Going places while not going places on Zoom

 

   I’m back from Summer break. 

   And what a summer it has been.  The coronavirus continued to rage on – it didn’t just go away in the warm weather as President Trump predicted and despite his ignoring it in a sorry attempt to better his chances of getting reelected.  There has been lots of civil unrest, mainly peaceful protest over police brutality and racial injustice, calls for reforming and defunding, if not abolishing, the police.  Again, Trump has found a way to use this to save his desperate campaign, saying the unrest will only spread “to a neighborhood near you” if Joe Biden wins in November and more or less stoking whatever violence there has been by sending out the National Guard. Trump is also sowing doubts about mail-in ballots, needed to ease the spread of COVID-19, and even the beloved U.S Post Office in a pathetic effort to impact - sabotage? – the election.  Here in California, we’ve also had terrific heat waves – it was 114 degrees here in Claremont this weekend – and massive wildfires. 

   But, perhaps more than all this and more, what has stood out for me about this summer is Zoom.  At least among my circle of friends and acquaintances, Zoom has turned out to be a lifeline, allowing us to carry on without being total hermits.  It has also  opened up surprising new possibilities, new worlds.  All this, despite my nagging reservations about it. I wrote about this in the column below, which appeared in Friday’s Claremont Courier. 

   As for being back from summer break, that’s my intent, at least.    

 

     ZOOMING IN AND OUT OF SUMMER, 2020, FOR WORSE AND BETTER

   I have a confession. 

   I don’t like Zoom.

   A friend once said that he doesn’t “do” New Year’s.  I don’t do New Year’s either.  I don’t like staying up until after midnight and partying and getting hammered.  I don’t like thinking about the next twelve months and making resolutions and all that.  It’s all too scary. 

   It’s not like I don’t do Zoom.  I do Zoom.  I just don’t like it. 

   I find Zoom exhausting.  And frustrating.  And sad.  The people are there – yet not there.  I can hear and, yes, see them – and it’s not like T.V, because they can also hear and, yes, see me – but I can’t reach out and touch them. There is no human contact.  We can’t shake hands, can’t hug.  We are each in a box, a bubble, a cell.  It’s like visiting a prisoner and having to speak through phones with thick glass separating us. 

   Like I said, it’s exhausting – and frustrating and sad. It almost makes me feel more isolated, more lonely, like I really am in prison, locked up.  Almost.   

   I am okay on Zoom for an hour or two.  I can hang with that.  After that, I start to lose it.  I zoom out. 

   I don’t know how people who work at home on Zoom do it.  I would think, I would hope, they aren’t on Zoom all day.  They probably have meetings interspersed with desk work or whatnot throughout the day. Right?  I hope. 

   The same goes for students.  Doing classes all day online must be a challenge.  But they probably have classes at different times during the day or different times during the week, instead of one after another all day.  Or, as public school students in Claremont have recently started at least for now, they’re on from 9 to noon – not really all day. Also, they’re more used to looking at screens. 

   Then again, despite my frustrations with Zoom, despite all of its drawbacks, it is a lot better than the alternative. 

   Which is nothing. 

   In this time of social distancing, when we aren’t supposed to get together, aren’t supposed to have meetings, aren’t supposed to congregate be in crowds or audiences, Zoom has been something of a miracle, a godsend.  It is downright amazing and wonderful that we have this technology and are able to get together in this way. 

   Just imagine if we couldn’t.  Just imagine if this pandemic had happened twenty years ago.  We wouldn’t have been able to have meetings, have classes, have get-togethers online. 

   Now that would really be sad and frustrating.  It would be more than that.  It would be a disaster, even more of a calamity than what we’re experiencing. 

   Indeed, given all the sickness and death, all the unemployment and hardship on small business, all the disruption in school and so many aspects of life caused by this pandemic, Zoom is a tiny thing to get frustrated and sad about.  A stupid thing to be bummed out over. 

   I have been amazed, yes, at what I’ve been able to do on Zoom.  I have been able to stay at home and see a doctor. I have been able to take care of business and get together with friends (also on Google Hangouts). I have been able to attend Quaker meetings. 

