The world is bizarre, though I think we have now passed any concept I’ve ever had of what bizarre means.
- I was afraid if Trump lost, the Secret Service would have to carry him bodily from the White House.
- I was afraid the Democrats would have an insane convention and be the laughingstock of the American political world.
- I was afraid the electoral college would screw us … again … or it would be a tie and then the Supreme Court would screw us.
- I was afraid that somehow someone weird would wind up as the Democratic candidate because we’d have a brokered convention and the outcome would be strange.
I did not anticipate an actual plague. I mean, we say stuff like “a plague on your house,” but I don’t think we mean an actual plague.
Have we time-traveled back to the 14th century? Because Trump sounds about as scientific and modern as most of the nobles of the 14th century. If they had Twitter in 1347, I think Trump’s opinions would have sounded perfectly normal. They sound crazy today, but in the 1300s, he would have made perfect sense.
The view from the Apollo 11 (NASA)
What the hell is normal? I’ve completely lost track of it. I don’t know what a normal life is like or maybe I never knew, but now that everyone is living like I’ve been living, my life seems less normal. Previously, I wasn’t afraid of going places. I didn’t necessarily want to go anywhere, but I wasn’t afraid.I’m not usually fearful. But Owen has pointed out he doesn’t want to lose both parents at the same time.
We think we are going to have an election, but we aren’t sure. We don’t know who the Democratic candidate will be, though we think probably Biden. Who knows? We should have picked Yang. He may not have seen this whole epidemic thing, but he got the message about keeping our personal economies from collapsing.
We all knew things would get crazier. Since Trump became president, we always think this is as nuts as it could possibly be, that we’ve finally hit the bottom. The next day, something happens and you realize, nope, not the bottom. We keep digging deeper. I’m sure we’ill ultimately come out on the other side of the world, somewhere in Australia. That was my goal when I was 10. I had looked at a globe and I realized that if you stuck a pin in the world in New York, you’d be in Sydney. Or maybe Melbourne.
Funny how childhood fantasies show up in adulthood, warped and twisted yet somehow, following your childhood dreams in the weirdest way.
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Categories: Coronavirus - Covid 19, Election, Epidemic - Pandemic - Plague, Government, Humor, Marilyn Armstrong, Politics
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Crazy stuff all round, Marilyn. We’re under quarantine still..they are saying the end of May or June last I heard. Where we live, there have been a handful of deaths and as regrettable as that is, it’s not the thousands and hundreds of thousands others are suffering. Although I haven’t been a Trudeau fan per se, I have to applaud how well he responded and how quickly initiative was implemented to safeguard as many as possible as quickly as possible. Whether you like him or not, he will win re-election in a walk as a result. I only wished Orange Head would have responded in like for you!
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Orange head cares about nothing but himself and money. He does not care about us at all.
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Pretty obvious today when he walked away from the platform when they were supposed to be setting up someone to deal with the virus situation!
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One of our requirements when purchasing our new home was to have enough space around it so we wouldn’t have to deal with any neighbors. Of course, I didn’t anticipate a situation where we couldn’t deal with any neighbors, even if we wanted to. And just when I actually got neighbors I’d like to chat with! Still, it’s comforting to know I’m safe within the confines of my house and yard, and I have no intentions of going out (maybe ever again).
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I don’t miss going out, but I miss being able to go out, even though i rare actually go anywhere. Here, they are beginning to talk “late summer.” That’s a long time off.
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Put away the shovel Marilyn, they’re contemplating closing the borders for at least a year down here in Australia!😜
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If I sneak in through a planet length tunnel, you think they’d notice?
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🤐
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If you and Garry could make it to Tasmania (our border has been closed from the big Island, room for You all here bring the dogs too. 🙃
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The thing that occurs to me most often is not who or what (you do realize they might nominate an actual donkey, right?) will be nominated and elected and so forth; but will there be anything left for that shadow-y figure to alleged ‘lead’? I never thought I’d see a plague. Most of the time I just wonder why some of us are forced to sit, front row, without even the comfort of popcorn, and watch the world wind down? Think I could scalp my ticket to the show? It’d sure go cheap!!
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It makes you feel like a kid watching the world with nothing to be done except somehow, survive.
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You have a real point there. But could an actual donkey be any worse than Orange head?
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I think a lot of people realized what a disaster Trump would be. I did. I’m certainly not unique or special or more aware than most people. I also thought we’d be stuck with him for the nonce. I was disgusted by the Dems who immediately began calling for his impeachment — that’s bad stragedy in poker. But just because a person is elected to office doesn’t mean they’re smart. As for the Dem candidate, there will be some kind of convention and many congress people are working on getting distance voting mandated by the feds. Good luck, but still… States can take their own action there. Biden is 700 delegates from the nomination. Commie spoiler from hell is 1000. I dunno. It’s all a big blurry unknown. But individual life has certainly simplified to the fundamental imperative which is “stay alive.” It’s a rather grim clarity, but it’s clarity.
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That’s our goal. Just survive and still be alive when the disease recedes. It’s not like I foresee a long life for me, though Garry might make it coming as he does from a long-lived family. At the very least, I’d like to outlive this government and get a chance to see how this strange and terrible twist of fate will change the world. I keep hoping for better especially since it is hard to imagine how much worse it could get while still calling this a “government.” I am not sure what we are anymore. Ironic. Queen Liz at 93 is fine, but Charles is ill with Corona as is Boris Johnson, their version of T-rump. I am, like you, desperately glad I live in the country. I think living in the city now would be truly awful. I was not thrilled with it when we lived there, but at least we had an income and could go out.
