@laura-f, I'd be spittin' mad too if I were in your shoes. So far people appear to be pretty good here in Northern Virginia, at least where I live. Gov. Northam started Phase 3 on Friday, so that makes me nervous. The one thing he excluded from the Phase 3 reopening are bars.
I am angry that tonight's National Mall fireworks will be open to the public, hosted by Boris and his wife, Natasha. They're supposed to be handing out 30k masks to the attendees. I have a feeling that people who will risk attending this major fireworks display won't be wearing masks -- especially since it's in the 90's and humid in the DC metro area. And all of those people from out of town! Mayor Bowser is not happy about it. I'm praying for major rain tonight.
I won't bother getting into the myriad reasons why people are choosing not to wear masks ... ranging from denial and "throw-caution-to-the-wind" recklessness, to a trip into crazytown.
@lovendures, are you in the town that is mandating the masks? I believe the restrictions aren't being implemented across the board because of the tone set by the Orange Foolius. This is a public safety issue, and the commander-in-chief has a responsibility to protect us. We'd be in an entirely different situation with another president. For one thing, she/he would have tackled this early on and left it to the medical experts to guide us. A sane, smart and empathetic president would have appealed to our sense of decency and altruism, inviting us to be part of this tribe of Americans who care about one another. Woulda coulda shoulda ... my "if only" ruminations hurt and anger me even more than this virus. I need to let it go and do what I can to protect myself and those around me.
Happy 4th and much love to all of you!
I debated the future potential of these statistics and articles and findings and ongoing spread that we might actually be in a continuing (new) phase that goes beyond the implications of COVID-19 and almost started a new thread on "COVID-19 July 2020 and Beyond".
Ill leave that thought and potential implications of many viruses hitting at once or morphing into new strains of Sars/ Corona viruses (with many sub indexing numbers and names) decision of up to you. New thread or just keep on under this thread?
@michele-b, you with your big heart, have always had your ear to the ground. You get it. I will keep this discussion here for now but it actually is part of Great Unraveling and the Great Turning that we are heading towards.
This is a time of reckoning. It is a time when we will be made to stop. There is no getting around it. If we ignore it and continue as usual, then we will be stopped again and again, each time worse for us than the last, until we wake up and get it.
If we find a vaccine and then continue with our plundering of the Earth as usual, it will be like patching up a sick person with drugs and ignoring the disease that is growing inside their body from a bad lifestyle.
When the pandemic hit, I noticed a pattern response among my right wing friends. They consistently talked about a fast-tracked vaccine that would get us all back to business as usual within a few months. I said nothing to them. I heard another one last week telling me, "at some point, Jeanne, the quarantining is worse than the outcome of not quarantining." In other words, she said, we need to ignore the pandemic and just get on with business as before. I just stared at her. (She also told me she disapproved of the BLM movement.) Keep in mind, this is a really truly nice person. But different mindset or perhaps too much of the Fox.
So beneath the GOP rallying cry is, "let people die; money is more important." I am stunned by this thinking.
Not only do I sayl no to this logic, but I don't feel we have a choice about it because the problem is much bigger than a pandemic.
Mother Earth is DONE and she's starting to shake us off her surface the way an elephant whisks away fleas. Another vision I had posted for 2020 was a scaled fish. We have extracted from our Earth long enough.
This is not like the 1918 Spanish flu or the Plague of the Middle Ages. Humans were not numerous enough or efficient enough back then to cause so much damage to the Earth. We need to see this pandemic in the context of what we are doing to the earth.
We are that numerous and our technology that powerful that now we have made the Earth too sick to nourish us. We are the virus and the host, Mother Earth, will recover when we stop, whether we stop voluntarily or she has to wipe us out to get us to stop.
Here's how the beaches work: STATE beaches are technically closed - meaning you can't get into parking lots, gates are down. First, that doesn't mean you can't park elsewhere and hike in. Second, we have mostly city and county beaches here, only 2-3 are actually state operated. Those are all open, as are all our parks.
I have a close friend who's from Ouray CO and lives in Montrose now, I get the impression there was no mask wearing there ever, which is fine I guess if you're outside of town, but I can't imagine these little towns, even Telluride, being inundated with unmasked people for the summer.
I was gobsmacked when my husband came home yesterday morning - he finally saw what I've been seeing all along - no respect and no enforcement. The license plates in the area are AZ, CO, TX. I realize some could be rental cars, but that still means out-of-area visitors.
Limiting the bars is a good idea, but once parks and restaurants open up, it becomes untenable. Normally last night we would have been out in Lovettsville - friends there always threw a July 3 party, the fireworks there were right over their house. I miss them and their party so much!! It was a potluck with 100 people,lots of music, when the kids were little it was magical... I have to stop thinking about it before I cry again.
Speaking of crying - OMG LOVED HAMILTON!!! So wonderful! (@Bluebelle) But dammit - who'da thought I'd end up crying at the story of Hamilton??? Highly recommend for those of us staying inside this weekend - Disney+ is free for 7 days and $7 for a month, you can cancel it at will. We're paying for 1 month so I can watch Hamilton repeatedly til we cancel, LOL.
Mayor de Blasio announced that public schools will be open this September for the Fall semester.
First thought is that it is too soon and will, along with other openings, set off another wave in NYC.
@laura-f I agree. The country may be burning and people are just infantile, selfish and rude. I pray for them but it’s exhausting. Hamilton was absolutely fantastic and honestly the first thing since March that made me forget everything and just enjoy the moment. Really amazing. Peace and happy 4th.
Our fearless leader has said we just have to learn to live with it:
I was wondering if anyone has feelings about what is going in Europe/rest of the world. Most countries are easing up on restrictions and opening up, but the kicker is that there are now groups protesting the rules like they did in Michigan etc. and want to 'live life as before, because it hurts the economy if we don't' aka away with ALL restrictions.
I cannot understand for the life of me why people call these rules 'doctrine by a tyrant of a government'. To me it is just common sense. What if everybody gets sick? Where is the economy then?
I know in the US this has a lot to do with politics, but that cannot be the case in all countries around the world... I am just flabbergasted with people I guess...
I cannot understand for the life of me why people call these rules 'doctrine by a tyrant of a government'. To me it is just common sense. What if everybody gets sick? Where is the economy then?
I know in the US this has a lot to do with politics, but that cannot be the case in all countries around the world... I am just flabbergasted with people I guess...
Ultimately nature will set the rules because in places where people defy them there will be pandemic tsunamis. People will suffer as they are now going to suffer in Florida, Georgia and Texas and then they will once again develop a respect for science and public health laws. At least as it applies to pandemics.
Laws that give power to public health entities were established after traumatic epidemics ravaged whole populations. But then ignorant people like Donald Trump and his counterparts in other countries who don’t care to understand science or the history of government come along and force the public to crash and burn all over again, rather than benefit from past lessons.
It is human nature that we must reinvent the wheel every 80 to 100 years or so as those who learned the hard lessons die out and new generations arise who don’t bother to learn from history and science. They elect leaders who exploit ignorance, demonize science and the learned.
So it goes.
The good news is that history shows that we will learn lessons from these mistakes and a respect for nature will return.