In response: The taint in giving and doing good. Breaking the Class Ceiliing

These services can be helpful. They are meaningful to keep our communities coherent during this time when the President and cohorts refuse to lead.

But the large picture shows that rents in New York City are too high and have been for many years. Except for NYCHA and a smattering of other subsidized entities, people can't afford the rent. So while all the activity to help people is admirable it is not going to be enough. Ever. The city is not viable for the 15 dollar an hour 30 dollar an hour or 40 dollar an hour wage earners who can't get public, subsidized housing. What is left are market rents and every new building says "Luxury"on it. That is what passes for decency. If I can't afford to live in a luxury building, then I should live without an elevator, washer and dryer, dishwasher, and as I get older suffer the indignities of not being middle class anymore due to the lost wages from Covid.That is why there are some things I can't do.  One is volunteering. Volunteerism is now based on outmoded ideas of philanthropy which have proved inefficient. I believe strongly in paid positions. Volunteerism seems a quaint response to very deep problems. Please read Anand Giridaharadas' book "Winner Takes All". It is a primer on why giving as we know it is tainted to such an extent that it encrusts the very systems of giving with more veneers of decency when in fact it lets the status quo of givers secure. This anchors the super rich in their positions. Real estate is one of those bastions.

I believe that businesses should make profit or why do business? However, avarice is what undermines all the good deeds ( and there are many ) that organizations do for their communities. Hence, it is  bandaids on scratches until the whole body is just pasted together and hopefully survives.

While I applaud those who take their time and energy to perform good deeds encompassed in volunteering which does make one feel better, it is temporary and lets the really hard issues stand.

The bottom line is this. Our Federal Government has abdicated people. The idea to let Covid rise to the point of mass infection to create herd immunity is insane for contemporary society with science and society that has a working public health infrastructure. That's what happened in 1918 because we did not have medicines. That is when many of our institutions of giving rose up to help. Most of them rose up from a white middle and upper class with religious affiliations with real concern for the tragedy around them. It is time to break the class systems of racism, and poverty the class ceiling if you will and change how we do things from giving to nurturing to front loading our social structures to housing human beings instead of warehousing them.

I support the sentiments of our local agencies but they are in a rut with wheels spinning because they can't or don't really address the lack that people have at this time. At best it is piecemeal. People will grab on to what if anything is offered, but I urge our organizations to look deeper and start to at least verbally address reality. Many people can not pay rent, do not have jobs and an adequate safety net. It is hard to tackle real problems. We usually go for the easier ones. But when so many people's lives are hard, is it a service to ignore their reality to make nice instead of defeat what nice stands for?

The real estate market in New York City has the largest rental market in the United States. Because of a combination of their greed and abdication of Federally funded support thousands of people have left the city and along with them the tax dollars

The real estate lobby has deep pockets, they are feeling the hurt that they have inflicted on others. That won't change their ways. Only laws will. Who will push for them? We have thousands of empty luxury apartments yet people leave the city for more affordable housing elsewhere. The city is now hollowed out and should not return to the way it was in the negative ways I have mentioned but in more meaningful sustainable ways. Is luxury sustainable?

In response: The taint in  giving and  doing good. Breaking the Class Ceiling.

Global Body Warning: Follow the Genome Koan Movement, Money, Money, Money, Keys of CDC with underground blues in B flat pentatonic clinking on ice a la Fats Waller

3/1/20/20

Global Body Warning: Follow the Genome Koan Movement, Money, Money, Money, Keys of CDC with underground blues in B flat pentatonic clinking on ice a la Fats Waller

I think often of my colleagues still at work in the nursing home. In conversation with one who like me is not at work I said, “it literally is dodging virus bullets.” Unfortunately, my predictions again are realized as the COVID-19 virus spreads through a nursing home on the West Coast. It infects health care workers and others. Well, we get to wear face masks, paper gowns, plastic gloves and goggles. Not exactly impermeable to the little invisible critters bouncing around on coughs and hanging onto the surfaces of living and dying things and people. We all go away in the end. Wait a minute. That’s Johnny Cash sort of. “Everyone goes away in the end.” That last name Cash. Hmm. That is the word. Money, money, money. In the keys of CDC or as we clinicians know, it can be called clinical deadly care. That of course is not the way we see it most of the time. It is better known as The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Ah, my heart dear ones from all over the world. You came here to work and start again in what may feel like a million miles away from your homes to find a way to be and to give.

And now we can share with people who did not care to know, that Public Health is inextricably intertwined with all economies in the world. How stupid we have been as humans to not build into our lives the very things we need to take care of ourselves and the earth. How foolish and deadly. 

I Wanna Be a Billionaire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwlK5b4KYfI&list=RDRyt2SuHYhW0&index=5

Well Bruno is not quite there yet. He’s worth about a quarter of that.

Beware the Snake. I like Shania Twain’s take on greed. She’s made more than Bruno, but she is a few years older, and writes a lot of songs. Ka Ching is the name of this one. She nails it. To put it mildly she did not have a suburban childhood. She is everything Taylor Swift is not. Except talented both are truly that.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shania+twain+ka+ching

Beethoven’s Virus

And finally, for today, here is a rag tag young orchestra from Vietnam playing of all things Beethoven’s Virus which is a take on Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor Opus 13.  Look at their faces. Positively loving what they are doing. They don’t sound bad at all. I will take this any day over the hyper stuffy other youth orchestras. They rock and kick butt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvYxyCFCvSs

Sometimes we need interludes to heal. I hope you have those in these times. My cup of zazen is brewing.

