Day: October 27, 2014

I rarely write about politics, it is not the focus of my work or the purpose of my blog. In fact, writing about other things is perhaps the true purpose.

Looking back, when I have strayed from this rule – any public discussion of politics in America these days seems to me like jumping naked into a cesspool – it is almost always about women, or an issue relating to women, and it is usually about strong women. This invariably gets me into trouble, as we live in a sadly and bitterly divided world, and I can thing of almost nothing we all agree on any longer.

There are at least two ways (many more than just a left and right) to look at anything and it is endlessly fascinating to me how we can all look at the same thing and reach completely different conclusions about it. Difference in a democracy is a good and healthy thing, hostility and rage are not. Social media is a happy home and breeding ground for both. The story of Nurse Kaci Hickox has touched my heart from the first, so I really must write about it if I am to have any value or integrity as a writer.

On my Facebook page this morning (not on the blog) I posted a message thanking Nurse Kaci Hickox for her brave and articulate opposition to yet another panicked and enraged mob, this time reacting to the Ebola epidemic. You could almost feel the mob swarming once again, now all over social media,  ignoring almost every qualified and rational person to rally around almost every unqualified and irrational one. Fear is a powerful drug.

I sometimes think the Salem Witch Trials were not one thing, but many things, they seem to continue to this day, to follow one after another – the mobs against the Japanese, union organizers, innocent African-Americans,  Hollywood writers, victims of AIDS, immigrant children, gay men and lesbian women, health care workers risking their lives to fight disease. It is still a rare thing for anyone to stand up to the raging mob, especially a young nurse still in school , targeted by two of the most powerful politicians in the country, and locked up in a tent with nothing much but a portable toilet and an Iphone. I have always hated mobs more than anything, they are the poison in the well, never, ever doing good, only great harm.

You might have thought I was endorsing cancer.

The rage and fury directed against this remarkable young and very strong woman – she sent two thoughtless and opportunistic governors hiding under their desks and into full retreat this morning – was startling, it did make me sad. The thing about politics in America right now is that it is so unbearable I can’t bear to take part in it, and I feel it is almost criminally irresponsible to run away from it and leave it to the cable news channels and politicians and angry people on Facebook and Twitter. There is no comfortable place to be.

My problem, I think, is that I love women, especially strong women. I think they are the salvation of a troubled world, one many men are feverishly working almost day and night to destroy. I guess I love almost all women, even those who are not strong. But the image of Kaci Hickox, who decided to go to West Africa while her classmates went on vacation, and who spent a month watching people, including a 10-year-old child, die, only to find herself suddenly and inexplicably,  tossed into a tent for 21 days upon her return despite being pronounced healthy by doctors, was especially stirring.

It is our contemporary version of the Salem Witch Trials, all over again, some of those people on Facebook said they would like to toss Kacki Hickox into prison, or worse, for her crime of being a strong woman and standing in her truth. They even used some of the same words used against the Salem witches – she was dangerous, demonic, frightening, a menace. No one seemed to consider that it might have been a difficult experience for her, the had spent the previous night watching a child die in her care.

It did not seem to matter to her many critics that few, if any physicians, thought her confinement was justified – only politicians running for office. Or that she had no fever or any other symptoms of the disease.

Or that her confinement ignored or violated the guidelines set forth by the  U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), the most knowledgeable body that deals with infectious disease in America. She felt an injustice had been committed, and she spoke out about it, got herself a lawyer, and sent her jailers packing in less than 24 hours.  The governor of New Jersey said he had no doubts about the wisdom of his quarantine policy, but he let the dangerous Kaci Hickox go free well before the evening news, or her lawyer could get to a judge.

I loved the whole idea of her her this morning, I don’t know what more anybody could ask of a human being, a nurse, or a citizen. Or a strong woman.

Kaci Hitchcock behaved in precisely the way citizens are supposed to behave. She didn’t set fire to anything, call for a riot, or harm anyone, she saved some lives and stood up for the idea of dignity, decency, due process and freedom. She was not intimidated by the great power gathered around her.

A good months work Kaci Hickox, this is one citizen who thanks you.

If I got to meet her, I would like to apologize for the many people who called her a whiner, self-absorbed, who suggested she be put in jail, that she was a spoiled and selfish brat, that she should accept the fate chosen for her by the politicians H.L. Mencken called Boobus Americanus, that she should be charged with murder if anyone near her got sick, who ignored every fact about the disease to claim she was a danger to everyone around her.

It is very easy these days to be brave – and ignorant – on Facebook, I am not sure where it is that people get the gall to attack people like this – who have risked so much –  while sitting on their buns at their computers in their homes and apartments. Thankfully, it is not in me to do that, I hope it never is.

All year, I have been challenging Mayor deBlasio of New York City – I should say I doubt he has ever heard my name –  for his cruel and unknowing assault on the carriage horse trade, but today he stood up at a podium and said the treatment of Kaci Hickox was “shameful.” I agree, perhaps this will broaden his idea of governmental overreach and justice. The people in the carriage trade could make some of the same arguments that Kaci Hickox made, I hope they get the same lawyer and that they do make those arguments, and as loudly and clearly.

I thank Ms.Hickox for caring enough about her profession and about human beings to go to Africa. I can only imagine what she went through there,  I thank her for saving lives, she deserved a parade down Fifth Avenue when she came home, not confinement in a tent. I thank her for caring enough about human dignity and freedom to stand up for herself, her fellow health workers, the truth about disease. I appreciate her speaking for the rest of us in a lawful and articulate and responsible way. I would not wish my daughter, my wife or me to be treated in this way.

If I need a nurse, as I have several times this year, I hope I get one just like her.

Kaci Hickox is enshrined in my gallery of strong and admirable women, may they rise and prosper and help save the world. She has already begun.

Dot was not in cardiac rehab today, I was afraid to ask where she was. In cardiac rehab, we have become friendly, close, we share a common experience, we walk out for one another. People ask me if I am tired, Roger came in early to work on a machine he knows I like to use, we talk about our weekends, our lives, but there is always this thing in the room, this elephant if you will, that hovers over all of us, others perhaps more than me, perhaps not.

People disappear, some return, some don’t. It is a familiar thing by now, it has a ritual all of its own.

On the treadmill, a nurse came up to me and told me Dot was back in the hospital, she called to say she missed everyone and asked “how is Red?” She asked the nurse to give him a hug for her. I think Red was looking for her at the end of our workout, as I was taking my monitor off. I am thinking of Dot, I hope she returns.

We dig up the Dahlia garden yesterday, marked their height and color and put them into cardboard bags. We took them into the cold storage room in the basement for the winter. Next Spring, we  hope to expand the Dahlia garden again, we love it. Winter is on the way.