My last Tweet and Testament

Everything is changing.  Nothing will ever go back to even a semblance of yesterday’s “normal”.   Do not deceive yourself.  It isn’t going to be all over in the foreseeable future, maybe not in your lifetime.  

Given the continuing ignorant and incompetent actions of Trump and the amazingly complicit Republicans, I honestly do not expect my wife and me to survive the Pandemic.  We’re in our 70’s and although sheltering in place, I expect we will eventually get Covid19, later than many, and therefore, when the hospitals are overwhelmed.  I believe that everybody will get it, all due to Trump’s stupidity, ignorance, delusional denial, and his cultish base’s faith in him.  Those who refuse to believe in the danger will spread it all over the USA.  With Covid-19’s two week latent period, by the time they are convinced that it’s real, many more will be infected.  The deniers won’t die fast enough to be stopped from spreading it.

I had already decided to quit Twitter for reasons other than imminent death.  I deem it to be a black hole where truth and honest communication go to die.  Besides, if Trump finds it useful for his agenda, there must be something very, very wrong with it.  I quit FaceBook because I believed that it gave us Trump.  It has done incredible damage to communication; it is the platform of the crazy vandals.   I quit Twitter because it is Trump’s public media platform of lies.  It is finishing off the destruction of democracy that FaceBook started.  Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, remember those names.

I am a confirmed atheist and do not fear death at all.  When dead, I will not know it.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what happens after I’m gone.  I just don’t worry about what happens to me after I’m gone.

So, with this communication I will impart a few things that may make life a little better for those of you who do survive.  It will help adults care for children and ease their transition into the America of the future.  These are tips for country people; city folks I can’t help.

Teach your children.  Read. Read. Read.  The NASA channel has excellent and stimulating shows.  Science is available on the internet.  Avoid the amateurs and their junk science.  If possible, stimulate curiosity in your children.  If you can achieve that they will teach themselves.

Learn to separate “wants” from needs”.  The sooner you recognize all the things you can live without, the sooner you can stop wasting your efforts (and safety) attempting to acquire the “wants”.  Trips out among the diseased must be minimized.

Learn to garden.  Garden from scratch; learn to produce your own seed, plant starts, and fertilizer (compost).  Plant nurseries will never be the reliable source of starts and seed that we have come to expect.  Grocery stores too.  Save some potatoes from last year.  Cut the bottom inch and a half off your cabbage and root it in a saucer of water.  Collect dried bean seeds after the string beans get too tough.  Tomatoes want to produce new plants, they’re going to be “cherry tomatoes”.   Kale, broccoli, lettuce, they all can produce seed for next year.

Stop throwing stuff away.  “Garbage” pick up is just a way of losing resources.  Compost organics, save paper for fire starting (wood stove heat).  Not going to the store will result in your “garbage stream” being greatly reduced.  Repurpose things you’d normally throw away.  I have often made things out of pieces of stuff I’ve kept for thirty years. 

Bye, now.