Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

How Do I Loathe Thee? Let Me Count The Ways

Elizabeth Barrett Browning pondered that question in relation to love.  An emotion so profound, so far reaching, that when we are held firmly in its grasp, mere words just cannot encapsulate the height, breadth, and depth of what we are feeling.  

Love, in its purest form, takes one's breath away, renders one speechless, moves a person to tears by the enormity of what they feel towards another human being.  We are filled with passion, almost suffocated by the interaction.

Paradoxically, we experience loathing with the same fervor, the same depth, height, breadth.  These days, that intensity is stoked daily by the abject, astounding stupidity of the right, of all its components - Qanon, the GQP, conservatives, "Christians", anti-vaxxers, and COVID deniers.  With all apologies to Liz...

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.
I loathe thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I loathe thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

We are surrounded by dullards - the vocal, pants shitting crybabies who refuse to don a mask lest their precious freedumbs be impinged upon.  (Ignore the fact that the rest of us have our very lives impinged upon by their behavior.)  The dimmest among us manage to crawl into positions of power (see rotund, orange gourd currently exiled to MAGAlago.)  The most dangerous have access to platforms where they may spew their bullshit like an industrial fertilizer.

Last night, FOX's favorite white supremacist, performance artist and road apple purveyor, Tucker Carlson, took to the airwaves to scream into the voids that are the mostly empty craniums of his viewers.  Kept in a perpetual state of fear and agitation, last night he sang to his tone deaf choir about masks.  Again.

But hold the phone.  This time, instead of just lambasting science, experts, and the rational, socially conscious portion of the public, he went further.  Last night he urged his mouthbreathing horde to actually accost people they see wearing masks outdoors.  Especially those with children

“Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart,” Carlson said on his Monday show. “Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.” He went on: “What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.”

The idiocy is astounding and would be easy to laugh off if it were not for the proven 'moved to action' actions taken by these easily led, mushbrained patridiots in the past.  (See: roughly 450, so far, who have been arrested for the January 6th insurrection fomented by Trump and his FOX cronies.)  These are not the sharpest thumbtacks on the bulletin board.

Let's just start with the obvious - MYOFB - MIND. YOUR. OWN. FUCKING. BUSINESS.  At no point is my wearing a mask something that should move you to get in my personal space.  And as for someone's child?  You shiftless, soulless creatures have zero idea if said child is sick, has cancer, has any raft of health issues which make wearing a mask a matter of protecting that child's well being.

You don't want to wear one - we get it, trust me, the never ending videos of you maladjusted malcontents losing your shit in public have been seen by us all.  We know you are stupid.  That you go out of your way to further validate your lack of of intellect, probity, common sense, decency?  Well, thanks - we appreciate knowing to whom we should give wide berth.

Psst, Tucker...

I loathe thee freely, as men strive for right.
I loathe thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I loathe thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

Aligned with Carlson, we have wealthy covidiots like this poked and plumped Einstein.  Her name is Leila Centner, one of the co-founders of the private Centner School in Miami, Floriduh.  Her "happiness school does not mandate vaccines of any kind.”  To whit, they have issued a warning to all teachers that should they take the COVID vaccine, their employment will be terminated.

Leila is a wackjob to the nth degree, clamoring to appear with any and all anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, COVID deniers, and politicians who cater to her delusional bullshit theories (most often found on Facebook).  She is currently spreading the debunked Facebook fave that “tens of thousands of women all over the world have recently been reporting adverse reproductive issues” from being near people who have received the vaccine.

Ooooooo, stay clear, Leila.  I am all powerful now.  I have a brain, and not one but two doses coursing through my body and can curse you with a heavy flow with a mere glance.  Get close enough and I will melt your ovaries with my Pfizer-found superpowers.  Dumbfuq.  For you, Leila...

I loathe thee with a loathing I seemed to lose
With my lost saints.

Then of course we have the raft of repugnant manly men who are far too macho and melty (in that ironic snowflake way) to step up and get the vaccine.  Take this braintrust who goes by Cali Gentleman on Twitter:

I am not taking these vaccines. I don't trust it. It was rushed. One is already causing blood clots, no one knows the long-term health impacts and I am not sure it's not the mark of the beast. So hopefully I am wrong on all counts and I benefit from herd immunity

That's a lot to unpack, but let's try, shall we?

