Archive: Opinions

What have we done wrong?  The joke going around is that 'Hindsight is 2020' is taking on a new meaning this year, but it is no joke - most of us can't wait for 2020 to be in our hindsight.  This year has brought one disaster after another.  I can't help but compare it to the story of Exodus and the ten plagues God brought down on Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't let the Moses' people go.

1 - The waters turned to blood, making them undrinkable: No blood, but we have suffered a drought this summer which is serious enough that the Tompkins County Health Department issued a water conservation advisory last week, advising, among other things, to fix dripping faucets.

2 - A swarm of frogs inside bedrooms and outside, covering everything:  We do have frogs, but not too many.  However, this week the Trump / Biden debate swarmed into bed rooms and living rooms.  The debate was a debacle.  It is an appalling plague.

3 - Lice:  We haven't had lice to my knowledge, but at our house we did have an infestation of ants, especially in the bathroom, for some reason.  My wife came up with a DIY ant trap that was quite effective, but it did feel like a plague seeing all those corpses every morning when I brushed my teeth.

4 - Wild animals: There have been some bear sightings in Lansing this year.  Also those cats that keep coming onto our property -- I don't know if they belong to the neighbors or are feral, but they have certainly become quite cocky.

5 - Pestilence killed most domestic animals: In the last hydrilla report a sighting at Cargill, just south of Myers Park, was listed.  Not strictly pestilence, and not really going to kill off all our domesticated animals, but it can cause oxygen depletion in the water, which can be fatal to fish.  Not to mention that if left unchecked, it could kill the lake.

6 - Boils: I am not aware of this plague, but there are still three months left in 2020.

7- Fiery Hail killing all crops: Wild fires have been devastating to the west coast, but I saw a smoke map recently that showed the smoke covering our nation and reaching as far as the east coast.

8 - Locusts: No locusts, but we did have murder hornets this year.

9 - Darkness: This has been a politically very dark year.  We did have literal dark at the end of last September, which, technically wasn't this year, but was certainly within a year's time.

10 - Death of all firstborn Egyptian sons: So far COVID-19 has killed over 207,000 Americans.  Sons and daughters.

All of which goes back to my original question: what have we done wrong?  The original plagues had to do with enslaving a whole race of people.  I don't think we're doing that (in the US) any more, but it would be easy to say a peek at Washington will provide the answer.  If we were to eliminate Washington would all these plagues go away?  Would a seismic shift in attitudes replacing the great philosophical divide with respect and understanding even when disagreeing stem the tide?

I don't know.  Meanwhile I am nervous about those boils...

v16i39