Intellectual poverty

I monitor the BBC late at night, often a barometer of global thought, such as it is. Last night the subject was the Covid 19 crisis. Guess what was *NOT* mentioned during a one-hour panel discussion among allegedly notable thought leaders in Britain, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. Correctamundo, China. The origin of Covid 19 was animals (!) and it was serenely accepted that Nature will continually threaten humanity with new infections. HIV and Ebola were mentioned as prior viral pandemics, reprehensible in the context of stigmatizing the sick, emphatically condemned by BBC panelists. They also agreed without exception that rich European countries (there is only one: Germany) were obligated to bail out poor European countries, especially chronically bankrupt, socialist Spain and Italy. The Swiss human rights expert (?) spoke angrily about solidarity and unity. I suspected her day job was communist agitator. The editor of Lancet advised there was no cure forthcoming and therefore it's imperative for governments to impose totalitarian control of everything.

Callers asked the experts a string of softball questions. The answer was always more fascist control, more government spending, no exit from lock down. Immunity was poo-pooed as divisive and socially improper for some to be treated differently than others. We all have to suffer indefinitely, forget about weeks or months of solitary confinement. Two allegedly positive aspects of global economic disaster were an increased appreciation of nationalized health care workers and the possibility of leveraging revitalized pan-European consensus to inflict more hardship by fighting climate change. Unemployed societies produce less CO2 emissions and eat less food, proving that BBC experts can kill fossil fuel. American frackers are bankrupt, already cut 2 million barrels per day of oil production, hurrah!

No one was worried about inflation, scarce food production, or fragility of transport. The BBC panelists were like primitives or small children, unable to conceive how goods and services magically come into existence. It was merely a policy decision for governments to distribute food, medical services, and entertainment bandwidth "fairly" to 400 million rightless, idle European citizens in permanent lock down. The problem of Africa never came up, except in condemnation of European disunity concerning settlement of refugees and migrants.

Same story on NPR. Black Americans are dying from Wuhan virus at triple the rate of whites. Has nothing to do with black behavior, unanimously agreed by government spokesmice. It's racism and social disadvantage. They previously declared that AIDS had nothing to do with sodomy. Please note that no one on earth has yet to develop an effective HIV virus vaccine, after 40 years of lavish government subsidies. Outrageous and insane that homosexuality is pitched as a legally protected privilege in mandatory K-12 sex education classes. Hopefully, U.S. public schools and state universities will remain closed forever.

The NPR cure for unending isolation and economic disaster? -- "comfort music" composed by obscure, dreamy airheads, all of whom in today's broadcast were latino. The TED talks that followed were equally soporific. Discussion of 1918 Spanish flu social distancing confirmed the imperative of closing all theaters, restaurants, and religious services. Social welfare and psychological safety nets must be deployed worldwide. Vaccination, whether effective or not, should be mandatory and universal, including vaccination of bats in Peru to halt rabies infection of sleeping children. If you live in New York, put a teddy bear in your window.

Commercial radio channels are chockablock with Public Service Announcements, because advertising croaked. Go online and complete the 2020 census to provide more heath care and government education for the next ten years. Wash your hands and stand six feet apart.

You know what's profoundly sad? The lost youth of the Wilson sisters. The insolent swagger of young Chrissie Hynde, hot stud Tom Jones, the mature warmth of Robert Palmer. I don't care if a million Americans die this year, which they will, as per usual. We lost the power and poetry of boundless freedom when Bonham and Carlin died years ago. Nothing much left to save, some vinyl and CDs, a few videos. Let's nuke Beijing and call it square.

Do you have any idea of what's going on at U.S. power plants? Rows of RVs in the parking lot, crews of operators quarantined at their place of employment, working 14 days straight, then swapped with an offsite crew that had been quarantined at home and tested twice. Better paid than Chinese slave labor, but equally rightless. The supply chain of pump gaskets, light bulbs, SO2 detectors, and coffee filters is shaky. With Smithfield in Souix Falls shut down, there may be a sudden scarity of bacon. I don't think anyone can operate a U.S. power plant without bacon. Just saying. More bad news: another meat packing plant closed in Greeley. Fifty retail grocery clerks dead from "essential" viral infection.

Forced sameness, one rule for all. Stay home and wash your hands. If you go out, do yourself a favor, citizen, and leave your smartphone home. It's being monitored and located 24/7 to report where you went and who you came into contact with. Not joking. Not an exaggeration. It's hard to grasp how low we've sunk as chatty, ditzy middle brow technology users. Heart, heart, smiley face.

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