Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

These Are PEOPLE

Looking around the globe these days, it would be easy to conclude that Mother Earth has had enough of our occupying bullshit and is intent on shaking us off like so many irksome fleas on a dog.  Fires, floods, earthquakes, a pandemic - all designed to systematically decrease the inhabitable spaces - be they land mass or human ass.

In the past 24 hours alone, COVID has taken another 16,286 globally.  In our country, we have gained another 344,152 cases and lost another 1,319 lives.  Our deaths per million is now up to 1,917, having risen by 4 in two days.

Haiti has lost over 1,400 lives in yet another earthquake.  And to add serious insult to the injury of over 6,900, a tropical storm is now bearing down upon the beleaguered island.

Fires rage on in the United States where, according to the National Interagency Fire Center nine new large fires were reported yesterday, four in Montana, three in Washington and one in both California and Idaho. More than 2.2 million acres have burned in 104 large fires and complexes in 12 states.

Around the world, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Spain have seen their share of wildfires decimate acre after acre, upending lives, taking lives.

But Mother Earth does not have to do all the work.  Rather she is content to sit back and watch us eradicate ourselves through famine, pestilence, warmongering - with all eyes currently on Afghanistan. 

What is happening on the other side of the world is the inevitable boil of a pot that has simmered for two decades.  Hemingway proffered the scenario in The Sun Also Rises when one character asks another "How did you go bankrupt?"  The reply?  "Gradually, then suddenly."

The more familiar saying these days is: slowly, slowly and then all at once.

Either way, the meaning is the same - most things that seem to suddenly escalate, devolve, or explode have been a long time coming.  We just weren't paying attention.  That is why, to most of us, what is currently taking place in Afghanistan seems fast, a car crash, a devastating implosion.  The reality is, unless you have someone you love over there - military or otherwise - you have not been paying attention.

And why would you?  Good lord, we all have enough in our everyday lives, juggling, well, everything these days, that what happens "over there" is well on the periphery of our attention, if even at all.

Our presence in that country dates back to President George Bush and his post-9/11 swagger and ball clutching, when he was intent on showing all of us, here and abroad, his best John Wayne impression.  Swept up as we all still were in shock, loss, and the horrific images burned forever into our memories of towers falling, lives leaping from burning windows, planes disappearing into buildings, our consent was not truly hard to come by.  And if not consent, our emotional exhaustion worked in much the same way.  After all, what could we do?

So off our military went, intent on yet another occupation, some nation building, getting Osama, winning hearts and minds, blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.  For our efforts, bodies have never stopped being sent home in flag draped coffins.  Four presidents have come and gone, a fifth now in office, and there we still were.  The cost in lives?

American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448
U.S. contractors: 3,846
Afghan national military and police: 66,000
Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144
Afghan civilians: 47,245
Aid workers: 444
Journalists: 72

Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.

In moves negotiated by the former Oval occupant, our pull out of Afghanistan, the end of our combat role, was to be complete by August 31.  For our billions of dollars invested in their military training, equipment, etc, there was some level of confidence in the Afghan army stepping up without being propped up by the US military, and taking the full reins of control against the ever present menace of the Taliban.

What has actually transpired seems to have caught our government, our military, and the world off guard.  We began our departure and the Afghan army essentially laid down their weapons and walked away.  The result?  With them leaving like a bathtub draining, the Taliban easily swept in and clogged the drain with their takeover.  The Afghan President fled, outlying towns were overrun, and the move into larger cities like Kabul were child's play.

So, yes, we can sit here with righteous indignation at the Afghan army, but at no point should that ire be directed at the entirety of the Afghan population.  Just like you, just like me, they are people.  People caught in the middle, people with zero say in what is transpiring, people whose lives now hang in the balance.

I am sickened by the callousness on display by so many in this country as they gleefully sit and watch the plight of the common man, woman and child in Afghanistan.  Those people are victims.  Victims of circumstances they had no hand in.  Victims who want only what you and I take for granted each day - to live.  To write them all off as terrorists simply because of where they were born, where they live?  Look in the mirror, America.  The entire globe should have written our asses off by now.  Our biggest threat in our own borders is home grown terrorism - white nationalism, Proud Boys, infiltrated police departments, literal Nazis.  

Turning our backs on these people would be unconscionable, yet that is what so many right wing zealots would have happen.  Fuck the children.  Fuck the women.  Fuck the men.  

THESE. ARE. PEOPLE.

Browner?  Yes.  And so fucking what?  How many Qarens in this country keep Palm Beach Tan and the like in business each day crisping their skin to the exact same shade?  Their clothes are different?  Like what, Bubba?  God knows you believe yourself to be a sartorial patriot, but holy hell... They worship a different god?  News flash, dummy, there are over 6,000 currently practiced religions - yours is but ONE.

What should move us to action on their behalf is simple - cut them and they bleed the same as you and I.  Their fear response is no different than yours.  Their love for their children - exactly. the. same.  They simply want to LIVE.

And so that is the direction from which I come at this.  The level I understand, the level to which I can immediately, deeply relate.

I am not a military mind.  Newshound though I may be,  I am not a strategist.  I am not a government official with privy to reams of information, planning, organizing, ability to implement.

I am a human being.  And in this instance, even more to the point, I am a woman.  A woman and a mother of daughters.

Those two things are direct targets of the Taliban and their heinous views about, and abuses of.  

Our occupation for 20 years made possible the movement, education, advancement of the lives of women.  The infant mortality rate dropped by 50% since the US overthrew the Taliban which had restricted women to their homes.  In the decades since, 47% of Afghan girls have been taught to read.  

