Sept 3, 2020 - Thursday - Thoughts While Walking Through a Very Quiet Campus

Haven't been on campus for months, more than six months, in fact. Have to make an appointment with SSU authorities, not just to get on  campus, but to be scheduled to go to a particular building. Only ten people allowed in any one building at a time, to allow for good social distancing. Masks required, of course.

Felt so good to go somewhere and do something. Met with a friend and co-worker, who recalled coming to campus after the first few months of SIP to find the weeds chest-high, everything looking abandoned, like a ghost town. Today, the grounds keeping is back under control, the lawns mowed short and the garden areas at least pruned. But no one is strolling around, the parking lots have 20 cars in them apiece,  the library is closed, cafes shuttered. Teachers come in one at at time to prepare for their online classes or grade or design and prepare labs and discussions to be done online. A few lab classes are being held in-person, ones that just can't be done at home. But most of the dorms are now shut down. Over the summer, some of the buildings housed quarantining patients and families; some of the homeless were housed here, too. But once the semester started, they couldn't keep all those populations in one location, so the homeless and quaranteeners had to go elsewhere.

Its's quiet, spooky, as I walk from my car to meet my friend and then walk off campus for coffee - large buildings, big grounds, few people. Lots of birds,  little goldfinches emboldened to flit amongst the seedheads close to the path, ignoring the me. I'm the only one on the sidewalks. A Twilight Zone flavor to it. 

Stephanie and I talk of our families, and the stresses, and the realities we all have to deal with, grandchildren, grown children, ailing parents. All the plans put on hold, the family hunkered around the house, sharing meals again, talking about the Viet Nam War era we parents lived through, the experiences of the returning war veterans, conscientious objectors, the protests that always held an edge of violence. 

What we don't talk about: the craziness of this election, of the Tweeter-in-Chief. Of his behavior.  How he belittles everyone because he has no other way to consider them. He knocks the police officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting, calling them out for "choking" while firing at a man simply trying to close his car door -- as if the goal is to shoot to kill always, like a video game. He is signaling that it is okay for Americans to shoot to kill other Americans, he's laying the ground work for violence in the streets. This is a betrayal;  it is the talk of a traitor to American ideals. (Even the Trumpian Apologist, Laura Ingraham  who was interviewing him at the time, was shocked - she tried to give him a way out but Drumpf just doubled down, as if he didn't even understand or care how his words would be received.)

We can't wrap our heads around a President who states that a voter can send in a signed Absentee Ballot, i.e; voting  by mail, and then go to the polls to vote -- again. Is this fella telling people to (illegally) vote twice because he's so clueless he doesn't understand what he's saying? Is he so inarticulate he can't explain what he means? Or is he trying to create so much confusion in the voting process that he can call it tainted and not abide by the decision, should he lose.  Another traitorous action; he should be prosecuted.

We don't say it, but we think it: Lock Him Up. For a long, long time. 

Going back to the pandemic,  here's the argument for speaking softly and wearing a big mask, from the podcast Social Distance, posted on Weds Sept 2 2020 Why Herd Immunity Isn't A Strategy