Lysol and Tide and Bleach. Oh, My!!
The line, “Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!” came from the 1937 American classical musical, The Wizard of Oz.
As most of you already know, the story offers an intense and detailed chronicle of the adventures of a naive farm girl, Dorothy in the mystical Land of Oz, where she lands after having been swept away by a powerful tornado.
Dorothy soon finds herself on the journey of a lifetime as she follows the Yellow Brick Road searching for answers to help find her way back to her home in Kansas.
Along the way, Dorothy meets all sorts of characters.The Scarecrow, who wants a brain in his straw head, the Tin Man, who wants to feel and is in search of a heart, and the Cowardly Lion who wants to find courage.
We all have a journey along our own Yellow Brick Roads. Growing up in a country that was under a 30-year military dictatorship, my own “lions, tigers, and bears” were very real to me. You could correlate them to struggles experienced at that stage of my life under a dictatorship.
"I decided to construct my own Yellow Brick Road"
My journey on the Yellow Brick Road started in 1992. This is the year President Fernando Collor was impeached and convicted in the Senate for a massive corruption scandal three years after the first time Brazilians, full of hope and joy, voted in a democratic presidential election after decades of military dictatorship.
As a presidential candidate, Fernando Collor had campaigned against inefficient and allegedly corrupt public officials. As president, he marked his inauguration with the announcement of the controversial Plano Collor (Collor Plan), implemented by his finance minister, Zélia Cardoso (who 25 years later ironically ended up being the mother of my intern’s girlfriend) the day he took office. The plan attempted to curb inflation and reduce the money in circulation by confiscating and converting people’s bank and savings accounts into non cashable government bonds. Many lives were destroyed that day, therefore it was also the day I decided to construct my own Yellow Brick Road. After a few years, I finally found home. Home wasn’t in Dorothy's Kansas but instead, Arkansas, where I took a role at Walmart International to help with its global expansion.
"Dorothy just wanted to go home... and so did I"
90’s America…
Maybe I was naive, similar to Dorothy, but I have an enormous sense of nostalgia and fondness for that decade. For me, the 90s was simply the happiest decade of our American lifetimes.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the 1990s was the longest economic expansion in the history of the United States. By 1999, our GDP grew by 4.87% from 1.86% in 1990. The unemployment rate was very low and by 1999, nearly 24 million jobs were created. We also went from a $221.2 Billion deficit to a $125 Billion surplus.
In the 90s, a wave of progress seemed to be sweeping the whole world. Science, technology and perhaps social responsibility helped fuel the growth...
- 1990 — Scientists started indexing the full genome outline of humans
- 1990 — The very first successful gene therapy was administered into a patient
- 1990 — The ICSI (IntraCytoplasmic Sperm Injection) was invented with great success
- 1991 — The first website went online
- 1992 — The first ever text message was sent. It read: “MERRY CHRISTMAS”.
- 1994 — South Africa dismantled apartheid
- 1994 — Amazon, then a source for books was founded
- 1995 — The Global Positioning System (GPS) became properly operational
- 1996 — The first-ever cloning of a mammal. Remember Dolly the sheep?
- 1996 — Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the treatment of HIV infection
- 1996 — The construction of the International Space Station started
- 1997 — Steve Jobs returns to Apple
- 1997 — Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin registered the domain Google.com
- 1997 — The Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars
Some believe that the 90s was the decade that made “Red and Blue America” a thing. It's also the same thing that made our political atmosphere what it is today.
Steve Kornachi’s book “The Red and the Blue” provides a fine view of US politics during the 90s, describing both the rise of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich's politics of confrontation and non-collaboration. The book helps people understand the political background that perhaps put America in the position that it is in today. Much of what we hold dear to our hearts has been threatened. America's reputation as a competent global leader is at risk. Truth, science, and at some level, American ingenuity are being chased away.
Party tribalism is so strong that people are willing to overlook almost any liability within their party. However, it wouldn’t be life without running into a few Good and Bad Witches along the way.
Dorothy bravely faced the Wicked Witch of the West and now is our time to find the heart, courage, and wisdom to factually face The Wicked Riff of the West Wing.
One of my favorite lines from The Wizard of Oz is delivered by the Scarecrow:
“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?” ― The Scarecrow
The coronavirus, so far has killed more than 55,000 people in the United States. Now more than ever, we need science. Regardless of the political tribe you’re in, we must come together and confront coronavirus with science and facts, not...
Lysol and Tide and Bleach. Oh, My!!
“And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute — one minute — and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.” [4/24/20]
“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but we’re going to test it? And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, either through the skin or some other way.” [4/24/20]
"One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear”
“What makes a king out of a slave? Courage!” ― The Cowardly Lion
“I think he just saw the info at the time, immediately before the press conference, and he was still digesting the info,”
This is America and we are free to believe whatever we want to believe in. However, in a thriving democracy, truth, facts, and science matter. Like in The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man was searching for a heart, the Scarecrow yearned for a brain, and the Cowardly Lion longed to have courage. Let’s learn a lesson from these characters who waited too long to realize that they already had all of that within them. We all have a man or woman behind the curtain inside of us all acting as our conscience. Like the Cowardly Lion, we the people must find the bravery and the ability to publicly and constructively question our elected officials.
Luckily, according to an AP-NORC poll, most Americans trust coronavirus information provided by their local officials. However, since April 24th, there have been increased calls to Poison Control Centers in association with exposure to cleaning agents across the nation.
New York City’s Health Department, managed a total of 30 cases of possible exposure to disinfectants since 4/24/20, a spokesman said.
Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike is urging state residents not to ingest cleaning chemicals as a treatment for coronavirus.
“There has been a significant increase in calls to the Illinois Poison Control Center in association with exposure to cleaning agents (since Thursday),” she said.
Maryland Emergency Management Agency received more than 100 calls to its hotline. They Tweeted this alert: “This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route.”
Many corporations felt compelled to release statements...
“Bleach and other disinfectants are not suitable for consumption or injection under any circumstances” declared the Clorox Co.
“We must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” said a statement from the parent company that makes Lysol, Reckitt Benckiser.
Like Dorothy, our journey comes with highs and lows and as we search to find answers in Emerald City. I believe that we can discover the power of friendship, love, bravery, and wisdom all along the way. After all, as the Good Witch said...
“You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself”. — Glinda the Good Witch
So my Munchkins, on November 3rd, 2020, we have the opportunity to remind each other that we have always had a heart, a brain, and the courage. For now, I find myself building a new Yellow Brick Road- one that will lead to a world better than how I found it. Because today, more than ever…
“There’s no place like home”. — Dorothy