Country Time rolled out its “Littlest Bailout” plan earlier this summer.
Recognizing the COVID pandemic has wreaked havoc with lemonade stands across the nation, the company is offering budding entrepreneurs (re: kids 14 and younger) a chance to recoup their losses.
In exchange for a 250-word essay submitted on the company’s website and a photo of each entrant’s lemonade stand, Country Time will send 1,000 baby businessmen prepaid gift cards valued at $100 each.
In the essay, writers must explain how they will use the cards to “juice” — see what Country Time did there? — the economy.
By the time you’re reading this, my guess is that Country Time will already be inundated with entries. It’s a cute idea, right?
My rudimentary math skills indicate that $100 for 250 words works out to 40 cents a word, which is — ahem! — more than some people are paid for their writing.
If there’s a sticking point in the deal, it will be the photo. Even before the pandemic squeezed the life out of lemonade stands — see what I did there? — the practice was one that, in Shakespeare’s words, was more honored in the breach than the observance.
In other words, many adults like to say we gained business experience by running lemonade stands, but how many of us actually did?
I didn’t. During my formative years, I lived on streets where lemonade stands would either be decimated by wind from speeding trucks or where cars were so rare that they were akin to UFOs.
Foot traffic? Fuhgeddaboudit!
I have, however, had the experience of being a customer at a few lemonade stands. But given the suburban neighborhoods where I’ve lived as an adult, not as many as one might expect.
Most of these exchanges involve jogging or running — or crawling and crying, depending on the heat and my exhaustion level — past some enterprising kids, making the mistake of looking into their weepy eyes, and then promising to come back when I have money.
I generally do — come back, that is. I never run with money, unless you count Apple Pay on my phone as money, which you could, but what self-respecting lemonade stand accepts Apple Pay?
Come to think of it, what business anywhere accept Apple Pay? Whenever I ask, I’m met with a sad shaking of the head. Nope, sorry, not here, the cashiers say with a frown. These days, I have to assume they’re frowning beneath their COVID-repelling masks – the same coverings that their noses hang out of and that are worn to protect only their chins, apparently.
But I digress.
On those occasions when I return to a lemonade stand with change (back when change was plentiful and its scarcity was not a sign of the impending New World Order, according to all those conspiracy theorists holding court in their parents’ basements), I’m often not served lemonade, but Kool-Aid, and usually whatever unpopular flavors have been clogging Mom and Dad’s cupboard for the past three years.
Sometimes, the pitcher contains sugar. Most times, it doesn’t. If ice was ever part of the mix, it has long since melted, further watering down the strawberry-kiwi-raspberry concoction.
Nobody wants to be that guy, the one who complains about quality at a lemonade stand. So I drink what I’m given, try not to think about the last time the little barista washed her hands, and then go on my way.
Regardless of my execrable experiences, I hope this year’s crop of junior business people gets a share of those $100 windfalls and that they don’t all get gobbled up by giant corporations and the infamous lemonade lobby. Which is probably really a thing, right?
Good for Country Time for having some fun in a summer that isn’t exactly overflowing with it. Still, the company missed a golden opportunity to call this promotion Lemon Aid. A savvy copywriter could have fun with a tagline offering kids $100 in their pocket for not making lemonade in their pants.
Goes good with fudge, I hear.
See what I did there?
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Friday, July 24, 2020
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Mr. President, What a Big Mask You Have!
President Trump was photographed wearing a mask last Saturday, and the internet went wild.
He was visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center when the media captured the history-making moment. It didn’t take long for the derision to kick in.
Some online wags were pleased the mask shielded the public from the president’s weirdly-shaped mouth. Others cheered because they said he looked defeated and deflated.
I don’t know about that. In a rare move for me, I’m going to applaud the president for having the courage — just this once — to lead positively by example.
Of course, we can’t discount the possibility that his decision was politically motivated. Trump’s calculus about such matters is as shrewd as it is often accurate: Like a wounded animal with its paw caught in a trap, he knows when it serves him to act in a certain way, whether to endear himself to his base, to own the libs, or both.
So the mask may be an act of political expediency. Or not. It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that, by wearing it, he paves the way for the typical Trump supporter to do the same, to reverse course and put on a mask even after long, drawn-out Facebook rants about how our rights are being compromised by a piece of cloth over our mouths and noses.
