Mr Opinion- Yes Steinbeck is often relevant- though he was a bit of a lefty and associated with radicals, and joined the Communist League of American Writers, he also supported traditional values. In Charlie's War (Charlie Wilson also a lefty) they talk of 'the boy and the zen master'- we'll see... but he brought down Russian Communism.

Dear Foxy,

Great to see you back on the forum. Always good to have another keeping the bastards honest, now more than ever it seems.

Dear Canem Malum,

It wasn't the Communist League of American Writers now was it. Rather simply the League of American Writers. It was certainly spawned by the Communist Party. I think it is a real struggle to definitively label Steinbeck a fully fledged Communist in any case.

However as a writer who was deeply involved in the depression era and the dustbowl his opinion of the operation of capitalist financial systems along with the greed and corruption of the time would have swung many thinkers of the time to the left.

One thing we can be sure of is that 2021 will forever be the twentieth year of this Millenium, probably be a worse year for Wuhan Flu but we won't know for 12 months (hopefully).

"... probably be a worse year for Wuhan Flu....".

Nothing probable about it east of the Great Dividing Range. Those of us on this side, plus Tasmania, are doing OK.

Oh, and no vaccine until March at least, according to AdMan.

ttbn,

The scuttlebutt I have is that the longer we wait before rolling out the vaccine the better so that we can see if there are adverse side effects that the testing phase couldn't detect.

Not much use getting it now to find two days after that tens of thousands in the UK start dropping like flies from some unexpected side effect.