The Beauty of Unfriending

Against the Ds' good advice and wishes, I continue to partake of FaceBook (tm). A big reason is my good friend Norman -- his pages are always full of great humor and music performances. I try to be funny, too, and generally avoid the divisive politic, but lately, with the plague, it seems one ought to share useful information to one's friends. Ha. As if.

The IHME model seems to be the one most people in government and academics rely upon, so I do, too. It changes quite a bit, and last Friday gave us great news. The predicted peak of the plague in Florida already occurred, it said, and the deaths predicted were cut nearly 70%. I found this wonderful -- in the way I love it when the "cone of death" during likewise tense hurricane season shifts away from Miami.  So I posted it.

Well, some ultra-liberal friends went on attack mode. One, who I'll call Donna, since that's her name, was my moot court partner in law school. She had gone to Wellesley, which she mentioned ALL the time. She is a lawyer in Broward now, and a classic limo liberal -- always chiding us about being rich, uncaring capitalists while she sent both her daughters to expensive private schools. I think the older one now goes to some Wellesley clone -- maybe Oberlin.

Anyway -- she pointed out that there was NO WAY the news could be good -- essentially since the hated GOP governor Desantis is in power. Also, Trump.

Now -- I can't stand the cartoon character president either. When he comes on TV, I change the channel. But it seems some hate him more than they want a cure for the plague. Donna seems to fall into that category.

Anyway -- she posted an article saying the end was nowhere near in Florida. Problem was, that article cited an old IHME projection -- the one before the latest that showed the good news. I pointed this out to her. I kind of enjoy it when haughty, arrogant folks get shown they're wrong. But she, of course, wouldn't admit it, and said I was being aggressive with her.  That's it. I hit the unfriend button.

And it occurred to me I need to use that button more often. I ditched another law school woman, Donna's fellow traveler, when her extreme liberal posts crept into anti semitism. See ya, Cynthia.

I've also unfriended too right GOP friends.

So FaceBook for me will be a source of silly fun. When crap get serious, I will more rapidly hit the eject button.

Meanwhile, I put in close to 8 miles of walking yesterday. We had a family FaceTime at dinner, with guest appearances by our grandson and grand dog Betsy.  Afterwards, Josh chimed in, and Wifey and I spent some virtual time with Barry, Donna, their sons, and likely future daughter in law.

Our friend Sheryl had invited us to a large Zoom gathering -- mostly her old Miami friends, and some new Boston ones. We told her we had a conflict, but Sheryl is relentless. At 9 she said we could still join. I told her I was naked on my balcony, communing with nature, and I was pretty sure no one needed to have THAT vision on their Zoom screens. She agreed.

So we're in the late part of April, which Eliot famously called the cruelest month in his epic "The Waste Land." It was cruel because its new birth of Spring belied the ugliness and hopelessness of the world.

I hope April indeed proves to be the cruelest part of the pandemic, and May brings us some return to normalcy. I'll keep looking to the most optimistic models. I leave the negative Nancys to their own misery...