I first wrote this
post about a month ago, but things delayed my moving forward on posting
it. Since then the world has changed yet
again. I decided to go ahead and post it
as originally written as a relic of a simpler past and because it is time to get get going or give up.
This is my (new) personal blog about the coronavirus and how
it has, is, and will change the world. I
will explain why I decided write this blog, but first I should address the
readers (few as they were) of my prior blog which focused on the Southampton
Saints football club and English football in general. Based upon my prior
readership level, there could be as many as one hundred people who have set
themselves up to be notified whenever I posted a new article. The next three paragraphs are addressed to those
people.
I have not blogged since August 16, 2017. My job as an appellate lawyer involves
reading things, researching things, thinking about things, and then writing
about those things. That is also what I
did with this blog. I stopped blogging
because my workload became significantly heavier. This meant that I had less
time to focus on our club and I had fewer insights to share about our club and
its squad. Reading the forums and
thinking about the concerns expressed on those forums was a fertile source of
ideas for my blog, but I could no longer devote a couple hours a day to our
club and football in general. Also, the
club’s recent poor performance was simply less interesting to analyze. Also, the Golden State Warriors provided a
nice distraction.
In 2018 I was tempted to write an article arguing that—in
retrospect—our club’s outstanding performance in 2015-2016 was primarily due to
the fact that we had two of the world’s best players, Sadio Mane and Virgil van
Dijk, in the squad, but that wonderful situation could never last. However, I didn’t think that argument really
needed to be made. It certainly seemed
indisputable to me.
I should acknowledge that while I stand by my reasoning in
my last substantive post from August 8, 2017, I was wrong to believe there was
nothing serious to worry about.
Something fundamentally changed in how the club was run back then. Or
perhaps the loss of two world class players plus regression to the mean put us
into the relegation zone. On the other
hand, the club’s recent problems do not prove that the doomsayers were right
all along. Doom is an extraordinary
event. As Carl Sagan said “extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence."
Throughout the club’s good run, there simply was no extraordinary
evidence of systemic problems with the club.
Maybe things are different now, but that is no longer my focus.
On to the new blog.
I have called my new blog “The Before Time—The After Time”
based upon original Star Trek season 1 episode 8, “Miri,” where—SPOILER ALERT—the Enterprise finds a
planet very much like 1960s Earth except a plague has wiped out all the
adults. The children have survived for
hundreds of years because the disease prolongs their life until they become
adults and then go crazy and die. These
children referred to the time before the plague as “the Before Time” and that
seemed on point to me.
My reaction to current events is heavily focused on my
experiences as an American. This will
distinguish my current blogging from my former bloggings which were much more
focused on English things because the Southampton football club was in the
English Premier League. I even made a
major effort to use English terms rather than American terms—hence, the
slightly off, to the American ear, references to our “squad” earlier. Given the nature of our President and his
response to the COVID-19 problem, some of what I say will have less relevance
outside the United States, but I am good with that.
It is my belief (concern?) (fear?) that, while our situation
is nowhere near as extreme as the one in Star Trek, a major change in our world
has happened and that things will not come close to returning to the Before
Time normal. Of course, I could be
wrong. And, even more of course, this
change could go any number of ways. Our
world could become a kinder and better one.
We might start paying more attention to the poor and disadvantaged who
are extraordinarily more likely to suffer serious consequences from the
pandemic. We might start addressing
other problems such as global warming, income inequality, and racial
discrimination. Or we might turn to
authoritarian leadership and all become fascists. Or things might get back to the old normal
after we get a vaccine or, without a vaccine, the new normal will like the old
normal but with a lot more routine death.
I do think I have something useful to say about all of his
because I believe I am good at spotting stupidity and explaining why it is
stupid. There is a lot of that going
around right now. This does not mean
that I will focus my articles on calling people stupid. There is also too much of that going on right
now. Some of that stupidity gets enough
attention—such Trump’s suggestion that doctors investigate the possibility of
injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus. But some of it isn’t getting nearly enough
attention. And some things that are not
getting enough attention do not involve stupidity.
But that is not really the reason I am writing this
blog. I am writing this blog because I
am already spending lots of time thinking about these things. When I mentioned to my best friend the
possibility that I would start blogging about the Coronavirus, she responded
“Yes! It would be a better outlet for
you than telling me about it.” Then she
added a smiley face. I trust her
judgment.
On the other hand, I am not an expert in any relevant field
except American Law. When I address
issues that require some other expertise I will be relying on internet sources
that appear reliable to me and I will be linking to them—assuming I can
remember how to do that.
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