher named Zhang Zai. He lived in the 11th century. Zhang possessed a brilliant mind and knew a lot about many things. He wrote scholarly tomes, served in the emperor’s court, and conceived of an amazing idea of the universe: everything has the same essence, creation is a of a piece, and it changes all the time. Zhang understood this as the work of ‘qi.’

What terrified me, those 75 years ago when learning of Hiroshima, was how this tiny and invisible atom possessed the power to destroy and annihilate so much and so many. But what awed me about qi was how its unseen power could create so much and with such variety; creating from nothing, everything there is, matter as solid as rocks and soil, while vivifying creatures like insects, animals and sentient beings.

Everything that is, that ever had been, is qi. Qi is eternal, yet always changing. Yin and yang are the forces governing qi. As the yin and yang meet, we’ll never know for sure just what might happen. We know that already from the endless tales of romantic encounters and their unpredictable twists. By the yin and yang interaction, transformations mobilize to create new things, but never the same things twice. Of the 7.8 billion souls living today, no two are exactly alike and, as Zhai understood this, it was ever thus. That is the essence of life, engaging, becoming, and always evolving. Qi is full of surprises.

Zhang would say we mourn because we perceive change as loss, the irretrievable aspects of our lives. He understands change as transformation. What was water will become ice and dying embers will leave ashes. The inexorability of change will continue to transform ice into vapor and form carbon from ash. With qi, all things are being made new.

As I read about Zhang, I could not help but think of the tumultuous world I live in, its minute by minute changes; I wonder every day where it is headed, what will come next.

We say we were blindsided by the coronavirus; we didn’t see it coming. Not necessarily. There were people who did see it coming, some who could begin to address its potential consequences, but didn’t.

A black man was killed by a policeman in Minneapolis and our black population exploded in rage. The volatility was there all the while, but for many of us whites, it remained invisible to us. We didn’t see it coming. But, many did see it coming and tried to tell us while most paid little attention.

Comprehending the signs of impending change was once the work of seers and prophets. They helped us see what we could not. Today’s socio- political climate, with its image-driven theatrics and relentless electronic titillation has kept them invisible. Political theatrics inure us to the significance of things unseen, the power in the tiny, those invisible forces that determine the huge impacts on our lives, like, say, a virus.

COVID-19 is a virus. It is tiny, invisible to the naked eye. It functions by opposites; in order to gain its life, it kills or compromises the lives of others. Something infinitesimal in nature has effectively turned most of our planet on its ear. Little things do mean a lot and they transform our lives.

Before the pandemic, those little things we did before and hardly gave them a thought, have evolved into new rituals. We don’t hug any more, we zoom. We’d once get together and talk; now we text or phone. In public places, we have begun to wear masks, like bank robbers and terrorists. We don’t shake hands but nod or bow, instead. We remain clear of each other, observing calculated distances. We have grown suspicious, not only of strangers, but loved ones, too. We worry they are infected, or worry that we are, and how others can be a danger to us as we might be to them. We exist tentatively, in a cloud of uncertainty that insinuates itself into every corner of life.

The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, transformed a man normally invisible to the world into a powerful icon that shook the nation, indeed the world. This event made visible a previously unacknowledged injustice, invisible to so many, so it became impossible for white America to ignore it anymore. The picture taken during his arrest was worth a thousand words.

In the paradoxical way of transformation, if we can redress the injustices visited on America’s black citizens, we will have begun to heal the chronic soul sickness America’s white citizens have suffered since America’s inception. The power in the unseen and the colliding forces driven by inequities finally spilled out into the streets. Is this qi, the black and white, the yin and yang interacting to create a more equitable way of being neighbors? I’m hopeful.

As I was writing this essay, whenever I typed in the word ‘qi’, I kept thinking what a tepid and innocuous word ‘qi’ appears in print. Just two letters, hardly dramatic or grand; it totally lacks hyperbole, a word inscrutable, at first. The word isn’t even capitalized, as if it were not worthy to read “Qi,” with a capital that might invest it with greater importance. Even in print it is a tiny thing.

I guess that makes the point; little things mean a lot.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

Thoughts on Washington, Lee, and Washington & Lee by Matt LaMotte

July 2, 2020 by Opinion 7 Comments

Under the present circumstances in America today, I’ve had a number of recent conversations about my college alma mater, Washington & Lee University. As the second of three generations to graduate from W&L, I have deep ties with the University as well as great appreciation for the value of my four years there.

