Mark Small

To my friends: an update. 1) I've not had any symptoms since yesterday. 2) Still earliest I could get in for a test was Wednesday (tomorrow). 3) I'm self-quarantined pending results - & then have to see what protocols say. If I stay self-q'd for next # of days, so be it.

Now: I'll be off of here for a while. As our friend Jeff says - Peace & Love.

Began 2 feel feverish this afternoon Called friends so they're aware & we'll check in I get tested Wednesday: earliest available. If I feel need 2 go 2 ER, I shall. 4 now: chicken soup, ice wtr. I'm lucky: live w/my cat It would B awful to be sick w/loved ones unable to be there.

We need to see the reality of COVID so that more people do not die. After all, with the current occupant of the Oval Office is playing golf, we need to make a pandemic with a death toll over 250 million more real - so that those numbers are not mere graphics. 8/8

People in a gray area were swayed one way in 2016. Some were swayed another way in 2020. Survivors of those who have died and those who have survived know the reality of the pandemic. An El Paso nurse on TV described four freezer trucks there for the dead. 7/8

Fools who doubt science and embrace Q’Anon idiocy will not be swayed by evidence. A reality of the USA today is that people in a gray area, unless confronted with facts, give these fools’ ravings credence. Video of people hit by COVID needs to be given far more air time. 6/8

The Pentagon learned. “News” from later conflicts became managed. Lincoln said: “Let the people know the facts and the public will be safe.” As gruesome as death and suffering from COVID is, we need to see those people as they suffer and die. 5/8

We left Vietnam. Many were opposed to U.S. military involvement there, but also the American viewing public got tired of seeing killed & wounded on TV. Ratings for Vietnam took a dive. But no one doubted people were killed & wounded. 4/8

The premise of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was more than questionable. As Senator Goldwater said: “If we sent them there to win, we sent too few. If we sent them there to lose, we sent too many.” The Pentagon Papers showed no numbers were sufficient to win. 3/8

Numbers were made real by journalists, on the air, who ducked gunfire and reported Americans being killed & wounded. They also showed a Vietnamese man, hands bound, shot in the head by a Vietnamese officer with a pistol. A naked child ran, in terror, from a napalm attack. 2/8

After the U.S. committed large numbers of troops in Vietnam, each evening the TV news - a major source of information - showed a graphic of numbers of U.S. troops killed & wounded. News moved beyond graphics. 1/8

I've been researching historical "coincidences" and sometimes - they don't simply coincide (or, as trumpers might say, they don't "coincident"). For example - "AH." Think I mean a specific dictator"? How many times do people post A**H*** on here? Hmmm?

Good night, my friends. Tomorrow the work week resumes. We have a lot yet to do, each in her or his own way.

Maybe trump pardons everyone in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Paperwork takes time. Maybe justice really would be served. As the people pardoned walk out, trump is escorted in and processed. Then again, he’d have the place to himself. 7/7