Monday evening. In the spirit of keeping things interesting, I went all in on veggies during today’s grocery run. (Incidentally, my growing dislike of Walmart has led me into Loblaws for what I believe is the first time. Go Loblaws!)

I decided to steam a few of them in a microwave for dinner: just random stuff like carrots, beats, peppers, cauliflower, etc. Five minutes later, I accidentally ended up with impromptu borscht. You know what they say: you can take a boy out of Russia… Heh.

I also tried dragonfruit for the first time. It was delicious, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was destroying something beautiful as I sliced it in half. The world would be a much more entertaining place if all the random fruit/veggie arrangements were replaced with dragonfruit and other tropical beauties.

…yesterday, white cops in Wisconsin shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back after he broke up a fight and started walking back to his SUV. Miraculously, he survived. That happened just short of the three-month anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. Not a damn thing has changed. There are riots in Kenosha. No justice, no peace. Some countries go entire decades without engaging in horrifying police violence. The US can’t even make it three months. Not for the first time, I’m so, so glad I left. I feel sorry for those left behind, those who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave – “sorry” in the most fundamental sense of the word. Sorrow.

The fact that Blake survived is far less relevant than the fact that several white cops attempted to kill him in broad daylight. There will be the standard kabuki theater: they’ll be placed on leave, some hoity-toity task force will stretch out the investigation for months and years. Much, much later, there’ll be some official conclusion, followed by a non-apology apology. There will be no justice.

I remember the murder of Freddie Gray. The fact that those Baltimore cops stayed quiet and got away with it… That was horrifying – and just another in the series of many red flags. I was in Baltimore when that happened, launching Amazon’s newest warehouse. There were city-wide curfews, and we had to give our employees permission slips so they could get to work and back after dark. That was over five years ago. Not a damn thing has changed. Some place their hopes on Kamala Harris: if Biden wins the election, and if Trump lets go of the power peacefully (fat chance), and if Biden dies in office, and if Harris actually wants to enact change… That’s an awful lot of if’s, and that’s no way to run an alleged democracy.

In covid news: Trump has strong-armed the FDA into announcing emergency authorization for using convalescent plasma to treat covid. That’s largely meaningless, and most of the FDA’s personnel (and Fauci himself) were against it. There’s no way to scale up the production of plasma (humans are the only source), and the efficiency is overstated, in any case. Just more empty noise.

The Miami Dolphins will admit 13,000 fans into their stadium during the home opener on September 10th. There are highly idealistic plans that attempt to explain how 13,000 people will stay far away from each other, avoid close contact, and get into the stadium in a socially responsible way. And they say there’s no market for fairy tales anymore. Heh. This strikes me as just the latest in the ongoing battle of jocks vs nerds. Nerds wanted the country to go into lockdown, wanted masks to be made mandatory, etc. Jocks laughed and didn’t follow the rules. Now it’s the football season, and while countries like New Zealand can enjoy their public gatherings once again, the US jocks want something they haven’t earned. I wonder how many other states will do something similar. There’ll be some mighty depressing pictures of mobs of fans waving American flags and shouting nonsense in support of their beloved sportsball team.

…I get that my writing has become increasingly bitter and cynical. I’m aware of that. It’s just that the world at large, or at least my part of it, is going to hell in a handbasket. I worry about my friends, my family, and the people of the country I’d once loved. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to truly help them.