Panacea

Americans—boosterish businesspeople, in particular—are being lulled into believing the forthcoming Covid-19 vaccine is a panacea, a "universal remedy."

It isn't.

According to the new issue of Health Affairs, at the current rate of confirmed new infections per day, over 160,000 Americans will die in the six months after the vaccine's rollout.

Those deaths alone are enough to scare people into avoiding stores, malls, movie theaters, concerts, sports events, conventions, tradeshows, airports and other places where crowds gather.

The optimism is mistaken.

Panacea entered English in the 16th century. It derives from the Latin name given by the Ancient Romans to various herbs thought to cure illnesses. 

The Romans borrowed the word from the Greek panakeia, or "cure-all." The Greek god of healing, Asclepius, had a daughter named Panacea. Her name became synonymous with medicinal plants.

The vaccine is coming, but it isn't the cure for what ails us.

Time is.

The Party's Over

 

That's the great part of capitalism, gales of creative destruction.

— Larry Kudlow

Instead of wringing their hands over the walloping face-to-face has taken, eventpeeps should be celebrating Covid-19 with Larry Kudlow: "creative destruction" has decimated their industry.

And now, after three successive quarters of negative growth, it's time for a sober assessment of where the events industry is heading in 2021 and beyond.

It's heading to oblivion.

Yes, the industry plummeted off a cliff in February, once the organizers of Mobile World Congress called it quits. That event was the first of the big dominoes to topple; the rest of the western world's large confabs quickly followed suit—or wished they had.

But Covid-19 was only a catalyst, accelerating an already-irreversible downward trend. 

As a viable marketing channel, events had peaked before the virus ever left Wuhan, and were inching toward decline. That's for two reasons:

• Exhibitors are done with them. Events are all the things a CMO shuns when choosing a marketing channel. They're expensive, unproductive, unpredictable, unaccountable, unrepeatable, unmeasurable, unsustainable, wasteful and—sad, but true—too much about the salespeople having fun.
  
  
• Attendees, too. Events are all things an attendee shuns when choosing a means to educate and improve herself. They're all of the above—and noisy, to boot.

Eventpeeps predict the channel that's provided their livelihoods will one day rise, phoenixlike, from coronavirus's ashes.

But the hard truth is: it won't. It can't. Covid-19 has clobbered it.

The party's over.

All These Condemned

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

― George Santayana

When I was a kid, it was routine to see people toss trash from the windows of their moving cars. Bottles, cans, cups, cartons, wrappers, bags, napkins, tissues, you name it.

It took a full-court mass media campaign—led by the packaging industry—to put an end to Americans' loutish behavior. The now-quaint Keep America Beautiful campaign sang out "Don't be a Litterbug," and we bought it (fines introduced by local governments helped).

Thirty years earlier, another mass media campaign—led by the Red Cross—was rolled out nationwide as the Spanish Flu decimated American cities. The even quainter Wear a Mask campaign spouted "Don't be a Mask Slacker." Americans bought it.

Our Executioner-in-Chief has resisted, mocked and politicized mask-wearing—and continues overtly to do so—with the result that he's condemned to death 183,000 Americans, with an additional 134,000—or more—soon to follow.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is poised to spend $250 million of taxpayers' money on a new mass media campaign that urges America to Reopen Now, despite virologists' warnings that Covid-19 thrives on crowds.

The better use of the $250 million would be to fund a campaign preaching "Don't be a Maskhole."

But, hey, what's a few thousand more Americans' lives, when an election's at stake?

Swans

He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him.

— Hans Christian Andersen

Hospitals are swamped. Morgues are filled. Unemployment offices can't keep up with first-time applications.

What possible good can come from Covid-19?

I continue to hear people say we were blindsided, that the pandemic is a black swan.

The man who coined the term, financier Nassim Nicholas Taleb, disputes that claim. He thinks the pandemic was foreseeable and—like Bill Gates—predicted it.

That would make it (although no less catastrophic) a gray swan.

The deaths (93 thousand) and job losses (36 million) are indeed catastrophic.

But many of us are witnessing aspects of the lockdown that are less so:

• The air and rivers are refreshing themselves
• Animals are reasserting themselves
• Parents are discovering they have children
• Children are discovering they have parents 
• Neighbors are discovering they are neighbors
• People are learning there's value in art, architecture and books
• Adults are rediscovering bikes
• Family members are sleeping regularly and eating locally grown food
• Citizens are realizing government isn't their enemy; and
• Republicans are beginning to realize the president is

I think—for some of us—the pandemic's an ugly duckling.

