Day 158 - a smoky day

 Today is the 4th day of the 23rd week, the 7th day of the 6th month, the 158th day of 2023 [with only 200 shopping days until Christmas], and:

  • Bartender Day
  • Boone Day
  • Global Running Day - not a good idea hereabouts today
  • June Bug Day
  • National CAPHPACH Day - Citizens Against Police Harassment Police Against Citizen Harassment want to promote better communications and interactions between the police and the community
  • National Chocolate Ice Cream Day
  • National Oklahoma Day - altho some sites say it should be April 22nd, on this day in 1907 it became the 46th state 
  • National Tailors' Day
  • Tourette Syndrome Awareness Day
  • Trial Technology Day
  • Union Dissolution Day - on this day in 1905, Norway and Sweden dissolved their union which had existed since 1814
  • VCR Day - on this day in 1975, Sony launched Betamax, the first videocassette recorder which was quickly replaced with the VHS format.  Sony stopped selling Betamax cassettes in March 2016.
  • World Caring Day
  • World Feed Safety Day
Quote of the day:
"When things are going bad, don't get all bummed out. Don't get startled; don't get frustrated. If you can say the word 'good,' guess what? It means you're still alive. It means you're still breathing."
~ Jocko Willink, American author, podcaster, and retired US Navy SEAL

The air quality is really bad today - for the first time in a very long time, the area is under a Code Red Alert.  That means even breathing can cause 'health effects' - especially the wildfire smoke that is visiting us from the north as it contains tiny particulate matter [AKA PM2.5] that gets into your lungs and from there, your bloodstream.   

All this spells trouble for folks like me who are already experiencing breathing issues.  I had shrugged off the idea of having problems, but find that today I am slightly dizzy and my heart is pounding, and my blood oxygen percentages are rather on the low side - not bad enough to seek care, but something I have to keep an eye on.   Definitely the way to make me feel old today!  I am keeping the windows closed, but I know the intakes for the system are circulating outside air because it smells faintly of smoke.  Making the air recycle rather than pump in air from the outside is not something most older buildings are equipped to do.  At least the air filters do help, but my internal air quality is hovering around 155 today, which is only marginally better than outside.

The EPA is under constant attack by industries and politicians trying to reduce the air quality controls put into place back in 1955, altho most of us remember the 1963 establishment of the actual federal monitoring, and the revisions in the 1970's that created the EPA itself.  The older generation clearly remembers pictures of Los Angeles veiled in smog, and stories like that of Donora, PA.  Industries and cars had literally made the air toxic and everyone agreed something had to be done because the problem was getting worse.  The air quality issue today is due to wildfires, and climate change [also brought about by assuming Uncle Moneypants would regulate himself instead of indulging in pursuit of profitability while ignoring the consequences] has created the ideal situation for those to intensify.   Apparently the current crop of politicians aren't aware of this history, and naively proclaim we can trust unfettered capitalism to regulate itself.  That didn't work then, and it isn't going to work now.

Triscuit and I are just going to have to hunker down and take it easy for the next couple of days until the smoke blows away.

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