Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

This Is Why I Read The Last Page Of The Book

I have long had a habit that annoys my family members.  I read the last page of books.  That's not all.  I read recaps to find out what is going to happen in a series I am watching.  I ask "what is going to happen" when with one of my kids and we are watching something they have seen before.

Drives them to distraction.  They simply do not understand why I would "ruin" something for myself.

I have always tried to explain that if it ruined it, I would not ask.  It reality it does not ruin anything for me at all.  It actually makes the viewing, reading, experiencing better.  Again, FOR ME. 

But until the past five years, acutely in the past few months, and finally, firmly, gutwrenchingly last night, I did not really understand at the deepest level why I do it.  In the middle of the night, when sleep just would not come, I finally got it.

My youngest, 23, a champion for every underdog since he was a child; a young man who inhabits his own very marginalized and targeted demographic in society, attended a protest last night in his city of Denver.  I did not know he was going.

Wait - let me correct that.  After everything I wrote yesterday; after seeking out the feedback from all three of my adult children who know my heart and what I was trying to get across; after declaring very clearly that white privilege is our power; after stating that we must not only stand with the black community, but IN FRONT OF THEM, I knew he was going to do it, I just did not KNOW he was going and when. 

It was only when I checked Twitter while filling the bathtub, a bath I never ended up taking, that I saw he was there.  Reading his Tweets, my heart dropped to my feet. 

I will stop right here and tell you that if you take issue with the FUCK THE COPS portion, 1. you were not there, and 2. You have not been paying attention.

How many reports, studies, photos, and videos do you need to read and see until you finally understand that there is a deadly problem within our police force?  Infiltrated by low IQ thugs, white nationalists, neo Nazis, and racists galore - we are certainly not sending our best out into the streets to "serve."  And for every bad apple?  Yes, there are thousands of officers who would never kneel on a neck till a man is dead, but as long as those thousands remain silent, they are bad apples themselves.  Because they know who the dangerous cops are, and they protect them with their silence.  They stand by, they cover, they are mute.  And black people continue to die in their silence.

Police, especially these days, are not some sacrosanct subset that is above reproach.  And until they begin to police themselves and root out the corruption, dangers, bad apples, and thugs in their ranks?  REPROACH, REPROACH, REPROACH.  Chris Rock boiled it down best:

“...Here’s the thing. I know being a cop is hard. I know that shit's dangerous. I know it is, okay? But some jobs can’t have bad apples. Some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like…pilots. Ya know, American Airlines can’t be like, ‘Most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples that like to crash into mountains. Please bear with us.’

But back to my son.  I frantically texted him, texted his siblings to find out if they knew he was planning on going.  I have never held my breath so hard as when the three little dots began blinking indicating he was writing back to me.  At that point he was trying to move away because "They're shooting off fireworks or something so close to us."

"Was trying to stand towards the front with the other white people as a shield."

He then sent me a photo of where he had now been hit twice by rubber bullets. 

With each moment that passed as I waited for him to respond to me, I realized exactly why I read the last page of the book.  That adrenaline, the suspense, the surprise that most people live for?  I do not.  I needed to know, NOW.

I needed to know how last night was going to end.  I needed to know my child was going to get away and home safely.  I needed to know he was going to put head to pillow and wake up this morning.

I have been going over this "last page" thing all morning.  Since Trump slithered down his escalator in 2015, I have needed the last page.  Since he trapped children in cages I have needed the last page.  With every increasingly egregious, dangerous tweet, I have needed the last page.  With every death in the now 104,995 COVID deaths, I have needed the last page.

I need to know this will end.  I need to know how.  I need to know that right will defeat virulent might.  I need to know this country is not lost.  That there will be a sequel with brighter days, different characters in charge, less death, more appreciation of life.  That there will be a chapter in which racism is pulled out by the root and gasoline is poured into the hole and set ablaze to fully destroy any remnants left behind.

The suspense is not, in the figurative sense, killing me - it is, in the very literal sense, killing us.

I lay in bed last night, staring into the dark, knowing my child was finally safely locked inside his apartment.  But sleep would not come.  I was, and continue to be, choking on a combination of immense pride and overwhelming fear.  I know how I raised my children.  I raised them the right way.  They do not see themselves as better than; they do not judge anyone on their skin color, their religion, their orientation, their culture - only on their behavior.  They stand up for what is right, knowing that what is right is often not what is easy. 

Until last night, I did not fully understand how raising them right could end up putting them in danger.

My son recounted for me how they were all peacefully standing, not moving forward at all, chanting, "Hands up, don't shoot", yet the rubber bullets flew anyway.  Indiscriminately, with no catalyst.  The tear gas canisters went off. 

Chillingly, he told me about someone near him who tried to incite with words like "let's light this place up!"  He sensed immediately, as did those around him, that this person was either an undercover cop or other white, planted instigator.  Within minutes I read that the governor of Minnesota had publicly stated white supremacists and drug cartels are suspected of infiltrating the protests.  Then, the mayor of St. Paul, MN stated that every single person arrested last night in the rioting was from out of state.  Video after video is going up showing undercover police officers infiltrating peaceful protesters, others openly, aggressively manhandling peaceful protesters.  More and more footage of white people, not black people, breaking windows and casually walking away when confronted.

Update: Got her permission with a fuck yeah. The cop pushed her so hard at Barclays & she flung back. She is tiny. Now she’s in the ER after a serious seizure. I’m waiting for updates but have to wait outside because of COVID-19. Please keep my protest sister in your thoughts. pic.twitter.com/MqV0QJ0D8h

— Whitney Hu 胡安行 (@whitney_hu) May 30, 2020

The young woman in the video ended up in the hospital with seizures and a concussion.  Additional cellphone video show her backing away from this roid rage officer when he reached out and threw her.

The danger out there is so very real.  The miscreants and wastes of oxygen who have lived their lives to start a race war, to have their Boogaloo, "civil war", are out there, organizing, and deadly.  They are the real caravans we should fear, not some made up, Trumpian-border bullshit.  Last night, a 19 year old protester was shot to death in Detroit when a Dodge Durango pulled up to a crowd and began shooting into it.

Again, this is why I need to read the last page.  Last night was not the first or the last, just one of many in between pages on which death and destruction will take place.  Pages on which deception and villains and innocent people will be embattled.  Pages which will be covered in real blood, covered in tears from gas, in bruises from rubber bullets.  Pages which will detail how young adults like my son are waking up this morning, shaken, older in many ways, yet more determined than ever.

That is what the racists and Proud Boys and bigots do not understand.  You are outnumbered and there has been a sea change.  You will not win.  Your ugly, vile beliefs about your supremacy will be dragged naked into the square and you will be shown as the ignorant cowards you are.  Like your equally bile inducing leader.

We have a Coward In Chief gleefully tweeting this morning about how cool his Secret Service agents are.  You can feel his masturbatory excitement in his words about "the most vicious dogs and most ominous weapons I have ever seen."  He then added a tweet ending with "Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE."

This orange blimp of rancid gases, not imploring the country to remain calm, not reassuring us that justice will be served, not providing direction in chaos.  No, he is there hiding behind his Twitter page and fortified bunker, directing his dullardly troops and pouring gasoline on an already smoldering situation. 

Tonight is going to be an awful repeat of last night across this nation.  Only I fear it will be much worse.

Decency is up against deplorability.  Justice is squaring off against juvenile maturity at best.  Honor is up against horror.  Rationale is set against racism.  Our better angels are up against the worst of our nature.  Humanity is engaged in a death match against those who do not see others as human.

We must win this.  Once and for all, we must.  We must fight together and we must write this final chapter together.  The black community has suffered and endured and persevered since the very first day they were stolen and forced into slavery to build the wealth of white people.  They have lived and died in the shadow of our passivity.  We know their plight.  We always have.  We have just never truly moved on their behalf in the numbers that will make the lasting difference.  This video clip is so very telling.  Watch and ask yourself if you would have stood up.  I'm honest.  I wouldn't have.

