By Rick Stanton
Bill, a good friend of mine, sent me an email the other day. One of his lines was, “America is in the bottom of the ninth, and Trump is at bat.”
Bill is a seriously smart, empathetic man. He’s in retirement, and his many daily tasks include doing good. He asked me if I had any ideas to ease his constant worries these days.
I’m going to quote two men I didn’t like very much.
One was Swede Lowe, who taught biology at my high school. He was a bully. The only thing I remember he said that was worth retaining was, “Nothing lives in alcohol.”
The other person was my dad. He was a bully, too. But instead of intimidating me, it pissed me off, and I overachieved to rub it in his face. The only thing I remember he said that was worth retaining was, “If someone tells you you’re a jackass enough times, you start looking for a saddle.”
Or in the current state of affairs, if someone tells you you’re screwed enough times, you are.
Bill, buddy, I told him, stop watching—or seriously limit your consumption of—the news. It’s not healthy. Which leads me to the news media’s coverage of the coronavirus crisis.
This is a non-stop beating of epic proportions. And around here, it’s led by the Seattle Times. I get email from the Times titled “The Seattle Times Breaking News.” It should be called “The Seattle Times Breaking Your Spirit, Hope and Will.”
Shut the f&^% up media! You’re beating us to death—before the virus kills us instead. I get that this is HUGE—and so does everybody else with an IQ higher than a potato.
Keep telling us to stay home, keep telling us to be careful and safe, keep telling us to cover our coughs and keep telling us to practice social distancing—but please stop telling us to be afraid. Tell us enough to keep us smart and not just scared.
There’s nothing else most of us can do—except embrace the previous graph.
And, Bill, here are some words of wisdom in the second link from your bottom-of-the-ninth batter.