I hope you have been following Marlow’s unique appreciation of the plague on his picturesque and unique Southern town. We are on episode 23 of his observations, and my intent is to compile it as a manuscript for the next book to appear on the website, and eventually for purchase as a smooth eBook on Amazon or one of those services.

He asked me the other day about the thing that has my limited psyche whirling through the enforced lock-down. Our blow-hard Governor claims we are going to move to his Phase Three on re-opening on the first of July, halfway through this tumultuous and ambivalent year. There is more to come, of course, and the plague has absorbed the energy that was going to nonsense like Climate Change.

We have lowered our CO2 production ahead of the Paris Accord goals by shifting to abundant natural gas reserves. That is not good enough for the activists, who somehow have convinced themselves that gigantic and complex wind farms and vast expanses of glass solar shields are somehow either renewable or sustainable. The windmills seem to last about 25 years before replacement is due, and the solar collection only works when our solar friend in the heavens during the hours of daylight unobstructed by clouds, rain, and snow.

The idea that either of these will provide the continuity of power required to fuel our complex society is absurd. The mining of rare earths across the globe is imposing child labor and mass disruption on societies that do not have reliable electricity in the hovels in which they live. Oh well, that is the cost of believing in imaginary things. I don’t, for the record. Nuclear power produces no Co2, and the technology has advanced to the point that the ominous hulking Westinghouse reactors of yesterday can be replaced by much smaller and safer units powered by thorium. They are safe, they are small, and we are not permitted to be in favor of them because…I forget. Fukushima?

That is just part of the “What’s Next” question that lives under our own roofs. Some things are clearly going to change based on our collective confinement by the Plague. Or the Governor.

I have had a brush with all of the amazing complexity of a public health emergency. I had drifted to the Department of Health and Human Services at the end of my chaotic career. I was part of the system that is intended to enable our Republic to continue to function in some measure after a major natural disaster or nuclear exchange. I was attempting to harness the products of the intelligence community to power smart public decision-making.

Perhaps you will forgive me, but during the SARS panic a decade ago, I was occasionally selected to be a prop in the press conferences that featured Dr. Tony Fauci, the famed epidemiologist and soothsayer. In my experience, he was a courteous and knowlegible professional who in turn was used as a vehicle for other agendas by other people who eschewed the limelight, working their agendas outside the spotlight. Our current plague is sometimes known as “SARS-2,” so there are lessons that can (and have) been carried forward that have nothing at all to do with public health.

So, let that all serve only as preface to what is coming in the second part of this amazing year. What’s next? How has our society changed and how will we try to get back to something we used to call ‘normal?’

Working From Home. This was an inconvenience that actually suited a lot of professional people. It used to be common in Washington, even close in, to add an hour in the day to get to the office, and more than that as the Capital flushed out onto the expressways in the evening. There were people who lived at vast distance from the towering office, and imagine the beneficial effect of having a couple productive hours added to each day without cursing behind the wheel. The implications are huge.

Business is re-thinking the vast palaces they needed to construct to house their precious human capital. There are billions of dollars at play. Some say that the very idea of Wall Street is being disbursed to the Hamptons. Cutting overhead in real estate is a real saving to the corporations, and a fattening of the bottom line.

So, there is that. Will we go back to the suits and severe dresses that were considered essential? What will it mean to the old and fancy downtowns that now sport tent cities in the parks across from the front door?

Grooming. Grace gave me a decent haircut yesterday, first one since I left the hospital months ago. I was getting shaggy, and with no reason to shave, looking a bit like a tent city person. I have no idea if the old salon I used to patronize monthly back in The Days Before. The people on television were broadcasting from their basements and noticeably unshorn. The embarrassment seemed to fade, and network correspondents were seen reporting in t-shirts and other comfortable attire. Will they all go back to the formal way they appeared before? There will be an effort to do so, I am sure, but there is also a breach in the old decorum because we all know that it can be done differently. And with considerably more comfort.

I wonder if the salon I used before the plague will survive. They cut my hair for eighteen years. Many salons will not. That goes for the restaurants, too. Some say a quarter of them are history, and I don’t just mean the Wendy’s that seem to be catching fire all around. And poor Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.

Information Technology. As I am attempting to ease back into the concept of ‘work,’ I spent more time finding passwords and video apps to participate in meetings that included participation from co-workers in basements across the capital region. Some of the big Aerospace concerns that we serve as subcontractors jumped in, and technical people and execs kept charging even if they were located next to their laundry rooms. The problems quickly became apparent. Relying on people’s home computers exposed connections to proprietary databases and other sensitive information. The Chinese were all over it. Their efforts in that regard are enormous and frankly alarming. The Army has announced that it will allow up to two thousand of their workers to process classified information at home.

Call me a cynic, but I think the same thing will happen to the Government that happened to the Aerospace folks. The changes that will come when that vulnerability is exploited will be real, and have some basic impact on all things cyber that bind us together from basements all across the nation. It will either cause a change to our labyrinth of security, or expose us to peril. Or both.

Travel. Are you going to jam yourself into an airplane any time soon? Some of the carriers have announced their existing aircraft will be opened to all in a few days. I am not getting on one, not until the ramifications of the plague are understood. A pal decided to test it out and drove his car unopposed from Colorado to Virginia with some personally important waypoints in between. His initial reports upon returning to his home were that no one seemed particularly concerned in the vast heartland of this vibrant nation and were going about their personal business as they saw fit. What will it all mean? Can the airlines survive? The Europeans aren’t going to let us in, so perhaps a massive restructuring of the old ways of travel is already underway. Some of the old ways will not make it.

Politics. This is the stickiest wicket, since everything appears to be political. We appear to have survived the first half of this year with public health merging into political statements, one upon others. We have learned that our Governors can order us to lock ourselves down in our houses on their personal order for indeterminate periods. In the interest of public health that can be a good thing, even if sick people can also be ordered into nursing homes housing the most vulnerable. But there is more. The justified actions to preserve public health can also be used for other purposes, not all of them beneficial. Imagine for a moment an election on which the fate of the richest nation on earth is up for grabs. A temptation? Of course. Justified? Who knows. Recent experience suggests to me that our institutions are not to be trusted without hard questions.

I am lucky to have a lot of friends whose sincere beliefs span the spectrum of concern. Some good people I know consider the refusal to wear a mask to be an act of personal rebellion against the public good. Other pals think it is a dramatic and alarming overreach by a government that will do whatever those who control it want it to do. So, to some an expansion of government beyond anything seen in this Republic is a good thing and will save lives. To others, it all reflects the loss of freedom as a way of life.

I dunno. I am pretty sure there are things happening out of the limelight that would be pretty interesting if we were allowed to know. I do not know what they are, and by the time it is clear it will doubtless be too late to do anything about what the faceless ones have done. We will see what is next soon enough. I take a certain guilty pleasure in the fact that our generation had a chance to live in the richest and most free society in a thousand years. Maybe it won’t last, but damn it was fun.

I wonder what’s next? Share your thoughts. We have all got them.

Copyright 2020 Vic Socotra
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