Chuck's Note: Marc Cascio is my son and (I don't mind saying!) an outstanding English teacher, soccer coach, father, and viewer of humanity. He originally posted this piece on Facebook; it is reprinted here with his permission.

     I once heard a great story about a Jewish shopkeeper in Germany just before the Holocaust. The poor shopkeeper was besieged by a small clan of German youths who would stand outside of his store and hurl antisemitic invectives at him. The young men terrified customers away and deeply upset the shopkeeper and his family. One day, the shopkeeper had an idea- he confronted the hoodlums and said, "I will pay you two deustscmarks per person per day to stand her and insult me". The bewildered Germans laughed and escalated their tirades. After two days, the shopkeeper came out and said, " Very well done! For the next few days, I will pay you five deutschmarks per person per day to stand here and insult me". Again, the young Germans ramped up their assault, laughing at the crazy Jewish man paying them to insult him and drive his business away. After a few days, the shopkeeper approached the teens and said " You have done such a fine job that I can no longer afford to pay you. I am afraid there will be no more money". The leader of the thugs responded, "We will not stand here all day for free!" and they all left. 

     I cannot prove the veracity of the story, but in my mind the principle can be easily proven: avarice supersedes reason. For most, if not all of us, we can always find a way to justify getting what we want. Don't believe me? Then why do so many people have staggering credit card debt? Why go out to eat when you have a freezer full of food and say " Well, we deserve this"?  

     I am a teacher though, and I have further proof. You can get students to do almost anything by uttering one two word term - EXTRA CREDIT! The student who is failing hopelessly and the student whose average is pinned at 100 alike will do most anything for it. Hell, as a teacher, you don't even have to really DELIVER it, you just have to SAY you will. The term "extra" makes it seem like they are getting something special and exceptional, and you can make students dance (trust me) for it.

     If you need further proof, check out the "Singer Solution to World Poverty" or, better yet, read the amazing short story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula LeGuin - spoiler alert: the person you wish you were, would walk, the person you are, would never.

     So, what's the point? 

     The pictures below are of Ocean City, Maryland's boardwalk on Memorial Weekend and of Virginia Governor, Ralph Northam, maskless and greeting people at Virginia Beach. (Northam has since apologized.)

     For the masses at Ocean City, the desire to be out and enjoying a beautiful Memorial Day weekend supersedes the ignorant actions of gathering like this in the face of a pandemic! If you rolled out the corpses of the 100,000 that this thing has killed on to the boardwalk, people wouldn't come. However, because the threat isn't immediate, and because people are too thick headed to postpone what they DESIRE instead of doing what is right, some of these people will get sick, and some of those who do will either die themselves or transmit the virus to those who will die.

     For Northam, he evidently (at the time, at least) lacked the moral and intellectual fortitude to forego acting in a manner that he would condemn in others in order to attain photo ops to further his own agenda. I am quite sure Northam would blast Trump for his Michigan idiocy, yet here he is hypocrisizing himself for what I assume is to curry political favor.

     A virus is stupid and egalitarian. It doesn't discriminate between smart or stupid hosts, black , white, or any other color hosts, gay or straight hosts, or religious or atheistic hosts. It just does its thing provided the opportunity. It isn't even malicious: it's a mindless predator of primitive derivation.

     Science and religion don't converge often. How ironic would it be if a virus, at the bottom of the evolutionary realm, were to decimate humans, at the top of the evolutionary realm, because we refused to use the gift of intelligence bestowed upon us via evolution or a creator due to the Biblical sins of greed, pride, and vanity? Eschewing common sense in favor of transient happiness may be the curse of humanity, emanating from its supposedly greatest asset. 

Copyright Marc Cascio; all rights reserved.

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