FAINT LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Didn't the vicious war fiasco in Vietnam teach us anything? Didn't the civil rights movement in the '60s and '70s teach us anything? Didn't the buffoonery of the Reagan years, with the "trickle down" nonsense that plagues us to this day, and the Reagan-Bush recession teach us anything? Didn't the gross failures of the Blue Dog Democrats and the sellout of the country to large financial institutions and other corporations during the Clinton Administration teach us anything? Didn't the ignorant, propagandized, and totally unnecessary Gulf War and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions teach us anything? Didn't the dot-com crash and the partial meltdown of the Great Recession teach us anything?

No, the obvious lack of the modicum of education and common sense needed for critical thinking and of caring for others, especially the elderly, poor, and health-compromised, in our population does not surprise me. We are acting like a post-knowledge, post-responsibility nation with elected leaders appropriate to our brainwashed ignorance and lack of ethics. It is heartbreaking to see young people in the streets starting all over again, trying to force issues to the general public's awareness that should have been settled 50, 100, or even 150 years ago.

A much shorter rant would have said, "No, books don't teach us anything as a society because so few people read them."

Posted by: Carl May | June 12, 2020 at 08:26 PM

Here on Riptide and other forums, I hear people begging entitled others to wear their masks and social-distance for the good of the community. Why do others flout public health rules? In our passion for individualism, have we forgotten our social responsibilities and obligations? What have we learned from books like Bowling Alone, Coming Apart, The Culture of Narcissism, and The Lonely Crowd? Hasn't the pandemic taught us anything?

Posted by: John Maybury | June 11, 2020 at 11:15 PM

According to SMC Health, San Mateo County total cases of COVID-19 are steadily increasing.
https://www.smchealth.org/san-mateo-county-covid-19-and-other-health-data

Posted by: Jay Bird | June 09, 2020 at 03:25 PM

They're not writing citations. They're telling people to leave. From the Mayor's May 4 letter: "Over the past couple weekends, Pacifica Police Officers ... have ordered more than 1,000 visitors to leave who were visiting from too far away."

Posted by: Peter Loeb | May 05, 2020 at 11:07 AM

Folks are praising Pacifica Mayor Deirdre Martin for her tough-talk approach to stay-at-home-order violators from out of town at Pacifica beaches. Yet I'm not aware of the Pacifica Police Department writing a single citation for it.

Posted by: Alan Wald | May 03, 2020 at 06:15 PM

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