Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020
Very early start today, which afforded me the enjoyment of my outside office in the early hours of the morning before fleeing the heat and migrating into shadier jurisdictions while on calls and virtual workshops for five consecutive hours.
Given today was a hot day, I am not sure what possessed me to make an Asian chicken curry with green asparagus and bamboo shoots. Then again hot food apparently makes one feel less hot. That might have been true for a few hours, so very glad to have the lap booked at the pool. Only that the thirty minutes flew by in half the time. But I am thankful for what I have. I did toy with the idea of buying an inflatable stand-up paddle board until a friend pointed out it might be easier to join the Georgetown Canoe Club, so have resolved to look into that, seeing I am getting nowhere on the Aikido front. Not for lack of trying, but with the dojo closed it is hard to motivate myself to do more than my 15 or so minutes of morning stretches, crunches, squats and weight shifting exercises, when I know I should spend time practicing katas. Especially, when I join the Tuesday online class with the Jo where I am mostly lost. I have a hard time doing the motions when I see Sensei demonstrating them a few meters away, so on an i-pad screen it is near impossible as I either see the hands or the feet. Next class is today, and I am in two minds about joining, mostly because I am conscious of how very little I know. Bokken work was a little easier.
If only this virus would go, but there is no sign of it abating, quite the contrary. The only hope for my martial arts journey is a vaccine and I would happily volunteer. The globally reported number of cases is 9.1 million today. We are fast approaching the ten million mark and death are getting scarily close to half a million. It is depressing. The USA saw another daily increase of 28K bringing reported infections to a total of 2.38 million with 122k dead, quickly moving to the 125k mark.
Actions of the federal government continue to be infuriating. It is mainly inaction with suggestions to decrease testing. Why not stop issuing death certificates? If they weren’t issued, there would be no dead. The blame for the renewed spike is now shifting to the States who supposedly led the reopening effort. Let’s be clear: it was not a decision by the federal government to let States take the lead in reopening, it was the federal government pushing for States to reopen, with some (democrats mostly) having the guts to resist. That is a big difference. And the result of the incompetence of the administration and loyal governors is now fully visible in Florida, Texas and Arizona, where people are I feared by the thousands every day, while Western Europe with a similar population size to the USA and very heterogeneous governments has the spread pretty much under control. Why is Europe doing so much better?
In each of the 26 States National leaders stepped up and people followed, followed instructions and took their leaders serious. Not so in the US, but then again one may want to be grateful that people did not follow the leadership, or they would all be dying of des infect any injections and weird untested medication. Also, unlike the USA people in the rest of the world believe science, while here science is scorned- welcome to the dark ages. Demonstrated by the hate health officials trying to protect people experience. Seriously, health officials resign because they are being threatened for doing their job? The critique of health officials and their work of course starts at the top. In an effort to deflect from the administration’s incompetence a scapegoat needs to be identified and it seems to be that conveniently this will be the CDC, the one body subscribing to science, the one body which warned about early reopening, the one body which continuously cautioned that the virus is not over. Why not go ahead and dismantle it entirely, no reporting, no discussion, no disease... Or the fact that wearing of masks is highly controversial . And clearly also not that easy. On the art of wearing a mask. What the hell is wrong with this country?
There appears to be at least one sane person in this country. I am glad to see Gates step up to the challenge and commit serious money to equitable health care. Maybe he should have run for president?
And there is one obscure news item from Cambodia – a USD 3.000 deposit is payable by tourists upon arrival to cover any costs, including funeral, in case one contracts Corona. Well, at least they are open for tourists.