This should be a National Day of Mourning - the day that taxes are due (normally - I realize that this year is special, and the government will "allow" us to delay filing for another month).
BTW, have you considered that the federal government's 'generosity' in providing that tax filing delay may just be their way of hanging on to your money longer? Particularly since MOST people get "refunds" - actually, your OWN money, returned to you (without interest), by a not-so generous government.
But, yeah, I do have to finish some paperwork today, to get a ballpark estimate of my taxes owed for my business activities. There's a stiff fine for not sending the money on time - and THAT deadline has not been delayed.
Other than that:
- Local news is less exciting/horrible - the sixth person in a local murder has died. Rock Hill is generally not a scary dangerous place, but this has shaken people greatly. Dr. Lesslie was well-known, as was the man who killed him, his wife, two grandchildren, and the two men who were innocent bystanders working on the doctor's home.
- Local COVID restrictions have lessened - city rules about masking have expired, leaving that decision up to citizens and the places where they go. Most stores/businesses are still asking for masks to be worn; however, enforcement is lax. Church is back to using all pews, although attendance is still down. I've not flown since last August, nor driven much unless it was absolutely necessary.
- At this point, in both NC and SC, the immunization rush has slowed. About 40% are resistant to getting the shots; the local government and health departments are working to coax the unwilling. Schools, even without all being immunized, are (mostly) back in session, although some have reduced in-person class sizes.
- The Chauvin trial continues. I'm mostly following sporadically, via web reports. The evening news has been giving scant coverage, unless it's bad for Chauvin (not biased at ALL). If any trial could fairly be called a lynching, this is it (figuratively - the death penalty will not be imposed). The jury clearly, in their pre-trial interviews, expressed fear of reprisal for not finding him guilty of murder. This is an almost Shakespearean drama.
- Too much time without the connection to people, other than the one person I live with (who is also frazzled - he feels the reduced contact even more than I).
- The house is beginning to seem like a cage.
One of the more tiresome canards from the courtiers is that entities like Amazon and Bookshop are private companies and therefore that they can choose to sell, or not sell, whatever they want.
This is true, but also irrelevant. What we are witnessing are not the prerogatives of the free market but the clashings of a culture war. Those clashings may adopt, as camouflage, the rhetoric of free enterprise, but their end is control and obliteration of opposing points of view.
I disagree. When the effort to restrict viewpoints is so omnipresent, and so consistent across so many businesses, it amounts to a Conspiracy in Restraint of Trade or Commerce - what the Sherman Act and other Antitrust legislation sought to stop.
As such, the governments - local, state, and federal - have the right, and the obligation, to step in and act to nip this Regressive Denial of Free Speech in the bud.
Now, to end this all on a lighter note, I went to my WW meeting this morning, and am down an additional 0.8 pounds. That's two weeks in a row for weight loss, after a disappointing month of either no loss, or even small gains.
Baby steps. I didn't put in on suddenly - it took years. Losing it should take some time, as well.
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