Bewilderment

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THE RIVER OF FORMS IS LONG. And among the billions of solutions it has so far unfolded, humans and cows are close cousins. It wasn’t surprising that something on the fringe of life—a strand of RNA that codes for only twelve proteins—was happy, after one small tweak, to give another host a try.

Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Denver: none of them matched the density of an industrial-scale feedlot. But human mobility and relentless commerce made up for that. And still, back in February, no one was all that worried. The virus tearing through the beef industry was being upstaged by the President. Week after week, he kept pushing back the rescheduled elections, claiming that digital security in several states was not yet adequate and that various enemies were still poised to interfere.

When the third Tuesday in March came along, it surprised the entire fatigued country when the polls did open at last. But it shocked only half of us when another wave of irregularities were declared insignificant and the President was named the winner.