Please check out the Buddha quotes! There’s something good there for focus up philosophers and everyone. Positive thinking begets positive doing. I think it is said the Buddha’s last quote was about loving ourselves. Check them out. It is the post prior to this one.
Today is 12/10/20 I have included an earlier post to see where we are now. Possibly it will give us an insight to where we are going from here.
Worldwide cases of Coronavirus 69,631,143. Deaths due to Covid-19 1,583,267. Recovered- 48,267,599 Hooray.
Of the world population we are number one ranked with about 15,900,000 cases and just over 298,000 deaths. Yesterday was the highest death rate in one day. Over 3,000. One good news front is the recovered 15,210,000 (yay). We are not doing good for our citizenry. We need to wear masks, wash our hands often, stay far from others There are people who do not show symptoms and they can be spreading the virus. Err on the side of caution, always. A question I have and haven’t seen answered is what is this Coronavirus costing the U.S. in dollars and cents (Good Sense vs bad sense like not wearing a mask or denying there is a pandemic) ? Think of the cost in lost business, travel, tourism, hospital costs, unemployment benefits, etc. ad infinitum. I don’t even want to think about the enormity of it. Yet it has been on my mind. We know the airlines are hurting. We know the travel and tourism is way down. Restaurants are failing. On and on businesses are hurt. I don’t have a solid number for total downturn in business. My guesstimation is between 11% and 20% down in business loss. By the same token Australia which is relatively Covid-free is down 7%. P.M. Scott Morrison has ordered vaccines for all his citizens from England and will make them available Scott free. Do you like the alliteration? In Canberra, Australia capital territory the cases of Covid-19 are 117 cases recovered are 114 with 3 deaths. Admirable numbers for almost 400,000 people. The total deaths in all of Australia is around 900. New Zealand has 25 deaths.
Perhaps with better leadership we will do better. We will have a chance to see what president elect Biden can do. He is inheriting a tough opportunity. Let us all support him. If you have any sway with the Democrats please suggest that Biden contact all the world leaders to jointly improve the world’s situation. The virus, ecology, economics, all can use a common bond to assure we have a planet to leave to our grandchildren. Not a heated, toxic wasteland, deplete of oil, temps above the living range in most of the world, air practically unbreathable, water too polluted to drink.
We want and need a new energy. An energy that survives. Maybe magnets will help save the day. New sources of water desalination. New spiritual invectives, admonishing us to look within. Supporting our life, love and peaceful co-existence. Working together to benefit each other and our blue marble that has supported us so well up to now. Now we can choose to support it. Let’s do it with great and grand exuberance. Do it with vigor and the highest good for the greatest number. So mode it be.
What do we know now? The pandemic is rampant in this country. We have almost 900 deaths per million people. Italy, Spain and Belgium have over 1,000 deaths per million. In searching for the best places in the world to go might be Samoa or Vanuatu. Now I have never even heard of Vanuatu but they like Samoa have no deaths caused by Coronavirus. Vanuatu, near Australia, has one case and Samoa has two cases of the dis-ease.
Our world is changing and will take much time to recover. I say to people often that the good old days were the holidays of 2019. Think of last Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year is and will continue to be very different. News Year eve is going to be a special challenge. People want to party. Dr. Fauci has expressed his fear that two to three weeks after the holidays we will have another spike. Not that yesterday’s case load of over 218,000 new cases isn’t challenge enough. A seven day average of around 209,000 cases per day isn’t bad enough. The fact that this has been going on for this long without good support from our party in power in the U.S. government. California where I was last week has a mask order and a curfew. So let’s say it again, “Wear a mask, stay separated, wash your hands often and listen to scientists and medical professionals,” need I say more? I also use the paper hand towel in public restrooms to open the door after washing hands so I don’t physically touch the door handle. Then that paper towel is thrown in the trash. Learned that on cruises. We keep hand wipes with alcohol and hand wash in our vehicles. Use it when we get in the car after grocery shopping, etc. Hands, keys door handle, steering wheel and any thing touched are all wiped down. Be safe. E.
