I’ve been noticing hints of life returning back normal, for good or bad … 🚘 🚔 🏭 ⛽ 🚌💉
Traffic volumes have significantly increased on local roads. Last spring you could sit out back in the evening and not see many cars if any at all during the strictest of lockdown when most businesses were closed and working remotely. Likewise, I find crossing Elm Avenue has gotten more difficult and much more traffic queuing at the morning and evening rush hour.
Gas prices are noticeably up now. Summer is coming, but also it has to be all those very hungry cars looking for fuel and many people planning summer vacations and travel once they get vaccinated.
When I was downtown I noticed several buses with “Training” on their displays. It looks like CDTA must be very actively hiring additional employees in preparation of service restorations when state offices re-opens downtown, probably sometime after May 1st. It looks like Elm Avenue Park and Ride is ready to go whenever service is restored, but certainly commuting will be difficult if they don’t restore the rush hour service and express buses when the pandemic is over.
A lot of people I know, including myself are getting vaccinated. For a while it seemed like only the elderly folk and those really in the inside were eligible for vaccination, but now it seems like many people I know have gotten the shots or will be getting them soon.
The pandemic has been responsible for an outbreak of violence and hate directed against Asians around the world, blaming them for the spread of COVID-19. During this surge in attacks, the perpetrators have made their motives clear, taunting their victims with declarations like, "You have the Chinese Virus, go back to China!" and assaulting them and spitting on them.
The numbers over the past year in the U.S. alone are alarming. As NPR has reported, nearly 3,800 instances of discrimination against Asians have been reported just in the past year to Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition that tracks incidents of violence and harassment against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S.
While there is some snow in the Western Adirondacks and the higher elevation locations of the Green Mountains, last night’s heavy rain did a number on the snow in most of eastern Adirondacks and Hudson Valley.
I saw they cut my auto-refill discount for my phone plan by $4, raising my phone by from $60 to $64 with the 20-gb hotspot plan. Just another cost on the budget — but with remote work and the library closed it’s kind of important to have Internet at home. That kind of sucks, but I guess everything is going up in price. May 1st my rent is going up too, and I just adjusted my bank to reflect the additional $25 a month. Car insurance is due on Monday. At least I should be getting a good tax-refund and the stimulus check this month, and I think I will be able to otherwise stay the course on my budget and savings. Once office life resumes, I can go back to the more basic data package, that will save money, to offset the cost of bus fares for commuting.
Hobbs Magaret is a regenerative cattle rancher in Central Oregon. Raised on the ranches of the Texas Panhandle and further educated at The University of Oregon, he has experienced two extremes of the contemporary American Experiment. Hobbs, his wife, and his daughter live in Sisters, Oregon, where they use regenerative and fossil fuel averse techniques to rehabilitate degraded ag land and sell beef directly to regional consumers. Visit his website at SistersCattleco.com and checkout his interesting videos at TikTok. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.
While I certainly thought James Howard Kunstler’s analysis of the election that was is kind of assine, the man is kind of critic our world needs as we plunge into the climate crisis while the politicians debate assine things as people keep dying from the COVID.