Who knows how many lives Trump will save and how much illness he will prevent by the simple choice to wear that mask, even if only for a few minutes, even if in his secret heart of hearts, he still believes a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine and bleach works better.
Less publicized but just as significant, Trump told CBS News a few days after the hospital visit that Americans should listen to the CDC. “If it’s necessary, I would urge them to wear a mask and I would say follow the guidelines,” he told reporter Catherine Herridge.
While this is hardly a ringing endorsement for the efficacy of masks, it’s another step in the right direction. How exhausting it must be for Trump’s handlers to nurture anything like empathy in the man. Almost as exhausting as it is for the public to watch him slowly evolve into somebody with an iota of compassion — a case of one step forward, two dozen steps back.
Let’s face it, Trump needs some wins where the coronavirus is concerned. His administration’s handling of the pandemic has been horribly uneven, which is a euphemistic way of saying it has been a near-total disaster leading to more illness, fatalities and economic disruptions than necessary.
The national shutdown last spring, intended to give the country time to ramp up COVID testing and contact tracing, was instead so squandered that some experts now speculate a second shuttering of non-essential businesses and activities may be needed. By advocating for the nation to reopen too quickly, in defiance of his own administration’s plan to wait until 14 days of declining numbers, Trump presided over a Titanic-level catastrophe and spawned a Frankenstein-monster patchwork of state and local regulations festooned with red tape and contradictions. Meanwhile, President Nero waded into the culture wars, crowed about his ratings and pouted over his rally attendance.
His most definitive COVID action, announcing travel restrictions to and from China at the end of January (they went into effect on Feb. 2), could be seen as merely an extension of his usual America-first nationalism. In other words, he used COVID as a cover story.
Another bold action with a similar not-so-hidden agenda was a recent attempt to ship foreign college students back to their countries of origin if their courses were entirely online in the fall. His administration walked that back recently after threats of litigation and, one assumes, realization that these students subsidize many American students’ bills.
But timeout. I came to praise Trump, not to bury him, or however that line goes.
So ...
At least he’s wearing a mask and advising others to do the same. That’s a start. And while it would undoubtedly have been better had this realization hit him two months earlier, his detractors — if they truly desire best-case outcomes where the virus and the country are concerned — should encourage the better angels of Trump’s nature to unfurl their wings a little more often.
If that means admiring the emperor’s new mask, so be it.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
He was visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center when the media captured the history-making moment. It didn’t take long for the derision to kick in.
Some online wags were pleased the mask shielded the public from the president’s weirdly-shaped mouth. Others cheered because they said he looked defeated and deflated.
I don’t know about that. In a rare move for me, I’m going to applaud the president for having the courage — just this once — to lead positively by example.
Of course, we can’t discount the possibility that his decision was politically motivated. Trump’s calculus about such matters is as shrewd as it is often accurate: Like a wounded animal with its paw caught in a trap, he knows when it serves him to act in a certain way, whether to endear himself to his base, to own the libs, or both.
So the mask may be an act of political expediency. Or not. It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that, by wearing it, he paves the way for the typical Trump supporter to do the same, to reverse course and put on a mask even after long, drawn-out Facebook rants about how our rights are being compromised by a piece of cloth over our mouths and noses.
Who knows how many lives Trump will save and how much illness he will prevent by the simple choice to wear that mask, even if only for a few minutes, even if in his secret heart of hearts, he still believes a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine and bleach works better.
Less publicized but just as significant, Trump told CBS News a few days after the hospital visit that Americans should listen to the CDC. “If it’s necessary, I would urge them to wear a mask and I would say follow the guidelines,” he told reporter Catherine Herridge.
While this is hardly a ringing endorsement for the efficacy of masks, it’s another step in the right direction. How exhausting it must be for Trump’s handlers to nurture anything like empathy in the man. Almost as exhausting as it is for the public to watch him slowly evolve into somebody with an iota of compassion — a case of one step forward, two dozen steps back.
Let’s face it, Trump needs some wins where the coronavirus is concerned. His administration’s handling of the pandemic has been horribly uneven, which is a euphemistic way of saying it has been a near-total disaster leading to more illness, fatalities and economic disruptions than necessary.
