Hindsight 2020

The following YouTube link is the speech that President Obama gave the day after the 2016 election when it was clear that Donald Trump had won the race. I encouraged you to take a few minutes and watch this. https://youtu.be/a_qg4svvSvU My immediate thought was "OK, so this is what a true president sounds like." He touched on all the important points and immediately tried to focus the country on the fact that the "united" in the United States of America was very important moving forward. He spoke about the importance of a smooth and cooperative transfer of power and assured everyone that he would do everything in his power to make that happen. You don't realize the greatness of this speech until you've endured four years of tweets, lies, insults, and tantrums from Trump. Pick any former president and find a speech he gave. You'll see many of the same common elements. They all focused on trying to unite the country and presented themselves in a dignified...

Back at the end of January, if you would've tried to tell me that I'd be sitting at my desk at work with a mask on and surrounded by hastily constructed foam board barriers to sequester me from my coworkers, I probably would have given you a skeptical look and thought you were blowing things a bit out of proportion. As far as I can recall, January was the first time I heard or read about a worrisome Novel Coronavirus that was starting to reak havoc in China and that had many infectious disease experts in this country sounding the alarm. At first, I thought the same thing as I imagine a lot of people thought: sounds like just another variety of the seasonal flu; not even as deadly it seems. I didn't really understand the aspect of there being no cure or no vaccine and that us humans had zero built up resistance against this new strain. The more I read and heard, the more concerned I became. I had a ton of questions and so did everyone else I knew. The problem was no one had ...

  Observations from the 2020 General Election As a nation, we are bitterly divided and there is a huge chasm separating both sides. It will require gargantuan amounts of love, understanding, compromise, and education to bridge this chasm. Right now, it seems to be an insurmountable task. Facts, logic, history, and science do not seem to matter to almost half of this country. People have lost the ability or forgotten the importance of analyzing information and separating fact from fiction. Social media has served to further divide us and solidify our political views to the point where civility and constructive debate are very rare. The news media cares more about delivering sensational headlines than simply reporting the facts. We now live in a society where you can literally pick which news source best fits your views and opinions of the world. As a nation, we have some serious failings and flaws when it comes to morals, racial equality, civility, wisdom, and democracy when a corru...