Day 3844

Was today a holiday or not? A lot of businesses were closed, but the mail still got delivered. The grocery stores were packed with people buying for holiday meals even though gatherings of any kind are strongly discouraged. Most of the large cities in North Texas have canceled Fourth of July fireworks displays, but some of the smaller towns in the area are still planning parades and celebrations. I guess you can take your pick of what you want to do in Texas. There's something for everyone. I welcome fewer fireworks, but I'm sure there will still be enough loud noises tomorrow night to frighten all the city's dogs.

It was a little cooler this morning, so we were able to complete our normal five mile walk. Dawn actually did very well today. A few degrees can make a big difference in the summer. It did warm up quickly though. By the time I took my afternoon walk the temperature was almost 100 degrees. It was too hot to go up on the roof. I think I'm just going to let the water evaporate.

When we were eating dinner this evening, I got one of those loud alerts on my phone. For some reason, these alerts appear on my Apple Watch as well. I thought this was another Amber Alert or tornado warning. Nope. It was a message from the governor telling me to wear my mask.

Things are getting bad in Texas, but I keep wondering what there is to compare this to? I'm still convinced that when the coronavirus has finally disappeared, I will still know many more people who have died from cancer than from the virus. I already know of dozens of friends who have died from cancer and zero people who have died from the virus. I do know of two people who caught the virus, but neither of them lived in Texas and both recovered quickly.

Why do I keep thinking that if we reported statistics on every single person who had been diagnosed with cancer on a weekly basis, complete with ominous looking charts and graphs, we would become very alarmed. A cancer diagnosis is actually pretty common, but many people recover. I suspect the same is true with coronavirus cases. I'd like to hear more reporting about recoveries.

Maybe the only way you can get Americans to comply with anything is to scare the hell out of them. I'm old enough to remember when nobody wore seatbelts. When I was a kid, our family took us on vacations all over the country in a car without seatbelts. When I first began working in an office, everyone smoked. Changing behavior is a long, slow process. If living with deadly viruses is really part of our long-term future, I imagine that there will be other changes as well.

Seatbelts do save lives. I wear one all the time. I'm glad that fewer people smoke these days as well. Change is inevitable and a lot of change is actually good. I don't think you change things by erasing what you don't like. This is the problem with cancel culture. Even statues can teach you something. You can still smoke if you are so inclined. You can still buy cigarettes even though they will kill you. I'm not in favor of banning things or tearing them down. Learn from others experiences and then decide for yourself. This is why history should never be erased. Sometimes you can learn more from the things you don't like than from the things you approve of. I wouldn't be criticizing Washington, Jefferson and confederate generals so much. Just wait and see how future generations criticize you.

Bob Hope is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3842

You don't have to convince me that July has arrived. It definitely feels like July. We got started on our morning walk before sunrise again and were lucky to have a breeze and overcast skies for most of the way. Dawn knows all the routes we travel so well now that we let her choose how long to walk. If it's cool outside and she has lots of energy, she'll usually pick a longer route. On hot days like today, she'll pick a shorter route home that shaves at least a mile off our travels. I continue to be amazed at what a smart Dawn is. She's kind of street smart too. I get the feeling that she's seen and survived a lot in her former life.

I paid my early July bills online this morning, but still had to go to the post office to mail a letter to my sister. Since there was no line at the counter today, I finally bought a roll of stamps. This roll ought to last me for several years. Periodic letters to my Luddite sister are the only reason I need stamps anymore.

It was a slow day so I did what I usually do on slow days: look at cars on the Internet. It's weird that I'm so interested in cars since I don't even like to drive, but that's the way it is. Ever since I spent that week at the Astronomers Lodge, I've decided that my desire to buy a 4x4 Sprinter Van was just a passing fancy. It is much more comfortable to stay in a hotel while you are traveling. Now I'm interested in the new Ford Bronco that is going to be introduced in a week or so. I owned a Bronco once and it was a fairly rugged trouble free car. There's plenty to choose from though. A British company called INEOS is introducing a car called the Grenadier that is a dead ringer for the old Land Rover Defenders I loved so much. This tough looking Defender clone features permanent all wheel drive and a BMW engine. It's going to be available for the US market too. Something to think about. I might even consider getting a Tesla Cybertruck. It's hard to bet against Elon Musk. Once they get around to putting a few Superchargers in Fort Davis, a Cybertruck is going to start looking pretty good.

While I was eating breakfast this morning I watched with some amusement as police began to dismantle the Seattle CHOP zone on TV. Very interesting that it wasn't the violence and murders in the occupied zone that caused the Seattle mayor to change her mind. It was when the angry mob started marching toward her own house. The people of Beverly Hills have banned protests in their ritzy neighborhood too. What a bunch of hypocrites. It's all fun and games for these armchair warriors until the mob threatens to burn down their homes.

There is a very famous quote from George Orwell in his book 1984. You probably read it in school: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” The interesting thing to me is that the left thinks this ominous message refers to Donald Trump, while the right is convinced Orwell is talking about today's cancel culture. This is the world we live in. We are able to look at the exact same thing and see something different.

I hate all this conflict. I think the United States has become too divided to govern effectively. I wish we could just agree to let the red states secede and form their own woke country. California, Oregon, and Washington State would make a nice little country. Maybe they could take an empty state like Nevada too so all the Californians who have moved to Texas could return to their roots. This will never happen of course, because Americans are too argumentative to do anything practical.

Before someone writes the next tell-all political book, we need to remember that over 100,000 Americans worked on the Manhattan Project for several years during World War II and not a single one of them betrayed the secret of the atomic bomb. That's unity. Before we continue finding Nazis under every tree, we need to remember that Wernher von Braun, the beloved scientist who took us to the moon was an actual real Nazi. Before we tear down any more statues and cancel everything, we need to remember that it was the Jewish people who insisted that Auschwitz remain standing after World War II, so that history would never forget. I think we started erasing history long before the statues started tumbling. It's convenient for a superficial world that communicates using Emojis to just remember what we like. We need to own both the good and the bad and erase nothing. It's who we are. Civilization requires both.

Bentley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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