May 6 th
Wednesday 2.45 pm. Hope and optimism have always been part of my character, but to attain these attributes you can’t purchase them off a supermarket shelf. There have to be other important ingredients too, like strong mixtures of your strength that are attached to your beliefs, which flow from your soul. BELIEF IN YOURSELF, WITHOUT THIS YOU WILL NOT GET OFF SQUARE ONE IN LIFE. Today Hope and optimism are essential in believing the Coronavirus is passing, as it’s been proved that some countries took the right steps earlier. I’ve mentioned to my friend Elena who comes from Banska Bystrica Slovakia, asking a few times over the past few weeks what is the death count is her country. She answered very few. When statistics are raised in the U.K, they keep referring to those with the highest death toll, as though it’s some sort of consolation if ours do not have as high statistics as another country. Occasionally a reference is made to South Korea and Germany, but through the earlier months the U.K. has never acted in the same way to combat this virus. I’ve just checked out Slovakia today and their first virus contact was shown on March 6th to a man of 52 whose son had returned from Venice. If one was to go on google and place what the present death rate is of Slovakia, it's astounding compared to Scotland that has the same population. In Slovakia 25 have died, and every death is sad and heartbreaking, but in Scotland the death toll, is 2,900. Having read the immediate response actions by the Slovakian government to fight this virus, it metaphorically seems to me like a DAVID AND GOLIATH act of impossible odds. But their quick and determined resolve and almost draconian reactions proved correct. Why did the U.K. or other countries not take notice of what Slovakia did? One can say it’s all hindsight, buts it’s not. With good leadership a leader thinks out of the box and does not mentally follow everyone else. THAT ONLY COMES FROM BELIEF IN ONE's SELF.
In 1665 in a village not far from where I live, the bubonic plague visited a village called EYAM. Its population was 1,000 people. They quarantined themselves in a famous act of self-sacrifice to prevent the plague from spreading. They had food and essentials of that time deposited by a boundary wall. The result was they lost a quarter of their population and prevented the plague from spreading. Such thinking like Slovakia, South Korea, and Germany too proved correct in comparison to the U.K. who have the unwanted and sad fact of a death toll reaching today of 30,076, now the second-highest in the world. I spoke of hope and optimism which is a tonic we all need today, and in my opinion, again Germany might be making a mistake by allowing football training to begin. Politicians always seem to want to please their voters at the cost in this case that could prove to be thousands of lost lives. That decision gives football supporters a belief that all will be well when the facts are still distant from the truth. Sport is important when times are normal, and when we have no vaccine yet, it will be like letting the wooden horse into Troy. Some top newspapers have qualified this thinking by saying it would be sheer madness to believe football training is to begin again. This is an unwanted message which may send out to thousands of football supporters, that everything is okay. Sport is about big money especially football, and it seems to me many are trying to push this ball back into play. Some top footballers who have great wealth can rightly afford to say I’m not going to play and risk my family getting the virus. Any footballer can say this, but maybe some are not strong enough to stand against the pressure from their club. I heard today on the radio with cricket, the football league, and other sports they need one billion pounds to bail them out if this lockdown continues with their sport.
When life and death is top of the list and thousands due to their circumstance are struggling to feed their children. Where is this moral compass pointing in times of great concern illustrating where we may go wrong in the direction with politicians appeasing everyone instead of being resolute and strong? Life can return gradually when certain risks are under control and the care homes and all hospitals have adequate Personal Protective Clothing and resources to tackle this crisis. As I said a few weeks ago the elderly in the care homes have been thrown to the wolves. There is great concern about economies collapsing as the funding to many countries are at staggering rates of money and are impossible to continue. The U.S.A. has announced they will put three trillion into their economy for the next three months, we are now into the realms where Alice in Wonderland would have feared to go. I could have given a far better economical salutation to how money could have been allocated better which would have been radical to the wealthy, but that’s another story. It’s clear the Air Craft Industry will see no holiday flights this year unless a vaccine was produced soon. Theatres, Cinemas, restaurants can bring in seating at a safe distance, but it would not be economical and viable as no profits will be returned and less tax will be taken by the government on smaller profits.
Then you cannot exclude people who are going to be psychologically harmed and scarred into even thinking of entering places, where there is a high density of people. So the vaccine is a priority. No vaccine would spell out clearly and excepting that happiness can be found in a far simpler way of living without travelling to faraway holidays and having so many material goods. Evidence now shows that obesity and health are now paramount to staying immune from the virus. Having to adapt is not something new, those in those war-torn countries after the Second World War and countries today like Syria will have to face such circumstances. We truly hope there can be a fast transition for those in poverty and those dying from malnutrition. HOPE AND OPTIMISM will have to be given by all countries where we will see eventually materialism fade away like the coronavirus. I heard on the radio this morning the head of a famous bank being asked what will they do when this three-month mortgage and credit card freeze ends. He couldn’t answer without great embarrassment.
I remember a few years back my youngest daughter went one pound over in her account, not intentionally, but because she had not been paid by the place she had worked at. She had to pay £30.00 for going over that one pound and it was not her doing. This scourge of banking must be eradicated like the Coronavirus as it has no empathy, no sense or feeling for the vulnerable. If anyone knew of the Medici banking family from Florence in 1434 for almost three hundred years, some of their traits are still around today. My message is still the same, great changes to move forward.
The other evening I watched on Netflix the days of ROBERT KENNEDY in 1968 who was so close to becoming the new President of the U.S.A. From a family of great wealth and already losing two brothers in the service of their country. Joe was the eldest of nine and was to be their heir apparent if he had not been killed as a bomber pilot in August of 1944. Robert's other brother President Jack Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. Robert chose to see and change the absolute poverty that was like a poisonous fungus in their rich country, and the Vietnam war was costing billions when it could have been spent at home. His assassination death on June 6th at 1.44 am at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles extinguished a bright light of hope. Throughout my life I felt Robert and his brother Jack's spirit close to me. I’ve mentioned before in one of my previous blogs I had a vision in the early hours of being in Spain on June 6th 1968 showing a foreboding white and silver cross slowly emerge out of a black sky. A few hours later at a swimming pool I heard of Robert's assassination. I would like to think when a star and light were extinguished in the pursuit of doing good Robert Kennedy’s soul will return in a new body again, bringing about great change. Today such a figure of conscience, sincerity, and ambition is hoped may appear again. Robert's famous quote in a speech he made said... SOME PEOPLE SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE AND ASK WHY, I HAVE DREAMS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN AND I ASK WHY NOT. Today the world needs HOPE AND OPTIMISM.
