Stop playing politics with human lives, Part I

 I’m getting more than a little tired of the game-playing being done with Covid-19 death numbers to help this political side or that one.

There are recent reports that show that, after careful analysis of the deaths of more than 180,000 people, perhaps as few as just under 10,000 of those died solely because of the virus.

Of course, some people were quick to jump on that number as proof of the “hoax” being perpetuated for political purposes. I’ve seen social media posts from acquaintances of mine that have stated that every death in the nation since mid-March has somehow been connected to Covid-19, hence the “inflation” of virus-related deaths.

It’s those kinds of stupid comments being made that make me so sad. Because even though the statement is a theatrical exaggeration, if true, it would mean that nearly 1.4 million people would be dead of Covid-19 through mid-August. And there are too many of us who believe everything we see and swallow it without doing our own research and verification.

In 2017, an average of 7,708 deaths occurred in the U.S. every day, according to the CDC. That means about 1,387,440 American residents have died in the past six months. Covid-19 is said to be responsible for more than 180,000 of those deaths.

In spite of those deaths, and in spite of most of us knowing someone who has either died of the virus or survived a hellacious hospital stay to beat it, there are still way too many who say it is a hoax being perpetuated for political purposes and are now using a CDC report to bolster their claim.

The CDC has released a report that shows 94 percent of all Covid deaths involved people with underlying or contributing conditions. This is no real surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention since the beginning of the pandemic. We’ve been told since Day 1 that the virus posed a much more serious threat to older people with worn-out immune systems, very young children with immature immune systems and anyone with an acute illness or any chronic medical condition.

So the hoaxers are claiming that fewer than 10,000 deaths are due to Covid and the common flu is much worse.

But here’s the deal. The reality is that more than 180,000 of our friends, neighbors, family members and colleagues are dead because of this virus. Their previous heart attack did not kill them, this virus did. Their lupus did not kill them, this virus did. Their kidney failure did not kill them, this virus did.

These folks would have continued living, taking their medicines and receiving other medical care to control or maintain their chronic conditions.

And here’s the deal with underlying conditions. Have you ever had a heart attack or stroke? Ever had cancer? Do you have lupus, multiple sclerosis, ALS, fibromyalgia, afib? Are your kidneys or liver functioning at less than 100 percent? Take medicine for high blood pressure or cholesterol? Do you have asthma or allergies? COPD? Chronic bronchitis?

If you answered yes to any of the above or hundreds of other similar questions that could be asked, congratulations! You have “contributing conditions.”

If you have kidney failure or lupus or systemic arthritis, I’m sure you want to go on living — taking your meds and doing what the docs tell you to maintain your health and quality of life. I’m sure you don’t plan on doing everything you can to stay alive, only to have that life taken by a virus that could have been prevented with just a little preparation and a lot of consideration and compassion for our fellow humans.

I don’t care if the number of deaths is 200,00 or 10,000, here’s the important element to remember about those numbers. They were human beings. People who are dead who should not be dead. Period. Children have lost parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and even siblings. Neighbors have lost neighbors, colleagues have lost fellow workers, medical professionals have lost their lives while treating their infected patients, and any number of people have gotten sick just trying to carry out their daily routine.

So keep your politics, regardless of side, out of this argument. This virus is real, it’s here and it’s still spreading. It’s spreading because people are hanging out (illegally) in packed bars as they sit shoulder to shoulder with people they don’t live with, they’re playing pool and horseshoes in packed indoor and outdoor areas with people they don’t live with, and they aren’t wearing masks because that "takes away their civil liberties." Young college students who are still at the age when they think they are invincible are gathering in alcohol parties with no masks and absolutely no social distancing. They’re drinking from common cups and bottles and they’re getting sick. And when their schools get closed because of their irresponsible behavior, they're taking the virus home with them to vulnerable relatives and friends.

People are dead who shouldn’t be dead.

People are dead who shouldn’t be dead.

In case you missed that, people are dead who shouldn’t be dead.

If the number was just one or 3 million, people are dead who shouldn’t be dead.

Shut up about politics and let’s all do what we can do to eliminate this virus.

Period.

An important voice in the dark

I got my first giggle of the day today when I read the Facebook status update from my friend Julia Jackson McCready: “For those of you who are following along at home, I stared at the page for about an hour and a half this morning, thinking I had nothing to say. I guess I did.”

My first thought was that of Seinfeld, the television comedy widely described as the show about nothing. I responded to Julia that many people have written extensively about nothing, implying that she too could fill a page on nothing if she needed to.

