Sunday, July 19th, 2020
Today was another hot day, almost too hot to be outside. The thermometer soared up to 40C! Great day for the pool.
We were fortunate enough to have managed to book a lane at the Bethesda pool 12-14:00 today and got there thirty minutes early. As a result EM and I were number six and seven in line guaranteeing us a lane upon entry. That woman who yesterday skipped the line to then spend one hour and forty-five minutes hoggin a lane, was there again. I was so annoyed yesterday that I actually went over and called her out today, letting her know she was number eight in line and that we all noted she skipped the line to then ignore everyone else’s desire to also swim, occupying a lane for almost the full two hours. Of course she denied skipping the line. Anyway, we got in and seeing EM had spend two hours biking in the morning I got six place and did forty minutes of free plus 5 laps of breast before joining EM in the diving well. We had a lot of fund doing back and front dives, trying to synchronize our back dives. Two hours filled with fun and exercise.
Coming home we prepared French fries for dinner, pre-frying them once. Chatted to mum, had a short nap and then Becki and Heather arrived while I finished the fries. We had a fun night chatting over Mimosas, outside socially distanced, but it was hot, sweat dripping. So after tidying up the kitchen quickly hopped into the shower to rinse it all off. It was a full day, just the way I like my days to be.
In the meantime the Virus continues to ravage the USA, a little slower though, with “only” 65k new cases today, to bring the US total to 3.83 million of 14.3 million worldwide confirmed cases. None of the measures one can take to minimize the spread are new. The steps countries such as China have taken when infections recur have been highly effective. I doubt the USA will ever be able to be similarly disciplined, after all in this country wearing mask (or not) is a political statement and not a health care issue. Contact tracing is viewed as the government spying on people, so people lie at best and at worst do not respond at all. And lastly, this country is nowhere close to the testing capacity of China, Korea or Japan who are able to test millions around a specific outbreak to contain it. The USA is incapable of doing any of the three things required to retain control of the spread, and its population is too undisciplined to maintain social distancing. Hence, I guess thousands will die in the coming weeks and months. And even if there is a vaccine, I doubt this country is able to administer it quickly and equitably.
As if my views need to be confirmed, the NYT reports today that the administration is seeking to scrap funding for testing, contact tracing and the Center for Disease Control from a relief bill proposed by Republican senators, so not even originating form the opposition party. I mean, how insane is that, when testing capacities are insufficient, daily new infections are equivalent to the number of infections some countries have seen for the entire time of the pandemic? If they want to save money, maybe they should lead by example and stop all testing of anyone working at the WH, any political appointees, any Republican judges and so on. Also, as I have previously suggested all GOP officials (Senators, House Representatives, Judges and so on) should be forced to attend the party’s nomination of the moron, who is largely responsible for the mess, to cheer him on. And of course, they should not be allowed to wear masks, seeing some of these enablers are even taking legal action against mask mandates, despite there being sufficient evidence that wearing a mask can significantly slow the spread. So walk the talk! Show up unmasked. Lead by example on the road to illness! Afterall the Virus is just a hoax.
If it were not so sad this story of the life of a retail sales person and her travails in dealing with people demanding their freedom to not wear a mask might actually be funny. I very much like her idea of locating all the anti-maskers and anti-vaxer’s in one part of the USA, put a fence around them and for good measure not allowing them to leave and see how that goes. I can absolutely understand her outrage and her frustration. And frankly, if someone does not want to wear a mask, no one is forcing you to go into an establishment requiring mask wearing, just take your free ass and go somewhere else!
As if the virus was not enough the instigator in chief is now deploying untrained federal troops to cities to act against demonstrators protesting police brutality. Instead of des escalating (for which said troops are not trained) they are escalating conflict through use of force against protestors. While there may have been difference in views on police brutality between protestors and officials in Portland in the past, the federal invasion units causes war like actions between residents and federal troops. This apparently is the latest tactician in the presidential bid for re-election speaking to his far right voter base and based on the success in Portland there are plans to deploy Federal troops in major citries around the country causing instability.