Visit to New York (including an excursion on the Appalachian Trail) – Accelerated social life – Overturning of the federal mask mandate for public transit – The troubled waters of the Colorado River – A conservative opponent of Trump – Evening statistics
We celebrated Passover on Saturday evening rather than Friday, to accommodate people’s traveling schedules, with my New York cousin and his wife hosting. He has been a professional chef and still teaches cooking classes, so we could be assured of getting well-fed. And so we were: gravlax, lamb partly roasted and partly braised, roasted herb chicken, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, potatoes mashed with parsnips and turnips, and the traditional matzo ball soup. Wine and spirits flowed in abundance and there was no lack of desserts (I made a flourless torte with chocolate and ground almonds). With myself, my brother, my aunt, three of my cousins, and my cousin’s wife and son, we were eight in all: the largest number of close relatives we’ve been able to assemble together since the beginning of the pandemic.
The atmosphere was much more relaxed than it had been during the pandemic’s previous phases, although there was still a note of caution sounded. Mask=wearing was enforced on the train that I took from New Jersey to the city and the news contained reports about the rising number of cases in the area. But the increase in cases has not brought about a corresponding increase in hospitalizations or deaths, and as a result people are much less on their guard. Although masks are nominally required on all public transit, many riders on the buses and subways were bare-faced. This was, as I remarked to my cousin-in-law, in marked contrast to the policy at Monterey, where mask-wearing was strictly enforced; to which she replied that bus drivers in Monterey are much less likely than those in the Bronx to be attacked by an aggrieved bus rider with a knife in hand – which, as I had to admit, amounted to a very reasonable thing to say. Masks are no longer required in restaurants, nor are customers checked for proof of vaccination.
For Friday evening I joined my cousin, his son, and my brother for a “guys night” and on Sunday my aunt and her two daughters had the day to themselves for a girls-only occasion. I stayed with my aunt on Thursday evening and Friday but went to my cousin’s place for the remainder of the stay so that my Floridian cousin could stay with her mother. On Saturday before the dinner I went along Van Courtland Park and the Riverdale Trail – both of them lovely areas, with the trails in splendid condition, while on Sunday I took a somewhat more unusual option.
Close to Pawling, NY, there is a railroad station along the Appalachian Trail – the only such station along the entire length of the AT. It can be reached by a journey of about two hours from Grand Central Station (the time is somewhat lessened by leaving, as I did, from the Bronx, where my cousin resides). Originally I had planned to do this on Saturday, but in the end I decided that such an excursion might put my attendance at the gathering that evening in jeopardy, so I elected to go on Sunday instead. I went to the station at Fordham and when I asked for a round trip to the Appalachian Trail station, the salesperson was rather amused: in her words, “That’s not a request we get very often.” She was very pleasant, expressing her wishes for a good hike and taking care to direct me as to which line I needed to take. I rode on the so-called Harlem Line, which ends at a town called Southeast; from there I picked up a local train (it has only seven stops in all) to the AT station. It looks as if it could have been assembled from a kit on a shelf in a toy shop and indeed is little-used; the train stops there only four times a day, twice going from NYC and twice returning to it, and only on weekends. Only two other people got with me on the outgoing train and I was the lone passenger waiting at the station for the return journey.
Upon leaving the train I took the AT east towards the state border with Connecticut, about 7 miles each way (actually a bit longer on account of a detour near the state border, as a result of a bridge having been washed out). It was a frustrating hike in some ways. The trail is not well-maintained in this area. It has no water runoffs and drainage in consequence is very poor; some parts of the trail, submerged in water from the rain of the preceding night and excessively muddy, constitute a virtual invitation to erosion. The trail contained many blowdowns, none of which had been cleared – which is somewhat surprising for mid-April, since trail maintainers generally become more active once the spring season begins. But the weather for most of the day was clear and sunny, and it crossed over numerous little rivulets bordered with wildflowers. It was somewhat chilly, and while I felt warm enough while I was moving, I wore my facemask while waiting at the station for the return train; not, as might be supposed, from fear of infection from other hikers passing by, but simply for as much additional warmth as I could obtain. It even hailed for a couple of minutes during this period – quite gently, however, and the white pellets formed attractive clusters on the ground before they melted away quickly.
