The Drive West

 A few years ago, I documented a solo drive on Interstate 80 from Des Moines to eastern Pennsylvania, on a road trip to Philadelphia.  This week, I did the opposite, a solo drive from Philadelphia to Des Moines.  I intentionally took a different route back via a few different interstate roads -- here's my summary:

* In Pennsylvania, Interstate 76 doubles as the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  The eastern half is mundane until your reach Harrisburg, where the terrain takes on the Allegheny Mountain range to the border.  You actually go through three fairly long tunnels carved out of those mountains.

* Who knew that as I-76 morphs into Interstate 70, you drive through just a few miles of West Virginia before entering Ohio?  I didn't.

* I-70 through Ohio isn't memorable, not even going through Columbus -- it's not like you see their famous zoo, or any of Ohio State University.  The closest thing to interesting is near Dayton, where you come quite close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which you can't see, either.

* The interstate through Indiana is equally boring, except for Indianapolis.  It turns out the quickest way to get from I-70 to Interstate 74 is by taking the road that goes through Speedway, Indiana, right by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  As you might expect, seemingly every business around it uses the word 'Speedway' in it.

* Once in Illinois and back on Central Time, the super-flat drive quickly goes through a bunch of college towns: Champaign (University of Illinois), Normal (Illinois State), and Peoria (Bradley).  Seems like a bunch of places not to stop right now, as college kids become potential COVID-19 super-spreaders.

* Just west of the Quad Cities, it's time to make a final stop at the I-80 Truck Stop near Walcott, the largest truck stop in the country.  It's a tourist attraction.  It even has a trucking museum....I'm just saying.

A Pod Would Be Good For You

Now that it's August 2020, it's time to take a vacation from writing about topics related to pandemics and politics.  I'm going to write about another 'p' word instead -- podcasts.

With a lack of original content currently being made by TV and movie studios, podcasts have become a go-to for original digital content.  There are so many podcasts available now, most of them free to hear as long as you don't mind skipping over some advertising.

Podcasts might be about sports, music, comedy, politics, economics, and so forth.  I've listened to podcasts in all of those genres, but I've currently settled on a couple that I try to listen to weekly, each about 50 minutes long.

It isn't always easy to keep up with the content, especially since I don't have a commute to work. I try to listen on bike rides or at the edges of the day.  The thing is, it doesn't take 50 minutes to listen to them, since you can make the audio run at 1.5x or 2x speed.

My #1 podcast, one that I've listened to for years, is still Freakonomics Radio.  Like the best selling books that preceded it, the author / host uses economic theory to explore the hidden side of topics.  It surely won't appeal to everyone, but for me it's very informative, not to mention intellectually stimulating.

It remains to be seen if the podcasting boom is temporary or permanent.  It's become a very crowded space.  There's only so much advertising to go around in a bad economy, and eventually the original TV and motion picture apparatus will return.

BLM v COVID

Amidst the chaos created by the COVID-19 pandemic and America’s failed federal response to it, we’ve had another major, culture-shifting series of events that has changed how the nation deals with issues of race.  I’ll reference to it as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

BLM has been around for years, in response to over-aggressive and often fatal police interactions with black men and women.  More recently, a series of these avoidable, deadly interactions has been captured on video by either security cameras or individuals, the most notable being the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The BLM movement is now everywhere, manifested in large protests across the country.  White people are now beginning to understand the systemic, often unseen and unrecognized racism that pervades in the U.S.  There’s been a renewed effort to eliminate not only the racism, but the symbols of it, including things like the confederate flag and confederate statues.

Of course, ‘fixing’ 300 years of systemic racism isn’t going to happen overnight.  There’s still BLM resistance from the overt and covert white supremacy folks, and from the president, although saying that is redundant.  The current federal government, along with some states, would still much prefer to maintain the status quo privileges of the white Christian male.

What's equally infuriating about it is the simpleton argument from the opposition that 'all lives matter' as if that negates the BLM cause.  Here's the best analogy I've seen to counter this:  If your house is on fire, should the fire department come and pour water on all the houses on your street?  Because all houses matter, right?  Of course all houses matter, but the one to focus on is the one that's on fire.  How hard is this for people to understand? 

Private businesses will have to lead on this for now, as individuals are drawn to those showing more action, especially with their dollars.  Following the money – it’s the American Way.

When we look back on 2020, we’ll primarily consider the pandemic and how it changed society.  However, the longer lasting impact of 2020 will be how the BLM changed the way people view racism.

The Stages Of Grief For Celebrations

One of the first college classes I took was Intro to Psychology.  It's the kind of basic class you want to take if you have an undeclared major or an elective to fill, which is probably why it was mainly filled with freshmen and seniors.

It was an easy class, generally only requiring memorization for success, but it's surprising how much of it I still remember.  One of those things is the psychological stages of grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

[Technically, these were identified by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross as the stages of grief for the terminally ill in her book On Death and Dying (yes, I even remember that!) but over time they've been attributed to more than just terminal illness.]

I've often applied these stages of grief to other things.  I once did an entire presentation to a large group about the years-long need for additional financing for a project, and I used the stages of grief as a simile of sorts.  I suggested that in the past year, some in the room had moved from denial to anger to bargaining, but most hadn't yet made it to depression much less acceptance.  So I told them I was taking it upon myself to depress them that day as much as possible so they'd get to acceptance faster.

Recently, I've been applying the stages of grief to how people are treating aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  For example, we've got an executive branch of federal government that denied it, then got angry as it happened, and is so corrupt that it will never get beyond bargaining over it while people die.

