There isn't a lot that unites us in the United States anymore, is there?
Sports has almost never done that, actually, certainly not as it does in other countries. Beyond our borders, the primary pride is always in the national team in any competition. It's their flag against someone else's flag. Here, it's always been city vs. city or school vs. school.
What else unites us?
Other than not being able to tolerate a blessed minute of Joe Buck in a broadcast booth, I can't come up with a thing. I mean, there are real, live people who respect Tom Wilson. Who find the Harbaugh brothers charming. Who root for the Flyers, the Yankees ... my God, the Patriots. Who'd enshrine Barry Bonds in Cooperstown in the same breath they'd banish the Astros for life.
Being serious, where's our common ground, if not at the extremes?
Most of this is rooted in politics, of course. But I'll never delve too deeply into that on this site, but it's safe to assume we've all witnessed that both parties have extended further out onto their wings than Derrick Brassard skating through traffic. There are far-left Democrats, there are far-right Republicans, and there's no one anywhere near the 50-yard line. And the same absolutely applies to wealth, class, race, now even boomers vs. millennials ... all the way across the board. We haven't been this divided in my half-century as a born-and-raised American, as a born-and-raised Pittsburgher.
Maybe, hopefully, this damned disease will at least begin to change that.
There's so much we don't know about the novel coronavirus COVID-19, and that's a big part of why we're having the reaction we are. The unknown, the uncertain always makes us more afraid. That's human nature.
This, though, we can say with utmost certainty: We'll all be a hell of a lot better off if, for once, we fight the same fight.
Look, I'd love to have been covering Penguins vs. Blue Jackets last night in Columbus. I'd love if Taylor Haase and I could've shared with you good stuff from the Nationwide Arena locker rooms. And if Alex Stumpf could've just broken down Joe Musgrove's mound work in Bradenton. And everything else that makes our business, hopefully, vital to our readers.
But for right now, I'm flooded instead with genuine worry for all of you. I care about all the readers I've come to know and, by extension, those I haven't yet had the good fortune to know because I hear from them at times, as well, and I'm reminded that not everyone reaches out directly.
The connection here is real. It's the No. 1 reason this place has succeeded. It's like friends, like family.
I'm hoping for the best for everyone's jobs and workplaces. There's no telling what this'll wreak on our economy, though it's going to be many, many times greater than what's happened to date. You can't just shut down human movement, human interaction for a month or two or however long, and picture that it'll reverse itself in a snap. Economic pain is real pain.
I'm hoping, above all, for the best for everyone's health. Don't get sick. And for heaven's sake, don't die.
However many readers we've got, I don't want to find out that we've lost a solitary one to this.
And yeah, it's OK to discuss this in terms that stark. If that's what's required to have this taken seriously, I'm here for it. And if this very small company and very small voice within that company can make the most minuscule impact on this situation, I'm here for that, too.
Let's do this. Let's get through this together.
I'm no Sanjay Gupta, to put it mildly, but here are three things I can confidently offer to this conversation:
• Learn.
Read about this virus. Learn about it. And dammit, be open-minded when doing so.
Chiefly, tune out all politicians, all political perspectives on this, even from those you've trusted the most. Their opinions are almost always politically motivated, and they're always, always, always less informed than those that come directly from the medical community.
My choice has been to read up from the World Health Organization, which is as independent and informed an entity as exists in this context, and where the website is wonderful. Yours might be some other entity, and that's fine, but again, beware anyone with personal or professional motive on this.
• Wash your bleeping hands.
Not because of this virus. But because it's disgusting to not do so, and that's been true since the dawn of time.
These are all of the WHO's recommendations for taking care of yourself in social settings. If you're too lazy to read them, they're accompanied by videos of a happy lady from Italy reading them for you, so you've got no excuse:
That video's got a total of 1,100 global views on YouTube, by the way, which is what JuJu Smith-Schuster gets every five minutes.
Wash your hands. Keep your distance.
• Live.
This was how I closed my first column on this topic a couple days ago:
Let’s learn all we can. Without rumor. Without exaggeration.
Let’s wash our freaking hands, as we should’ve been doing all along.
Let’s live better.
But hey, let’s also live.
Well, that last line really set some people off, either because they didn't read all that preceded it -- my crystal-clear context was regarding behavior once this episode has sufficiently faded -- or because they presume that everything that's written everywhere is done so from one extreme or the other. Which isn't at all how I operate.
That said, I'll repeat it: Let's also live.
Both when the time comes to resume usual activity and even now when that can't be the case. As I wrote in that piece, freaking out helps no one. It only leads to further fear-mongering, further misinformation and, in turn, further damage than what's already been done.
We're the city of Jonas Salk, the University of Pittsburgh pioneer who developed the polio vaccine, spared the lives of countless children and changed the world like no one else from these parts. It's a point of pride today as much as ever, with others now racing to match his achievement on this new front. It can inspire us.
We're the city of Andrew Carnegie, August Wilson and Rachel Carson, of Roberto Clemente, Mean Joe Greene and Mario Lemieux, of the Cheese Lady, T.C. the whistling vendor and the Sax Man, of cops, crossing guards and other common folk we uniquely admire the same as the legends.
We're the city of Mr. Rogers, too, still watching over us from that stony pier adjacent to Heinz Field. And for those of us who were part of the generation he raised around here, that makes us, by default a city, a culture of compassion. We're rough and tough on the outside, but only because it's to defend what and who we love.
If we live our best lives, we're taking care of ourselves and others. Much the way one would imagine those sharing a common city -- and country -- would want to do.
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