The national shutdown last spring, intended to give the country time to ramp up COVID testing and contact tracing, was instead so squandered that some experts now speculate a second shuttering of non-essential businesses and activities may be needed. By advocating for the nation to reopen too quickly, in defiance of his own administration’s plan to wait until 14 days of declining numbers, Trump presided over a Titanic-level catastrophe and spawned a Frankenstein-monster patchwork of state and local regulations festooned with red tape and contradictions. Meanwhile, President Nero waded into the culture wars, crowed about his ratings and pouted over his rally attendance.
His most definitive COVID action, announcing travel restrictions to and from China at the end of January (they went into effect on Feb. 2), could be seen as merely an extension of his usual America-first nationalism. In other words, he used COVID as a cover story.
Another bold action with a similar not-so-hidden agenda was a recent attempt to ship foreign college students back to their countries of origin if their courses were entirely online in the fall. His administration walked that back recently after threats of litigation and, one assumes, realization that these students subsidize many American students’ bills.
But timeout. I came to praise Trump, not to bury him, or however that line goes.
So ...
At least he’s wearing a mask and advising others to do the same. That’s a start. And while it would undoubtedly have been better had this realization hit him two months earlier, his detractors — if they truly desire best-case outcomes where the virus and the country are concerned — should encourage the better angels of Trump’s nature to unfurl their wings a little more often.
If that means admiring the emperor’s new mask, so be it.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Saturday, July 11, 2020
Let's move cautiously on school reopening
Accepting the idea of schools reopening normally in the fall requires a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance.
On the one hand, we have leaders at various levels, including President Donald Trump, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and their down-ticket ideologues, who argue that education at all levels — from preschools through universities — must resume face-to-face classes in a few weeks.
Their rationales are varied. The one that sounds most plausible — because it appears to put children’s needs first — is the emotional and educational toll the pandemic has taken on students.
To be sure, this is an important consideration. Children and young adults, like all of us, are social beings who thrive on interactions with others. Even self-described introverts have recognized the challenges of being isolated for long periods during this pandemic.
Students also don’t all experience school shutdowns in the same way. Minority students and children living in poverty have had a tougher time. Some students have limited or no access to the Internet, and some have taken on caregiver or even breadwinner responsibilities, making it harder to stay current with their studies.
Buttressing this concern about student welfare (some might even say superseding it), is the argument that schools are necessary to the nation’s economic fabric. Not going back to school, or going back on a staggered schedule, would mean that parents have to make tough decisions about employment and daycare.
These choices would have a dramatic effect on the country’s financial welfare, especially in an election year when votes will be predicated as much on economics as public health.
Recognizing this reality, President Trump has in recent days resorted to public shaming, calling out Harvard for its decision to go mostly online for the fall and threatening to cut funding for schools that don’t reopen. We’ve seen attempts by his administration to force universities’ hands by vowing to send international students back home if they take only online classes, knowing that these students, who are more likely to pay full tuition and therefore subsidize lower rates for American students, are financial linchpins for their schools.
At the primary and secondary level, we’ve seen a curious reduction to the oft-repeated social-distancing rule, from six to three feet, to acknowledge the reality that the former is unfeasible in most schools.
We’ve seen the Ohio High School Athletic Association replace one leader who expressed a more cautious attitude about the resumption of high-school sports with one who is perhaps more willing to get players back on the fields and courts.
And we’ve seen a lot of passing the buck, from the federal to the state to the local level, to make the hard calls about how to enforce recommendations for safety in schools, with little or no money — and sometimes less funding — to implement them. Plausible deniability for those at the top, perhaps.
The cognitive dissonance stems from these actions and decisions about education occurring even as, around the country, officials are stalling and even reversing plans to reopen other institutions because of growing numbers of COVID infections.
As I write these words on July 7, new cases are up 72 percent from 14 days ago, while new deaths are down only 8 percent over that same period. Governor DeWine has mandated public mask-wearing in seven Ohio counties, with more likely to come.
Columbus’s Center of Science and Industry (COSI) has delayed its reopening. The on-again, off-again Canfield Fair is off again. A growing number of GOP senators won’t attend the Republican National Convention next month because of virus concerns, even as the Trump administration has attendees sign waivers saying they won’t sue if they catch COVID at one of his mask-optional campaign rallies.
COVID outbreaks are often traced to situations where people have gathered in large numbers or where they live in close proximity — parties, funerals, nursing homes. These are the same sorts of clusterings that will occur when students return to campuses and classrooms this fall.
