Shopping in Taiwan

My son and his wife live in Taiwan.  They are both still working.  They did have a period of time where people were told to stay home.

They each get their temperatures taken several times a day.

They went to the grocery yesterday and found this empty aisle.

This global pandemic (from wherever it may have come) is indeed real.

The cashier at the local grocery check-out yesterday asked me if I was worried.  I replied that I am very concerned about the virus and I can see that our government has done a very lousy job of preparing.

I asked the cashier what she thought?  She said, "I am not worried about it.  I haven't had a cold in eight years."  I wished her the best.  I had white plastic gloves on and one man my age pushing his cart in the produce section scoffed at me when he saw my covered fingers.

I've been going to the grocery every few days checking the scene sociologically and also picking up a few things from the often bare shelves.  We now have, for example, 4 extras jars of crunchy peanut butter.

We do what we need to.

I was startled the other night when I discovered these two articles on Fazebook:

Newsweek Exclusive: Inside The Military's Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government

Even as President Trump says he tested negative for coronavirus, the COVID-19 pandemic raises the fear that huge swaths of the executive branch or even Congress and the Supreme Court could also be disabled, forcing the implementation of "continuity of government" plans that include evacuating Washington and "devolving" leadership to second-tier officials in remote and quarantined locations.

Rolling Stone: DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency

The Department of Justice has secretly asked Congress for the ability to detain arrested people “indefinitely” in addition to other powers that one expert called “terrifying”

We are in a challenging period.  It could go either way - descend into chaos or rebound with a collective commitment to reject the present capitalist-globalist mad-hatter system of endless growth, profit$ at all cost and endless war to grab declining resources.

We don't have to label a simple earth-based society as socialism - isms are dead anyway.

We need a Mother Earth-based way of living and being. Our sacred connection to all life has been broken by the materialist, consumerist, warmongering societies we have allowed to be created.

The Earth Mother is in toxic shock and her body is thrashing about in pain.  We humans have become like unwanted fleas as our disconnected way of life is killing the host.

Better late than never to figure it all out.

Best wishes to all of you out there in radio land.

Bruce