Happy New Year, and welcome back to my weekly blog.

Last night, out of sheer, Saturday night boredom, I watched Don’t Look Up. Not because I read the reviews, but because of Leonardo, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep. Nor did I bother reading the synopsis. A good thing, for I’m not a fan of sci-fi. Now, I not going to give away the movie; you’re free to watch it and formulate your own critique. However, my reaction to the film caused me a lot of tossing and turning into the wee hours this morning.

In essence, a segment of our society embraces the mantra, Don’t Look Up, meaning regardless of facts, personal experience or actual visualization of events, we disregard and even deny truth. The issues of climate change, poverty, corruption, and pandemic diseases are evident. For the last two days, the Phoenix metro area has confirmed 15,000 new cases of COVID per day, a disease that will continue to mutate until the vast majority of our world is vaccinated. Serious climate change has wrecked havoc in the rainforests and the polar ice floes.

Poverty and homelessness plague our cities. Have you noticed how we look straight ahead at a traffic light to avoid eye contact with the street corner beggar? Years ago, I was in wealthy Cabo San Lucas. The resort taxi driver reminded me as I got in the cab, “Senora, Cabo is beautiful, if you don’t look left or right.” (And see the lame, malnourished dogs, barefoot children, hovels of housing.)

Even our politicians are more concerned with lucrative quick band-aids, instead of investing in the future. If you deny that, look at our school systems. What better way to ensure our future than to educate our young?

I realize from the time we were young and skinned our knees, cut our fingers, or broke our arms, our parents said, “Don’t look. It only hurts if you look.” Me? I still don’t look when I get a shot or a phlebotomist draws blood from my arm. Perhaps, as this film suggests, it’s time to: Just Look Up.