Read.  Something we take for granted here, but something that is dangerous to the men who would push women back into shrouds and homes.  An educated mind is a threat, especially in a woman.  Think not?  The name Malala should ring a bell - she was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan for the crime of going to school.  Women are inherently powerful, strong, and that must be hamstrung at all costs to creatures that form the Taliban (hell, to creatures who form the GQP).  Women are capable of decision making, capable of lifting economies, capable of leading lives without having any use or need of men.

And to insecure, uneducated, misogynistic dirt clods like those who have swept back into control in less than a week's time, that just won't do.  Reports have been streaming in from outlying areas of women being forced to marry Taliban fighters, publicly flogged, girls as young as 8 being kidnapped.  What seems imminent is a return to the Taliban days before we arrived when women were not allowed to work, girls could not attend school, and women had to cover their faces and be accompanied by a male relative when crossing over the thresholds of their homes to the outside world. 

Bullshit all.

And why the scenes coming out of the Kabul airport the past few days are so compelling.  Watching people cling to the outside of aircraft rolling down the runway, worse, watching them fall to their deaths as the planes ascend, how anyone cannot be moved to compassion is beyond me.  The lucky ones made it to the inside of these massive cargo planes, but when one looks closely, the majority of the people inside the initial flights were not women.  Women and girls have been in hiding, truly fearing for their lives.

Think about it.  Your daughter is 8, 9, hell 16.  And you know that at any moment a group of violent men could burst into your home and sweep them away, rape them, kill them.  And you.  That is not hyperbole.  That is reality.  That is happening.

Yes, there is blame aplenty to be spread around by those who have been in and passed out of power in this country.  Most recently we can look to Trump and his cronies who cozied up to the Taliban, striking deals that released 5,000 prisoners, meeting with the creature who now sits in power in Afghanistan.  We can watch him brag about his agreement to pull out of that country, how Biden and his administration could not undo it.

Here is the infamous orange guy just one month ago taking all the credit for the troops leaving Afghanistan.
pic.twitter.com/ki4aed767B

— PinocchioDon (@OzzieV3) August 16, 2021

We can criticize President Biden and his people for the desperation on the ground, the minutia of the visa process, the pace at which help is flowing.  All fair.  But bear in mind, no matter who this move had happened under - Obama, Trump, or now Biden - there was never going to be a peaceable aftermath.  The bet was hedged though that the Afghan military - 300,000 strong - would fully step up, not stand down.  

And now all there is to do is stabilize as best we can and rescue as many as possible.  Thousands of our military have been put back in place.  Internationally countries are stepping up to absorb refugees, airlift as many as possible.  Just now, Lufthansa Airlines is ferrying people to safety from Uzbekistan - those who had been flown out of Kabul by the German military.  Canada is to continue evacuating and absorbing refugees in the coming week(s).  

The US Embassy in Afghanistan employed nearly 4,000 people, obviously not all ex-pats.  Afghan civilians worked in offices, as translators, intermediaries, etc for years and years.  And now their association with the United States makes them prime targets for retaliation.  We owe these people safe passage, safe harbor.  Under the SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) program launched by Congress in 2009, there are currently 18,000 applications in the pipeline - people who fear for their safety because they dared to assist our country.

No, I do not believe we can, or should be the answer to every problem in every corner of this globe.  But as I taught my children, if you cause a problem, or even had a cursory hand in one, you'd better damned well stick around and see the clean-up through to the end.  Walking away is privilege and deeply reprehensible behavior.

Afghanistan is never going to house a Disney theme park.  It will never host an Olympics.  It will never make the Conde Nast list of Best Vacation Spots.  And it would be easy to write it off as just another lamentable sand box in this world.  But even if the country itself has no hope as a beacon of freedom, a resort getaway, or glamorous made-for-TV host - that is not the fault of the people who were born there.  Appalachia will never be a hot spot either.  But the ones born there are no different the ones now suffering in Afghanistan today.

These are PEOPLE.  Broken people.  And Hemingway had it right with this quote, too, We are all broken - that's how the light gets in.  They are deserving of our attention, our time, our help, our light.  Mother Earth is going to shake us all off eventually.  Until then, be the light and do not turn away.

 

Suffer The Little Children? Indeed

In the Bible, Jesus utters these words.  He does not mean suffer, as in pain, angst, fear.  Rather, the meaning has to do with Him calling them to His presence, affording them the importance this world seldom has/does.  Compassion International describes it thusly, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me,” He was reaching out to a segment of society that was thought to be insignificant. Children, in their weakness and vulnerability, have much to teach us as adults. As we grow, the hardness of the world often makes our hearts callous."

Whether you are a Bible adherent, peripherally acquainted with the pages, or an atheist, it is hard to quibble with that interpretation.  We do marginalize children.  They are loved certainly, but they are also afterthoughts.  They are cherished, yet they are also often unimportant in the grand schemes and themes of adulthood.  We grown-ups tend to think we know best when, let's be honest, we are still making things up as we go along all the way to the edge of our graves.

Adulthood and mindfulness of others, especially children, are sadly mutually exclusive to so many.  We are seeing that with heartbreaking clarity in these days of COVID.

Adults who are so focused on their clique's freedumb hysteria that they ignore how they are endangering their own offspring.  Adults who have been elevated to public office, charged with keeping the populace safe, who daily play fast and loose with the lives of our littlest.  Adults who should be laser focused on the youngest, most defenseless in our society, but instead are focused only on their own power, political ascension, and grift.

Schools across this country have begun to reopen for the Fall.  Yet instead of being hallowed halls of safety for our children, they are active hotbeds of transmission.  Masks are far from mandated, and in some places outlawed.  Governors like Ron DeSantis of Floriduh and Greg Abbott of Texass seem hellbent on offering the children up as some sacrifice to the commerce and re-election gods.