I don't trust it.  It was rushed.  Point of fact, vaccines are being worked on daily, year round.  That they were able to pull from work that was already underway in terms of coronaviruses is lucky for us.  That they were able to use what they had and dial down on COVID-19 is testament to the brilliant minds that we never see who work on our behalf constantly.  

Blood clots.  Yes, 6 people out of the nearly 7 million people who had received the J&J vaccine turned up with blood clots.  One died.  So they paused its distribution to deep dive into what happened.  They have now resumed distribution.  For the record, blood clots are also caused by sitting too long (travel related as in flying, sitting in a car or a train for hours), pregnancy, birth control, smoking, obesity, and on and on.

I am not sure it's not the mark of the beast.  JFC, seriously.  IT'S. A. SHOT.  Just like the ones you got as a child for tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella.  The mark of the beast... FFS, are you truly that stupid?  Rhetorical question, no answer required.

Finally, your hope that you will benefit from herd immunity.  FUCK.  YOU.  Do you hear yourself?  Your plan is to rely on millions of other people being brave enough, smart enough, socially responsible enough to get a tiny shot twice, to risk the mark of the beast, blood clots, the wrath of Marjorie Taylor Greene - in order for you to be protected.  How very MAGA of you.

Herd immunity is never going to be achieved with the glut of bumblefucks like yourself who spout bullshit, are cowards, and who believe Bill Gates is installing 5G chips via vaccinations refusing to step up and be part of the solution.  Your selfishness, your bravado, your fellow dimbulbs who are on the record as not getting the vaccine "in order to make liberals cry"?  You are all the reasons COVID-19 will continue to mutate, spread, and kill.

And it is still killing.  I realize you people don't look beyond the tip of your own noses, so to expect you to look beyond our borders is a stretch, but India is on fire.  Literally.  Funeral pyres are everywhere as they struggle to keep up with the horrific death toll.  They set two new records today - 362,757 new cases.  3,285 deaths.  IN ONE DAY.  And the reality is that because of how massive is the population, how remote are so many areas, and how difficult it is to get testing or treatment - the fear is the numbers are exponentially higher than what they manage to report.

In our own country, even as over 200 million vaccine doses have been administered, we are still losing close to a thousand lives daily.  We outstrip India over 2 to 1 in active cases, deaths.  Because we have chucklefucks like Cali Man who cannot grasp the seriousness, the reality, the gravity.  Because we have school owners like Leila who refuse life saving vaccines yet have no problem shooting their faces up with botulism toxins to keep wrinkles at bay.  Because we have politicians offering up more manure than a dairy farm in terms of COVID prevention, disinformation, flat out lies.

But then these are all the same people stupid enough to believe Joe Biden was going to curtail their hamburger intake.  

Make it make sense.  Had we come together as a truly patriotic public when this started, masked up, took precautions, provided for our people with supplemental income like so many other countries did we would be so much further along.  Instead, saddled with the stupidest kid in the back of the room who picks his nose all day and flicks his boogers into the hair of classmates (TRUMP), masks became a political football, refusal to wear one became a symbol of some backassed notion of virility and freedom, hundreds of thousands of people died who should not have, and we are over a year in faced with variants, escalating rates of COVID in schoolchildren, and a cadre of petulant brats who still refuse to help.  If the majority of people got vaccinated and wore masks, we could get back to some semblance of normalcy.  Your precious stores, bowling alleys, concerts, etc would be wide open.  Can you not see that your stupidity, your brattiness, your belligerence are what stands in our way?

And yes, there are people with legitimate reasons that their bodies cannot receive the vaccine, but cowardice, ignorance, and head-stuck-up-your-own-ass are not medical conditions.

I loathe thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but loathe thee better after death.

Would that they were the only ones to die from their irresponsible, cavalier, willful, belligerent ignorance.

