Speaking of aesthetically pleasing, I'm pretty alarmed by the rising coronavirus numbers throughout the country, but I'm even more alarmed by the way many people wear their masks in groups: over their mouth but not over their noses. Maybe it's because the smell of the mask can be off-putting, maybe it's an aesthetic thing of not wanting to cover one's entire face? But letting one's nose peek out of the mask is NOT wearing the mask properly. I feel a physical reaction every time I see someone not covering their nose; it's called a face covering, not a mouth covering or a nose covering. I guess now I understand why people protested seat belts long ago, or don't wear a helmet when riding their motorcycles, and that's just for their own safety.....wearing a mask is about protecting others, so I guess it receives less respect. The world's citizens have to fight the urge to just "give up" and throw up their hands in resignation that "the world is ending" and therefore not care about consequences anymore, otherwise the world will actually start ending due to the chain reaction of apathy and negative attitudes.
Unemployment benefits are running out at the end of this week (so pretty much now! Oh man), and Americans seem anxious. The extra $600 on top of regular unemployment benefits (about $400+ a week) will run out, and instead Congress is passing another $1 trillion+ bill to give benefits tied to wage, something called a "70% wage replacement." I have mixed feelings about unemployment because although it provides a necessary economic boost to people who have lost their jobs, it's not giving ample incentive for people to go back to work. I've definitely heard of people who just sat back on their $1000+ a week and actively rooting for the economy to stay closed so that the benefits would continue. It's definitely not a plan that is able to target specific people who need the aid......some people desperately need it and even the extra $600 isn't enough, while some people like me don't desperately need it (but it's still nice to have). It's the probably with government: it works for the people, but there's so many people that it's impossible to make specific plans for everyone that works individually, and doesn't deliver the help to the people who really need it. It's like charity organizations and when I ponder whether to give a handout to a homeless person on the side of the street: am I really donating to someone who really needs it? When I think of government helping the public I always think of a wise king holding court and allowing individual citizens to come tell them about their problems and ask for relief, like the farmer whose crops had a bad year asking for federal subsidies, and the king granting relief to those whom he (or she) deemed need it. Kind of like Ned Stark in Season 1 of Game of Thrones, but then the obvious problem is that there become way too many cases for the king to handle, and then we wind up with the impersonal system we have now that tries to do the best it can for the most amount of people. I suppose it could be worse, there could be no unemployment benefits for those who lose their job, and you could just be out of luck until you find your next job, or just never find one and have nothing and become homeless. (Many homeless are just people who were stretched so thin that they couldn't afford to miss one paycheck, and then they lost their job). It's sad, and I suppose unemployment benefits ultimately do help to mitigate the problem, albeit in a blunt and inefficient way.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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