Month: July 2022

Getting the Covid

The red line shone boldly on the at-home test kit yesterday morning, telling me what I already figured. The Covid hds taken my virginity.

It wasn’t a surprise–I spent most of Friday sleeping after jumping on a couple of calls. But the signs were there. Congestion. A cough. Fever. Body aches. A desire to use Microsoft products (from the Bill Gates nanobots in the vaccine).

Yes, I am a fully vaccinated booster person, someone who’s earned whatever immunity could be rendered by taking the shots when they were available, and living through the 3-5 days of hell and the Fibro flare after each dose.

Maybe the vaccines mitigated the harshness of what I have. Maybe they didn’t. But when I’m of a certain age and I have an underlying condition, it seems appropriate to do what I can do to protect myself.

As an aside, I’ve been chastised for not eagerly diving into several days of sickness and a fibro flare because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. When someone’s doing what you want them to do, don’t crawl up their ass about not doing it more eagerly. You aren’t helping your case.

Even Bob Newhart hates that crap.

We went on a cruise last week, though based on timing, I don’t think I got the Covid there. Sure, a school of thought would condemn my irresponsibility for taking a cruise, but the people who would do that would condemn my irresponsibility for going to a ballgame–which I also did–without incident.

We tended to stay away from the crowds just based on what we wanted from the cruise, though we did violate the WHO’s mandate to refrain from all alcohol (odds are, you’ve violated that one, too).

When the tickle emerged, I limited my trips out and wore a mask when I went. The Republic was not diminished.

I didn’t wear a mask for political reasons. I did it because others aren’t fully vaccinated and because I don’t want to make other people sick. It was irritating, but I’m a Jets fan; I’m used to irritation.

Jets fans: masking up since 1970

As for how I feel, if I had to choose between this weekend and the one I spent puking my guts out because I ate something I shouldn’t have, I’d choose this one. At least with my version of the Covid, I wasn’t faithfully recreating a scene from The Exorcist.

It was just a pre-packaged salad.

Odds are, I’ll feel like crap for another day or two, then recover. It’s possible I’ll have a rebound infection. None of that means the vaccines don’t work. It’s possible this variant, the BR-549 variant, is milder than the original. It’s also possible that If I hadn’t been vaccinated, I’d be in a hospital with a hose down my throat.

We just don’t know. And that’s part of the problem–our constant search for absolute certainty where none exists.

I understand that you might read this and be angry–angry at my irresponsibility, angry at my being a friggin sheeple. You get to do that. It’s a difficult and scary time. I’d like to think everyone’s just doing the best then can.

So I have a weekend of crud and the world goes on. Just as it did after my Moderna hangovers and questionable food choices.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da.

The overvaluation of rage

My memories of my grandfather, of both grandfathers, is minimal these days. It’s been more than fifty years, after all. But I had a special bond with my mother’s dad. I’ve been thinking of him this week as Gil Hodges was (finally) inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He was the first baseman on the Brooklyn Dodgers teams of the late 1940s and 1950s. He was also the manager of the 1969 Mets World Series team, back when the Mets were a punchline, expected to be bad forever.

It’s all images now, but Hodges reminds me of my grandfather–a combination of stern and loving that might make you uncomfortable, but always within the context of love.

Both died in the early 1970s and though the number of their contemporaries is dwindling, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with bad things to say about them.

Though everyone gets angry, neither of these men were defined by anger. In that way, they’d each be a little counter-cultural today. Today, rage is good. If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention. We yearn for someone whose righteous indignation will put them, whoever they happen to be today, in their place.

Maybe it’s social media–which I spend too much time on. Maybe it’s just the times we’re in. We’ve gone through a contentious election, on top of a worldwide pandemic, on top of an economic roller coaster with a side of potential war thrown in–and that’s all since 2020. That could even make Gandhi a little edgy from time to time.

But anger plays these days.

Through too much of my adult life, I’ve been too angry. Anger probably defined me. Though a lot of hard work and support, I’ve mostly slayed that dragon. I think I’ve moved toward the type of person my grandfather would’ve appreciated.

