The Virus that Won't Quit in Summer

This virus isn’t letting up.  We are entering the era of the second lock-down before the first lock-down was over with.  The bars are being closed down again.   Chris’s favorite bikini bar is slated to close down.  Notra Dame won’t be the same when it opens.  There are all these restrictions and half or less capacity.  They are taking the magazines out of the dentist’s office.  They say that long half hour lines have returned to the banks and the grocery stores because there is a new panic about being able to get supplies.   The death rate for the country is now $125,000 and it won’t be too long before we get to two hundred thousand.  The Texas and Florida governors are now forced into closing everything down and beaches for the fourth of July weekend have been closed down.  Nobody knows where this is going but the economic recovery we’ve seen may well be halted in its tracks.   Bars are the biggest issue because people let their guards down and don’t wear their masks and do a lot of loud talking spreading more water dropplets.   Right now Thom is talking about the massive brainwashing campaign in Chile when the Pinochet government took over.  It would seem that Trump and Mike Pence are making major fools of themselves with the satements they hve made lately about their being no new crisis now and if anything Mike Pence is proud of the progress we have made and it’s not at all like March.  The only difference is that now there is an explosion of young people getting the disease and not old people like formerly.  Then of course they’ll just transmit the disease to their elders. 

One of these days we'll get back into some religious stuff, but not today.

.  My mental state was not that great because I didn’t know what the future would hold.  I turned on KPFK on and Rhapsody in Black wasn’t on.  But there was a breeder’s cup horse race at Churchill Downs.  I baught a couple of races.  After this there was a Presidential chess set based on current political figures and a red, white, and blue board.  Then there was a thing on “crape skin”.   They have new conditions all the time.  The weather is cooler today than yesterday.  They said that rain was a possibility today and Monday morning. 

I called Paul after three.  I figured he’d be at his most receptive and I was proven right.  There actually looked to be a good chance of his going next door for me.  He said he’d call me back in twenty minutes.  He took ten to say that he’d do it when he called back.  Maybe he talked it over with Judy.  He told me to make out a list of things for him to do invluding of giving him my PIN, a jealously guarded secret all these years.   Very soon after this he said he’d be there in one minute.  I went right down but then realized I didn’t have my mask on.  I went to get it and over the PA I heard my name to come to the front door.  There was an intermediary to hand the card to Paul.  I thought it would take a few moments but I was sure mistaken.  This occurred just before four as they were getting ready to eat the first session.  I stood there and waited and waited and Paul never returned.  I was beside myself.  None of the staff including Leah was sympathetic saying that Paul was probably on erands.  I came back and called Judy and she said that Paul was at their own bank and to stay put.  It was time for me to eat.  We had an egg salad sandwich and coleslaw and chocolate pudding for dessert.  I went back here to call Judy again and this time she said it was crowded due to the Corona virus.  A minute or less later Paul called to say that “I’m here”.  I went down.   Paul didn’t get the two Cokes or eight ones but otherwise was successful.  He had to go to another Chase bank in order to activate my card.  I have his word that he didn’t change the PIN.  He gave me fifty dollars and two ones.  He left.  In the meantime I had gotten a cigarette from Mary Burnes.

