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.

With not much else to do – yes, golf is still, fortunately, an option – I am opening the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering again this morning. It is one of three departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

With the coronavirus virus still wreaking havoc, there are a number of good quotes, so here goes.

TRUMP UNHINGED: Washington Post writers showed up this morning with this:

“The federal government scrambled Friday to stave off a potential wave of public health emergencies sparked by President Trump’s dangerous suggestion that injecting bleach or other household disinfectants into the body might cure people of the novel coronavirus.

“It was only the latest dubious medical tip from a president struggling to contain a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 50,000 Americans. The Food and Drug Administration warned Friday against the use of hydroxychloroquine — the anti-malarial drug that Trump repeatedly has promoted as a “game-changer” miracle cure for covid-19 — because it has been found to cause serious heart rhythm problems.

“At Thursday night’s White House coronavirus news conference, Trump used his pulpit to float the idea of injecting a disinfectant into one’s body “almost as a cleaning” — a prescription that surprised some aides who said it seemed to come out of nowhere.”

COMMENT: Just try to think about what Trump-the-unhinged might do next and you could not come up with this. Ingest household bleach and other cleaning chemicals! Right.

But, Trump, who never reads or studies anything, heard about the good effects of chemicals on some surfaces and thought – yeah, how about cleaning out the body, too.

Think of new words to describe Trump. Unhinged. Ignoramus (as we used by a columnist yesterday). Quack. The problem, of course is that some citizens take Trump at his word and will die as a result.

A PERFECT STORM: Using a solid analogy, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote this Friday:

“’We are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm.’ That succinct summation came from the writer Damian Barr. He’s right. Some are in yachts, he said, and “some have just the one oar.

“Some will sail through, health and profession intact, some will lose one or both. Some of us get to feel we’re part of a substantial crew. Some of us feel we’re rowing alone.

“We can move forward through this crisis experiencing our country as an embittered navy waiting to fight it out on shore. Or, alternatively, as a big crazy armada with millions of people throwing and catching millions of lifelines. Which I suppose is how a lot of us tend to see this country of deep inequalities and glittering possibilities. The latter attitude will be more helpful in getting us through, and as Lincoln observed, attitude is everything.”

COMMENT: Noonan’s analogy – being in the same boat in a storm – to describe the coronavirus, Noonan went on to advocated concerted action to get through the pandemic.

She was a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. I wish she was still doing that job for Trump – but she would never stoop to such depths and, even if she did, Trump would say what he want to say regardless of the adverse effect.

STATE ACTION RE: CORONAVIRUS: At least two developments occurred this week according to Oregon news sources:

On top of federal action, the Joint Oregon Legislative Emergency Board approved $30 million to help Oregonians.

Expenditures include $10 million to create the small business administration program, $10 million for the Worker Relief Fund, $2 million to help provide emergency housing for survivors of domestic violence, and $12 million in safe shelter and rental assistance.

Governor Kate Grown also lifted a ban on non-urgent medical services as long as providers met a bunch of conditions.

COMMENT: The actions represented just a bit of good news amidst the pandemic. E-Board action, for one thing, avoided legislators having to congregate in Salem. Lifting the ban on non-urgent medicine should help hospitals and clinics.