Day 3836

It's hard to keep your eye on the ball. I've been around a long time and I don't think I've ever seen so many things going wrong at once. It seems inconceivable that the country doesn't seem capable of taking the coronavirus seriously. South Korea was able to control their outbreak quickly because the entire population was comfortable with the idea of universal surveillance. In a matter of weeks cell phone data, credit card transactions, and surveillance camera information were coordinated in a massive effort to track the entire population. It worked. People with the disease were quickly identified and isolated. China, Taiwan, and other asian countries had similar results.

This doesn't seem to work in the United States. People complain about contact tracing because of privacy issues. Everybody is clamoring for a vaccine but half the population already says that they will refuse to take it because they are suspicious of vaccines in general. There is a huge uproar over masks, which was partially created when the government initially said they were worthless and then changed their mind and said they were essential. Businesses desperately want to open up again, but customers aren't coming back because they still don't feel safe. It's a huge mess.

Add riots and civil unrest to a plague and you've got a recipe for disaster. If there is anything that should cause us to finally get our act together and come up with a unified plan to solve these problems it should be this. It's not happening though. We are not acting like South Korea at all. Every aspect of American life has become politicized, including virus mitigation, mask wearing, tearing down statues, and destroying vibrant American cities. Sadly, there are a lot of people in both political parties who think that this chaos will help them win the next election. Instead of getting together to fix things, they are strategizing on the most effective ways to blame the whole mess on the other side. At this point I think the winner will be ruling a pile of rubble.

I look at this whole situation with a certain amount of sadness. We have become a tribal society and I'm not a member of any tribe. I look at everything as an outsider and it gives me a different perspective on things. Democrats are quick to criticize fundamentalist Christians without acknowledging that they have become a religion themselves. Republicans have a leader who is trying to get rid of the deep state when his own political party actually is the deep state. It's all insane. You can't really blame the Russians and the Chinese for trying to destroy us with provocative memes on Facebook. It's so easy. We've already proved that we are willing to believe almost anything. I hate to throw my vote away in November but it's hard to get excited when both political parties have selected a senile, brain dead old man as their leader.

Oh, well. Life goes on. I've always been a survivor and as things continue to deteriorate, I'm inclined to become even more of a prepper than I was before. I'll continue to take long walks and work on getting stronger. I'll become even better at fixing things myself and will continue to favor the companionship of dogs. As soon as I can find an interesting long-term project I'll stop talking about current events. It's pointless and I certainly don't have a solution. Hey, I got the water off the roof today and took the trash out to the curb. I think that's enough for one day.

Shiner is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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