Midstream 2020 is turning out to be a tough time to stay positive. The news is unrelenting and bad.

• Scientists in Spain published a study that indicates that herd immunity may not be possible with COVID-19. So there’s one less way out of the pandemic.
• Trump has gone full-on despot, not even trying to hide his more repulsive tendencies on race and culture. And 40% of Americans will still vote for him.
• I think there’s a big day of reckoning coming in Q3 for financial markets. The US government’s propping up of citizen and corporate income can’t go on forever, and is scheduled to end in Q3. Many jobs and companies just aren’t coming back. Unemployment numbers will rise again quickly and families’ inability to withstand another 6+ months without income will become yet another crisis. I think the second half of the year is going to be a financial shitshow.
• We’ve pretty much lost the pandemic battle in America. The huge, 50,000 case per day spike we’re seeing now is due to stupidity around Memorial Day and the start of summer. Right about the time that starts dropping we’ll get an equally large spike in cases due to the same stupidity demonstrated during July 4th. IF (and it’s a huge if) people started behaving rationally we could get some control of the disease and be on a downward trend by October. But that’s not likely to happen, meaning we’ll need to stay in semi-quarantine for all of 2020. And perhaps longer.
• I don’t see any way that air travel becomes really safe this year. So if I’m going to see my KY family again in 2020, it means another cross-country drive. Gonna have to get mentally tough for that.
• I don’t see any way that college basketball can be played this year. I know, this is small potatoes compared to the world’s real problems, but I love me some KY basketball. I look forward to it every year. It’s just one more thing to mourn a little.
• And….my health is really shaky. I can’t decide or know if my constant tiredness is just (a) old age and not enough exercise (increasingly bad knee joint), or (b) an aftereffect of the long unidentified sickness I had during February and March. All I know is a year ago I could walk 18 holes and carry my clubs. Now I’d have trouble walking three holes, clubs or not.
  • Update on health – turns out the knee replacement surgery I had scheduled for April 2020 will now not take place this year. Kaiser is 6-7 months behind on their ortho surgeries, so I’m just going to have to live with significant knee pain for the foreseeable future. I know, not a disaster relative to other ills of the world, but just one more damn thing to deal with. As I think Will Rogers said (I can’t confirm the quote) , “The only minor medical problem is someone else’s”.

So yeah, I’m a little negative right now. Intellectually I know I have much to be thankful for, but emotionally there’s a lot to take in. I’ll chalk this whiny little essay up to getting it out of my system and just move on to a more productive mindset.