blue lantern

My college has traditions that involve lanterns. Each class has its own color, for a total of four colors, in ever continuing cycles. "Non-traditional age" scholars get purple. Blue is Karen's. This is a little necklace that represents her blue lantern. The bokeh is from the doorknob. 

We had a debate last night of the two men running for president. I was able to stand two minutes of it. 

Today I talked with a friend who lives in Israel now. She tried to come to the US this summer. In Israel she has health insurance. To travel she has to get travel health insurance. Absolutely no one would insure her for travel to the US. One woman actually laughed at her and called the US a cesspool of infection. But remember, we are doing an outstanding job managing the virus, no one could have done better. 

I have concluded that the US would have had a rough time of it even if Clinton were president. We would have fewer cases and deaths, but we'd all be appalled at how many we still had. We don't have universal health insurance. We don't have mandatory paid sick leave, so poor people would have still gone to work sick. We don't have a living minimum wage, so poor people would not have had any financial reserves to support themselves while staying home. We don't have a system where meatpacking plants immediately knew they needed to care for the safety of their employees. 

I am hopeful that in 2021 we'll begin to fix these things. 

We made it through the month folks. We are making it through this terrible year. Day by day we are getting through it.