Version 2.090

The first day of August did not feel of Summer. It was rainy and cool this morning and it got slightly better throughout the day, but nothing spectacular. I would have stayed at home all day, were it not for the fact that Julian ran out of food, which I only noticed at 8 PM. I thought about making do until tomorrow, but since PetSmart was open until 9 PM, I thought it best to go tonight. 

At the pet store, almost everyone was wearing mask, except children and one adult. I don't understand the deal with adults. You either wear it or you don't, but this women had it halfway through her chin, then covered her mouth, but not her nose. At the grocery store, it was the same deal: most everyone had it properly, then there were the mask mavericks who, clearly, don't understand the concept.

In the afternoon, I had a conference call with my girlfriends from Houston, TX. Things do not look pretty in Houston, and the authorities have been distributing pamphlets in the areas more affected with educational comic strips that teach people to socially distance and wear masks. My girlfriends have been mostly locked up, although sometimes some go to their respective offices just for a few hours.

There is an interesting article on Vanity Fair about the national approach to the virus that Jared Kushner's improv-specialist team was working on at the beginning of the pandemic, but it just fell apart--imagine that. If he and his like had to start from scratch, they wouldn't have amounted to anything worth writing about. But they are born into families with connections and access to money, thus they can breeze through life as if they were the chosen ones.

I am still upset at the data coming out of Europe regarding GDP. The whole purpose of having more interventive governments is to protect the economy and the citizens, yet their dive is worse than the United States'. And if you look at data for the first quarter, government spending in the Eurozone was reduced. How do countries reduce government spending when they're preparing for a pandemic and as people start to lose their jobs? The whole point of paying more taxes in Europe is to have the government reduce the risk that people are exposed to, so that governments can spend more when there are disasters.