“If you, as a White person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our Black citizens do in this society, please stand.” pic.twitter.com/dFN6frQnZn

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) May 30, 2020

All the Malcom X and MLK memes and gifs and quotes in this world will not effect the change we need to bring about in this world.  They may inspire us.  They may punctuate what we are living through in this moment.  They may help coalesce in our hearts and minds what we are feeling.  But until we all stand and move as one, we will watch again and again as black person after black person utters the last words, "I can't breathe."

Y’all matter to us 🖤 #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/JePzv9fY9x

— Byron Innit (@byst) May 29, 2020

Last night, I could not breathe either, but I was not going to die.  Sometimes you only realize that you have been holding your breath when you finally exhale.  Last night I feared for my child's safety.  But in the light of this day, I have not asked him to stay home.  That may surprise some people.  But I know he will go again and again. 

Because I raised him right, and that scares me to no end now.

This is why I read the last page of the book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you plan on joining a protest, please do not go alone.  Stay in pairs at least.  Let someone know you are going.  (I would not have worried less had I known ahead of time about my son going, but finding out via his update on Twitter was a gutpunch.)  Update them as you can.  Let them know when you are home safe.  Make sure your phone is charged and record everything.  Video evidence is the best weapon we have for change right now.  White protesters, get between police and your black peers.  Protect them.  Carry saline solution to wash over your eyes if tear gassed.  Please wear a mask - this pandemic is not over.   Do not be incited into violent action - that is what infiltrators want.  Walk away from them.

If you cannot join a protest, that is ok.  But you can be part of the process Beyond the Streets.  26 Ways To Be In The Struggle

White Power Must Take On A Profound New Meaning

We warned you back in 2015.  We told you to listen, to pay attention.  We laid out his history.  We beseeched you to take him at his mangled words.  But you defended him.

Children were stolen and put in cages, so many to never see their parents again.  We begged you to find compassion in what counts as your hearts.  But you defended him.  You even laughed.

He refused to divest his holdings, put them in a blind trust.  You learned the word emoluments because of his open, egregious behavior.  But you defended him.

He has golfed more than he has governed - provably true.  But you continue to defend him.

He embraced dictators, murderous leaders of other countries, acts which on any other president you would have shit yourselves blind, yet you defended him.

Tweet after juvenile tweet went up with name calling, lies, the fomenting of more hate.  And you defended him.

He mocked a disabled reporter.  He abused a Gold Star family.  He defamed a POW and lion of the Senate.  He dodged the draft five times himself.  But you defended him.

He ignored his daily briefings about coronavirus for months.  He got rid of the people who would have helped.  104,135 people dead in a pandemic - the numbers only continuing to rise.  Yet he literally said the words, "I take no responsibility" and you continue to defend him.

Twitter finally put up the tiniest of disclaimer under his demonstrably false tweets about voting by mail - something they, as a private company are allowed to do.  He lost his mind and immediately signed an EO threatening our First Amendment rights.  The White House is actively compiling "watch lists" of people who dare call out his bullshit.  Yet you defend him. 

He encouraged the police "don't be too nice."  Said these words in 2017 with police as a full backdrop: “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head, I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’ “

And last night, he Tweeted the words "when the looting starts the shooting starts" - a blatant, active threat of violence against United States citizens.  Twitter applied a filter because it glorifies violence.  So he had it Tweeted from the official White House Twitter account.  They applied the same filter.  And you are out in hordes defending him this morning.

We sit here today - the decent, caring, honest people of this nation - gobsmacked - because of what has been wrought by him with your defense in just three and a half year's time.

Cities are burning because behaviors sanctioned by him, encouraged by him, applauded by you, have pushed us to the brink. 

I will be very honest here.  As a United States citizen, I am ashamed.  As a white person, I am both ashamed and horrified.  I know my heart.  I know my actions.  I know how I believe, deeply, fully, in every cell of my being.  But an ally, especially a white one, can only understand up to a certain point.  Because my reality is, and has always been, so very different.  We white people may be ashamed and horrified, but we are not powerless.  We must admit that and put that power into action.

I see the heartache.  I watch as black mothers and fathers express their fear for their children.  I hear the pain, the grief, the hopelessness, the anger.

But I am privileged to not know it as the very air I breathe because it has never been the air I breathe.  I walk freely.  I drive freely, sometimes too fast.  I enter businesses without a thought.  I navigate this entire world in a way so many people who are dear to my heart, my life, cannot.  In ways they have never been able to simply because they are black or brown, and we live in a country where melanin makes them immediately suspect, less worthy, targeted, endangered.

And I am sorrier than I will ever be able to express to them, to every marginalized person in this nation, on this planet.

I did nothing to earn my ease.  I am simply the byproduct of two white people fucking without protection.  That is it.  Just like every other white person.  I am not some lab experiment in which some bullshit notion of supremacy was measured and applied.  I am not the result of the best, brightest, most worthy humans to ever procreate.  I love my parents, but again, they are just two white people who fucked.

That is it.  End of story.

I watched as the story of Eric Garner unfolded.  A black man choked to death on a city street over cigarettes without tax stamps.11 times he begged for his life, "I can't breathe."  In the end, he died on the sidewalk, a cop's arm around his neck.  I was sickened. 

I can't breathe.  Jesus, how often do we need to hear these as the last words of so many black people?

I watched the news of Sandra Bland.  A black woman pulled over for a minor traffic violation.  She was dead in a cell by the end of the weekend. You defended the cop who was found to have lied his way through his account of her arrest.

Six years ago I watched as the news of Michael Brown captured the nation.  Another unarmed black man shot dead in the street.  His killer, another cop who got his version to the grand jury - conveniently Michael was dead and could not defend himself - walked free.  Ferguson erupted in response.  You defended the cop, mocked the pain of the community.

Philando Castile was murdered by police, shot five times at close range.  He was in the passenger seat of a car driven by his girlfriend with his four year old daughter in the backseat.  He TOLD the officer he had a firearm.  He TOLD the officer he was not reaching for it.  He died nonetheless.

My mouth dropped as the story of Breonna Taylor's killing rose to the national spotlight.  Shot to death in her own home, in her own bed when police busted in while her household slept.  Eight bullets in her.  It was a "mistake" they cannot take back.  But you defend the police involved.  Nowhere, as you clutch your metal phalluses, do you defend the right of her boyfriend to have defended his household with his gun in the middle of the night as unknown people busted in.  Interesting.  Only it's not.  It's predictable.  In your world, black people are not supposed to have the same guns (or rights) you have.

Ahmaud Aubrey was chased by armed white men, fenced in with their vehicles, the whole thing filmed as he tried to defend himself.  He was shot dead in the street.  You defended the white rednecks.

And now, George Floyd, another unarmed black man is murdered in broad daylight, a video watched by millions - yet his killer still walked free all week.  The three who stood by and did nothing to intervene walk free.  You defend the indefensible.  How about we put a knee to your precious white neck for 10 minutes?  Grind your face into the asphalt.  Ignore your pleas.  Keep applying pressure as your last words are "I can't breathe"? 

Never mind, you're white.  It would never happen.  Dylann Roof shot 9 people dead in a church in South Carolina and when caught by police, kid gloves. And they took him to fucking Burger King.

Armed white people shut down the Michigan legislature just weeks ago, yet not a single act of police aggression occurred against them.  You defended them and we endured your lectures about their 2nd amendment rights to threaten over not being able to get hot wings.

Protests against the senseless murder of George Floyd take place and tear gas immediately flies.  You defend it all.

A black reporter is arrested on live TV this morning as he reports on the protests in Minneapolis.  His white co-reporter, feet away, is not.   And you are out in full force defending it.

Derek Chauvin, the police officer and MAGAt who brazenly killed Floyd, is FINALLY arrested this morning.  Twitter is aflame with your indignation and your defense of him.

Because you believe, in the safety of your rotten soul, that the rules for black people are rules you and cops like Chauvin will never have to fear being applied to your lives.  You can break laws, violate executive orders because you demand Super Cuts be reopened.  And you know nothing will happen to your lily white ass. 

You defend Trump.  You defend his words, his behavior, his acts, his virulent racism.  You defend the wholesale murder of those you consider less than.  You have defended this bloated orange blight on humankind right down the line for years now.  Years that have led us to where we now stand.  A country fighting two pandemics - COVID-19 and systemic racism.

