The divisions in this country are staggering.

Let us count the ways.

• War
• Politics
• Race
• Wokism
• Pandemic
• Immigration
• Religion
• Gender
• The Economy
• Geography
• And others I'm surely forgetting

The divisions are tearing society apart at the seams. Long term friendships are ending. Families are being broken. Hatred is the new normal. We're on the brink of world war.

Is it learned behavior? Or is it innate to the human condition?

Who benefits from the division?

When is enough going to be enough?

I recently found this quote somewhere on the web, I don't exactly remember where, but it caught my attention and I copied it and saved it:

"Optimism is the only way to win. Despair is aid to the enemy. Resistance is essential, not futile".

We must work together or we are finished. As a society, as a country, as a species.

Sleep? Sleep!

Some cool research has been done recently (within the last 10 or 20 years) on historic sleep patterns by A. Roger Ekirch (see his book At Day's Close: A History of Nighttime, also titled At Day's Close: Night in Times Past).

I was watching Chernobyl for like the 4th time (it is such a great show) and it occurred to me how similar the original reaction to the disaster was to COVID.

"It's just a cold."
= "It's just like a chest xray."

"It's only dangerous to old people and people with pre-existing conditions."
= "Everything is under control. There's no reason to evict people living around nuclear reactor."

The news of Jimmy Carter going home for hospice care is tragic, but expected.

-- where any change at all that looks like it might simulate real change starts to look really good.