Coffee, Life, the virus & other nonsense
Saturday Coffee
Only you can answer this. Six months of the coronavirus has taught me that normality is way over-rated. That normality is little more than a word that society gets us to believe in so as to feel safer.
“Normality is an illusion, created by a conservative culture to control behaviour”
― Merlyn Gabriel Miller, Sex, Death, Drugs & Madness
When this virus goes away, I don’t want my life to go back to normal . I want better than that, and so should you. To be a better person, a better human being. To expect more of ourselves and those around us.
Coronavirus gives this opportunity to all of us — to the whole world — to re-make ourselves. To change our world for the better.
I am optimistic about the future…Carpe Diem!
Coronavirus and New Zealand
It is damn scary what the government is doing down in New Zealand. When this Covid-19 pandemic first started, I wrote that the biggest danger comes from the political class: incompetence, manipulation or worse. Nowhere is this more visible than in New Zealand.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (elected 2017) saw 2020 begin as a political underdog with few rosy prospects: low popularity ratings and too many scandals to expect to be re-elected later in the year. Besides this, she has a controversial history, having risen into prominence too quickly for some critics to think that she is hiding something.
The coronavirus came, therefore, as an unexpected blessing to her and her minority coalition Labour government. Taking a very hard-line stand against Covid-19, all the while playing on the fear and terror factor, slowly but surely her approval ratings rose from the red into positive territory.
A massive domestic and international publicity campaign was quickly organized to take advantage of this opportunity. She even became more popular outside of New Zealand than with in!
Her photos that appeared in the papers began to be photoshopped. For example, which of the two photos above of Jacinda do you think was from this year?
If you guessed the first, then you would be correct! The second photo is from last year, and is clearly not a very good image at all!
Ardern even managed to postpone the election (originally slated for today, September 19) until next month, allowing her more time to organize her party.
Pundits claim that she will only call the election when she is absolutely confident that she will be able to win the election with a majority.
All of this has come at a tremendous cost to New Zealand, its people and especially its economy. Today New Zealand is under virtual martial law lock down. Probably the toughest in the world. Just this week it was revealed that the economy has shrunk to record lows.
This despite the coronavirus hardly even existing at all. In a country with slightly less than 5 million inhabitants, a grand total of 25 deaths have been recorded because of the virus.
Putting this into real perspective: each year in New Zealand the seasonal flu infects 200,000 individuals and results in between 400 and 500 deaths. The coronavirus has infected 1,811 people, of which 1,719 have since tested negative!
Cancer deaths (especially lung cancer) total more than 11,000 each year. Heart disease kills one person every 90 minute. Automobile deaths range between 300 and 400 yearly. Virtually everything points to coronavirus as nothing more than a minor statistic.
When this virus is all said and done, New Zealand will have to come to terms with how its politicians have deliberately destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands just so as to keep power.
To be continued…