Diatribe warning: Move along, because you are very busy at the moment.

What? Your schedule opened up suddenly and unexpectedly? Perfect. Feel free to read on then as I TOO have more free time. Specifically, I have more time to write for pleasure, at least for the time being.

I also have endless time to research and vet topics of interest, as my beloved min-pin Mazzy is pretty docile about my dog-dad duties and my immune-compromised Mom and Dad are (relatively) content in watching their stories.

Ok, so everyone knows I'm extremely liberal (not to be confused with a liberal extremist.) Democrats are FAR too conservative for my taste.

It is simultaneously true however, that liberals annoy the ever-loving piss out of me, FAR more frequently than even the Neo-con's, possibly due to my lower expectations for the latter and my extraordinary distaste for political correctness gone awry, to the point of being politically INcorrect.

Enter Melissa Chen:

The extremely witty, loquacious, eloquent and erudite editor for Spectator USA, who alluded a few days ago on her twitter page to a notion that there are a lot of "Woke", white Americans lately, who are appalled at the characterization of COVID-19 as being the Wuhan Flu and that they are siting this as being an inherently racist descriptor.

Perhaps it is, though I struggle to make that connection and I welcome enlightenment on the matter. Perhaps it's as simple as marginalizing the innocent, which I entirely understand but still fail to see. It doesn't seem to be akin to say, the difference between Asian (referring to people) and oriental (referring to items and other cultural aspects of said people) at least in my understanding of it.

Please, I do welcome you to correct me if I'm wrong, just please be polite (not the same as PC) about it ok? Either way, please choose to do so after first reading on to completion, as what you want to express to me may just be covered herein.

Ms Chen went as far as to say:

"Henceforth, the Spanish Flu shall be known as LatinX Influenza."

Which I found to be funny if a bit off-color; (the bluer the better if you ask me) nothing even remotely controversial in my eyes.

A little humor is important in dealing with EVERYTHING, particularly so in times like these and given her background, I think it's important to consider context rather than to issue blanket statements of a hive mind; torches and pitchforks in hand.

Melissa Chen was born into privelage (relative to her experiences in the USA.) She describes said privelage, as standard operating procedure for someone living in Singapore in the last 20 odd years.

She moved to America as a teen to acquire freedom of speech, the lone right which she desires over all others, despite favoring life in nearly all ways besides, in her homeland, because they HAVE NO widespread homelessness or poverty. They HAVE NO substantial income inequality issues. They have supremely efficient healthcare and education for all.

... BUT it isn't flawless. FAR from it in fact. It is nearly-pure Social Democracy (as is the United States for those who don't seem to realize it) except with the ever-so-minor parasitic entity of intrinsic, fascist, governmental elements, in terms of how ideas are shared and how punishment is delivered.

William Gibson famously opined:

Singapore is Disneyland with the Death Penalty

in his 4,500-word article for WIRED, in 1993.

These infectious elements are present however, to varying degrees, in ALL forms of government. Socialism doesn't have a monopoly on (nor anything to do with, in reality) it and in fact if Trump had his way, that's precisely the way our dissemination of information would lean. Stiffing of free speech is a symptom of FASCISM, not Socialism, not Communism, not free market Capitalism. FASCISM!

In Singapore, they DON'T have freedom of speech and part of the reason they don't have poverty is due to some archaic and severe laws with regard to punishment. You can be given the death sentence for having pot!

This is the place you heard of as a kid where caning takes place over what would be in some cases legal and in others, minor misdemeanors, here in the USA.

It is VERY dangerous to travel there without researching their laws; expecting to be treated the same by law enforcement as you might in Western nations. They are likely to beat and kill your ass!

Above all in Singapore, speaking out against the authoritarian government is forbidden.

Melissa Chen is Ivy league educated and co-runs the aforementioned non-profit literature translation/proliferation program, which specializes in translating and making available books in all languages, focusing primarily on Arabic as there is a dearth of availability to secular knowledge in that region, particularly in Iran (that's not racism, it's an unequivocal fact.)

She is uniquely qualified to make statements like she did because she's doing so based upon her youth spent under not only her own restrictive regime but under the oppressive shadow of the Chinese government's iron fist; the looming expiration of the accord between the two states after decolonization from Brittan; the ever-present Chinese takeover.

She's also been in these mainland cities and their markets countless times.

She additionally sited what is universally, scientifically accepted analysis, shared by epidemiologist (virus detective) Dr Michael Osterholm, who is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology.

Dr Osterholm can pinpoint not only the time frame in which what is now the COVID-19 pandemic was contracted by man (during a two week span in early-mid November) but can track it's epicenter directly to the Wuhan "wet-market" where animals such as chickens and ferrets are kept in close proximity to be sold as food, stacked on top of one another in crates and cages, dead or alive, indiscriminately and haphazardly, without any regulation to speak of.

As he describes it, this is precisely the type of situation in which viruses are allowed to cross-contaminate and become lethal to other species such as humans and in fact he predicted a pandemic similar to SARS, of the COVID grouping of viruses, to be unleashed and for these markets to be the epicenter of them, in a book he published in 2018 called "Deadliest Enemy."
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I've said all of that to ask this:

Is it not ok for Ms Chen to make statements like this because it's universally racist for anyone to do so?

Is it ok for HER to say it because she's Asian, despite her not being from mainland China?

Is it ok for anyone to say it because it appears to be true and we DO have free speech (for the most part; how much money you got?) in this country?

Is it something that we can just kinda not get worked up about, as it doesn't really matter all that much to ANYONE except the information-controlling authoritarian-vacuum that is the Chinese government?

...And who decides? Is it Dad? Is it Karen?

Relax. That's me taking the piss out of myself for earlier rants about the kids on my lawn, their utter dismissal of my generation (damned near millennial but Late Gen-X) and the dismissive titles they love to ascribe to us prior to excusing themselves from the topic with "sorry / not sorry."

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Finally, on a related note:

Liberals, if someone calmly asks you to lower your voice or to calm down, sometimes, please consider attempting to do so. If your impulse reaction born strictly of ID, is to always scream "Don't you fucking tell me to calm down" Your ass needs to calm the fuck all the damned way down, like... yesterday.

If you don't hear from me again, the Chinese Government or someone who's extremely woke but unhinged enough to murder, got me.

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Here is a link to an interview with Dr Osterholm from last Tuesday, on the Joe Rogan Podcast.

Additionally, here is a link to an interview with Melissa Chen on the same channel, from February 14th if you wish to learn more on these matters from their expert perspectives.

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Things are in flux right now in the world as we know it. In the meantime, what can you do?

Stay the fuck home and you can touch your face all you like, you "filthy animals."

Appreciate your hard working health care professionals.

Do whatever is in your power to enact meaningful change while there is nothing but time, from home.

Most importantly, allow science to inform your decisions and trust the experts in the field to supply you with your marching orders, not just now but for the rest of your life.

Pass on this line of thinking to your children and grandchildren because Mother Earth WILL reclaim what's hers if we don't begin to respect our placement as one organism, clinging to her back, like the infantile apes that we are, as she nurtures our growth and development, while hurling audaciously through space and time at inapprehensible speeds.

Also ALSO:

Here's a link to Pink Floyd's "Take It Back" because it's on topic and they fucking rule!

Shine on You crazy Diamonds!