But for Messiaen

Heading out into prevailing breeze in order to return with ease, a bicyclist might contemplate disease. When traffic is heavy, too much roadkill in gutter is what one sees, but lately notice few new. Squirrels, safe only when up in trees, must view motoring as a pandemic, what bicyclists begrudge as expediently politic. Apex predators, bears, coyotes, mountain lions and wolves have rebounded to relative degrees. Despite nearly empty pavement, you still must pick distances and routes using your psychogeographical expertise.

Despite wrong terminology tossed carelessly around, today’s contagion is not plague (a now rare but specific disease spread by flea bites from rats), unforeseen, or unprecedented. COVID-19 is a mutant form of same influenza that causes SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which presents real danger, as lung inflammation can suffocate victims. So far globally, less than 0.01% of people have contracted. Prognoses aren't encouraging, though epidemiologists predict improving outcomes overall. Cleaning diligently and distancing self from coughs and sneezes seem effective. Statistics indicate case counting has begun to catch up and coronavirus has shortened its reach. Labann along with many writers warned of dangers from bacteria, fungi, and viruses; has been a common literary theme for decades.

A century ago, related and so called Spanish Flu killed up to forty million people, about 2% of planet’s then two billion population. During the 15th Century, The Black Death, traveling between North Atlantic and Pacific Rim along the Silk Road, wiped out half of Europeans. Spanish conquest of The Americas and subsequent Columbian exchange represented history’s worst instance of biological warfare; diseases for which natives had no immunities killed 90% of indigenous survivors who weren’t otherwise slaughtered. Then as today, commerce and trade filled coffers and coffins. Until 20th Century, nobody knew how to stay healthy, how to stop diseases from spreading through quarantine and sanitation, what even caused illness. They blamed demons, mistrals, possessions or vampires. Mechanisms understood, nowadays you look for who’s responsible and try to make some sense of what’s happening.

If you carefully assess COVID-19 cases, non-Asians were hardest hit, particularly Italian and Spanish among American, Middle Eastern and Scandinavian afflicted. Global outcomes, excluding those still sick, are about four recovered versus one who died. If you can believe numbers out of Beijing (no reason to after so many misinformation campaigns), Chinese recovery rate is radically superior, 50:1, though Hubei province had been in total lockdown. This could also be due to better immunity after having to deal daily with contagions and crowds. More Indians than not also seem likewise immune. Indonesians and Japanese appear similarly spared. Reporters say they traced COVID-19 to wet markets in Wuhan, and would have you believe it began with pangolins eating bats, thereby transmitted to humans who consider these scaly anteaters a delicacy. Some say Chinese devour just about anything that squirms in a land with limited resources and widespread hunger. Inadvertent leaks from research facilities into unsuspecting populations have occurred everywhere, but was this what happened here? Beijing already stated their goal to dominate microbial sciences, but to what end? They'd be ashamed to admit stupidly infecting entire planet. Lack of transparency instigates suspicions.

Given numbers reported, what makes the most sense is a premeditated biological attack specifically against the West. After bribing a Harvard virologist for vials of deadly viruses, and a WHO Director with aid to Ethiopia to silence warnings, China’s Biolake laboratories in Wuhan secretly acted. Suspect they used genetic engineering to target races other than own. Why use weapons of mass destruction if you want to seize minerals and treasures from rivals? Genetic bioweapons were developed decades ago, and have been successfully deployed on several occasions. This pandemic is what WWIII will look like, less damage, more deaths, not the nuclear holocaust you expected.

“Taken together with the fact that influenza virus is readily accessible and may be causing more deaths than previously suspected, the possibility for genetic engineering and aerosol transmission suggests an enormous potential for bioterrorism.” Mohammad Madjid, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2003

What sort of leaders resort to genocide? Well, communist totalitarians and conscienceless sociopaths. Emboldened by corrupt and inane European and US officials, China figured now’s the best time to get away with it including plausible denial due of domestic deaths. Ready for next release, their only problem is timing, though 5 and 10 year plans have been diligently pursued. Trump’s response was all about himself, how pandemic and press made him look bad. How moronic does worrying about legacy sound while citizens are dying for want of decisive policies? Maybe what capitalists really needed was a time out to reevaluate how they treat others, and who they elect.