Robert E. Lee’s Tomb – Washington & Lee University

I attended W&L in the early ‘70’s, when it began admitting students of color. My fraternity was the first to desegregate, a matter of no small controversy at the time. The next controversy, which seems almost quaint three-plus decades later, was whether or not to admit women. In the mid-’80s, despite much dismay and dissent among its alumni, Washington & Lee became co-ed. Fast forward a little more than three decades, and W&L is once again at a tipping point: the controversy over its namesakes’ connections to slavery.

Our society — including the institutions of higher learning that produce many of our political, business and civic leaders — needs to accept responsibility for the legacy of racism in order to move forward toward greater peace, justice and opportunity for all. This is the change that our times now call for, loud and clear.

This applies to W&L no less than to scores of other institutions around the country. Princeton University has set a bold example by striking Woodrow Wilson’s name from its business school. Of note, around 20% of W&L’s most recent graduates requested, and were granted, the omission of both Washington’s and Lee’s profile images from their diplomas.

Over the years, the University has established numerous student, faculty, alumni, board and administration special committees tasked with resolving challenging issues brought by changing times. Co-education, college affordability and diversity are just a few of those issues addressed by rigorous examination, debate and resolve. The challenge now is the University’s actual name, which honors the memory of men who owned slaves. In particular, Robert E. Lee not only led a Confederate army in the fight to protect slavery, his harsh conduct as a slave owner is well documented.

In my own opinion, the values and traditions upheld and advanced by the University today are no longer well served by its namesakes. I believe that responding in a positive and proactive way to the call for change would be the wisest course. W&L is highly competitive and widely respected, and continues to send well-educated young men and women into the American workforce and society every year. A change in name will not detract from its value and reputation in the national higher education community.

Whatever changes the W&L trustees and administration ultimately decide will likely be contentious. Change always is. But I believe that change and progress are conjoined, and for the continued advancement of the University, I hope for both.

Matt LaMotte graduated from Washington & Lee University in 1974. He presently teaches American history and U.S. government courses at Saints Peter & Paul High School.

Put Me In Coach….by Angela Rieck

July 2, 2020 by Angela Rieck Leave a Comment

Recently I wrote a column about the steps that we need to take to make real change in the criminal justice system, starting with the front lines, the police. One of the key components of change is effective, nonjudgmental coaching.

Constance Morris Hope is helping me understand how coaching can be an effective tool. She is a seasoned executive coach specializing in coaching in multi-racial and multi-cultural environments. With over 35 years of experience in 26 US government agencies, 39 countries, non-profit organizations, and academia, she has seen how coaching can impact real change in complex and diverse situations.

Since the police officer’s job is one of the most complex and stressful jobs in the public sector, I wanted to find out from an expert what is needed to help us move toward a more racially empathetic environment.

Question: You indicated that it is critical that the police and justice system want to change. How do you know if there is real commitment to change?

Leadership creates culture, so assessing leadership’s readiness to change and the level of trust between leadership and rank and file is the first place to start. Other key elements are a sense of urgency and the formal and informal communication systems. Change starts at the top, but it will not happen unless all are involved.

Question: What should we know about coaching that will help us understand its value in making change?

Coaching is not something that is “done” to you, nor does a coach show her client how ‘to do’ something. Our mantra is that our clients are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. Coaching is a collaborative process where the client sets the direction and agenda and the coach asks questions assist him in. Greater self-awareness is the key!

Question: Which is more important, coaching officers or police leadership?

I think both are important, but it might be important to start with leadership, since leaders model the culture and set the standards. In a 2017 study published in Police Chief, 46% of subscribers felt that leadership was the most important factor in establishing change.

Question: What plan or strategy would you use to coach police officers and their leaders if you had the opportunity?

I would first assess their readiness for change. Next, I would ask them to define what success looks like. What measures would we use? What needs to happen? Who needs to be involved?

Most importantly, I would build their Emotional Intelligence (EI).

Emotional Intelligence is awareness of your own emotions and those of others; and using that information to build relationships and change your behavior. Self-awareness and empathy are the keys to improving Emotional Intelligence.

