Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 9th Birthday, Caroline
Carter!
Caroline had a girls-only party, so after
school; her guests headed for her house; and the boys were left to do their own
thing – which for Ethan and Aiden was biking the trails at the park and
enjoying the nice weather day. We
enjoyed the weather during Tai Chi by the river and at school too, but while
Caroline’s birthday was a big deal for us; Election Day has been the focus for
the adults today – here and around the country and world. Caroline’s party was a lot of fun, and we had
a good day at school, but we are going to skip the details; and focus this
update on more-important news.
The election results are still coming in as
we begin this update, but we’ll take breaks while doing other things; and get
to whatever news is available when we’re ready to call it a night. There’s a very good chance that we won’t know
who our next president will be before the end of tonight anyway.
Our pandemic news isn’t good; though the
continuing rise in new cases hasn’t changed our decision to put our own research
on the back-burner at the lab. There
were three-point-four million new cases worldwide last week; and that was a big
increase from the previous week. Weekly
deaths are on the rise too; though that isn’t surprising – and still low
compared to the rise in new cases. We’ll
know more over the next couple of months, but we’re hoping that there won’t be
even-worse surges due to this election or the upcoming holidays. The pandemic problems in Europe have some
different causes, but it doesn’t really matter that countries are making
different mistakes; since the results are the same.
We just don’t understand why the worst-hit
countries continue to refuse to learn from what is working for other countries
that are having success with controlling their outbreaks.
Let’s move on to some other issues that we
don’t usually cover. Global food issues
are showing up in part because of the pandemic; and there are concerns both on
the supply side and with people not having enough money to buy food after
extended unemployment problems. The farm
issues could prove to be the more-dangerous; since shortages can cause ripple
effects that take years or even decades to resolve – especially when it comes
to loss of livestock or seed shortages for future crops. Those are not local problems on our farms,
but there really are serious issues elsewhere around the world; so we’ll keep
an eye on that; and do what we can to help whenever possible.
We’ve written about different conflicts
around the world; and that continues to concern us; since there seems to be
little to no progress on solving any of those conflicts. Food and water shortages could make those
problems worse; and we don’t expect that the leaders in our country will make a
difference for that in good ways – regardless of who wins the elections for
president and the rest of the government jobs up for grabs tonight. We’re young, but it really is time to do
something about these endless wars.
There is something wrong with having an entire generation of kids grow
up with their country at war, and while that’s something we think about here at
home; imagine how that feels to the kids that have grown up in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and elsewhere over the past twenty years as they’ve lived under constant threat
– assuming they’ve survived to grow up at all.
Social unrest isn’t the same level of
horror as war, but it is serious; and seems to be another growing trend. Some of that is also related to the pandemic,
but inequality is a bigger factor. The
spark that sets off the protests may vary, but as with the pandemic mistakes;
it is the results that matter more than the reasons. We mean that from the perspective of what is
happening during those protests or other attacks; since there seems to be
little effort being taken by most governments to do anything to actually change
those inequalities or injustices. Social
unrest will, however, add yet another problem to the mix that could lead to
even-more-serious challenges.
This is proving to be a very dismal report,
but while the election results tonight might make some people happy – or not;
there really aren’t any optimistic stories to be found when it comes to the
most-important issues. Since we don’t
have any good news; let’s take a break; get back to our studies; and we’ll wrap
this up in a while – whether we stay up late for as many of the results as we’ll
get for the election or get sick of the news coverage and call it a night
sooner instead of later.
***
We’ve worked for a few hours; had a little
nap while continuing to wait for any definitive election results; and now we’re
going to crash and nap until morning since nothing has been decided – as we’d
expected. That news will have to wait
for our next report – or until whenever we know who won all of the
still-undecided races for president, senate, and congress.
Our mock elections at school didn’t have these
issues, but then we’re just a bunch of kids; and couldn’t be bothered with
making our voting this complicated! ;^)
That is all for now, though; so we’re out
of here and off to dreamland – a place that doesn’t have electoral colleges or
any other political roadblocks to happiness and fun!
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from
the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
