The world has lost its collective mind, as evidenced by the complete emptying of supermarket shelves of toilet paper, tissues, and face masks.
Sydney has been struck amazingly hard by the Coroniavirusvirus with supermarket shelves right across the city being stripped of toilet paper, and on Wednesday evening (the 4th of March) there were reports on ABC Sydney of a stabbing incident which has occurred at Woolworths in Westfield Parramatta, over someone stocking up with three trolley fulls of toilet paper. That's right, we've reached the Lord Of The Flies scenario, after a period of drought and bushfire.
All of this merely serves for me as an object lesson that we are never far away from the stark reality that humans are essentially irrational brutes who occasionally come to the realisation that they are mortal and will die.
This buying up of physical barriers is predicated on the fact that humans are slightly moist biomechanical meatbags with thought muscles, who are occasionally prone to being attacked by barely microscopic things that might not even fit the definition of being alive, as is the case with viruses generally and the Coroniavirus COVID-19 specifically. In this case, the advice to prevent getting COVID-19 is to avoid touching other people and to avoid breathing other people's breath; if you do have to touch other people, then hand washing is also a sensible idea.
Face masks are actually a very very sensible idea for two reasons. Firstly, as a physical barrier to prevent the spread of disease and secondly, so that other humans no longer have to look at each other. Buying up toilet paper makes little to no sense to me, as everything that I have read about COVID-19 seems to indicate that it doesn't necessarily result in diahorrea; which would necessitate buying so much toilet paper. Mailing toilet paper overseas which has been posited as a possible explanation, just seems plain daft to me.
In the light of all of this, I propose that the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, purposefully adopt the face mask as the theme for the event. Just like the 2008 games in Beijing was the "we're actually not completely horrible, please accept our propaganda" games, the 1996 games in Atlanta was the "Peachtree, Peachtree, Peachtree, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, oh no diabetes" games, and the were 1936 games in Berlin was the "we actually are horrible, please fear us" games, the 2020 Olympics has a tremendous opportunity to brand itself as something memorable for the ages.
Think about it. If the Olympic Games is designed as a hypocritical anti-political event, while being itself organised into sporting teams which are explicitly political units called countries, then why not exploit this? If around half of the world's population lacks access to even basic medical care (which is a stupidity that is only caused by the selfishness and brutality of those who have a lot), then why not highlight this in an act of hypocritical political game propaganda?
All of the facemasks of the various nations would not be allowed to have any kind of advertising save for the manufacturer; so this is out of the question. That means that the facemasks have to exploit other kinds of patriotic prejudice and self aggrandisement. The facemasks of the various nations could be what we would expect of the stereotypical embodiment of the nations.
- Australia for instance could have a facemask that looked like Ned Kelly. Our most famous bin wearing outlaw already comes with a facemask; with a postal slot for eye holes.
- Mexico would naturally give everyone a luchadore type mask; which already fits in with their popular extravagant sporting stereotype.
- The United States could wear some kind of cowboy hat and bandanna arrangement; which would evoke notions of the old west; even though by sales and the photographic record tells you that the actual hat of the old west was the Derby Hat.
- Russia would have a team enter in balaclavas and ushankas. Let's be honest, if it is minus twenty degrees Celsius on the streets of Petersburg, then that's already national dress by reason of necessity anyway. There would just have to be a lot more squatting and hardbass.
- Japan could enter as ninjas.
- Saudi Arabia could have people who look like desert farmers.
The possibilities are endless.
This would also end religious questions relating to the use of the hijab and niqab. Presumably the reason why they are not currently acceptable at the Olympics stems from the latent racism and colonial brutality of mostly white people. I genuinely do not understand the reason why there should be animosity because if you treat people kindly, nicely and fairly, then they have no need to be mad. If someone believes something different to you, then you also believe something different to them.
I must confess that ever since I was a little kid I have been watching sport where people's heads have been entirely covered; that sport is motor racing. Helmets are there primarily for protection but do help to serve a secondary function of identification of the drivers. I still remember Aryton Senna's yellow helmet and Alain Prost's tricolouer. If there is no problem whatsoever with that, then it's not much of a stretch to cloth facemasks for protection against Coroniavirus.
Perhaps one of the most iconic moments in recent Olympic history was when Cathy Freeman ran in the sprint, in a green and silver speed suit. Surely if that memorable because of the spectacle, then national facemasks at the 2020 Olympic in Tokyo could be too?
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