Thursday 6 August 2020

IT problems. Conspiracy theories. Controlling Facebook. And advice from strange quarters.

Another day. The weather seems to be improving. It was pleasantly mild when I went for a run this morning. By the time I got around to hanging washing out it was feeling a bit muggy, as they say, stuffily warm and rather humid. We’ll see how it goes.

Out and about, I called in at chemist’s shop for a prescription which we had been assured would be ready and waiting on Tuesday. On Tuesday they told me they had had IT problems and that it would be ready on Wednesday. Just as we had decided to walk into the village to collect it, the heavens opened, the rain came down in torrents and we gave up on the idea of a walk. Just as well, since when I popped in this morning they told me on e more that they had had IT problems and orders had been delayed. I should call back later today, they recommended. Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow morning, just to be on the safe side.

IT related stuff seems to be afflicting the track and trace app again or still or whatever. Questions of how or if the data collected is stored abound. Will they ever sort it out? Other countries have systems working. Why not us?

Some people would, of course, oppose the whole idea of track and trace, regarding it as part of the government’s plan to control and monitor us all the time. And that is not just here but also in the United States where conspiracy theories still do the rounds. A “Plandemic” video is apparently going a bit viral, putting put he belief that the whole pandemic was planned as a way of gaining the necessary control. These conspiracy theorists believe that mass vaccinations will be used for human tracking purposes. How? Does a vaccination somehow insert a tracking chip?

Whatever the theory, over 40% of Republicans reportedly would decline the vaccine even if free. This reluctance puts eventual herd immunity at risk of course. The journalist whose article I read quoted previously sensible friends who said things like this:-

 “From Rockefeller to Gates, it’s all related. This has been in the works for a long time, and it’s all part of a new world order of control and surveillance.”

 “Anthony Fauci is conspiring with Bill Gates for forced vaccinations.”

 “STOP the toxic 5G Towers…”

 “Can you believe that Bill Gates and Fauci? They should be arrested.”

The fact that the journalist questioned these views was taken as proof that she had been brainwashed by the mass media. A nicely circular bit of double-think.

The thing is that the belief in the Plandemic is not confined to the uneducated. Many anti-vaxxers are university graduates. Some of them are doctors, would you believe? Most anti-vaxxers have been left-leaning but now it seems they are becoming right-leaning and are switching from Democrats to Republicans. R Trump has been known to support their views on vaccination, after all. If enough do this they could end up giving Mr Trump another term in office.

And now Mr Trump has been in trouble with Facebook, “for spreading false information about the coronavirus”, specifically suggesting that children were “almost immune from Covid-19”. And so they deleted his post. This has not gone down well, of course, and is seen as proof of media bias. As Courtney Parella, the deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said. “Another day, another display of Silicon Valley’s flagrant bias against this president, where the rules are only enforced in one direction. Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth.”

Oh, boy!

Meanwhile, experts area till uncertain about children and the virus and their ability to spread it. The experience of summer camps in Georgia USA and schools in Israel suggest that we should be very careful.

Now for a bit of light relief! Here is an excerpt from something that claims to be from the Independent:-

“Annunziata Rees-Mogg should have her own advice show on daytime TV, giving tips to the poor on how to survive. She has a natural flair for it, as she showed this week, suggesting the poor should make their own chips. “Tesco 1kg potatoes = 83p, 950g own brand chips = £1.35,” she tweeted.
Her deep interest in fried potatoes will resonate with the poor. “It comes from the heart, she’s clearly one of us,” they’ll say.

She probably spends whole evenings discussing these issues with brother Jacob. “We simply have to calculate whether they should use disposable nappies,” she’ll remark, “or if it would be more cost-efficient to sell their child to a trafficking gang in Albania. Quick, Jacob, do the sums, they’re depending on us.”

When you’ve had to rely on squeezing the most out of every resource like the Rees-Moggs, you understand that frugal living is an art. Annunziata would give tips such as: “When you go to The Ivy for dinner, ask the waiter to place the leftovers in an Imperial Crystal doggy bag. Then, the following day, when chef is preparing luncheon, they’ll have the option of frying up the nez d’autruche sur un lit de pissenlits you couldn’t manage last night, with some lentils and baked beans. If you’re really up against it finance-wise, maybe you could lean across and ask to take home Kate Winslet’s pudding! There’s nothing like an Oscar winner’s discarded eucalyptus and custard to get you through a tricky financial patch.””

 Surely not to be taken at all seriously!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

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