hey, this could have been bse, and then we'd all be talking about the insanity of factory farming.

i think that focusing on one specific species, or one culture's utilization of that species, is maybe missing the broader point, which is that the mass industrialization of meat for food produces certain challenges in terms of disease containment. it may be true that regulations around the use of certain animals for food are lacking in china, at this time, and that this is an issue that the rest of the world might want to put some pressure on the chinese to seriously remedy. but, to reduce the issue to a specific practice or a specific species would be to miss the real lesson, here.

in the end, it may be that putting proper controls on the population of bats may be the most efficient way to deal with an illegal harvesting trade that would otherwise have to be stopped with violence; that may be the choice, in the end - to forcibly stop the trade, or to accept defeat before trying, and deal with the source of the disease, instead.

for some animals, it might make sense to introduce domesticated breeding programs under controlled and vaccinated conditions.

but, don't confuse yourself - we'd have the same problems with our high concentrations of farm animals here, if we didn't regulate their care.

so, i've worked my way through enough of april to put it aside and get to the next thing in the list, which is recalibrating the vlogging.

the shows i would have likely made some attempt to go to over the first half of april are:

3rd - dana 
10th - bent knee (in ann arbor, though. maybe not.)
15th - bad religion (but pricey, so probably not.)
16th - squarepusher (for sure. moved to december.)
17th - rachmaninov's 3rd piano concerto (for sure. cancelled, for now.)
18th - liturgy (probably not actually)
19th - glitch mob (strongly weather-dependant).

now that i'm caught up, i can multitask. so we're on to the next thing....

i understand that the government created a plan with the intent to sort of put the economy on pause, so that it could just roll over and start back up where it left off; however naively, that was the clear intent, and there were clearly measures introduced to implement that agenda.

but, does the government think it can pay out salaries for the next two years, while it takes in almost no revenue, itself?

i'm reading these reports of businesses that aren't eligible freaking out, and i'm just wondering how the thing is going to maintain itself, let alone how the people that don't qualify are going to fare.

that idea of a pause and restart had to be designed with the assumption that disruption would be short, which contradicts the messaging coming from the government to expect a lengthy disruption, with a staggered return to normalcy.

is the government sure that it wants to insist on trying to freeze the economy, given the expected timeframes?