The "new normal" could look prettier than we ever imagined.

Wake Up, America!

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

— George Bernard Shaw

I've been sacrificing lately.

Cheaper cuts of meat. Cable instead of streaming. Pepsodent toothpaste.

It's getting old.

A neighbor said last evening, "It's time to get this economy rolling."

I couldn't agree more.

My retirement accounts continue to see a paper loss. It's time to stanch it—even if that requires a little human loss.

Have we forgotten, America, the battles our fathers fought?

Rationing. Curfews. Blackouts. Lonely deaths at the hands of the foe. 

It was good for our mothers; it's good enough for me.

Wake up, America! It's time for you to roll!

Our workforce is already neatly partitioned. You're either Essential or you're Nonessential.

Why can't our population be? You're either Expendable or you're Nonexpendable.

The designation is elegant, don't you agree? 

Let the economists and lawyers quibble over the "Value of Life" 'til the cows come home. I've got no time for that!

When the president toured the Honeywell factory last week, the PA system blasted "Live and Let Die" and I thought they're playing my song!

Wake up, Expendables! Get out there and die for the Dow.

Me, I'm strictly Nonexpendable.

Grifters

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

— Dr. Evil

This week the video Plandemic proved its box-office mojo.

Before YouTube deleted the video, over eight million people watched.

Plandemic stars discredited NIH researcher Dr. Judy Mikovits, who claims that two eugenicists, Mr. Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci, are plotting to take over the world.

Plandemic “recast a pusher of discredited pseudoscience as a whistle-blowing counterpoint to real expertise,” a political scientist told The New York Times.

As P.T. Barnum observed, Americans are suckers for self-proclaimed "truth-tellers" like Mikovits.

They fail to see these messiahs for what they are: grifters.

Since Plandemic was released Monday, Mikovits' $22 book Plague of Corruption has reached the very top of Amazon’s list of print best-sellers.

And before the video's release, she cashed in on a fundraising campaign—halted last Friday by GoFundMe—that backers of QAnon were publicizing.

"Conspiracy theorists are winning," writes Jeffey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic. "America is losing its grip on enlightenment values and reality itself."

But that's nothing new.

Americans have always been targets for grifters.

Take, for example, George Bickley.

An accomplished con artist, in 1854 Bickley founded the Knights of the Golden Circle, a membership organization dedicated to expanding slavery by annexing Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

Membership dues were paid by checks made out to "President General of the American Legion," who was none other than George Bickley.

Or take, for example, Robert Welch.

A retired candy manufacturer, in 1958 Welch founded the John Birch Society, a membership organization dedicated to combating a "furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians."

The society was in fact a pyramid scheme: members had not only to recruit other members, but buy an inventory of books they were supposed to sell to prospects.

Or take, for example, Charles Manson.

A small-time thief, pimp, jailbird and drug-pusher, in 1968 Manson founded The Family, a California commune with over 100 members.

A year later, he persuaded a band of his stoned-out followers to murder everyone living in two Beverley Hills homes, because their owners had ripped him off in a drug deal.

Or take, for example, Glenn Beck.

A former disc jockey, alcoholic and drug addict, in 2002 Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts, a right-wing multi-media company. The company is named after Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air.

Although he cites the muck-raking hero of Citizen Kane as the explanation, Beck in fact chose the company's name because he admires the way Welles hoodwinked all America with War of the Worlds.

The word grifter—meaning con artist, thief, swindler, or flim-flammer—dates to the early 20th century. 

It blends the words grafter and drifter.

A grafter profits through shady means.

A drifter is rootless.

That's rootless, not ruthless.

Grifters are the ruthless ones.

Beware the Highwaymen

No thief is happy to be a thief and no murderer is happy to be a murderer.

― Rajneesh

Amid the celebrations of sacrifice and innovation, it's easy to forget malfeasance.

While hard times bring out the best in some people, they bring out the worst in thieves.

I ran into thieves during the Great Recession, when I was running consumer shows. 