On the way back yesterday I spent part of the day with a friend in the Trenton area (although well outside of Trenton itself, thankfully) and today a friend from one of the beach towns in New Jersey stopped by to stay for a few days. Two mutual friends will join us on Friday evening, and then on Saturday I will be meeting with other friends in Baltimore. It feels like quite a social whirl after 2020 and 2021. Of course I met with various fellow hikers on many hikes during that period, but indoor gatherings of any size were much less common. But this month has broken that pattern, with visits to friends in Sacramento and Monterey during the first week, attending a party on the 9th, staying with my aunt and cousins this past weekend, and currently hosting a guest of my own, with two more coming here on Friday. Such behavior seems typical of my social network generally; people are feeling much more confident about interacting with others indoors now that nearly everyone in the area is vaccinated, and several are making up for lost time.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle appears to be equally optimistic, having overturned the CDC’s health order to the TSA, thereby striking down the mask mandate for public transit nationwide. In one flight during which the announcement of the end of the mandate took place, the passengers cheered and tossed their face coverings on the seats, while one conductor on a New Jersey commuter train (the same type of train I took from Hamilton, NJ, and back during my recent visit) told the riders “feel free to burn them at will.”
There is still considerable confusion as to where travelers must wear masks and where they are no longer required to do so. Certain localities, such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Connecticut, continue to enforce mask mandates on their own account. Masks are required on Amtrak and also on Metra, the regional commuter rail service for Chicago. As an example, a commuter from New Jersey to Manhattan might ride the New Jersey transit to Penn Station without wearing a mask, only to find that it will be necessary to don one for an extension of his journey on the New York metro. “It’s like this patchwork of different rules and enforcement of it,” said Erik Abderhalden, a Chicago commuter. “I mean, it’s like Swiss cheese . . . there’s no uniformity and it seems pretty laissez faire.”
The Colorado River has lost 20% of its water levels over the past 22 years. It is now at the top of the country’s most endangered rivers list. As a result of twenty-three years of drought conditions in the West and Southwest, the water level is at its lowest at the Hoover and Glen Canyon Dam reservoirs since they were filled. Lake Mead and Lake Powell will likely never refill to previously normal levels. About 42% of California’s population is now under a drought emergency: every part of the state except Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area, in which regions, by an amazing coincidence, the very wealthiest inhabitants of the state reside. In the past, when there was not enough surface water and water in reservoirs, states would pump as much groundwater as needed. But by now that option has resulted in groundwater level declines in the Phoenix and Tucson areas by anywhere from 300 to 500 feet.
Residents in the West cannot be accused of wastefulness. Currently per capita water use is 16% lower than 2013 levels in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. But in one respect the Western region as a whole has been thriftless and improvident.
The population of the West is growing by leaps and bounds. It is the fastest-growing region in the country, with an increase in large cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas of 9.1% since 2010. No doubt its climate is more comfortable than that of the East. But I for one am willing to put up with some snowfalls in winter and humid days in summer to obtain the security of having enough water to drink.
The most likely option for the future is desalinization of water from the ocean. The cost of treating seawater is about $2,000 to $3,000 an acre foot, which is at least twice as expensive as water conservation. There is also the question of where to put the salt and sediment once it has been removed; returning the additional salt and minerals to the sea would act as a pollutant. Nor is it particularly efficient to pump the water from the coast to more inland states such as Colorado.
J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge and leading conservative, said that he is willing to publicly testify about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He is known for having urged Mike Pence to resist Donald Trump’s overtures for him to take steps to try to delay or even block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. He has links to others involved in the January 6th riot: both Ted Cruz and John Eastman are former Luttig clerks. His attitude, to put it mildly, differs from those of these protégées. “At the moment, there is no other way to say it: This is the clearest and most present danger to our democracy,” he said. “Trump and his supporters in Congress and in the states are preparing now to lay the groundwork to overturn the election in 2024 were Trump, or his designee, to lose the vote for the presidency.”
Today’s statistics as of 6:30 PM – # of cases worldwide: 505,703,256; # of deaths worldwide: 6,226,843; # of cases U.S.: 82,397,021; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,016,015