The Pandemic We Ignore - Another Day, Another Deadly Mass Shooting

I don't sleep solidly at night, so my dark hours find me keeping up with news, reading recaps of shows I watch, and falling down rabbit holes of topics about which I wish to learn more.  As such, should news break in the night, I pretty much watch it happen in real time.  Last night was a prime example.

Police responding to reports of a shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis. 

That was the first blip to come across Twitter.  Quickly it morphed to four dead.  Then they added the shooter having killed himself.  As the night wore on, the full scope of the latest mass shooting revealed itself.  8 people dead.  The shooter dead as well.  Many more treated for injuries.

Just another day, or in this case, night, in scare-adise.  Just another set of stats in the ongoing, endless, bloody pandemic we choose to ignore.

It truly says something about us as a nation that in the face of a viral pandemic, we rallied (well, most of us), masked up, distanced, stayed home, and pharmaceutical companies stepped up to nail down effective vaccines as quickly as possible so as to quell the ever increasing death toll.

As of this morning, a full 10% of our population has tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began over a year ago.  32,256,982 positive tests.  From that number, 579,656 people have perished. 1,743 deaths per million in the United States.  A death rate of 1.7%.  Old, young, all colors, creeds, cultures.  COVID has been an equal opportunity destroyer. 

So we did something.  We are doing something.  Millions of people are stepping up, rolling up their sleeves, and gladly taking the vaccine injections.  202,282,923 vaccine doses have been injected so far.  Of that number, 127,743,096 (38.5% of our population) people have received one injection and are waiting for dose #2.  I am happy to count myself among the 80,609,818 (24.3% of total population) who are fully vaccinated.  

579,656 people dead.  We are still averaging 713 deaths per day, cases are again surging, and COVID remains the #1 cause of death in the United States.

With three vaccines being distributed, we have proven we are capable of seeing a deadly problem and doing something about it.  Hell, six people developed blood clots after receiving the J&J vaccine and it has been suspended.  We can do things fast.  

If we want to.

Sadly, when it comes to our guns - this nation where the number of firearms in our homes outnumber our population (not kidding - we average 120.5 guns per every 100 people, and 23 million of them were put into circulation in 2020 alone.  We are 4% of the world's population, but we have 44% of the guns.) - we have nothing but emotional ennui about the endless flow of blood.

The stats for gun violence are just as compelling as COVID.  Your chances of dying from a gun assault in this land are 1 in 315.  Dying in a mass shooting?  1 in 11,125.  Yet here we are, watching the aftermath of the latest mass murder, and we know, without a doubt, that absolutely nothing is going to change.

It is fairly common to state that when nothing substantial changed after dozens of 6 year olds were gunned down at Sandy Hook, that we have precious little reason to think any change will ever truly come.  I mean, if as a nation we cannot move our legislators to action after that?  Well, forgive the alliteration, but we are a pathetic, powerless, poor excuse for a populace.  We just don't care enough.

We sit back and watch Senators and Congresspeople offer rote "thoughts and prayers" that are absolutely meaningless.  Seriously, if there is a god, that entity rolls his/her/its eyes at us constantly.  (Just curious, Christian conservatives who love to bash their Bibles on everyone's head - what about that whole 'God helps those who help themselves' line?) We wearily accept that nothing will change because they are so afraid of their gun obsessed constituents, and so tunnel visioned on being re-elected - to continue doing nothing about gun violence.

That last part is important because they are capable of being moved to action when it suits their purposes.  Again, their main purpose being staying in office.  Republican lawmakers have introduced 361 bills in 47 states aimed at voter suppression.  This in response, of course, to their having lost the Senate, the White House, and still not having the main foothold in Congress.  As they all support the Big Lie spread by the flame colored former guy, they are hot to put forward as many changes as possible.

In terms of culture wars, their revolting legislative attacks on the transgender population has been equally relentless.  Bill after bill moving to make it possible for doctors to deny care, to label parents who support their trans child as child abusers, and the latest bill, headed to the desk of Floriduh's Ron DeathSantis would allow for genital exams of students who wish to play sports, but who make grown-ups oogy at the thought of what might be downstairs.  