National Geographic has a flip edition this month. Optimism on one side, pessimism on the other. The pessimist side is so gloomy I had to quit even looking at the graphics. I haven’t had the character to read the other side. One way or the other, there will be change. I hope we are able to see it
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Hang in there, Marilyn ❤
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You too, my friend. We still have some living to do.
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I’m scared shitless! I think I’ll keep grocery shopping online for the rest of my life.
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I’ve been doing a lot of shopping for things that don’t need refrigeration or freezing online for a while, but that’s because we live in this small town where it is hard to get a lot of the things I use. Now, of course, I think it’s a national trend.
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that election for the next US president is going to be a circus I think. I sometimes listen to the US politics on my news, I listen to CNN or fox news, trump always makes me angry and so irritated.
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We don’t even have a Democratic candidate. I’m assuming it’s going to be Biden, but neither candidate had enough votes to take the nomination and both of them are on lockdown, so there nothing political going on that anyone notices. The news is entirely full of COVID 19 information. We seem to have forgotten the election entirely.
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Yes I did notice that. I mean normally the election take centre stage, but everything seems to be on hold now
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We always looked towards America as the big brother. Perhaps we laughed now and again but they pointed the way to go, and did not make a bad job of it. I think my first president I remember was Eisenhower, through the others to the madman we have today. How could it happen. How can a country vote for a complete idiot and why is he still there?. We are in a complete criisis at the moment, not just our country, but the world and he is still spouting about how great and intelligent he is.
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He is such an awful man in every possible way. I really think no one realized what a complete disaster he really would be. There was an assumption that if he assumed office, the importance and responsibility of the presidency would hit him and he would become a president. This did NOT happen, proving I suppose that you get what you vote for. Normally though, people change dramatically when they are elected, but Trumps is such an ignoramus, I doubt he has even READ the constitution much less grasped its meaning … and with everything locked down, the other party — we Democrats — haven’t even completed our primaries or had a convention. We are swinging in the wind.
I suppose we can’t entirely blame this disaster on Trump, but his unwillingness to cope with the oncoming plague (he knew about it as early as December) his lack of understanding of what it would mean, his focus on money ather than the good of his population is appalling.
If nothing else, there is a lesson for the world in this disaster. Leadership is only as good as the people you elect. Moreover, our non-parliamentary system makes swapping out a bad leader for a nominally better one (England isn’t doing very well either and they are the original parliamentary system) makes a fluid and responsive government much trickier and often, impossible.
We don’t have the option of voting a prime minister out. It’s not the way the government is set up. Parliamentary systems are much more responsive than republics.
Short of rewriting the constitution — which is not going to happen, at least not yet — we are stuck with this mess. But you know, it is disasters like this that force change in a country. I have a feeling based on history that there are going to be massive changes in this and other nations in the near future. I think in 20 years, we won’t have this type of government.
I only wish I could live long enough to see how it all falls apart then comes together. I don’t think either of us has another 20 years to watch, though if Garry survives, he comes from a long-lived family. Aside from arthritis and other typical aging symptoms, he is otherwise surprisingly healthy though awfully thin and a bit fragile. Tired, but mostly healthy. The fact that he still has a functioning liver is amazing. Anyone else who drank as much as he did would probably long since have died of cirrhosis.
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That was interesting, especially about Gary. I could say the same for Mr. Swiss, but he is still going strong, although a lot thinner and also a functioning liver. And we can still agree to disagree. How comes they lose so much weight when they get older.
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I don’t know, but Garry is awfully thin. And he does eat … more than me. But he is really skeletal and it worries me.
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It began last year with Marcel from 80 down to 50 kilos. It has now stabilized. He is eating OK and the doctor found no reason for it. Of course for us the difference is noticeable and perhaps a little shocking but the main thing is that they remain OK
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Garry’s father got very thin when he got old. Maybe it’s inherited. The Boost Garry drinks for extra calories is out of stock and that’s not helping.There’s no reason for Garry either tho I think stress has something to do with it.
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It is a world we never imagined
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A lot of scientists DID imagine it, but Trump decided it wouldn’t happen and cut the legs off our medical research and prevention team.
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Trump is so shortsighted that he can see past his nose.
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He never got an education and it shows.
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It sure does. And he is so full of himself!
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It’s a bit of a nightmare but we’ll get through it….
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Most of us will survive, though there is going to be a huge shortage of grandparents around the world. But what happens next — that will be most interesting.
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my curiosity is peaked….
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So is mine. But I don’t know if my lifespan has been equally piqued.
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don’t think about that…
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I wish it were not so, Marilyn. Bizarre has never been more bizarre in our lifetimes. I wish . . . .
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Maybe our problem is we don’t live long enough to grasp the recurrence of historical events. 100 years ago, the (not) Spanish flu decimated the world. And here we are again. With the climate changing, the odds of this happening again and much sooner are very high. This month’s National Geographics has some pretty lurid statistics on how climate change will make the spread of what were rare diseases into plagues. Just the spread of lethal mosquitoes could do it.
We haven’t lived to see this, but if we all live 50 more years, we’d see it plainly and a rerun of 1918. And other plagues. There have been MANY.
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The one thing that gives me (I hope not false) some small comfort is the fact that Trump is as old as we are, and unless the old adage that “the good die young” is somehow true, and he lasts much longer than those we regard as”good”, this thing could bite him in the ass too. While I don’t wish anything bad on anyone I have a problem with resisting the wish that something bad needs to happen Mr. Trump. The scary thing is we see him do things that would destroy anyone else only to watch him bounce back unscathed, as if it was nothing. “Lying is the New Truth” and “Bad is the New Good”.., how do we pull out of this tail spin?
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Do you think Trump made a pact with the devil?
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