Don’t get hoodwinked by 2020

Dear 2020: PHPHPTT! (Nods to Bloom County.)

By the time this gets to print, one of two potential hurricanes will have hit the Gulf Coast with the other right on its tail. Normally we’d all be flabbergasted by this, but not this year. This is 2020, or as some of call it, Jumanji: Level 6. The degree of absurdity we’ve all experienced this year is astonishing but wait! There’s more to come! First, however, let’s consider how we got here. The year began seemingly normal enough. President Donald Trump faced an impeachment trial and was acquitted. The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, ending a 50-year drought and, more importantly, saving the country from having to endure watching the New England Patriots in the big game.

Then came the return of the XFL after 19 years in the dustbin of history. Australia was on fire. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle removed themselves as British royalty and then England left the European Union. Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. Hollywood hotshot Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape and other sexual shenanigans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up her copy of the State of the Union address.

Oh wait, that was the normal part of the year. While all this was going on the coronavirus made its way from China around the world to the United States. Now I’m not going to get too persnickety about how it started, but there are rumors of everything from undercooked bats to top secret labs and a slew of conspiracy theories that abound from there – one of them includes a thieving monkey. The thing is, we know it came from China and it is here causing all kinds of mayhem.

Actually, all of this codswallop isn’t from the virus but our response to it. Everything stopped, except a run on toilet paper. The XFL folded, sports leagues shut down, the stock market crashed, and murder hornets began invading Washington State. Fortunately, the invasion was called off because we never heard anything more about it. My guess is the critters freaked out at the first bite of the nincompoops up there and left.

Spring break began for most students and never really ended. No one returned to classes. Everything went online. All of a sudden we were a nation of homeschoolers. (For many, that nightmare is continuing as school resumes this August.)

Then came news that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had died, but that, too, was canceled. Apparently that whippersnapper is still alive and plotting evil deeds in a secret lair. I’m sure we’ll hear more from Un before the year is over.

While we were all hunkered down trying to flatten the curve, officials changed the name of coronavirus to COVID-19, though most of us use the terms interchangeably or simply call it The Rona. It was during this time we re-evaluated what jobs are and are not important. Those with important jobs were allowed to keep working while the rest got to stay home and file for unemployment, which paid them more than they were making in the first place. That’s because the dingleberries in Congress and the White House felt it was best to go a couple trillion dollars deeper in debt to buy votes – er, I mean, keep the economy afloat during the pandemic.

As the year progressed, astronomers lost a star, mystery drones appeared over Colorado and Nebraska, the Pentagon released videos of UFOs, and Planters killed off Mr. Peanut, only to resurrect the mascot a short time later. Netflix made waves with its documentary series “Tiger King” which had everyone talking except those of us who dropped Netflix and subscribed to Disney+ instead. Oh yeah, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were postponed to 2021 (for now).

Then came the great tragedy of 2020 when George Floyd, an African American, died after a white police officer in Minneapolis held him down with his knee on his neck for about nine minutes. The riots and protests that broke out across the land afterward caused all kinds of kerfuffle. The best thing to come out of it was a better understanding of racism and an open dialog between whites and people of color. Apparently the fine folks at The Associated Press were so flummoxed by the whole thing they determined that black should be capitalized when referring to race, but white will not be.

We also saw “peaceful protestors” attack statues and monuments, defacing and tearing down mostly Confederate statuary but also ones that had nothing to do with slavery or the War Between the States. The police generally did nothing in response, which I suspect was largely due to calls to defund the police in the wake of Floyd’s death.

Several liberal cities, including Austin, became so discombobulated over the whole thing, they began slashing police department budgets, which is really going to help provide police with better race relations training and give the citizenry more protection when the riots resume after the Minneapolis cops go to trial. Those pumpernickels in Seattle went as far as to cordon off the police station and create an “autonomous zone.” After that they posted a list of supplies they needed people to donate to them. So much for “autonomous.”

Fast forwarding to now, we find ourselves in extraordinary times. It’s late August and the NBA is playing out last season in a bubble, the NHL is playing for the Stanley Cup without fans, and MLB is playing a shortened season without fans. The NFL is trying to ramp up but will be mostly without fans. The XFL was purchased out of bankruptcy by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and his ex-wife and could be returning this spring.

This brings me to politics. It’s a presidential election year and after listening to months of malarky and watching candidates skedaddle from the race, we are now down to the two contenders: A forgetful canoodler – er, codger – and a vainglorious, self-aggrandizing bully.

Both of these flibbertigibbets are flooding the airwaves and social media with enough gobbledygook and poppycock to make us wish the murder hornets would come back and relieve us of this misery.

At this point I must stop and confess that if you thought this was a commentary on how weird 2020 has been so far, you’ve been bamboozled. This column is actually a response to a challenge made to me on Facebook by my friend, Chelsea Walters. I shared a meme about the “best words ever.” She dared me to use them all in a column. I got all of them in except thingamajig and whatchamacallit. And now my mission is complete.

Say no to new normal

Just say no to “the new normal.”

