Well, for the first time in the crisis, I ordered food online and it wouldnt take my order and put it thru, stating in mildly alarmist language, that heavy demands preclude delivery at the present time.
I would like to think at a moment of crisis people are beyond hordeing anyway; we do now have a shut down on all non-essential travel outside the home, so I guess I will chock it up to that. They still have all the antiseptics stripped-off the shelves at Walgreens.

Luckily for me, my neighborhood is one of those blue collar areas where people seem to mostly now just stay to themselves, their familities and a few close neighbors, so things don't seem appreciably different from what they always are, and the buds are exploding on trees which are still black splatters and wires, so spring doesn't seem exactly sprung, although the temps are going those roller coaster ways so infamous in our March. I hear woodpeckers up in the trees, that sound like tiny pneumatic air hammers percussing the bark; thunderstorms are now getting into the forecast with regularity.

It's a particularly toxic situation right now, because the economy is shutting down, and I am deeply in debt, and really nobody to rely on, and very few friends now. I have tried refinancing for another home equity and that is pretty much maxed-out; I might try a reverse mortgage when I turn the proper age of 62, but that is many months off, and I am going to be broke pretty soon. I would prey to God if I had faith he would listen, but he's got more important prayers to listen too, and I'm an agnostic anyway, which I definitely believe leads one to dust or something pretty close to that, and I don't think I want to live forever--in any form--anyway. For the time being, calling what I'm in limbo is pretty optimistic...

Speaking of dire predictions and suicidal tendencies: I have been thinking about cults a lot lately, and from Jim Jones to Te and Do, some cults are definitely geared toward either early or late suicide, and I am beginning to wonder whether the Republican Party is in fact a cult, an actual and honest to god cult, which lives in the closed perceptual world of its own-and only its own-- perceptions, which includes think tanks and news people and rural populations, and especially old-white-males like me. I am an independent voter who is not particularly thrilled by the Democrats either; but the Republican Party has simply leveraged fear of outsiders into rich coffers, tax cuts for the wealthy which cause even worse deficits,
deregulation for the sake of deregulation, wars which amp patriotism until the causalties and other costs start coming in, denial of anything even remotely approaching science, and prophecies of doom if anybody with even the hint of actual grass roots amibition, gets past the vetting gates of the party. And to prove what a cult it is, even when its own members ditch it--whether by going independent or leaving the administration in droves--it rolls on merrily, exactly at the same pace with the same inclinations.

Ever watch the national parties conventions? Whatever you want to say about corporate Democrats, at least they are a rainbow instead of snow. The party of the aging, white people, looks like the party of the aging white people; and even though there are continuous clarion calls to bring down the ivory towers to the valleys, nobody but nobody who wants a better country, can possibly buy all the reactionary bullshit coming from the ideological coffers of this intellectually bankrupt entity. They yell in stentorian tones about deficits when the other party is in power; even when they have the majority of statehouses and governorships and the Senate and Presidency, they act like they are outsiders bucking the federal system, which they have continuously told you is the cause of the problem. But they want to change slowly, right? That is what conservatism is all about, right?

As we all know, it doesn't matter what contradictions exist within the cult, because the Cult has a logic that simply defies logic, so the need for consistenty doesnt apply, since prophecy and decree don't need argument really to be valid. You cannot have a cult that reacts to logical argument; if you did, no cults would ever exist for very long, though of course, many collapse on the contradictions of their actions long before the leaders give up swiss cheese principles.

Examples of this in the Republican Party are too numerous to enumerate all of them, but let's take something major--the good-ol Laffer Curve, which should more probably be called the "Laughter Curve" since what it purports to show, has not in fact happend with any tax cuts, from Reagans initial budget busting, to Trumps latest rounds. Government coffers do not increase with cutting taxes ; though I am sure at some point of marginal increase of income taxes--by definition 100 percent--people will stop doing more work, because all incentive other than altruism has been effectively removed. But we are obviously not at that rate, and the Reagan economy didn't start moving until the Fed lowered interest rates. No subsequent rounds of significant federal tax cuts have shown any evidence of spurring GDP or lowering deficits, and as we all know by now, the theory never needed anybody or anything but the soaring rhetoric of getting the government off the backs of the people, although the people are supposed to be represented by the government. Translation: getting the government off the backs of the people, is getting the American people off the backs of the rich.

The only people draining the swamp in America are those who want to make an even bigger swamp--corruption as patriotism is our delirious mantra now. Suicide regarding the climate, the economy, and just our fellow citizens, is now seen as a badge of honor. The Conservatives want to hang us with the rope they sell us, just to ensure we know that if the losers get too close to the winners, they will burn down the compound so the enemy cant use it...

Its truly a lovely sentiment to say "were all in this together" but its a total lie. Obviously minorities and the elderly are dying at a much greater rate, and the poverty in minority communities, and the major corner cutting of many nursing homes, is not helping the death rate of this pandemic in the least. In other words, though I don't think of Trump as a good leader, Im not going to be thinking that the major difficulties with a pandemic in America are even close to entirely his fault. 

Did Trump decide on the healthcare system of America? overlapping and bloated and heavy on end of life care? Did he really make all the warehouses to die in? Did he really create all the inequality in the economy? Did he really force at gunpoint all the people who voted for him? Did he create the modern republican party? Did he invent the myth that the ultimate evil is the modern American State? Did he create the myth that the markets invisible hand cures all evils? Did he really make the superpatriot- pseudo Christians?

When good times return (however you define the good times and it usually is involved with money and prosperity in this Christ obssessed metaphysical brothel), I guarantee, the idea that we "are all in this together", will go out with air quotes and parachute pants, just another cultural cipher of the self-deluded, without a note or echoing hint of any permanence whatsoever. Nothing is permanent in America; which is beautiful when you think of pandemics, but no so beautiful, when you think of the millions so desperate for a savior they would vote in a narcissist clown who thinks the imperial presidency is a place to audition for another reality show.

One of the great problems with the modern world, especially in the country that I live in, is peoples absolutely addled belief concerning what belief is; many here if not all, think that belief is something just inside the mind or the soul, like some kind of platonic form, that can be changed at will depending on the will and the will alone, and it need not have anything to do with the "outside" world whatsoever, as if the mind is something separate from the rest of nature, and as if ones actions have no bearing on ones beliefs.

Let us do a thought experiment that demonstrates fairly clearly what I am saying: suppose somebody tells you that he believes that children are the future and we should do everything in our powers, to insure that they are given a great start and great opportunities for education and play; that their childhood will be the envy of nations and generations everywhere. Yet when at home he beats his own kids frequently; he doesn't show up at parent teacher conferences; he doesn't give a shit if children have any sort of guaranteed healthcare; he doesn't care if they are vaccinated and die of all sorts of preventable diseases. Would anyone in their right mind, actually believe that his state beliefs accurately reflected his beliefs? NO!

That's because a belief is really how we are disposed to act in certain situations--so if he were more supportive of his children in his own family, and more supportive of nurturing children in general, we would come to the conclusion that his state beliefs, are his actual beliefs, and not before getting the evidence.

That is the problem with the united States--just repeating something over and over will make it come true, just like a magical incantation, regardless of whether we are starving parts of the government that help children, and regardless of weather tons of states decided not to do Medicaid expansion, due to the SOTU ruling that Medicaid expansion was optional.