Of Preparing for This

Two people in a row, both good friends, just sent me the article editorial written by Niall Ferguson about the Covid-19 entitled: “Let’s Zoom Xi.  He has Questions to Answer.”  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-lets-zoom-xi-he-has-questions-to-answer/

I’ve read his work: “Civilizations: The West and The Rest,” and am familiar with his slant.  But I was surprised, reading inside, how presumptuous and haughty his posturing here was.  As if his three questions to China: What happened in Wuhan in your “disgusting” wet market, why was research on zoonoses being done in an urban area and . . . why did you not react sooner to the information . . . were the only questions worth asking and Xi the only leader to get heated up and yell “j'accuse” at.  

The questions need asking.  The Chinese press isn’t free to press on these matters.  This is unfortunate and indeed a core part of the problem, worthy of determined international inquiry when domestically it's unlikely to occur.  But, please, China was caught by surprise.  They made mistakes, they took action, made sacrifices and seem to have brought the disease under control.  The west, meanwhile, wasted its time.  Our leaders stood for two months like mute deer watching the SUV get closer and closer and closer until it ran us right over.  Countrywomen, countrymen, we did a poor job of preparing for this.  We should have had more coordinated leadership.  Let’s certainly admit that.

A few weeks, back Ian Johnson who’s long written thoughtfully about China, penned an op-ed entitled “China Bought the West Time, The West Squandered It.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/opinion/china-response-china.html

Johnson’s not afraid to hold the Chinese government to critique and difficult inquiry but traveling from China, which took the virus with the utmost seriousness to most anywhere else in the world, like Heathrow, he was aghast at how ill prepared everyone else seemed to be.  I flew across the U.S. to L.A. around the same time.  All those poor stewardesses and TSA workers and airport Starbucks employees, none of them had any idea what was coming and what they were exposing themselves to.  Trump was warned in strong terms, repeatedly, week after week and, beyond banning flights from China, he did nothing.  He told people not to panic.  It would be over by Easter.  He went with his gut, and once again, was forced to have to lie his way out of the blame that is squarely his own.  Before we grab the lapels of a foreign leader, we ought to examine our own individual and systemic shortcomings in our own performance, starting with the President.  They are legion. 

We’ve ordered some new things to distract us during the quarantine period.  The kids wanted more drawing kits.  I got my younger one more black and white film for her SLR camera.  I got a book or two, ordered a Clue game.  Against my better judgement I also ordered another puzzle.  A puzzle might take the time of three or four books.  My choice this time?   I got one of the four-seasons series by the 16^th century Italian painter, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, this one, the spring time man of flowers.  I think we may have the puzzle for the summer season painting downstairs, but I fear it is almost certainly missing pieces.  On the back of the Bosch painting I have currently on display on the coffee table, there is a photo of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Tower of Babel” and it strikes me that this too would be a remarkable painting to consider in great detail, over hours and days, and weeks.  It appears we'll continue to have a lot of time on our hands for the foreseeable future. 

Wednesday, 04/08/20