From my Covid Journal. Summer 2020.

My disposition of being personally clean, and tidy went out the window a while ago. As I enjoy saying Queers are genetically engineered by nature to be tidy. We can also cook do art have a good fashion sense and are too smart for our own good. I feel like hell. That, and the world as we knew it is rapidly ending all around us. This time I don't think we go back to exactly the way it was.

The Virus...the one that just killed over 100,000 people in this republic. *(Number as of June 2020. It ultimately killed over a million in this country.) ...remember the Virus? It's still here, and as infectious as it was the first day.

That Second Wave is going to be fucking Hell.

Just like the second wave of the 1918 Pandemic was. What with delusional heavily armed anti-lockdown fans spreading it everywhere. Them, and young folks bored with quarantine going clubbing to the amusement grounds, and the beach. Tens of thousands are exposing themselves each other, and their families. This in the waves of demonstrations in all 50 States. As part of our re-ignited Race War.

Did I cover everything?

Btw the Pentagon just reminded us that UFO's aka UAP’s are real. The second time they did this...do they know something? They now admit them things have been hanging around their bases, and buzzing aircraft carriers for years. "Watch the Skies!" (Reference to a classic S/F flick.)  

Anyway, they fixed my plumbing. The guys were wearing spacesuits. I’m surprised they sent anyone at all.  I took my first hot shower in three days, and I need to shop for food. I finally ran through my pantry bunker of canned goods.

Life in the Plague years. Be brave kind and wise.

From my Covid Journals. June 4, 2020. Emerald City...Day 80. 

We're under both Virus Lockdown, and Civil Disorder Curfew. Except for downtown, and across the bridge in Manhattan. Arrests there. Curfew, 8pm-5am. It’s so far calm in my 'hood. Many patrolling choppers though. Subways will run for ‘Essential’ workers. Mayor sez it'll hold till next week...we'll see. Be brave be safe be kind.

Space exploration is a Longterm species endeavor. Above the a 'Dragon' commercial pod docks with the ISS. We've only just started in the last 80 years. It will go on through the coming millennia. Like sailing the seas, it will just be. There's a knee-jerk progressive reaction against it. Though once decades ago it was a progressive ideal around the world. Fashion changes. As it becomes cheaper, and more non-government agencies become involved. Which is to say it will get more interesting and start making money. The criticism will shift elsewhere. Not many demos against train travel. Me I'm a Space fan always was and will be. Mind you I'm no idealist about it...it's just a business now. However, I'm glad our species is out there, and there to stay. It will as it has wax, and wane in popularity, but continue.

A missive years ago from an old blog. Our radio station moved uptown to City University. High ground. Harlem Heights. We were washed out of our Wall Street studios by Hurricane Sandy. The storm tide locally was 20 feet above street level. Some were trapped for days at the station.

Once upon a time: It's raining like hell outside. I'm up on the City University campus tonight. All the kids are away...well most of them. Only security and the radio staff hanging around. It's interesting here in the dark during a monsoon. The rain coming in sideway sheets. The Gothic buildings of the university shine in the lamplight. The metal awnings of the North Academic Center where we are rattles with the rain, and wind. I think I'll sleep over rather than do the long commute home. I’ll sleep and dream in a temple of learning as its windows shudder in the storm.

Memorial Day has passed but I still think of my father. Alfred B. Smith Sargent U.S. Army Air Corps decorated WW2 vet in the then segregated forces. I’ve posted before of what he endured here and overseas due to ‘Jim Crow’. That and his experiences in the war. Despite it all he loved his country and always said he’d serve again if called. He loved it for what it was striving to be. As I do. The legality of the Jim Crow race laws have passed away. However, it’s spirit still lives by other names in our republic. We still strive for that “...More perfect union”.

However, I want to share another memory of him.

My father taught me to love words and their meanings. My last memories of him are of his sitting at our kitchen table. There paging through the Websters Dictioary he gave us when children. It was as big as a Gutenberg Bible and just as precious. It took us from first grade through university.  So there he sat, my father. Paging reading through that great book. Searching and learning immersed in the wonder of words.

If I were emperor, I’d mandate three months of poverty and hunger for every billionaire regardless. Three months because that's how long the effect of malnutrition takes to be profoundly felt. Been there. With such a life experience they will be changed. Some for vengeance for others a possible slight change of heart.

"Our Town"

I took these over several years.

One sadly foretold of the Orange burning Skies to come.

 

Our times.

Alabama authorities are investigating how white supremacist messages appeared on a digital road sign along a highway busy with Memorial Day traffic. Motorists on Interstate 65 near Clanton called state troopers to report the words “Patriot Front” and “reclaim America” were flashing on an electronic sign.

The Patriot Front is a violent hate group that propounds the racist great replacement theory of white Americans and Europeans being supplanted by immigrants. John McWilliams, the regional public information officer for the Alabama department of transport, said a contractor’s mobile sign in Chilton County appeared to have been hacked.

A citizen alerted an Alabama state trooper barracks. They responded and turned the message board off.  Two weeks ago, a similar incident happened in Florida. A highway board was there also hacked. “Kill All Gays” was inserted over a road work warning. 

(From the Guardian.