Gone are the days of early COVID when children were thought to be less susceptible to the original strain.  We are now in the presence of the new, as it were.  Delta is here and it is here for everyone - from literal cradle to the grave.

In Texas, a state now drowning in COVID (hospitalizations are up 400% in the past month, and nursing home infections are up 800%), large areas have now officially run out of pediatric ICU beds.  The numbers are no better for adults.  In the entire state there are currently only 341 ICU beds available.  And Texas is a big ass state - 30 MILLION PEOPLE.  Texas currently accounts for 54,396 of the 637,170 total COVID deaths in the United States.  There are at present, 10,463 COVID confirmed patients in Texas hospitals.  And as it was last year during the worst of the pandemic, you again have to be really bad to be admitted and be given a bed.

In Florida, where DeSantis is far more concerned about raising money for a Presidential run than in keeping his constituents alive,  COVID is having a field day.  Last week, Florida accounted for 24% of all US COVID deaths.  Aided by that moRON, coronavirus has the run of the state.  No mask mandates, threats against public school officials who dare to instate any for their students, and a capriciousness about vaccines, the state now accounts for 40,557 deaths (a number woefully undercounted as he also works full time to gerrymander COVID numbers).  

What is happening is that hospitals are again under attack, and doctors and nurses are succumbing to fatigue and stress and resentment.  Of all people, they know it did not have to be this way.  

For your edification as to how this strain on our system can ultimately affect you and yours, here is an example out of Texas.  A man came into his rural hospital with serious COVID symptoms.  The Chief Nurse, Joycesarah McCabe, immediately recognized he needed care beyond their capabilities.  

McCabe said each day she'd phone 50 hospitals -- not just in Texas but other states -- but kept getting the same answer: no beds available. After four days of endless phone calls, she found a bed.  The man, now on a ventilator, was put on a small plane and flown more than 500 miles to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

There is so much that we take for granted in terms of emergency care and response.  It is this kind of backup, this bottleneck in the available care area, that impacts every single one of us.  Should we have a heart attack, get in a car accident, stroke out, etc, the trickle down means ambulance workers are hung up at hospitals that cannot immediately take their charges from them so they may come tend to you.  And if they can transport you, that does not mean there are enough healthcare workers available to immediately insure your survival.

And this means your children, too.  There is not some magical entrance for a child at the ER, not some surplus of doctors or nurses just for them, not a supply of empty beds just waiting for their crisis.  The Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston that set up tents to handle the overflow of patients recently had 130 patients in its waiting room, which is designed to hold at most 70.

Imagine being in that scrum with your ailing child - be it a broken leg, COVID, a deep laceration from the playground - and their pain makes no difference.  Suffer the little children.  Literally.

This morning there is a terrifying prediction coming from the experts.  North Carolina State has been running models and now predicts that without mitigation, 80% of elementary school aged children will contract COVID within two months, most within 30 days.

Have an elementary school student?  Let that sink in.  The most vulnerable population, those 12 and under who cannot yet be vaccinated, who must rely on the adults around them to take steps to keep them safe, are being set up for catastrophe.  

Denise DeWald, MD broke it down this morning:

In the United States, there are approximately 50 million school aged children (K-12).  Of them, nearly 4 million have tested positive for COVID since the virus began spreading last year.  8 million are old enough and have at least begin the vaccination protocol. Factor in asymptomatic infections, and that means roughly 8 million children have some level of protection. Best estimates based on reinfection and transmission rates is that roughly 34 million are completely unprotected.

With me?  Let's continue.

With the current, pathetic to nonexistent mitigation efforts, the likelihood of 50% of these students contracting COVID within two weeks of school starting is very realistic, with positive tests beginning within 30 days.  That translates to roughly 570,000 children testing positive DAILY.  

But Linda, children are strong!  And not every one of them will require hospitalization!

You are correct.  But are you willing to roll the dice against your child being in the 1% (5,700 DAILY) who will require advanced care in the hospital?   There are currently only 27,500 pediatric beds and 4,500 PICU beds in this country.

Do the math.  In the parlance of the common man - your child would be fucked.

And no matter how much you love yours, how special you believe them to be, how worthy of immediate care you would demand for them - it simply won't matter.  If there are no beds, and not enough doctors and nurses to care for them, they may be sent home to struggle and possibly die. Best case, your child manages to struggle and live long enough for another child to die and free up a hospital bed.

We have done this to them.  As a nation, we have allowed them to be placed on the edge of this coronavirus cliff.  Our collective hubris, ego, and toddler level tantruming have brought us to this point where our children are the imminent victims.

We must see more vaccine mandates begin sweeping businesses, industries.  We must see hard and fast mask mandates enacted and enforced across this country.  And if you simpletons want to continue to bleat about your precious freedumbs, go ahead.  But you'll have to do it from the outside looking in.  We are past the point of being able to indulge your idiotic conspiracy theories.  Beyond suffering your threats of violence over a simple piece of cloth across your gaping pieholes.  And well past the point where you deserve any respect or tolerance.

You mental shit piles have had access to the same data, experts, and vaccines as the rest of us.  Yet you have clung to a vaccinated orange open sewer who still believes he will be reinstated.  You listen nightly to vaccinated talking empty heads on FOX and OANN who earn their dollars perpetuating your illogical fears and paranoia.  You live down a rabbit hole of Q nonsense where the basic math of 1+1=2 does not even exist.  In your world, 1+1=JFKJr swooping in against Bill Gates and his hidden chip vaccine shots meant to track your movements, shrivel your testicles, steal your children, and control your consumption of Cheetos and Bud Light.

In short, you're morons.  Willfully ignorant, science eschewing, child endangering, aerosol spewing vectors of plague and you should not be given safe harbor anywhere in society.  Your version of freedumb has endangered this entire nation and the generations coming up behind us.