   But it turns out this is just the beginning.  As I recently remarked to a friend, more and more events are happening on Zoom, with three that I knew of, in addition to morning worship, on a recent Sunday. 

   Earlier this summer, I was able to attend an annual five-day gathering of Quakers from California, Hawaii Nevada and Mexico.  Although I really missed going to Walker Creek Ranch in the serene, gorgeous rolling hills of rural Marin County, where we’ve been meeting in recent years, it was a thrill and a joy to see all those familiar, beloved faces in those Brady Bunch grids, those Hollywood Square, even with the fumbling with muting and unmuting.  And, yes, this also made me sad, but it was certainly easier and cheaper than traveling up north, all the more so since I’ve been more disabled after having  spinal surgery three years ago. I could have attended sessions from early morning (yoga) to 10 at night – there were even meals – but, again, I can only take so much Zooming and so limited my attendance. 

   Just recently, I attended a concert with Annie Patterson and Peter Blood, who compiled and edited the great songbook, Rise Up Singing. It was actually billed as a sing-along, but we were all muted, so that we wouldn’t be a complete cacophony of voices.

   Also this summer, I saw two play readings on Zoom, put on by the Open Fist Theater Company in Los Angeles.  One was Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the other was a new comedy written by a company member called That’s F***ing Hot. Both were lots of fun, and it was amazing to see how well the actors worked not together but each in their own space.  (It was also fun to see a cat walking by in the background as Hermia lamented. I can write a whole column on what we see and don’t see in the background on Zoom.) Also, not having to drive to L.A was nice.

   I’m hoping that the colleges get in fully on the act and, in addition to classes, put some presentations – some talks, perhaps a few concerts, even a play – on Zoom.    

   So, yes, there are lots of nice things about Zoom, as irritating and tiring as it can be.  Another bonus with Zoom is that it forces us to focus.  It forces us to listen, to really listen to what is being said.  It’s like hearing a story on the radio and having to use memory and imagination to sense, to picture what’s being said. 

   This is most evident – and effective – in a series of conversations presented on Zoom by the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai community. Entitled Claremont Speaks Black, this is a forum that allows Black residents of Claremont to speak freely and frankly on being Black in Claremont - something that needs to be heard in these days of civil unrest over racial injustice, including police brutality.

   This is good, hard work being done by the Bahais.  There have been two presentations so far.  One was with a Pomona College administrator and Claremont Police Commissioner, and the other was with a professor of Pitzer College.  They spoke of having to “dress up” when going out, even for a walk around the block, of feeling “at home” at the colleges but not in Claremont where Black men they know are stopped by the police for no reason, of everyone turning to look at them when they enter a restaurant or store in the Village. 

   Because we were there but not present, because we were muted and, for the second presentation, not seen, they were free to be open and say all this and more.  And we who were attending had to listen, really listen, use our empathy and our imagination, and were able to get a real sense, more of an understanding, of their experience of being in Claremont. 

   Just the kind of understanding, the understanding, at last, that Black lives matter, that we need at this time. 

   Like I said, this is good work.  The next session, on September 13, will feature Josue Barnes, who co-founded Claremont Change.  (E-mail Claremontlsa@gmail.com for more information and the link.  It’s sure to be worthwhile – all the more thanks to Zoom.

Heaven help us!

   “Going up.”

   That right there says it all.  Or a lot of it. 

   In a recent post, I mentioned a Youtube video (https://youtu.be/3Q3PSISAZL8) in which two guys try to hand out free masks in Huntington Beach in Orange County, here in California.  As seen in the video, no one that the guys encounter is wearing a mask, and they are met with argument, heckling or cussing out. It is funny and quite chilling, all the more so as COVID-19 cases have soared here lately. 

   In the video, what one woman early on says really struck me.  She asks the two guys where they are going on when they die, implying that she isn’t afraid of death.  After the guys goof around (“Up in the sky,” “Poke”), the woman answers her own question: “Going up.” To Heaven, not “to the sky,” presumably. 

   This says a lot.  It says a lot about why a lot of conservatives, many of whom tend to be evangelical Christians or at least are more conservative in their beliefs, aren’t concerned not only about being protected against the coronavirus but also about climate change. 

