This History Today series aims to document what life is like in this period of history. I update whenever I feel like it.

Aspects of daily life:

• The 2020 election day is in two weeks. I’m voting by mail. I have not sent in my ballot yet.
• Misinformation seems to be a dominant force in media. I have whiplash, trying to keep track of it.
• Did Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, actually leave his laptop with a computer repair shop in Delaware? Are there really emails on it that implicate Joe Biden and his son in a foreign plot to influence the election? Rudy Giuliani was the one to receive the laptop from the repairman. But the story seems like it might be a fabrication. The Associated Press article I read about it points out Giuliani’s connections to a Russian official/agent.
• Are the detention centers that hold people who crossed the US-Mexico border actually concentration camps? I skimmed this AP article and it seems like the conditions are horrendous for children in one facility. This is from 2019.
• I’ve been trying to listen/watch/read lots of news with this election approaching. The least biased news agency seems to be the Associated Press, because their articles don’t have super obvious opinions. FOX, CNN, MSNBC, The Young Turks, and other sources I have looked up are highly opinionated. The NPR Politics Podcast also seems to be fairly fair, from what I can see. They don’t bash politicians. They give the implications of the news they report, but their tone doesn’t seem to be that they are passing judgement.
• Trump is pulling the US out of the WHO (World Health Organization). He says that it is poorly run. While I have never actually researched the WHO, it has always had a place of esteem in my mind, probably because of the way people talk about it. It worries me that in July of 2021, our pull-out will be official. It feels like the adult version of I’m-taking-my-ball-and-going-home. I heard an explanation (I can’t remember where I heard this) of why China pays less than the US for the WHO funding, and it’s because Reagan put a hold on increases of WHO funding requirements. Apparently, the US voluntarily contributes more to make up for increased costs over the years, but Trump doesn’t think that’s fair. While it might not be fair, I just wonder what the point of just leaving is. Abandoning the organization seems to stall progress on all fronts.
• I live in YOLO county, and I have been inundated with voting material for Jim Provenza and Linda Deos. It’s for a position on the county supervisor council, I believe. I know who I think I’m voting for.
• I probably won’t be a straight-down-the-ticket Democrat. I don’t think I ever have been. I consider myself to be moderate, but recent years have turned me more liberal as I understand the world better.
• I have 7 weeks until I finish my Masters Degree. I think I’ve changed my mind so much since I started it last year that I might never take a job in the field. But once I had already finished half of the degree, I couldn’t just not finish.
• My post bacc is chugging along. It’s in botany. I love it. I finally understand what people are talking about when they discuss the imperative for greenifying our energy and industry.
• As I take college level science classes for the first time, I realize how lacking my education was the first time around. Maybe it’s because I’m more mature now. Maybe it’s because I only focused on business in my first undergrad. But the world is so complex; it requires nuance and compassion. Science is so much more important than I ever realized. Growing up, I thought we already knew everything that there was to know. Now, I know that we’re just coming out of our infancy as an intelligent species.