It’s a simple procedure. You take one elastic hook and pull it behind an ear. You then take the other elastic hook and pull it behind your other ear. Then you adjust the cloth portion over your mouth and nose. VOILA! You’re done! You’ve put on a mask to help protect yourself and others from the coronavirus. See?! I told you it was simple. Easy peasy! And yet Donald Trump, the President of the United States, the leader of our country and the free world won’t do it.

We’ve been fighting the outbreak of coronavirus in the United States for almost three months. The numbers are daunting. Over 1.6 million confirmed cases with ninety-five thousand dead. We’re told the best way to keep from becoming one of those statistics is to practice social distancing and when out in public WEAR A MASK! Although all fifty states are now at least partially open, we’re still told to practice those two things. Not just in a few states….not in ten or twenty states….all fifty states want you to do those two simple things. Every. Single. ONE!!!! And when states that are run by Trump lackeys tell you to wear a mask, you should take it seriously.

Yesterday, Don took a road trip to the state of Michigan. He decided to visit a Ford Motor plant, in Ypsilanti, where they are making ventilators….yanno those machines that help people breathe. The workers in that plant are making machinery that helps keep people with coronavirus alive. The workers in that plant are risking their lives so others can live. They are some of the American heroes during this pandemic.

Ford asks one thing and only one thing when politicians come to see what’s happening at the plant…WEAR A MASK!

When informed that Don was coming to pay a visit, he was informed of the policy. Being the privileged little putz that he is, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. One little thing and it was too much for him. Did I say privileged?

He says wearing a mask shows weakness. I think what really shows weakness is ignoring a deadly virus for a couple of months and having thousands die because of it. We’ve seen members of his family wearing a mask. Melania, Ivanka and Jared have all be shown wearing masks. Does he consider them weak?

If it’s good enough for them, why not him? If it’s good enough for all Americans, why not for the person who serves us?

His behavior sure wasn’t good enough for the Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel. She told CNN:

“He’s conveying the worst possible message. And I hope that the voters of Michigan will remember this when November comes, that he didn’t care enough about their safety, he didn’t care about their welfare, he didn’t respect them enough just to engage in the very simple task, the painless task, the easy task of wearing a mask when he was provided one. And so I hope that we’ll have a new president soon enough who does respect people more than this president does.”

Not only doesn’t he care about their safety, he’s setting an example to his supporters. They see him without a mask and think if it’s okay for him, it’s okay for us. That’s why you see these public confrontations at places like Costco and Walmart. You can blame all of them on Donald J. Trump. Every single one.

Don did say he wore a mask during the no press cameras tour. A photo even surfaced of him in the navy blue face mask.When asked about why he didn’t wear it in the rest of the plant he said, “I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.” 

It’s just another Trump lie. This week alone we’ve heard about Obamagate, hydroxychloroquine, voter fraud, the unmasking of Mike Flynn and now this. Four more to go with the tens of thousands other lies over the last three-plus years. Nothing new!

Attorney General Nisser said it best, “Today’s events were extremely disappointing and yet totally predictable.” 

That perfectly describes yesterday and the last three-plus years.

Related Post: I hope Donald Trump isn’t lying about hydroxychloroquine

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BY SANDRA GUY

We’re now only too aware that a cough and shortness of breath are COVID-19’s most dramatic symptoms, forcing some patients to be intubated and put on ventilators.

So recognition of “World No Tobacco Day” on May 31 — designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) — takes on tremendous import this year.

This year’s theme: Telling young people that marketers may try to entice them with fun flavors, hip slogans and social media hype — but the truth is that smokers are likely to be more vulnerable to COVID-19, according to a WHO news release.

That’s because touching your fingers, or a contaminated cigarette or vaping cartridge, to your lips increases the chances of transmitting coronavirus.

Smokers also may be at increased risk of having reduced lung capacity, leaving them particularly vulnerable to a virus marked by breathing difficulty and its propensity to morph into pneumonia.

“It would be reasonable to think that any condition that potentially affects the lungs, be it chronic or acute effects from such behavior as smoking or vaping, regardless of the ingredients inhaled, could play a role in making someone more susceptible to complications from the disease,” said Dr. Albert Rizzo, the American Lung Association’s Chief Medical Officer, in a press release.

Public health experts also warn the vapor and smoke may contain virus particles, as can chewing-tobacco spit.

In March, the New York State Academy of Family Physicians called for a ban on sales of tobacco and e-cigarettes during the pandemic.

The World Health Organization wants everyone to take it a step farther by urging young people to beware the tobacco industry’s marketing campaigns, whether they be on social media, in pop culture or on school campuses that may start gradually reopening in the Fall or in 2021.

Experts say people who are addicted to vaping or smoking should consult their doctor to see if they should use a nicotine patch or other stop-smoking products such as nicotine gum.

What does the new normal mean for your future?

Empower, embrace are strong words from author and former Nevada Attorney General George J. Chanos in his new book Millennial Samurai that offers a roadmap for facing the challenges that lie ahead.

COVID-19 has changed the world in ways we couldn’t have imagined as little as a few months ago.

How can we prepare this new world?

Chanos believes that the best way to prepare for the post COVID-19 future is for today’s leaders to educate and inspire tomorrow’s leaders. 