However, it's particularly applicable to those who have/had planned gatherings of many people, whether it be graduation parties, baby showers, or weddings.  First, there's a denial that the event can't happen.  Then anger about how a rare pandemic could get in the way.  Then there's the stage most are in, which is bargaining for a way to still make the event happen against needlessly exposing guests to the virus.  Of course, this also includes bargaining with vendors over monetary deposits that may have been made.

Not everyone has managed to get through to the depression stage, and then ultimate acceptance that the event either isn't going to happen, or won't be happening anywhere close to the original plan.  And not all of those who've managed to make it to acceptance are done; those proceeding with alternate plans are finding themselves right back at denial when those revised arrangements are also partly stymied.

It's a terrible year to have planned for any type of celebration, much less to try to execute said celebration.  I'm glad I'm not in that group, but if I was, I'd try to get through the stages of grief as soon as possible.

Two Things At Once

If I had to wager on it, I would have bet a lot on something related to the COVID-19 pandemic as the top story on non-conspiracy news outlets for many more weeks / months.  Only some huge natural disaster or mass killing event could possibly keep that from happening.

It's a bet I would have quickly lost.

All it took was a video of a bad Minneapolis cop slowly killing an already-detained black man by choking off his airway.  Now we have protests and quasi-riots across America, bringing attention to both overt and covert criminal racial discrimination that still exists after 250 years.  (This is made even worse by having a mentally-ill U.S. president stirring the pot with his own versions of racism and divisive rhetoric.  Apparently, calling a pandemic a hoax for weeks hasn't killed enough people already.)

As has been the norm over the past few years, people are turning this into a combative, binary decision.  That is, you either support the Black Lives Matter movement, or you support the police.  This is incredibly stupid, because both things are possible!

Human beings can support two things (even more!) at the same time, even when those things seem to be opposites.  Here, we have to support persons or color in their quest to be treated equally under the law, while at the same time supporting appropriate enforcement of those laws.

We're doing it now in an even larger way, as we battle a once in a lifetime pandemic with differing views on how that should be done.  For example, it's OK to support wearing a mask and still support opening the economy.

But again, some want to frame all national decisions as a binary, political win/lose.  It's dumb and counterproductive to look at everything through such a political lens.  Unfortunately, that's what our current, leadership-less executive branch has been perpetuating,

Since we have a leadership void at the federal level, the only way to peacefully accomplish any of our collective goals is from the bottom-up.  People must ignore the extremists, be responsible for taking care of others, and remember to vote out the unqualified, arrogant, complicit, idiots who've been in charge for the past few years.

Dear Graduating Class of 2020

Although it may be the most difficult time to be a high school or college graduate EVER, those kids still expect some words of wisdom, as in past years.  Let's get to it.....

To the hard-luck graduates of 2020:

This must really suck.

It’s hard to imagine how it could be worse than ‘right now’ for a high school or college graduate, during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Not being able to make memories from that last month or so in school?  Not being able to enjoy all of the traditions and hijinks of those final days of classes?  Not being involved in all of the pomp and circumstance of graduation week?   Not being able to have all that attention from friends and relatives at graduation ceremonies and parties, nor collecting the graduation presents?

This must really suck bad.

And there’s no getting it back, either.  Oh sure, you might eventually have a ceremony of some sort.  And you’ll probably get those graduation gifts down the road.  But all of the fun – that’s just gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This must really, really suck bad.

To make matters worse (especially if you’re a college graduate), you’re entering in to the worst job market of the past 90 years.  Frankly, unless you have mad skills at developing pharmaceuticals for treating or curing viruses, there isn’t much out there for you right now – unless your life’s goal is to work in an on-line shopping fulfillment warehouse, a fast food restaurant, or a slaughterhouse.

This s-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-c-k-s.

Can anything be salvaged from this incredible misfortune to make you feel better?  Sure, there are lots of things that might perk you up.  For example, since you’ll either be unemployed or taking online college classes or both, your parents are a lot more likely to let you save money by living with them rent free.  (Actually, I could only think of that one thing, and it has as many downsides as upsides.)

Let’s face it, Class of 2020 – you’ve drawn the short straw.  Civilization, with an assist from national governments, has failed you.  You only have one option:  Determination.

Put your mind to it, and you’re going to get through this, along with the knowledge that you can succeed even when starting from one of the lowest points in United States history.  That’s a great rallying point, assuming you don’t use it to start a second Civil War, and further assuming we still have a functioning society.

Years from now, you aren’t going to be that upset about the events that didn’t occur, but you might be upset that you didn’t use the events that did occur as a springboard for what might have been.

Berky Meeting Nuggets 2020 -- Pandemic Edition

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic got real in the U.S., an event I really wanted to attend was ruined.  It was the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, which only offered online streaming of this year's meeting.

You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in the past 20+ years I haven't personally attended 'Woodstock for Capitalists.'  It's more festival than meeting, taking up an entire arena and adjoining convention center, although the centerpiece is always Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger sitting on a stark stage answering questions and making comments for about six hours.

I watched the entire stream, which this year consisted of Buffett and heir-apparent Greg Able talking on that same stage for almost five hours.  (How does the 89-year-old Buffett do this, or anyone for that matter, without taking a break?)  It wasn't the same, of course, but they tried.

The main thing missing was Vice-Chair Charlie Munger, who didn't participate at all this year.  The highlight of most Berky meetings is listening to Munger's acerbic wit as he answers questions, usually ones for which Buffett probably said the same thing in a more extended, eloquent way.

I don't really have any specific nuggets this year.  Every question, answer, and comment was pandemic-related in one way or another.  Buffett was optimistic on America's long-term future, having already survived a civil war and a years-long economic depression.  However, he didn't sound very optimistic about the next year.

He was probably just bummed that he couldn't have the usual fun annual shareholders meeting this year, and given his age, their aren't many left for him to lead.

And clearly, we both missed Charlie.