Where do people go from all over the world, hang out in large groups, touch a lot of objects, and then go home bringing with them more than their winnings or regrets?
Las Vegas, of course, where what happens there stays there, except when it comes to viruses.
But during this virus pandemic and
with the proscriptions to doing what is done in Vegas, it, like other places,
has been closed.
The mayor of the city part of what
is collectively called Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, has decided that if a
business there feels like it should reopen, by all means it should, and if
there is any further outbreak, it can be closed down again.
As the mayor has explained the idea
is to
“Assume everybody is a carrier. And then you start from
an even slate. And tell the people what to do. And let the businesses open and
competition will destroy that business if, in fact, they become evident that
they have disease, they’re closed down. It’s that simple.”
Because, we all know when people go
there, they stay and don’t return home.
The city of Las Vegas is not the
same as The Strip as that is on county land, so the mayor has no control over it,
and Stephen Cloobeck, the CEO of Diamond Resorts International wanted to make
this clear when he explained,
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“Mayor Goodman is the mayor of Las Vegas downtown, she has nothing to do with the strip and we’re sick and tired of hearing this.”
I have been to Vegas. Most people
wander from casino to casino, restaurant to restaurant, and, often, hotel to
hotel. It is an escape from home standards, after all.
Another form of gambling in Vegas that
we all get to share in, even from our home towns without having to be there.
Although his organization would like to open for business in mid-May as opposed to Mayor Goodman’s plan to reopen at the end of April, the CEO of Wynn Resorts, ‘Matt’ Maddox, said
“that opinion has no basis in science or data and should be ignored.”
Goodman, like most people who are
not medical people or scientists, explained why reopening is possible.
“We’ve survived
the West Nile and SARS, Bird Flu, E. coli, swine flu, the Zika virus.”
These
were not as contagious and did not spread as far as this disease has.
In
Las Vegas’s home state, Nevada, there have been nearly 4,000 cases and 163
deaths.
It is important that the country opens back up, and there are legitimate reasons for large crowds to gather at state capitals in close quarters without masks to demand it.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the
hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street
corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have
received their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have
shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which
sees in secret shall reward you openly.” Matthew 6:5-6
To illustrate this
there are these three examples of his having prayed:
And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. Luke 5:16
And it came to pass in those days, that
he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
Luke 6:12
And in the morning, rising up a great
while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there
prayed. Mark 1:35
There were two occasions when he did pray in public. When he fed the 5,000 people one time and another time 4,000, He basically said grace, something He could have done quietly as in neither case does it say He prayed out loud.
It seems to have been
a private prayer al fresco.
“Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had
given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish,
as much as they wanted.” John
6:11
“And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd.” Mark 8:6.
Now as far as the need
for cathedrals, which were the result of the desire of those who felt guilty
about the way they had done things to buy their way out of any eternal
punishment in the afterlife, churches, and those mega-churches that seem to be
more show-time than prayer time, He said,
“Again, I tell you truly where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20
So comparing privately saying grace to large churches it would appear, according to Jesus anyway, that although it is not wrong to pray in public, but whether you pray in public or in private, it needs to be with the right spirit and not done for show.
So, during the time of COVID-19 when for the sake of reducing crowds to help limit the chances of transmitting the virus, It seems pretty much in the spirit of Jesus that people should stay home and pray at home at the time they would have done so in public
Whenever two are
gathered.
But there is a problem
with doing as Jesus advised.
No collection.
Attorney General William Barr is prepared to sue states that
limit the ability of parishioners to pray together during this pandemic and a
number of Republican governors have exempted religious services from some or
all of their states’ social-distancing rules.
On the
official Department of Justice twitter account, Kerri Kupec tweeted,
“During this sacred week for many Americans, AG Barr is
monitoring Government regulation of religious services. While social distancing
policies are appropriate during this emergency. They must be applied
evenhandedly and not single out religious organizations.
Expect action from the DOJ next week.”
That week ended Friday.
