Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Legally speaking, the term ‘public rights’ is as vague and indefinite as are the terms ‘public health,’ ‘public good,’ ‘public welfare,’ and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals. Lysander Spooner
Last night was a book club night, first on free Zoom and then on Google Hangouts. We talked and laughed for two hours. The book club puts so many things in perspective. The books we read help put life in perspective. We discussed The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman. This was our second time discussing it and we did what we always do, moved into discussing life.
Of course, the question, “Are you taking the vaccine came up?” One of our members said, “I’m taking it because my mother lost six siblings because there weren’t vaccines.” One of her mom’s siblings died from polio which ravaged the world until the Salk polio vaccine was introduced in 1955 and the Sabin oral vaccine introduced in 1962 eventually brought polio under control.
Many of us are asking this question in a flippant way but it is no small thing to be able to have vaccines to curb diseases that killed and maimed millions. We may think things should be better, but how often are we grateful they are not worse? We have the U.S. going through an election where results are being contested. The system is working and one of the things Jordan Peterson says is, “We wonder why things aren’t better, but we should wonder why they aren’t worse? It is almost a miracle to live in peace and plenty.”
My husband has a fair point when he says, “For someone that preaches positivity you don’t sound very positive.” I’ve been ranting lately about the injustice of the small businesses paying the price during our second lockdown. I stand by my feeling and I don’t know how to be positive and deal with what to me is injustice even though it does not directly affect us, yet. The trickledown effect of putting small businesses out of business might affect us all in a far bigger way than what we are trying to prevent.
Depression has been called the world’s number one public health problem. In fact, depression is so widespread it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances. But there is a grim difference between depression and a cold. Depression can kill you. David D. Burns
We might not have good choices, we may only have bad choices but history is being made right now, and maybe the great leaders are not the ones that make the good choices, they are the ones that make the best choice in bad situations. Someone on the radio said we are about halfway through this in his estimation. Spring is coming and we will have to deal with the fallout of this pandemic and the choices that are made to deal with it.
Only looking back will we think we know the choices that should have been made. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but we don’t get to make our choices in hindsight. We make our choices and hope we made the best one. Everyone making choices is trying to make the best choice and they are trying to juggle competing interests.
Many of us have said we live in a society that puts money first. Our leaders are trying to show us that they do not. Are they making the best decision or in the end will we wish they put economic health on an even platform with public health?
It’s critically important that people trust you during a public health crisis. Richard E. Besser
All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? John Cleese
The longer I’ve looked at these questions, of the American diet and the public health crisis that we face because of that diet, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that the collapse of cooking is a big part of the problem. Michael Pollan
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Secrets and Silence: What if your biggest secret became public? Paperback – Large Print, Aug. 29 2020
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