Fair play rules: wish them well; motel housing hits the mark; and don’t let up on virus precautions
We’re all Americans. We may like to talk like we’re hardboiled dealmakers, but we inherently believe in fair play: so we don’t wish someone ill and when someone does become ill, we wish them well. It doesn’t matter how much we love or dislike President Trump, family and staff – we wish them speedy recoveries. Surely we can hold off on the public jeering and sneering until afterwards.
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No Cheating: One of the kids is visiting. We’re fairly careful about the virus and know that she is, too, and getting to spend some time together is too good to pass up. Except for the baseless accusations, it will be great. Accusations?
Normally, when the kids visit, there would be much antique and second-hand store shopping, and hiking. Now the pandemic limits the eating out and shopping and the smoke limits the hiking and outdoors activities. So we will likely turn to another old standby. Monopoly.
So there will be accusations. What can I say? I win a lot. But I don’t cheat, dammit.
It will go this way: I will start pulling ahead and there will be insinuations about how I cheat; I will become more ruthless and won’t voluntarily pay rent if they don’t call it; they will call that cheating; but it’s not cheating ... look it up. Barring some twist of fate, I will win. And my victory will be shrugged off as ill-gotten. A cheater’s reward.
Please. Don’t listen to them. They’re just trying to feel better about LOSING.
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Thumbs Up: One of the most exciting developments in recent years is happening in Yuba City. The Baymont Motel is being bought by the county and turned over to Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing. That will have a direct effect on the homelessness crisis here – The biggest underlying problem we’ve got is a lack of affordable housing.
People who have been homeless and are staying in temporary arrangements can move into something small, but permanent and they can get in cheap and pay what they can afford.
Many of us always think just of transients as the “homeless” when, in fact, there are many more people you don’t notice who are living in vans, cars, garages, or the woods. They want to work, they want to be safe, they want something better for their children, they want to have some pride.
Calling an old motel room home for an extended while beats living in a box or under a tarp. It will be clean, secure, dependable.
This is what the community has needed for a long time. Congrats, supervisors, Habitat, Hands of Hope and anyone else involved.
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Thumbs Up: Moving from the purple tier to the red tier allows many businesses to open up legally in our counties. We’re almost there. Let’s not get lax.
Rave away all you want about the governor and his edicts, and we might agree. But that won’t change the order of the day. It will be a whole lot better for restaurants to be allowed under the weird tier system to resume indoor operations. They are relying on us.
The daily case count has to stay down, as well as the “positivity rate” (the percent of those tested who test positive). It seems that it mostly just depends on all of us chipping in and caring about each other and minding our manners: wearing masks to prevent us from infecting others; staying six feet or more away from others as much as possible; limiting our exposure by avoiding big crowds of people we don’t live with; washing our hands frequently and using sanitizer.
Steve Miller is Editor of the AppealDemocrat
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Ugh: Quotes of the day:
– “I hate it when people act all intellectual and talk about Mozart while they’ve never even seen one of his paintings.”
– “It’s been a weird day. First I found a hat full of money. Then I was chased by an angry man with a guitar.”
– “I didn’t think the therapist was supposed to say ‘wow’ that many times at your first session.”