Skip to main content

Point of View: Good News

Thu, 03/19/2020 - 11:24

The Indian Wells tennis tournament was canceled the other day, then came the Coachella music festival, and then came us. Postponing a trip to Palm Desert, Calif., where one of our daughters lives, seemed the rational thing to do, and JetBlue, wonderful to tell, came through.

In the lead-up to Mary’s call, I had predicted we’d have to eat it, i.e., say goodbye to the airfare we’d paid, not an insignificant sum, but no, corporate America, while often deserving of opprobrium, is not all bad, at least JetBlue is not.

The woman she talked to couldn’t have been nicer, Mary said. She understood. The tickets would remain valid for a year. We were not to worry.

Frankly, I was surprised, and, of course, pleased and relieved. In America one gets inured to corporate diktats, usurious interest rates, nickel-and-diming, weasel deals, padded executive pay, golden parachutes, hired-gun law firms, freewheeling banks, maleficent pharmaceutical companies, leech-like insurers, et cetera. Bernie Sanders is right to rail at them.

Greed, not cohesion, is the operative word in this country, and, he’s right, it should be reined in.

But, meanwhile, let’s hear it for JetBlue.

Speaking of good news, Mary was actually smiling as she looked up from the paper one morning recently.

Mike Bloomberg, she said, had graciously bowed out of the Democratic primary race — she would write him a letter thanking him — and had pledged to support the Democratic campaign to the extent the law allows. Moreover, Joe Biden, it was said, might win over disaffected (I heard her to say “disinfected”) Republicans, and Steve Bullock, Montana’s governor, was on the verge of entering that state’s Senate race. (He has since said he’s running.)

If so, that would add Montana to the list of states, including Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina, deemed to be in play for Democratic candidates in November.

There was reason to hope, then, that Democrats could win a majority in the Senate, and that something finally could be done to address the critical issues long left unaddressed in Caesar Disgustus’s reign.

For the first time in a long, long while she could hope again — not just the yearning, wishful kind, but hope kindled by a real prospect of fruition. So, let’s hear it for JetBlue. And, Mary adds, ActBlue too.


Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.