It's time to say goodbye to the Lamb and Flag

So the news broke yesterday that the Lamb and Flag pub, made famous by Tolkien and Lewis and the gang, is closing for good.  Why?  Need we ask. Covid restrictions that have happily avoided doing anything but buttress corporate fortunes while obliterating endless millions of middle and lower class livelihoods, have struck again.  This is the first time in history that I'm aware of where the measures used to fight a pandemic will do harm to so many millions that will far outlive the pandemic itself. 

I can't even name from our area the number of small business owners and middle class entrepreneurs who have seen their dreams and fortunes dashed.  All while millionaires and billionaires videochat from their mansions about how important it is to sacrifice millions of shmucks heroes so that they can remain healthy millionaires and billionaires safe in their mansions. 

My boys also pointed out something I hadn't thought of.  They said that in recent years, things like pub crawls, pub Dungeons and Dragons, pub gatherings, and American versions of the same had become quite popular.  People turning away from the Big and Small Screens and actually finding ways to have fun with friends and acquaintances around a pint was helping the already struggling pub (and similar) industries mount a comeback.

Well, no more.  Those pastimes have almost died.  My sons, who are connoisseurs of modern pop culture with a finger on the pulse of the Fantasy/Sci-Fi world, have informed me that the latest D&D renaissance is floundering, in large part due to closing the stores and other venues where people were meeting to play.

And what is left?  Well, since you aren't supposed to mix and mingle, you stay home with the family and either have a stack of board games, or turn on the Big Screen and veg, staring at the entertainment industry's paltry offerings, laden with sponsors and propaganda, making them richer in the process.  In addition, you have no easy way to communicate except via digital social media, controlled by corporate tyrants almost proud to monitor, and even censor, wrong think and offensive discourse.  

Covid will go down as the human catastrophe that helped solidify the global oligarchy of modern corporatism.  At this point, I don't even think they bother pretending not to be doing what they're doing.  And what are they doing?  They're setting up a global market where millionaires can become billionaires, billionaires can become trillionaires, and most of the human race can get back to the hides and the cotton fields where they belong.