We are on the edge of an abyss.  And yet you somehow think you cannot fall off the edge.  You are wrong.

As I said above, I cannot fully ever comprehend the complete fear the black community lives in every moment of their lives, awake or asleep.  I cannot fully ever experience the searing anger inside them as they see how their lives are repeatedly taken without consequence.  I cannot fully ever walk a mile in their shoes.

But what I can do is defend them.  Defend their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this nation that has never once lived up to those words.

This country was built on their backs.  This country was founded on rioting.  Tea Party ring a bell?  So forgive me if I don't feel Target's pain.  Or Autozone.  Or any other business that experienced anger, frustration, and rage last night.  They have insurance.  They will be fine.

The black community will not be fine.  And it is time for the white community - at least the decent portion that truly sees the inequities and is horrified by it all - to stand with them.  Hell, not even with them.  IN FRONT OF THEM.  Being an ally only has teeth if you use those teeth to rabidly take hold in defense of those being hurt.  Being an ally means that while you may never fully understand another's reality, you acknowledge it - its truth, its pain, its fears - and you stand up with everything at your disposal in their defense.

Including your white skin. 

Women and men like this cannot be the minority in these protests anymore.  We must come out in numbers too big to ignore.  Willing to inhale tear gas and exhale our determination and indignation and refusal to allow the slaughter of black people to continue.  We have been sickened, heartwrenched, outraged, and passive for far too long.  Our privilege IS our power.

Racism is real.  The murders that have gone on for centuries cannot be undone.  But it can finally be dragged kicking and screaming into the village square and put down like the filthy rabid beast it is.  But it is not up to the black community to do it.  They did not ask for this, they did not create this dynamic.  It will take white people joining with them and turning their pale cloaking device into an absolute weapon.  A weapon to defend the black community.  A weapon to root out racism in our police forces, military, and governing offices, no matter where that may be - the smallest of city councils or sitting behind the Resolute Desk.

You people - the racists, the white nationalists, the bigots, the MAGAts, the cowards strapped up like Rambo, the keyboard warriors who live to persecute online, the GOP, the crooked and the quiet in our police force - you are all to blame for where we find ourselves.  Every. Single. One. Of. You.

You were warned from the beginning, but you gleefully defended a madman because he endorsed the horror that you are to other humans.  You think we are impotent.  We are not.  And we outnumber you dramatically.

Your "white power" has always had an awful murderous connotation.  We will profoundly rework it and use our extreme white privilege as power.  White people are about to be your worst nightmare. 

In The Grand Scheme

It is amazing to see how dramatically our lives have changed in just over two months.  (I know, March seems three years ago.)

We have watched as 40 million have been thrown out of work by a pandemic whose only evidence of existence is in the dead bodies it leaves behind.

103,117 of our fellow citizens will never know another summer.

We have masks in our cars, purses, backpockets, on our desks, and dangling around our necks, ready to be wrapped around our ears.

We live for a bi weekly trip to the grocery store when we get to see other people, even at a distance.

We have seen the best of us in our healthcare workers, grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, and drive thru employees.

We have seen the worst of us in aggression, violence, and willful, belligerent , thoughtless ignorance writ large.

We have watched as the Oval resident has moved swiftly, not to protect us with testing or to order PPE, but against Twitter because they hurt his feelings.

We long for what was our normal.  Planning vacations, taking weekend jaunts, meeting friends for happy hour, picking our kids up after school, having date night.

What we have lost cannot be measured.  Yes, we know about the stadium/city sized loss of life.  But we have also lost an innocence, a naivete of which we had not even been aware.  We have lost the ability to take life or even breath for granted.

So we have adapted.

We wear our masks.  We wash our hands, use our wipes, slather on hand sanitizer.  We social distance as much as possible.

We Zoom.  We Facetime.  We Skype.  We Google Hangout.

We play board games like in the olden days.  We keep ourselves occupied with puzzles, books we finally have time to read.

We drain dry the well of movies, series, documentaries, and specials on our streaming platforms.  (Recent Sharp house faves?  The Young Pope/The New Pope, Schitt's Creek, a complete rewatching of the Entourage series and movie, and diving back into the glory of Deadwood.)

We rail at the fates as we miss special dates on the calendars - birthdays we would have celebrated with others, weddings postponed, anniversaries, dances, and graduations.

In our family, we have watched as our daughter and future son-in-law had to move their wedding date from June to August, with no certainty that the fall date will hold.  And this morning, when we should have been sweating in the Boston heat, drinking in the grandeur of the medical campus of Harvard, we had to watch our daughter's long anticipated graduation ceremony take place online.

Just as with the televised event to honor this nation's high school graduates a couple weeks ago, I am immensely grateful to the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard for the care they took in providing this for these graduates, for their families.

Our family, spread like warm butter on toast, from Boston all the way to Seattle and many points in between, watched the event together, but apart.  These students, from around the world, all found their way to TH Chan out of a deep desire to help others.  That they emerge with their respective degrees in the midst of a global crisis is humbling for them all.  And we should be deeply grateful for their efforts to both get to this day, and for every day they spend on our behalf going forward.

Watching the speeches, listening to the dean's words of encouragement, I was again profoundly struck at just how different our world is, in such a very short time.

As they got to our daughter's area, our breathing quickened.  While I so wished we could have been watching her ascend a stage to receive her diploma, all that suddenly mattered was that she knew we were with her.  The same as if we had been somewhere in a sea of proud friends and family, Kendall knew we were all watching, all holding our breath to see her beautiful face appear, to hear her dean speak her name.

When it did, tears filled our eyes.

When it was over, we all participated in a group Facetime to celebrate her, congratulate her, tell her how very proud we all are.  And then, we all said goodbye and vaporized back into our aloneness.

I am grateful for so many things today.  For my children who support one another in the brutal and hilarious ways only understood by the three of them.  I am grateful for my parents, for Rudy's parents, who tackled the technology to be able to watch with us all.  I am grateful for my sister and brother in law for smiling so big as they talked to her afterwards, their pride so very evident. I am beyond grateful for the parents of Kendall's boyfriend, both Harvard professors themselves, who took Daniel's old high school cap and gown and a bottle of wine over to her this afternoon to take pictures and celebrate her at a safe distance.  I am grateful for friends who indulged me and clicked on the link to watch for her face, hear her name.

Our world has changed.  So very much.  And we don't know when this ride will stop or where it will deposit us when it does.  We can see that the earth is repairing itself in our absence.  Pollution clearing, levels dropping, sea creatures appearing, land animals, too.  And those of us smart enough to take notice, to learn from what we are experiencing, what we are seeing, will be able to engage and enact the changes we need to start making.

 

But today, I am thankful and my heart is full.  Because there are now 103,233 people who will never watch their child graduate, see their daughter say I do, go to another movie, complain about a cliffhanger, post another funny meme, bitch about a workday, ride the bus, travel afar, hug a parent, learn their ABCs, or chafe under a mask.

Think about them as you go about your day, as you long to hug a relative, as you look forward to going back to work, as you roll your eyes at having to homeschool another day, as you drink a little too much, finish the Ben and Jerrys, stare wistfully out the window, take a deep breath.  We can still do all these things.  So in the grand scheme?  We have got everything we need to sustain us, everything we need to endure the days ahead.

Congratulations to my daughter Kendall, who moves on now to pursue her doctorate, and to all the TH Chan School of Public Health graduates who are adapting to this new world of ours and moving out into it to tackle what lies ahead.  We are so grateful you are on our side.  #Veritas

Black Lives Do Not Matter When Police Take The Knee

When Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the pregame anthem back in 2016, he was very clear as to his reason and intent.  "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."to bring attention to the dramatic abuses black people endure at the hands of police in this country."

For his efforts he was lambasted as unpatriotic, disrespectful of the military (even though it was a former serviceman who suggested the knee), lost support in his profession, and was called a "son of a bitch" by the weakest SOB to ever walk the halls of the White House.

He endured it all then, he endures it all now.  And now, as in then, he is not wrong.  The disparity between how white people are treated vs how anyone who has more melanin gets treated is stark.  And deadly.