Suffer the little children.  Indeed.  Your Savior did not mean this.

An Embarrassment of Bitches

Yes, yes, yes, I know the saying is "an embarrassment of riches" but that is not where my mind is this morning.

This morning, as I prepared to sit down and write this piece, I have been thinking about, and feeling my blood pressure raise because of, the absolute bitches running this country and its people - literally - into the ground.

It is an embarrassment and they are bitches.

In a country renowned for its wealth, freedom, ideals, and strength, we are failing our own spectacularly.

We have hypocrites like Ted Cruz "championing" freedumb as he tilts at mask windmills all the while his own children attend a private school where masks are mandatory.  But then he also fled his state for Cancun when the power grid went down and his home had no electricity - telling his constituents to hang in there.  Hypocrisy is the fetid air he breathes. 

Ron DeSantis has more sides to his mouth than a D&D die.  Like Cruz, his own children attend a private school where the masks he decries at every opportunity are mandatory.  And as he continues his assault against vaccines, proof of vaccines by private businesses, and obfuscating the actual numbers of cases and deaths in his state, he is simultaneously begging the government for ventilators.  And as he enjoyed his pancake makeup and face time again last night with Fucker Tucker Carlson, whining about  “medical authoritarianism”, he is at the same time vowing to begin dispensing Regeneron monoclonal antibodies via mobile clinics to those experiencing the harsher effects of having COVID.

Let that sink in.  ERs are overrun.  ICU beds are full.  Hospitals across this country, not just in Florida, are in crisis mode to the extent that if you are in a car crash, you may be well and truly fucked for aid.  So instead of DeSantis championing the FREE vaccine, he is touting a costly regimen that involves four shots in the stomach, or two in the stomach and two in the arm.  A regimen that, while showing promise in those not currently stricken with the worst effects of the virus, is not a cure by any means.

It is infuriating,  

Then there are bitches like Marjorie "Holocaust? Never Heard Of It" Greene continuing to be given media oxygen despite being suspended on her favorite mode for bullshit distribution (Twitter).  This week she blathered that hospitals were not actually filled with COVID patients (they are), but whatever, cause "we can't live forever."  

Seriously, that's her approach to a pandemic that is blazing a trail through this country and threatening to cripple our healthcare system.  AGAIN.  "Everybody needs to get back down to common sense and remember that, you know, we're human, we can't live forever, we are going to catch all kinds of diseases and illnesses and other viruses, and we get hurt sometimes."

Yes, Marjorie, we do get hurt sometimes.  In accidents.  But when it comes to this particular virus?  WE. HAVE. A. VIABLE. MEANS. OF. BETTERING. OUR. CHANCES. TO. LIVE.  We have a free vaccine available to help us help the healthcare workers who are stretched to breaking.  We cannot 100% guarantee we will not get COVID, but with the vaccine we can keep ourselves out of the ERs and ICUs so when we do have accidents, there are doctors and nurses and beds available for our car crashed asses.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

But I digress... I know my posts lead with anger these days.  But I am angry.  What is happening is senseless, needless, and staggering in its scope.  However, what truly brought me to the keyboard this morning is what has brought me here before and before and before.  The fallout of this virus and the toll it has taken on far too many.  As of June, 25 state governors were discontinuing the $300 supplement to unemployment that had literally been keeping people afloat and fed the past year and a half.  It was making a difference to so, so many.  It was keeping lights on, roofs over heads, stomachs from crying out in pain.

I have fielded constant requests for food aid, trying to fill as many as possible without coming to you yet again.  But Rudy and I can only shoulder so much on our own.

I know I sat here a month ago asking for help for someone's pet (Coco) which had been attacked.  I am happy to tell you that Coco continues to recuperate and is doing well.  You had a hand in that and the family will be forever grateful to a cohort of hearts they will never know personally.

Today I am asking again for you help to simply buy food.  We have a widowed father with two small children - their mother, a nurse who died from COVID contracted while treating others, trying to save lives while giving her own.  (I have had their story for a couple months but while shouldering my own family, sister's cancer and chemo, parents' move, I have been helping them directly as I just could not get to the keyboard.)  A widowed mother with young teens - she is currently working two jobs to simply get them from day to day.  A struggling couple who are doing all the right things, but cannot get from the 1st to the 30th of a month with food to spare.  One email following another...  Here is an excerpt from one today:

its one of those times....again.  It pains me to ask as I always feel like a failure for doing so, but if at the end of the day the community can help I would truly appreciate anything. Its a situation where I need to choose between groceries or school supplies and clothing. Food wins hands down. My son has been home for the last year and a half, taking online education. He is now fully vaccinated and is going back to the classroom at the end of the month. I'm tired. This year has been trying. I just feel done. Down and out and cap in hand. As always, I'll make do with what we have but if its possible, we sure could use anything dgms can spare.

It is all heartbreaking.  The struggle, the stories, the pleas, but what always stands out to me is the embarrassment.  I hate that most of all.  Hunger is embarrassing.  And it should not be.  It - food - is the most basic of needs.  Yet admitting you have none, admitting your children are hungry, that you are hungry, is felt by these people as some grievous sin.  That they are profoundly unworthy, have let their families down when they did nothing to bring about their crises.

Again, I hate this embarrassment aspect most of all.

This country can do so much better by its people, all of them.  But it won't, it cannot while an embarrassment of bitches are in the way.

If you can help, I am here begging you to do so.  I am happy to absorb their embarrassment, and get on my keyboard knees for them.  It takes a village, now more than ever.    The link on the left side of the page is open, or you can go directly to Paypal > Send Money > [email protected] (Done as a simple Send Money, not Purchase which incurs fees).  (I also have Zelle and Venmo and Apple Pay options - email me for those.)

