In Which I Almost Disagree With a Blogger Whom I Admire

 Kevin Drum is at it again.  To wit:

And while we're on the topic, can we please, once and for all, give up on the "COVID has changed life forever" genre? It hasn't. It's already obvious that things will return almost completely to normal over the next few months and that the experience of living through a pandemic has neither enriched our lives nor taught us to cherish our friends and neighbors even more. All it's done is make us cranky.

Thanks again.  If Kevin's right, this whole blog has been a waste of time, sort of.  That's not his fault, of course, but... sheesh.

"And while we're on the topic..."  What topic?  This apocolyptic quote comes from a post describing the changes in traffic speed on the northbound 405 freeway which runs near his house in Irvine, Orange County, outside of Los Angeles, California.  Lower speeds are bad, because that indicates traffic jams.  Speeds improved during the pandemic which, I suppose, is over in California.  Now Kevin notes that they're back to normal:

Looks to me like the traffic jams are two hours shorter now than in June of 2019.  Maybe the pandemic isn't over in California?  Or maybe....  Nah.   Never mind.  It can't possibly be that even one person who was commuting to an office in 2019 might have found a way to work from home permanently - and therefore no longer contributes to traffic on the 405.  Couldn't be.