We live in a time that demands solutions. Solutions don’t come from domination–from forcing everyone to do what you want. Logically, that kind of resolution to issues can’t last.

There’s too much anger. We need people like my grandfather, like Gil Hodges.

They don’t hate us for our freedom any more

In the fallout from 9/11, many conservatives–including me–said one of the primary reasons for the attacks against this country was that they hated us for our freedoms. After all, in this country, you can go to any church you want–or not go at all. It was a far cry from the Allah-based theocracy the terrorists wanted to establish.

At the time, those were fighting words for some, as the terrorists clearly hated us for our rampant racism and Islamophobia. And Israel. Like all good lies, there was a shred of truth in what they said. Sometimes we aren’t the most welcoming of the others.

But most of us didn’t want to live in a culture where the religious police were watching our every move, making sure we were living right lives for God.

I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

Twenty years later, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor says that Jesus is guiding his steps. Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proud stands on a platform of Christian Nationalism.Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proud stands on a platform of Christian Nationalism.Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proud stands on a platform of Christian Nationalism.

“There’s nothing wrong with leading with your faith,” she said at the Turning Point USA conference. “If we do not live our lives and vote like we are nationalists—caring about our country, and putting our country first and wanting that to be the focus of our federal government—if we do not lead that way, then we will not be able to fix it.”

There’s actually very little wrong with that quote. There is nothing wrong with leading with your faith or voting in what you perceive to be the country’s bests interests. If you were to take away the person making the statement, a lot of people would agree.

The problem comes with quotes like this: “”We need to be the party of nationalism. I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly—we should be Christian nationalists.”

She’s no dummy. She used loaded words that appeal to her base, and are guaranteed to set off her critics. As long as her critics attack her for these statements, she can say that she–and her base–are being threatened, in the crosshairs of liberal secular elites, who would stomp them out. They’re fighting for their very lives and against those who would take Jesus away from them.

Greene’s version of Christian Nationalism is playing out in statements that would have seemed Islamist just a generation ago. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, a number of states turned their attention to interstate abortion travel bans, using civil law to accomplish what criminal law can’t.

JD Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, who’s running for the US Senate in Ohio, is on record as saying that in some cases, people should stay in unhappy and even violent marriages. He says that marriage vows are sacred and should be treated that way.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his opinion on the overturning of Roe v. Wade, practically begged people to bring suits aimed at overturning federal protections for contraception and gay marriage.

Indiana Senator Mike Braun has indicated there’s not necessarily a federal right for interracial couples to marry.

Tell me again about these freedoms they hate us for.

Freedom means people will do things you don’t want them to do. Right now, people like Greene, Vance, Thomas, and Braun are using their freedoms to do the same things the Islamists did–use religion as a lever to force through restrictions on the rights of others.

The last time someone tried to do that in this country we said we’d put a boot in their ass, it’s the American way.

Actual political violence is over the line, but some figurative boots need to be planted in some real-life asses if we value the freedoms they hated us for.

Being an asshole for fun and profit, Matt Gaetz edition

“Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb,” he said. “These people are odious from the inside out. They’re like 5’2″, 350 pounds.”

When he was asked if he suggests women at the abortion rallies are ugly and overweight, the same man said, “Yes.” And when asked what he would say to people who are offended by that remark, he said, “Be offended.”

He is Matt Gaetz, and for some reason people in the panhandle of Florida have elected him as their Congressman. He’s one of twenty Republicans to vote against a bill aimed at curtailing sex trafficking. He’s the only one currently under investigation taking a minor across state lines to have sex–a practice otherwise known as sex trafficking.

Matt Gaetz in Washington with a colleague

In fairness, Gaetz also said that you can disagree with him on abortion and still not be an ugly person, but that the people demonstrating outside Justice Kavanaugh’s house, for instance, are all ugly inside and out.

But his podcast, Firebrand, has a new episode (number 63), called Be Offended, doubling down on his fine eff you to his critics.