(And no, I am not ignoring the fact that now 100,411 people have died of COVID.  But there are two lives right now that need addressed - one died, one could have died - and this is a pandemic all its own.)

This morning, all over social media, another murder of a black man, perpetrated by a police officer can be seen.  Last evening in Minneapolis, police responded to a "forgery in progress" and found the man in his car.  The officers say they thought he was "under the influence" and offered the usual "physically resisted officers.”

Let's say both those pan out - that he was under some sort of drug/alcohol influence, and he resisted being dragged from his car where he was harming no one.  What transpires next is horrific.  I post it here because I believe everyone should see it.  Because this man deserves to have the world see what was done to him.  If you have been around long enough, you know my stance.  I do not look away, because looking away is a form of privilege that I cannot stomach.

George Floyd, handcuffed and facedown - no threat to anyone, least of all the officers, has his head crushed into the ground by the knee of the officer on his neck.  He is heard begging, crying.  “I cannot breathe! I cannot breathe!  Don’t kill me!”

Even as bystanders are filming and pleading with the officers, it continues for ten minutes.  “You’re going to just sit there with your knee on his neck?” 

More time passes and blood begins to leak from the man's nose.  The knee remains.  Witnesses then see he stops moving at all, stops crying and begging for his life. 

“Bro, he’s not even fucking moving!” one bystander pleaded to police. “Get off of his neck!”

Another asked, “Did you kill him?”

He died.  Not because of forgery.  Not because of being under the influence of anything.  Not because he was resisting.  He died for one reason:  Because he was black. 

In the past two weeks I have watched videos of three white people verbally resist police officers.  I have watched as one dared to drive off from an officer, then when pulled from her vehicle she proceeded to strike out and kick the officer.  The only thing he pulled from its holster was a taser.  The other white woman came at an officer aggressively screaming, flailing.  Again, a taser.  A white man came at officers with a hatchet.  He is still alive.  Not a bullet was spent.

Now color their skin black and I dare you to tell me the outcome would have been the same. 

I am so fucking sick of watching video after video of police officers killing black people and having nothing come of it.  Paid leave while it is "investigated."  Then suddenly they are back at work like nothing ever happened.  To them.  While another black family, and every black family, is left with the grief and revalidated truth that their loved one's life was worth nothing - not patience, not protocol, not professionalism, not justice.

Sandra Bland was pulled over for a minor traffic violation, manhandled, and thrown in a jail cell.  She died under still suspicious circumstances.  The officer was found to have lied about the details of her arrest.  No matter, she was still dead. 

I was pulled over for speeding and the officer not only joked with me about 80s music, he knocked $100 off my ticket and told me to have a good day.  I was not removed from my vehicle.  I did not go to jail. 

The difference? I am white.  My skin provides me with an undeniable get out of trouble free card in this world.  I am given the benefit of the doubt.  I am not followed through stores.  I am not see as a threat to law enforcement.

Now, part of that is because I am not a threat to law enforcement.  But neither was Sandra Bland.  She just did not have the benefit of my pale cloaking device.

Just like the man who died with an officer's knee on his neck.

Let me make something clear:  MY WHITE LIFE IS NOT WORTH MORE THAN HIS, HERS, OR YOUR BLACK LIFE.

But it doesn't matter that I know that, feel that, believe that.  Until law enforcement understands that, internalizes that, teaches that, this scenario will continue to play out with deadly consequences.

I am also done with watching video after video of white women using their fragile Karen tears to endanger black men.  Another went up yesterday and quickly caught fire online.  Amy Cooper had her dog off leash in an area of Central Park where that was against the rules.  It is a well known and protected bird watching area. The man who asked her to put it back on the leash is black.  He had the foresight to protect himself by videoing their exchange.  What she did is sickening, and she did it without hesitation.

She called 911 and employed fake fear, clear deceit, and the most potent weapon - white woman tears, telling the dispatcher she is being "threatened" by an "African American man" and pleading desperately for them to "please send the cops."  She repeats the absolutely fake script, adding heightened tension, panic and tears in her voice.

Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash. pic.twitter.com/3YnzuATsDm

— Melody Cooper (@melodyMcooper) May 25, 2020

AT NO POINT WAS HE NEAR HER.  AT NO POINT DID HE MOVE TOWARDS HER.  (In fact, he asks her to not come near him.)  AT NO POINT DOES HE THREATEN HER OR HER DOG.

White woman tears are a thing, and they are deadly.  Emmitt Till died because of white woman tears.  And the lies she lubricated with them.

When police arrived, both parties went on their way, the police chalking it up to a "verbal dispute."  Something that would not have happened if Christian Cooper had not recorded the interaction to protect himself.  The video went up online last night and quickly spread.  With good reason.  She intentionally endangered an innocent man's life and without the video he took, no one would believe him.

With the evidence, Amy Cooper has now found herself without the dog she practically strangled in the video (the shelter where she adopted it days ago took it back), and without her job at Franklin Templeton - they apparently did not appreciate the heat she brought on herself and them.

Of course, poor misunderstood white woman immediately tried damage control as her actions began to have consequences. In an interview with CNN, she whined that her “entire life is being destroyed right now.”

Too fucking bad, Amy.  Your reprehensible and dangerous playacting could have had life and death consequences for Mr. Cooper.  You weaponized your whiteness and exploited his blackness, without hesitation, without thought, without care.  You knew exactly what you were doing.

His life could have ended for no other reason than he had the audacity to ask you to releash your dog. 

She rambled on, desperately attempting to spin the unspinnable:  “I sincerely and humbly apologize to everyone, especially to that man, his family,” she told CNN. “It was unacceptable and I humbly and fully apologize to everyone who’s seen that video, everyone that’s been offended…everyone who thinks of me in a lower light and I understand why they do.  When I think about the police, I’m such a blessed person. I’ve come to realize especially today that I think of [the police] as a protection agency, and unfortunately, this has caused me to realize that there are so many people in this country that don’t have that luxury.”

I think of [the police] as a protection agency.

No, Amy, you think of the police as a weapon you can wield at will.  

For the record, this is Christian Cooper, a Harvard grad and avid bird watcher, see here being interviewed about that hobby.

This is Christian Cooper. pic.twitter.com/gOQyVztX5h

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) May 26, 2020

That Christian Cooper's video of her was making the rounds at the same time as the man being murdered in broad daylight by police in Minneapolis, only serves to underscore the dangers a person lives with by simply having dark skin.  The stone cold reality that is their every breath.  A reality that made him pull out his camera to record her to save himself.  I promise, my white husband would never even think to record an incident like that, but then Amy would have probably apologized to my husband and releashed her dog, or told him to "Fuck off" and gone on her way.  At no point would she have called 911 and Lady MacBeth'd her plight to dispatchers.

White people - you are no better, you are not worth more, you are not deserving of more consideration or free passes in this life.  Your accident of birth - the privilege of being born into a society that still regards light skin as somehow better, innocent - does not imbue you with magical qualities, or greater value than someone with darker skin.

And finally, will you get it through your thick fucking heads - this is why Kaepernick takes a knee.   This is what the words Black Lives Matter mean.  It doesn't mean black lives matter more than yours.  It means they matter just as much.

Unless you are one of the miscreants defending Amy Cooper or the police in the Minneapolis video.  Then your life, as far as I am concerned, is worth shit.  Which is exactly what you are. SHIT. 

I am happy to report that while I have been typing, those four officers who participated in the murder of that man last night - either by being the knee or by being the three who watched and did not intervene - have been fired. 

Good. Now charge them with murder.  You know, as if the victim were white.  Then we might be getting somewhere.  Oh, and charge Amy Cooper with filing a false report - this shit will not stop until the white person is guaranteed legal consequences for their lies.

The Numbers Racket

I preface everything I am about to write with this clear statement:  I WANT TO BE WRONG.

Being right about any of this is only going to add to the anger and heartbreak I, and any decent citizen of this country, feel.

For two months I have charted the numbers daily as I write here.  Multiple times a day.  Paper filled front and back with hourly stats that include testing, deaths, tests per million, deaths per million, positive tests and deaths globally.  My heart hurts as I update the sheets by my keyboard.  Jumps by the thousands have been consistent daily for weeks and weeks.

