A couple of years ago, the bees were dying. Readers may recall the alarmist news coverage: soon, we were told, the mass extinction of our buzzy little pollinators would destroy agriculture globally, resulting in widespread famines. We must save the bees!
Meanwhile, I can’t walk to my car without fat, furry bees hovering around, ensuring the giant Sasquatch before them is just getting into his sensible subcompact hatchback, and not coming for their precious hive. My yard is a dream for bees (especially before I got the winter weeds mowed up)—they particularly love the azalea bushes—and they seem to be doing fine.
The point is, had you listened to the expert apiarists, you’d think that civilization itself rested on the gossamer wings of black-and-yellow insects. Sure, there probably is a problem with bee populations declining due to exposure to advance insecticides. But the intense focus of apiarists in their field blinded them to other considerations. They saw bee populations declining, and nothing else.
Experts know their fields so well, at times they can’t see the hive for the bees. The dire prophecies of global bee deaths and the resulting famines never came, and we didn’t declare a national emergency over the decline in bee populations because there are a million other priorities. We didn’t shut down industrial-scale agriculture to save the bees from insecticide, because to do so would result in millions of lost human lives. The bees would have to figure it out on their own (indeed, as bee populations fell, beekeepers turned a tidy profit renting their hives to farmers, and that incentive encouraged the cultivation of more bees).
You can see where I’m going with this extended bee metaphor. In the current coronavirus pandemic, we’ve leaned so heavily on the advice of medical professionals, we’re not considering the broader trade-offs. The old expression “the cure is worse than the disease” is particularly apt here: while social distancing and government-sanctioned “shelter-in-place” orders will surely slow the spread of infection and save lives, they will also result in massive economic destruction.
The Age of The Virus is unprecedented. Well, not entirely—major plagues and pandemics have swept the world before. What’s unprecedented this time is the wholesale closure of the most commerce, along with rigid governmental and social admonitions to “social distance” and “shelter-in-place.” Tin-pot municipal tyrants and State governors are engaged in a virtue-signalling race to see who can curtail liberties more rapidly and completely.
Pointing out this reality opens one to social scorn. It’s amusing—and a bit frightening—to see the earnestness with which some Americans cling to their new mantras, the articles of faith handed down from the CDC and various government apparatchiks. Even as our knowledge of The Virus seems to change daily, these public health acolytes cling to the every pronouncement from so-called “experts.”
Please don’t misunderstand me. Yes, we should be vigilant about washing our hands and avoiding the accidental infection of one another, especially the elderly.
What concerns me is how quickly so many of us have been willing to accept greater degrees of control over our lives in the name of combating an invisible threat. But now it feels like we’re living in the episode of Sliders called “Fever,” in which a totalitarian CDC cracks down on Los Angeles because, in that universe, penicillin was never discovered.
We’re not at Sliders levels—yet—but with that acquiescence has come an expansion of government power at nearly every level. I am not a libertarian, and I fully expect a robust federal response to a difficult international situation (remember, The Virus came from CHI-NA). But that doesn’t mean local, State, or even federal authorities can simply hand-wave away the Constitution.
The Framers surely knew disease and death in their time. When the Constitution was drafted in 1787, there was no capability for directing society with relative efficiency; even if there were, though, they would not have wanted to use it to suspend liberties. The Framers surely knew there would be plagues and sickness in the United States, yet they included no clause such as “in the event of widespread sickness, these Articles contained heretofore in are, and of right to be, suspended until such time as the Congress shall deem suitable for public safety and the common welfare.”
Yet we see officials at the lowest levels of government telling people not just to stay home, but threatening to shut down churches and other assemblies. Doesn’t that violate the First Amendment protections of freedom of religion and freedom of assembly? Again, the prudent approach is for churches to accommodate the health of their congregants with remote services or other workarounds, but shouldn’t they be allowed to hold traditional services if they so choose?
The critics and medical scolds by now are howling with rage. “What do these gossamer rights mean when we’re dead?” Is that all anyone cares about? What happened to Patrick Henry’s fiery cry of “Give me liberty, or give me death?” What’s worse: death from worshiping the Lord, or life in a soulless, gutless, freedom-less world?