Thank you all, in advance, for anything you can do, and everything you have already done. 

Linda 

The COVID Gamble

Human beings have gambled for as long as we have run amok on this planet.  Before games of chance or mere amusement, cavemen and women gambled with their lives daily.  They would weigh the chances of animal attack or accident against the acute hunger pangs they and their fellows were experiencing.  They did not emerge from safety for the thrill of it all.  Rather hunger is a great motivator in terms of taking a gamble.

Through the years, games of chance entered the arena of human attention and our species has since enjoyed the chance to risk a little for the chance at gaining a lot.  See:  Las Vegas, Powerball, scratch offs.

We like to gamble.  Because when we win, the exhilaration is drug-like.  But the heightened tension of the wait between laying down our chip and the final roll of the dice holds within it just as much adrenalin.  We are always convinced that we will beat the odds, that we will have the winning hand, that we will not crap out.

How many mortgage payments, paychecks, marriages have been lost to such certitude, such financial hubris?

Well, money can be re-earned, new relationships can be formed, damaged ones even repaired.  But what happens when the gamble involves much higher stakes?  When what we choose to place on the line is life itself, or worse the lives of those we hold most dear?  

That is precisely the gamble we are watching millions take in the face of COVID.  And like watching someone place all their chips on one number in Vegas, we stare openmouthed at the balls, the capriciousness, the certitude with which these people place their mortality bets.

I don't get it.  Chances are neither do you.  After all, COVID is, like the Powerball, simply a numbers game.  Yet unlike the national chance to win hundreds of millions of dollars, you have dramatically increased odds of contracting coronavirus.  Winning the Powerball is, on average, a 1 in 292.2 million shot.   Based on positive tests vs population, 1 in 10 people have already matched five numbers in COVIDball.  And 1,905 in every million have matched the five and the COVIDball number to boot and won the ultimate prize - a permanent dirt nap.

That last one is something that should draw your attention, make you rethink your bet.  Just two days ago, your chances were only 1,900 in a million.  In 48 hours that number has jumped by five people.

In the numbers game of this pandemic, the answers are fairly simple, the odds forever in your favor, as it were, Katniss, if you get vaccinated.  While vaccination cannot stave off infection 100%, a recent study showed that unvaccinated people have a three fold higher chance of contracting COVID.  Fully vaccinated have a .4% chance.  

Anti-vaxxers like to hide behind numbers like these as some sort of justification for their penchant for gambling with their lives and those of their children.  See?!?! Being vaccinated doesn't keep you from getting it!  No, Qaren, it doesn't, and no one ever said it did.  What is provable is that there is a 50% to 60% reduced risk of infection, including asymptomatic cases, in those vaccinated as compared with unvaccinated people.  What the vaccine does is demonstrably increase your chances of mild symptoms, no ER run at 2am when your lips are turning blue from lack of oxygen, and all but eliminates your chance of dying while deep throating a ventilator hose.

Seriously, were this a money bet, Vegas bookmakers would be going all in.  Wall Street traders would be ordering yachts.  It's that simple.  The chances of "winning" are exponential, astronomical.

But hey, it's only your life.  And your kids' lives, right?

That's the part I cannot wrap my head around.  Fuck around and find out with your own life.  Whatever.  I am long past giving a shit about your ability to continue breathing in and out.  And this planet could well benefit from culling the stupidity herd.  But your kids?

JFC, children are hostages.  Captives of their parents' choices.  Imprisoned by their caregivers' lunacy, love of conspiracy.  And now on the Death Row of abject stupidity to which their parents cling.  So convinced that what they read on some Facebook page is gospel, a secret to which only they are privy, that they are willing, happy even, to place their child's life on the Pass/Don't Pass line on the craps table.  This is a blatant, outright act of child endangerment.

They lose their shit over the idea of their children having to wear masks in school, somehow conflating that risk mitigation with some monstrous violation of their constitutional rights.  This took place outside a school board meeting in Tennessee last night,  Medical professionals had spoken about why they supported a mask mandate in the schools.  Facts, reason, logic, an appeal to the better angels of the parents who should be putting their children's health first.  For their efforts they received threats of violence.

The parking lot after a school board meeting last night in Franklin, the wealthiest place in Tennessee. Parents harassed medical professionals who had spoken in favor of masks in schools. “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.” pic.twitter.com/SzR0uvMeE7

— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) August 11, 2021

The only thing monstrous is the ignorant horde.  (Just this morning a county in Georgia issued a warning after 110 school aged children turned up positive.)

Again, you adults who choose to play fast and loose with your own lives?  Fine.  Enjoy the mounting restrictions being enacted against you by private businesses.  Restrictions that are being enacted because of you.  Restrictions that we should be past had you stepped up and simply rolled up your sleeves.  That's the fucking irony here - you bleat about the economy, shutdowns, quarantines, masks, schooling being online, as if you are not responsible for all of it.

You dragged us backwards.

You are the reason masking is still imperative.

You are the reason for the surge and the hot and fast transmission of the Delta variant, and the emergence of Lambda.

You are the reason cases are up 86% in the past 14 days.

You are the reason children's wards are filling with cases as young as 2 months.

You are the reason your beloved churches are closing back down.

You are the reason employers are mandating vaccines for all who work for them. 

You could have done the right thing.  You could have actually been patriotic and joined in a national, hell, global, cause.  You could have been part of the solution.   You could have currently been enjoying a recovering economy, your kids happily and safely back in their schools, movie theaters, travel, vacations, shopping.  Could have.  

Instead, your belief in your own research vs that of experts who toil daily to keep us all healthy became your casino.  Lies, misinformation, FOX, and a rapidly deteriorating sack of orange pus became your craps table.  Qanon became the dice you roll.  And your life and that of your loved ones became your chips.