Global Body Warning Interlude 2: Give me a Candy Koan. Assessing my germs

2/23/2020

Here we are with a very embodied Koan by the name of Covid-19. It is not in the book of Serenity, The Blue Cliff Record or the Book of equanimity, the Gateless Barrier etc. It is as big as the world and the suffering in it. The passions that exist are beyond comprehension. How can I even explain my compulsion to work with it?

Here we are stepping into the unknown and unknowable. I woke up with a head cold sinus combination. At any other time pre Covid-19 it wouldn’t matter much. For a long time taking off when feeling slightly unwell has been my practice. I guess two bouts with cancer taught me how to stay indoors to heal. There is nothing fancy or glamorous about that.  I would miss the class.  The right thing today as it is a long class and very engaging in many ways. Koans are very embodied and I really don’t know how to answer them.

What is it?

This virus is an improvisational work in progress, and it has moves. It is the entire opus. I wanted a Candy Koan and you gave me this vast emptiness here it is CATCH MY Breath! I dare you.

Subtle Light, Silver Bowl: Global Body Warning Covid-19 Koan Interlude with t...

Subtle Light, Silver Bowl: Global Body Warning Covid-19 Koan Interlude with t...: 2/21/2020 Cover Up While the learning curve for some health workers to consistently and correctly use protective personal equipment ...

Global Body Warning Covid-19 Koan Interlude with the truth of my personal relationship with risk management. Please join me for a cup of zazen.

2/21/2020

Cover Up

While the learning curve for some health workers to consistently and correctly use protective personal equipment (PPE) was high in one nursing home I worked in, it was not a high bar for Dr. Kentaro Iwata whose specialty is infectious diseases and control. In a YouTube video he spoke of his alarm at the breaches of infection controls or lack of them on the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship. I lump together cruise ships, airplanes, nursing homes, high rise apartment buildings, dormitories, prisons, military barracks and similar places as playgrounds for germs and viruses. I got up from my cushion where I sat as the thought of a cruise ship turned on its bow. There it was a high rise docked in the bay. Dr. Iwata said that appointed officials seemed to be in charge of quarantine on the ship instead of health care professionals. This did not surprise me as we have seen the global trend to place administrators and political appointees in positions above the actual practitioners. This is across the board in all professional fields. Health, Science, Economics, Environmental Action etc.

Expensive Teatime

For a long time, I questioned why it is necessary for anyone with a few hundred dollars in their pockets to plunk down the cash to fly, fly, fly, away to exotic places, to stomp through them and oh and ah. Well if that’s your cup of tea then have at it. According to PBS “In China, travel restrictions and quarantines have decreased carbon emissions by 100 metric tons over the past two weeks”.  I was once asked did I ever want to go to China. That time came and went with the Tiananmen Square Democracy movement and the clampdown on Americans traveling there for five years afterword. I said to my questioner, “China does not need my ass there, they have too many people already. Do they need me there too?” I prefer my ass to be sitting zazen. From that position I can travel anywhere. The point is to be here not there. But you know, the mind does wander. It needs to have safety valves like a faraway place, time, emotion, people, things and nothing but a breath. Teatime.

What about all the people on this planet? I attended a recent seminar taught by esteemed experts on the climate crisis. I realized afterword that the reality of overpopulation was not brought to the table. Is this reality not in vogue anymore? Don’t we need to talk about it? Is it not trending? Is it considered taboo to bring it up? Isn’t overpopulation still an issue?

Not One but Two

Overpopulation is back in the limelight. When cities have 20 million people, they need to eat. Why can’t China which produces field hospitals in ten days produce enough protein foods, so their people don’t need to cling to medieval eating habits holding on to magical meat from hillside warrens brought into town?  The issues of people, food, behavior and public health are always in my face. Public health is a global reality. I know that the restaurants in Chinatown are empty. Is that really a racist response or is it one that is more about resilience? Look deeper.  People are worried about their families and each other. Chinatown is mostly a tourist haven. It is also my home base. Not eating in Chinatown because one is afraid of getting sick either from the annual flu or COVID-19 which has a complicated trajectory and defaming Chinese people are not one but two things. On Tuesday my husband and I took the M9 bus which winds its way through Chinatown to get out of the apartment on a bright day. Our destination was Battery Park (formerly a land fill).  People on the streets were not tourists, they live in the community. Most of them do not work in the restaurants or own them. Every now and then there is brought forward the idea that perhaps tourism has been overdone. Trust me, it is. We can do with less tourists in my opinion. Notice I said less.

Risky Business

Mass migration of people for specific holidays is always a flashpoint for possible disease. Yet every time these viruses erupt in specific population the idea of some “ism” is brought up. We can be more nuanced than that. To disparage others is hateful in response to someone’s personhood. But a lot of Chinese people are staying out of restaurants too. Are they racist or do they care about public health? Did China close restaurants because they hate money and commerce? I think we know the answer to that.

In New York State, according to the American Hospital Directory there are approximately 60,000 beds. Because COVID-19 is endemic and evolving there is a subclinical infected aspect to the virus. It also spreads through just about every way possible. Through droplets, aerosol, oral fecal, and fecal aerosol, it lives on surfaces and is extraordinarily infectious. About 20% of cases require very expert and careful hospital care with breathing assistance, specialized medicine and staff. This resource demanding virus is a humanitarian crisis.

And who wants to get sick? The restaurants will eventually recover with financial assistance as a distressed area. There is no reason to risk lives.

As I write today, we are on the edge of pandemic COVID-19.