With the quarantine, due to the corona virus, in full force, I am working hard to keep occupied. I have been able to get out a few blogs and pen a few poems in the last week or so. But I still am finding it hard to find inspiration. My usual source for blog posts is the media. I do go to five or six papers and opinion sites every day and pick up something that tweaks my imagination or grates on my complacency.
A strange thing happened today when I went through my normal paces. I couldn’t find anything that seemed worth writing about. Of course, these media are brimming with news of the march of COVID-19 and all that is being done in response. The only thing new about it that I saw was that there is virtually nothing new there. Weird. How can so much be happening in the world and I find nothing much to write about.
It all seems so normal. Maybe that’s it. Another 80,000 or 90,000 cases of COVID-19 around the world. Cases here in the US over 300,000 and still headed straight up. Just 10,00 deaths so far. Certainly, it’s not usual to have so many excess deaths in a prolonged period. What’s normal is that it is just another case of ineptitude, venality and corruption by the Trump administration. One difference in this case is that the numbers are “real,” not alternate, facts. I guess it takes a pandemic to stop the President and his minions from running away from the truth. But not entirely. Word of hoaxes and unproven cures still come regular from the White House, but it’s just old news and not worth writing about.
Even the recent firings and dissing of individuals behaving according to the terms of their offices or doing what is simply the right thing to do passed by in an instant. After all, it is just the latest in long string of similar insults to my and other’s sensibilities. I can’t understand why such events still end up in the headlines.
And then there are all the stories of people living day-to-day. Normally there would be little or nothing about them in the media, but the economic stress caused by the virus has brought them back from the back pages. I know they are struggling more these days, but we now have heard about the huge recovery bill passed in the Congress. The bill is much too long to read and comprehend, but I do know that there is money for some of these folks, but not enough to really make a difference. I expect a return to the same old, same old soon, so why write about it now. The same goes for the other parts of the bill that will bail-out corporations. Just some more old news.
Let me end this post with another bit of humdrum. The silence coming from those who should be speaking out is just about the same as every other day. Pretty normal. Sort of like sitting around and watch the grass growing.