- Quarantine Day 77
- Alameda County is under curfew this week from 8pm-5am until June 5.
- Livermore cases: 54
- Alameda County cases: 3,375; deaths: 95
- U.S. cases: 1,787,000+; deaths: 104,000+
2020 is apparently trying to hit every possible historical story line all at once. On Saturday, astronauts launched from U.S. soil for the first time since 2011. And civil unrest, protesting, and rioting has gripped pretty much every major city in the country for several days now. Just fire up the draft and we’ve got the 1960s again.
One week ago (May 25) an unarmed black man named George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis when a white police officer knelt on his neck until he suffocated. The entire incident was filmed. This followed other stories from this year like police in Louisville shooting and killing a black woman (Breonna Taylor) in her home while executing a warrant unannounced in the middle of the night and the death of a black man (Ahmed Arbery) in Georgia when 3 white men with firearms (1 a former police officer) followed and confronted him while he was out jogging. Which are only 3 in a endless history of injustice, oppression, and callous disregard for the life of minorities by institutions of power and the people that populate them in this country.
For reasons that I’m sure will be dissected in history classes for decades, this event happened to break the camel’s back and protests began cropping up around the country. In many locations as darkness fell some people turned protesting into rioting and looting.
Saturday and Sunday were both filled with peaceful protests around the country. Many of which stayed peaceful. But also many turned into riots and looting. The National Guard has been deployed in at least a dozen states.
The Target in Livermore was closed a few hours early yesterday due to concerns it would be targeted by looters. I believe Livermore stayed peaceful throughout the weekend. However, San Leandro and Oakland are both within the county and had looting and rioting over the weekend. There were probably other towns in the county as well, but with the entire country experiencing unrest its impossible to find comprehensive news coverage. Walnut Creek is only about 25 minutes away up the highway in another county and it had looting yesterday and a woman was shot in the arm.
Today Alameda County has declared a state of emergency and issued a curfew order in place through June 5 from 8pm to 5am each night.
The whole year is really starting to be a bit much.
Tonight, Trump is threatening to deploy the military to any state that doesn’t “deal with it” themselves in order quell the unrest with “total domination”.
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We had Lanna Thai for dinner on Saturday. I went to pick it up and, like so many things right now, it was something out of a dystopian novel:
