Oh, the many meanings!

Just when we finally thought we had begun to gain an edge on the coronavirus with the shots to immunize, comes two incidents where shots rang out and killed 18 more Americans. It’s enough to make you retire to your favorite bar and start up on some of the third meaning of the word.

This is another issue that has me deeply conflicted. It is not that I don’t believe there are evil acts perpetrated by those driven by prejudice. I do. As a Jew, how could I not? BUT—and this is a huge but—just because a white male has committed a criminal act and the victims are Black, women, Asian, Jewish or any other group that has been harassed over the decades does not make the crime a hate crime.

I have been avoiding writing about this for months now. It is something that I have been trying to wrap my brain around for a very long time. It goes back almost fifty years. The question: how does a cis-gender, heterosexual, white male deal with the fact that the world is a very diverse place and all assumptions about gender, sex and race must be thrown out as prejudicial and wrong.

It’s more than the elephant in the room. It’s the whale in the stadium.

Like all popular conspiracy theories, until they are officially and conclusively debunked, they linger. Such is the case with the Kennedy Assassination in 1963. Such is the case with the origins of the coronavirus that has caused a worldwide pandemic.

Two consecutive editorials in The New England Journal of Medicine of March 11 address an issue I have long contemplated. In effect, is medicine the exclusive province of the seemingly whole or is there room for the disabled and mentally imperfect? The editorials make a strong case for inclusivity and for changes in the medical training system to adopt it for those with physical disabilities and mental illness.

Lesley Gore was singing for most of the members of Congress. A member of one party would sooner die than cross the aisle and vote for a popular bill sponsored by the other side. The Covid Relief package is a great example. Almost three-fourths of the public favors the bill. Even half of Republicans like it. Yet, not a single Republican in the House or Senate would lift a finger to assist the President in getting it passed. This is as bad as ObamaCare which also passed with no GOP support.

There has been a great deal written about this Chloe Zhao film. It won the Golden Globe award for best drama and the director won as well. It is an Oscar favorite.

President Biden has called those governors who have lifted covid restrictions such as mask mandates as using “Neanderthal thinking.” Why give our ancestors a bad rap? From what I have read, Neanderthals were pretty clever and what’s more there’s a fair amount of Neanderthal DNA in our genes. Calling Governor Greg Abbott Neanderthal gives Neanderthals a bad name.

I am not at all opposed to wokeness if it causes people to realize that there are offensive behaviors and discriminatory language to which we all ought to be sensitive and not use. But that’s now. Not in 1950.