Bob Schwartz

You’ll Never Walk Alone is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel.

In the 75 years since, it has become an iconic anthem of hope.

In the 75 years since, it has been performed by hundreds of artists, including Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley. Never as movingly as by Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes, now also in a soon to be stellar solo career.

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone

Note: The video below is sponsored at the end by Johnnie Walker. (“Walk”, “Walker”, get it?) If you don’t drink Scotch, or don’t drink at all, or don’t appreciate clever ad people, no worries. Just ignore it. And listen. With hope in your heart.

Bodhi Day, marking the Buddha’s enlightenment, is known as Rohatsu in Japan and is celebrated there on December 8.

IT IS SAID that soon after his enlightenment the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha’s extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?”

“No,” said the Buddha.

“Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?” Again the Buddha answered, “No.”

“Are you a man?”

“No.”

“Well, my friend, then what are you?” The Buddha replied, “I am awake.”

The new Marvel comic book The Vitals: True Nurse Stories, created in collaboration with Allegheny Health Network, features real-life stories of real-life heroes.

“If 2020 has cemented anything, it’s that real heroes don’t wear capes; they wear scrubs. Allegheny Health Network (AHN) and Marvel Comics agree. Marvel has collaborated with AHN to celebrate real-life healthcare heroes through a brand-new comic book, developed together with advertising agency Doner.

“Today, AHN is introducing a new Marvel comic book about real-life nurses and their heroism. Each character and story stems from the experiences of real people who provide healthcare throughout AHN’s 13 hospital facilities in Western Pennsylvania, serving as amalgams of the dozens of nurses who shared their stories.”

Based on the reluctance to craft substantial economic relief during these worst days of the pandemic, it seems that magical thinking has again taken over among fantasy Senators.

Magical thinking had a lot do with how the U.S. got into this tragic and avoidable situation. Our national leader months ago used the exact words “like magic it will disappear” to avoid actually doing anything about it.

The economic relief magic is supposed to work like this: If we wait a little while longer, the free market, as always, will rescue us on its own. Why spend hundreds of billions today when the bad times are about to disappear? Like magic.

Economic recovery and growth can be confusing. It does seem a bit like magic when consumers have money, give it to producers, who pay consumers as workers, who then spend the money, spiraling up and up. Additional money gets injected into the system to juice it up and keep the momentum going, but mostly it appears to be self-sustaining.

Except when a giant hole has been dug, and many people are near or at the bottom. The hole won’t fill itself. Those, especially those in the Senate, who think that the hole is manageable without filling it in are not paying attention or are deluded. Experts have said, even factoring in a vaccine in 2021, that recovery is going to take place over a matter of years. Maybe they are too pessimistic—economics is after all called “the dismal science”—but economic recovery is not “just around the corner.” In the meantime, those in the government who hold the purse strings should plan on releasing billions and billions to fill the hole. And while they are at, figure out how to keep the pandemic from getting worse, which it is, and thereby digging the hole deeper. Because magic is not going to work.

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, creating the modern holiday we celebrate.

At that moment, the deadly American Civil War was raging. Two cultures, two nations where once there was one. And would be one again.

From Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation:

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

Not thinking

To think in a language
You do not know
Is not not thinking
But how can it be thinking?

© Bob Schwartz

The Saints

Dead a hundred years
or a thousand.
Search the calendar
for a story fancied or fact
feast or famine
a speck of meaning
added to a day
more light or
more confusion.
Dead a minute or a day
they try to speak
and lift a life.

© Bob Schwartz

Right now there at least 240,000 Covid deaths and 10 million Covid cases counted in America. Without major behavioral and policy interventions, there may be 400,000 deaths and 1 million cases a week by the end of year. Yet some governors insist on staying the course, and some people think that even the current restrictions are too much.

It is of course not appropriate to show images of 240,000 dead Americans in this post. So matchsticks will stand in their stead.

Each pile below includes about 1,000 matchsticks. Shown are 10,000. Multiply by 24. Or 40. Do the math and imagine.

The expression goes: Some people, you just can’t tell them. Maybe we can show them.

There is good news about possible Covid vaccines. With that news comes the reality that widespread deployment of a vaccine still won’t take place until some time in 2021.

Imagine this scenario in the coming months, a time when it is projected that nationally there may be 200,000 Covid cases a day—that’s 6 million a month—and there may be 400,000 total deaths by February 1:

A patient who has been infected with Covid is suffering symptoms, maybe severe enough to require hospitalization, maybe even courting death.

Someone—maybe one of our reluctant leaders—arrives to offer good wishes and this comfort:

“You will be happy to know that a vaccine for this terrible disease is right around the corner. You can stop worrying.”

What those reluctant leaders should be saying—now—is that it is inevitable that things are going to get much worse while we wait for the relief of a vaccine, so some difficult measures will have to be taken—now. This takes intelligence and vision, the courage to throw off ideology, and a willingness to be unpopular. All for the sake of saving suffering and lives.

“I hear America singing.”
Walt Whitman

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze drifting by you know how I feel
Fish in the sea, you know how I feel

River running free, you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree, you know how I feel
Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean
Butterflies all havin’ fun, you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done, that’s what I mean

And this old world, is a new world
And a bold world for me

It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me
And I’m feeling good

Songwriters: Leslie Bricusse / Anthony Newley