Tag Archives: human decency

Human Decency Wins Again

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Life downtown means interacting with the Walking Wounded. Regularly.

Two times in as many weeks I’ve happily been ignored while next up in the grocery store check out line.

Both times the cashiers showed exceptional care and kindness to the down-and-out people in front of me. With no concern for the rest of us in line.

The first time the cashier explained that he knew the customer and always took extra time to do right by him and his guide dog. Although he didn’t need to, he also thanked me for my patience. I wish I had the presence of mind to thank him for taking his time to see the troubled person and for honoring his humanity.

A lot of people who are caring and kind normally aren’t especially either one when it comes to the homeless. Which perplexes me. It’s almost as if they’re offended by their poverty, addictions, and mental health issues. How dare they be poor, addicted, schizophrenic.

No one likes encampments in public spaces or personal property crime. But if we have to be angry, maybe we should direct our anger at ourselves for not making any more headway than we have in solving the crisis.

Granted, it’s a vexing, multi-faceted challenge. I suspect progress depends on more of us following the lead of patient, kind-hearted grocery store cashiers.

Human Decency Not a Prerequisite

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Thought I’d highlight this New York Times update from Instagram just in case you aren’t following the Republican’s presumptive favorite Presidential candidate.

“On Instagram on Saturday morning, Mr. Trump posted a mash-up video of himself swinging a golf club on the course and an animation of a golf ball hitting President Biden in the head, superimposed with footage of Mr. Biden falling at a public event in recent days after he tripped over something onstage.”

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

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Katherine Eban in Vanity Fair.

In early April:

“. . . the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.

On April 27, Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America’s big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan: It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states.”

When “effective political strategizing” substitutes for human decency.