LifeItself

As I am writing this blog on May 29, 11:30 m CST, I have 20 more days of the highly erratic corona virus death data from the US, Germany and the world. Over 100,000 Americans have died of the corona virus infections in not quite three months since the early March of 2020. I do not know how to process this tragedy, other than to say that most of it could have been avoided, if we had a different administration in Washington and we had not been mining literally every resource, including humans, over the last 40 years. The merciless virus has illuminated every wrong we have committed over several decades, including that terrible murder by the police in Minneapolis this week. Coming from Poland and knowing what I know, the detached behavior of the four police officers who committed this particular crime was reminiscent of the WWII German soldiers milling about the countless execution sites for men, women and children, while being filmed by their comrades. Or taking a photo with a freshly ...

Our little cat, Kicka, all bundled up, is lying semi-conscious and half-paralyzed on top of Joanna, who in turn fell asleep on a sofa. So I have time to reflect on this year and dream about the next one. Recently, I was asked to predict the most important events in 2011, and found it impossible. Instead, I have attempted to be wildly optimistic and skip the usual "peak-everything" stuff. Here is the result: The Happy New Year 2011 will see a thorough public discussion of what needs to be done to make the U.S. a more resilient society and economy. Federal government, Congress and Senate will start working together on the development of a massive national electrified railroad system to transport goods and people. We will come off the high horse and stop hallucinating about building bullet train tracks in a railroad system that is decidedly mid-twentieth century or older. Many cities across the U.S., will embark on the crash investment in light rail and other alternative...