Emotions are central to everything that we do, every relationship that we have. They guide and direct our thinking, but they can also ‘hijack’ our reasoning and logic, leading us to make poor decisions and take actions that we might regret later.

High Emotional Intelligence helps officers to:

Recognize triggers, including their unconscious biases, and immediately apply reasoning skills to make good decisions.
Understand, manage, and control their emotions at the same time, recognizing the emotions of others. This keeps them from overreacting in challenging situations.
Develop conflict management skills which focus on resolving rather than escalating.
Manage their impulses by controlling their emotions instead of allowing their emotions to control them.
Cope with emotional/confrontational citizens.
Be more effective and efficient with crowd-control or policing civil protests and demonstrations, arresting people, interrogating suspects, and interviewing witnesses and complainants.

Question: You explained that the Amygdala autonomic response can be especially problematic in police jobs. The Amygdala recognizes dangerous situations and reacts automatically. Can you elaborate how coaching can help “short circuit” the Amygdala and allow the rational brain to take over?

The Amygdala is the most ancient part of the brain and forms a part of the limbic system where our emotions live. This alarm system was crucial for our ancestors who needed it to recognize life-threatening situations. The Amygdala still performs that function; however, today’s threats are less deadly. The person who cuts us off in traffic, or who interrupts us, or who must be right, or is argumentative, all those can trigger an Amygdala response.

The Amygdala can also respond when we perceive threat in the face of DIFFERENCE. Our Amydala causes us to experience an emotional reaction before we have a logical response. If we let the Amygdala be in control it will take over the logical brain. This is called an AMYGDALA HIJACK and can result in a disproportionate reaction to a situation. Unconscious biases can trigger an AMYGDALA HIJACK. Training and coaching can help officers recognize and identify situations or people that might trigger an AMYGDALA HIJACK and help them develop strategies to allow the logical part of their brain to engage.

Question: If you had a magic wand, what would be the first thing that you would ask for regarding the police and justice for the African-American?

I would like to see ‘policing’ re-branded to be seen and experienced by diverse communities/populations as a force for good. Police officers would be perceived as protectors of their well-being, as allies. I would like to see public confidence restored in communities where it once was and created where it never was. For that to happen, those responsible for policing and law enforcement will have to have greater emotional intelligence. They would have to change their attitudes, motivations, behaviors, perspectives, and understandings to be more attuned to the communities they serve. Building better relationships with and within diverse communities would go a long way to re-branding.

Question: Do you think that racism in the justice system is everywhere?

I think there is entrenched inequality that goes beyond the criminal justice system that amplifies the broader questions of lingering racial inequities in the United States. We have systems and institutions that produce racially disparate outcomes.

This does not mean that the people who work in them are racist. They are enforcing the rules and regulations that perpetuate these inequities. They are doing their job. The question that they and we must ask ourselves is what can we personally do about the situation?

Question: Do you have any final thoughts?

My experience is that coaching one person at a time can create significant change that can ripple through the organization. It may require patience, but it creates lasting change.

Change doesn’t happen overnight. We can take all the courses that we want and get all the coaching that is offered, but if we don’t put into practice what we learn or if leadership doesn’t support it, change won’t happen. We need to understand that a lot of this is biology-based. We need to rewire our brains, rewire our neurological pathways, develop new habits, new autopilot responses, new ways of seeing the world. And that requires intention and practice, practice, and more practice!

Note: Constance Hope lives in St Michaels and is a local advocate for racial understanding. She can be reached carapacecoaching@aol.com

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs, and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.

Reckless Endangerment In a Pandemic by J.E. Dean

July 1, 2020 by J.E. Dean 3 Comments

Several States are now reporting record numbers of new cases of the coronavirus. Over 2.5 million cases nationwide are now on record, with over 66,700 in Maryland. It may still be part of the first wave or the beginning of the feared second, but call it what you will, it means that the crisis will be with us for much longer than we hoped. Saying this is unfortunate is an understatement. Many more people will die, suffer pain, and experience economic hardship as a result.

Although it may be a while before a definitive analysis is done that establishes causes for the spike in cases, one obvious explanation is the relaxation of social distancing and the widespread disregard for the CDC’s guidelines for masks, hand-washing and other preventive measures. If all of us were as diligent on these measures as people in several other countries, the pandemic would be much more under control.

