April 2020, COVID-19

We’ve traveled about 758,000,000 miles* since the last post here. It was a post about our travels in January 2018 and the places we visited.
Today, we’re spending time at home and the news is almost entirely about COVID-19. We’ve left home to visit the grocery, pharmacy, go for a walk, go for a drive, or get take-out. Much of the time we haven’t done very much but just be depressed. It was depressing before the pandemic, thinking about the huge divisions in the U.S. and failing to foresee a time when it may become better. 

Politics of the pandemic

This is a presidential election year, and the pandemic has disrupted the ‘normal’ political process. Michigan held its presidential primary election on March 10 shortly before we were all told to isolate ourselves at home. Other states are either holding the primaries with a lot of trepidation or postponing them. It seems impossible that the political conventions will take place but the election in November is too important consider not having it. What will happen? There’s a lot of talk about mail-in ballots, and Michigan’s no-reason absentee voting would seem to cover that. Some states are entirely vote-by-mail, and it seems to work well. But I thought it was surprising how many older voters did not absentee-vote during the primary here.

*  The last post was 474 days ago and Google says earth travels about 584 million miles per year. What a ride!