At a time of political shifts within the White House following a series of senior staff resignations, continued suspicions over claims of Russian hacking in the 2016 presidential election, growing tensions between the US and North Korea after missile fears for Guam, and domestic clashes in Charlottesville between White Nationalists and counter protestors over the Civil War monument dispute, the solar eclipse became a simple distraction for many this summer.
In looking up at the eclipse there was a shared feeling of having witnessed the miraculous. It happened regardless of political and cultural stresses, and it happened for everyone. But for those who were too late to buy eclipse glasses, a Cheerios box with a pinhole on the side was all they needed to look away from America and forget.
