COVID Journal Entry Number One

My wife Anne has started a journal, as she says one day people will be interested to know what we went through during the COVID-19 crisis and conversion to dictatorship.   I thought I'd start one as well.

We're months into this yet still at the beginning, so much a already passed.   I'll start with a description of myself and a typical day.

I'll try to describe what I see in th mirror after weeks of inactivity and through my rapidly declining and blurry eyesight, with a nod to Harlan Ellison.   When I chance by a mirror I have not yet broken I see a large bloated mass, with pale white and almost incandescent skin.   They eye in the half of my face that still works has vision, yet is still blurry.   The mouth is more like  a slit, into which I thrust whatever edible or inedible matter or small creatures I happen to come across.  I leave a slimy trail of detritus  wherever I go, especially on my shirts.  The mop of hair is tangled and matted, even after I shower (once every 3-4 days).   The smell is deafening, which is my my wife tries to stay on a different floor of the house.

The days are highly structured and melt one into the other.   

I usually wake between 3 and 4 am.  Sometimes I get back to sleep sometimes I do not, but am usually up at 6m.   I have two cups of coffee while channel flipping between liberal "news" and Star Trek marathons on BBC, as well as enough Bloomberg to get our daily dose of market-swing driven endorphin rushes or depression.   I watch less and less news because it is all drivel and BS.

Around 7:30 is the start of two learning and self improvement cycles:   chess and music.   Computer-guided  video courses on chess for about 90 minutes, followed by a couple of hour of music playing, practice, and online lessons.   My music sensei is Brian from activemelody.com.  I've learned more from his site over the past couple of years than in the 40 years before that, good stuff.   

Recently I've been intermixing Doom Eternal for the past few weeks.   It's been years since I tried to play a video game (I didn't think I could due to eyesight), but if I stand very close to my 60 in screen in the music studio I can do it.    I was a big Doom fan back in the day and thew new game is actually quite fund.   Sure, it takes me a week to do on e level but not complaining.

All of this strenuous activity takes us up to nap time, usually between 12:309-1:30pm.   Remember, I've been up since between 3:30and 6am at this point.   "Nap" is a wrapper (Napper?) around about a 2 hour ritual of reading, playing chess games online, chatting, and then finally an actual nap.   

Special activities follow until dinner time (usually more of the same as the morning).   We rarely leave the house, but will walk down to the post office every other day on average to get our mail.   We wear our masks to do so, but very few others in Edmonds do so - which makes me mad, as in "why the hell are we doing all of this?"   Very occasionally we'll pick up takeout, more to support local businesses than anything.

I  cook a sumptuous meal every other day or so.  Anne cooks leftovers from my sumptuous meals (even the leftovers are sumptuous) on the off days.   

Evening hours are a few minutes of Rachel Madow (all we can take these days), a few minutes of network evening news (repeating anything we happened to watch during the day), followed by one of a dozen series we are currently watching.

We Zoom with family members from time to time (Skype with Gary, who says Zoom in snecure and will not allow it to be installed, spelt or spoken).   That's been a nice break and distraction.   

We do venture out to forage for food as needed.  Costco every few weks, QFC or PCC or Central Market for fresh stuff every 10 days or so.

That's about it.   These are my days, Anne's are different (mainly consisting of trying to stay on a different  floor of the house...smell as you'll recall).   

We have it so much easier than so many because we're retired and have no kids at home.    That doesn't mean we don't think of them constantly.    Gentle Reader, I hope you are faring as well and hopefully better.

Our Imperiled Democracy

Watching the entire impeachment process, and especially since the beginning of the actual trial in the Senate , truly makes my heart ache for my country.    Watching the people  that are supposed to be our leaders, especially (but not only) those on the Republican side, makes me me truly fear for our country.

The visionary men that created our democratic republic did so with truly deep and long-considered thought, debate, and compromise.   They were passionate men with strong convictions that they had already shown they were willing to die for.   They were probably no less partisan to the parties of their own time, but in them still burned the overriding partisanship of being a newly minted American.   Together they forged one of the most unique and enduring  platforms for their new country, the Constitution of the United States of America.

It is difficult to see today's political leadership agreeing where to have lunch.

Our founders foresaw the critical dangers that might undermine and destroy the democracy they created:  Interference by foreign powers; a corrupt executive (President); ultimate partisanship.   We are attacked on all of these fronts today.

Over the past two years, the party in power (the Republicans) have created a paradoxical net in which a corrupt President simply can't be removed from office.   We happen to have one of those in power now, and he needs to be held to account.

We're in a carefully contrived trap right now.

At the conclusion of the Mueller report, William Barr well established the position of the Trump administration that the President can't be indicted (charged with a crime).   No crime, of any kind.   Mueller went along with this - which was a stark reminder to me that he too is a Republican.     The only driving force behind this no-indictment policy is a Justice Department memo  written after Watergate.  This memo is neither law for a part of the Constitution, but it is treated as scared by Trump Justice Department and our congress won't even challenge it.

So:  We live in a country where the President can't be indicted for a crime.   He can shoot someone on fifth avenue.  He can nuke France for no reason.

But that's ok, because we have Impeachment! 

Not so fast!  The Republicans through their hack OJ defender Alan Dershowitz,  are now trying to claim that you can' impeach unless a crime has been committed.   Yet, you can't say a person committed a crime without a conviction.   You can't get a conviction without an indictment.    Essentially, the Republican position is that you can neither  indict nor impeach a sitting president.  This is 100% in conflict with our Constitution.

The other position that is being take is equally ridiculous:  That you can't impeach because it would "undo" the last election.  The last election can never be undone; we can never remove the stain of Trump from our history.  He is removed from office going forward, not backward.  Again, the Republicans are trying to say "you can never impeach a  sitting President". 


This is what happens when the ruling party decides to shelve honor and patriotism, as well as the oaths they have sworn, and trade all in for total partisan support of someone that does not deserve it.

Finally, they current Republican defense of the President (of many failed attempts) is that the President didn't commit a high crime anyway.   Remember those things the founders feared most?   Treason, bribery, the influence of foreign powers.   Trump committed at least two of these things with Ukraine, yet the Senate won't even look at the evidence.

I have a simple question for all Americans (if we can be Americans for a moment, not Democrats or Republicans):   "Are  you prepared to live in a dictatorship?"   Because that's where w'er headed if we con't step off this path and step off it quickly.

I write as an American.    If the Democrats were behaving in this fashion (as in my opinion they DID NOT in the last impeachment), I'd be just as worried.   The fact is that NO President, no Senate, no political party has EVER acted in this way.   

Not going to stay silent on this.   It's time for us to take a stand, while we still can.  Tell your Senator that this is not acceptable.  Tell them there is a price to be paid for not getting this right.   Right means an actual tril with consideration of the actual evidence, old and new. 


I hope some leadership can be found and found soon.