There are parts of what Gaetz said that I agree with. Protesting at someone’s home, with their family there, is typically a bad idea. Following them around to disrupt every aspect of their lives is a bad idea.

It’s not lost on people on both sides of this argument that if a conservative justice were to die, it would change the court from a 6-3 conservative majority, to 5-4 with Roberts becoming a swing vote. In other words, we’re living in a powder keg and giving of sparks.

Rather than trying to de-escalate that situation, Gaetz is providing fuel to the fire. The more outrageous he his, the more is opponents will react. And that’ll give him more things to take back to his base.

Politicians have long weaponized fear, but the so-called firebrands of conservatism, including Trump, Gaetz. Hawthorn, Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, are creating a death spiral. They derive their power from enraging their critics and highlighting their outraged reactions. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

In his follow-up to his comments, Gaetz posted a picture of a 19-year-old from Miami named Olivia Julianna, who criticized his comments on Twitter. She used his calling her out to raise $275,000 for abortion rights.

People like Gaetz have no desire to find a middle ground. Finding ways to reduce abortion isn’t part of their game plan. The goal is to use abortion as a political weapon to demonize their political opponents.

And while people on the left have done the same for years, this set of Republicans has made it an art form. No criticism is tolerated–it’s mocked, called out for followers to jump on the bandwagon. If something happens, they can deny responsibility–but understand the impulses that lead to the bad thing. “Justice” by mob rule.

Meanwhile, especially in Gaetz’s case, it allows him a level of immunity from his legal issues. The point about whether he actually took a minor across state lines for sex becomes irrelevant. Any investigation is a witch hunt.

There’s no interest in governing among these people, just using rage to amass power, and then inflaming that rage to keep it and increase it.

The high irony is that some of these same people point to Jesus as an inspiration.

We are a stupid people, murder hornet edition

If I’m going to get stung to death my a wasp the size of Cleveland that looks like something out of the Book of Revelation, at least let it have a bad-ass name. I don’t want to get killed by a microaggression hornet or a jaywalking hornet. I want to get aerially tortured to death by a friggin’ murder hornet.

Except it’s 2022 and we can’t even have bad-ass names for insects that Stephen King couldn’t have imagined. Their given name, vespa mandarinia sounds like an old-people scooter the color of oranges. Because it doesn’t roll off the tongue, we need a name people remember. A snappy name, something that works in a marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, there’s a segment of the population that doesn’t understand that when something bad has the name Asian in it, you don’t get to beat up the Korean family down the street. We call these people morons, which is probably offensive to actual morons (also known as Detroit Lions fans). Because of these morons, we can’t call it the “Asian giant hornet” in spite of the fact that they’re from Asia and they’re big enough that Amazon is considering using them as part of their drone program.

Who’s gonna get offended if we call them murder hornets? Murderers? Despite Bernie Sanders’ best efforts, they don’t get to vote.

It turns out the murder hornets themselves might have an issue with their common name. According to a Mashable article that calls their renaming “a win for insects.” You see “murder hornets was a particularly irresponsible name because it unfairly villainized insects, the foundation of our food web.”

Someone actually wrote those words. Worse yet, someone else paid them to do it.

According to these perpetually offended concerned citizens, “animals don’t ‘murder.’ People, unfortunately, murder people. We don’t need to spin these horrific actions onto insects.”

“In contrast, ‘northern giant hornet’ works well because it provides a good descriptor of where the species is located in Asia without…evoking fear or discrimination.'” (Someone actually got paid to write that, too. By contrast, I do this for free.)

You know what else is in the north? Norway. Denmark. Rick Moranis.

No murder hornets here, eh? But we’s gots plenty a cold ones.

Santa’s in the north. What if people get confused and start blaming Santa for this? Did the geniuses pontificating this horsecrap think about that? Obviously not!

If you’re worried about offending someone, Santa should top the list.

