Are we listening?

We are seeing shortages in stores lately, over the last few days they have related to people -- southerners who never learned to drive in snow and others whose knowledge of or desire to do so may have long since lapsed since their relocation to NC -- bustled to stores for the proverbial dairy, bread, eggs and (here's a new one) poultry. More substantively, the number of people out of work because of COVID has had ripple effects up and down supply chains -- more recently seen in absenteeism at grocery stores and the truck-based logistics chains that gets food to them.

News outlets like to run these stories because it creates fear in people and drives their eyeballs to the media itself: "if it bleeds, it leads." Which is fine, they are businesses, after all, and heightening awareness of an issue helps focus our attention on its seriousness.

At a base level, I can't help but to think this isn't some kind of cosmic justice. Christians might say the Lord is smiting us.

But for what? I would argue that we have failed to internalize the lesson of the pandemic, which is that we have to dial it all the fuck back and just focus on the basics of caring for each other. I also don't want to delve deep into the theology of vaccines and mask-wearing. I obviously am pro, but I try not to wish death on those who resist, as I have heard others do. The Right has had a point all along about the need to recognize and acknowledge tradeoffs,* and the long drift of time will probably show that the costs of keeping schools closed as long as we did outweigh their benefits. Admittedly, that is easy for us to say, when the costs in human life would have been borne by teachers and other school staff who aren't being paid to risk their lives. It is all rather complex, but we're just not set up to manage complexity and acknowledge trade offs today.

But right now when I hear of shelves bare of chicken, I am reminded of 20 months ago when toilet paper and hand sanitizer was scarcely found on store shelves and there was a video somewhere of someone who left out either one or the other for delivery people, and a viral clip showed a UPS driver picking some up and being grateful. Admittedly, whoever was leaving out the TP must have hoarded a bunch of it and that was probably the wrong thing to do. But then they admitted they were wrong and left some out. We need more of that.

Also, this is another little reminder to all of us to be thankful for what we have. Between all of the nuts, legumes, canned fish and frozen stuff in our house we could probably get by for 10 days or longer without even going to the store. That ain't bad. Plus stores aren't really running out of food, they are running out of specific foodstuffs. We need to be constantly reminded of our plenty.

* Not that I really understand what we are trading off when we wear a mask in public. The ability to see someone smile? Yes, I miss it, but it