My writing rhythms are off. The week away in D.C., while fabulous in all respects, tempered a devotion I had to mark each day of our dilemma with observations, local and national. It’s currently 5:24 a.m. on a Friday, and I’m wide awake and have been since 4 a.m. I was hungry, couldn’t sleep through the stomach growls, and besides, I couldn’t shut my mind off long enough to stave off the fear of not writing. You see, this is how I cope; well, it’s a large part of how I cope. You’ve seen the myriad instances of hobbies and activities we fill our days with as you keep up with these COVID Chronicles, but yesterday was another striking day of incivility as some like to cope with our local, state, and national virus problem by showing up at the state capitol with AR-15’s strapped to their chests while screaming at anyone who disagrees with their way of life. Now mind you, there’s only a few hundred of these people marauding around the legislative arena of Michigan, but because they achieve a Gilead appearance of militia awaiting anyone stepping out of line, they get prime pictures, news headlines, and laugh all the way back to their clandestine Confederate flagged hovels. I know where some of these folks hang out, and I know where some of them reside, and they have every right to live a life they choose as long as they don’t terrorize anyone to join their way of life. They can smoke, chew, drink, and carry-on while planning for the next Armageddon as much as they’d like, but leave me out of it. What really worries me is that, in the State of Michigan and in my local county, Emmet, there are government officials who want to give the gun and flag toters a majority vote. I absolutely understand the utterance of hate and the vitriol diatribe of anger from many walking the pathways around the capitol wanting their unemployment or piece of the Federal pie and the $600 checks few seem to be getting. Michigan’s unemployment system sucks as do most states when it comes to the necessity of providing, by statute, what they should be providing. That being said, I also understand the system has gotten overwhelmed like never before, so in my COVID thoughts after one month, why doesn’t the state pass out the $600 checks to the people on a weekly basis, and if necessary, catch up on the regular unemployment amounts coming from the state coffers? People need to eat and pay bills. But back to the camo folk. We’ve always had fringes in society that like being fringes, except now we have a president (I don’t like capitalizing the word as long as the current guy in the White House holds the position) who lives in the fringes. He doesn’t like factual science; he goads people to live in a cavernous disdain for each other; he relishes chaos so he can exist on the fringe; and he gives the fringe elements in our society a large voice while they are the vast minority of society. Vast! So as we trod our way through the pandemic in these United States, fewer and fewer seem united. At the greatest time of our current era in history when we need the most united approach to helping one another through these horrid times, we have our Federal government set-up to do just the opposite – and on purpose. Over the last three years, the degradation in our civility and common cause has created a universal fear and tension unseen since the Civil War. And interestingly enough, the same actors keep showing up to the party: Confederate flag wavers, Southern politicians, the far-right white Christian evangelicals, and the people who like to carry guns thinking everyone wants to shoot somebody – when in reality, these fringe groups are the ones doing all the shooting. Why these thoughts on a quite Friday morning? Because I think we’re at that cusp of change and the edge of despair, yet this is when we require the greatest resolve. Don’t give into the science haters, the distrustful, and the fear mongers. Don’t be shouted into silence. Don’t be intimidated into believing we should become a chapter in The Handmaid’s Tale. We can and will get through this with providing basic necessities for all and caring for the weakest among us and not stomping them into the ground on the way to some mystical Lost Cause. Solutions exist. Let those who want to blur the visions of our humanness yell into the caves of darkness they relish. Because that’s where they live by choice. You don’t have to.