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Briefs: Expert mocked on Twitter; Maine homesteaders (mostly) are prepared

The Wallace-Haskell Homestead in Phippsburg, Maine, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo credit: Magicpiano/Wikimedia Commons)
The Wallace-Haskell Homestead in Phippsburg, Maine, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo credit: Magicpiano/Wikimedia Commons)

Expert mocked for alarmist tweetstorm

The data were in before the pandemic began, and one scientist tried to sound the alarm.

A Harvard epidemiologist using Twitter tried to warn society back in January about the global threat COVID-19 represented.

He was ignored, ridiculed, or asked to tone it down, in one case by the elite media outlet The Atlantic, which ran an attention-seeking opinion piece called “How to Misinform Yourself About the Coronavirus.”

Why?

A columnist in New York Magazine blames “a culture of sanctimonious concern-trolling on elite social media,” and a naive trust that “keeping your cool and trusting the political and social status quo is preferable to a radical response” in the face of any potentially widespread crisis.

Source: New York Magazine

Maine homesteaders are (mostly) prepared

They’re not preppers anticipating any nightmarish apocalypse scenarios.

Maine’s homesteaders are just farmers and back-to-the-land lifestylers, living in remote countryside that’s often inaccessible during the harsh winter months.

So they are for the most part better-prepared for the coronavirus pandemic than most other Americans.

As subsistence farmers accustomed to the state’s harsh climate and short growing season, they traditionally depend on what they can produce on their own lands.

Their homesteads, like many in rural America, are already socially distanced, and they are not dependent on regular trips to the supermarket.

But they can still get caught by surprise, and run out of toilet paper.

For some, that means cutting up old flannel sheets until they can restock.

Source: Bangor Daily News

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