But it was my mistake in reading her comment as an obtuse double negative; as Julia stared and stared at that empty page, she did indeed come up with a topic for today’s edition of her blog, Village Green/Town Squared: “I don’t buy it.”  

As I have shared more than once in this space, Julia is my blogging hero. She is a disciplined and well-read writer who uses her gift of the written word to praise, promote, criticize, inform, educate and challenge her community on many different topics and issues.

She is a wife and mother; an educator of the smallest of the littles (which in itself is worthy of gold-medal status, in my opinion); an active member of her community and her church; an activist who is often advocating for the LGBTQ community, Muslims, people of color and any other “other” group that might need a little extra support and understanding. 

Pretty much every day of the week, every week of the year, Julia yanks herself out of the warm (or cool, depending on the time of year) comfort of her bed at what I figure has to be 4 a.m. or so to hit the keyboard so the rest of us can enjoy her daily dose of information. 

When she hits the road at 7-ish (at least in pre-Covid school days), she already has several hours of braining under her belt.

Perhaps Julia knows there are many of us who look forward to her posts, so much so that, on the rare occasions she can’t come up with anything or — gasp — oversleeps, she tattles on herself and lets us know there will be no blog post that day.

I have said time and time again that I want to be like Julia when I grow up. It’s time for me to admit that just isn’t going to happen. I created this blog five and a half years ago and in that time have published the same number of posts Julia produces in two months.

My first blog post, ironically enough, referenced the nothingness of Seinfeld.

I first met Julia in 2011 when I was the editor of Columbia Patch and she was a fledgling blogger who was kind enough to post her musings on the Patch site. My interactions with her at the time were to mainly “approve” the publication of her posts (and never as quickly as I should have) as I was trying to learn the ropes of a new, demanding, never-ending job and a new community while trying to stave off supervisors hell-bent on quantity and “clickability” of content.

Because there was so much going on, I failed to realize what a gift Julia is to her community. She is whip smart, well-educated and well-read, a thinker and questioner, an empathetic and passionate lover of and believer in the Rouse ideals of her planned community, a mother bear to her family, friends and other loved ones, the aforementioned educator (at a school and her church) and an advocate, also as mentioned, for any oppressed or downtrodden individuals or groups.

She, like many writers, is a sensitive introvert. But she sets that aside and puts on her badge of courage when it comes time to speak out on something that she knows will bring criticism at best and mean bullying at worst. Julia steels herself as best as she can against the criticism, but sometimes it’s hard to do, especially when she puts her identity out there and some of the worst criticism comes from folks with fake names hiding behind a computer or phone screen.

For the sake of her community, and her desire to inform and expose, Julia perseveres. She will get up at 4 a.m. tomorrow and the next day and the next day to share her thoughts with her community. Whether she’s encouraging people to vote in a village center council or presidential election, bringing attention to a littered nature trail or thanking an elected official for a promise kept, Julia provides a much-needed voice for her community.

While Julia is not a journalist providing hard-core local news and is the first one to remind her readers of that, her voice and the voices of others like her are becoming more and more vital to our communities as local news outlets either die or surrender to their death beds for prolonged hospice care.

Thank you, Julia. And write on!

E tu, McCormick?

Oh, McCormick! Why must you play such games?

I, of course, am talking about the “limited edition” Old Bay Hot Sauce 2.0 release.

In January of this year, a mere six months ago but a lifetime of lifestyle changes ago, the Hunt Valley-headquartered, world-renowned spice company hyped and then released a limited amount of hot sauce flavored with its famous and extremely popular Old Bay Seasoning.

The newborn Old Bay Hot Sauce (left) with its big sister, Old Bay Seasoning.
Photo by Marge Neal

We in the Delmarva region would probably die if the company ever chose to discontinue the life-sustaining substance. We have a container in the spice cabinet, a container on the boat, one with the camping gear, a back-up in the pantry and a back-up to the back-up. Some folks stocked up when the company announced it was going to switch from the iconic metal tins to plastic containers. It gets shipped to friends across the country when they can't find it in their local stores. It's in shakers in Maryland restaurants, right along side the ubiquitous salt and pepper. We don't get asked if we want fries with that; we get asked if we want Old Bay with that. And we ask for it if it isn't offered.

So the powers that be at McCormick had to have known in January that the “limited edition” hot sauce would be hoovered up faster and more efficiently than Brooks Robinson ever handled the hot corner at Memorial Stadium.

And sure enough, indeed it was. The bottles with the instantly recognizable red and yellow labels flew off store shelves into the welcoming arms of hoarders who then immediately advertised the stuff for $50 a bottle and up on eBay and other digital marketplaces.

