Pandemic Diary Entry #78
February 22, 2021
A number of my conversations over the last few weeks have been about how to bring our country back together again. The proponents of these conversations are very good friends, and while I hear them, I tend to think their goals are lofty at best and nearly impossible.
Asked how they think this can be accomplished the overwhelming answer is we need to talk to each other, we need to find common ground. While these statements make sense to everyone, who hasn’t spent a Thanksgiving grinding their teeth or skipping a family event…
Pandemic Diary #77
February 15, 2021
I have had my first COVID vaccine, and I look forward to receiving my second, but I do not believe this is the end. COVID vaccines will likely become a yearly vaccination, like flu shots, a pancoronavirus vaccine.
Coronaviruses are not new. COVID-19 is part of a large family of viruses that have been around for a long time. Coronaviruses are responsible for a myriad of illnesses, from a mild cough to severe respiratory illnesses such as MERS and SARS.
Scientists have divided coronaviruses into four sub-groupings, called alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. …
Pandemic Diary Entry #76
February 8, 2021
My favorite flower is the peony and one of my favorite flowering trees is the Dogwood. I can not grow either in San Francisco due to the lack of winter chill. The term is rather complicated and relies on a series of things, but for simplicity’s sake we will define winter chill as a period of cold temperatures above freezing and below a threshold temperature that varies with each plant species.
The lack of winter chill is beginning to affect the farming industry of California. If California were a country it would rank…
Pandemic Diary #75
February 1, 2021
“it’s not important what we cover in the class; it’s important what you discover.” On this point of view, to be truly educated means to be resourceful, to be able to “formulate serious questions” and “question standard doctrine, if that’s appropriate”…. It means to “find your own way.” — Walter Lewin professor MIT
On April 15th, 1861, the first day of the Civil War, Washington DC was cloaked in rain. In the skies over Charleston Harbor the skies were clear, the war started, because the simple weaponry of the time worked better on dry days.
If you were of military age and thought your chances in California were better than behind the battle lines you could choose to take a clipper ship around Cape Horn. However, you most likely were not going to escape the storms completely. …
Pandemic Diary #74
Folks, this is a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy and untruth. A raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America’s role in the world. President Joseph Biden - January 20, 2021
January 25, 2021
I look forward to the protection of our environment as a part of the climate crisis package. Over the last four years, there has been an attack on nature. I have been educated, while being shocked, at the news, showing horrific photos of the destruction of our public lands to extract forms…
Pandemic Diary Entry #73
January 18, 2020
I am of the generation that participated in ” duck and cover” drills at school. When I was in the second grade these drills apparently gave me nightmares for days on end. I do not have any memory of the nightmares.
What I do remember is my grandfather, who would have seen both World Wars, telling me it would all be okay. The world has been through a lot he told me, and we are still here.
This last week has had me, along with millions of others, dumping dry January, eating too…
Pandemic Diary Entry #72
January 11, 2020
On June 6th, the day of the domestic terrorist act on our Capitol, I was watching Twitter and saw David Hogg’s Tweet:
“The shooter at my high school was a white nationalist Trump supporter. The suicide bomber in Nashville — a white nationalist Trump supporter. The people that attempted a Violent Coup today — white nationalist Trump supporters. It’s not mental health they are terrorists”.
I was watching David’s feed because I thought he knows exactly what it feels like to be trapped behind a door with gunmen on the other side. He…
Pandemic Diary Entry #71
January 7, 2021
You do not bring a confederate flag to the United States Capitol because you don’t like the results of an election, you bring a confederate flag to the United States Capitol because you are a racist.
What happened on the night of January 6th, a mob able to enter the US Capitol, the first breach of the US Capitol since the British burned it down in 1814, was the result of white privilege and America’s racist policies that while modified and altered, have not changed since slavery.
Pandemic Diary #70
“The past is no longer there, the future has not yet come. What is there? Only the point where the future and the past converge. It would seem that a point is nothing, and yet only at this point is our whole life. “ Leo Tolstoy
Cindy Casey
My travel blog www.PassportandBaggage.com and my www.ArtandArchitecture-sf.com blog are quiet due to the Pandemic. I need to write, so here I go.
