Posted on 07/17/2021 9:13:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Why did so many Americans receive strange packages they didn’t think they’d ordered?
Sid miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, sat atop his stallion Smokey and faced the camera. It was Saturday, August 1, 2020. Miller had a message to share.
“Good morning, patriots,” Miller began, raising the coiled lasso in his right hand by way of greeting. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of all these surprises coming out of China. First it was the Chinese virus, then we had the murder hornets, then we had to close the embassy in Houston because of espionage … Now we’ve got all these mystery seeds coming in in the mail.”
It was the seeds that Miller wanted to speak about. By then, news of the seeds had been circulating for several days. Packets were turning up at homes across the United States; residents of every state would eventually report receiving them. Their address labels and Customs declarations indicated that they had been sent from China. The contents were usually described as an item of jewelry—something like “rose stud earrings”—but inside would be a small packet of unidentified seeds. There was no evident reason why particular people were receiving particular seeds, or why people were receiving seeds at all.
Miller advised anyone who received one of these packages to handle it with extreme care. “Treat them like they’re radioactive,” he said. As Smokey flicked his tail, the commissioner laid out what he considered to be the worst-case scenario: “My greatest fear is that someone will open these packages up—open these seeds up—and be infected with a new virus of some kind.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I tryed to read it. Really. Made it past the Trump mailing ballot conspiracy but my eyes glasses over after that.
I’ll check back later.
I never heard about that, and the article drops that pretty quickly.
it’s a mini detective story with a twist that’s worth the read
I think he’s right.
BKMK
Interesting. But man the guy loves his words. Thanks for posting!
i dont really want to go to the atlantic site- what’s the main gist? The seeds were carriers of the virus too? They started arriving not long before the virus did?
Does anyone remember the vape emergency where people started having respiratory issues right b4 covid
Me, too. Trying to read was a lot like trying to cross the Gobi Desert on foot with no sleep the night before. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled to get to the end of this ponderous work. Leo tolstoy’s got nothing on this guy.
Anyway the bottom line seems to be that he thinks most people actually ordered seeds, then forgot. Sounds like BS, but going back and studying his reasoning would be too much for me.
Now I must rest
You’re not going to tell us? I don’t want to go to the Atlantic website. Can you synthesize it?
A kudzu variant?
A ponderous piece. The author should be commended for dogged pursuit of the facts and for taking interest in all of those whom he contacted. In fact, he would make a good investigative journalist. My only complaint is that his writing stretched far beyond what is necessary in terms of length and detail. A+, however, for subject matter. No spoiler alert here. Read it and weeeeeeeep.
Also, about this same time, Americans began getting weird calls from the “Chinese Embassy.” People all over my town were getting them.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/chinese-embassy-robocall-scam-rakes-in-40m-from-victims
I think he’s right. I ordered a number of little dress-up things for my cars and bikes at the beginning of the pandemic, actually received them I guess, but put them away in a box to install later on. Completely forgot about them until I happened onto the box just recently.
The occasional Atlantic articles I’ve read were all like that. I actually enjoy that writing style which is very different from the concise, shallow writing I more often see on the Internetz.
Tyler Rogoway at The Drive/Warzone writes in much the same, voluminous way, with every hypothesis fleshed out in its entirety. Reading two or three of his articles will occupy an entire evening.
What is the purpose of these calls?
If these seeds are a mystery, all one needs to do is put a few in soil, water, and watch what comes up. There should be nothing hare about that.
?
Some were regular plants, a few were plants that could interfere with other plants. They didn't necessarily find out what all of them were.
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