This is not some Faces of Death type kink or morbidity porn.  I have been tracking this because when I write, I need it to be accurate.  My hurt, my frustration, my fury is informed by data, not just emotion.  I track the numbers because hating Trump and his incompetent minions who put us in this position is based on cold hard facts, not just decades of knowing what a self serving assmunch of a human he is.

Since Friday, as we entered Memorial Day weekend and every metric, every expert, every graph, chart, and model showed we would blow past 100,000 deaths, the numbers have slowed dramatically.

DRAMATICALLY.

Just as they needed something they could point to to encourage people to get out and cavort; just as they needed Trump to be able to golf and tell the experts they were wrong - the data has trickled in.  Someone has blocked the dam and the numbers are simply not being reported.

Currently, there are FORTY ONE STATES with blank areas where there should be updated numbers.  BLANK.  We have been charting thousands of deaths daily for weeks and weeks, and suddenly, just when they need them to slow down, they have not only slowed down, in 41 states they have disappeared.

We already know that Florida and Georgia have been playing a numbers game with their reporting.  That has been proven.  We also know that 24 states have uncontrolled spread of COVID currently.  Again, proven.  So you do the math.

Yet, here we are on Memorial Day, when the optics of 100,000 could not be worse for our rancid reality TV president, and they sit stalled below 100,000.  We currently show 99,440.  FOR WEEKS I have woken up to at least a jump of 1,000 deaths reported, sometimes almost 2,000.  The past 72 hours?  In the hundreds.

Again, I WANT TO BE WRONG.  I desperately WANT TO BE WRONG.  But every metric, every despicable thing we know about this administration and its toadies, every bit of reporting that is finding out how states are mangling and wrangling their numbers, tells me I am not.

And it is infuriating.  It dishonors every person who has died and is being hidden by red tape.  It is an insult to every grieving family.  It is a personal affront to every frontline healthcare giver who has worked themselves to the edge of a grave trying to save these lives, to no avail.

And it utterly and completely deceives the public into thinking this has gone away.  It is the reason scenes of packed pools, restaurants, bars, boardwalks, and shopping areas continue to stream in.  Those who never believed it was real to begin with are now seeing their conspiracy theories fortified.  Those who never thought it was so bad, are feeling vindicated.  And those who cling to every slobbered crouton that falls from the word salad maw of the Grand Poobah of their Dunning Kruger cult are emboldened to continue mocking social distancing, mask wearing, every protection meant to protect them as well as everyone else.

In the end, the difference between 99,440 and 100,000 is negligible.  But the optics and numbers in Trumpworld are all that matter.  The "ratings", as it were.  And keeping that number under 100,000 till tomorrow is of utmost importance, just as slowing the reporting moving forward will help manifest the illusion they need to throw our kids back into schools, reopen college dorms, fill the airports, and every booth in Waffle House.

But in the end, the pandemic won't care.  It is not an illusion.  And whether your grandmother, husband, son or daughter is accurately reported or not, they will still be just as dead.

One more time - I WANT TO BE WRONG.  But I know in my heart I am not.

Because to this horror of an admobistration, everything is just a numbers racket.

99,449.  See what I mean?

Black, White & Read All Over

As we teeter on the edge of 100,000 deaths from coronavirus, Zero is once again out fiddling on the golf course.  Having spent his evening retweeting accounts that referred to Hillary Clinton as a "skank", suggesting Nancy Pelosi's mouth be duct taped shut, and mocking Stacy Abrams as having "visited every buffet", The Biggest Loser continued to ignore this pandemic and the breathtaking loss of life from it.

The New York Times, however, is not ignoring it.  Or them.  The cover, leaked online yesterday, is sobering and heartbreaking.  The entire front page, and three pages inside, list the names of those we have lost.  And that only covers 1,000 people.  Just 1% of our loss.

But it displays more than just their names, their ages.  It gives a small window into the life of each of these people, humanizing them, honoring them, trying to get the message through that THEY are US.

I offer it here in a clickable form so you may open it and have it fill your screen, your mind, your heart.

Frederick Carl Harris, 70, had an exuberant laugh; Lila A. Fenwick, 82, first black woman to graduate from Harvard; Chad Capule, 49, loved trivia; Phillip Thomas, 48, loved his Walmart coworkers like family; Jana Prince, 43, social worker who dedicated her life to others; Randy G. Addison, 64, survived being shot in the line of duty in 1984; Romi Cohn, 91, saved 56 Jewish families from the Gestapo; Sean Boynes, 46, pharmacy manager who loved his daughters...

Every person listed on that NYT's cover and inside show in black and white just what the cost has been to us.  And it deserves to be read all over.

It goes on and on.  In the space of few words we get a window into the life of those who have gone.  This is important because far too many in this country still refuse to believe COVID is even real.  Even more people belligerently think it cannot touch them or someone they love.

These images from across the country are stark reminders that it is our hubris, our selfishness, our need to self indulge that will usher in the second tidal wave.

This is Ocean City, Maryland today.

Unfortunately Marylanders aren’t surprised.

pic.twitter.com/ZJIJ5fVBIb

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) May 23, 2020

Daytona Beach tonight. pic.twitter.com/OX39GAtHeG

— Chad (@ChadBlue_) May 24, 2020

More images and footage like this will be coming in today and tomorrow as this country of patridiots continues to indulge itself and act like it is all behind us.  Let me remind you again, in 1918, they thought it was all behind them, too.  Even had a parade in Philly.  195,000 people were lost in a SINGLE MONTH in their second wave.

We have been abandoned by our government.  Left to our own devices and vices as a result of mixed messages, disinformation, a belief that the economy is more important that the people, and the flat out lies of the IMPOTUS. 

To all the people frolicking on the boardwalks, in the parks, and marinating in the human stews of urine, sweat, and spit this weekend, congratulations.  In your eternal quest to keep believing the good ol' USA is #1 at everything, you have insured we will not be overtaken in the COVID stats.  Not even close.

And when your throat begins to get sore in a few days; when a headache develops that won't be run off by Tylenol; when your 6 year old finds it hard to breath; when your grandmother disappears into an ER never to be seen alive again - I hope you are at least smart enough to connect the aerosol dots and droplets you shared and inhaled as you endeavored to "own the libs".

I honestly don't care much if you perish.  Yes, I said it.  Enjoy your freedumb and die.  You will have brought it on yourselves.  I do, however, care about the innocent bystanders near you in the grocery store stocking the shelves, your co-workers who you mock for wearing a mask, the elderly grandparents you will infect, and the healthcare workers who will be forced to give you the same care they give others.  Care you will not have earned, care you will not deserve.

And when you die?  Your name need not be memorialized on a NYT's cover page.  Maybe we can cull your name and those of all your dead, selfish fellow idiots and get space on the front of the Enquirer.  Right next to the story of how Nessie, Bigfoot and Bill Gates want to inject you with a microchip or whatever other bullshit hoax you believed in.

As Rome Burned, Nero Fiddled...

Most of us are familiar with that saying.  And while historians know it is not exactly correct (Nero was not in Rome as it burned, and fiddles did not yet exist), the meaning certainly is.

In 64 AD, Rome did, in fact, burn for six days straight.  Then it reignited and burned for three more.  Coincidentally this all took place after the Senate told Nero he could not level and rebuild the majority of the city to better suit his contemporary style.  But Nero was not in Rome as it flamed.  Tacitus, the first to write a biography of the emperor chronicled that Nero was in Antium “but at the very moment when Rome was aflame, he had mounted his private stage, and typifying the ills of the present by the calamities of the past, had sung the destruction of Troy.”

Another biographer, Suetonius, claimed Nero was seen setting the fires.  And that while he watched from a tower "exulted in ‘the beauty of the flames.’"

Nero was flamboyant, loved attention, and threw lavish parties that celebrated how bigly great he was.

Oh, and he gave not fuck one about the people over whom he ruled.  On the ashes of their city, he built his "Golden Palace".

Today, we are saddled with a morally bereft, flamboyant, self obsessed ruler who also has a Golden Palace in which he shits on a golden toilet.  We'll call him Zero.

This morning, as our version of Rome (Home) burns with COVID-19 - Zero fiddles.  On the golf course. 