I’m really getting frustrated with people talking about our “new normal” with the wearing of masks and social distancing. It’s only been five or six months since these health measures were put into place due to the COVID-19 pandemic and people are acting like it will go on forever.

It won’t. It’s temporary.

Life will be normal again. Pandemics are not permanent. It will pass. In the history of the world, every single plague and pandemic has come and gone, and the world keeps on spinning. How many of us continue to spin with it is another question.

COVID-19 is real and for some it is deadly and for others it is debilitating. For most, from what I understand, it is little more than a cold or flu.

The worlds’ worst pandemics have lasted years, claimed millions of lives, and resulted in precautionary measures far more extreme than what we are experiencing today. The Black Death of 1347 to 1351 claimed an estimated 75 million lives when the world’s population was estimated to be 450 million. The Spanish Flu of 1918 only lasted a year but infected a third of the world’s population and claimed 50 million lives.

By comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies are reporting (as of Monday) that 20 million cases have been confirmed worldwide with 732,467 deaths. There are 5 million cases in the United States with 163,156 deaths. Texas has 486,362 confirmed cases and 8,459 deaths. Here in Austin County, we have 242 confirmed cases with four fatalities.

With the exception of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, COVID-19 is the deadliest since the Hong Kong flu of 1968-70 which claimed somewhere between 1-4 million people. When you look back at pandemics, including such outbreaks as yellow fever, bubonic plague, typhoid, smallpox, cholera, measles, malaria, and various influenzas, COVID-19 seems pretty tame.

It’s running on the belief that it isn’t as harmless as it’s being made out to be that will cause it to expand and raise the death toll. The coronavirus has been around a long time, but this particular strain is new and far more potent than previous strains. As health officials race to create a vaccine, the virus continues to mutate. It affects people differently. Due to its low mortality rate, too many people blow it off or downplay it. That is a mistake.

In just these past few months, COVID-19 has claimed nearly as many U.S. lives as World War I and the Vietnam War combined. Texas alone has recorded almost three times as many COVID-19 deaths than there were people killed in the 9/11 attacks.

What makes COVID-19 unique among other pandemics isn’t so much the disease as it is our reaction to it. For most of us in America, this is the first pandemic that we’ve faced. When most of us have heard about pandemics such as swine flu, zika, or Ebola, the outbreaks were in other parts of the world, generally in developing nations. This is here and in our face.

I know people who have had it and I know of people who have died from it. All of us are tired of it and want it to go away. It will, but it’s up to us to make that happen. It means wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, wiping down surfaces, and things of that nature. The longer people refuse to do that, the longer we will have to contend with the disease.

It’s possible that we will have a vaccine soon (as in months, not years), which brings me back to the new normal. We don’t know yet if you can catch COVID-19 more than once or if it is something we will need to be vaccinated against each year like the flu. If there is anything that changes because of COVID-19 it is likely to be a vaccine. There will also be more awareness of personal hygiene and better practices in that regard.

In time we won’t need the masks and we’ll crowd together again in bars, sporting events, restaurants, and other public places. That will be the return to normal, not the new normal. 

But as long as there is resistance, we will have to wait for those good times to return. If you want that to happen, participate in the temporary normal by wearing your mask and keeping your distance.

Students need our support

Sealy, our student-athletes need us now more than ever.

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of COVID-19 opinions, one thing is clear, fall sports are moving forward at the high school level. Under normal circumstances, this would be a traditional right of passage. Under the coronavirus cloud of uncertainty, these kids will be playing with their health and potentially their lives on the line.

I know that sounds alarmist, but the virus affects people differently. Most of these kids probably will not get the virus. Of the ones that do, many will be asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. It is inevitable that as the season progresses that we will hear of student-athletes and coaches across Texas becoming seriously ill or even of some dying from COVID-19. I just hope and pray it isn’t any of our Austin County kids and coaches.

Running under the assumption that the spread of the disease doesn’t bring high school sports to a screeching halt, this fall will be one of the most unique in the history of Texas sports. Between regular testing and the use of health and safety precautions, each week will bring with it the possibility of being the last.

We saw what happened to our student-athletes last spring when everything suddenly shut down. Seniors were robbed of their final year of sports. For some, that was significant in light of potential college scholarships. For all, it has a lasting emotional impact. We do not want this year’s group of seniors to have to experience what last year’s went through.

It is going to be imperative that anyone remotely involved in the lives of these coaches and kids follow the prescribed health and safety guidelines – wear face coverings, wash hands, and keep socially distant. This includes everyone on the field or in the stands. If we want to keep our kids healthy and allow them to have the experience of a lifetime playing the sports they love, then we all must do our part.

This, of course, extends beyond the student-athletes to all those who participate in extra-curricular activities and even to those who will brave the return to classrooms this fall. Students in band, cheerleading, FFA, and numerous other student organizations all want to get the most out of their education and opportunities and we need to afford that to them to the best of our ability while at the same time keeping them safe. It will be a complicated balance but one that is manageable as long as we all cooperate and do what is right.

Here at The Sealy News, we will be doing our utmost to continue a high level of coverage of our students in all their activities. How we do that may look a little different as we strive to respect the pandemic guidelines. When in person at games and events, we will wear masks and keep our distance. More interviews will rely on phones, texts, emails and social media for communication.

