As we drove through th East Bay hills on the way to my appointment at a clinic in Orinda, we passed houses with multi-million-dollar views; those views now consist only of white smoke. Off in the distance to the west, you see nothing.
I was on my way to get a Covid test prior to my second eye operation next Tuesday; you have to be Covid-free to get the operation.
Since I am at the halfway point in this two-operation process, I've developed a theory -- that my "new" eyes need to get used to each other. Until then, I close first one, then the other, in an attempt to see. It doesn't help that the world has turned bright white.
Be that as it may, my daughter and I are stunned at how many others are out and about. The traffic is pretty heavy. Ours, obviously, is a voyage of necessity -- the Orinda urgent care clinic is the closest one that could administer my test.
But is everyone else on a similar mission? That seems doubtful.
As I enter the treatment area of the clinic, everyone masked and gloved and swathed in disposable clothing, including paper shoes, my daughter sits in the waiting room.
A man with three small children arrives. One of his kids has symptoms and their pediatrician says he needs a Covid test. They send him around to the other entrance to the clinic -- the children's entrance.
Heading home again, wearing my wraparound sunglasses against the searing white glare, I ponder how we got in this condition For a half century I have lived the California Dream, my version of it. A boy from small Midwestern towns, child of immigrants, with no expectation of anything but plenty of curiosity, experienced a world of creativity, art, achievement and encounters with fellow travelers in a place that seemed like paradise.
Now it seems more like hell.
No matter how evocative our descriptions of what our state has become, and every writer is trying, you have to actually be here to comprehend it, I fear. And I do not recommend you come. In a year when we used to think that the novel coronavirus was the story, or the cataclysmic confrontation of two political visions, it is climate change that is in fact what 2020 is all about.
As our dreams go up in smoke, so do those of America.
***
* As dangers rise, many fear their California Dream is fading -- The cityscape resembles the surface of a distant planet, populated by a masked alien culture. The air, choked with blown ash, is difficult to breathe.There is the Golden Gate Bridge, looming in the distance through a drift-smoke haze, and the Salesforce Tower, which against the blood-orange sky appears as a colossal spaceship in a doomsday film.San Francisco, and much of California, has never been like this. (Houston Chronicle)
* Biden makes plans to combat pandemic if he wins -- The Democratic presidential nominee has created a war cabinet-in-waiting on the coronavirus, with public health experts from the Obama, Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations devising plans for a coordinated and muscular federal response. (WashPo)
* The fires raging out West are unprecedented. They're also a mere preview of what climate change has in store -- Entire towns have been burned to the ground.Thousands have been forced to flee their homes.And apocalyptic scenes played out in San Francisco, as the city was blanketed in smoke so thick it blocked out the sun. The scale of the fires burning in the Western US right now are unprecedented. (CNN)
* President Trump has leveled scathing law-and-order attacks on Biden for weeks. But a new poll shows Mr. Biden ahead in three states Mr. Trump hopes to pick up, and maintaining a lead in Wisconsin. (NYT)
* Trump isn’t talking about the wildfires -- The president’s relative silence on the West’s wildfire crisis matches up with his relative silence on three other issues: the struggles of Democratic-led states, climate change and crises that require empathy. (WashPo)
* Worldwide, the population facing life-threatening levels of food insecurity is expected to double, to more than a quarter of a billion people. (NYT)
* California’s wildfire smoke plumes are unlike anything previously seen -- Plumes have reached 55,000 feet in height with embedded thunderstorms, lightning and tornadoes. WashPo)
* Hospitals prepare for ‘nightmare’ scenario of flu and coronavirus striking at same time (WashPo)
* San Francisco may soon lower the voting age to 16. (ABC)
* ‘Transsexual Satanist anarchist’ whose slogan is ‘f*** the police’ wins GOP nomination for New Hampshire county sheriff (U.S. Sun)
* Las Vegas is a ghost town where even the strippers put up signs saying, 'Sorry, we're clothed' (The Mail Online)
* Conspiracy theory QAnon spreads across globe, shadowing COVID-19 (The Hill) "They like me," says Trump.
* Mexican water wars: Dam seized, troops deployed, at least 1 killed in protests about sharing with US (HM Media)
***
And are we rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell
With no kinda chance for the flag or the liberty bell?Wish a Ford and a Chevy
Would still last ten years like they should
Is the best of the free life behind us now
No comments:
Post a Comment