Wednesday, July 8th, 2020
Today was the first day this year when I turned on the AC voluntarily finding I could not focus on work outside because it was just too hot. We have never really spent a full summer in the USA so this is going to be one interesting experience.
Normally we would decamp from DC for the better part of July and most of August to come back a week before schools start again. EM would spend a few weeks, I a few days, in Hamburg before heading to our Cape Town home. Even though we were in Cape Town in the midst of winter we still had fun going surfing, long walks on the beach, seeing friends. And in Germany of course time with the family and friends.
I had planned to attend an international Aikido seminar (which was cancelled courtesy of Corona). And coming from the US we are undesirables pretty much everywhere in the world these days. So, we are going nowhere this year. It is depressing beyond believe.
With the Virus spreading and people renting houses like there is no tomorrow I am not sure we will even manage a few days or a week at the beach over the coming six weeks when it will become swelteringly hot and humid in DC. By the looks of it, we are in for a summer of more of the same: socially distanced meetings, garden, pool, lakes in the area, but minus friends or hosting BBQs and dinners. It is just sad.
Aikido is turning into a distant memory. I fear that what little I have learned I am rapidly forgetting and there just is no end in sight. I wish I had a social pod for practice. Just one person would be enough.
Okay, today is a bad day and thinking about what might have been is not helping.
Neither is news on the virus front. Globally reported case are just shy of 12 million and the US is doing what it can to be first, adding 50k to the global tally today to total 3.1 million infections reported. And no one can say they did not see this train wreck of a virus coming. There is an unclassified timeline spelling it all out. The USA has just been absolutely incompetent in managing the pandemic on pretty much every level. The Atlantic has a long, but incredibly good article summarizing the failures of the past six months. The failure starts and ends at the top with a moron unable to focus on anything, unable to read or digest briefs and clueless on how to act. This does not stop him of course from exerting pressure to reopen schools, which is a challenge as educators have no idea when everyone is back full time or how a school day might look as different options to maintain social distancing are explored.
Only Florida and Texas, the two States leading the entire world with new daily infections, have announced schools will open their doors to all students in the fall. This is reckless at best. Maybe there are some sane citizens left in each of these two States, we shall see if anyone calls the governors out on this crazy announcement.
At the same time, republican Senators are chickening out of their national convention crowning Trump to be their presidential candidate without any political program (yes, the party decided against having a manifesto spelling out policy priorities written, agreed and published, the program literally is the orange buffoon). Given they all support Trump and rushed to reopen States and are to blame for the mess the country is in, they should be forced to go and cheer him on. Stand up for what you did the past four years and are willing to support the next four, cowards. And indeed, you might well catch the virus, but then it is no worse than the flu and will just go away according to your fearless leader, that is what the GOP following their moronic leader has after all been telling the people for the past seven months, so walk the bloody talk now. Maybe they can wear face shields instead of masks. In New York it seems they may be worn as an alternative to a mask. It is doubtful that they offer the same protection, but better than nothing I guess.
Spot on: the fight will get ugly once there is a vaccine. I like the advice of developing distribution and eligibility criteria now, before it is clear who will win the production race. I am equally convinced that this is not going to happen in this country. Presumably Trump and his cronies will be first in line along with anyone sponsoring his campaign. Oh my, another brainless idiot running to become president of the USA.
Just what the country needed during a pandemic: an anti-vaxer believing planed parenthood was developed by white supremacists to suppress black people. Not that the US is the only country reigned by a populist trying to exploit the virus and science wanting a vaccine in time for Independence Day speech.
How did I end up in this shithole?