   When people feel assured that they’re going to Heaven or that some other blissful reward awaits them after they die, they aren’t so worried about dying and even less about what happens here – and to the rest of us? – on Earth.  The world can go up in flames, be flooded, racked with drought and illness, and they’ll be safe in Heaven or in the knowledge that Heaven awaits them. 

   This notion is also evident in suicidal Islamic terrorists, who believe that virgins await them in the sweet hereafter.  We also see it in the argument between traditional Catholic doctrine, which teaches that Heaven is the reward after a hard life, full of suffering, here on earth and liberation theology, which teaches that one should work and struggle, if not fight, for justice and a better life, the blessed community, here on earth. 

   It doesn’t matter what happens here, in this life; we are going on to a better place.  This is a Hell of an argument to go up against.

In the mean time

   As a blogger and a (now occasional) columnist, I feel that it’s important that I keep up with the news. Also, I confess that I’m a news junkie – or, really, a politics junkie.  I am fascinated by how people get power and what they do with it. 

   But, lately, this interest, passion or addiction(?) hasn’t been good for me.  Lately, the news has left me very upset and angry, even enraged.  Politics is often rough and can be outrageous, but these days, politics have gotten downright mean, downright cruel, never mind stupid. 

   What else can you say when governors, as in Georgia, are outlawing mask-wearing mandates, making it illegal to say people have to wear a mask when COVID-19 cases are soaring and thousands are getting unbearably sick, if not dying? This is outrageous.  It’s insanity. It’s also cruel, when wearing mask can prevent illness and save lives.      

   There’s also the two guys, seen on a youtube video (ttps://youtu.be/3Q3PSISAZL8) getting harassed and even cussed out when they try to hand out free masks in Orange County – the same county not far from here where the health director received a death threat and resigned after mandating masks and a education committee advised that school campuses open next month without mask-wearing and social distancing and where coronavirus cases are spiking.

   We have all heard about this and other such stupidly these days. I can go on for pages (I already have!) But have you heard that, as recently reported on the PBS News Hour, the Trump administration is rolling back hunting regulations put in place by President Obama and now say that you can hunt bears using bacon and doughnuts? To clarify, you will now be able to entice, to lure bears with doughnuts and bacon and then kill them.  Not unlike shooting fish in a barrel. 

   That’s just mean and cruel.  There’s no other reason, no other way to explain it.

A happy re-birth-day?

   I wrote the following column for the Claremont Courier, published yesterday, based on my recent post on the politics of wearing masks.  I have heard some say that the current protests and angst won’t lead to much real change, but maybe this toned-down July 4^th is a chance to reflect on how to make this change happen. 

          IN A TIME OF PANDEMICS, AN OPPORTUNITY FOR REBIRTH

  Sometimes, it’s the little things that count.  Sometimes, the little things are what bring joy and pleasure.  That’s especially true during this pandemic and the recent uprising over police brutality and racial inequality, as overdue and as hope-inspiring as it is. (Did they have to happen at the same time, especially as protesting could be dangerous, even lethal, with COVID-19 in the air?)     

   After an unusually chilly early Spring (at least for me now with my neuropathy after my spinal surgery three years ago), I have ventured out on my own in my wheelchair.  I have delighted in these independent excursions around my neighborhood and a bit beyond (during the stay-at-home orders, we are allowed to go out for walks).

   But I have to say that, when I forget to have my mask put on when I go out, I feel naked, even when masks aren’t mandatory. 

   Perhaps it’s weird that this is how I feel.  They say we are to wear mask to protect others, to not spread germs to others, not to protect ourselves.  Not only is it highly unlikely that I have the coronavirus, as isolated and careful as I’ve been, I often do not encounter many people on my outings and do not get close to those I come across. 

   But, as superficial and shallow as it sounds, when I don’t wear a mask on my strolls, I feel I’m sending the wrong message (I can hear my dad saying I was making a statement in what I wore or with my hair). In short, and again at the risk of sounding shallow and superficial, when I don’t wear a mask when out, I’m reminded of President Trump, who never wears a mask when on television, saying that those who wear a mask don’t support or like him.    

