105 days until November 3... Time for Hope and Change

I'm starting to feel a glimmer of hope for the first time in 3.5 years, and especially the last 4 months.  I'm not hopeful that no one I know will be touched by this virus.  With the self-centeredness of every other person in the US, that's just wishful thinking. 

I'm not hopeful that people will lose their congitive dissonance amid the pandemic - great article that sheds light on what makes reasonable folks shake their heads...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/role-cognitive-dissonance-pandemic/614074/

I'm not even hopeful that my small goals of keeping mind, body and spirit in some semblance of shape over the rest of the course of this quarantine time will prevail.  I'm hopeful that with time, effort and dedication we'll be able to flip the House and Senate and oust 45 for someone who has a clue how to function within the structure of government.  Can you think of 1 good thing that has occurred since 2016?  He donated his salary, we got what we paid for in that sense.  He expanded VA health coverage.  Then tried to eliminate coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and children.  He took a stand on immigration... now, we couldn't pay anyone to immigrate to the US and the birth rate is falling.  Other countries make up for that with the richness of cultural immigration - new experiences, new businesses, new educational opportunities. 

Flint MI still has crappy water, homelessness and mental health issues are not a new thing.  Unemployment is at an all time high and those on furlough can't obtain new jobs or risk losing the tenure and benefits built up over years of service.  The cost of living keeps increasing even while the majority of the population is out of work or overworked as essential employees.  Those that have, have more and those that have not, have even less.  In the 3.5 years since 45 took office, we've paid more taxes - not less.  The tax laws that used to give us a break for supporting social service agencies were removed, and with it the incentive to donate and support those resources.  It's not like the government is going to fully fund those resources any time soon.  The cost to the US for the aid provided through the pandemic is between $5-$8 TRILLION dollars.  Money we didn't have for homeless programs, or elder care or food banks or mental health resources but to keep the economy alive, of course there is money to be had.

With the targeted maligning of Democratic run states getting second rate services and PPE and now getting federal agents to "help restore order" when help hasn't been requested and citizens are being abducted and attacked - we used to watch this kind of stuff on World News Tonight in the Middle East and think, wow, glad we have freedom and protection from that kind of anarchy.  When your own government is responsible for the anarchy?!?!?

Pandemic lockdown - July - month 5 - day 349567

Only one 1 blog post in 2020 so far... things have progressed to a new low.  45 wants to not report Covid cases or death to the CDC so that numbers will be reduced.  Dude, you've stepped in it so far at this point, that your election campaign is over before it started.  Or we can only hope that the longer this viral threat hangs over our heads, more will see that your inept, selfish, moronic form of providing no guidance for this country is leading to our decline.

When we rang in 2020 5 months ago, little did we know we would be staring our self-serving, entitled, privileged, racist, white power, defend my freedoms against your safety selves in the face in heated debates over wearing masks to reduce the spread of the virus.  After 5 months of being requested to only go our for essentials and essential trips, we are still only on phase 2 of a 5 phase reopening plan.    The traffic flow lights are back in use on the freeways.  The rate of seeing ambulances on the road is higher.  The lines at stores and businesses are longer and parking lots are fuller than they have been in months.  People are done with the virus but it is in no way finished with us.

There is clinical evidence that 100% participation wearing masks would protect from virus and end the threat within 6-8 weeks.  People feel it is a violation of their rights, freedoms and privilege and refuse, even though the life they save may not be their own.  Stories of people who refused mask wear and are now Covid-19 death statistics are common.  Common sense not so much.

Scientists in Finland have developed a breathalyzer test to screen in 4 seconds for presence of coronavirus even in asymptomatic people.  This is worthy of Nobel Prize work.  Has our government commended this discovery?  We'll be lucky if they even offer it to the US after the way we provided no help to the rest of the world during this pandemic.  We have literally shot ourselves in the foot to avoid the fight.  While our fearless leader played more golf than ever.

My prediction is that 2020 will be the year that wasn't.  It wasn't fun, it wasn't productive, it wasn't notable for anything but that our wish to not work, stay home and have time for restful pleasures was not all it was cracked up to be.  How's that retirement plan looking now?  If I can't travel, forget about it. 

For the first 2 months of quarantine, I was considered essential employee, I was tracking the weekly losses at my place of work - a retreat center we hosted our last group on the weekend of  March 9.  One of the participants was busily planning her daughter's outdoor wedding, with thoughts of weather, not virus spread causing issues. At the end of April, after we'd cleaned, painted, reorganized and maintained our facility with many overdue tasks, we were furloughed and due to the 400Kvolume of claims put on unemployment, as well as a foreign scam/fraud issue to clear up, had a 9 week wait for our first payment.

For the first several weeks, it was as if the cities were ghost towns, no one went out except to pick up fast food and groceries.  Many stores were closed that were not deemed essential - hardware and home improvement, craft and cannabis stores flourished in the down time.  People learned how to sew masks and donate time talent and treasure to make a difference in the PPE supply line.  Stores began to offer curbside pickup of online orders.  Amazon reaped the benefits of stay at home workers upgrading their home office surroundings.  Coworkers got to know each other's pets by name and personality disrupting Zoom meetings.

We learned patience, compassion, grace and the luxury of a relaxation of time and date commitments.  Quickly that gave way to grief over lost job identity, fury over the slightest difference of opinion and rage over those who get in the way of logic, science and medical advances on this deadly virus.  Then the George Floyd murder combined with many others over decades and centuries inflamed the Black Lives Matter movement to the point where gathering in large numbers to protest trumped our fear of the virus.  Protesters wore masks and in the areas of large protest turnout, amazingly no spike in virus numbers.  Almost like the intent balanced the risk, or divine intervention.  The battle cry to defund the police was taken up and seemed to some to be advocating anarchy, but in reality it is only a call to fund the resources that have always been underfunded - mental health resources, domestic abuse resources, homeless resources, deescalation training for police so more lethal force becomes unnecessary.

2020 will be a year we may wish to "do over" let the seniors have their social events associated with the last year of high school, give families time to enlist ways to protect their most frail members from viral exposure, give of our stimulus check if not needed to forces that help those at greatest risk - the homeless, refugees, immigrants, indigenous peoples fight the virus because if it takes hold of any of these at risk communities, we all fail.  We failed to protect the least among us because we sought to insulate our own from fear and death.

People want to overthrow our Governor for taking a stand and trying to stem the spread of disease.  He's never lead Washington through a pandemic before, no one has.  But when he saw the lack of leadership and control at the national level failing, he had to do something.  A true damned if you do/damned if you don't situation.  Which may cause him to lose his reelection this year - to people who are all invested in $30 license tabs?  For real?  Cheap license tabs over public safety? 

We've been in quarantine 5 months in WA.  Normal will never be the same as it was before.  What have we learned and at what costs?