b'Just as egregious are the sick and soppy television ads and the painful-to-watch impact that the Covid-19 Pandemic of Insanity has had on our culture. Emotion is the uranium in the news media reactor, and politi-cians are more often partners in the hype than they are subjects of scrutiny, as was the original intention. If we succeed in making you afraid (#1 choice), angry (#2), sad (#3), or overwhelmed with enthusiasm (a distant #4), we can motivate a few of you into or out of behav-ioror going along with behavior that defies all com-mon sense, science and reason, so it turns out.For our part, weve seen enough of Joe Gazins homeofficenook,andKatiaUriartesfashionably middle class living room, and Bill Mahers giant Hol-lywood backyard, and Jimmy Fallons farm, and even Nancy Pelosis tasteful urban kitchen and her $24,000 refrigerator stocked with a large selection of boutique ice creamweve had enough. We have gone Chinese Bat Sh*t Crazy and hope that by the time you are reading this, the insanity has at least subsided, and we are starting to recede to our normal levels of social dysfunction.We have gone Chinese Bat Sh*t Crazy and hope that by the time you are reading this, the insanity has at least subsided, and we are starting to recede to our normal levels of social dysfunction.SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 came from China! In fact, it may very well have been re-leasedaccidentallyorotherwisebytheChinese communist government. We moved Heaven and Earth in response to 9/11. This disease, unleashed upon the world by China, will likely kill hundreds of thousands of people around the world including 50,000 or more in the United Statesthats well over a dozen 9/11s.Ever heard of the Chinese Finger Trap? Its a fun little puzzle used to play a joke on your friends. Your fingers go in at opposite ends, and your natural instinct to get them out is to pull. The fun part is that when you pull, the trap gets tighterapparently there exist larger derivatives of the same concept that are not as fun.The finger trap illustrates the wise thinking and understanding of human instincts that come from a culture that is more than 4,000 years old and not 250. Have we been tricked, in a way, into stumbling into a trap that used our collective ignorance, inferior edu-cation system, incapacity for pain and sacrifice, over-heated media and political climate, and dependence uponChinafor the essential tools we need to fight disease, against us?The276-yearMingDynastyalonebuilt4,000 miles of the Great Wall of China in what was the Dark Ages in Europe. This is not a culture that thinks and op-erates in the short term, and the oxymoron that China is todaythe worlds largest communist dictatorship that has derived immeasurable foreign financial wealth 36 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEQ2.2020 TheCoastalBend.com'