Random Musings

Thursday night will be my last class to teach for the 2019 elections. Then there will be 2 days of madness in October and 2 in November, then about a week in December to prepare for the new materials in January 2020 when we start the cycle again. While the American  media complained about the President skipping climate control meetings, they have almost totally ignored his speech at a special called meeting with 60+ countries dealing with the humanitarian crisis in China. In the last several years, over 1 million Muslim minorities have been imprisoned, tortured, and some even executed. This past year the "re-education camps" have started spreading to include Christians, Falan-Gang, and devout Buddhists. Our US Senate unanimously passed a bi-partisan bill denouncing the crimes. And our media is almost silent. A former colleague and dear brother has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He will be facing a very intense surgery, several months to heal, followed by six months of...

The last few days I've spent a little more time than normal on social media, and some of the things I've seen have really made me pause. Hurricane Dorian flattened the Bahamas. Some weather stations listed it hitting the islands as a category five; others side a severe four. Either way, the winds hit the islands with a very intense force and stayed there for more than a day.  People died. The homes they lost were not their summer homes, but the only location they had containing everything they owned. Any emergency food or clothing they had was swept away in the waters that sent them scrambling to the attic, sometimes pushing out air vents or attempting to punch holes in the roof so they could actually climb on the roof of the house to escape the waters rushing into the attic. A few days pass, and hurricane Dorian arrives on the East Coast, after what felt like an eternity of warnings. Even though the hurricane had weakened all the way to a category two, the way the media ca...