I’m not alone in my assessment here. Bill Whittle ripped into New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio earlier this week, arguing that His Dishonor’s promise to shut down churches that continue to congregate would represent a high-handed assault on the First Amendment. Even Whittle’s colleague Scott Ott thought Whittle’s defense of the Constitution was a bit rich, basically arguing that the Constitution can take a break during this outbreak.
I’m perceiving similarly expedient arguments among others on the Right. It’s disgusting how many folks on our side are running like slavering dogs to lap up the crumbs of authoritarianism. Whittle in the video above makes the compelling point that the Constitution functionally means nothing if any government official at any level can simply ignore its protections. He also correctly points out that these rights are God-given, part of our very human nature. No government can legitimately deprive us of them.
Another one of the saner voices is RazörFist, who also sees a great deal of big government chicanery in this pandemic (warning, Razör’s videos often contain strong language):
Z Man has also expressed skepticism about The Virus—or, at least, our draconian responses to it—and has received his share of scorn and dismissal. But in his post Wednesday, “Fermi’s Paradox,” he made an interesting allusion to E.M. Forster’s novella “The Machine Stops,” originally published in 1909. That short story (which I highly recommend you read—it has the same chilling effect as Kipling’s “The Mother Hive”) details a world in which humanity exists in a state of mindless, perpetual comfort, its every need attended to by The Machine.
In the story, humans have become so accustomed to cloistering in their little cells that they abhor face-to-face interaction, instead communicating via blue discs across great distances. They are so dependent upon The Machine, they come to worship it (an interesting development, as their society has “advanced” beyond the “superstition” of religious belief—another subtle point from Forster). They only travel on rare occasions, and avoid it unless absolutely necessary.
Eventually, The Machine deteriorates, with disastrous results; I will likely write about the story in more detail next week. For our purposes, it sounds eerily like our current society: shelter-in-place, “Stay at Home” (as digital signs on the Interstate tell me, implicitly scolding me for being on the highway), watch Netflix, #AloneTogether, etc., etc.—we’re told to be comfortable and to crave safety and comfort above all else. They are the highest goods.
We’re through the looking glass here. I’ve been pessimistic that we’re even living under the Constitution anymore, especially after the intelligence agencies attempted to overthrow a sitting President. Vestiges and scraps of it still reign, but they seem to be the exception. And most Americans don’t seem to care, so long as they can watch TV, the WiFi is working, and there is pizza.
We’re no longer the Roman Republic, but we’re not the Roman Empire in the 5th century, either. We’re more like the Roman Empire in the 2nd or 3rd centuries: coasting along on the remnants of a functioning system, with a play-acting Congress shadowing the motions of republicanism.
In the Age of The Virus, we’re beginning to reevaluate the way we live. I’ve written quite a bit about distance learning, and photog has a piece up on his blog predicting a larger shift to remote work. That transition would threaten micromanaging middle managers everywhere, though, and one doesn’t become a micromanaging middle manager without a knack of occupational self-preservation.
I’ve also been interested in the potential cultural impact. Already there seems to be a minor revival in interest in gardening. Part of that is prudent: we need to have some food to fall back on should the supply chains face further disruption.
But I also suspect some of it is spiritual. Modern man has become divorced from his roots in the soil—in Creation. Modernity has liberated us from the constant fear of want, but that liberation came with a price: we traded the liberty of the soil for the chains of comfort. Growing a little vegetable garden, however meager, is a way to reconnect with the land, and with the beauty of God’s Creation.
Yesterday morning over at the blog Nebraska Energy Observer, NEO’s in-house guest writer, Audre Meyers, wrote a short, fun piece about prepping, “The Neo made me do it!,” in which she extolled the virtues of preparing ahead of time for disasters, rather then getting caught up in the frenzied mobs of panicked shoppers. She wrote about some various and sundry items she needed to top off, including the increasingly-precious toilet paper, because “there are some things I simply refuse to do without!”
With the obligatory hat-tips squared away, let’s dive into this early 1970s TP shortage—one that mirrors our own mania for clean bums. What is it about toilet paper—and the threat that it will disappear—that drives Americans to hysterics?
