"The battle outside ragin' will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.For the times they are a-changin'" -Bob Dylan
Admittedly, I've never been a huge fan of Bob Dylan. I think, when it comes to Dylan, you're either a fan or not a fan. I'm not a fan, but it doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the fact that he wrote some damned fine lyrics and a couple tunes that I find catchy or at least tolerable. Ever since folks here in the United States started to take the COVID-19 pandemic more seriously, I've heard "The Times They Are A-Chanin'" referenced numerous times in the media. I revisited those lyrics this morning. They fit pretty perfectly with what's going on all over the world right now. They fit perfectly too when focused on just the United States.
"The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast. The slow one now will later be fast. As the present now will later be past. The order is rapidly fadin'. And the first one now will later be last, or the times they are a-changin'"
The 'curse' of course is this COVID-19 virus running amok around the world -especially in places where the government and citizens failed to take it very seriously. Here in the United States, the government is trying their best now to kick things into high gear and slow the spread of infections. The sad news is the country has failed for many years to plan for this moment. We're not set up to handle the shortages of medical supplies and increased numbers of test kits and test personnel necessary to get an accurate idea of just how widespread this virus is here in the states. Worldwide, supply chains are breaking because the global economy now operates on a just in time (JIT) supply chain methodology. JIT sets out to cut costs by reducing the number of goods and materials a firm holds in stock. Instead of holding a warehouse full of parts and supplies, firms now order just enough of what they need to get through a week or a month. It saves companies a lot of money in overhead, but when the supply chain breaks down -say, from a global pandemic- the company can no longer get the parts and supplies they need to continue business as usual let alone being able to increase their productivity and output to respond to the global crisis. For all our technological advances, we humans are still pretty stupid. That's especially true when we're enticed with large sums of money. Money and greed seem to trump common sense and pragmatism a majority of the time. As a result, we're now faced with some really bitter medicine to swallow. The federal and state governments must order strict measures which, in turn, causes a lot of people to panic and act in very irrational ways. Good luck finding any toilet paper or hand sanitizer or bleach-based cleaning products at your local grocery store. You can't even order that stuff from Amazon.com right now. Somehow those three items are going to save the entire population of the United States. It's laughably ridiculous.
I've never experienced anything like this during my half-century of existence. So many things have changed since I was a teenager in the 80s. I always look to my two teenagers to see how they're reacting to all of this and, outwardly at least, they seem to be pretty much unfazed. They're happy to have two weeks off from school. I know that for a fact. I'm just not sure they can really grasp the extreme gravity of this entire situation because the world that I grew up in no longer existed by the time they came along. Their phones are their social lifelines and where they get the bulk of their news and information. My son watches these videos on YouTube that sort of distill the news of the day into short one- or two-minute infomercials. Forget actually reading an entire news article from CNN or Reuters. Ha!
But it's not just teenagers that worry me. Adults around my age seem to be getting all their news and information from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. They're believing and sharing blatant lies and skewed or doctored facts that support a certain political or religious ideology. Opinions become facts that stir up societal and racial divisions among us and these divisions are then extremely difficult to undo or reverse. It's frightening on so many levels. It's times like these where a strong president would come in handy instead of the clown that currently occupies the White House. His focus seems to be intently on the stock market. I'll bet a lot of millionaires and billionaires share his focus too. Trump fans love his rhetoric and are enamored with his Hollywood-manufactured cult of personality while the rest of us are just staring at this dumpster fire of an administration in astonished disbelief. Bottom line: we need a real president now and we just don't have that in Donald Trump. We had some pretty idiotic president (in my opinion) in the past, but they all seemed to be smart enough to know they were in over their heads and made sure they surrounded themselves with smart people who could properly advise them what to do. That's not the case with Trump. He's fired everyone with any common sense the moment they tried to argue with him or bring him to reason. What remains now is an administration and senate full of "yes men" who cower to his every whim and demand. There seems to be this altered reality that all Trump supporters live in. No matter what he says, they believe. Any information (what the rest of us call 'facts') that contradicts the president becomes a product of this imaginary "deep state" that's being fueled and funded by all the evil Democrats. It's incredibly scary and puts our entire democracy in danger of eroding away and being replaced by authoritarian rule.
