November 21, 2020

Walking in Jug Bay along the Patuxent River – Various chores – The decline in pollution – The G20 summit conference – Defections from the Trump supporters – The decline of the Republican Party – Evening statistics

The effects of the COVID virus have had rather an odd result from a personal point of view:  I am discovering much more about the park areas close to the Chesapeake Bay than I have ever known before, although I’ve lived in the DC metropolitan area for the greater part of my life.  Most of the hiking I’ve done around here has been to the west, mainly in the Blue Ridge and Massanutten ranges.  I have been to Cedarville and Calvert Cliffs, but there are numerous other parklands in Prince Georges, Anne Arundel, and Calvert Counties that I have not seen at all until recently.  These are certainly less strenuous and less dramatic than, say, Old Rag or Signal Knob, and the views are very different in character – one sees the landscape not from a peak or a rock ledge looking downwards but rather from the same level of the point where one is standing.  In the past several months little groups of members of the Wanderbirds hikers have gathered together to hike in these areas, chiefly because they are easy for most of us to reach (less than 90 minutes of driving each way).  I met with seven other Wanderbirds members at Jug Bay, a wetlands area along the Patuxent River and a characteristic example of tidal riparian scenery.  We went along various trails for eight miles, none of them especially challenging but very pleasant walking nonetheless.  Numerous creeks crisscross the area and it is easy to perceive that they readily overflow their banks; there was evidence of recent flooding in many areas on account of the rainfall this autumn.  The best overlooks are actually located close to the parking area itself, with broad vistas of the watery expense dotted with reeds and of the various waterfowl skimming the surface of the marsh in their flight.

We started between 8:30 and 9:00, hiking rather over three hours and covering about 8 miles in all.  And then, in typical Wanderbirds fashion, we snacked together on various items contributed by some of us – mainly by PE, who organized and led the hike:  cider, cheese, crackers, and apples.  I supplied some ginger biscotti, using a recipe that was new to me, and it worked out very well.  I had actually made them on Thursday evening and they improve for being kept over the period of a day or so; the spice intensifies in flavor.

Afterwards I attended to some chores at home, cleaning the gutters, gathering the leaves to dump at the curbside (we are instructed by the municipal government not to bag them), and setting up maps for the hike I am scheduled to lead for the Vigorous Hikers this coming Tuesday.  We will be going up Sugarloaf Mountain, quite an unusual geological feature for this area; but I will say more of it in the entry for the 24th.

The pandemic has had yet another interesting side effect, on a somewhat less personal level.  By the end of December, carbon dioxide emissions are projected to be 9.2% less than those of last year nationally and 7% less than those of last year globally.  The reduction in transportation, which is by far the biggest polluter, is the main reason for this decrease.  Once the virus is controlled, of course, transportation and, consequently, pollution will increase again.  It is possible, however, that some long-term decrease will result, chiefly because commuting and travel for business purposes will still be considerably less frequent than it was before the virus began to appear. 

The G20 summit met today in Saudi Arabia – but the word “met” should not be used in its literal sense, for this year the meeting was virtual, due to constraints imposed by the virus.  The pandemic was naturally the chief topic of discussion.  Despite lockdowns imposed by various nations, the virus is more virulent than ever.  The WHO says that more cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the past four weeks than in the first six months of the pandemic.  Its economic impact on developing nations has plunged millions into poverty.  For that matter, nine of the nations represented in the summit rank the highest for the greatest number of COVID cases:  the United States, India, Brazil, France, Russia, Spain, the U.K., Argentina and Italy.  There does not appear much in the way of practical measures to emerge from this meeting, but the G20 nations did agree to suspend debt payments for the world’s poorest countries until mid-2021 to allow those nations to focus their spending on health care and stimulus programs. 

There is reason for feeling slightly more optimistic about the nullification of Trump’s attempt at a coup d’état (I cannot consider this continual flood of lawsuits in any other light).  Some Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump’s efforts to hijack the election.  Mitt Romney has openly denounced Trump for his attempts to push state officials to overturn results:  no surprises there, since his hatred of the President is sufficiently well-known by now.  Two Republican senators — Ben Sasse from Nebraska and Joni Ernst from Iowa – have repudiated the fallacious claims of the press conference this past Thursday, while Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has called on the Trump administration to authorize the Biden transition.  But how isolated and tentative these ventures are, and how saddening it is to see the great majority of Republican legislators remain silent on the matter, oblivious to the abjectness of the figures they cut in their wriggling as they sit upon the fence.  The Republican Party has simply withered.  It cannot be salvaged.  Trump has contaminated it beyond recall.

In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliott is driven by his extravagance and by expenses fueled by his exaggerated sense of self-importance to the desperate step to renting out the family manor.  His daughter Anne is forced to move in with her married sister as a poor relation (not an uncommon fate at the time for women entering spinsterhood).  After she lives in that position for several months, a friend of the family proposes visiting the couple renting out the manor, adding,

“’Anne, have you courage to go with me, and pay a visit to that house?  It will be some trial to us both.’

“Anne did not shrink from it; on the contrary, she truly felt as she said, in observing,

“’I think you are very likely to suffer the most of the two; your feelings are less reconciled to the change than mine.  By remaining in the neighborhood, I am become inured to it.’

“She could have said more on the subject; for she had in fact so high an opinion of the Crofts, and considered her father so very fortunate in his tenants, felt the parish to be so sure of a good example, and the poor of the best attention and relief; that however sorry and ashamed for the necessity of the removal, she could not but in conscience feel that they were gone who deserved not to stay, and that Kellynch-hall had passed into better hands than its owners’.  These convictions must unquestionably have their own pain, and severe was its kind; but they precluded that pain which Lady Russell would suffer in entering the house again and returning through the well-known apartments.”

And so it is with Republican Party.  It requires no gift of prophecy to foresee that a violent reaction will arise against it once Trump is out of the White House; their continual cowardice towards a man who combines the qualities of folly, ignorance, conceit, and treachery in every action he undertakes will be recollected and deplored; and they will suffer greatly for it in the 2022 elections.  I am sorry for it, for it was not so very long ago that they championed policies that I myself favored; but it is impossible for me to feel otherwise than what Anne Elliott felt about the father and elder sister who frittered their estate away, that “they were gone who deserved not to stay.” 

Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide 58,474,888; # of deaths worldwide: 1,385,768; # of cases U.S.: 12,445,387; # of deaths; U.S.: 261,783.