Masquerade

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Don’t know who first said, “Wherever you is, that’s where you’re at.” The middle of nowhere is a lovely somewhere, and like everywhere we ever sent down roots, a microcosm of the country at large, allowing for geographic, climatic, and cultural variation.

Now, when Earth is wobbling from multiple calamities – terra firma transmogrified into terra incognita –nobody seems to know what planet we ride anymore.

Berryvillains are ‘sposed to be old-fashioned, church-going, Trump-lovin’, Skoal-dippin’ troglodytes from some ancient Ozark past. Folks from Eureky are suspected free-thinkers, artsy-fartsy, pot-smoking queers. Never mind that Berryville’s mayor has been busted multiple times for marijuana, and reelected, or that Eureka sports an impassive seven-story concrete Jesus as its community Shepherd of the Greenbacks. A common assumption is that Eurekans wear masks, are uneasy about climate change, and vote Democratic, while Berryvillains scoff at pseudoscientific hoaxes and worship our president.

People can’t be pigeonholed that easily. Why have both natural and applied sciences became political battlegrounds?

I thought our governor, Asa Hutchinson, had done his best balancing liberal Democrats with the extremists in his own party; no gatherings of gun-totin’ hunters were seen at the capitol in Little Rock. I don’t agree with his politics, but as an old-fashioned gentleman Republican, he has attempted to work around first the tea party and later the Trumpists. Imagine if Tom Cotton were in charge: vigilantes to the rescue!

In a recent daily coronavirus briefing, Hutchinson compared face-covering to seat belt use: the people had to slowly adjust to the notion that lives might be saved before a law could be passed mandating seat belts. (Seat belts are still a common factor in car wrecks: like speed limits, stop signs and turn signals, obeying them laws is a matter of individual choice.)

The problem is that this disease does not care which political party or church, if any, folks join or reject. The onliest people who appear to have an advantage are those with money enough to stay home and get stuff delivered. As with climate change, pollution, police brutality, war, health care and paid job benefits, the rich get richer and the poor go down.

Hutch explained that we have the right to boycott businesses that do not observe “recommended” mitigations for the pandemic – “Don’t spend your money there.” But all the hardware stores eschew masks and social distancing.

When Walmart, whose intergalactic HQ is an hour away, made corporate decisions to promote safety measures, it not only moved to protect millions of “associates” (underpaid workers) but provided an example for the millions of customers who spend their dough in its red (DO NOT ENTER) and GREEN (SHOP THIS WAY=>) aisles.

I make fewer pilgrimages to Walmart these daze. Sunday most shoppers were not masked, but on previous visits, most seemed aware that Northwest Arkansas evolved into a hotspot for this plague.

This dichotomy plays out across the country (and around the world). A Facebook chart recently compared pandemic responses in California, Texas, Florida, and New York, our four most populous states. The purpose of the chart was to demonstrate that Texas and Florida, with Trump-loyal governors, showed better results than the other two, governed by Democrats. Amongst the categories was “Morality Rate.” New York won out here, but all four had a “Morality Rate” below 1%. I was furious: what is the source of the data? What dates were these numbers registered? If the chart designers cannot know the difference between morality and mortality, why should their conclusions be trusted?

Ironically, within 24 hours, New York was carefully reopening, while California and especially Texas and Florida, were backtracking toward caution, pleading for people to voluntarily observe safety protocols, but no order to mask.

I’m in the top cohort for dying from covid-19, a man over 60. The three people living in our house are all over 60. Twice a week we take my mother-in-law to Mercy Berryville for treatment of a leg infection. Believe that local hospitals take this seriously –they’d be quickly overrun if Carroll County were raging. Enjoy the masquerade, but wear your darn mask!