Literally, bill after bill after bill written and submitted for problems that simply do not exist.  There is no widespread voter fraud - and the few instances that have been found have been perpetrated by REPUBLICANS.  And there is no sinister trans agenda in the doctors' waiting rooms, public bathrooms, or on the sports fields of this nation.

Yet there they are writing legislation and pushing for new laws.

But guns are sacrosanct.  They cower behind the 2nd amendment.  They cater to the dimmest, dumbest, least responsible creatures in the nation.  And as a result, we have endured 45 mass shootings since March 16th alone.  ONE MONTH.  Of the six that were very public, 40 people were killed.

 

But people are being injured and dying daily regardless of whether their involvement reaches the required four or more in one shooting.  In the first three months of this year, here are some very sobering, blood drenched statistics:

4,500+ gun deaths

8,100+ gun injuries

100+ mass shootings

200+ children shot

900+ teenagers shot

250+ incidents of defensive gun use

450+ unintentional shootings

~6,000+ suicides [CDC estimate] 

Last night we added 8 more people.  Last night 8 people went to work and were murdered.  Last night 8 families lost loved ones.  Last night aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers, friends, co-workers perished because they were simply in the wrong place at the right time.  The place shouldn't have been wrong.  They were at work.  Like schools, people should be able to go to their places of employment without fear of never emerging from them alive.  But because some 19 year old, former Fed Ex employee, waste of oxygen decided to take Call of Duty from the virtual to the real life, 8 people lay cold and dead all night, all morning - only now are they beginning to be removed by the coroner.

Imagine for a moment that someone you love is among that number.  Hell, imagine it is you.  Because there is absolutely nothing protecting any of us from being the next casualty face down in the grocery store, a warehouse, an office building, a restaurant, a concert, a school. 

Any of us could contract COVID and die gasping for air.  We understood that and stepped up.  (Again, the thinking, rational, non-pants shitting portion of the populace)  We are now participating in protecting not only ourselves, but one another, by getting vaccinated.  Hell, we don't even quibble about when we can nail down an appointment.  My first dose was at 11 am.  My second?  5 am.  And I was happy to get up, drive 35 minutes, and wait in the long lines of cars for my chance. 

Any of us could contract lead poisoning via gun violence.  We understand that, too.  None of us have some sort of magical cloaking device that will protect us in the Walmart when another murderer decides to open fire.  But today, just like after every other mass shooting, we sit, we fret, we feel angry and impotent.  And we will just let this one disappear in the rearview mirror knowing another is just around the bend.  And even when the next horror is meted out, regardless of how high is the death count, this will still be the GQP response:

Gun violence in the United States is every bit as much of a pandemic as is COVID.  Yet it is the pandemic we choose to ignore. 

Will you be next to die?  Will I?  It's a real question.  We do not have to simply accept participation in that perverse lottery.  We didn't do it with COVID, we don't have to do it with guns.  

We just don't.

Perhaps the message, the movement needs only be as simple as this:  We don't want to die.  Just like we did with coronavirus.  I'll say it first.  

I. DON'T. WANT. TO. DIE. BY. GUN. VIOLENCE.

Add your voice.

It's A Dutiful Day In The Neighborhood

One year ago I sat here and typed the United States' COVID-19 stats for April 7, 2020.

394,182 cases

12,716 deaths

39 deaths per million citizens

The statistics were changing rapidly, moving upward hourly.  But 39 deaths per million seemed like a decent gamble for far too many in this country.  Saddled with disinformation, no information, and a belligerent, proudly ignorant gourd in the White House, the COVID deniers were coalescing, growing in numbers, and threatening the safety of us all.

Not very neighborly, Mr. Rogers.

We knew from the previous four years that a sickeningly large swath of this country's citizenry lived to be mean, coarse, to bully, to grab their crotches and masturbate over perceived liberal tears.  They were not smart people, they were small people.  Small in integrity, diminutive in empathy, and miniscule in understanding the societal contract.

The contract in which we all are aware that we're in this together.  The social contract that allows us to see the greater good and how we must compromise in areas in order to secure it.  The contract in which we stand together, especially in the face of threats, danger, our future.

