I have nothing to say, but still I blog

Back in the halcyon days of three weeks ago, I made this glib but sincere post to social media—

I wish fewer of my friends would make posts advancing some conspiracy theory about the election that they dreamed up over breakfast.

In the meantime, the world has gotten very strange. Election speculation is gone, replaced to a large extent by commiseration, solidarity, and plain kvetching. Yet there have been definite in-roads among my friends toward posting broad conclusions about covid-19.¹

I have opinions about elections and diseases, but these are times of great uncertainty. It’s a sign that I’m getting old, I guess, but I have less of a taste for the rhetorical mode of laying down facts under conditions of ignorance than I used to do.

1. I’m not sure how the capitalization is supposed to work. I was originally inclined to write Covid-19, but a casual internet search suggests that it’s COVID-19 but also that it’s short for Coronavirus Disease 2019. The latter suggests CoViD-19. Perhaps, like LaTeX, one of the letters should be a Latin stand-in for a Greek letter. Perhaps the “V” should be written as a heart: CO🖤ID-19, anyone?