PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

There’s that word again – roils.

It’s one of my favorites because just allowing it to roll off the tongue tends to convey more than the just the word itself.

In this case, the coronavirus epidemic – no, it’s a pandemic – is having a huge effect on politics, as well on everyday life, which, of course, affects politics.  No longer is the presidential race top-of-mind for many Americans.  Surviving the pandemic is.

For one thing, commentary from politicians running for president have had to take a back-seat to the basic survival instincts of all Americans who are now facing huge threats unknown before, with all due respect to Ebola and SARS.

So, that said, here are a few of my perceptions, which I provide because I have little to do other than to sit at home and, to a degree, self-quarantine:

• It took President Donald Trump a long time – too long – to recognize the seriousness of the threat and, while his administration has been taking some new actions, the risk always is that he will react as a narcissist. It’s always all about him, not the good of the American public.
• FOX News and other right-wing outlets continue to spout invective. Things have changed a bit lately when the reality of the virus struck home even to some of the so-called “reporters” at FOX, but the outlet continues to circulate innuendo and falsehoods as a matter of course, contending that it has the best and final information, often from one Donald Trump.
• On the Democrat presidential campaign trail, things appear to be getting down to a central reality – Joe Biden will win and Bernie Sanders will have to settle for hoping that his platform will somehow wend its way into Biden’s campaign.
• The most recent debate between Biden and Sanders – mercifully, there was no on-site audience, which allowed the contenders to focus on each other – revealed commentary about health policy. For his part, Sanders continued to contend that the answer to every question was his single payer proposal despite the current failures of Italy’s system.  Biden demurred, urging an aggressive response to the pandemic while retaining basic health care structures, including a re-emphasis on pharmaceutical company investments in vaccines and therapies – which, it could be added, should have been the case all along so we would not be stuck with inadequate provisions at the moment.
• Amazingly, the Wall Street Journal reports, even as Americans across the U.S. biomedical research enterprise are working around the clock to try to develop vaccines and therapies to save the lives of coronavirus patients, Sanders has had little to offer but scorn, slandering pharmaceutical executives as crooks eager to exploit human tragedy. That’s just another reason why he doesn’t have the instinct to be president and, thankfully, it does not appear we will fade a dubious choice between Sanders and Trump.

The risk every day is that many of us can be susceptible to drowning in information about coronavirus information in stark contrast to past epidemics when we mostly read the morning newspaper to learn about what was happening.  Now, on-line editions of quality newspapers (the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and others) provide moment-by-moment accounts on-line.  Information from businesses trying to cope with coronavirus add to the mix.  So do comments from regional, state and local governments trying to control the outbreak by getting information to us.

Often, too much.

So, my intent is to read stuff about once a day rather than to be engulfed by information which is not good for anyone’s mental health, including mine.

Finally, as a Christian, I set out to take some solace every in the words of scripture, which advise us that “our times are in God’s hands.”  The way I like to put is that “I don’t know my future, but I know who holds my future – God.”

Consider that for yourself.