For MAGAts, their understanding of, well, anything, is warped and limited.  But in this regard, their abject disregard for their responsibility in the face of a pandemic was, and continues to be, stunning.

Fast forward a year and our statistics are breathtaking - as in breath has permanently been taken from far too many.  An estimated 400,000 of these people should not be dead, would not be dead were it not for a bungled, botched handling by the former fuck up's administration, and so many of his followers believing that their very liberty was at stake in - gasp - being asked to cover their fetid maws with a mask.

As of this moment, we stand at:

31,591,097 cases

570,594 deaths

1,716 deaths per million citizens

Nearly 10% of our citizens have contracted COVID.  Hidden in those faceless numbers are doctors, nurses, mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors, old and young.  The same holds for the dead - faceless on a cold statistics chart, but 570,594 lives of people who were precious to someone, to many someones.  

They are dead because we let them down.  

Yes, we.  The social contract includes all of us, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.  

We allowed the mouthbreathers to continuously disrupt, threaten, shit their pants in public places, gather at super spreader events, taking their newly contracted COVID back with them to their cities, neighborhoods, places of work, families.  We allowed an utter buffoon to play fast and loose with our lives as he sought only continued self aggrandizement and profit on our gasping backs.

History will not be kind to him and his coven, but neither will it acquit the rest of us.  Just as the world has looked on in horror for a year, historians will forever try to cipher out how we allowed our country to come so close to the brink, to teeter not only authoritarianism but barbarism.  How we utterly failed one another in the face of this invisible foe.

We are not good neighbors.  But sadly, decent society has been given no choice but to recoil from those whose only contribution to COVID has been to help it spread with greater ease, to morph into deadlier variants, to now refuse to step up and participate in vaccinating this nation.

Decorate your house in Trump regalia?  Thanks for the heads-up about just what a soulless prick you are.  Cover your truck with all manner of flags, stickers, and placards bearing his face?  Appreciate the notice that you are an absolute fuckwit who needs avoided at all costs.  Stroll into Target with a Trump 2024 or Stop The Steal t-shirt stretched across your puffed up chest?  Cool, we know to stay several aisles the fuck away from you.  Your pride in your lunacy; your devotion to your Cult leader; your obvious self interest above everything and everyone are like lighthouses.  They glare and keep us from crashing into the rocky shoals of your selfish, loathsome, likely infected skin sacs.

But what about the ones who have gone stealth?  Smart enough to remove their Trump crapaphernalia from their homes when he lost.  Self aware enough to be embarrassed about waltzing through the grocery store in a greasy MAGA hat.  The ones who now pretend to comply in public places that require masks, only to be seen with them under their chins by the time they reach the meat wall.  The ones who run back home and inject another dose of FOX, Newsmax, and OANN.

The ones who refuse to get vaccinated.  The ones who threaten the concept of herd immunity.  The ones who threaten us all.

They are still there.

Like many people, I signed up for Nextdoor a while back.  Kind of a Facebook for the neighborhood, they are usually filled with pleas about lost pets, people seeking recommendations for home repairs, new folks saying Hi, and alerts about suspicious activities caught on Ring doorbells.  Benign, friendly, the type of stuff of which Mr. Rogers would most certainly approve.

But every now and then, a seemingly innocent post takes a turn in the comments section and it is suddenly very apparent that while the Trump signs may have been removed from the yards, the caustic, hateful, eye poppingly stupid people remain within.

Yesterday, the city of Phoenix declared that the city wide mask mandate would be upheld and continued.  They posted it to the NextDoor site.  What unfurled in the comments made my blood pressure rise, my blood boil, my head hurt.  Pouring forth, outnumbering the sane, science appreciative neighbors, has been a lava flow of ignorance that parrots every single butt nugget born from the ass of that orangutan-in-chief who now lives in exile in Florida.

"Masks cause cancer."  "Masks deny me my civil rights."  "Masks are for pussy ass libruls', "I am my own doctor and make my own choices."  "Screw you, your masks AND your expiramental (sic) vaccine."  "Dumb. Whoever wants to wear a mask can. If masks work, WHY ARE WE STILL HERE 1 YEAR LATER?! “Slow the spread” "  "It is illegal for anyone to require us to wear a diaper on our face!"

