April 22, 2020

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2020!! Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the annual celebration of the environmental movement that began on this day in 1970. The theme of this year’s Earth Day is ‘Climate Action.’ Despite the naysayers’ perception that climate change is overblown or their flat out denial of global warming, this issue represents one of the biggest challenges to the future of humanity. The debate will certainly continue between the skeptics and the climatologists in the science community in the future and will perhaps be one of the issues debated between presidential candidates as we approach November. The folks who started Earth Day in 1970 are now in their 70’s, so a new generation of environmental activists are coming on the scene. Probably the most popular is Greta Thunberg, the 17 year old Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change. We were in Santa Fe, New Mexico on a Friday last September where we witnessed a large turnout of middle and high school students participating in Fridays for Future, a strike movement founded by Greta. It was very cool watching these students march to the steps of the capital in Santa Fe, chanting and carrying their homemade picket signs. Kinda reminded me of the 60’s and 70’s. What tickles me pink is that she was named Person of the Year 2019 by Time Magazine, which just pissed tRump to pieces. When he learned that she had been named the Person of the Year, instead of him, here is what our sitting president tweeted about a 16 year old girl (at that time), “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!” Greta, being a much more intelligent young lady than the stable genius, following the President’s tweet, updated her Twitter bio to reflect Trump’s comments: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.” Love it!

Pope Francis even made an impassioned plea today for protection of the environment, recounting a Spanish proverb that God always forgives, man sometimes forgives, but nature never forgives. Pope Francis said: “If we have deteriorated the Earth, the response will be very ugly,” and “I think that if I ask the Lord now what he thinks about this, I don’t think he would say it is a very good thing. It is we who have ruined the work of God.”

We knew when tRump got elected there would be issues involving his family business interfering with his presidency. I see today that the Trump Organization wants the Trump Administration to give them a break on lease payments due for their Washington D.C. hotel. The Trump’s own and operate the hotel, but lease the federally owned building for about $268,000 per month from the General Services Administration. The organization has approached the government entity asking for a renegotiation of the terms of the lease due to the drop in business as a result of the coronavirus. I understand that they have a right to try to get a break, just as other businesses across the country are probably doing, also. The problem is the conflict this creates now, because the agency that would make the decision for a break, run’s the risk of pissing off tRump if it denies a break; and who appoints it’s leader? And who holds grudges and fires anyone who pisses him off? You guessed it. If it does accommodate the request, then the agency will get filleted for showing favoritism. This is exactly why there was so much concern about entanglements with his public office and his private business early on.

In yet another effort to distract the nation from his complete failure to lead during the outset of the coronavirus, he is once again playing to his Faux News crowd and white nationalist supporters, with a ban on immigration for the next 60 days to solve the economic crisis. He says he is doing this to save American jobs. The majority of jobs our immigrants are performing, however, are the low paying, but essential jobs that put food on our table from their work in the fields and meat processing plants, their healthcare jobs in hospitals and assisted living centers, construction, and hotel service. These are jobs that have been shown to not interest most white American folks, as it is hard work with low pay. This is an attempt to show his crowd that he is looking out for them and saving their jobs. With the expanded unemployment insurance and other stimulus dollars being deposited in bank accounts, I think his crowd is just happy sitting at home eating their chips and dips and drinking their Lone Star beer, without having to work in 90 degree weather or stand in blood and guts. But, we also have immigrants or children of immigrants who are not in the service industries, but rather the medical field, engineering, science, technology, etc. To quote Linda Chavez, the director of the Becoming American Initiative, “A 2018 study by the Brookings Institution indicates that nearly a third of our STEM workers and students are also immigrants or the children of immigrants. When researchers find a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19, we shouldn’t be surprised that an immigrant or first generation American will be on the team, or even leading it.”

Enough rambling for today. The missus has a milestone birthday coming up and since shopping at the malls is out of the question, I need to get online and see if Victoria’s Secret can get a delivery to me in time. Bye, Bye. ByeDon. Ziggyman