Apparently the lives of all
American citizens are secondary to those who ignore the need to limit the
spread of the virus by not following the Christ they claim they follow.
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Justin Walker, a 38-year-old
former law clerk to Brett Kavanaugh, has deemed the prohibition against
gathering in churches for worship as a grievous threat to Christian believers.
In mid March, Mitch McConnell shut down the Senate and negotiations on the first corona virus-relief bill so he could travel to Kentucky to attend a gathering presided over by Brett Kavanaugh to celebrate Walker’s investiture as a federal judge, and just this month Trump nominated Walker to serve on the D.C. Circuit.
This is the appellate court
on which Kavanaugh previously sat.
Then, when the On Fire
Christian Center filed suit against the City of Louisville and its mayor over
the ban on large gatherings and the city’s stay-at-home order, Walker ruled
that the church should be permitted to conduct a drive-in service.
The thing is churches in Louisville are exempt from the restriction on large gatherings.
What they objected to was the
local police had been instructed to hand out information about health risks and
to record license-plate numbers to perform contact-tracing in the event that
any attendees later became sick.
In his opinion Walker declared, “On Holy Thursday, an American Mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” comparing the city’s mayor to the persecutors of the Pilgrims, Southern plantation owners who “flogged slaves for attending prayer meetings,” and the “state-sponsored murder of God’s only son”.
Kentucky’s Rand Paul praised
the ruling saying,
“Thank God for a judge who understands the First Amendment prevents the government from prohibiting the free government exercise of religion.”
The guidelines being put in place to protect the rights of American citizens to stay healthy are being claimed to be illegal attacks on Christian believers, at least the ones who see gathering for prayer as a way to make a point.
Kentucky Baptist Convention Executive Director-Treasurer Todd Gray has said that despite the governor’s request, many of their churches plan on staying open.
“It appears that most Kentucky Baptist church leaders are planning to carry on with their regularly scheduled services unless things change between now and Sunday. Several Kentucky Baptist pastors will urge additional precautions by asking those who are sick to please stay home and those who are concerned to feel free to also stay home.”
Pastor Rodney Howard-Brown of Tampa, Florida scoffed at medical experts saying,
“If you cannot be safe in church, you’re in serious trouble. The only time the church is closed is when the Rapture is taking place. This bible school is open because we’re raising up revivalists, not pansies.”
The pastor seems too have forgotten about church shootings when speaking of the automatic safety if churches.
If the ban on
large gatherings applies generally with no entity being exempt, how can the
churches who are complaining claim they are being singled out for attack?
At the same time there are televangelists selling miracle cures on television while all the faith healers who are constantly staring out of the TV “curing” people have yet to show up at the hospitals and do any curing.
Pastors who are keeping their churches open like Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church in Louisiana who issued his “Pastor Spell Stimulus Challenge”, encourage people to send their $1,200 relief check to their churches while continuing to tithe, are also insisting that people shouldn‘t worry about getting the virus when at church because if they die, they will get to Jesus faster.
If dying was that great a thing, why did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead?
Why would Oral Roberts have asked people to send him $3 million because God told him if he didn’t raise that much money he would die?
Why the evangelical cures on cable TV?
Most churches, to their credit, are following the guidelines for the general good.
But as we are now seeing with the pastors and those connected to the churches who defied the guidelines for social distancing who are coming down with and in some cases succumbing to COVID-19, as well as learning people have traveled long distances and even have crossed state lines to attend church and then returned home, we can safely assume that those who went into churches to pray have come out with a virus to spread.
The roll out of the president’s “Opening Our Country Council” was rather confusing. It was supposed to be a formal council, but when he finally presented it, it included 17 separate industry groups, including hospitality, banking, energy and “thought leaders.”
He listed 10 minutes
worth of companies and their directors and CEOs, but it turned out the list was
quite a surprise to some he listed.
Among those who had
no idea they were on Trump’s opening the country commission until he announced
their names not having spoken to them before doing so were:
Cisco Systems and
McDonald’s learned of their involvement in consulting with the president only
when he mentioned their names Tuesday evening.