_______________________________
Earlier this year I wrote:
At this writing 4/10/20 there are over a million and a half worldwide cases of Corona virus worldwide. In the US there are close to a half a million. Deaths worldwide are over ninety five thousand with fourteen thousand plus in the USA alone. Not to put too fine a point on our pencil markings herein we might say we are failing miserably in the fight to overcome the spread of the virus. .We have good friends in the medical profession in Australia and maybe we, our government, can learn something from them. They now have a travel ban from city to country and visa-versa. People must have written permissions of necessity or job clearances to travel distances. Especially across state, province lines. The police will stop cars and turn them around without proper clearance to travel the highways. They are confined to home and no gatherings of more than two people are advised. Widespread business closings are enforced and open and honest communication is constantly evolving. There is information and advice to inform people about exactly what they can and cannot do. Businesses deemed to be essential will be open, social distancing enforced. Supermarkets, banks, pharmacies, c-stores, freight, food delivery and bottle shops are open. Police patrol stations, of course, are open. Pubs, clubs, cinemas, casinos, nightclubs, places of worship, gyms, sport activities were closed or shut down by order of the PM, Scott Morrison. Hairdressers are okay if social distancing is enforced and restaurants recommended to do takeaway cooking. Hearing from our friends that in Sydney the government has taken over several hotels and any Australian citizen who has traveled out of the country is sequestered there for fourteen days prior to returning to his or her home. Good idea? Very good idea, when we hear that most of the cases in New York are from a European derivative of the virus. How refreshing it would be to have open and honest communication from our president and government leaders. I listen to Dr. Fauci. When I went to Pepperdine University one of my professors told us we did not have communication if it wasn’t open and honest communication. What have we got now? Entertainment, sales pitches, condemnation and mis-education from the white house and friends. When we hear that medical professionals are stealing all the medical needs and supplies it makes us sad to hear figures about medical professionals deaths. Columbia university in Manhattan (NYC) has asked for volunteers because half of their staff has contracted Coronavirus. At a New York City hospital more than two hundred workers had been sick with the virus. The 30,000 people in New York with the disease are putting more than a strain on hospital front line, ER, ICU-Intensive Care Units, and other staff. Doctors and nurses are getting sick and dying in hospitals around the US and the world. We hear there is a shortage of masks, I forgot mine when my wife went in to the emergency room and the hospital would not give me one. We are running without a proper number of ventilators, and other health related garments and equipment. I was not old enough to remember WW 11/world war two, yet I have read and seen the effort we put forth to save the world for democracy. When this many people in America are threatened why not turn out all of our resources to fight this disease to save our democracy? Have we saved it in one generation and are losing it in this one? This pandemic is real, at least it seems real to me, how about you? Can we not influence our government leaders, especially the white house to take up the fight rather than trying to sell us on the prospective of their doing such a good job? Maybe conquering this virus would make America great. We are supposed to be a world leader and here we are falling so far behind that we have a majority of cases above any other country in the world. Does that sound right? I had a thought Yesterday amidst a headache that almost stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. Let’s suspend mortgage payments for at least two months and up to as long as this pandemic is threatening Americans. We bailed out the banks. It was the hard working Americans who suffered when the banks did not take care of business properly. They sold mortgages, and other instruments that the people at the top knew were unsustainable. Then they got money to bail themselves out of trouble. Does that sound fair or did you not get hurt in the crash? Well now we need them and let’s see how much they’re willing to help and bail us out. If mortgages are forgiven then rents should also be forgiven. I know people who pay from one thousand to five grand a month rent.
I also feel for the small businesses who have mortgages and small churches who may not have services because of Covid-19 and depend on contributions to survive. Could the larger, may I say richer churches assist them to survive? That is the clear thinking, fully revealed, free and unobstructed religious philosophies. The ones that give the congregation the power to think about their spiritual education realistically. Every person in the world can and should emulate the masters. The teaching of Jesus, Buddha, Babaji and Yogananda could be road maps for individuals. Emulate the masters. Do the right thing. Do what that inner wise knower directs. Meditate, meditate, meditate, the universe is available. Tune in to spirit whenever we can. Our soul knows the past, and present and creates the future for each of us. When we know the soul desires and wants above the body/brain needs we can and will think and act with the highest of integrity and honesty. Religion can teach that each human being is capable of the greatest good known. Will we do it exactly like Jesus, or St. Frances, or Gautama Buddha, or Parmahansa Yogananda, or Babaji or other saints? Probably not! Can we each do good things? We absolutely can. Leave no stone unturned until you find your path to the good, true and lovable. Focus Up Philosophers are now entreated to look for the good and praise it. Build a strong and reachable happy place in the upper middle of your brain. (About an inch above and between upper ears) Go there when you are making decisions. Focus up whenever you want to be, do and have more. I don’t mean money, I mean the best of human endeavors. Write until you have mastered that medium. Speak privately and in public until you have mastered that medium. Practice on your family now that we are forced inside. Record your talks and critique your presentation(s). Read good books. Try Shakespeare, Emerson, Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi and the Second Coming of Christ, Ernest Holmes, text book, The Science of Mind; Plato, The Republic and be sure to explore questioning; Will and Ariel Durant, especially The Lessons of History; Socrates; Aristotle; American poets, Frost, Dickinson, Whitman, T.S. Elliot, E.E.Cummings, Poe, and the like. My wife, Carole recommends Carl Sagan, and Ann Druyen, husband and wife team. Try Woolly by Ben Mezrich. He says that the politicians fear and dislike scientists and we must change that. Possibly a goal for Focus Up Philosophers, yes? Those are some of my thoughts on the soul and religion and we can get spiritual now or later We are already imbued with an inner wise knower. I think that when the government fails the bodies on the planet then they ought to learn and grow beyond their negativity. That’s only me, please understand. E.
P.S. Buddha quotes are great reading. Please go to the post and let me know what you think.