Oversubscribed
Do you mind if I put you on a brief hold? Before the pandemic we had no objection waiting to be connected to a home repair service or physician. But now, when the wait time is too long and the music is no longer tolerable, we might opt for a call back- or we just hang up. Our frustration and patience quotients are at all-time lows.
Life on hold for five months, caused by a suffocating pandemic, is exhausting. Wearing masks, washing hands, physically distancing from friends and isolating from family, require extra steps and deplete emotional and physical energy. Stress, worry, and negative thoughts contribute to our distorted perceptions of time.
Trying to stay hopeful and positive, we create routines to break up our days. We Zoom with doctors and book groups. We meet friends over fences, on decks, or in yards- six feet apart- weather permitting. Shorter days and cooler evenings are leading to brief, superficial, and unsatisfying encounters. And what do we have to show for our commitment to remaining COVID-free- parched hands, anonymity on neighborhood walks, and dwindling social interactions.
Some of us, masked and armed with hand sanitizer, take baby steps out of COVID-19 cocoons. Quick trips to the pharmacy and to restaurants for curbside pickup are the limits. Indoor dining, retail shopping, and motorcycle rallies are no longer go-to activities.
Seeking entertainment and distraction, we are freefaling in the land of subscriptions: newspapers, magazines, and cable television. Friend recommendations and scores of icons we never noticed on our smart TVs before COVID-19, beckon us to explore movie, music, news, and podcast channels. The number of opportunities is endless- but there is a no such thing as a free lunch or cable series.
Each channel has its own offerings, streaming services, and additional charges for foreign and international content, true crime, thrillers, drama, comedy, and animated film. Once hooked on a series we are bound to receive the message that leads us to registering and subscribing to an additional service- a free first month whets our appetites.
But unless we binge-watch, one month is not enough time to complete seventy-two episodes. Desperately, we grab our credit cards and scramble to retrieve long- forgotten login information and passwords. We acquiesce to re-enrolling for one more month and set alerts to remind us to unsubscribe before charges accrue on our credit cards. We are, indeed, oversubscribed!
So, who knew we could turn on almost any network or cable station, with no additional charge, to witness the final night of the Republican convention? While watching from our living room sofas in our UGGS and Snuggies with freshly popped bowls of popcorn, we tuned into a cast of thousands partying on the South Lawn of the people’s house or in the, now rose-less, Rose Garden. Surrounded by partisan placards and political rhetoric, maskless conventioneers participated in a potential superspreader poking their thumbs in the eyes of America.
Technically, the Hatch Act prevents civil service employees in the federal government from mixing government and politics, attending political rallies, using work emails to communicate political views, or participating in partisan conventions. So why do taxpayers tolerate one dime spent on crossed boundaries: participation by cabinet, military, and family members, or a naturalization ceremony used as a prop? This administration makes its own rules and follows the- Let them eat brioche- philosophy.
Some of us beyond the beltway actually care about ethics, laws, and integrity. But in this administration, Hatch Act violations are scoffed at, and will never find their way through the DOJ to the president’s desk. Nero fiddled while Rome burned; the President shreds norms while American values and traditions are sold out.
To close the four-day extravaganza, the Grand Old Party finale brought fireworks and an opera singer. Perhaps the tenor’s singing of one of opera’s best-known, most harrowing arias- Nessun Dorma- Let No one Sleep, from Verdi’s Turandot, punctuated the message of the night.
In the aria, Calaf, the tenor, expresses his triumphant assurance that he will evade his beheading and win the hand of the cruel princess. While he sings in the moonlit palace garden the princess has until dawn to guess his name or the deal may be off. No one in the kingdom is permitted to sleep. The aria ends, with vincero-I will win and represents the power of hope, love, and a calm, and a united kingdom. Spolier alert- there is a happy ending.
Like in Calaf’s haunting aria, our voices may be the heralding calls to heal our shattered nation and replace fear, hate, division and chaos with trust, moral compasses, truth, and calm.
As the historian Jon Meacham said, rather than a return to normalcy, we will move to a rejuvenation of decency. With only two months until the general election none must sleep; it will take every waking hour and every one of us, to protect our democracy and save the soul of America.