To these ends he is donating one million digital copies of new book “Millennial Samurai” here.

The book was inspired by a major heart attack that Chanos suffered in November of 2012. His brush with death left him resolved to prepare his daughter and nephew for the future.

In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the timing for his book couldn’t be better. His desire to prepare his family for a future, that he knew would be nothing like his own past, resulted in eighteen months of research and the 2019 publication of “Millennial Samurai: A Mindset for the 21st Century.”

“Millennial Samurai” offers hope and help for millennials and others to build their minds, their confidence and their readiness for the future.

“To survive and thrive in the 21st Century, you will need to pivot and adapt to a rapidly and radically changing environment,” says Chanos about his new book that focuses on a movement to empower people to embrace change.

Chanos explains in his book that America is at a tipping point with radical changes already under way. He says, “in a time when we should be planning and preparing for the future, we are instead divided by race, age, sex, religion, economics and identity politics – and we are paralyzed by political dysfunction.”

“Millennial Samurai” is Chanos’s way of being part of the solution to these problems. His goal is to guide the millennial generation, and beyond, to ready themselves for the future as we rise out of the COVID-19 pandemic and encounter what he describes as a “tsunami of technological change on the horizon.”

About Chanos

George J. Chanos grew up in Wauwatosa Wisconsin and attended Wauwatosa West High School. Chanos served as Nevada’s 31st Attorney General from 2005-2007, where he administered Nevada’s Department of Justice and acted as the state’s chief legal officer. 

Prior to serving as Attorney General, Chanos had a legal career representing individual and corporate clients on all matters relating to growth and management of their businesses.

Today, Chanos resides in Las Vegas as an author, speaker and business consultant. He has served on numerous boards, both civic and corporate. For the last ten years he has served as Chairman of Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop Inc., with over 100 stores in 19 states, where he advises and mentors his Millennial partners. 

Other books by Chanos

“Seize Your Destiny: Choices That Lead to a Happy, Successful and Meaningful Life” (pub. 2016).

In addition to free digital copies of “Millennial Samurai.” hard copies are available on Amazon.

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I’m chuckling. How well I know the frustration my friend is experiencing. For decades I went through the same exercise, seeking a definitive answer for the imponderable.

Eureka, I shouted, after reading Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” All I have to do to find my reason for being is to identify a purpose in life that I feel good about, and then imagine that outcome.

But wait, is that a priori insight that comes from reasoning based on truths presumed self-evident? Or a posteriori knowledge acquired on the basis of proven experience?

Duh. My brain reeled. The search continued ad infinitum until the whole process became ad nauseam!

And then the paradox; after years of futility I gave up the search… and the answer came to me.

It is not an exercise for the brain. It is a visceral exploration that occurs in the heart, where our feelings are held.

A baby has the answer.

In fact, a baby IS the answer.

Having been nurtured by uterus and placenta it arrives as consciousness, aware of its existence, with the capacity to feel, perceive and experience subjectively. In that moment we are watching a sentient being experience THE FIRST MOMENT OF LIFE.

It is a miracle – the first moment of consciousness, a sentient being – the event itself a definition of life itself. The birth of awareness.

Now, exploding into the tableau, the miracle becomes more than biology turning clay into animation; another phenomenon makes itself felt with undeniable, unfathomable force. We are overwhelmed with LOVE.

The mother and those present at the miracle do not view the baby and methodically comment on its metabolism and homeostasis. They are flooded in emotion. They have indescribable feelings; a thesaurus of layered sensations: euphoria, jubilation, ecstasy…

Baby and witnesses – connected. Intense feelings of deep affection intertwined. The bond is unseen by the eye, but unbreakable.

When you witness life come into existence, you are not a clinician in a lab, but a human connected to the event amid a floodtide of rapturous feelings.

These are the connections that give life meaning! They are the moments when we are alive to our feelings!

They occur when we are vulnerable, revealing, trusting; when we share commonalities and connect to another person who shares his/her vulnerability, deep revelations and trust. ‘On the same wavelength becomes more than a cliché,’ it is a magical, mysterious ride on the same shaft of universal energy. And we are connected in the birth of the moment.

We are at a workshop together talking about our childhoods. The memories of your father, deceased for many years, come flooding into mind… the love you felt for him, the terrible grief at his loss… you are bereft, sobbing, lost in sadness. At the same time, my memories of my father, deceased for many years, come flooding into mind. I know all too well the feelings of love, the feelings of sadness, the poignancy of the two emotions crashing against me, wave and ebbtide, leaving me limp. We are connected. We are one. We are alive. The bond is lasting. Years later, we are in a support group. The conversation veers to a topic we often have talked about. Our eyes meet and sly smiles break out. Nothing is said. No need to speak. We are connected.

When I have difficulty answering the existential question, I remind myself; I am thinking about life rather than living it. I am stuck on a didactic jag. Better to vacate the scientific approach that engages my mind and browse the mystic poets, the sorcerers who write in the sand.

Even
after
all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
“you owe me.”
Look
what happens
with a love like that –
it lights the whole
world.

And my favorite:

One regret that I am determined not to have
when I am lying upon my
death bed
is that we did not kiss
enough.

The lyrical Persian poet, Hafiz (1320 – 1389)