Pfizer got a
heads-up that Trump might mention the company an hour before the announcement, but
was not told how many other companies were involved or what the group’s was.
AFL-CIO president,
Richard Trumka, also wasn’t asked if he would join the group before his name
was announced by Trump. He joined the Wednesday call “to see if it’s a serious
effort.”
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Although some invitations to
join the group had come from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, with at least
one from Trump, others said they were given no advance warning that their name
would be attached to a White House news release.
While they may not have been
contacted directly, the White House had sent an email notification Tuesday
afternoon to all the people involved informing them just before the announcement
that they had been selected.
That gave little time to
consider, accept, reject, or possibly even read the email if the recipient had
been busy.
As it was, although some may have
been willing to accept the assignment, the announcement that the call would
take place the next day ignored the reality that other things those to be included
had already planned might cause a conflict.
David Solomon, the Goldman
Sachs chief, was leading his own planned quarterly earnings call.
Starbucks chief executive,
Kevin Johnson, was committed to address employees. He had someone else sit in
for the White House call.
Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase
& Co. was also unavailable, and an attempt by a deputy to get connected
took too much time, and it finally failed.
When it came to Trump’s congressional
task force, he hadn’t bothered to speak to any congressperson or senator before
notifying them they had been selected to be on a committee whose exact purpose
was unspecified up to that point. He had members of a committee who had no idea
what it was they were expected to do.
The email notification said
in part,
“I am emailing to
inform you that the president has selected you to serve on a task force
comprised of senators and members of the House of Representatives. The purpose
of the task force is to provide counsel to the president on the reopening of
America in the wake of COVID-19. The formal name of this task force has not yet
been announced.”
The call with the mostly
surprised business leaders was met with some resistance about a swift re-opening
of the country.
There were some practical and
legal concerns that Trump may not have considered in his wanting to appear
heroic for bringing about the re-opening.
In spite of Trump beginning
the call by stating that “testing is under control”, the executives and
stand-ins expressed concern that more testing was needed before the economy
could reopen, and testing was necessary to track who was infected and who might
have immunity before having employees return.
After all, there could be a
legal liability faced by the participating companies if employees got sick
after returning to work in an unsafe environment too soon.
Things may not be as
magically smooth as Trump chooses to believe they are.
I guess as far as things will
go, to quote him, “no one knows. We’ll see”.
You may have noticed
that Trump still treats his job like he is the main character on a reality
show.
Consider the times he
has told reporters in response to a question about needed action he has
responded with “we will see”, or the times when action is needed he tells us
that he will let us know what he plans to do.
Stay tuned for next
week’s episode.
We were told to “tune
in tomorrow” for his announcement of his White House economic task force
focused on reopening the economy, but instead, we got a list of companies and
their CEOs.
Like many of his
promised upcoming announcements to keep us watching, it was another of his
Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone’s Vault moments.
But we have to wait to
hear the list of religious people who will be part of his commission to determine how they will want
to have the country opened.
After all, these
unelected religious leaders of various faiths with varying beliefs and to which
around only 50% of U.S, citizens belong have the Constitutionally granted duty to
help run our country.
Right?
The reading of the
names took 10 minutes, and the list included names connected to technology,
agriculture, banking, financial services, defense, energy, transportation,
sports and health care.
Strangely, the My
Pillow guy is not included, unless he will be on the Faith Leaders list.
“Now, we have a list of people that I’ll be speaking to over the next very short period of time, in many cases,
tomorrow. We have a list of different industries that I’ll be discussing by,
meeting by telephone, because we don’t want people traveling right now.”
Not to make too fine a
point of it, but as an English teacher, in trying to have my students write
precisely, I would point out that if there is a dialogue you speak WITH. If it
is a lecture or command to follow a predetermined decision, you speak TO.
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In all, there are
about 200 corporate executives, faith leaders, and thought leaders in what
Trump called the “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups” after
previously calling it the “Opening Our Country Council.”