Little has been said of students who live with parents who may be at higher risks for complications from the virus, or the 7% of students who live with their grandparents.
Nor has much consideration been given to teachers and other staff, many of whom are in elevated-risk categories based solely on age. For instance, 37% of college faculty are 55 or older (compared with 23% of workers in general). Protecting the adults who interact with students must also be a priority.
As many people who read this column regularly know, I am a full-time high-school teacher and a part-time college instructor. I want nothing more this fall than to look out over multiple classrooms of students, conversing with them and allowing them to interact with each other.
I also recognize that “safety” is never assured. There always will be some degree of risk associated with anything worth doing — from crossing the street to sitting in a lecture hall.
But given all the unknowns with COVID — the concerns over how long it lingers in the air, the radically different ways it affects patients, the surging numbers even in the heat of summer, the lack of a vaccine or even effective treatments — and even acknowledging the emotional and educational needs of students, it would be prudent to take an overly cautious approach to school this fall.
Start slowly. Limit face-to-face interactions to a few times a week with smaller numbers of students, mandatory face coverings for all, frequent cleanings between classes, and an efficient system of shifting between in-person and online environments if or when infections spike.
It’s not perfect, but it’s not forever. Better this way than roaring full-throttle into the great unknown.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
On the one hand, we have leaders at various levels, including President Donald Trump, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and their down-ticket ideologues, who argue that education at all levels — from preschools through universities — must resume face-to-face classes in a few weeks.
Their rationales are varied. The one that sounds most plausible — because it appears to put children’s needs first — is the emotional and educational toll the pandemic has taken on students.
To be sure, this is an important consideration. Children and young adults, like all of us, are social beings who thrive on interactions with others. Even self-described introverts have recognized the challenges of being isolated for long periods during this pandemic.
Students also don’t all experience school shutdowns in the same way. Minority students and children living in poverty have had a tougher time. Some students have limited or no access to the Internet, and some have taken on caregiver or even breadwinner responsibilities, making it harder to stay current with their studies.
Buttressing this concern about student welfare (some might even say superseding it), is the argument that schools are necessary to the nation’s economic fabric. Not going back to school, or going back on a staggered schedule, would mean that parents have to make tough decisions about employment and daycare.
These choices would have a dramatic effect on the country’s financial welfare, especially in an election year when votes will be predicated as much on economics as public health.
Recognizing this reality, President Trump has in recent days resorted to public shaming, calling out Harvard for its decision to go mostly online for the fall and threatening to cut funding for schools that don’t reopen. We’ve seen attempts by his administration to force universities’ hands by vowing to send international students back home if they take only online classes, knowing that these students, who are more likely to pay full tuition and therefore subsidize lower rates for American students, are financial linchpins for their schools.
At the primary and secondary level, we’ve seen a curious reduction to the oft-repeated social-distancing rule, from six to three feet, to acknowledge the reality that the former is unfeasible in most schools.
We’ve seen the Ohio High School Athletic Association replace one leader who expressed a more cautious attitude about the resumption of high-school sports with one who is perhaps more willing to get players back on the fields and courts.
And we’ve seen a lot of passing the buck, from the federal to the state to the local level, to make the hard calls about how to enforce recommendations for safety in schools, with little or no money — and sometimes less funding — to implement them. Plausible deniability for those at the top, perhaps.
The cognitive dissonance stems from these actions and decisions about education occurring even as, around the country, officials are stalling and even reversing plans to reopen other institutions because of growing numbers of COVID infections.
As I write these words on July 7, new cases are up 72 percent from 14 days ago, while new deaths are down only 8 percent over that same period. Governor DeWine has mandated public mask-wearing in seven Ohio counties, with more likely to come.
Columbus’s Center of Science and Industry (COSI) has delayed its reopening. The on-again, off-again Canfield Fair is off again. A growing number of GOP senators won’t attend the Republican National Convention next month because of virus concerns, even as the Trump administration has attendees sign waivers saying they won’t sue if they catch COVID at one of his mask-optional campaign rallies.
COVID outbreaks are often traced to situations where people have gathered in large numbers or where they live in close proximity — parties, funerals, nursing homes. These are the same sorts of clusterings that will occur when students return to campuses and classrooms this fall.
Little has been said of students who live with parents who may be at higher risks for complications from the virus, or the 7% of students who live with their grandparents.
