IRONIES

            The coronavirus has created some fascinating ironies, don't you think?  Here are some that come to mind.

 1.  At a time when the National Education Association and the public teacher lobby demonizes charter, private, correspondence, and home schools (anything except their narrow taxpayer-funded orthodoxy) they're virtually shut down and have to actually work with parents, home-centric, and distance learning.  Perhaps they'll find out that something other than institutionalized school factories offer a viable alternative.

 2.  At a time when video surveillance coupled with artificial intelligence identification tracks every person, suddenly everyone's wearing masks, which blunts this invasion of privacy.  We'll get our privacy by hook or by crook.

 3.  At a time when we all thought the news feed would be dominated by the most raucous political campaigning in recent memory, election coverage hardly exists.  The pandemic sucked up all that energy so instead of having political talking heads sharing the limelight, it's scientists and medical experts.  Who could have guessed?

 4.  At a time when the stock market hit unprecedented highs and unemployment unprecedented lows, the red hot economy suddenly plunged into an abyss reminiscent of 1929.  The best of times suddenly became the worst of times.  How many peak oil articles have you seen lately?

 5.  At a time when America's airlines registered seemingly limitless capacity to nickel and dime passengers for everything from bags to aisle seats, they've been brought to their knees with no passengers at all.  Perhaps it's not nice to mistreat  customers.

 6.  At a time when America needs liberty-minded people more than ever, we've suddenly plunged the country into totalitarian intervention and those who dare to question public policy are labeled murderers.  l'm still pulling for herd immunity, which kicks in at 60 percent exposure; let's hit that and get on with things. I'm frankly tired of being told that unless I share paranoid hysteria, I must want people to die.

 7.  At a time when more than 50 percent of meals are prepared outside the home, we're rediscovering kitchens, baking bread, planting gardens, and buying backyard laying hen flocks.  When many of us were scratching our heads about how to get people to buy real food again, the coronavirus brought unprecedented sales, interest, and awareness.  Awesome.

 8.  At a time when consumerism, globalism and cheap baubles dominate our culture, we're realizing that efficiency should not dominate resilience.  Even big businesses are talking about resilience as opposed to efficiency.  Maybe some other things are as important as money.  Imagine that.

             What have I missed?