{ugh} NYT, [This Rah-Rah blongs in Religion/metaphysics]; he's a Philosopher ever in-search of Truthiness amidst the premeditated-bafflegab. As are we.

Herewith a Prime-specimen--lotsa-Links--of multi-dexterous fingers-on The *Pulses--though his prognosis (that-all-being Said) is unRosy ..but Accurate: "Worst Case" ... if one's personal-constitution/Constitution too? is up-for-that. And the last-line below indicates that prescience (which one seeks in any old Oracle, right?)

* with room for excoriating the devolution of Insanely-GrrEAT! techno-toys --> into just another Valley-of-Greedheads as Reactionary-when-rich as is Murdoch-in-Action. PITY that: all indicators suggest that The Murican-peepul ever-lack, even an interest in self-preservation--never mind grokking Mr. M's words, aiming for just that Preservation.


Opinion

The Worst Is Yet to Come
The coronavirus and our disastrous national response to it has smashed optimists like me in the head.

By Farhad Manjoo

For as long as I can remember, I have identified as an optimist. Like a seedling reaching toward the golden sun, I’m innately tuned to seek out the bright side.

Of course, in recent years this confidence has grown tougher to maintain. The industry I’ve long covered, technology, has lost its rebel edge, and grown monopolistic and power hungry. The economy at large echoed these trends, leaving all but the wealthiest out in the cold. All the while the entire planet veered toward uninhabitability.

And yet, for much of the last year, I remained an optimist. A re-energized Democratic Party looked poised to push for grand solutions to big problems, from health care to education to climate change. There was finally some talk about reining in monopolies and creating a fairer economy. Things weren’t looking good, exactly, but if you squinted hard, you could just make out a sunnier future,

Now all that seems lost. The coronavirus and our disastrous national response to it has smashed optimists like me in the head. If there is a silver lining, we’ll have to work hard to find it.

To do that, we should spend more time considering the real possibility that every problem we face will get much worse than we ever imagined. The coronavirus is like a heat-seeking missile designed to frustrate progress in almost every corner of society, from politics to the economy to the environment.
The only way to avoid the worst fate might be to dwell on it. To forestall doom, it’s time to go full doomer.

Why so glum? It is not just that nearly 92,000 Americans are dead and tens of millions are unemployed. It’s not just that our federal government has been asleep, with Congress unable or unwilling to push a disaster-response bill on anything like the scale this crisis demands, and an inept president unable to muster much greater sympathy than, “It’s too bad.” It’s not only that global cooperation is in tatters when we need it most.
It is all these things and something more fundamental: a startling lack of leadership on identifying the worst consequences of this crisis and marshaling a united front against them. Indeed, division and chaos might now be the permanent order of the day.

In a book published more than a decade ago, I argued that the internet might lead to a choose-your-own-facts world in which different segments of society believe in different versions of reality. The Trump era, and now the coronavirus, has confirmed this grim prediction.

[. . . ]



that Woman-in-Central Park kinda amalgamates the utter Fecklessness rampant everywhere, yet Overall the Q. Stays Unanswered:
(along with USPS-Murder --> enroute); 'Vote' THAT!!

W.T.F. IS. IT??? that:
A 'nation' of 320ish-millions, having seen daily evidence of a mentally-disturbed CIEIO-in-charge-of-Everything, for now Three-plus Years. ... Can't? Won't? Dares-not?!? *ACT*
and place a demented person under medical care.

The Shadow Knows ..the evil that lurks in mens' minds. (woMen too, but usually not as grizzly.