   This isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds.  The sad, crazy fact is that wearing a mask – or not wearing a mask – has, as with way too many things these days, become political.  Indeed, as my dad might say, wearing or not wearing a mask is now a statement. 

   It is reported that, in general, most Democrats wear a mask when out, and most Republicans don’t wear a mask, or don’t support wearing a mask, when out, perhaps following their leader’s example.  But this is apparently more than a simple red state/blue state thing. 

   It’s also said that men are more unlikely to wear masks, likely thinking that it’s unmanly to do so.  (I have seen families out walking, with all but the father wearing a mask.) Furthermore, evangelical Christians are also reported as less supportive of mask-wearing, probably with the belief that their faith will protect or save them.   

   It kind of makes sense that a man thinking he can tough it out or an evangelical Christian believing that their faith will pull him/her through (or Heaven awaits them) or a person like Trump, who clearly just thinks of himself, would think that wearing a mask is stupid, wrong, humiliating, even if it protects or saves others. This was pretty much the subliminal or not so subliminal message from those anti-stay-at-home protesters with their guns and confederate flags and even those gathering to have fun and a good time, despite all, in large crowds at the beaches. 

   As at least someone with a severe disability which may be an underlying condition making me more endangered by COVID-19, I don’t want to be a part of this. I want to be seen doing the right thing and   to encourage others to do the right thing.  I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.  This in why I feel naked, in a bad, shameful way, when I find myself out without a mask. 

   (Now, as for the mask that I wear, I am making a statement, as my dad would say, and I encourage others to do so as well. I currently wear a rainbow (gay pride) mask, and I’m trying to get other cool – colorful, perhaps tye-dye or batik) – masks.  If we have to wear masks, and we probably will have to for a while, I figure, why not have fun with them?)

   But what has been going on is far more, a bigger thing, than whether we can go for a walk in the neighborhood and even whether we wear masks or not.  And what has been going on is not just out there on the news. 

   Indeed, we Claremonters have been subject to the stay-at-home rules and mask-wearing mandates.  Furthermore, there have been COVID-19 cases here in town, and, in this community in which small businesses and restaurants are very much a part of its well-known identity, the shut-down and nervous reopening have been very much felt. 

   And Claremonters have been touched by the outcry against police brutality and racial injustice in the wake of the video showing George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, being slowly, casually crushed to death by a white Minneapolis police officer.  There have been peaceful marches in town, joining with the many across the nation and even the world, with thousands putting themselves in danger of contracting and spreading the virus.  Even the residents of Mount San Antonio Gardens had a march of their own in their locked-down grounds. 

   What’s more, when I drove by a demonstration nearby in Pomona, there was a sign mentioning Irwin Landrum, a Black man, and that he was killed by Claremont police during a traffic stop some years ago. In the wake of the fatal shootings, City officials made some gross missteps, leading to various reforms, significant shake-ups at City Hall (including on the City Council) and serious community discussions and reckoning. 

   This has been a remarkable, extraordinary combination of events – a pandemic that requires us, or should require us, to stay home and is proving to be controversial and a brutal police killing that has demanded a vociferous response out in the streets despite what is now required to be safe. No doubt, the country and this town have been put through the wringer in these last few months. 

   Hopefully, all this angst hasn’t been for naught.  Hopefully, we’ll learn from it.  There is talk of major police reform, talk of finally making Black lives matter, talk of providing better healthcare to all, talk of being better prepared for the new infections that are sure to come.  Hopefully, this is all more than talk.    

   I can’t help but think that it is significant that all this has been happening in the weeks and months leading up to July 4. The holiday celebrating our nation’s birth has been very much changed this year, thanks again to the pandemic.  The Fourth has always been an uniquely special day in Claremont, and it will be a shadow of itself this year. 

   But perhaps this Fourth can also be different in another, brighter, hopeful way.  There is the opportunity, the hope, for this Independence Day to be a rebirth of sorts. Maybe, just maybe, we can learn from the pandemic and the civil unrest and take this opportunity to make this community and this country a safer, healthier and fairer place for all who are here.