Day 172

 Sunday August 30, 2020

A year ago not many people would have imagined the condition we currently find ourselves in. The novel coronavirus which became COVID-19 and officially became a pandemic on March 12, 2020 has infected over 25 million people and has a death total nearing 1 million (it is around 847,000 as of today). India now has the fastest-growing coronavirus caseload of any country in the world, with more than 75,000 new infections per day. In the past week, India has reported nearly half a million cases.

Yet the world and all its inhabitants continue to disagree on very important issues such as mask wearing and social distancing.  The two most important defenses against a virus primarily spread through human transmission. I suppose people are either uninformed of the virus and how it is continually spreading or very opinionated about their rights not to help themselves and fellow Americans. There is hope for the "all saving vaccine" soon, but I imagine even that will be met with both controversy and repudiation. 

The United States is in the middle of a presidential election (November 2020) as both the Republican and Democratic conventions recently wrapped up. The nation is also still protesting and calling for social justice as police officers continue to make grave mistakes when confronting citizens even after the killing of George Floyd in May turned the country on its end. There are struggles in most major cities around both the control of the virus and social issues regarding civil rights and police enforcement. In Denver this week police ransacked homeless encampments and made several arrests.  My friend Peter shot this video of one of the raids.Denver Police raid on homeless encampment

Many major sporting events were cancelled due to the recent shooting of another black male, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer. The shooting led to protests and rioting which eventually resulted in a civilian shooting two protesters. 

In Portland, Oregon the protests against police brutality and racial injustice have gone on for three months and last night a group of protesters clashed with a Trump rally and one person was shot dead.

Our society is desperate for leadership on so may levels beginning with the top, but also at the state and local levels. 

When will this hell on earth end? Will the eradication of COVID-19 (whenever that happens) be enough to regulate the world? The anger and hatred will still fester. Changes in our world societal systems are needed. In a conversation with friends recently, someone mentioned the feeling of solidarity of around the world after 911. For a short time we felt the pain and the human suffering deep inside our hearts and every man, woman and child mourned the loss of life in a tragic event.

The terrorist attacks that September day manifested changes in the airline and travel industries. Are these tragic moments we are witnessing, although not on the same scale but still inhumane, not enough to evoke the changes we need to see social equality and more humane treatment of impacted people.

“The time of a man's life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. His soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame doubtful; to be brief, as a stream so are all things belonging to the body; as a dream, or as a smoke, so are all that belong unto the soul. Our life is a warfare, and a mere pilgrimage." - Marcus Aurelius