Let’s start out with a song.  This one by the Canadian band Rush, Closer To The Heart.  The tune scarcely needs any comment.

Closer To The Heart

By Rush

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

You can be the captain
I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart

Lyrics written by:  Neil Elwood Peart, Peter Talbot, Geddy Lee, Alex Zivojinovich

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And the back story to the tune is:

“Closer to the Heart” is a song by Canadian rock band Rush. It was released in October 1977 as the lead single from their fifth studio album A Farewell to Kings. It was the first Rush song to feature a non-member as a songwriter in Peter Talbot, a friend of drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. It was Rush’s first hit single in the United Kingdom… It was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame on March 28, 2010.

The band’s frontman, Geddy Lee, said of the song:

I remember when we had to bring it back into the set for the Rio shows, as there was such a demand to hear it and we’d stopped playing it for a while. It’s always resonated with people for some reason, and it was a hit as far as we’ve ever had a hit. It got us on the radio, the kinds of radio that would never normally associate with us, so it was as close as we ever came to a pop song, especially at that point. Over here in the UK it had that effect, and in the US too.

— wikipedia

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“Resonate” indeed!  I cannot imagine a lyric that more incisively captures the unspoken desire of all of us, Americans and friends overseas.  We have been besieged by the covid pandemic for months.  Our elected leaders have demonstrated diffident to uncoordinated leadership at best.  The breakdown in America’s representative democracy is plain for everyone to see.  The failures characteristic of the past “conservative” administration in Washington were reminiscent of those observed in totalitarian regimes in other countries, regimes whose circle of concern is limited to “friends & family.”   Progressive leadership promises to be marginally better, no matter their primary subservience to the needs of global corporations.

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And this report from Texas:

Even with power back on across most of the state and warmer weather in the forecast for much of this week, millions of Texans whose health and finances were already battered by a year of Covid-19 now face a grinding recovery from a storm estimated to cost upward of $20 billion, the costliest in state history, according to the Insurance Council of Texas…

At the San Antonio food bank, Diana Gaitan joined a two-mile line of cars waiting for hard-to-find groceries, including tortillas, beans and water. The storm’s aftermath loomed as one more miserable obstacle to confront after Ms. Gaitan contracted the coronavirus and stopped working last year as her stress and anxiety spiraled.

“It’s kind of like we’re being cursed,” Ms. Gaitan, 66, said.

To read the entire New York Times story of the Texas recovery from a week of single digit weather, ice storms, and thawing frozen pipes CLICK HERE.