And this was BEFORE Covid-19 shut down the world and made finding toilet paper, paper towels, flour, yeast and freezers, for God’s sake, a competitive sport.

You can’t tell me that isn’t exactly what McCormick officials hoped for. You can’t pay for that kind of publicity — even for a tried-and-true product that needs no introduction.

If this was some crazy, off-the-wall product created by a little mom-and-pop shop with little capital to work with, I could see this kind of treatment.

But this was a deep-pocketed, well-established business toying with its flagship product. They know it’s going to sell and they can afford to have product sit on shelves in every grocery store in the land.

But they had to play us.

I completely missed the first wave but was invited to join an email list so I could be “among the first” to know about a second release! Right! I’m sure I got that email a couple of days before millions of others got it.

I can always find basil without packing a knapsack for a day-long hunt. Ditto turmeric, paprika and even cream of tartar.

So why do we need to don safari gear and hire a Sherpa to find this hot sauce?

Make enough of the damn stuff to supply the demand, insist it have a fairly uniform retail price (instead of $3.49 at Weis and $5.99 at Giant) and keep it on the shelves.

I think the second release lasted for about 10 days before it was pretty much gone. I saw an article on myrecipes.com that stated more was due to hit shelves July 6. We’ll see. But I got enough to last for a while and to send a couple bottles out of state.

But there’s just no reason for McCormick to be doing this. Especially now. 

Right now, our lives have enough uncontrollable life-and-death stress without a beloved, trusted, popular company playing head games with us. We expect more. We don’t expect another kick in the teeth when we’re already in the dentist’s chair getting the last damage repaired.

Anyhoo, gotta go ... gonna sew bottles of hot sauce in my trench coat liner and hit the road.

Stay safe. And enjoy that hot sauce.

Some steamed shrimp (center), accompanied by White Marsh Brewing Company's seasonal  blueberry ale (served in a Union Brewery Divine glass, left) and the Old Bay sisters.
Photo by Marge Neal

Meet the artist known as Liam

I’ve not been hanging out on the Interwebs much recently. There’s a lot going on in my life and I just don’t have the time or the energy to deal with the idiocy, the well-shared but false information and the general human bashing that seems to occur 24-7 these days.

You don’t need me to tell you life has been very different in this country since at least mid-March. The novel coronavirus needlessly caught the country off guard and we find ourselves in unprecedented times — at least during most of our lifetimes. Quarantined because of a raging global pandemic, plunged into unemployment at near-record numbers and an economic recession teetering on depression, and faced with third-world-country-like shortages of basics at grocery stores have made for short tempers, crying sessions and sleepless nights.

That said, I do some occasional lurking in case I miss something true and useful. And so it is that I did indeed recently witness the collective Internet community using its power for good and I’m here to tell that story.

Liam Ryan is a typical 9-year-old boy living in Baltimore County. He is one of the tens of thousands of students whose school year was abruptly interrupted by the pandemic. School children by their very nature are social creatures, with school friends, neighborhood pals, immediate and extended family members, teammates and the like. They go, go, go and it had to be difficult for that speedy lifestyle to have the brakes applied so suddenly and swiftly. 

Liam finished his school year like most of the rest of the nation’s schoolchildren … at home, in front of a screen. He told me he tried to get most of his schoolwork and assignments for each week done by Tuesday so he had much of the rest of the week — aside from required face/screen time — to devote to his hobbies and more fun stuff.

A couple of weeks ago, Liam’s mother, Brenda, posted a picture of an unfinished painting of Winnie the Pooh on her Facebook page. In the post, she said that Liam didn’t often share his artwork; that in typical artist insecurity, he was afraid people wouldn’t like it or worse, make fun of it.

But here’s the deal. Even in its unfinished stage, the painting was good! It showed a good eye with placement on the canvas to give the subject a look of motion and engagement, and good perspective.

Shortly after Brenda posted the picture, the gushing compliments started pouring in from her many friends and colleagues. People were genuinely impressed with the young artist’s talents, and comments ranged from “good job” to “please keep it up,” peppered with the occasional hint that the poster (including this one) wouldn’t mind being given an original Liam Ryan!

A little while later, after considerable comments had piled up, Brenda shared them with her son, who was both amazed and pleased with the praise.

After getting Brenda’s permission to write about Liam, I chatted with him on the phone for a few minutes. He was shy at first but quickly warmed up as the passion he has for art and writing began to shine.

