On Thursday in his rambling words to the American people that did little to allay any fears of the corona virus pandemic or give any useful information about what is going on and how things will be dealt with, although we did learn that Trump still hates the press for reporting facts and he will continue calling it the “Chinese Flu” which was not, according to him, in any way racist, Trump revealed, yet again, his ignorance of world history in his attempt to represent the pandemic as an overwhelming event that only his leadership can deal with making the claim,

“I would view it as something that just surprised the whole world. Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.

“So there’s never been anything like this in history. There’s never been. And nobody’s ever seen anything like this.”

Two words, Mr. President, Black Death.

Also known as the Pestilence, Bubonic Plague, the Great Plague or simply the Plague, it was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Europe  from 1347 to 1351.

The descendants of those who survived, mainly because they had some form of immunity, while not exhibiting symptoms, were carriers of this and future plagues to the “New World”, devastating the Native American population who, like those 200 million in Europe had no immunity.

Ironically, this is the 400^th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims in Plymouth and their being greeted by Squanto whose tribe had been wiped out by the European plague introduced by explorers and those who fished off of the New England coast.

In all probability the planned festive gatherings centered on all things “pilgrim” may very well have to be cancelled because of a virus that has arrived on this continent from somewhere else.

The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of the people in Europe in a four year period, and the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century.

Recovery from the Plague and its aftermath took 200 years and included renewed religious fervor and fanaticism because many believed the epidemic was a punishment by God  with certain groups such as Jews, foreigners, beggars, and Gypsies getting blamed by those who could not accept that they themselves had sinned that much so it had to be because of “the Others”.

The plague was present somewhere in Europe in every year between 1346 and 1671 during which time it was brought to the Western Hemisphere.

Europe was not the only place hit by the plague, but the members of Trump’s Euro-centric crowd might not care yo hear about anyone outside of Europe,but affected Asia, Russia, the African continent, and the Muslim world as well.

The price of food dropped and land values declined by 30–40% in most parts of Europe, so survivors of the plague found that the price of food was cheaper and land was more abundant. The rules of property inheritance were severely disrupted, some property was not passed on to anyone in an erased family, the feudal system began to collapse, and, without ruling families there was upheaval in social and political structures.

As much as Trump may want people to believe that a large pandemic has never happened before so anything he does, regardless how wrong and politically based, will make him look good, anyone who paid attention in history classes or can use a computer can see through this.

He would do better to accept this is not about him, but about us, so he will do what is best for “We the People” and not his image.

The Bristol County House of Corrections is now a Petri Dish.

More than half of the inmates in the Bristol County House of Corrections under Sheriff Thomas Hodgson have yet to have their day in court, and according to common law are still considered innocent as they have yet to be found not to be so.

If found guilty in a court of law, regardless of the crime, and especially with lesser crimes, according to the Eighth  Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Cruel and unusual is not always blatant and observable when it comes to punishment. It can be deliberate or subtle, with the proclivity to neglect so ingrained in the jailer that it is automatic, and without close scrutiny goes unnoticed.

There are people in the Bristol County House of Correction who are innocent until proven guilty and others who at their trial will not be proven guilty, so punishment of any kind is out of order.

There can be punishment by act and punishment from neglect.

Because of the corona virus pandemic, in order to reduce the number of those detained in prisons and jails, Massachusetts prosecutors are calling for a “cite and release” policy for offenders who don’t pose a risk to public safety such as those who are either guilty of minor offenses or awaiting trial for one.

The District Attorneys of Suffolk, Middlesex, Northwestern, and Berkshire Counties, along with over 30 other prosecutors nationwide, are urging “the release of detainees who cannot afford cash bail and those who are vulnerable to infection because of age or health conditions.”

Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan has been working with police departments on a plan where officers would  make arrests only when there is no public safety alternative, and the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office is working with DA Ryan and consulting with an infectious disease specialist.

Northwestern County DA David Sullivan’s office and Norfolk County DA Michael Morrissey’s office are working with Franklin and Hampshire County Sheriffs’ Departments to review incarceration statuses.