The official White
House statement issued after Trump’s roll call of names said,
“These bipartisan groups of American leaders will work together
with the White House to chart the path forward toward a future of unparalleled
American prosperity. The health and wealth of America is the primary goal, and
these groups will produce a more independent, self-sufficient, and resilient
Nation.”
I thought “make
America great again” had already changed to “keep America great”.
Apparently it had
become great without the need for more independence, self-sufficiency, and
resilience.
Missing from his
presentation in the Rose Garden were the way the committees would work, what
suggestions might be sought, or the benchmarks the White House would use to
determine whether it was safe to reopen the country.
Other things left
unaddressed were who would be the leader of the group or if Jared and Ivanka
would be part of it as rumored.
Trump seems to be
aiming for May 1 as the deadline to open the country, but he may have to accept
that reality is what it is as he had originally claimed we would be okay to
reopen things by Easter and he had to move things back.
Anthony Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he
could see the country re-opening in phases, depending on the infection rates,
but Trump seems to think that it will be instant by fiat.
The U.S. needs
stronger and more efficient testing to be in place before parts of the country
reopen. And although Trump believes that some states, having not been hit yet,
will be spared, he really doesn’t understand how pandemics work.
Governors, meanwhile, are making their own
plans to reopen the economy without Trump’s input. They want to assess their states’
ability to track the virus, the capacity of hospitals, and the protection of
vulnerable people.
If you want to understand how this COVID-19 virus
situation goes, look to the toilet paper.
Toilet paper is to this virus what milk and bread
has become to any mention of approaching snow.
For reasons I do not understand, the first response
to news about the virus resulted in a panic buy of TP.
People were buying as much as they could, and we
were shown videos on the internet and the cable news programs of people with
shopping carts filled with nothing but toilet paper and fights in stores when a
person wanted to buy one multi-pack of rolls and the person with multiple
packages would not give up even one.
While some people were set for life, others were
facing the possibility of having none.
I was in a store when, as the person stocking shelves came out from the storeroom with a dolly of boxes filled with toilet paper, people grabbed the boxes and ran to the check-out line.
There are self-made videos that people made of others loading their cars with boxes of the stuff, and news reports of people reselling toilet paper at exorbitant prices and people paying it.
Hoarding, panic, and fighting for toilet paper
seemed to define the country’s reaction to the virus.
It seemed regardless what they went to the store
for, people would grab what toilet paper they could find, and all of it if they
found any.
The end result was that a type of competition began
because of the fear that there would be no more toilet paper and people needed
to get it before it was gone forever.
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It seemed no one was aware of the fact that toilet
paper was not going away and there would be future deliveries of it to stores.
For a few days, my local grocery store had empty
shelves where toilet paper used to be, but on the recent day I ran in to buy
some needed groceries, the weekly stock deliveries having arrived the previous
day, the shelves were filled with various brands of toilet paper.
Apparently, as a result of the panic buy of the
product, people have all, if not more than the amount of toilet paper they
would need, and now few people were buying it.
The curve of toilet paper purchasing has leveled
off.
I live by myself and generally buy a four pack when
I get to the final roll, so I was able to simply go into the nearby discount
store and buy my four pack with no panic
I had bought a four pack at Dollar Tree when the purchase had been required and the panic hadn’t begun yet, and a few weeks later, after having walked by the empty shelf of a product I did not need for a while on a number of visits to get other things, I went there yesterday and got another four pack from the now fully stocked shelves.
Like COVID-19, there was a surge, an uncontrollable surge that in this case could have been avoided if people understood that had they stuck to their usual toilet paper regimen, toilet paper would have always been there and available to everyone, even if people added one additional package each trip.
When it comes to the virus, the point is made that
as we stay home, wear masks, and follow the directions of the health experts, eventually
the initial out of control spread will slow down and needed hospital beds,
ventilators, and other much needed medical gear and wear will be unnecessary.
The term they use is “Leveling off”.
I believe we have arrived at that point with toilet
paper.