Watching you put them all on the line is ghastly.  Because the odds are what they are and they don't care how you feel, what lies you believe, how invincible you like to think you are.

The House always wins and in this COVID gamble, you are about to crap out.

(Since I started typing, 4,083 more people have tested positive and 29 more people have died.  For reference, I type fast.  Roughly 68 wpm.  This piece has 1235 words.  Do the math.  Still feeling lucky?  Or just plain stupid?)

CuomOver and OUT

One of the subjects that hit the news while I was away was that of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the lengthy investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

When the press conference took place a week ago, NY Attorney General Leticia James laid bare the findings:  after tens of thousands of documents and 179 witness interviews, it was clear, "Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and in doing so violated federal and state law."

A "hostile" and "unsafe" work environment that included unwanted touches, kisses, innuendo, and "inappropriate groping."  In all, 11 women had come forward with the details of what they had endured at his roving hands while they attempted to do their jobs, keep their jobs.

That same morning, he came forward with a prerecorded rebuttal denying every single instance, right down the line.  He blamed being Italian, as if that buys a pass for unwanted amore'.  He blamed his parents' shows of affection for his own that were now called into legal question.  He excused it all away - he was saint, they were sinners.

It was a sickening study in yet another man hoisted with his own sexual petard, who refused to own any of his behavior and the fallout it caused.

As a woman who has been on the receiving end of unwanted jokes, emails, touches, gropes, and a rape to boot, allow me to say right here, right now, to every man out there - KEEP YOUR GODDAMNED HANDS, MOUTH, DICK TO YOURSELF.

It stymies us all how you can see other men getting caught, called out, fired, put in jail, yet so many of you refuse to see your own repulsive, assumptive behavior.  You continue on into your workplaces behaving as if you are Don Draper in Mad Men - that your females employees are just there for the eye candy of it all, there to absorb your puerile advances, fake laugh at your dirty jokes.  You continue your predatory behavior in public spaces where you catcall, make sexual asides at, and dare to push up on, women in stores, bars, on the sidewalk as we pass, on an airplane while we sit trapped. 

And then when one of us raises our head, finally disgusted to the point of verbally or physically rebuffing, you immediately turn one of two ways:

Victimy, whiney, "Hey, whoa! Just kiiiiidddddingggg!  Jeez, lighten up!"

or

Aggressive, "Fuck you, bitch.  I wouldn't fuck you anyway."

Here's the thing, guys - neither is acceptable, because the behavior leading up to your rebuttal was never acceptable.  And getting menacing in the face of one of us daring to turn down your offer of whatever you think you're offering?  News flash - we are under no obligation to be grateful for your attention, your words, your cock.

Especially your cock.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph - your cocks are not the be all end all you seem to think they are.  They are an odd looking flap of flesh that we are all more than aware you house behind your zippers.  If we are interested in entertaining it on any level, we will let you know.  And it certainly won't be when you holler "Nice tits!" on the street. 

Seriously, what in the fresh fuck do you think will actually happen when you do this?  That we will stop in our tracks, take in your too short Dockers, stained t-shirt, meat hook feet in dirty flip flops, and your backwards ballcap, and be overcome with lust?  That we will run to you and beg you to take us NOW, RIGHT NOW on the manhole cover, passersby be damned?

GTFO.  You've watched way too much porn.

These type of things are far too common in public spaces, and we endure them, ignore them, breathe deep through them, and walk faster to our destination to get the fuck away from you.  But when they happen in the workspace?  We are trapped.  Trapped in cubbies, copy rooms, lunch areas, walkways - trapped because we have nowhere to go.  And when the advances and gropes come from a superior?  We are well and truly fucked because the imbalance of power is scary, we need our jobs to survive, and must smile through your boorish, rapey behavior while we will the clock to move faster towards closing time.

Extrapolate that now to being the Governor of a state.  The power is undeniable.  And those women who have worked their way into positions in proximity of that power?  Yes, there are good men in top ranks, but there are far too many for whom absolute power corrupts absolutely.  And in corrupting the behaviors displayed and inflicted on the women, crimes are committed. 

Small aside here - yes, I freely acknowledge there are women in positions of power who sexually abuse their male underlings.  Of course there are.  And those women deserve every bit of comeuppance, outing, and courtroom time as their male counterparts.  But let's be clear here - as far as women have come in this world, this is still a predominantly male towards female issue.

Like so many larger than life public figures before him (Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, Russell Simmons, Toby Robbins, Brett Ratner, Chris Brown, Brett Kavanaugh, Les Moonves, Steve Wynn, and on and on...), Cuomo abused his position of power, his proximity to so many women, and preyed on them constantly.  And with each successful and successive touch, fondle, grope, whisper, and word he grew more and more emboldened in his behaviors, his encroachment into their personal space, their lives, their nightmares.

Men - the women around you don't want to discuss their sex lives with you.  We are under zero obligation to share our fantasies, our desires, our out of office lives with you.  Don't ask.  We do not want your casual pass of a hand over our midsections or lower backs, as you test the waters of what we will tolerate from you.  Don't corner us in an elevator.  Don't follow us to the bathroom.  Do not call us sweetheart or darling.  Don't invite us into your office under the pretext of work and then push papers to the floor and ask us to bend over to pick them up. 

Seriously how many times did you watch 9 to 5 you sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot?  

Look, having another person like you can be a wonderful thing.  Even in the workplace.  The excitement, the anticipation, the lingering glances across the office.  If it is wanted, reciprocated.  And I promise you, men, we will let you know if it is.  Hell, I married my boss.  But our dance towards one another was based on mutual, understood attraction, absolute respect, and the common sense to keep it out of the workplace, even as it exploded into our private lives and off hours.