According to Anthony Benedetti, chief counsel for the Committee for Public Counsel Services,

“Our hope is that every prosecutor across the state — even though they didn’t sign this letter — will take decisive actions to limit the number of cases they bring and keep people out of jail as this unprecedented public health crisis continues to unfold.”

State wide, if not already put in motion, the action suggested by the state’s D.A.s is being considered except in Bristol County where Sheriff Hodgson, known for the number of suicides, overuse of solitary confinement, and various forms of inmate neglect in his jails, has said that the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t follow the recommendations

“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described. We continue to monitor the Corona virus situation; it is fluid and changing daily.”

There is nothing in his spokesperson’s statement that even hints that the sheriff of Bristol County, Thomas Hodgson would even bother to consider the D.A.s’ suggestions.

The man who claims his number one priority is the safety of the people of Bristol County, in order to project his tough image, will take no steps to limit the spread of corona virus, and will allow his jail to become a Petri Dish of a virus he will let loose into the community at a later date.

Although the existence of covid19 was known as early as December 2019, the trump administration did nothing. It was passed over and dismissed by Trump as a Democratic hoax to make him look bad. His friends at Fox went along with his claims ignoring that the majority of its viewers are the very demographic most vulnerable, and, of course, they listened.

While trump sent out mixed messages heard by those who are informed and uninformed, and those who just accept what they are told and those who verify, the stock market went on a wild ride, mostly downhill, and, again, Trump claimed it was all just a way to make him look bad.

Then when reality overtook fantasy and self preservation, Trump declared that what he claimed was a hoax was a national emergency.

What was fox news to do?

Tucker Carlson of Fox News show seemed to break ranks when he told his audience that the corona virus (the erstwhile hoax) posed a great threat, saying it was much more severe than the flu, and that people have “spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem”.

Trish Regan of Fox, on the other hand, stuck with it insisting corona virus as nothing more than an attempt to impeach Trump.

While Carson is still on the air, Regan is not.

Now that Trump has declared the virus constitutes a national emergency, Fox seems to be abandoning its old playbook of saying whatever pleases and supports Trump, and attempting to present the facts most helpful to its viewers.

Facts are working against their loyalty to Trump.

While Chris Cuomo has welcomed Trump to the pandemic, the couch and table sharing hosts on Fox’s panel shows are practicing social distancing.

And, as Fox has begun to stop supporting the pandemic as a personal attack on him perpetrated by the fake media, facts have gotten him to admit that the media has been “very fair.”

It cannot be denied that Republicans in general and older people largely choose Fox for their news, and this has affected how they have been viewing the crisis. A Gallup poll has shown “Democrats (73%) are the most worried of any group, and their level of worry has increased the most out of any group. Meanwhile, less than half of Republicans (42%) report having this level of concern — the lowest of any group Gallup measured.”

Sean Hannity may be encouraging his viewers on Monday to “flatten that curve” to save lives, but he has continued to praise Trump while continuing to attack those he claims are “more interested in bludgeoning the President than actually solving a problem.”

Meanwhile a real hand grenade has been tossed in among the Fox holes as Trump has said he likes the corona virus relief package put together by Mnuchin and Pelosi, a give and take deal.

I live near a major intersection known to the locals as “The Octopus” because there are eight lanes of traffic either entering or leaving it, arranged somewhat in a circle like the arms of an actual octopus.

The traffic lights go through a four stage cycle, North to South, South to North, West to East, and ending with East to West, and if you are not lucky enough to get to a green light when you reach the intersection, you have to wait three changes until you get your turn to go. Two of the streets are one way, the rest divided by medium strips or a simple double line, all having lights controlling each direction.

It does not take long for a pedestrian to observe the pattern and to see when they can sashay across any given street at their own leisure or dash quickly if the cycle is approaching the street they want to cross without having to press any cross walk light button.

That is why it is more than annoying when pedestrians approach the Octopus and just press a button without observing the traffic flow, as pressing the pedestrian light disrupts the flow of the traffic pattern, and this often unnecessarily.

