Day 11 Wednesday 1st April

I haven’t detected any April Fools’ jokes about yet. Life is all too serious at present. Donald, we’re about to find out just how great America is. We will see how well a nation of rugged individuals can park their stridently expressed personal rights in the interests of others in their communities.

Alright, it may be time for a little political pique. Our democracy is being pressure-tested while focused on superordinate goals. In last Friday’s Crikey edition (March 27, 2020) Simon Longstaff reminded us about the ethical quagmire of the sports rorts scandal, articulating our suspended judgement of our political leadership:

“A(n) equitable reckoning would say to the whole of the political class that we are sick of your blame-shifting, your evasiveness, your self-serving hair-splitting, your back-stabbing, your blatant lies (large and small), your reckless (no, gutless) refusal to accept responsibility for your errors and wrong-doing, and your loyalty to the machine rather than to the people you are supposed to serve.”

Let’s limit the swerve to the right to coronavirus contagion and plan imaginatively for life at the end of the curve. In the same edition of Crikey, Guy Rundle observed:

“Using the general public’s widespread disenchantment with politics, and relying on a supine mainstream media and parliamentary press corps, the Morrison government has de facto abolished processes of scrutiny, review and contestation.”

The latest statistics are boringly consistent but with tempered trajectory. Australia has 303 new cases for a total of 4,860 with 21 deaths and has completed 256,000 tests. The NSW share is 150 new cases to total 2,182 and 10 deaths. Globally 859,000 cases have been reported and 42,300 deaths.

One constant for me during isolation is my Labradoodle puppy Arya who continues to provide unsolicited doses of spontaneous love. I also very much enjoy seeing grandkids on facetime or zoom, which is all the “contact” we can have at present.