It goes on and on and on.  And just as these first amendment "scholars" know exactly jackshit about the actual First Amendment, these "doctors" know exactly nothing about transmission, communicative diseases, and how to mitigate spread.  What they do know is how to stomp their feet, that Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet, that Bill Gates is injecting us all with microchips, and the fact that THEY have not died means NOBODY has actually died.  Their experience is obviously everyone's experience.

It is disheartening.  Millions of people literally too stupid to know how stupid they are.  Millions of people listening to their preachers, their right wingnut politicos, their Facebook groups, whoever the fuck Q is, and echoing the same misinformation and lies back and forth to one another.

The vaccine rollout has been a bright spot in a very dark period in this country.  That we are now over 167 million doses injected?  Marvelous.  That so many lament how hard it is to find an appointment, yet they are determined to keep trying until they nail one down?  Stay the course, good people.  

The vaccine is not going to fix everything overnight, or magically make COVID disappear.  We are not saying that.  What it will do is make it harder to contract, and should you get it, you should not wind up in a hospital, on a ventilator, having your loved ones bid you adieu via ipad.  For COVID long haulers - those who had it, survived it, yet still live with extended fallout - it is being shown to decrease the lingering symptoms.  These vaccines are buying us time, peace of mind, protecting us, putting the chance of death at more than 6 feet away.

That alone should be enough to move everyone to action.  

Sadly, evangelicals, GQPers, Don't Tread On Me flag wavers are all grandstanding that they will not get the vaccine.  YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.  Exquisite show of maturity there, by the way.  Completely brainwashed by MAGA theory, proselytized into submission from the altar, sucked into the exciting conspiracies of Q - they completely ignore that their heroes like Trump, Abbott, Gaetz, et al, pushed their way to the front to get the first vaccines that rolled out.  How's that hypocrisy play in your empty gourd?  The cognitive dissonance that your umber succubus called it a hoax yet ran for the nearest vaccine must really hurt your neck mounted ass.

For all the whining, bitching, moaning, grandstanding, defiantly wailing in public, and shorts soiling you people have done about your rights, your liberty, your freedumbs - you would think that, at the very least, even you could connect the dots between getting vaccinated and all those things you believe you have been denied because of the hoax virus.

We are on the cusp of being able to do things like travel, enjoy sports, cruise, go to concerts, dining, movies, etc.  But to get there, we have to work together.  It won't matter how many of us work so hard to get two doses in our systems if you are all still out there denying COVID even exists, and continuing it pass it around.  And yes, it would be great if we could insure that only you dumbasses contract it and die.  I would be all for that.  Personal responsibility is your thing after all, right?  The problem is COVID doesn't care if you are a dum fuQ and the person in the next cubicle at work is a science embracing, cautious, mask adherent. 

Your insistence that no one can tell you what to do?  Bullshit.  You are told what to do in this society every day at every turn.  You need a license to drive.  Car insurance.  Homeowner's insurance.  Renter's insurance.  Decent credit.  A seatbelt.  There are speed limits.  You must pay for your groceries instead of just walking out.  You can't rape or murder with impunity.  Your kids need proof of vaccinations to attend school.  You need a passport to leave the country.  You need proof of certain vaccines to visit certain countries.  HOAs restrict what you can do with your home and its landscaping.  And on and on and on.

Yet somehow, getting vaccinated against a virus that has killed nearly 3 million people worldwide is just too far afield for you.  

You're an idiot.  There is no nicer way to say it.  And in terms of the societal contract, you should be made to leave the city limits and live in the wild.  Fend for yourself because you do not deserve society's niceties, covenants, and protections.  Then again, I wouldn't wish your repugnant ass on the bears.  

The vaccine is there to help.  It is there to protect you, me, them.  As the patriots you claim to be, that should mean something.  It should mean that you step up, roll up your sleeve, and get shot up - for the greater good.

We can no longer afford to indulge your childish, boorish, dangerously ignorant behavior and choices.

It's a dutiful day in the neighborhood.  Do your civic duty and get vaccinated.  Or as you people are fond of saying, get the hell out.