Country Rican

 For those of you who do not know this, I am blind.  I know a lot of people say this but in my case it is true.  My vision does not correct to 20/20 even with contacts or glasses.  I have worn glasses since I was two years old, and contacts since I was thirteen.  I wear coke bottle glasses or gas permeable contacts all the time. Now that I am in my forties it is common for me to have my contacts in and wear my 2.0 reading glasses on top of them. I laugh at people who don't want to wear reading glasses because they think it makes them old.  I laugh because I know that lack of eye sight is not necessarily an age thing, but because they do not know how blessed they are to have the option of seeing well.  When I was 10 years old I got the first pair of glasses that were truly hi deous.  That circle that forms in the lens because of the nature of concave corrective lenses for myopia was truly pronounced.  Right when I was hitting puberty my glasses became even more unsightly. I was alr

When I was a young undergraduate I took an introductory class to Psychology.  My professor was an interesting researcher who worked so much with monkeys that he walked a little like one.  I always remember him talking about mob mentality and how fascinated he was with it because of how difficult it was to study.  A scientist cannot morally stage a riot to study people’s brain to determine how quickly they decide to join in rioting or looting. He said it is hard to predict when and where it will happen.   This was in the early nineties, and I am certain now that this conversation in class must have come about after the Rodney King Riots.  If you are a Gen Xer like I am, it is hard to forget it.  Wikipedia says 63 people died in those riots.  It was the first time in my life that the public consciousness was so aware of the police being out of control.  It is also the start of what we now know is a video age, now the digital age, where civilians owned or carried cameras and theref

If you have not been paying attention, I do not blame you.  There have been so many weather stories lately that it is hard to focus.  The news is overwhelming.  Most people get stuck on one news source they like and that is all they look at.  We are all guilty of it.  I do it too.  But if that one news source has limited time or resources, stories get missed.  It seems to me that we only have time for one major weather story at a time.  With winter storm Isaiah, and the Australia fires, only people with ties to Puerto Rico seem to be paying attention to what is happening down there.  I read today a volcano eruption is eminent in The Philippines. Weather stories are exhausting us all, and I fear it is only going to get worse.  But people need to know Puerto Rico has been quaking for 16 days and counting. Well, the earthquake swarm (as it is apparently called) is worse than Maria. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/10/puerto-rico-earthquake-swarm-tectonic-plates/44