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A little over six months ago, I wrote a “Monday Morning Appeal,” asking readers to pitch in a buck or two to help with the site. As of this morning, I’m up to six subscribers to my SubscribeStar page, four at $1/month the level, and two at $5/month the level.
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The value of your subscription increases each week, as more content gets added. This transition has also forced me to figure out how to record video and audio more efficiently, so the long-planned, never-delivered Portly Podcast could be in the works soon.
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Coronavirus dominates the news, which makes the news both frightening and boring. Reporting on The Virus is all over the map. The media can’t even cut President Trump some slack during a national emergency, such as their egregious misreporting on the efficacy of hydroxichloroquine.
Yes, yes, we know that there haven’t been clinical trials, but hydroxichloroquine is a safe, well-established drugs. It also bears remembering that most medical doctors are, essentially, high-functioning autists: they can’t help but sacrifice the good to the perfect. Thus, their reasoning is, “Yes, it seems to be working very well, but we can’t know for sure scientifically without years of testing.” Meanwhile, people are suffering, but the anti-malaria drug has proven—anecdotally—to be hugely successful.
We’re Americans: if it works, it works, even if it’s not the theoretically ideal solution. That seems to be the divide between our elites, who exist in a world of abstractions (because they can afford to indulge in those abstractions) and the rest of us, who live in the earthiness of Reality.
But I digress. With the persistent incantations of “social distancing” and “flattening the curve,” I’ve been casting about for some interesting blogging material. This last week I kept going to animals, for some reason, so why not do the truly lazy thing and just feature the posts about them?
I am no great lover of animals, but I don’t dislike them, as long as they aren’t in my house. I’ve grown more fond of cats and dogs as I’ve gotten older, though, and I’ve always liked fish, lizards, frogs, and the like. I even wrote an entire digital EP about unicorns. I even commissioned one of my former students—a true lover of animals—to do the artwork (I think I paid her $20—too little for the quality) for each song (here, here, here, and here), and my “tour” in 2019 I dubbed “The Year of the Panther.”
All that said, here are some primal posts for your enjoyment:
“New Mustang is a Sign of the Times” – This post isn’t about animals, per se, but the name of this iconic American vehicle is animalistic. I’m stretching here, so just roll with it. The occasion for this post (and last week’s TBT) was Ford’s disastrous plans to make a muscle car into an electric hatchback. I love hatchbacks and fuel efficiency, but let’s stop taking one thing and making them into another. It’s like when they make James Bond into a black demiqueer woman. I don’t care if creators make some interesting new character with those racial and gender qualities, but don’t take James Bond—who I think is supposed to be Scottish—and make him something he isn’t. Imagine if we made Othello into a white woman. Come now.
“Albino Giraffes Poached” – This story is truly sad, as it involves the cold-blooded murder (presumably; maybe some tribal had to eat to survive) of two albino giraffes. I make some wild accusations against the Chinese, so it’s got everything—beautiful creatures, poaching, and casting broad aspersions against an entire group of people.
“Tarantulas and the Hygge” – My general philosophy towards spiders is live and let live, with the caveat—“you live as long as you stay away from me.” I don’t mind a little spider hanging out in some dusty corner of my house, eating up whatever lower-order insects shouldn’t be around. I don’t mind them hanging around outside (that’s even better!), gobbling up all the nasty things. But when I look at spiders, I have to imagine they are a form of extraterrestrial life—few of God’s creatures appears and acts more alien than do arachnids.
That said, this post looked at the piece “Tarantulas: Masters of the Art of Hygge,” from the website Tarantula Heaven. I’ve learned a lot about tarantulas over the past couple of weeks, and they are truly remarkable creatures. I’m not going to get one, to be sure, but I have a greater appreciation for them and their various arachnid cousins than I once did.
That’s it for this Lazy Sunday. Be sure to have your pets spayed and neutered—and don’t let your tarantula out of its tank.
Well, another week of distance learning is in the books (nearly), and it seems folks are settling into an uncertain new normal as The Virus—what I’ve taken to calling the coronavirus (or COVID-19, to your cool kids)—continues to spread its invisible tentacles.