Why is the U.S. so ineffective at controlling the virus? Maybe it’s our system of limited government. China has enjoyed great success at stopping the spread of the virus because of its authoritarian government. In China, when the government tells you to stay home, you stay home or ignore the order at your own peril. Here, consequences are minimal. We absolutely don’t want an authoritarian government here (at least most of us don’t), but as far as controlling a pandemic is concerned, it has its advantages.

Disturbingly, too many of us are quite comfortable throwing our masks away, going to crowded beaches, or otherwise abandoning social distancing. This is especially true of the young, many of whom apparently believe that while they may get sick or pass the virus on to others, they themselves are not likely to die. The apparent assumption is that high-risk individuals, such as this writer, need to take responsibility for their own safety. Not only is such an attitude uncivil, it ought to be illegal. We should not have the right to recklessly expose others to a deadly virus. But it gets worse. Some of our community and political leaders actively encourage people to violate CDC guidelines. Among these people are some pastors and, of course, our President.

Did you watch the rallies in Tulsa and Phoenix? I cringed as I saw a young, maskless father frolicking with his infant son before one of the speeches. Where are Child Protective Services when you need them? And should these rallies have been held at all? More than 6,000 people chose to attend in Tulsa. Is it their “right” to throw caution to the winds? It is under current law. And we would be foolish to change that. What should be changed are the consequences for anyone organizing or holding an event likely to create substantial risk to others.

Did you know that before the Tulsa rally, the President’s campaign staff combed through the stands and removed stickers that directed attendees not to sit in every other seat. The stickers read, “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” Because campaign staff removed the stickers, social distancing was largely ignored in the arena, despite there being plenty of space. Was the removal of these stickers, which reflected the obvious intention to discourage social distancing for the purpose of creating the appearance of a full arena, a crime? I say “yes.” View the video for yourself here.

A new statute should be passed that creates criminal penalties for “Reckless Endangerment in a Pandemic.” Such a statute would create safe harbors for events that adopted and enforced the CDC guidelines —things like not only requiring masks but removing anyone from the event who refused to wear one. Events organized or held would by subject to fines or other penalties. Importantly, the structure of this legislation must balance civil liberties with effectively addressing the virus.

Had the “Reckless Endangerment in a Pandemic Act” been the law of the land earlier this month, the Trump campaign would face prosecution. That will strike some readers as unfair, but if hundreds if not thousands of lives would be saved, maybe it’s not. Citizens do not have the right to recklessly endanger other citizens.

This country needs to take this pandemic seriously, or 2021 will be worse than 2020. We need to learn from our mistakes made to date and admit that until we get a vaccine, social distancing and the rest of the CDC guidelines are our best bet for survival. Passing a “Reckless Endangerment in a Pandemic Act” may seem draconian, but it may be necessary.

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant. For more than 30 years, he advised clients on federal education and social service policy.

Arcturus (Part 2) by Jamie Kirkpatrick

June 30, 2020 by Jamie Kirkpatrick 2 Comments

When I left you last week, I was heading west on the New York State Thruway, Arcturus strapped securely atop my car. I remember the outline of that day more than its detail. It was late-July hot; the weather was unsettled, there were radio reports of microbursts along the way. It was early in the afternoon and I figured that if all went well—and why wouldn’t it?—I would be home by ten or eleven that night.

When Icarus flew too near the sun, the gods conspired to treat his hubris with the contempt it deserved. The heat of the sun melted the wax that held his feathered wings together and down he fell—down, down, down into the sea.

There was no gasping moment of fall, no crack of sound, no jolt. There was simply a sensation that made me glance in my rearview mirror. And what I saw there defied any kind of rational response: a red canoe tumbling, tumbling over and over behind me down the middle of three lanes on the busy New York State Thruway. A second or two passed, a lightless gap between what I saw and what I understood. It was my canoe—Arcturus—that was flying backwards into streams of summer traffic. And then the panic set in.

I swerved into the right lane, then onto the shoulder. I backed up as fast as I could, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred yards, cars and behemoth semis whizzing by me. My heart was pounding, I felt sick to my stomach. I waited for the inevitable crash that would come when one of those giant tractor-trailers would reduce Arcturus to a million splinters before careening into other vehicles in neighboring lanes. It would be a horrific disaster.