Nor has much consideration been given to teachers and other staff, many of whom are in elevated-risk categories based solely on age. For instance, 37% of college faculty are 55 or older (compared with 23% of workers in general). Protecting the adults who interact with students must also be a priority.
As many people who read this column regularly know, I am a full-time high-school teacher and a part-time college instructor. I want nothing more this fall than to look out over multiple classrooms of students, conversing with them and allowing them to interact with each other.
I also recognize that “safety” is never assured. There always will be some degree of risk associated with anything worth doing — from crossing the street to sitting in a lecture hall.
But given all the unknowns with COVID — the concerns over how long it lingers in the air, the radically different ways it affects patients, the surging numbers even in the heat of summer, the lack of a vaccine or even effective treatments — and even acknowledging the emotional and educational needs of students, it would be prudent to take an overly cautious approach to school this fall.
Start slowly. Limit face-to-face interactions to a few times a week with smaller numbers of students, mandatory face coverings for all, frequent cleanings between classes, and an efficient system of shifting between in-person and online environments if or when infections spike.
It’s not perfect, but it’s not forever. Better this way than roaring full-throttle into the great unknown.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Saturday, July 4, 2020
A quick trip around the world, COVID-style
I’m catching up with old friends this summer.
Their names are Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, protagonists of Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days.” I last sort of read the book in grade school, when I cheated my way through a report with the Classics Illustrated version. But coronavirus lockdown makes strange bedfellows, so now I’m reacquainting myself.
As the name indicates, the novel follows Fogg’s attempt to circumnavigate the globe in an amount of time that would have been fast to readers in the nineteenth century and appears glacial to readers in the twenty-first.
Their names are Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, protagonists of Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days.” I last sort of read the book in grade school, when I cheated my way through a report with the Classics Illustrated version. But coronavirus lockdown makes strange bedfellows, so now I’m reacquainting myself.
As the name indicates, the novel follows Fogg’s attempt to circumnavigate the globe in an amount of time that would have been fast to readers in the nineteenth century and appears glacial to readers in the twenty-first.
A quick Google search — hey, it’s the Internet, so it can’t be wrong — indicates a similar trip around the Earth in 2020 would take 45.5 hours, plus time to refuel the plane.
Santa, of course, does it all in one night. But I digress.
Fogg, the epitome of stiff-upper-lip British privilege, spends a large part of the voyage, whether by boat, train or elephant, playing whist, a card game I don’t even pretend to understand, and ignoring the cities and countries he visits.
By contrast, his loyal French manservant, Passepartout, is much more enamored by people and cultures along the way, and is hence more relatable. A classic fish out of water, he mistakenly sets foot in a forbidden temple in Bombay and passes out in an opium den in Hong Kong. (I’m not sure this last part was included in the Classics Illustrated version.)
One scene near the end of the novel speaks eloquently to our current pandemic.
Fogg and Passepartout are traveling across the Rockies by rail when the train stops. One of those challenges that happens exclusively in adventure stories is about to occur: The suspension bridge ahead is too rickety to cross.
The only option is to walk 15 miles around the river, estimated to take six hours, and catch a replacement train on the other side of the tracks. Passengers will be delayed, and Fogg and Passepartout will miss their 80-day deadline, but it’s the safest, most prudent course.
Then the engineer, described by Verne as “a true Yankee,” offers an alternative. They can cross the bridge anyway, safety and prudence be damned, trusting in the train’s speed to carry them through.
Passepartout tries to offer a sensible compromise, but nobody wants to hear it. Indeed, before he can explain his idea, he is shouted down, accused of cowardice. The decision to cross quickly is made.
This is as apt a metaphor for today’s coronavirus situation as one could imagine. We Americans are all on a train, chugging toward a rickety old suspension bridge, which represents a patchwork system of local and state reopening plans, an uneven and ineffective federal response, the politicization of masks, the desire to get back to our restaurants, department stores, schools and sports so strong that we ignore science and expert opinion.
Below the bridge, mounting infection rates, prolonged economic distress when businesses must again be shuttered, and more death.
On the other side, “normalcy.” Our orderly, scheduled lives.
Other countries, many of which have weathered the virus and its fallout more readily than we, are demonstrating how a more unified approach is safer and more effective. They’re shaking their heads — and closing their borders. Like Passepartout, they are finding our “proposed experiment a little too American.”