As we inch ever closer to 100,000 lives lost to this contagion - Nectarine Nero golfs on the dead bodies of 97,847 citizens this morning - we have no choice but to finally accept the fact that Zero has left us to perish in the flames. 

That includes you MAGAts, too.

Despite what he says to you; despite what you want to believe; despite your governors bending the knee and reopening your states - the latest study shows that 24 states currently have uncontrolled coronavirus spread.  Mostly in the Midwest and South.

This comes as a result of governors who cared more about placating Zero than keeping their constituents safe.  States where shelter in place rules were late to non existent.  States where masks are scoffed at, and freedumb reigns.  As opposed to states like Washington that took extreme measures early to flatten the curve and stop the spread, far too many are simply acting like COVID got as bored as they did and moved on.  Hate to break it to you, but COVID isn't bored, it is patient.

“There’s evidence that the U.S. is not under control, as an entire country,” said Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at Imperial College.

With Memorial Day weekend in full swing, and Zero out fiddling on the links, what is happening is the set up for a second wave to crash through by July.  In fact, the model shows both Florida and California set to experience 1,000 deaths a day by then because of these rash reopenings coupled with the belligerent ignorance of their citizens.

Beaches will be crowded this weekend.  Bars, restaurants, hotel pools - open and crammed.  Because self sacrifice is completely anathema to how far too many people in this country live their lives.

In case you're considering stepping out, giving in to peer pressure, believing that if Zero is on the links the country must be doing just dandy, here's a list of those 24 states.

Texas tops the list, followed by Arizona, Illinois, Colorado, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, Alabama, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, New Mexico, Missouri, Delaware, South Carolina, Massachusetts, North Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Maryland.

I'm in Arizona.  We have consistently sucked at testing, our governor fired the scientists who stood in his way with facts, and people are now acting like Spring Breakers in Cabo.  Pools and water parks are open, casinos, too.  Restaurants still do take out and delivery, but their doors are wide open for indoor dining. Bars are packed with maskless customers.

Alabama, where ICU beds are nearly full, has a Republican governor (Kay Ivey) who has opened concert venues, racetracks, and movie theaters.  No matter that their numbers continue to rise.  “We cannot sustain a delayed way of life as we search for a vaccine,” she said. “Having a life means having a livelihood, too.”

No one disputes that, Kay.  But given the fact that your hospitals are having to play musical patients and send COVID stricken people in search of ICUs where there may be a bed for them, that livelihood may indeed cost people their lives.

Our country could have stepped up earlier.  We know that.  The evidence is there and indisputable.  Had Zero and his sycophants acted even one week sooner, nearly half the dead would still be alive.  They could have, like Canada and myriad countries around the world, provided needed money to every citizen in order for us to ride this out without fear of hunger, eviction, unemployment.  Instead, Zero rallied and golfed his way through January and February and part of March.  When aid was finally considered, it was a one time $1,200 stimulus check that not nearly enough people received. 

Contrast that with Canadian citizens who are receiving $2000 per month.  In the UK, workers are receiving 80% of their salaries, in Denmark 75%, S. Korea 70%, the Netherlands?  90%.  Australia is providing $1,000 per month to its citizens.

They literally stepped up as nations, made it possible for their citizens to stay home, and froze things in place so they could get ahead of the virus, slow its spread, buy them time. 

Us?

We provided billions to businesses that did not need it, did not share it, and many will not have to repay it. Small businesses found themselves left out in the cold within two minutes of the system opening.  And now, 38 million people are trying to receive unemployment in the United States and those systems are crumbling under the weight.  People cannot file, those who successfully filed are not receiving the money.  And for the record - unemployment insurance is paid by your employer while you work.  It is to be there when an employee loses a job through no fault of their own. Like this pandemic.

98,222 people are now dead.  Yes, it has jumped another 375 while I have sat here.  Think about that as you contemplate your state's reopenings.  As bad as you want to get out and mingle, as much as you have missed dining out, enjoying the warm temps, and as deeply as you want to follow your Dear Leader's example - is it worth it to become just another statistic?  Because that is all you will ever be to him.  He will never know your name, how many red hats you had, how big was your Trump banner on your garage, how steadfast was your devotion. 

He will never know.

Because he will never care.  Not about you, not about me, not about anyone but himself.

In case you wonder what became of Nero, he killed his mother, his first wife, potentially his second as well (history is murky on that demise), raised taxes to cover his extravagant lifestyle, and then he was declared a public enemy, tried in absentia, and condemned to death.  He, of course, had fled Rome, not remembering any of their names either.  And like all cowards, he killed himself rather than face the consequences of his actions.

Nero once said, "An emperor's an entertainer, an empire a super-show."  That's all this has ever been to Trump.  A TV show in which he stars, in which we are expendable because we are not real.

Think about that as our Home continues to burn and Zero fiddles on the golf course today. 

You Worship A Moron

Welcome, congregation, please be seated.

We are gathered together today to bear witness to a man for whom the descriptors biggest, celebrated, immense, consequential, and GOAT all apply.  A man who has swept you up, held you to his considerable bosom, and made you feel noticed, involved, loved.  A man for whom hyperbole can set no bar as his utterances soar far above. 

As you kneel in worship, emotionally fellating him and giving continuous thanks for his presence in your lives, he works tirelessly to keep your eyes on him, only on him.  Because he will lead you, he will energize you, he will move you action.  And in the end, he will kill you.

Because the one you worship is a moron.  The biggest moron, The most celebrated moron.  The most immense moron.  The most consequential moron.  And yes, in terms of morondom - he is the GOAT - the greatest of all time.  A fuckwit of biblical proportions who cannot define per capita and has zero idea if testing positive or negative is a good thing. 

“And I tested very positively in another sense, this morning. I tested positively toward negative, right? So I tested perfectly this morning. Meaning I tested negative. ... But that’s a way of saying it: positively toward the negative.’  The Book of Dullard 5:21

Donald J Trump - your gourd and savior - the one to whom you have sworn allegiance, abdicated any agency you may have had, given up all interest in critical thinking, and have promised to follow into Hell, has come to finally lead you there. 

There has long been no doubt that the adoration, group think, and dereliction of duty as a human being have bound his Church of Magatry into the 21st century's newest cult.  Devotion is blind.  There is no questioning of the dear leader.  And anyone or anything that may threaten the rhetoric is in return threatened with aggression, violence.  Conspiracies are the homily of the Church of Magatry.  Aural communion is delivered each evening by FOX news. 

And the faithful cheer.  They see him yet they do not see him.  They carry posters, banners and share memes of him as some hard bodied Conan taking on the big, bag swamp creatures of the world.  They do not see him as the morbidly obese, Depends wearing, hidden lifts shod, spray tanned succubus he is. 

(I'll pause whilst you wipe your impassioned sweat from your brow.)

Faith is like that.  It distorts, it deceives, it sells you on a promise only the leader may deliver, and sets a price you can only ever strive to pay. 

Red hats, rally t-shirts, coloring books, campaign donations, grandma's life...

The election of 2016 put into harsh relief the substantial differences in this country.  Trump gathered together the hateful, the spiteful, the degenerate, the patriarchal, the submissive, the fuck ups, the professional victims of the United States.  He raged and you raved.  His rallies became churches with mosh pits of venality, racism, threats of violence.

And as he grew in power, power which you handed him through your addled adoration, the saying “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do” came to life.

He hated brown people, just like you do.  He hated black people, just like you do.  He hated Muslims, just like you do.  He hated transgender people, just like you do.  He hated love and compassion and empathy, just like you do.

And so was born your new god, in your image.  A god who would never betray you; a god who would preach a gospel of fear and blame and resentment, a god who would always and forever hate the same people you do.

Yet like Jim Jones and the cultists who flocked to him for years, propping him up, giving him all their money and belongings, pledging undying love and devotion - you will not see until it is too late - that you were all a means to an end, the end being power and money.  Jones did not start out as a murderer.  He was simply charismatic, familiar, made people feel seen, like they belonged.  He was a conman.  Like Trump.  Yet even as the Flavor Aid is being stirred for you, this time in the form of a viral contagion - COVID-19 - you refuse to believe your chosen one would endanger you, lie to you, hurt you.