Now I was alongside where Arcturus lay, somehow miraculously parallel within the middle lane. It was a straight stretch of road and the oncoming vehicles were moving left and right, weaving around Arcturus, somehow managing to miss it by inches. Suddenly, there was a tiny seam in the flow and I ran into the middle lane and with adrenaline surging through my body, lifted Arcturus which was somehow still attached to the carry rack that was, until a few moments ago, affixed to the top of my car, and scampered back across one lane, now miraculously empty of traffic, to the relative safety of the highway shoulder. I was in shock.

Which was when the state trooper pulled up behind me. I could barely speak, let alone begin to tell him what had just happened. That a microburst had lifted Arcturus—rack and all—off the top of my car and sent it spinning down the highway. That somehow the rack had taken the brunt of the hit and that the damage seemed minimal—I could see a hairline crack along a few ribs and a small abrasion of the canvas covering—but otherwise the canoe looked remarkably intact. The trooper said what I knew to be true: that it was a miracle the canoe was not smashed and that no one had been injured or killed.

I started to breathe again but I was still paralyzed with fear. Now what was I going to do? I was an hour down the Thruway in the middle of nowhere with an injured canoe and a roof rack that had been ripped off my car and was now likely unserviceable. Slowly, slowly, my brain began to function again and it seemed that my only hope was to somehow get Arcturus reattached to my car and carry on toward home.

To this day, I cannot explain how the rack separated from the top of my car; or how Arcturus managed to tumble along one thin lane of highway before coming to rest exactly within it; or how some unseen hand parted the waters, allowing me to run out into the middle of the New York State Thruway and haul one hundred pounds of Arcturus and rack to safety; or how the frame of that rack was not impossibly bent and fitted back on top of my car. The state trooper stayed with me, watching, probably wondering why this was not a disaster of horrific proportion and why wasn’t the canoe secured atop my car in the first place. I wondered the same thing.

Once the canoe was reattached to the top of my car, I cautiously made my way down the highway, hazard lights flashing until I could pull into a rest stop. That’s when another thought hit me. How could I tell Jack that his beautiful baby—his handcrafted beauty—had sustained injury and would require surgical repair. I couldn’t take the boat back to Canada; Arcturus would be in limbo until I could head back north the following summer.

So now I’ll make this long story shorter. I drove home slowly, very slowly, arriving well after midnight, but nevertheless arriving, boat still atop car. The following day, I had time to carefully inspect the damage and somehow it was as minimal as it appeared. Twelve months later, I headed back to Canada and Jack repaired the cracked ribs. The abrasion on the canvas only need a little sanding and a fresh coat of paint. Rather than berate me, Jack laughed and marveled at how sturdy his little baby was. With a twinkle in his eye, he stills tells the story of the time his Bobs Special went surfing down the New York State Thruway.

And I still wonder about all of it: the moment of unfastening, the sheer luck of Arcturus coming to rest in the center lane, the miraculous absence of disaster, the long, slow, nerve-wracking drive home, wondering if the rack would hold, the exhausted relief at the end of the journey.

Icarus was the son of Daedalus, who, like my friend Jack, was a master craftsman. “Be careful,” Daedalus told his son, “don’t be complacent and fly too low, but neither be overly proud and fly too high.” It seems to me that maybe life is somewhere in between, maybe in the center lane.

I’ll be right back.

Letter to Editor: Great People in Betterton Town Office

June 29, 2020 by Letter to Editor 2 Comments

I am writing to commend some members of our local government for being good people. Last week, a friend of mine reported an incident on Betterton Beach involving friends of her daughter who encountered what seems like an ugly racial encounter with an older man who angrily insisted that “their kind is not welcome here.”

Hearing about this, I contacted the Betterton Town office, to let them know of this ugly occurrence.

Right away, I was contacted by Sheila Dlugoboski from the Betterton Town Manager, Mrya Butler, director of the Kent County Parks & Rec, and John Price, Kent County Sheriff. All were seriously concerned about this situation and asked what they could do to address the problem.

Our community needs folks like these to be aware and take steps to ensure that we are recognized and treated fairly by our system of government. Kudos to Sheila, Myra and John for their swift and sincere action.

Suzanne Prentice

Still Pond

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