Virus Blog

9/17/20

I Can Breathe. We went from the worst air in the world to the best. Air quality is down from triple digits into single digits. We had just enough drizzle to clean things up and hopefully kill all those burning embers. The windows are open. The weather is high 70s perfect. The nights are delightful. Life is good. There is a forecast for smoke in our future but for now we are good!

9/18/20

The Election Approaches. At this point despite the suggestion that disgruntled former employees are not to be believed, the reality seems clear. The current president needs people to believe 1) We did everything we could 2) There is still nothing more we can do 3) Everything will be normal soon. 4) And the scientific consensus should not be the guiding principle when setting policy. And yet while many of us see that all four are obviously wrong, a significant percentage of the country is holding steady with their support for the current administration's approach. The strategy is to create an "us vs. them" mentality where the administration is trying to get voters to vote for what's in their best interest. While that may make sense for the top 1% or even the top 5%, the bulk of voters are either not paying close attention or have been easily fooled into believing that this is what's best for them personally. This feels a lot like the beginning of a civil war. The difference this time around is that our geography doesn't define the side we are on. To some extent that's not true but what would a rural vs. urban civil war look like? To the extent that one side feels cheated as a result of the next election by foreign influence, by bad actors or by bluster and conspiracy theories, we risk sparking something more than yelling and screaming. Not sure that this war will look like the last civil war but our access to guns means that it very well could look similar. I'm worried that this virus, the response and the polar-ation of sides is guaranteed to leave a more unsettled country no matter who wins.

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