"Come senators, Congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall. For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled. There's a battle outside and it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin'."
Admittedly, I've never been a huge fan of Bob Dylan. I think, when it comes to Dylan, you're either a fan or not a fan. I'm not a fan, but it doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the fact that he wrote some damned fine lyrics and a couple tunes that I find catchy or at least tolerable. Ever since folks here in the United States started to take the COVID-19 pandemic more seriously, I've heard "The Times They Are A-Chanin'" referenced numerous times in the media. I revisited those lyrics this morning. They fit pretty perfectly with what's going on all over the world right now. They fit perfectly too when focused on just the United States.
"The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast. The slow one now will later be fast. As the present now will later be past. The order is rapidly fadin'. And the first one now will later be last, or the times they are a-changin'"
The 'curse' of course is this COVID-19 virus running amok around the world -especially in places where the government and citizens failed to take it very seriously. Here in the United States, the government is trying their best now to kick things into high gear and slow the spread of infections. The sad news is the country has failed for many years to plan for this moment. We're not set up to handle the shortages of medical supplies and increased numbers of test kits and test personnel necessary to get an accurate idea of just how widespread this virus is here in the states. Worldwide, supply chains are breaking because the global economy now operates on a just in time (JIT) supply chain methodology. JIT sets out to cut costs by reducing the number of goods and materials a firm holds in stock. Instead of holding a warehouse full of parts and supplies, firms now order just enough of what they need to get through a week or a month. It saves companies a lot of money in overhead, but when the supply chain breaks down -say, from a global pandemic- the company can no longer get the parts and supplies they need to continue business as usual let alone being able to increase their productivity and output to respond to the global crisis. For all our technological advances, we humans are still pretty stupid. That's especially true when we're enticed with large sums of money. Money and greed seem to trump common sense and pragmatism a majority of the time. As a result, we're now faced with some really bitter medicine to swallow. The federal and state governments must order strict measures which, in turn, causes a lot of people to panic and act in very irrational ways. Good luck finding any toilet paper or hand sanitizer or bleach-based cleaning products at your local grocery store. You can't even order that stuff from Amazon.com right now. Somehow those three items are going to save the entire population of the United States. It's laughably ridiculous.
I've never experienced anything like this during my half-century of existence. So many things have changed since I was a teenager in the 80s. I always look to my two teenagers to see how they're reacting to all of this and, outwardly at least, they seem to be pretty much unfazed. They're happy to have two weeks off from school. I know that for a fact. I'm just not sure they can really grasp the extreme gravity of this entire situation because the world that I grew up in no longer existed by the time they came along. Their phones are their social lifelines and where they get the bulk of their news and information. My son watches these videos on YouTube that sort of distill the news of the day into short one- or two-minute infomercials. Forget actually reading an entire news article from CNN or Reuters. Ha!
But it's not just teenagers that worry me. Adults around my age seem to be getting all their news and information from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. They're believing and sharing blatant lies and skewed or doctored facts that support a certain political or religious ideology. Opinions become facts that stir up societal and racial divisions among us and these divisions are then extremely difficult to undo or reverse. It's frightening on so many levels. It's times like these where a strong president would come in handy instead of the clown that currently occupies the White House. His focus seems to be intently on the stock market. I'll bet a lot of millionaires and billionaires share his focus too. Trump fans love his rhetoric and are enamored with his Hollywood-manufactured cult of personality while the rest of us are just staring at this dumpster fire of an administration in astonished disbelief. Bottom line: we need a real president now and we just don't have that in Donald Trump. We had some pretty idiotic president (in my opinion) in the past, but they all seemed to be smart enough to know they were in over their heads and made sure they surrounded themselves with smart people who could properly advise them what to do. That's not the case with Trump. He's fired everyone with any common sense the moment they tried to argue with him or bring him to reason. What remains now is an administration and senate full of "yes men" who cower to his every whim and demand. There seems to be this altered reality that all Trump supporters live in. No matter what he says, they believe. Any information (what the rest of us call 'facts') that contradicts the president becomes a product of this imaginary "deep state" that's being fueled and funded by all the evil Democrats. It's incredibly scary and puts our entire democracy in danger of eroding away and being replaced by authoritarian rule.
"Come senators, Congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall. For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled. There's a battle outside and it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin'."
