Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will jump at every shadow....

Don’t think this panic-stricken hysteria came out of the blue. The warning signs go back a long way. Many sage thinkers have written about a sudden decline in mass religious belief leading to a risk-averse society that believes that faith is blind. Au contraire, mes amis. Only hysteria is blind. Faith buys time. Hysteria buys nothing.

Now it stalks the land turning otherwise intelligent people into zombie-like order-followers. Police throw innocent citizens to the ground; arrest pregnant women in their homes and wearing pyjamas on charges of incitement; fire rubber bullets at retreating mobs. Public health bureaucrats use hours-long press conferences fronted by obeisant media ingenues to announce in clipped tones through forests of microphones the daily infection numbers, a kind of numerology incantation with only the sacred smoke missing to complete the medieval picture. They may as well announce how many people have sneezed that day.

This era will be seen in the future as the greatest episode of mass hysteria in history. Managing an epidemic should never have allowed people in leadership positions to wallow in hysterical language. But since they have, the conclusion must be that many of today's leaders have lost the age-old qualities of prudent, judicious, circumspect leadership. Why?

Fear no evil? That was a faith-based concept. It's out the door with last year's broken toys.

Enough of all that. Time for a recipe.