7 Coronavirus Takes

I’m blogging at Stand Firm today…

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Well, I think it’s a law that we have to blog about Coronavirus now. And who am I to disobey, so, here we go.

One

First of all, here are some other people who have been writing interesting things. Cat, for one, and this person who has good advice for teachers who suddenly have to venture into the online world. Seriously, read them both. All very sensible.

Two

And here’s a guy who thinks he’s Jesus. I feel like this might be a spoof, but it’s pretty great either way. Sorry, that’s not about coronavirus, but I couldn’t resist. And here is Kenneth Copland who honestly looks like he’s demon-possessed. Someone should go try to exorcise him.

Three

And here is a longish piece that said a lot of things I’ve thought over the week, though the writer comes to a bit of a different conclusion than I have. He thinks it is bad if the whole world is thrust back into the “isolation” of working from home. We’ll all just stay quarantined, as it were, and certainly, that is possible, especially if this change is effected thoughtlessly and without consideration. It may be, though, that this is just the thing society needs to be helped away from isolation and towards true community.

Four

I mean, almost everyone agrees that we are in the midst of a massive technological revolution, at least as big as the industrial revolution, if not bigger (I mean, I read that somewhere, can’t remember where), but honestly, we are still living as if we aren’t. By way of a tiny illustration, we all expect to buy movie tickets online, and then go and show the proof of purchase on a phone, but sometimes you go stand there and you can’t get it up easily, and the thing that the person reads the code with has to face a certain direction. It would have been lots easier to walk up to the window and be given a paper ticket by a live person. The online way could be easier, but often it is completely exasperating. Or Instacart—great idea, but it’s still not that awesome, at least the last time I tried to use it and then gave up. We are on the cusp of being able to shift totally in the way that we think about buying things, and are nearly there, but, well, it may be that coronavirus is going to push us right over the edge.

Five

And like all major societal shifts, there will be some good, and some bad. Being a Luddite, I always think it will be bad, except that having lived in the way described in that article, I actually think this might be better than the whole going to work in a big office building. Of course, this could isolate us all more, but it hasn’t by any means isolated me. Honestly, I think we have organized our home in a more ancient kind of way. I will briefly explain…..read the rest here!!