Virus Blog

6/5/20

Civil Disobedience. People are angrier than they have been in a long time. I support angry people speaking up. I'm proud that we live in a country where protesting is something we do with pride. But where is the line between civil disobedience and lawlessness? Watching scenes of looting in Santa Monica and other places last week was almost too much to bear. While some argue that without these dramatic escalations their protests might not be heard. I don't agree. At the same time, peaceful marches don't get the attention that maybe they deserve. Thus, I see an acceptable middle ground. Blocking a street with your protests...ok. Marching without a permit...ok. Taking your march to a freeway, a bridge or other public places and inconveniencing everyone else is, in my opinion, ok. I suspect that this opinion is specific to the circumstance and if someone was blocking my travel because they were protesting cutting down a tree or something that failed to move me, that I would be upset with the protesters, but the idea that we should all feel uncomfortable during these protests is part of the process. Breaking curfew is also something that I think is ok.

So what is law enforcement to do with civil unrest. I think I saw that recently Jane Fonda was arrested on a few occasions recently. That's fine too. If you break the law you should accept the consequences. It's one of the costs of making your protest visible. This is the game and it works for me. What I don't support is when police decide that instead of a polite arrest that they swing clubs, use smoke grenades and rubber bullets to break up peaceful protests. I have no problem picking off people for arrest, but the police seem to be bringing bombs to a thumb wrestle. In San Mateo I've read that peaceful protesters were met by a phalanx of police in riot gear who moved uncomfortably close to the protesters. This clearly makes it worse. When all you have is a hammer, that's what you use. We need to make it harder for police to use their hammers.

Quick Takes

June 5th. Happy birthday June. She would have been 96 today.

6/6/20

When will it end? No, not the violence. No, not the illness and death. When will this blog end. Today is day 85 and I need to set a goal for when this will end. When a vaccine is successful? When the stock market has returned to its former glory? When all restrictions have been lifted? I'm making no promises right now but I suspect that this blog will end long before any of these dates. Officially it should end when things seem "normal" again. Admittedly that vision of "normal will look different than how I would have defined it at the beginning of this Virus Blog, but it's my blog and I make the rules. We aren't at normal yet. I can see normal in the distance...an acceptable social distance away.

Roots. Trees can live thousands of years. They establish their home and they move their roots in, so to speak. They don't travel the globe. They don't spend half their life traveling to and fro. They pick a spot and they make the best of it. The more time they spend in their spot, the more prominent and regal that spot becomes. Quite literally the spot gets better with each passing year. We are like bees. We are buzzing around rubbing up against others and always going to and fro. But the bees don't come out every day. In cold weather the bee is likely to stay hive side and tidy up around the hive and leverage the heat of his compadres as they buzz their wings. We are in a form of hibernation right now. I know I'm getting at least a consistent extra 30 minutes of sleep every day. I'm probably averaging at least 30 minutes less exercise a day as well. But as time marches on and we approach the 3 month mark, the idea of grounding ourselves in our homes, grounding ourselves with our families and looking within for everything from our entertainment to our survival feels like a natural move. Humans, now it seems, have a hibernation period, but as we hit that 90 day mark we will collectively be awake, hungry and ready to move around.

Quick Takes

Mask Issues. My designer mast broke! Looks great but only lasted three uses before it broke.
Boarded Up Stores. There was a stretch of El Camino in San Mateo where all the shops were boarded up. It was sad. When I drove by most had their doors open but the glass had been completely covered. There was one loan store that opted to skip the looting insurance. Instead, they had gold mylar balloons that spelled out BLACK LIVES MATTER for all to see. Yup, they are safe.

Next Blog Entry

Virus Blog