Another thing we are doing to help these kids along is to publish our annual Fall Sports Preview. As long as the schools are preparing to play, we are preparing to promote and support them. That’s where we need your support. We can’t do it without advertising. We realize that times are hard and money is tight, but we need our businesses to step up and buy ads to help support our students. Otherwise, the annual keepsake edition will not happen. We also need our proud parents to come forward and buy parent ads to express love and support of their children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces.

We are endeavoring to keep this as affordable as possible and all the information is available on the back page of this paper as well as on our website at www.sealynews.com.

Years from now we will all look back on 2020 as a unique and remarkable time in history. This is a great opportunity to preserve those memories and this record of our coronavirus life. Please don’t miss out on the opportunity to be a part of it and to be a part of positive news for 2020.

Navigating the COVID-19 confusion

Let’s see if we can’t make some sense out of the COVID-19 quarantine confusion that seems to have so many people perplexed. Why is it that bars are barred, restaurants are reduced but some stores and sporting events are open or partly open? On the surface, it’s very confusing and the rules seem inconsistent. That’s because they are. Why is it that you can get alcohol at a store but not at a bar? Why can fans attend a baseball game at Constellation Field in Sugar Land and not one at Minute Maid Park in Houston? Why are some stores, libraries, and museums open and others are not? I can’t pretend to have the answers for any or all of these. All I can do is speculate and postulate theories. When I look at the myriad of seemingly conflicting guidelines, there is one thing that becomes abundantly clear. The rules appear to be driven by behavior. And a lot of the bad behavior tends to be fueled by alcohol. Let’s face it, people in bars are not going to social distance and they sure as heck are not going to wear face coverings. That’s two strikes against the three main things we are told to do to help control the spread of COVID-19. The third is frequent washing of hands. It’s a good bet that doesn’t happen in bars either. Three strikes and you’re out. That brings me to baseball. There is a huge difference between the rules for Major League Baseball and the Constellation Energy League. For one thing, before Major League Baseball could get going it had to hammer out a difficult and complex agreement with the players union. The MLB can also derive significant income from television and radio revenues. Constellation Energy League (a.k.a. the Sugar Land Skeeters) doesn’t have that option. It must have paying fans in the stands to help recoup some of the enormous expense the owners are incurring to bring back local baseball. Again – and this is just speculation based on observation on my part – I think another reason why you can have fans at Skeeters games and not at Astros games is due in large part to behavior and alcohol. The Skeeters are a much smaller, family-friendly venue. Your temperature will be taken at the gate. They also have very strict rules regarding masks, hand sanitizer, and social distancing. The Astros could do this too, but Minute Maid Park is a much larger venue and too many fans are there to party and are more likely to avoid the health and safety rules (see the aforementioned bars). Imagine the public relations nightmare they’d have if they had to eject a bunch of fans for not wearing face masks or for violating social distancing guidelines. You can also see the lawyers circling like sharks if there were to be an outbreak of COVID-19 traced back to the ballpark. It’s just not worth the headache. For some venues, it all depends on how comfortable ownership is with being open and how well they prepare to have people returning to their establishments. The ones that do the best job at enforcing masks, social distancing and the use of hand sanitizer and/or hand washing are the ones that are the most successful. A perfect example of this is Space Center Houston. I went to the center recently and was highly impressed with the measures they had taken. First, they have timed entry, so all tickets must be purchased online and for a specific time. When you arrive, your temperature is taken, and you must rub sanitizer on your hands. Second, you must have a mask and you must practice social distancing. Third, they have hand sanitizer stations everywhere and lots of reminders to use them. Lastly, not everything is open. The theaters and most of the frequently touched exhibits are closed. For now, the tram tour only goes to Rocket Park. The Mission Control Center and the training facility are off-limits. At Rocket Park, half of the giant Saturn rocket inside is cordoned off and tours are guided by staff. A trip there is still worth it as the space center has just debuted its newest exhibits. Of primary interest is the space-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 booster rocket. It’s really cool! Inside the center they have a special display about the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. There are objects in the exhibit that have not been shown to the public before. Getting back to understanding the complexity of the COVID-19 rules, the main thing is this: Face coverings, social distancing (or personal orbit, as the space center called it), and washing hands frequently works. And on this note I have to call out Austin County Judge Tim Lapham for his gross negligence in failing to encourage the use of face coverings. This is a failure of leadership for someone who is both a political leader and a volunteer firefighter. He of all people should know better. If we want to get this disease under control and get our lives back to normal, we have to do the things that work. No, they will not prevent the spread of COVID-19, but they will significantly reduce it, and that is the goal. Like it or not, we all need to do our part, if not for yourself at least for the sake of others.

The space-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 booster rocket is the newest addition to the permanent exhibits at Space Center Houston. Behind it is Independence Plaza featuring a mock-up space shuttle atop a shuttle transport plane.

Abby, left, a tour guide at Space Center Houston, leads socially distanced groups on a tour of Rocket Park at the center. The center recently reopened under strict health and safety guidelines.