I give a pass to the senior citizens and the army of downtown citizens who populate the sidewalks with mobility scooters during the daylight hours as they are not capable of picking up their pace if they take too long and find themselves in the middle of the street when the next traffic flow stage is reached.

It is the unthinking and able-bodied who annoy me.

I have often just missed that step in the cycle that would have been in my favor, which has given me the opportunity to observe people when they approach the Octopus as I sit three cycles at a red light.

There are those who, when approaching the intersection, simply do not look, but act blindly and push the walk button without seeing that the cycle is at that point where they could have simply crossed the street with no influence on the traffic flow.  They stand waiting until the cycle has been gone through and traffic then comes to a standstill in all directions as they stroll Sildenafil citrate has structure similar to cGMP and it treats a strong binding cheapest cialis uk agent of PDE 5 enzymes in the penile routes causing for the failure of a male to maintain erection constantly and repeatedly. Moreover the arteries and http://robertrobb.com/2016/04/ cialis online australia veins in the male organ are stressed making penis impossible to erect. If you that the kind of impotent cialis india person, you need not worry about. Besides all these, if you have any problem with compatibility and understating, you are likely to have poor sexual health that raises higher chances of sexual problems like erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation and loss of libido due to unhealthy eating habit. order viagra online across the street they could have already crossed.

Worse than these are those who push the button reflexively and then seeing the traffic pattern is in their favor, walk across the street to the opposite side and keep on walking oblivious that they have halted traffic that sits for no reason waiting for no one to cross the street.

Along with these two are the ones who, after pressing the button, decide for some reason not to cross the street, turn around, and walk back from whence they came. They sometimes do this at the curb and at other times after having gone half way across.

Some, with no intention of waiting, and gauging traffic is such that they can simply cross, press the button anyway as they pass it, apparently with the evil intent of just disrupting the traffic flow making the cars in any arm wait in stasis until the cycle begins again.

The real evil pedestrians, for whom there is a special place in hell, are the ones who, after crossing the street with or without having pressed the button, will do so when they get to the opposite curb just to be, well, jerks.

There was a period of time when pan-handlers both the real needy and the scammers would stand at one strategic ingress to the intersection, walking along the line of cars stopped at the light, holding their signs and receiving change. This was eventually rendered impossible by carefully placed cobble stones set at an angle that made the walking difficult when it was discovered there was an organized group of people who stood on each corner, supervised by a man who stood nearby obscured by a small grove of shrubbery to whom they would periodically bring their take for equal distribution and for him to take his cut, their hauls being large because of their pressing the pedestrian button and creating a captive audience.

While this inconvenience was brought under control, the stupidity, or, perhaps, the purposeful misuse of the buttons continues.

Add this peeve to those who let side street traffic into that of the main street with no regard for the drivers in the cars behind, and women who push the children in carriages into tragic to stop it, and you will understand when I tell you that if you see me in my car, my mouth opening wide, it is not because I am singing along with NPR on the radio, but am yelling at someone committing what I consider an unforgivable traffic offense.

If you are young and were born after the medications to control AIDS were created and society in general began treating it as a medical issue and not a punishment from God, you need to read this and learn history. 

There is a huge break in the passing on of our “Gay Family” history from the older to the younger, and this was caused by the decimation of Gay Boomers who are not here to pass facts on with the result that quite a bit of “history” is surmise and comfortable myths that fit more into a desired history and not the factual one.

On Friday, 03/13/2020, President Trump held a White House corona virus press conference that included Pence, his corona virus response team, and the CEOs of major drug and pharmacy companies who seemed to engage in an infomercial for their companies, and among those who spoke was Deborah L. Birx, the State Department’s U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.

She had been around when the AIDS epidemic began in 1981, and was there in the early years, so her retelling of history was a little more than disturbing.

Because of the Reagan administration’s chosen ignorance, callousness, and its demonizing of those living with and dying from AIDS in order not to offend his base who promoted the idea that AIDS was a punishment from God, for the first years of the crisis the federal government had little desire to learn or do anything.

