April 27, 2020

Happy Monday!! Getting geared up for the weekly battle, are ya’? I do have some good news for you if you’ve been conflicted about rushing to the television each afternoon to watch the daily “COVID-19 briefing”, aka political rally. I have not been conflicted, since I refused to watch after the first few s__tshows, and instead read about or watched the highlights that evening. What is the good news? It looks like they ain’t going to happen anymore after Donnie through a tizzy fit Friday afternoon and walked off the stage without taking questions from reporters. Saturday and Sunday briefings also did not happen, Don was too busy tweeting. Woo hoo!!

It looks like we are beginning to enter into the next phase of the coronavirus situation and that is the stage that we begin opening up the country. I would say Phase I was from January through mid-March when people in the U.S. began getting the virus and spreading it to other people. There was not social distancing and no active management. We are now in Phase II, people are social distancing and we have ‘Stay at Home’ orders throughout the country. In Oregon, Phase II started March 23rd with the governor’s order, and my guess is it will be mid-May before we start seeing a gradual reopening. Some states started Phase II earlier and others later. Some states have begun to ease their shutdown orders, allowing some businesses to reopen. Those being Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and South Carolina. It seems to me the governors of those states are bowing to the pressures coming from workers and business owners wanting and needing to get back to work and business reopened for financial reasons. I understand and can empathize with these folks, but they are defying the advice of the medical community and the experts. In Georgia, you have the governor, Brian Kemp, who didn’t issue a shelter-in-place order until April 1st, effective April 3rd, after he said he had just learned that people could be asymptomatic with the virus. Funny the rest of the nation knew it in January. Georgia must be on another planet. Now he’s one of the first governors to open up his state, allowing some businesses to reopen, but is thankfully getting pushback from mayors and business owners. If our governmental decision makers would review the history of the 1918 flu pandemic, they would hopefully be more cautious in moving to Phase III. In 1918 there was a large resurgence of the virus in many cities when restrictions were lifted too early and, as a result, many more people died. Like I said earlier, I see Phase III in Oregon probably beginning in the middle of May and lasting into 2021. During this phase, ways of working, socializing, traveling, eating, congregating, and so on, will be developed by governments, companies, schools, and other affected organizations. It will definitely not be the ‘normal’ we had, but will become the new reality. What it will look like we don’t know at this point. Will we be wearing gloves and masks everywhere in public? Will we have our temperature taken when we enter a restaurant? Will there be large public gatherings at sporting events, concerts, weddings, and so forth? What will air travel look like? I feel for the business owners, school district administrators, processing plant managers, and all of the folks who will be working hard to develop the management protocols during this chapter. As I write this, there are many efforts to get us to Phase IV, the eradication of the virus via a vaccine. I don’t believe people will be comfortable returning to any kind of normalcy until a vaccine is developed, and who knows when that will be. For now, we just need to ‘hang in there’ and trust our government officials will make the right decisions for reopening the country, scientists are able to develop a vaccine sooner than later, and we don’t get into a civil war before this is over. Have faith, comrades!

Having been in a position of leadership during my career and a longtime student of leadership qualities and styles, I have been fascinated watching Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York as he guides his state through this crisis. He sits at his table and provides facts, statistics from experts, empathy, encouragement, humor, tough love, all done in a manner of calmness. He takes tough questions from reporters and he answers them without making snide remarks about that reporter or the news station he or she is associated with. I think his constituents trust him and believe in his leadership during this time of uncertainty. I won’t even do a contrast with the person who should be exhibiting these qualities because you know the difference. I know he has not always been thought of as a Saint, but New Yorkers are lucky to have this kind of leadership at this time.

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.”
— Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and motivational speaker

Somebody better take that phone away from the “stable genius” or delete his twitter account. It would be a noble act for the country. Like I said earlier, Donnie had a busy tweeting weekend. Saturday he tweets that it’s not worth the time and effort to hold White House Press Conferences, and on Sunday lashes out at the media on Twitter, calling for journalists to be sued and demands they return their “Noble Prizes” for their work reporting on the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Okay, so he misspelled Nobel only four times, like he knew the correct spelling, but obviously not the meaning of the Nobel Prize. I don’t think the journalists he was referencing received ‘Noble Prizes.’ Pulitzers perhaps? After getting filleted on Twitter, he deleted the posts, and guess what his defense was? For the second time in three days it was basically, ‘don’t you dumbs__ts know sarcasm? I was just joking.’ Won’t y’all please join me and Nancy Pelosi and say a prayer for Donald tonight?

Okay, that’s enough for today. Have a great evening!! Ziggyman