All of our teachers, students, parents and families are adjusting to new circumstances. So we are feeling our way. I talked to my sister Mary in Lincoln, Nebraska where schools are also closed for the time being. They are being told by administration to go lightly in their expectations and in assignments for home learning. What the kids need most will be assurance and support.
My wife an I and many others are lucky to live in a nice home, and to have managed to avoid poverty. We were able to stock up on supplies. This is not the case for many and there will be extreme, devastating effects. Can we not, as a nation with such wealth, make certain that the least among us are offered security of food, security of home, security of health and freedom from fear? It seems that since FDR, the two parties have answered that question in different ways.
In the meantime, the Republicans are working on a bailout for American corporations. The Democrats are working on a bailout of the American people. If we soon weather this crisis and put it behind us, the folks with big money will be making Wall St. bounce back, while folks in the street will will continue to face devastation for years.
There's a tendency in the news to present the stock exchange and what happens in it as "the economy." Let me assure you that the economy is much larger than Wall St. It includes the nurses and doctors that go to work each day to care for our sick. It includes the grocery clerks who struggle to provide curbside service and are there to make certain that in our sequestered state, we eat. Yes, it even includes boxes made in a very small woodshop and placed Etsy. And it includes teachers now struggling to find new ways to keep their students engaged and learning.
Make, fix, create, care for others by taking good care of yourself.
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