And honestly, wouldn’t you go see a movie called “Santa vs. the Murder Hornets”? I would. Starring The Rock as Santa and Natalie Portman and her massive biceps and shoulders as Mrs. Claus. With Joe Pesci as Leo Getz.

Screw RAID. We’ve got Natalie Portman’s arms.

If you made Santa vs. The Northern Giant Hornet, then you’ll wind up with Nicholas Cage as Santa, Kathy Bates as Mrs. Claus, and that annoying guy who played Dickless in Ghostbusters.

It’s true. This man has no dick. Well, that’s what I heard.

Nobody wants that.

So please, let us just have this one nice thing. Especially since we can’t call it monkeypox any more.

Tampa Nazis. I hate Tampa Nazis.

I don’t recall what caused the exchange, but my social studies teacher in high school, Mr. Lees, looked at me with disdain when I said something about remembering the Holocaust so it would never happen again.

The disdain was for the concept that we’d somehow wiped out the virulent hatred that resulted in an attempt to take over the world and wipe out millions of people simply for being Jewish.

I thought he was nuts and acting a little melodramatically. And I was in eleven grade at the time. If you can’t look at the world with naïve innocence then, when can you?

Then this weekend, Turning Point USA–a conservative youth conference–happened in Tampa. And these guys showed up.

To be fair, the Nazis weren’t numerous. They were a small group of random schmucks who showed up effectively screaming “Look at meeeeeee!” But they showed up. And they got the attention they wanted.

Nazis in this country aren’t new.

The Blues Brothers parodied Chicago-area Nazis and their attempts to march in Skokie, Illinois more than 40 years ago. They’ve never really gone away, operating on the fringes of conservative politics. But in spite of what Democrats have said about every Republican Presidential nominee since Nixon, they’ve only earned condemnation.

Until recently.

This weekend’s conference featured former President Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rick Scott, and Matt Gaetz. The conference’s sponsor Turning Point USA said they tried to have the Nazis removed, but couldn’t, as they were on public property.

The Nazis had a number of flags, including one that said DeSantis Country. In fairness, DeSantis has not openly courted the Tampa Nazis, or any others. But he hasn’t said anything about the protesters, prompting Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried to call on him to condemn the protesters.

The Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, featured a larger gathering of Nazis (and resulted in the murder of a protester). At the time, former President Trump infamously said there were good people on both sides.

Nazis suck. There’s no defending them. There’s no trying to see their viewpoint. For Governor DeSantis to stay quiet in the face of the protest is despicable.

This is part of the group of hardcore hate groups aligned with the Republican Party. That some members of the party can’t find their way to condemn their ideas is very telling.

As someone who’s been called a Nazi on and off for the last 40 years, I don’t have trouble seeing actual Nazis and calling them out as a stain on Lady Liberty’s underwear.

I can’t understand being gay, but it doesn’t matter

It was Yeoman Rand on Star Trek for me. There was just something about her that made her different than the girls in my class. Something that made me look forward to any Star Trek episode she was in.

Then there was that time I got in a fight with a girl in Indian Lake, New York. My grandmother had a house who there and we’d go up in the summer sometimes. It was a way to get away on a budget. The fight wasn’t serious. As I recall it, there wasn’t a lot of anger, very few (if any) punches thrown. But there was wrestling and I really wanted to do that again.

At the time, those were just strange things I didn’t think about much. I was eight or nine, maybe ten years old. There were bikes and baseballs and footballs to consider.

Looking back, though I didn’t know it, that’s when I figured out I was heterosexual.

I can’t imagine if I were a guy and had the same feelings if I were watching Captain Kirk or fighting with that girl’s brother.

I don’t know what God will do when a gay person dies. If that person was decent and did his best to live the life espoused by Jesus and wanted to be with God, I can’t imagine Him casting the guy into hell for having my Yeoman Rand feelings for another guy.

I do know that Jesus told me–a guy who’s done enough bad stuff to deserve hell a zillion times over–to do my best to love my neighbor as He loved me. There’s no asterisk for guys or women who have that Yeoman Rand attraction for each other.

