In The Days Of The Comet

UPDATE: Almost forgot Comet 2I/Borisov

Well, here we are in the thick of a global shutdown over a virus that appears to be less virulent than the annual flu.  The world, to speak in gross generalities, seems to have gone completely off the reservation.  It looks to me, from my little perch under the stairs somewhere in the middle of one of the largest cities in Asia, that the whole thing is a case of fear porn gone viral, to indulge in a pun.

In a supreme, perhaps divine irony, it seems now that cigarette smokers may be among the least infected demographic groups.  As if we are living out Woody Allen's Sleeper, the French are distributing nicotine patches to reduce infection rates.  A big middle finger to all you shamers.

Some folks have inquired as to why I refer to this situation as "the days of the comet."  As with most things I write, there are multiple layers of meaning and intent, not the least of which is I happen to like comets.

At the most superficial layer, there are several comets making a run at the inner solar system just now.  2019 Y4 ATLAS is on a hyperbolic orbit, imlying it has come from outside our realm.  It has also crumbled to dust on approach to the Sun and may vanish altogether.  Then, there's 2017 T2 PanSTARRS, which was discovered when it flared up around the orbit of Saturn - an unusual behavior for a supposed dirty ice ball, but expected for a negatively charged body hitting the Sun's proton "wind".  Then, there's our old friend Enke, which hangs out around the inner solar system and appears every few years.  There's also a number of others still out beyond Jupiter that should arrive later in the year.

None of this is unusual.  There are roughly a dozen comets making runs at any given time.

At the next layer, we encounter one of my favorite authors, H. G. Wells.  Wells published a book in 1906 called, "In The Days of the Comet," in which the Earth is affected by a huge passing comet.  the interaction causes all the nitrogen in the atmosphere to convert to a breathable gas that in turn leads to a new Golden Age on the planet, called the Great Change.  I fancy we may be seeing something like that going on now, as 7 billion people slowly get angry enough to lamp-post the presumptive Masters.

It is curious to note at this point that Uranus entered Taurus last year, which has signaled massive changes on Earth when it happened in the 1770s, 1850s and 1930s.

Comets have long been considered omens of great events.  Whether the omens or good or bad is completely subjective, of course.  In 1066, Halley's Comet (700 years before Halley named it) made a particularly notable run through the inner solar system.  The British came to see it as a particularly bad omen, while the French saw it as a harbinger of great tidings.  This probably has a lot to do with William the Conqueror taking over the British Isles and beheading Harold II in London.

The Chinese, too, came to see the 1066 comet as a bad omen, since it kicked off a particularly rough period during the Song Dynasty.

On the next layer, I have a memory implanted by my great aunt Laetitia, or Tish as everyone called her.  In 1910, she was 12 years old when the Great Halley's Panic occured.  For those unaware, the Earth passed through Halley's Comet's tail in 1910.  A French (of course) astronomer noticed that spectragraphs of the tail revealed a fair amount of cyanogen gas, a deadly poison.  Well, as you can imagine, this set off a worldwide panic, with snake-oil salesmen peddling anti-comet pills and folks building bunkers against the end of times.  At the critical moment, my great aunt's mother dragged her daughter under the bed to hide, and told Tish to, "Pray, Laetitia, pray We're all going to die!"  To which my great aunt replied, "Why do we need to pray if we're all going to die?"

I take this as a sign that critical thinking runs in my genes.

Thus, I have come to think of these times as The Days of the Comet, because there are comets, this may be the beginning of a new Golden Age, and the panic is completely contrived by fear porn peddlers.

Here in Jakarta, we've been on lock-down for a month.  To their credit, the Indonesians find ignoring laws to be great fun and a national pastime.  In fact, they have done such a wonderful job of ignoring the government, that now the president has announced that mudik is cancelled.  Mudik means "exodus" and refers to the national holiday at the end of Ramadhan, where millions of people return to their native villages for feasting and reunion, not unlike the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

To enforce the anti-mudik rule, the Prez has threatened to lock down all entry and exit from the city, using the military to barricade the exits.  Essentially, we are under martial law.  Seems rather dacronian, since the entire country of 320 million people have had just 6,000 confirmed cases and 600 deaths "reported" as COVID-19.

In any event, I expect the riots to start sooner than later.  The second most enjoyed pastime in Indonesia is rioting, especially when it's paid for by various political interests.

My neighborhood is much quieter than usual.  Except for the ubiquitous door-to-door salesmen pushing bread, noodles, and meatball soup, the only real activity are the hordes of motorcycle delivery men rushing goods hither and yon from online purchases.

We get several boxes a day, primarily my wife ordering a dizzying array of Chinese herbal remedies and vitamins, and me restocking the bar.  There's an entire ritual to it, where the delivery man drops it on the doorstep, my wife suits up in homemade PPE, soaks the package in sanitizer, opens the outer package outside, then carefully removes the contents and rushes them inside for more dousing.

Of course, if I receive the delivery, I just take it from the guy, give a small tip for braving the elements, tear open the package and leave the trash outside, then pour a big fat Gin Tonic to ward off any viruses or parasites that may be lurking within.

And yes, I firmly believe that hydroxichloroquine is worth having around the house.  No, not because Trump touts it (I heard about it a week before Trump did), but because I am a firm believer that something which may work now is worth far more than a dozen possible vaccines next year sometime.  And yes, I have enough zinc tablets and azythromycin to cure an entire army.

However, I rest assured that my intake of vast quantities of Gin Tonic will do just fine as a palliative of first resort.  Hey, if it was good enough for the British occupying forces in India in the 1800s, it's good enough for me.

In any case, I am prepared for what I consider to be the two most likely outcomes; 1) the Supreme Hoax that is the COVID Scare of 2020 will be exposed soon and the lynchings will begin shortly thereafter; or 2) this is a devilish bioweapon that will sweep the globe for years to come, killing millions if not billions.  Whichever manifests itself, I am mentally prepared to deal with it

Whether Nancy Pelosi becomes the historical echo of Marie Antoinette, or we end up living out the movie Omega Man (with me as the gin-swilling Charlton Heston character), I am prepared to observe the proceedings with all the mirth and irony of Falstaff, and the sardonic snipes of George Carlin.

In the meantime, I shall remain supremely amused at humanity's eternal quest for self-annihilation.  for some reason, our species seems grotesquely fixated on doom, and I for one cheer its impending arrival.  Whether Nature has thrown an evolutionary curve ball at us, or the Slimy Bastards have unleashed their final act on us, the outcome should be highly entertaining.

And so, in the Days of the Comet, I remain the observer of all that is insane.  The chronicler of last resort, if you will.