After all, why would he?  He is you.

Yet here we are. 

On January 20th he promised you this: "We do have a plan."  He did not.

January 22ne: "We have it under control"

February 21, 51 cases confirmed in the US: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA" 

February 26, 58 confirmed cases, yet: "The 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."

February 29, 74 confirmed cases: "Everything is really under control"

March 6, 402 cases: "Anybody that wants a test can get a test."  We still cannot.

March 10, 1,300 confirmed cases: "Just stay calm. It will go away."  It did not, it won't.

March 24, 65,800 cases: "I think Easter Sunday — you'll have packed churches all over our country."

And today, less than two months from that promise, we have had 1,639,639 confirmed cases and as of this moment, 97,436 people dead.

Scratch that. I just hit Refresh.  97,446.  Ten more people have been added to the sacrificial pile.

Your savior called it a hoax.  He passed it off as just another flu. Then he encouraged you to frolic amongst one another and liberate your states.  He has promised tests for all, like a chicken in every pot!  No such tests, and with 38 million people on unemployment, many cannot afford a chicken. 

He hawks a drug now proven to endanger the lives of those who have been given it.  Hydroxychloroquine - now linked to a greater risk of death and heart arrhythmia - touted endlessly by your moronic MESSiah as some cure-all.  What have you got to lose? he intoned.  Because of his idiocy and your blind faith in him, prescriptions jumped 46 times the average for the drug.  Shame on you, shame on the rheumatologists, cardiologists, dermatologists, psychiatrists and even podiatrists who enabled you by getting out their script pads.  Those who actually depend on the drug for their real ailments are finding themselves rationing what they have.

He rambled at the pulpit about injecting disinfectant and the CDC and Lysol came forward immediately to beg you all to not listen to him, that it could be deadly.   You see, we see you.  We know that unquestioning loyalty leads to the five gallon drum of cyanide laced Flavor Aid.

Masks are verboten in your congregation because your leader will not don one.  He mocks them.  He laughs at those who wear them.  So you do not wear them.  No matter that the latest study found the coronavirus’ transmission rate via respiratory droplets or airborne particles dropped by as much as 75% when surgical masks were used. Your dipshit deity thinks he will look like a pussy, ergo you think you will look like a pussy.  And nowhere in your church's bylaws is there an allowance for consideration of others.

He has pushed for your states to reopen  so you may get your hair cut, get your nails did, grab a beer, hang out at Applebees.  Yet as states have rushed to genuflect to him, ignoring and distorting the facts and figures, more of you have fallen ill.  Go figure.  You swapped droplets, shopped unmasked, packed into bars, and tried to frame Guilder for it.  Yet an airborne virus managed to find you despite you worshipping at the House of Horseshit?  Inconceivable!

And today, as more and more of you stomp your feet and shake your fists, he hath decreed your churches to be essential and that they must be opened. 

Churches.  You know, those places you enter and pretend to pray to someone who is the complete antithesis of your rancid redeemer?  I mean, let's face it, Jesus would be run out on a rail, after being beaten, tarred and feathered, if He were to actually show up and preach His word to you.  Hell, Trump would call him a loser because he got crucified.  After all, everything He touts - you know love, charity, compassion, community, run counter to your true belief system - the one The Church of Magatry allows you to fully embrace and celebrate - that of hate and vindictiveness and pettiness, and vengeance.

By morning we will have lost 100,000 fellow citizens to COVID-19.  295 people out of every million in this country.  Maybe you are lucky and it has not touched your life - yet.  Maybe your job has not been taken.  Maybe your cupboards are not bare and your rent is paid.  If that is your story, good for you.  But that is not the story for far too many.   And you not joining them has zero guarantee. 

With every "opening", every edict from your loathsome Lord, the Flavor Aid distribution date gets closer and closer for you.  The followers of the People's Temple in Guyana never thought Jones would actually kill them.  Right up until the moment he did.  And then it was too late.

97,538 have already perished at the hands of your exalted one.  In the past 24 hours we have added over 23,000 new cases and lost over 1,200 more lives.  Just know that as you open your hymnal and prepare to sing another chorus of FAKE NEWS this holiday weekend, bathed in the orange glow of his narcissism, you are not safe.

Because coronavirus is real and you worship a moron.

For The Love Of God...

93,867 people dead.  That we know of.  Again, I stress that part repeatedly because with each day we see the machinations and manipulations being done to skew the real numbers, to fool the public into thinking we are getting ahead of this.

Last week Georgia fessed up to posting their numbers out of order, skipping around from one week to an earlier week to a different week in order to make it appear they had the proof of declining numbers so they could begin reopening their state.  And now we learn they have been reporting multiple kinds of tests together to make their testing stats look impressive.  They are adding antibody tests in with COVID tests - those are not the same thing.

Georgia has also been posting high numbers of positive cases since they patted themselves on the back and reopened their state.  Since yesterday, an additional 792 people have tested positive and their deaths count is now at 1,687.  But as they are getting caught red handed every time someone digs a little deeper, who's to say what their real numbers are?

Florida, whose governor cannot even wear a simple mask correctly, has fired the scientist who developed their COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard after she refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen."  Rebekkah Jones had worked 16 hours a day to create two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the COVID-19 situation was in real time.

Last Friday she emailed a warning to researchers who would be using the applications, "They are making a lot of changes. I would advise being diligent in your respective uses of this data."

So once again, a virus that does not honor any affiliation of any sort, it being turned into a political weapon to manipulate the public into thinking this is all passing.

It's not.

Buffoons like Eric Trump took to FOX last week to assert that Democrats have created this whole thing to disrupt his father's rallies, that it is a hoax.  “You watch, they’ll milk it every single day between now and November 3. And guess what, after November 3, coronavirus will magically, all of a sudden, go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen.”

Yes, Eric, you glue eating, cancer charity stealing wank of a human, the entire world is in on it.  Those 326,501 people dead all over the world?  A big, self sacrificing conspiracy to keep your bloated tick of a DNA donor from holding his public masturbation sessions.

Kayleigh McEnany brandished a few Walmart binders last week in some repeat of the Trump empty folder fiesta he held three years ago as some sort of proof there is a coherent approach to coronavirus.  There isn't.

Laura Ingraham, the Vanna White of hydroxychloroquine, sings its praises nightly on FOX.  And now the snakeoil salesman in the Oval is bragging that he is taking it.  Is it true?  Who knows.  But given a track record of over 18,000 lies so far?  Regardless of him playing truth or scare, his cultists are listening and making it more difficult to procure for those who actually rely on the medication for lupus and other issues.

So with all of this lying, obfuscating, and a solid campaign of disinformation, it is no wonder so many are flouting mask requirements, social distancing courtesy, and crowding into any venue that opens.

Like churches.

Ahhhh, churches.  Home to "covered in the blood of Jesus" "Jesus has my back" and "religious liberty!" - they have been demanding the right to reopen for months now.  And many have.  Much to their detriment.

An Arkansas church had 38% of its congregation turn up positive, three ultimately died.

Palermo Bible Family Church in California opened for Mother's Day despite an order from the governor restricting any large gatherings.  180 people ended up being told to self quarantine.

Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle in Georgia opening its doors only to have to close them again after several families turned up positive.

The Holy Ghost parish in Texas opened up, two priests and several attendees came up positive, and on May 13 one of its priests died from COVID.  They are closed again.  Incidentally, Harris County, where the church is located, has the highest number of positive coronavirus cases in the state.

But still they cry about Jesus protecting them, insulating them from COVID, when all evidence shows that Jesus is just shaking His head. 

It is in Romans 12:6 where the faithful are reminded Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.

We all have different "gifts".  And in most circumstances we seek out those who have what we do not. 

Are you able to build a computer from scratch at your kitchen table?  That would be a hard NO from the congregation, so they rely on the minds at Apple and Microsoft to provide them with technology.

You want great music at your wedding reception?  How many bands did you audition to find the one with gifts that match your desires?

My son is a ridiculously talented artist.  His gift is bought by people each month as he turns their dreams into reality because they are not gifted with artistic talent that just flows.