And I also know that the fourteenth amendment guarantees due process under the law to anyone. That should mean that any consenting adult can enter into a contract–which is what marriage is in civil law–with any other consenting adult without my getting in the way.

I don’t understand what it’s like to be gay. But I don’t have to understand.

I just need to treat people decently.

This verse gives me hope today

It’s been a tough week Fibro-wise. Maybe I overdid it last week with the running. Maybe I needed to sleep more. It’s Fibro, so who knows? But the last few days have been a surreal montage of pain, fatigue, and the warped emotional outlook that makes it hard to focus on the task at hand, whatever that may be at the time.

There are people who have it much worse than I do, people whose Fibro is compounded by other conditions that can make life a living hell and any moments of relative normalcy seem like cruel joke–a moment outside the agony to remind them how everyone else lives.

I’m under no illusion. Each good day is a blessing. And every crash or flare could mark the beginning of a new reality. Sleep well, Westley, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.

On the day I’m writing this, I slept very poorly. My body was marbled with pain through the night. I finally gave up at about three and started doing my devotionals for the day.

One of the plans included a verse from Philippians. It’s considered the book of joy in the New Testament, even though Paul wrote it while he was in prison. In my tired Fibro-addled middle-of-the-night mind, I almost cried manly Field of Dreams tears on reading one of the featured verses:

He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

I know people who consider me a fool for believing as I do. I know people who would laugh at the verse and say “the guy you’re counting on giving you a new body is the one who allowed you to get the Fibro in the first place. He’s the cause of your suffering and the people you reference who have it worse. He could stop it immediately if he wanted to.”

There’s truth in that statement. If God is what he says he is, he can snap his fingers and make it all go away. You can talk about sin and free will, but no one willed Fibro into existence. No one said, “hey, let’s make Chris and Bob and Janice and Carrie have extreme pain and fatigue today.”

I can’t answer the people who say those things. But I can find hope in that verse.

I have what I have and right now, I’m going through some bumpy days–days that coincide with some bumpy days at work. I have no idea how this will work out.

So I take hope where I can get it.

This verse gives me hope today.

You can support 2nd Amendment rights without the gun fetish

Let’s be clear.

If, tomorrow, we got Gavin Newsom’s ultimate dream of mandatory gun buybacks and confiscations, the day after tomorrow the crime rate would go through the roof.

We aren’t supposed to say it for some reason, but if you take away all the guns from law-abiding citizens, only the criminals would be armed. The resulting blood bath would be something even filmmaker Michael Bay can’t imagine.

Whether you agree that the Second Amendment is a good thing or not, it’s not going anywhere.

It’s possible for me to take this position without displaying my Rambo gun all over Twitter. But I’m not a Republican running for office. For them, it seems to be an absolute requirement.

Wendy Rogers is running for the Arizona Senate, district 7. Based on her gun-centric Twitter picture, she would think the ATF has assembled outside her front door to drag her off to the re-education camps. As the strongest 2A fighter in the Arizona Senate (amendment isn’t spelled out because peoples’ lips get tired), she will fight, Fight, FIGHT for your freedoms.

For instance, if you’re a domestic abuser who wants the freedom to have a freakin’ arsenal to threaten the stupid skank-bitch you lives with you, Wendy’s got your back. She opposes all red flag laws. If you want to buy a bazooka during the coming Monkey Pox pandemic, she got the legislation passed that says gun retailers are essential businesses.

If you want to pull out your Glock after the beer pong tournament at the frat house on campus next weekend, you’re good to go with Wendy. And if you want to shoot up your apartment after your dumbass landlord raises your rent, she’s on your side.

You might even win a poetry contest.

Every time there’s a mass shooting, the first two words out of most people on the right are mental health. Why would anyone who says mental health is an issue oppose legislation that would remove firearms from those whose mental condition would make them more likely to carry out a mass shooting?

Yes, it’s possible that rogue mental health professionals would raise red flags any time someone said their team lost and it made them a bit sad, but that’s an exception you can manage through legislation and the courts.

