Coronavirus Lockdown Journal Day 79: the pull of the crowd

Here's a ray of light. If you subscribe to the "All politics is a stage play put on by Texas every four years" theory of electiontainment, you may have noticed that the end of every GOP administration is marked by some sort of cash-grabbing recession-inducing crisis, setting up the incoming Dems to spend their time in office cleaning up the mess. 

Which is a long way of saying, dear leader may be a one act pony. One and done, as the winners say.

What would a high airflow performance face mask for athletes look like?

Walking down to the farmer's market. Safeway has been boarded up but it's open. The high-end pot store has been boarded up and appears to be closed. Maybe they're open for delivery. Whole Foods curiously has not been boarded up, looks like they have no broken windows. Pet Food Express on the other hand is boarded up, although they look like they might be open.

This cafe which has been open consistently is now boarded up and closed.

The number of boarded-up businesses is way up. Uber's entire block is boarded up. Starbucks is still open, although all their windows but one are boarded up, which makes me think it's the only one that isn't broken. 

Walgreens is boarded up and closed. The brick sidewalk outside is torn up. Not sure if that was a project before the looting, but pretty sure some of those bricks wound up inside the store. 

Needless to say the looting and window-smashing has probably  not been great for services downtown.

At the farmers market the selection is pretty great. Social distancing rules are being enforced. Everyone had masks and the person that didn't was getting yelled at by one of the vendors. And the line for CalFresh benefits, while maybe only a hundred deep, completely wrapped around the market, through the plaza by the Bart entrance, and then down the front of the theater on Market Street, where I took the picture above. It was long.

And Heisenberg has moved into the Travelodge.

Pet food Express was removing the boards as I passed by again about 9:30am. Is it something that you do every day?

"You guys are stupid." Here is a man who is clearly aware that if he's harmed, these people will have hell to pay. And you know what? He sounds pretty much like every other pissed off person getting cuffed.

From the front lines. South Minneapolis, where the police station burned, is locked down by National Guard. North Minneapolis is organizing community patrols to stop white guys from outside the neighborhood from torching local (black) businesses. "Imagine a future without police."

There is a quote-unquote youth organized March happening in the mission today and I can hear helicopters already. Deb just came home and is excited to go walking down there.

Maybe we should stay well out of the action. And definitely come home before 8.

Going to the march was really powerful. It was big, way bigger than the hundreds or thousands being reported, I'd say into the tens of thousands. But what was powerful was getting educated on Black Lives Matter. Chanting those words over and over, it begins to sink in. But you start kinda quiet, because you're saying this funny slogan surrounded by non-black people. Then a black person shows up, and they are a hero. Suddenly, you're not some honky saying bullshit, you're actually supporting change, and they're like, ok with it. Seriously. Powerful.

Being around that many people was a bit intoxicating. We got sucked in. Deb wanted to go deeper. I didn't. We definitely did not have six feet of clearance the whole time. At times, we were less than three feet. At no time were we touching. 

So we just went through eleven weeks of lockdown, then that little moment of respect and exuberance. I seriously hope it's ok. Certainly it didn't seem like anyone there wanted to get sick, but I suppose the virus doesn't care.

Oh yeah, but it was 100% masks, so maybe they will help, and totally outdoors. We'll see.