I continue to learn things from the current emergency. Some of them are personal, some global, some
useless and some questions about future effects.
Global:
I still stick by my prior post about declaring states of emergency.
It is a dangerous world. We have modified some dangers, we
live in a very comfortable lifestyle compared to almost all of human history,
and we have been led into the belief that nothing bad can happen.
The other person may be racist, sexist, stupid, treasonous,
stingy, sociopathic, psychotic, irreverent, Godless, God-incessed, irresponsibly communist,
irresponsible capitalist, irresponsibly fascist, irresponsibly apathetic,
clueless, evil, immoral, unethical, dishonorable, politically correct, politically
incorrect, rich, neavuoz riche, poor, criminal, addicted to (fill in the blank),
or (fill in the bad term.) However, in
their eyes, they are reasonable and honest.
You can disagree, but to deal with them by cursing at them will waste
your time. Deal with them rationally or marginalize them, if you can. (You probably can't; you can just ignore them.
(The people who admit that they fly the pirate flag are rare, although a pleasure to deal with.)
(The people who admit that they fly the pirate flag are rare, although a pleasure to deal with.)
The perfect is the enemy of the good or good enough. In other words, a good plan commenced beats a
perfect plan still in utero. The three
(so far) of the US government response to the virus emergency are imperfect, to
say the least. Some people are getting money they don’t deserve, some are getting
not enough money, some people all wholly excluded, and other people get public
money that they really don’t deserve. Of course, who those various entities are
is subject to disagreement. If we had not passed imperfect legislation, we
would still be arguing about phase 1 and nothing would have been done.
Political cooperation is possible, although it has really
become rare. Gone are the days when the president and other-party
congressional leaders had dinner, drinks, and told jokes together.
Preparation for bad things happening is primarily a personal
obligation. It is a difficult, especially for poor people. You cannot count
on government to bail you out dependably.
All things being said, this life is still the only game in
town. Play or quit.
Moving production capacity out of North America for economic
reasons has now bitten us. Will we continue to trust China and (fill in the blank)?
Criminals are planning ways to get your $1,200. For details, send the low, low price of
$39.95 (+ P&H) to the undersigned.
Medical science has led to extension of average age. It has not cured the death problem.
Assigning blame has minimal short-term utility. The crisis exists no matter who is at
fault. Better to devise a response to
the existing problem.
We are not in charge.
God, Fate, random chance, Odin, or the Force is in charge.
The death rate – so far – of coronavirus is less than 2%. On the other hand, if you get it, you either
live or die. If you die, you die
completely, not 2% worth.
Perhaps we need to take the current emergency as a drill for
a REALLY devastating emergency – The climate warms up suddenly, electricity
fails, a virus equivalent to the Black Death strikes, nuclear winter, and (fill
in the blank with something you can’t image) strikes.
Personal:
I’m still a dab hand in the kitchen and grill. Not anything like my son Tim, but a dab
hand.
I’m still not watching the Food Network as
entertainment. Sorry, Tim.
Airline, cruise ship lines and entertainment appear to be
bad investments right now. (My investments
are in oil. One tank at a time.)
Telecommunications stock (skype, google, facebook, etc.) may
be great investments now. (Me, I’ll stay
in oil. The Batmobile requires it.)
Words like “apocholyptic” are used by foolish people. Just my take.
Useless:
Triage and do-not-resuscitate doctrine are not new. They are unpleasant, but then life is
unpleasant at times.
Celebrities in sports and entertainment are no smarter, but
the current emergency has made them a bit more shrill.
Future effects:
How will we go to the movies in the future? The theaters are set up to maximize viewers,
but maintain the illusion of personal space.
Who will go to theaters, concerts, political rallies, hockey games or churches? (The hockey game part hurts.)
What will air travel look like? I don’t revel in the thought of climbing in
an aluminum tube with recycled air butting shoulders with 8 people to take a
trip across country. You can bet that
the airlines are exploring filter systems, less seating and other things that I
can’t think of (since I don’t fly often).
Ditto Boeing and Airbus. The planning
staffs are meeting secretly right now.
Planning staffs of big restaurant companies or investment
companies are meeting to plan how to take over restaurants and restaurant
chains that fail.
Mizpah!