While I want law-abiding citizens to keep their guns, there have to be (I hate to use this term, but) common-sense guidelines. The second amendment doesn’t give you the right to own a surface-to-air missile (yet), and no reasonable person would want a domestic abuser or mentally unstable person to have the ability to do mass amounts of harm to themselves and others just so Big Ed down the street with his Cleanup on Aisle 46 window cling is more comfortable about owning 14 AR-15s.

The proliferation of gun-hefting conservatives (particularly the ones issuing hunting permits for other American citizens) is no mistake. It’s a message that says “We may not be in power now, but when we are, there will be a cost to crossing us. Speak out at your own risk.”

President Trump wanted the Vice President assassinated to boost his own power. Yet people still support him.

As I write this, we have the January 6 committee hearings on. Pat Cipollone and Cassidy Hutchinson are both talking about the timeframe in which the “tourists” that invaded the Capitol were chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

They addressed how staff were concerned about the chanting. According to Ms. Hutchinson, she remembered “Pat (Cipollone) saying something to the effect of ‘Mark (former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows), we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the Vice President to be effing hung. And Mark had responded something to the effect of ‘You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it; he doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.'”

The Vice President of this country was being threatened with murder. It would’ve been a political assassination unlike anything in the history of this country. As if that weren’t enough, the President of the United States thought that his assassination would’ve been appropriate–that they were doing nothing wrong.

While this was happening, the President stoked the fire with a tweet that called out Pence for, in Trump’s words, failing to protect the country and the Constitution. Things became so violent that members of the Vice President’s Secret Service detail called their families to say goodbye.

This, all happened in spite of the fact that Trump’s legal attempts to overturn the election results were almost uniformly dismissed and that his own Attorney General, William Barr, and his own cybersecurity expert, Christopher Krebs, both indicated that no material level of election fraud had occurred.

It’s worth saying again because it’s so unbelievable: the President of the United States wanted the Vice President to be assassinated for failing to overturn an election that Trump’s own people indicated was fair.

This isn’t ketchup running down the wall. This isn’t a President angry because his security detail won’t let him enter a dangerous situation. Those things are meaningless.

As Trump tried to lobby friendly Senators, like Tommy Tuberville and Josh Hawley, to overturn the certification of the election, they couldn’t take the calls because they were fleeing the “tourists,” who were set on blood that afternoon.

The people testifying against what the former President so artfully calls the “unselect committee” aren’t Democrats. They aren’t progressives. They aren’t members of the “lamestream media.” They’re members of his own staff at the time–true believers who voted for him and tried to advance his program.

This isn’t an unfair attempt to frame a victimized President. It’s not a political hatchet job. It’s a surreal recounting of events that the President initiated with his Tweet on December 18.

These are events that he stoked with his tweet early in the afternoon January 6.

When he finally told people to go home, he repeated the lies that the people who invaded the Capitol looking to assassinate political leaders were victims.

Lest this be dismissed as political theater, a witch hunt, or anything other than an actual attack on elected members of our government, when the President called Senator Tommy Tuberville, a staunch Trump ally, Tuberville ended the call because of the threat from the “tourists.”

Josh Hawley was seen running from the crowd of peaceful tourists who were invited into Capitol.

Had someone written this as fiction before 2020, it would’ve been dismissed as contrived. But the information is right there, laid out in stark terms that only the willfully blind can ignore.

Meanwhile, the man pretending to be the primary victim in this disgusting attempted coup is playing coy, trying to build momentum to a 2024 run. While he’s not a clear favorite in the coming election, he’s certainly not a dark horse.

The threats raised that day haven’t gone away; they’ve gone underground. Should he run again–and should the election be close, this will happen again. Only this time, the forces that would execute the former President’s political opponents will have an extra four years to study how to complete their tasks.

To say it’s chilling that a significant plurality of Americans still support this man is an almost criminal understatement. The threat didn’t pass by the evening of January 6, it’s been in hibernation.

Springtime is coming.