I personally have enjoyed the transition to distance learning, though I wish it were under rosier circumstances, obviously. It’s been stimulating to solve the puzzle of moving instruction online, and while I think I’m actually working harder and longer most days, I am far more refreshed. Being able to wake up at 7:30 AM and shuffling to the computer with some coffee is much more pleasant than my typically frantic morning routine, with both starts earlier and is more hectic. It’s also nice knowing that, once 3:30 or 4 PM hit, I am done, if I wish to be.
Naturally, I realize many Americans don’t have this luxury—they’re either in essential jobs that require them to risk constant interactions with other people, or they’re in non-essential work that can’t simply move to the Internet, so they find themselves out of work. My heart goes out to both groups. The real heroes of this situation are the garbage men, nurses, doctors, utility workers, cooks, plumbers, and the rest that soldier on.
From giraffes to tarantulas, the unofficial theme this week has been weird animals. Other than my “Christmas Eve” blog post in 2019, I haven’t written much about animals, so this week has been a surprising turn even for me. Politics has gotten stale again now that the Democratic primaries are on hold or delayed, and being cooped up inside has got me diving into some odd topics, apparently.
Talk about some perspective. Life was so good and plague-free just four months ago, I could gripe unironically about Ford ruining a classic car, as if that were a major problem.
Still, Ford should know better than to make a classic muscle car-for-the-masses into an electric hatchback. That’s fruitier than Pete Buttigieg reading to children at a public library.
Hopefully we’ll soon be feeling the wind whip through our hair again as we rocket down the Interstate in our virtue-signalling e’Stang. In the meantime, here’s 2019’s “New Mustang is a Sign of the Times“:
Electric cars are fine, although environuts shouldn’t delude themselves that driving these battery-powered vehicles are saving the environment (it’s pedantic to point out, but batteries require a great deal of mining to get the metals necessary to build them, and the electricity to charge them comes from coal-, oil-, and nuclear-power, so it’s not like you’re truly making an end-run around fossil fuels). But a Ford Mustang shouldn’t be an electric car; at least, it shouldn’t be one that looks like this iteration.
Ford has taken an iconic muscle car and turned it into a limp-wristed hatchback. Look, I drive a thirteen-and-a-half-year old Dodge Caravan with dents and collapsing headliner, but I don’t pretend its four-cylinder engine and stocky frame make it a sports car (the 2006 Dodge Caravan actually has a fairly sleek design compared to modern minivans). I like hatchbacks just fine; they seem practical and utilitarian—the exact opposite of what a Ford Mustang should be!
This mania for political correctness and efficiency is infecting every aspect of our society and our lives. Yet another legendary brand has fallen to the fleeting faddism of our present age. A car like a Ford Mustang—much like the Dodge Charger—should be a gloriously wasteful (in terms of fuel efficiency) affair, a blasphemous testament to the bravado of the engineers and the driver.
That’s what makes these cars cool. They’re powerful, they’re in-your-face, and they’re all American—like Chuck Norris or the Die Hard movies.
Now, just like everything else masculine and dangerous, we’ve neutered this vehicle into a yuppie dad car. Journalists are celebrating the fact that the vehicle wasn’t worse than what it is. I can only imagine the whipped husband picking up groceries for his overbearing wife, escaping the oppression of his personal and professional life in fleeting moments of ecstasy while listening to classic rock in his… electric hatchback.
If—when?—I go through my midlife crisis, I want a car that gets 15 miles-per-gallon or less, with some kind of awesome and/or mythical animal on the hood—which covers a thunderous, gas-guzzling V8 engine—and that will wake up the neighbors when I drive in from late-night photo shoots for Hot Rod Magazine.
Well, nothing lasts forever, even cold November Mustangs.
One of the joys of blogging is discovering the weird side of the Internet—the fun weird side, not the dark, inappropriate weird side. Today’s post is a trip down one of those byways of oddity.
My blogger buddy photog posted a striking stack photography image a couple of weeks ago with the enigmatic title “Name That Tooth.” He invited readers to identify a truly remarkable fang.