A half dozen exhibitors―people with whom I'd been doing business for years―wrote me bad checks for their booth rents at the close of several shows. Some simply skipped out of the shows without paying anything. 

I lost more than $18,000 to those thieves.

I'm running into thieves now. Texas-based Newtek last month billed my credit card nearly $900, claiming I owed the company for "storage." 

While the company had been my web-hosting provider for 10 years―billing my card $6 every month for the service―I shut down my website over two years ago, after which I heard no more from Newtek.

Until it suddenly billed my credit card the $900 last month.

Now the company wants me to prove I shut down the website it hosted. 

"If you 'turned off the services in February 2018,'" the CFO wrote me yesterday, "I could not find any tangible evidence to support this event. 

"I can assure you we are only collecting on balances that are due and payable. 

"I would be more than happy to credit the account if you can provide the tangible evidence."

"No thief is happy to be a thief and no murderer is happy to be a murderer," the guru Rajneesh said. 

"They have been forced. In fact they are victims; they have been compelled by the logic of situations. They have been brought up in such a way that their whole being has been poisoned.”

Time are hard―and growing harder.

Beware the highwaymen!

So Long, High and Tight

He who neglects his hair neglects his country.

― Ben Franklin

American men will go to great lengths for short hair.

The proof: barbers have already reopened in 32 states.

Custom makes men their customers.

For men, high and tight―throughout the past century, at least―has been the American way.

Long hair on men is loathsome to many. Sergeants hate it; so do principals, umpires, bankers and firefighters.

Their aversion is scriptural: “Doth not nature teach that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him?”

It's also historical: Ancient Barbarians had long hair; Native Americans had long hair; hobos and hippies had long hair.

You can't trust any of them!

"Trust and confidence go hand-in-hand with remaining high and tight," says journalist C. Brian Smith.

But I respectfully disagree. I think, as does journalist John Green, "The worse the haircut, the better the man."

Feminists also hate long hair―but on women.

I'm pro-feminist, but like long hair―especially on women. 

I like in particular:

Veronica Lake

Cleopatra's braids. 

Marie Antoinette's mane. 

Barbara Feldon's bob. 

Angela Davis' Afro. 

Farrah Fawcett's shag.

Princess Diana's pixie. 

Bo Derek's cornrows.

And―my all-time favorite―Veronica Lake's pageboy.

How about you? 

Whose 'do do you fancy?

Perfect Storm

I'm doing what I was made to do―and I've got a feeling I'm going to do it even better this time.

― Capt. Billy Tyne

You know the drill.

A colleague phones―often he has sizable obligations―to say his job or business has withered.

Fortunately, all of my colleagues are sensible people with emotional and financial reserves, so there's no hint of "talking them off the ledge."

But I can imagine there are people who are making desperate calls―or none at all. 

In fact, suicide-prevention experts are worried the Great Shutdown will trigger a spike in unattributed deaths.

The difference between the sensible and the suicidal is hope. Behavioral scientists have correlated hope with coping.

In my opinion, people find hope in one of three places. 

Some people find hope in belief in a savoir; others, in substance abuse; still others, in sheer will.

The philosopher and psychologist Eric Fromm thought hope was the evolutionary counterweight to our acquaintance with finitude. 

Unlike the other animals, Fromm said, we are self-aware; and the price we pay for that awareness is insecurity.

"How can a sensitive and alive person ever feel secure?" Fromm wrote.

"Just as a sensitive and alive person cannot avoid being sad, he cannot avoid feeling insecure. The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself, is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity, without panic and undue fear."

Why aren't my colleagues hobbled by insecurity? 

What makes them hopeful?

A team of behavioral researchers in the UK think they've found the answer: self-esteem. 

In four different studies, the researchers separated respondents into two groups: those who tested positive for high self-esteem, and those who tested positive for low self-esteem. 

They then asked them to write about death. 

The researchers found that people in the first group felt very little after the exercise, while the people in the second group felt hopeless.

I've also noticed my colleagues aren't only hopeful; they're thinking of others. 

Who's depending on them to come through? 

How can they help customers? 

Can they find in this mess an opportunity to contribute more to society than they have in the past?

The nuns taught me back in Catechism class that hope is a virtue that aspires to "the to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man." 

Hope is life-preserver. 

"Buoyed up by hope," the Catechism says, "man is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity."

The nuns had that right.

Stay well.