April 24, 2020
Dear Everyone:
The Coronavirus Pandemic continues to disrupt our lives.
For the record, “coronavirus” is the name of the pathogen.
“Covid-19” is the official name of the disease caused by the
virus, because it first emerged in 2019.
The State of California has officially ordered all gyms closed
for the duration.
This means that I can no longer use our little “Fitness Center”, also
known simply as “The Gym. So
I can’t walk on the treadmill; but that doesn’t mean I can’t walk around
the neighborhood. I just
have to make sure not to do it between the hours of 10:00 am and 2:00
pm. This is when the
sunlight is most likely to cause my fair skin to burn, even on cloudy
days.
Just walking can be a bit boring, so I looked for something the listen
to while I walked. I have
satellite radio in my car, so I already have a subscription.
It didn’t take too long to download the app to my smartphone and
get logged in. Now I can
listen to music of many different flavors while walking.
I can even listen to any one of various news networks.
Thus I was out walking the other day, and happened to find myself
listening, with ever increasing incredulity, to Donny the Magnificent
and His Magical Travelling Medicine Show.
Donny the Magnificent used to have carefully
orchestrated rallies, in which judiciously screened “fans” were
assembled to listen in rapt attention, and with frequent interruptions
of ecstatic applause, to Donny’s verbal ramblings.
In fact, Donny liked the campaign rallies so much that he kept on
having them long after his campaign ended with the Presidential Election
of 2016.
Now, with the Coronavirus
Pandemic, even Donny can’t justify gatherings of thousands of people for
the express purpose of stroking his overinflated ego.
So Donny, who avoided press briefings like (pardon the
expression) The Plague, now has resorted to holding daily press
briefings with his “Coronavirus Task Force” of medical experts.
The only problem is:
People are much more interested in what the medical experts have
to say than in listening Donny’s self-congratulations.
Frankly, the medical experts are routinely upstaging Donny, and
that is something Donny just can’t stand.
He even dragged the head of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (commonly shortened to just
“CDC”) out to refute having said something Donny didn’t want to hear.
Instead the (soon-to-be-former) head of the CDC pronounced that
he had NOT been misquoted by The Washington Post.
Then Donny trotted out the Task
Force, who calmly repeated that there is no “magic bullet” cure, that a
vaccine is over a year away and the best approach for now is the same
one as the day before: Stay
Home, Stay Safe, Save Lives.
Boring…boring…boring… AND not
spending a lot of money in the process, unless you count paying for
movies On Demand.
With the medical emergency taking
up everyone’s attention, plus the economy in free-fall, Donny
desperately needs a “magic bullet”.
For weeks, he tried to promote a remedy for malaria, which
studies seem to indicate are counter-indicated for Covid-19 because of a
battery of side effects, including heart failure and, coincidentally,
death.
So Donny forged ahead and “promoted” applying Ultraviolet (UV) light
“internally”, or injecting disinfectants directly into the lungs to
destroy the virus. I
couldn’t actually see Dr. Deborah Birx, leader of the Task Force,
squirming in her seat, as Donny continued making ludicrous suggestions
for “studies”; but I certainly imagined it, and saw it later in
frequently run repeats on TV.
One day later, Donny is claiming that he was “only joking” or “being
sarcastic” when he made the suggestion.
Over 50,000 people in the United States have died so far, nearly
200,000 around the world, and he thinks it’s a good time to make light
of the situation with jokes and sarcasm?
Not really. It’s just the
best he can come up with is:
You Fake News just don’t know a joke when you hear one.
This is all part of his usual Standard Operating Procedure (SOP):
Deny, distract, attack.
He didn’t say it. Or it
wasn’t really what he said or meant.
It’s all the fault of the Fake News; or the Media in general.
People and his precious economy continue to sicken and some to die.
I can’t wait to see what rabbit Donny the Magnificent will pull
out of his hat next.
In the meantime, staying home, walking alone in the neighborhood,
listening to nonsense on the smartphone.
This is how we spend our days.
On the Plus Side: No one is
dropping bombs on our heads.
We have power and electricity, plenty of TV to watch and books to read,
or listen to. Hot water.
Running water, for that matter.
Appliances that work.
My freezer is absolutely stuffed.
As Natural Disasters go, this one has been fairly easy all things
considered.
Love, as always,
Pete
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