New Words:

Microphobes is a new word I find difficult to do without.

Readers may want to add it to that other new word: Climaphobes, which was difficult to avoid when discussing the special interest people promoting climate armageddon before Covid 19 got their attention.

Neither is a dictionary item. Each became necessary to our lexicon in attempting to cope with electronics gadgetry-induced paranoia.

People who find use for them are invited to use them. Please feel free.

Collateral Damage:

The electronic media is making out like gangbusters with all those plague-induced microphobes glued to the screen.

When there is nothing else to do, people are reduced to staring hypnotically at the tv screens.

But there is more evidence every day that, despite the restrictions, people will find a way to get out and behave normally. So far, there are reports of drivers doing really stupid things in their cars.

Young folk gather in groups that can more accurately be described as swarms in parks, at the beach and more frequently, in public places and recreational space.

It is still too early for anyone to assess collateral damage, but domestic friction and senseless killings will eventually bear evidence of the restrictions fewer people are prepared to tolerate.

It shouldn't take long for deaths due to cabin fever to exceed those of the virus. Bear in mind these deaths will not be losses of people vulnerable to microbes assigned by nature to keep human populations under control.

Slavery:

Slavery is not a big deal.

It was practiced at some time in every culture in every part of the world. It faded and became less visible as each culture evolved.

Every language has in it words that are evidence of slavery at some time in its evolutionary cycle. It may be generally held  true that the more evolved societies used members of the less evolved to do their menial chores.

This situation was not taken on lightly. Owning slaves meant not only sheltering them, but also feeding them and, in general, looking after their health and well-being. No good farmer abuses his cattle or horses. 

It might be assumed that how well they were looked after depended on how useful they were to their owners.

Cases where slaves were rewarded with freedom and independence for their efforts are not unheard of. It may even have been the expected outcome. 

It is very much like the modern day employee working his way up the ladder and finally getting to be the person who is responsible enough to make the decisions for his own group of employees.

Modern day slavery as practiced by the financial institutions is extending credit to people who abuse their credit card limits so recklessly that most of their income goes into paying off the interest.

That's modern slavery. The financial institutions initiate the situation with people young enough and inexperienced enough to not realize what they are getting themselves into.

That is why the current Ontario government's plans to replace the previous administration's sex indoctrination curriculum in the early grades with financial arithmetic is such a logical and responsible thing to do.

Go for it, guys.

How deadly?

How deadly is the Covid 19 virus?

An article in MSN posts results of several medical research operations. Not one of them is reported to have found the percentage of fatalities among people infected as high as a single percentage point. 

All of them post fractions of less than one percent.

So, for less than one percentage point of deaths among those infected by the virus, we are burdened with dozens of restrictions. We are coerced into buying those ridiculous face masks and rubber gloves and tons of disinfectants. On top of that, we are threatened with fines and public ridicule for failing to comply.

And to top it all off, municipal officials are allowing thriving businesses to die, jobs to disappear, with more of the same promised every day on electronic media.

The whole thing has deteriorated into a media event with the large numbers given up-front to keep media-induced microphobes glued to the screen.

A couple of days ago CTV began a news item with number of Covid cases, went on to other huge numbers world-wide and ended with the actual number of deaths in Canada--two.

Wow!

News editing priorities have changed radically since I was in the game. 

Idiocy Rules:

Police chiefs resigning in several cities, both in Canada and the US is not good news.

We have to conclude that these moves were prompted, at least in part, by the hooliganism launched by the Black Lives activists. These people are without a doubt looking for less police interference with what they are up to. In other words, a free hand in criminal activity.

They want the police de-funded.

If ever there was a recipe for chaos, that's the one. 

Chasing Infections:

The health authorities and the politicians are breathlessly chasing corona virus infections, posting large numbers in the media on a daily basis.

The few deaths due to Covid 19 are mentioned almost as an aside.

Shouldn't it be the other way around? The actual casualties weigh in as a very low percentage of the infections, hovering in the single digits. So why is the number of infections given such prominence?

Many of us are aware that there is no such thing as a politician who will refuse free media exposure. It is also obvious that the media is flogging face masks, disinfectants, sanitary wipes and toilet paper. 

Why is the human herd so willing to co-operate with such manipulative behavior by mayors and councilors who inconvenience their electorates with face masks, fines and endless regulations? Do we like being manipulated?

Petroglyphs:

My little Niece, Debbie, casts doubt that people read facebook posts that do not contain pictures.

Actually, those of us who still write things do so with the idea that it's for people who are still capable of reading. There's ample evidence that an increasing number of facebook participants are reverting back to where we came from several thousand years ago.

Part of the evidence is in those annoying emojis jumping around your cursor when you try to use the screen. Add to that the easy transfer of imagery from the phone cameras and there is very little need for anyone to ever actually engage the brain to convey thoughts.

So, it would appear, we are reverting to a form of pictographs--something like what the Egyptians used and the origins of oriental calligraphy. All of that, of course, evolved from the petroglyphs. That is the way our ancestors recorded their thinking back before they discovered that the rocks they were using may contain metals.

Petroglyphs can be viewed and photographed along the shores of some of the lakes joined by the Trent-Severn canal system in northern Ontario. They are evidence that our stone-age ancestors experienced enough periods of security to allow them to carve images in sandstone and slate slabs using quartz, flint and granite tools.

Who, among our ancestors, would ever have dreamed that someday, in the dim future, their descendants will return to that form of communication?

Correction:

Covid 19 has been labelled a plague by various authorities, but from the planetary view, it is really a correction.

What appears to be in need of correction is a surplus of vulnerable humanity surviving long after their best before date has expired. All the signals are there for us to read and interpret unemotionally. 

First of all, the virus is hard to identify. Nor is it easy to identify the carriers. Later reports aren't even sure if people who appear to be immune to it can still carry it and pass it on.

Most of the information drummed at the public by health authorities and politicians appears to have a strong speculative element. They are not quite sure of what exactly is going on and the media is full of it. There is no vaccine and none appears to be on the immediate horizon.

All these highly politicized efforts to "flatten the curve" are bearing nothing very definitive. It may be that flattening the curve will just lengthen the period of correction.

We will not know for sure what works until we can compare the length of the infection between jurisdictions that worked to flatten the curve with those that took the chance to allow it to spike with the view of shortening the infection's presence in the population.

A previous well-defined planetary correction used the Aids virus to correct the abuse of human reproductive procedure. While there is no real cure, it is said to have prompted changes in non-reproductive sexual activity.