It is my view that I want to talk about this morning. I have had this view for the better part of 40+ years. That is a point I want to stress this morning, those 40+ years.

In all that time we have rarely had a rodent problem and given the innumerable apartment buildings that engulf the neighborhood that is somewhat surprising. Food establishments are a mere 2 blocks away, to the East and to the North. There was 1 season that WE DID have a rodent problem and I called the City 311 Hotline to report it. I identified myself as having been a tenant of this building 40 years. He asked me, “do you have dog walkers in your neighborhood?” Show me a neighborhood that doesn’t. He went on to suggest that that dog excrement attracted rats. I interrupted him and told him that this was the first time in 40 years that we have had this problem and we have had dog walkers a lot longer than that. He didn’t want to listen to me he had his pat answer ready at hand to answer whatever I said.

I want you to look at the picture with the view from my back porch. You will see a walkway there. That is a well walked walkway. To the left, out of view, is a tot lot playground. Even further out of view a block away are the Metra Station as well as an El STOP for Main Street. That makes that walkway a pedestrian path for workers going in the morning and coming home at night. I have watched them for 40 years.

It is the same today as it has always been. Even with the onslaught of the Cyrus. With all the commotion about avoiding large crowds these workers have to work to feed their families. They are not going to stop using those trains and els to go and come home. This whole hysteria surrounding this calamity is totally unwarranted. It is the height of idiocy. You are trying to prevent people from getting the flu. And you have never done that before and people upon 10’s of thousands die every year, including children. But no, this is something different.

Was it P. T. Barnum who is oft quoted as saying ” there is a sucker born every day.” I don’t think he confined that statement to any particular class of people. The actions taken by authorities around the world have shown how gullible they have taken the bait and destroyed age old pastimes begs the question, HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD? They all have. I always thought it was going to be a WAR or NATURAL DISASTER, or a meteor from the sky that would take the world down. Because there is nothing in the Bible that suggests this is what is going to bring about Armageddon.

One thing is certain. We are all in this together, which means we all should have a sayso about how it is affecting us. I, who am in the category most often sited as the most vulnerable am most disturbed that we are being played like this and so many people are going for the okie doke. I have no fear that Cyrus is going to get me but I have my doubts about the leadership in all camps of empowerment. I’m not done. I’m saving my biggest outcry for them. The End ( for a minute, anyway)