Pandemic Diary #87
May 3, 2021
Traveling through the US as it slowly opens up in the Spring of 2021 felt more challenging than when I took a trip in the fall of 2020. This trip was another through the National Parks, and it was a whirlwind of seven parks in the Southeast and 3721 miles.
The citizens of each state reacted a little differently, but on the whole, it was a look into an uncomfortable truth of how many people still do not take this whole horrible disease and its infectiousness seriously.
Businesses, for the most part required a…
Pandemic Diary Entry:86
April 26, 2021
Bridgerton is a series presently running on Netflix. It is set in an England that never was, ruled by a Black queen with Black royalty. The show is a great opportunity for a diverse cast but it is also fantasy, it is a history that never existed, and yet many think it is true.
I agree that there is a “white” problem with Hollywood, and there should be far more movies that reflect our diverse world, but are younger people able to distinguish between escapism and reality when it comes to historical fiction in…
Part 4
Pandemic Diary Entry # 85
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through the human heart.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
April 19, 2021
Immigration across the world has an image problem. Many argue that there are already too many immigrants in their country, they take jobs, or immigrants come here and go on welfare. These are falsehoods that are held across the world.
Part 3
Pandemic Diary Entry # 84
April 12, 2021
The situation on our southern border, like most everything in life, is far more complicated than the headline-grabbing screeds being shouted across the country. However, is it really a crisis?
Border crossings have climbed high and then dropped off many times over the decades, irrespective of who is president.
In the 1980s, the U.S. immigration system held approximately 2,000 people a day in detention centers. From 2000 to 2016, the average daily number of detainees rose to 32,985. Under the Trump administration, that number jumped to 50,000 people in 2019. …
Part 2
Pandemic Diary Entry #83
April 5, 2021
The 2000 mile border between the US and Mexico is getting a considerable amount of attention. Central Americans, coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are overwhelming the US Mexican border hoping for asylum. Among them are also immigrants, and refugees. While the southern border is making the news we have immigration into the US from all over the world.
Part 1
Pandemic Diary Entry #82
March 29, 2021
I wrote a travel blog before COVID, I look forward to writing about adventures again.
The point is…I travel. What travel teaches you is that we are all alike. We may look different, we may speak different languages, but the over-riding themes of humanity are the same. We all have families, we all need food, water, and a roof over our heads. While we may need them, we don’t always have them, that sad fact is universal too.
What travel also teaches you is that the population of a country is rarely representative…
Pandemic Diary #82
March 22, 2021
One thing has become very obvious over this last year is the systemic racism of America. It has always been there, but if you asked most white Americans they would have said they knew not of which you spoke. That has changed.
I took it upon myself over this past year to educate myself further on the subject. I have only begun my education, but there is an overriding historical theme in all that I have read. This country has spent a lot of energy paying lip service towards solving the problem. …
Pandemic Diary #81
March 15, 2021
I am pretty fed up with the fact that America has always been run by a bunch of rich, old, white men. While that is slowly, and fortunately, changing, I feel the present group cares less about helping Americans than keeping themselves in office, which they have done spectacularly, with many having been in Congress for over 40 years.
Congress, in no way, mirrors 90% of their constituents but they are passing laws that affect that 90%.
The US Senate has a membership that is made up of wealthy and predominantly white men. Men…
Pandemic Diary Entry #80
March 8, 2021
The Lancet put together a commission to study the “Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era.” Their report concludes that 200,000 fewer Americans would have died if the US had treated COVID with the same level of competence as our peer developed nations.
The sad thing is America’s health has been in decline for quite a while.
This phenomenon is called stagnant longevity and in previous studies this stagnation has always been an indicator of serious societal problems.
According to the Lancet study the Trump administrations policies were not unique, they merely…
Pandemic Diary Entry #79
March 1, 2021
The fight for a $15 minimum wage is once again in the news.
The first federally mandated hourly wage of 25 cents was set in 1938 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it has been raised 22 times by 12 different presidents. The last increase was twelve years ago.
Until 1968, the minimum wage not only kept pace with inflation, it rose in step with productivity growth.
While a $15 an hour increase appears to be a leap, had the minimum wage kept up with inflation it would now be $24 an hour. If the…
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.