I asked him what all the comments from people he doesn’t know meant to him. Because let’s face it — your mother has to tell you your artwork is good but strangers certainly don’t have that obligation. The fact that so many folks spoke up and gushed about the painting meant something, right?

“It boosted my confidence, that’s for sure,” Liam said. “And I think I’m a little braver in letting people see my work now.”

Wow! Good job, social media!

He was a little surprised that she posted the picture on Facebook.

“I was grabbing a snack and I noticed she took a picture of my painting,” he said. “And then she told me she was going to post it on Facebook. And I was like, ‘Wait, what?’”

The young artist also has quite the sense of humor. Asked when he first got interested in drawing and painting, he said he was about 2 when he first noticed some crayons and paper on a table and got to work.

“And that natural talent just came oozing out?” I asked.

“No,” he said honestly. “That was just scribbles.”

After I laughed at that comment, he said, “I’ve also done stand-up comedy. I’m pretty funny.”

I mentioned that he might have gotten his sense of humor from his mother, who can be quite hysterical.

“She can be pretty funny,” he admitted.

He created the portrait of the famous bear with acrylic paints on canvas. The supplies were a Christmas gift to him from a brother. And he gifted the finished painting to a sister to hang in her bedroom. The circle of art life.

He said he Googled Winnie the Pooh and found an outline drawing of the bear. He used that outline as a model for his painting, and then finished it by adding a tree, complete with a honey-dripping bee hive hanging from it, in the background.

Liam Ryan poses with his completed painting of Winnie the Pooh. Photo by Brenda Ryan

Liam prefers to work in pen, marker and pencil except for the occasional special project.

“And I used to write stories but mainly stopped to do my art,” Liam said. “But I did mainly pictures that tell the story.”

Asked if he preferred the graphic novel style of storytelling, he said yes, but with a caveat.

“That, and my handwriting is pretty horrible.”

The pandemic brought Liam’s fourth-grade year at Edgemere Elementary School to an abrupt halt but he already has plans to attend Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts, where he hopes to get accepted in a visual arts magnet program.

“I didn’t know about that until my grandmother told me,” he said of the regional magnet school. “It would be great to be able to go there.”

In honor of Independence Day, Liam created a drawing of Micky Mouse doing the Pledge of Allegiance, though he admits that wasn’t the original goal.

“I tried doing Micky with a peace sign but I couldn’t get it to work so I ended up with his hand on his heart and decided to add the flag.” he said.

Inspiration is inspiration.

Liam is part of a large, blended, Brady Bunch-like clan with eight children, mom, and dad Richard.

The parents are raising their children in a manner that supports and encourages them while also teaching them about realities and limitations.

“We are very firm parents,” Brenda said. “We tell all of our kids, we expect you to be the best human beings you can be. I don’t care what kind of job you have, what kind of house you have — be a decent human being who can make a difference to others.”

Brenda is convinced that Liam’s art has been a therapy of sorts for him. The family has been hit hard by numerous deaths over the past several years, including Brenda’s father and father-in-law, her brother and two of the blended family's grandmothers. Losing two grandfathers, two grandmothers and an uncle in a short period of time was devastating for Liam, Brenda said.

“My brother’s death affected him horribly,” Brenda said. “He really struggled; sad all the time, not focused, struggling in school.”

She started encouraging him to dig into his artwork and short stories as a way of getting the sadness and the raw emotions out, and firmly believes it helped.

“It really was therapy for him — it helped him move on,” she said. "He's very empathetic and very sensitive and tends to hold his emotions in — this really allows him to get those emotions out."

After losing several family members over a short period of time, Liam created this painting titled "My Life is a Mess." Photo by Brenda Ryan

Brenda said Liam was about 5 when the parents noticed he had an above-average ability in art.

“We realized he was above par and needed to encourage him,” she said. “He’s not a prodigy but he’s definitely above par and we want to continue to feed that for him as long as he’s interested.”

Liam admits to knowing he’s “more artsy than sportsy.”

“I tried soccer but didn’t really like it,” he said. “I like camping and the outdoors, but I don’t like bugs.” 

Indeed. I’m with you on that one, bud.

So, to the social media community, thank you for a spontaneous burst of praise and appreciation for a shy but talented young boy who’s had his life turned upside down more than once.

Thank you for being genuine and providing positive words that really had an impact.

And if you’re lucky enough to end up with a Liam original for your refrigerator, hang on to it.

Because you just never know!

"When Sadness and Anger Collide" by Liam Ryan.
Photo by Brenda Ryan

"A Happy Place" by Liam Ryan.
Photo by Brenda Ryan