The Great Thinning

US coronavirus death toll surpasses 10,000 | USA News | Al Jazeera

It’s anyone’s guess, the final human toll of COVID-19. Regardless of the body count, the coronavirus seems worthy of some historical title. All great disasters get them: The Great Dying; The Black Plague; The Royal Wedding.

But what to name this? It has all the trappings of a great disaster flick, as if we’d just watched the meteor plunge into the middle of the Pacific and can see the tidal wave headed for us in its wake. Only the trees and monoliths planted firmly in the earth seem destined to survive The Great Thinning.

Consider, already, how COVID has winnowed so thin as to be translucent the veil of what we once considered an American way of life. In the matter of a month, we’ve foudationally shifted our thinking on:

Puttalam Faith. For years, we at the HB have argued that the majority of the nation is atheist because, well, if we thought someone were really watching,  we’d act different. Leave it to COVID to do us one better.

COVID demonstrates how believers actually behave when they think an invisible, capricious force capable of mass slaughter exists somewhere out there. It’s even adopted its own set of lifestyle commandments, more conservative than any Baptist fundamentalist or Muslim martyr:

Thou shalt not congregate.

Thou shalt not go unmasked or ungloved. 

Thou shalt not eat meat that’s been touched.

And most importantly, Thou shalt shun non-believers.

Do we not follow COVID’s commandments just as fervently, if not more so?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHpuqx2tzhI

where do i buy disulfiram Business. Corona has laid bare the notion that the stock market and the economy are related. As America’s death toll topped 50,000 and confirmed cases neared 1 million, those in the investing class have kept the DOW above 20000 by, among other things, short-betting on America. How else could oil drop to below $0? COVID has made clear the two American economies: Those who pay the bills; and those who bet they won’t be able to.

COVID is also going allow Economic Darwinism have its way, on everything from the gig economy to democratic socialism. Already, we are seeing its earliest results. Since COVID struck, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 33 million are unemployed, for a real unemployment rate of 20.6%—which would be the highest level since 1934.Coronavirus unemployment could become highest since the Great ...

Science. The silver lining of the new order. As dimwits protest not being able to get their hair did, others are publicly touting the beauty of science.That may not stop people from injecting Lysol into their veins, thanks to president PumpkinSpice and Fox lickspittles. But Darwin’s gotta thin the herd somewhere. March for Science: Crowds join global Earth Day protests - CNN

(Sidenote to above pic: That protester above misspelled ‘believe’ on purpose, right? To be ironic? Please be so. We need folks who can represent.)

 

 

Kevin Joseph Roberts (6/24/66 -4/17/20)

Robert Button, journalism mentor and teacher:

“Perhaps the greatest reward a teacher can have is watching students grow into themselves and their potential. Their successes are our successes. And the memories of the time they spent together ensures they live on for a lifetime.

“Kevin Roberts was one of those students; he brought fun and joy – and an enviable talent and commitment – to the classroom and to long hours after school producing a weekly student newspaper. Even though it has been more than 20 years since I have seen or talked to him, he has lived with me every day. And in spite of the fact that an aggressive cancer took his life this morning, he will live in me forever. My heart and sympathy to his father Art, his brother Jon and to his wide circle of caring friends.”

When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

— Maya Angelou

 

Safest passage, northern Traveler. Today all Towers face South.