But when you boorishly make passes that are obviously unwanted, make jokes that illicit a cringe, move into our personal space and we move quickly backwards?  Take a fucking hint.  

We are under zero obligation to reciprocate.  We should not feel compelled to protect your feelings from harm.  It is not up to us to assuage your ego by sublimating our self esteem.  Your attentions are not some divine gift.  Your affections are not intuited by us as winning a prize.  And your dick is not some blessing you bestow upon us.  Have a little respect.  Hell, if not for us, then for yourselves. 

Women move through this world in a constant state of heightened awareness.  Because of you.  Women have plans and backup plans and backup, backup plans.  Because of you.  Women carry mace, rape whistles, guns.  Because of you.  Women fake phone calls in Ubers.   Because of you.  Women alert other women to their plans and movements and locations.  Because of you.  Women go with other women to the bathroom.  Because of you.  Women avoid male led workout classes.  Because of you.  Women change gyms to avoid walking past construction sites.  Because of you.  Women wear bulky clothes and put their hair up when they are on the street.  Because of you.  We avoid rest stops and gas stations when traveling alone, need to pee be damned.  Because of you.  We only wear one headphone so we can be aware of our surroundings.  Because of you.  

The list goes on and on.  Women constantly alter their behaviors because women are constantly aware we are targets.  That is not hyperbole.  81 percent of women in the U.S. experience sexual harassment, and at least 33 percent of women globally will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

These percentages are not secret.  These actions we take are well known.  And we are prepared to have to take them in the public sphere.  We should not have to endure poor behavior, brash intrusions, and scary sexual situations in our workplaces.  We just shouldn't.  But we do.

A week ago, in the face of incontrovertible evidence and witness interviews, Governor Cuomo defiantly blew off calls for his resignation.  In Tony Soprano fashion he denied everything and basically dared anyone to come for him.  

This morning, as the voices calling for his ouster have only grown louder, the list longer, impeachment an all but foregone conclusion, and his crimes referred for prosecution, he announced he will resign effective in 14 days.  Did he accept responsibility for his acts?  Of course not.  He framed it as so many men do when they have been caught with their dick in the wind.  He is doing the noble thing, the honorable thing, the greater good thing.

Gag.

"Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to government, and therefore that is what I'll do, because I work for you, and doing the right thing, is doing the right thing for you."

And then he did what so many also do, he hid behind the women in his personal life, in this case, his three daughters.

"I want them to know from the bottom of my heart that I never did and I never would intentionally disrespect a woman, treat any woman differently than I would want them treated, and that is the God's honest truth."

"Your dad made mistakes. And he apologized, and he learned from it and that's what life is all about."

Having daughters and being a sexual criminal are not mutually exclusive, Andrew.

Grabbing a woman's breast is not a mistake.  It is an intentional act.  Asking a woman about her sex life and partners is not a mistake.  It is an intentional, gross intrusion.  Telling an employee that if you were a dog you would try to mount her is not a mistake.  It is a boorish, sexually charged advance.  When you shove your tongue into a woman's mouth and she tries frantically to pull away that is not a mistake.  That is an overtly hostile sexual crime.  When you grab a woman's ass while posing for a picture, that is not a mistake.  That is molestation.

Methinks that if one of his daughters came to him complaining about their boss inflicting one or all of the above on them, Andrew may look upon that man with an equally Soprano-esque murderous gaze.  He needs to now turn that gaze upon himself.

He'll have plenty of time for reflection.  Cuomover and OUT.

Delta Dawn

For the past two weeks I have been traveling with my husband across this beautiful land of ours.  Driving from Phoenix to North Carolina to see his parents.  Mile after mile spent traversing Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina - what we found was disturbing, infuriating, yet not surprising in the least.

Masks were far and few between, while obtuseness was in rich supply.

Despite the dawn of the Delta variant that is cutting huge swaths of the populace down in the form of positive COVID tests and filling hospital ICU beds at an alarming rate, willful ignorance and prideful belligerence is on full display across this country.  States led by GQPers are the worst.  Science be damned, far too many have politicized this pandemic and there is, sadly, no going back.

As of this morning, our stats are as follows:

36,547,563 - number of positive cases since the beginning of this pandemic (that is 11% of our population)
     633,126 - number of dead (which by every metric and expert analysis is woefully undercounted)
     109,706 - number of cases per million
         1,900 - number of deaths per million (still feeling lucky?)
  4,312,896 - number of deaths globally (again, woefully approximate and undercounted/under reported)

Those numbers are disturbing to anyone with functioning gray matter.  Our deaths per million are again increasing at a steady clip, up 100 in the past two months alone.  Our number of cases per million up over 10,000 in the same time span.  And globally, that number has jumped by ONE MILLION since the end of May.

The last one should be compelling if for no other reason than it highlights how farcical it is to have COVID emerge as such a political football in this country.  This pandemic is not just happening here.  It is in every country on this planet.  It gives not one fancy fuck about left vs right, conservative vs liberal, Q vs IQ.  All it cares about is staying alive, continuing to spread, and mutating as many times as possible as we try to catch up.

Yet here in this country we have fully vaccinated talking heads like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Candace Owens sitting safe in their inoculation while espousing disinformation to their mASSES.  We have governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott gleefully watching their states implode with COVID while passing laws against any attempts to slow it down.  And we have politicians like Rand My-hair-is-styled-after-an-IKEA-bathmat Paul goading the experts and doctors and nurses with his verbal screeds against masking and vaccinations. 

He tweeted this morning (along with a four minute video): "We are at a moment of truth and a crossroads. Will we allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do further harm to our society, economy, and children? Or will we stand together and say, absolutely not. Not this time. I choose freedom."