Supreme Court Grants New L G B T Rights

The US Supreme Court is an institution we haven’t heard much from lately.  I thought maybe they were on a Corona virus vacation.  I’ve heard talk about social distancing even there.  However this is late June and usually there is a raft of decisions coming down before the term ends in two weeks.  Today by a six to three vote the High Court decided that being trans-gender was something you could no longer discriminate on, as well as being gay.  They say if you’re gay and you get fired all the boss has to say is that it was for some other reason.  Well today by a six to three vote they were decisive in their decision that the 1964 civil rights law covers trans-gender people.  It’s the darndest thing I’ve ever heard.  Justices Gorsich and Roberts jumped their own party to vote with the majority.  I bet Paul and Judy won’t like this decision one bit.  But we have other news.  Today a eleven Gary and Shannon had a press conference where this “Black hanging from a tree” incident was gone into.  They already have done a through autopsy.  There were no signs of foul play and it looks like suicide.  But they want to be sure, so they are putting this case under an investigative microscope.   And then we have President Trump’s upcoming executive order to be issued tomorrow.   He’s doing an end run around his own congress to lay down a bunch of nation-wide regulations that all of Law Enforcement from Maine to California have to abide by.  It sounds a little sweeping to me.  But I guess the president decides he’s trailing in the polls and needs to do something to win the election and get those middle-of-the-roaders.   Then of course we have that Atlanta police chief who resigned last Friday.  This looks like a gray area to me.  They say the drunk suspect was running away from the cops at the time he was shot twice.  On the other hand they say he was firing back at them with a taser he had stolen from an officer in a physical altercation.   This could easily be argued as a physical threat.  But I don’t know which case is true.   Finally we have this ALL Black Lives Matter parade over the weekend.  By “all” they mean gay and trans-gender Black people.  They say that hetrosexual whites sympathize with the protests because they have an underlying sense of guilt and privilege.  Finally, they came out with the fact that there have been no spikes in COVID 19 virus spreading due to all of the major protests that have happened.  Tulsa in 1921 saw the greatest attack against a Black community by whites in the history of America and Black businesses and homes were wiped out.  I was going to talk about the campaign rally in Tulsa this Saturday.  You know about that.  The chief concern now is not that it violates a Black holiday but it’s in an indoor arena with a masks optional situation.  Thom Hartman today was saying that the whole concept of a police force as we know it today was from the old slave catching posse groups of two hundred years ago.

I keep trying to skip days when I take Ativan.  It seems my night time sleeping medication doesn't wear off in the morning sometime and when it's time to take my meds I'm still tired so skip the Ativan.   First I'm tired.  Then I get a spacey feeling in the head.  Finally I get the shakes.  Something is going on with my medications and I need a major readjustment.   Right now the rumor is that July Fourth is when they take us out of lockdown and we can leave.  Some say it is when Disneyland opens on July 17th.  That's still a month away.  Our administrator has been promising us other days when the quarantine ends that hasn't materialized.  Then I won't have to worry about running out of cigarettes and I'll be able to buy coffee for the first time in three months.  

The Economy Wins out over the Virus

The economy has now won over the virus.  The unemployment rate today fell from 14.7% to 13.3%  This is quite a feat.  Trump will score political points off of this. It sure surprised me but one imagines that it didn’t surprise Trump one bit.  He’s been expecting it.  He’s been expecting the economy to come roaring back.  June should look even better.  Of course with all these mass protests going on people have forgotten almost all about the virus and thrown caution to the wind.  Now we’re back to having massive funerals for the fallen.   We still get these never ending public addresses from government officials on top of one another.  Mayor Garsetti still delivers almost a major address every day and so does California's governor.  Yesterday Governor Newson made some executive proclamations.  He banned the caradid artery choke hold statewide yesterday.  This one was banned in LA nearly thirty years ago because "Black people don't have normal veins like the rest of us" and too many of them were dying.  Now the governor has stated that officers nowhere in the state should be trained in the caradid artery hold that cuts off blood flow to the brain to get the victim to pass out.  In terms of around here we are still in lockdown.  Now they are saying it will be the end of June that at last we can go out shopping and be free from the gates.  Continually they are relaxing restrictions for everything else given "safe social distancing".   But if all businesses are opperating at only half or a third capacity this will continue to put a dent in the economy for a long time.  They say it could be years before airline travel gets back to the levels it was at last year.

It dawned on me that what we need is "Peace" of the sort of inner peace they talk about in the Bible, or at least I do.  But it's not like some hippy saying "Peace, brother".   No.  When it's God that's saying it the words have a lot more authority then if they came from a human being.  God is the person who runs things after all and holds the future and if he promises you peace, at least hypothetically you need not fear the future.  Of course I was thinking this morning of what the worst sin might be.  Presumption is kind of an ugly sin to many human beings.  I certainly would now what to "presume" when it comes to God.  That is having the right to expect that just because God did something for me once he would do it every time.  In this way I would get an inflated view of myself and my own worth and my own status before God.  That's how I feel anyhow.   I know other Christians out there act as if God is their own errand boy or something and lack humility.

These entries aren't very long I know these days.  Maybe I'll stick some vintage material in sometime.