Beginning with the first known cases in 1981 anything done was because of Gay activists and allies doing the teaching through pamphlets based on what was known, creating support networks of Gay-friendly doctors, nurses, and hospitals, establishing hospices that  cared for those dying especially those rejected by families and hospitals, and demanding through protests and demonstrations that something be done.

There simply was no sense of urgency to deal with AIDS because only “THEY” were dying of it.

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was formed in March 1987 when, at the Lesbian and Gay community Center in New York City, Larry Kramer spoke out against the current state of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis that had formed in 1982, but which to him, a co-founder, had become politically impotent, and proposed a new organization devoted to political action.

 ACT UP became an active and visible presence that engaged direct action to get something done.

As Anthony Fauci has said,

“When the activists started to appropriately react to the rigidity of the clinical trials [to research anti-HIV drugs], for instance, they started storming the National Institute of Health and burning people like me in effigies, and Larry Kramer, now a close friend, was calling me a murderer. The best thing I’ve done from a sociological and community standpoint was to embrace the activists. Instead of rejecting them, I listened to them.”

When in 1988 Congress directed the CDC to take decisive action by sending information about the AIDS virus to every household so people could make decisions based on facts not political or religious spin, and forbidding anyone outside of the CDC from interfering in the content of the mailing, the Reagan administration sought a judgment from the  Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice as to whether the statute was unconstitutional.

The OLC ruled that the Congressional move denied the president final say over the dissemination of public health information, and was an “egregious” action that violated the Constitution.

Spin was supported.

That is why it was so offensive to those who lived through the early years of AIDS when Dr. Birx said:

 “In less than two weeks together, we have developed a solution that we believe will meet the future testing needs of Americans. I understand how difficult this has been. I was part of the HIV/AIDS response in the ‘80s. We knew from first finding cases in 1981. It took us to almost 1985 to have a test. Another 11 years to have effective therapy. It’s because of the lessons learned from that we were able to mobilize and bring those individuals that were key to the HIV response to this response.”

The unspoken lesson learned was to treat science as science and not subject it to political and religious control which is the underlying reason that it took from 1981 until 1985 to get something done.

It isn’t that the government had learned to act faster, but that it should go with science and act immediately.

To blithely ignore the facts and present a false history is a highly disrespectful offense to those who died during those four years of neglect and those living with a virus today that could have been limited if action had been taken.

During those 11 years it took to have effective therapy, the Gay Community was on its own to handle AIDS, and doctors who had discovered that a “cocktail” of medications was effective in slowing the progress of AIDS were told to stop or lose their license to practice, as some did, because the government had chosen one pharmaceutical company to develop a treatment, and it had come up with AZT, a pill whose side effects were not only worse than the virus itself, but was eventually found to have been more lethal than the virus.

What happened after those 11 years was that what had been done by the Gay Community on its own was adopted as general practice.

Bigotry ruled the day, and it took lives.

The advantage this time for everyone is that the first cases were not found by a doctor whose patients were in the majority Gay, a number of whom were experiencing an apparently new malady because back then straight people were acquiring HIV and passing it on through ignorance because of the belief that the virus only attacked Gay men.

As Dr. Birx told the George W. Bush Presidential Center in 2019 about that period in the 1980s, it was a time 

“when you not only couldn’t make a diagnosis, you didn’t know what the problem was, and you didn’t know how to treat it, it was devastating”.

It was a time ruled by anti-Gay bigotry and apathy in the highest level of government that created what she now laments.

And for young GLBT people, when you go to the bars and see an empty bar stool or a small table at which no one sits, in these days that we are told we need to be compassionate, accepting, and helpful to all coming down with the virus, and to put aside political divisions, remember the words from Les Miserables,

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken,
There’s a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables,
Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution,
Here it was they lit the flame,
Here they sang about tomorrow,
And tomorrow never came.                                                                          

From the table in the corner,
They could see a world reborn,
And they rose with voices ringing,
And I can hear them now
The very words that they have sung
Became their last communion
On this lonely barricade, at dawn.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone
There’s a grief that can’t be spoken,
And there’s a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the windows
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more

Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.

Someone should be sitting there.

There was a “reason” attention took so long in the 1980s, but not now.