A persistent belief repeated in Bike&Chain was Nature’s growing resentment of mankind’s stewardship. “You’re fired!” could she be saying? If anything, Nature has been proven to retaliate against betrayers and transgressors with wrath of God vengeance. Climate catastrophes now appear linked to carbon crimes and resource depletion. Modern humans get more diseases than any other creature, followed by their domestic livestock and pets. Creatures in tune with nature consume scavenged flesh that would make a dog gag, drink water that pigs would find poisonous, fit nicely into climate and ecology as long as people don’t destroy habitats or outright exterminate species, and would get by fine without mankind. War is no cure for overpopulation. Aggression ultimately consumes aggressors and victims alike. What’s enviable about America is that Americans work. Otherwise, it’s just concrete jungles, crumbling roads, empty grasslands, garbage dumps, rocky mountains, and strip malls. Its treasures include know how, product turnover, and work ethic, whole lot of which has long been in irrevocable decline following similarly inept policies in Europe. Why do Chinese think manufacturers increasingly rely on their workforce? Certainly not because it is better, rather carefree and cheaper, until now. You can keep pollution, sickness, and stink, what all of industrial world already knows too well.

Had a Hannity breakfast of hardboiled egg on anguish muffin while hearing him excoriate The New York Times for their reportage of pandemic related layoffs after corporations pledged to be kinder to stakeholders. “Capitalism isn’t nice... companies must profit despite price,” says a greedy investor never employed in any value adding industry. Layoffs have hidden but huge costs in company reputation, customer loyalty, employee morale, and replacement training. Might as well chuck current innovation and viable future out with the bathwater, since parasites dump nonperforming stocks every quarter. Jump starting jobs just to take a free ride on worker backs will exacerbate contagion and massacre millions. No worries. Allegedly, “free” Miracle Spring Water will fix any disorder. Conservative mania, intense sociopathy, led to cult devotion, Great Depression, media scams, rise of Hitler, and warfare ever since, all under Republican administrations. Who wants this kind of world?

Society abides snap decisions without full awareness of consequences. Vast numbers are woefully ignorant. Complaints of forfeiting of basic rights, such as freedom to roam about by car during quarantines and race to reopen businesses, outnumber concerns over attempted genocide. During world wars they imposed curfews and rationed food, and how is this not equally dire? Life could certainly be livable without exporting and importing durable good and food stuffs. Local farm-to-table initiatives already supplement groceries from industrial corn, rice and wheat fields. But East Coast urban sprawl claimed a lot of failing farms for housing tracts due to developer greed and state overtaxation. Fields left fallow for recovery over several years represent irresistible temptations for opportunists. First thing construction crews do is fell forests so heavy equipment can dig foundations. Without trees branches upon which to roost, bird migrations are disrupted. Barriers kill beneficial animals and insects. Ecosphere collapse can be avoided with zoning codes and enforcement, but money grubbers push back with bribes and campaign contributions toward an ever bleaker future. Eliminating restrictions does nothing to expedite recovery; in fact, regulations create jobs and safeguard return to previous standard of living.

Profiteers recoil from whatever they can’t comprehend. Kept at arm’s length is no longer far enough. What you seek to escape relentlessly hunts you down. Artists embrace what’s unknown, predicted viral apocalypse in hundreds of films, but they were deemed irrelevant when everything seemed tolerable with technology prevalent. Dread, horror, and slasher films harden viewers to what they’ll have to taste, sequelae of ignorance and waste. Einstein said science is no savior, may even be tool of choice for enemies. With billions under house arrest, and too many dead and dying, spirituality becomes a beacon of hope in chaos. Recalls such cacophonic and desperate musical expressions as Quartet for the End of Time, composed and first performed by Olivier Messiaen while interred in a WWII concentration camp in 1941, where he felt he belonged after society’s excesses sent him there. But for the grace of God, so go you, too. Evil may provoke a good response, but isn’t required for selfless creativity and social justice. Given selfish appeals and thickheaded responses so far, don’t see how this will end well.

“The abyss is Time with its sadness, its weariness. The birds are the opposite to Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant songs.” - Olivier Messiaen, POW, 1941

"Do we seek to transform whatever forms of violence we experience into something creative and relational, or do we spit them out and perpetuate the cycle?" Stephen Osborne, virtuoso performer, for The Guardian, 2016.