I’ve taken down the Plague Counter on this blog. COVID has taken the back bench to protests, riots, and reactions. I don’t see any changes in our lives, due to the virus or its cure, for a super long time. The boys and Steve are here maybe permanently. Jonah has an online internship with the local member House of Representatives. Ian still doesn’t have any school. I cook and write a lot. No change.

So, let’s talk about the world. Yesterday, a group of peaceful protestors were tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets, so the president could give an outdoor press conference in the Rose Garden. Then, he marched across the street to a local church with a bible for a photo op.

Meanwhile, New York City, my heart, was trashed last night. Everything from 43rd Street down looks like crap. A friend who bartends on Spring Street texted us a picture of her bar with smashed out windows.

From the gossip on TV, twitter, and texts with friends, it seems that New York City was hurt much worse than other cities. It sounds like things were cool in Newark, Baltimore, and Portland. DC looks bad, too.

There is no way to spin the horror of looting and vandalism. No way to make those images palatable to the rest of America. It turns off sympathetic people. It radicalizes nasty people. I still can’t believe some of the comments on twitter coming from the nasty people.

I’m a worrier. That’s how I’m wired. I have the deep fear that the President, the king of the nasty people, is going to use this night of violence as an excuse to impose martial law and to cancel November’s election.

Meanwhile, the whole topic of policing has been dropped by the media this morning. So sad. The most interesting conversations yesterday were around the roll of the police unions in protecting bad cops. I wanted more of that.