June 28, 2020

  • Stuff to save for later

    Jer and I have dreams of working for/near Disney and NASA during retirement. Assuming climate change hasn't made that unbearable in Florida yet. (Yes I "believe" in that too as much as I "believe" the Earth is round. Full on nerd over here.)

    Like, that's my legit dream. I just want to be 70 and chillin' in the Florida sun with my screened-in pool somewhere between Orlando and Titusville. I'll be old and cold all the time by then right? (Assuming some spinal cord injury complication hasn't killed me yet. I might need to reevaluate this plan, haha. Hopefully science will fix that too someday.)

    Anyways. Florida I love you tremendously but these politicians in Tallahassee are ruining it. This guy is awful. So awful. Can't we just have nice human beings that appreciate ALL humans and believe in science making the rules and setting the tone of the country? Like how is that so much to ask? We don't need perfection and we'll never get it but basic scientific reasoning and empathy for humanity would be a great start.

    America was never "destined" or "set aside" or any of that BS for white people. We literally took it from Native Americans in horrific ways, enslaved black people for centuries, forced segregation for decades, and still haven't truly addressed that problem. Now leaders like this governor (not to mention our president) brazenly treat humans from just about anywhere south of us as less-than. The whole point of this country was to welcome all to freedom and set an example for the rest of the world. Now much of the rest of the world is laughing at us and worse, they're looking elsewhere for moral, ethical, and science-based (i.e. true) global leadership.

    I know we didn't make much of this mess. Generations before us did. But we look back at slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow and think, "How could my ancestors just go along with that? It's clearly wrong on a million levels. It's an affront to humanity." But that doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility to make it right NOW. Will my grandkids think I'm awful for going along with the way we treat immigrants and undocumented human beings working hard and largely supplying the food we eat every day? Just because I was born here and they were born somewhere else doesn't make me any better than anybody else.