Each day that passes, daily life in North Iowa grows all the more surrealistic when after each morning I go online to see what new measures have been placed into law to keep this pandemic from affecting all the more people in our City and State. Hopefully, the shutdown of public gathering places will stem the number of transmissions, and in the end, we’ll have all the fewer, if any confirmed cases in North Iowa.
When the White House announced today that we’ll be in the thick of this for possibly eighteen months, was when my thoughts grew dark and all the more worrisome for our general public. I can’t imagine what economic ruin will be created for businesses and already struggling families, along with not believing our Government has the financial ability to bail out that many million people without going bankrupt itself.
They’ve been talking about the Federal Economic Disaster Relief, but again, it’s not something I can imagine them doing, because if indeed we end up living like we have been these past two days, for another 18 months, there’d be no beginning or end to the payouts. Let’s just hope those many months represent the likelihood of every corner of our Nation being officially confirmed, coronavirus free.
China gets very upset every time someone refers to the coronavirus as the “China virus”, which doesn’t make sense to me, because that’s were it originated, and unfortunately for them, that’s where the SARS virus originated back in the early 2000’s. Whenever someone challenges the naming of something, I always think, “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.”
I’ll never understand why so many in the Orient have multi-generational notions regarding the benefits of eating things which most of the rest of our world consider revulsive. After reading about their love of eating anteater meat, and then using there scales for some other concoction, I was ready to cancel lunch because I’d suddenly lost my appetite. It appears they’ve allowed their cultural beliefs to stand in the way of getting up to speed regarding the idea that wild animals such as those, belong in the wild, and not to be eaten. Now just think about how many times people have died from eating exotic plants and animals over the years, as well as assisting in the spreading of deadly viruses.
I’m placing my bets on that private German company that’s working night and day on getting a vaccine created that’ll bring this coronavirus to a screeching halt. I really have my hopes up they’re close, because of their already having been offered a billion dollars to move their research center to the United States. I believe it’s best they’re left alone so to remain diligent with their focus on creating an honest to goodness vaccine.
I just happened to glance at the stock market news later this afternoon, and when seeing how much father it had dropped, I’d say there’re going to be some sorry stockholders, because many of them have dropped to half of what they were not even a month ago. It sounds like all these people who cashed out before all “yell” broke loose, are now sitting on suitcases full of coin and more sooner than later, will be looking for other safe-haven investments.
Because I had a number of appointments out of office, I couldn’t help noticing all the grain trucks on the road, which was telling me that many of our farmers are selling their grain before the prices drop. Having not looked at the grain futures, I’d say there must’ve been something that triggered their selling spree. I did hear that the ethanol plants are going to crank back on their production levels because of the sudden drop in the price of oil on our world markets. I’m still insisting that our famers must start growing switchgrass instead of corn, because it’s far less expensive to turn it into ethanol than corn. The only down-side of growing switchgrass, is that it takes at least two growing seasons for it to be harvested. Now if our farmers weren’t so financially leveraged around growing corn and beans, then perhaps switchgrass would’ve already been the preferred raw material to make biofuel.
I was certainly brought up to speed regarding the “lock-down” of nursing homes, because I had to drive to one today and get signatures from a seller, and there I found a strict protocol which was fine by me, because our elderly are far more susceptible to having life-threatening side-affects if they should unknowingly catch the coronavirus.
The young gentleman who was assisting, was a prince about it all, and I couldn’t have thanked him enough.
Late this afternoon, one of my long-time client/customers called to share some recent news he’d heard regarding the possible next levels of containment our State and City may be putting into place which was making me all the more worrisome. I hadn’t heard or read anything to confirm it, but he did say that there was a confirmed case of the virus in Cresco, and another one in Buffalo Center. What concerned me the most, was hearing that the person from Buffalo Center had to be air-lifted to Iowa City because of her condition. I asked where they thought she contracted it, and he said, “They believe she got it at some gala she recently attended.” Now if I only knew where that so-called gala took place, and what those who were in contact with her have done about being tested and subsequently quarantined, I would’ve felt more at ease. Like I said, each day brings all the more disconcerting news.
Tonight’s one-liner is: Anything placed in your imagination and held there, ultimately becomes YOUR reality.
