Self-Quarantine: Let’s all do it
Listen to this articleI think it is time everyone in the country act as if they have been exposed to Ebola and self quarantine for three weeks. Imagine if our country were to tell the rest of the world we are staying home for the next twenty-one days.
In 1984, my wife and I lived just outside of Los Angeles. All of L.A. County residents were dreading the traffic nightmare they were certain to face when the Olympics came to town. Tourists from all over the world were going to add to the problems Los Angeles residents routinely faced, or so we thought.
Instead, we stayed home. Employers encouraged employees to use their vacation time and leave town. Others were told not to come into work. The few who had to work reported how little traffic there was and how it made for a much nicer work-day. Even criminals behaved. They left tourists alone, ceased their drive-by shootings, and were too relaxed to go rob stores.
Congress often seems to self-quarantine, which explains why nothing seems to get done in Washington, DC. Still, life goes on. We seem to have enough laws already so I doubt we would notice twenty-one more days of a “Do Nothing” Congress.
The president finds ways to do nothing. If you don’t believe me, just talk to the people of Syria. Going three weeks, even three months, without doing anything there was a piece of cake for him.
After the most recent election, he may want to take that approach with everything. And has anyone noticed Joe Biden for three weeks? He could be dead for all we know. It seems the only time we notice him is when he sticks his foot in his mouth.
Roger Goodell tried to quarantine himself over the Ray Rice matter. By the time he got around to publicly addressing it, he wished he had remained in quarantine. In fact, whenever there is something messy to deal with in the NFL, he finds a way to go missing.
Do you know who else is missing? Our new Ebola Czar, you know, what’s his name. He went missing as soon as he got the job. For all we know, he could be napping under his desk like George Castanza.
There’s a lot to be said about self quarantining ourselves. We could take that time and read some good books, zip through our DVR, and finish those projects that remain half done. Many of us would find we could continue to do our jobs from home and question why we even bother commuting to an office five days a week. We would have time to spend with the family without the high cost, or stress, of going away on vacation. We could grow beards, plant a garden, and sleep in as much as we wanted.
But what about groceries and our other shopping needs? No worries. We could just place orders on the internet and have drones deliver everything we need to our front porch.
Maybe if the entire world were to self-quarantine we might actually knock out the Ebola virus. But then if we did that, we would have no excuse to stay home for three weeks.
Jim is a life long resident of California and retired school teacher with 30 years in public education. Jim earned his BA in History from CSU Chico in 1981 and his MA in Education from Azusa Pacific University in 1994. He is also the author of Teaching The Teacher: Lessons Learned From Teaching. Jim considers himself an equal opportunity pain in the ass to any political party, group, or individual who looks to profit off of hypocrisy. When he is not pointing out the conflicting words and actions of our leaders, the NFL commissioner, or humans in general, he can be found riding his bike for hours on end while pondering his next article. Jim recently moved to Camarillo, CA after being convinced to join the witness protection program.