Cancer spring up?  My guess is that most people don't just rub some dirt on it or try to come up with a treatment at home from collard greens, some Neosporin, and baked beans.  Rather they turn to those for whom science has a warm, cozy place in their brains, where it all makes sense.

Yet on this - COVID-19 - we are seeing church after church, congregation after congregation, disciple after disciple, and cultist after cultist turn away from those whose gift is in heightened mental acuity used for life saving.  Who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of others' lives. 

Why?

Watching them boast so proudly in interviews about God and Jesus and Their protections, they are literally daring coronavirus to find them.  Is there never even a moment, a passing thought that perhaps, just perhaps, God and Jesus distributed these "gifts" to the scientists, the doctors, the virologists - in order that they may protect you?

Do any of them, once stricken, fear for what is going to happen when they close their eyes on this side and open them again in the presence of their deity and said deity smacks them upside their stupid heads?

It always brings to mind the story of the man in the flood:

A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help.

Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, "Jump in, I can save you."

The stranded fellow shouted back, "No, it's OK, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me."

So the rowboat went on.

Then a motorboat came by. "The fellow in the motorboat shouted, "Jump in, I can save you."

To this the stranded man said, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith."

So the motorboat went on.

Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, "Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety."

To this the stranded man again replied, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith."

So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.

Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, "I had faith in you but you didn't save me, you let me drown. I don't understand why!"

To this God replied, "I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?"

If there is a God, and He or She or It has given gifts to each of us, perhaps people like Dr. Fauci and Rebekkah Jones are the divine's way of sending that help so many are awaiting from above.

Just a thought...

The bottom line is that your churches are hurting at the bottom line.  Anyone who thinks the doors are opening solely for the spiritual "need" is kidding themselves.  Contributions have plunged since COVID came on the scene.  Encouraging congregants to gather is the height of irresponsibility.  And it is showing each time the doors open and the plate gets passed.  More people sick, more people dying.

The saying God helps those who help themselves is not in the Bible, despite 1 in 8 Americans believing it is.  But the theme plays throughout everything from Aesop's fables to Christian church teachings to the Quran. 

In Proverbs 28:26 it says Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.  The wise ones are the doctors, the scientists, the experts.  There is no shame in not being gifted with the ability to synthesize vast quantities of data; to understand large concepts - the shame is in acting like one does, or worse, acting like those who are gifted are some sort of conspiracy against them.

In the Quran it states Indeed Allah will not change the conditions of a population until they change what is in themselves.

What is in themselves.

Well, what is evident is that hubris, ego, self interest, and no concern for thy neighbor is the condition of vast quantities in the population.

If you are a believer, then listening to the gifted experts should be followed by a prayer of thanks to the divine for providing them.  If you are a believer, then worshipping from the confines of your home should not shake your faith.  If you are a believer, then donning a mask because it may help protect both you and others, should be the easiest act of charity, kindness, humanity. 

Instead you are out there acting like fools, playing capriciously with what you claim to be God's greatest gift - LIFE, and actively endangering other people.

If that is what your church is teaching you?  It is reprehensible and you are lost. 

Your own book states very plainly in Proverbs 11:25 A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

As of this moment, 94,327 people will no longer prosper, will never be refreshed.  460 more lives have left this world at the hands of this deadly virus since I started typing.  Doctors with gifts are working around the clock to develop a vaccine to protect us all.  In the meantime, all we have is each other. 

Look at yourselves.  Look at what you are doing.  Who you are lauding (Trump, FOX, your uneducated pastors) and who you are reviling (Fauci, doctors, nurses, experts).

Kevin and Karen get shopping cart taken away at #Costco || ✌🏼 #wearethepeople #COVID19 #coronavirusuk #COVIDIDIOTS pic.twitter.com/LDeB1hDz9L

— ONLY iN LVNV ➐ (@OnlyInLVNV) May 18, 2020

For every one of you who acts so heinously, who laughs while coughing on others in public, who carry signs that your liberty is more important than others' health - you inevitably have Christian in your bios, Twitter descriptions, Facebook About Me's.

For the love of God, if you truly believe He is watching, that what you do to others while you are here matters in the end, don't you think it's time you started acting like it?

(By the way, lady, that's not His blood.  It's His tears.)

Trump: The HydroxychloroQUEEN of the Pandemic

He wouldn't STFU about it for weeks.  Even as experts around the world, doctors from all corners, and Dr. Fauci himself, were pleading for caution - all Trump could trumpet was hydroxycloroquine as some sort of COVID-19 miracle cure.

Studies began emerging showing that it was not effective, in fact, it was proving anywhere from detrimental to deadly when administered to coronavirus patients.  Yet he rambled on, he ordered it be stockpiled - nearly 30 million tablets.  His FOX mouthpieces like Laura Ingraham still wax crapsodic about it nightly.

And today, he told the press he has been taking the anti-malarial pre-emptively.  The White House physician did not approach Trump to prescribe it or recommend it to him - HE insisted it be given to him. 

Where to start to unpack all of that?

Little Lord Fauntleorange, emperor of the land of Dunning Kruger, decided he knows more than the doctors, the scientists, the ones in the trenches seeing firsthand how risky is this drug.  He decided, despite it not being a preventative medication, to take it.  He demanded it, and a doctor who should know better, acquiesced to his tantrum.

I don't know about you, but out here in the real world, it doesn't work that way.  At least with the doctors who have treated me for 54 years.  I don't just stroll in, decide I heard from a friend of a really great guy that a certain drug is awesome, the best, and I want it, give it to me.  Most doctors care a bit more about their licenses and reputations than to just dole out prescriptions on a whim.

Yet there he is, Miss Americloroquine, there he is, your schlemiel (sing it Bert Parks), doctoring himself.  "I started taking it, because I think it's good," Trump said. "I've heard a lot of good stories."

Obviously not these, you know, stories from actual experts...

The Food and Drug Administration warned health professionals last month that the drug should not be used to treat COVID-19 outside of hospital or research settings, due to sometimes fatal side effects. Regulators issued the alert for the drug, which can also be used to treat lupus and arthritis, after receiving reports of heart-rhythm problems, including deaths, from poison control centers and other health providers.

Two large observational studies, each involving around 1,400 patients in New York, recently found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine. Two new ones published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ reached the same conclusion.

Even FOX host Neil Cavuto immediately went off about it live this afternoon, cautioning his viewers, "If you are in a risky population here, and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus, or in a worse-case scenario you are dealing with the virus and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kill you.  I cannot stress enough. This will kill you. So, again, whatever benefits the president says this has, and certainly it has had for those suffering from malaria, dealing with lupus, this is a leap that should not be taken casually by those watching from home or assuming, well the president of the United States says it's OK."

But do go ahead and add it to your Adderall-benzos-hamberder diet, Donnie, what could possibly go wrong?  I mean you being a 73 year old, morbidly obese, wretchedly unhealthy garbage sack stuffed with KFC grease and chocolate cake - what's the worst that could happen?

Well, maybe "worst" is a term for YOU, certainly not for us.  Should your canned ham of a heart explode, it certainly would not be the worst for the world.  I actually envision it as becoming an international day of celebration.

91,976 people are dead this afternoon.  278 out of every million Americans have been lost to COVID-19.  States that have reopened are charting their highest positive test results now.  Georgia even admitting they fucked with their own charts to make it look like their numbers were decreasing.  The models that were showing we would reach 100,000 deaths by June 1?  By the weekend, we will have filled Texas Stadium, capacity 100,119.

I wrote about this graphic last week.  This is from 1918 and it shows the waves - they had three.  We are not even through the first one and are completely setting ourselves up for a second just like they endured.  A wave in which 195,000 Americans were lost in a single month.

We have no true and proven drug protocol for those who contract the virus.  We certainly have no way of insuring you can keep from acquiring it.  And a vaccine is still a loooooooong way off.

Yet there is Trump, not working on widespread testing, not mourning the lives we have lost, not speaking to the public and urging masks and social distancing, not relying on expert advice from virologists.  No, he is just openly bragging that he is popping hydroxychloroquine like they are Skittles. 

Oh well...

To the White House physician enabling his behavior?  Keep up the good work.  Elvis and Michael Jackson had doctors, too...