Strange days indeed! I admit that the disruption of the cruise ship industry gives me personal joy.  These giant tubs of shit-spreaders are a major polluter of the world’s waterways and have a catastrophic effect on the Earth.  I also hate mega gatherings of any type.  The need to squeeze as many people into one location is just wrong and is done for profit, not to treat each person like a human being.  The need for giant metropolises like New York, Los Angeles, or Hong Kong have no economic purpose anymore and more and more are centers of economic disparity.   The need for power, food, shelter, sanitation become exponentially harder to provide in dense urban settings.  The golden idea of a gleaming city to be a modern home of civilization has turned into the haves and have nots.  The volume of homeless has hit record numbers and they camp out on the doorsteps of the rich.  Yuck!

In these strange days of the pandemic, youths are encouraged to stay home and stay high.  The amazing part is that young people are getting sick at a rate lower than the yearly flu, yet the fear of spreading the disease is ever present.  As an old guy, I accept that I must make good choices for my health, but I accept the risk and take the responsibility of staying healthy and immune seriously.  I exercise regularly, my diet supports a healthy lifestyle, and I go to sleep and wake at a regular time.  When I leave my home, I accept the risk and wear a face covering and do my best to maintain social distancing.  I understand that this doesn’t make me completely safe, but I believe that I am aware of the threats and have acted accordingly.

Unfortunately, in New York where I live, it is legal to spray “Round Up” into the ground (a known poison that affects the water table) and it’s illegal to grow 6 cannabis plants for personal consumption.  It’s legal to poison your neighbor, but illegal to grow a plant for personal consumption. How does that make sense?  There are record levels of deaths from prescription pain pills but somehow cannabis isn’t legal nationally yet. Why? Is the American way that someone must profit from all of our behaviors?  America was founded on person rights, but we are still fighting for every one of them - maybe we never had them?  Strange how America has changed, and not for the better in any way. 

The strangest thing of all is that we have all the answers we need: what is lacking is the discipline and the will to make things better.  If 60 million Americans are obese and millions go foodless each day, the idea of not having enough food is laughable.  Is it as simple as bringing the people to the food instead of massive commercial farms that have done massive harm to the world’s agriculture? For what started as a great idea to feed the world has turned into a climate-changing juggernaut that has decimated food variety.  Sustainable agriculture was the way for thousands of years and with a few modern techniques and technology, it could feed the world and help halt the warming of the globe. 

It’s absolutely strange that we look at problems without seeing the inherent opportunity.  Most see garbage, but I see a valuable resource that can be used for building, agriculture, and can be recycled into new goods.  Every town, state, and country have garbage. It just takes the will, the dedication, and an investment in the future to create a recycling infrastructure.  Several countries right now are racing to be the first to have a modern infrastructure for recycling waste: India is in the lead.  America must rethink modern life and commerce and focus on the quality of life and not economic value. Americans are in the streets demanding change, but what vision do they have for the future?  It’s not enough to be against something, we all must learn to fight for a better tomorrow for all living things on the Earth, not just humans.