And for a growing number of states, the recovery train is careening off the tracks, either because the locomotive —emphasis on the “loco” — is going too fast, because the plan is too weak to support it, or both.
As for the scene in the novel?
Well, the engineer’s plan works, even though it would make a better metaphor if it didn’t.
The conductor backs up the train for almost a mile and then barrels toward the bridge, hitting it at 100 mph. “The train leaped, so to speak, from one bank to the other, and the engineer could not stop it until it had gone five miles beyond the station,” writes Verne.
But no sooner does the train cross than the bridge collapses.
Passepartout’s plan, by the way, was to have the passengers disembark, cross the bridge on foot, and then send the train across.
It’s the equivalent of a slow, careful reopening of America, based on the best recommendations of epidemiologists and other health officials, not the fantasies of business leaders and campaigning officials.
Yet nobody wants to hear Passepartout’s plan, and few Americans, it seems, want to hear people — “sheeple,” as we are disparagingly called — begging for more caution, more testing and, at the very least, masks in public.
Instead, it’s full steam ahead in the battle with a virus that has also gone around the world in about 80 days.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Santa, of course, does it all in one night. But I digress.
Fogg, the epitome of stiff-upper-lip British privilege, spends a large part of the voyage, whether by boat, train or elephant, playing whist, a card game I don’t even pretend to understand, and ignoring the cities and countries he visits.
By contrast, his loyal French manservant, Passepartout, is much more enamored by people and cultures along the way, and is hence more relatable. A classic fish out of water, he mistakenly sets foot in a forbidden temple in Bombay and passes out in an opium den in Hong Kong. (I’m not sure this last part was included in the Classics Illustrated version.)
One scene near the end of the novel speaks eloquently to our current pandemic.
Fogg and Passepartout are traveling across the Rockies by rail when the train stops. One of those challenges that happens exclusively in adventure stories is about to occur: The suspension bridge ahead is too rickety to cross.
The only option is to walk 15 miles around the river, estimated to take six hours, and catch a replacement train on the other side of the tracks. Passengers will be delayed, and Fogg and Passepartout will miss their 80-day deadline, but it’s the safest, most prudent course.
Then the engineer, described by Verne as “a true Yankee,” offers an alternative. They can cross the bridge anyway, safety and prudence be damned, trusting in the train’s speed to carry them through.
Passepartout tries to offer a sensible compromise, but nobody wants to hear it. Indeed, before he can explain his idea, he is shouted down, accused of cowardice. The decision to cross quickly is made.
This is as apt a metaphor for today’s coronavirus situation as one could imagine. We Americans are all on a train, chugging toward a rickety old suspension bridge, which represents a patchwork system of local and state reopening plans, an uneven and ineffective federal response, the politicization of masks, the desire to get back to our restaurants, department stores, schools and sports so strong that we ignore science and expert opinion.
Below the bridge, mounting infection rates, prolonged economic distress when businesses must again be shuttered, and more death.
On the other side, “normalcy.” Our orderly, scheduled lives.
Other countries, many of which have weathered the virus and its fallout more readily than we, are demonstrating how a more unified approach is safer and more effective. They’re shaking their heads — and closing their borders. Like Passepartout, they are finding our “proposed experiment a little too American.”
And for a growing number of states, the recovery train is careening off the tracks, either because the locomotive —emphasis on the “loco” — is going too fast, because the plan is too weak to support it, or both.
As for the scene in the novel?
Well, the engineer’s plan works, even though it would make a better metaphor if it didn’t.
The conductor backs up the train for almost a mile and then barrels toward the bridge, hitting it at 100 mph. “The train leaped, so to speak, from one bank to the other, and the engineer could not stop it until it had gone five miles beyond the station,” writes Verne.
But no sooner does the train cross than the bridge collapses.
Passepartout’s plan, by the way, was to have the passengers disembark, cross the bridge on foot, and then send the train across.
It’s the equivalent of a slow, careful reopening of America, based on the best recommendations of epidemiologists and other health officials, not the fantasies of business leaders and campaigning officials.
Yet nobody wants to hear Passepartout’s plan, and few Americans, it seems, want to hear people — “sheeple,” as we are disparagingly called — begging for more caution, more testing and, at the very least, masks in public.
Instead, it’s full steam ahead in the battle with a virus that has also gone around the world in about 80 days.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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