Time, we choose how we shall allow the age of Trump's and Covid-19 to define us.
Shall we be card-carrying members of a nonsensical rambling me first commander, endorsing himself as sole oversight, without oversight, for $500B? Or is our gold standard, the 40,000 professional RNs, doctors, PAs, Nurse practitioners & anesthetists, respiratory therapists, LPNs (many coming out of retirement) and medical students volunteering their lives to be America's frontline safety net to, like Protestant Medical Missionaries, heal the sick.
Are we now warriors in grocery stores, crossing the aisle to fight over toilet paper and purposely sneeze on produce, or shall we choose to emulate overworked stock clerks restocking shelves raped by hoarders, to soothe the worried suddenly unemployed, rather than emotionally obsessing the stock market into a stomach churning experience for those determined to climb over the weakened by pandemic ignorance, and leave behind our elderly including WWII Veterans - or shall we stand tall like cashiers at checkout frontline, feeling fear but risking their lives so our families can survive.
Will we operate hotlines or cower in silence?
Will we retarget our military proficiency in war, to give structure to the needy, and facilitate construction that feeds, houses and provides hospital beds for the sick and protections for the healers honoring their Hippocratic Oath?
Who better for a command performance in our war with Covid-19 than those who'd never allow bone spurs to keep them from putting themselves in harm's way, so that we are safe from all harm?
Not Wall Street, K Street, Publix or Wendy's CEOs, nor boardroom directors, but those like, Immokalee Workers and delivery truck drivers, are our coast-to-coast highway through Covid-19.
Months before the global attack on humankind by the Coronavirus, a goldrush of warnings were not prospected by the self-proclaimed, chosen one, nor his Acting Administration, perhaps because, for the unwise, even tens of thousands of words, fail to penetrate.
Yet, there exists among us, consequences more devastatingly dangerous than those who have ears but choose not to hear. Yet, choosing to know and understand the facts, is the beginning of our journey beyond immediate threats and Faustus solutions. We must envision, plan and choose what we are to be on the other side of fear, panic and hoarding.
Since October 2019, I've been especially busy, working in New York City and Washington, DC; developing two new theatre projects in NYC, connecting me with Tony Award-winning producer Ken Davenport; in DC directing several on-camera projects but hearing Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive for Coronavirus, writing, podcast producing and voiceover work became new priority in my home office/studio.
Nineteen years after the unlearned lessons of 9/11, we are again globally inducted in a manmade war, but unlike world wars, the level of political self-deception, Party denial and the spreading of contagious misinformation are allied with this new viral enemy.
So, let's also heed lessons from 2008, and tell Cruise Lines, bankers like Goldman Sachs whose response after inflicting the Great Recession on us: abort We the People with, we're too big to fail.
Remind Boeing and all flying high on forgotten graves of 737 Max, those who float atop are no more vital than those who board every day to serve.
Yet without rancor or recrimination, let us recognize the tentacles of our own failure to listen to the voices of hungry school children, USDA evicted scientific reason and governors deserted by national power - then euthanize forever, our indifference.
Unlike America's new champion of reason, New York Governor Cuomo, I didn't know Terrence McNally; just an occasional hallway nod and smile, as we passed each other at Manhattan Theater Club in October 1994. Yet, when I was informed of his death, I was devastated.
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