The level of hubris, the blinding irresponsibility here is staggering.  This is not about freedom, this is about freedumb.  But hey, as long as you're bringing it up, Rand, let's talk about the harm to our "society, economy, and children."

Our society is not simply fractured.  The crevasse revealed by the installation of the most ignorant sack of trash to ever occupy the Oval has become a Grand Canyon.  On one side, a political party buoyed by dark money, rabid politicians whose only concern is staying in office, and legions of easily led sycophants.  On the other, thinking, logical, science-appreciating, society minded people trying desperately to move this country forward from the devastation already wrought by COVID.

Our society and economy should be almost to the other side of this virus by now.  We could have been.  We have access to multiple FREE vaccines, we have the easy ability to mask up, and should have the common sense to avoid large gatherings.  (Yet here we are, still open mouthed at Lollapalooza and now aghast at Sturgis.)

Sadly, in the face of those three absolute blessings, we also have anti-vaxxers who believe anything they read on Facebook over actual experts in epidemiology.  We have careless dimwits who believe themselves to be "bulletproof", "protected by God", and "board certified in American freedom." 

I'm not kidding.  Those are real quotes.  That last one was proudly spouted by a COVID denying Qaren at a school board meeting about masks and vaccines.  "I have a bachelor's degree in logic, a master's degree in motherhood, and I'm board certified in American freedom."

As for the former?  The men who sputtered those gems did so from their ICU beds during their come-to-Jesus revelations shortly before they died.  From COVID.

But back to Qaren and her master's in motherhood.  Maybe I went to a different school for my mothering degree, but my graduation was dependent on my being fully fluent in placing my children's health and well being forever foremost in my mind, my actions, my protections of them.  But because of folks like COVID Qaren, pediatric cases of the virus shot up fivefold since the end of June, and up 84% in the past week alone.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said Tuesday it recorded almost 72,000 new cases of Covid-19 among children from July 22-29, up from 39,000 the week prior and a sum that comprises 19% of all cases reported nationally over that period.

More disturbing, ICU beds are quickly filling with children in state after state, obliterating the comfort we all took a year ago in the initial variant that was striking hardest at elderly and those with comorbidities.  But again, the dawn of the Delta variant changed the game.

The viral load is twice that of the original.  The transmission rate is faster and higher because, as is the case when a virus mutates, it does so to become more efficient (read: dangerous and deadly).  As of the end of July, Delta was responsible for 80% of the new positive cases.  

So what we are seeing now is, while heartbreaking and infuriating, not surprising.  Children are now the largest population of unvaccinated in the USA.  The vaccines have not yet been approved for those 12 and under, so they have been at the mercy of the adults around them to get vaccinated and protect them.  Enter the Qarens and Qevins who believe themselves to be bulletproof, believe the virus to still be a hoax, believe anyone who types a screed on Facebook, believes their red state politicians who bleat about freedom and choice, believe bullshit like the vaccine contains a tracking chip/makes you infertile/makes you magnetic.

Daily we are now subjected to stories of these blowhards dying with a ventilator tube down their maws.  We get their last words, texts, posts in which they now take it seriously.  We get their widowed spouses beseeching everyone to get vaccinated.  Frankly, I am as done with these stories as I was with the constant Jethro safaris to far flung diners to find out why they were voting for Trump.

The answer now is as simple as the answer was in those diner queries.  They are stupid.

Unkind?  I don't care.  Prove me wrong.  I am over being lectured to understand these people, to not talk down to them, about them.  Fuck. That. Noise.  These are the idiots who sold out hydroxychloroquine and are now emptying feed store shelves of ivermectin (horse dewormer).  They have had access to the exact same information as the rest of us from the very beginning.  The difference is they love the taste of liberal tears so they gleefully followed Trump and Company into the abyss.  Let them rot in their graves.  I save my sympathy for one group - those who cannot yet be vaccinated - the children and the immunocompromised.

As for the rest?  I'm done.  They are a cult hellbent on playing chicken with death.  They are not to be pitied, they are to be pilloried and ostracized.  Don't want to get the vaccine?  Fine.  One by one, city after city, they are going to find themselves on the outside looking in.  No vaccination?  No entry.  This liberal's tears you will be tasting will be from me laughing so hard at how desperate you are to get in a movie theater, a concert, a restaurant, on an airplane.

Vaccines are not new.  The concept of a vaccine "passport" - NOT NEW.  Vaccines have kept us alive for generations.  Proving a vaccination status has enrolled your children in school for decades.  Travel across this globe often depends on you acquiring various vaccines before being allowed entry into another country.

And let's put paid to that specious argument about the COVID vaccines not being fully approved, or that they were rushed and therefore suspect.

The vaccines were not rushed.  There are dedicated researchers, scientists, experts who inhabit labs around the world, around the clock working on vaccines, drilling down on viruses.  The speed of the vaccines for COVID were made possible by them already largely being in existence and having people far smarter than you and I adapt them to the specifics of COVID-19.  And as for the emergency use they currently exist under?  You whiners will simply word salad another excuse to not get the shots as soon as FDA approval is finalized (which is now within weeks).

They do not magnetize you.  Your fertility is not at risk - although, gents?  Your ability to oak up takes a huge hit if you contract COVID.  There is no tracking chip being magically injected through that miniscule needle of liquid.  JFC, that one takes the moldy cake.  The same dullards who embrace that scare tactic post about it from THE CELL PHONES IN THEIR HANDS.  The iPhones that can triangulate your location.  The Galaxies that know where you just ate dinner.  The cell phones we all would defend to the death before relinquishing our ability to Google, play games, source music, and stream TV shows at will.

But as I type these words, I am also reminding myself we are up against a segment of the populace for whom 1 + 1 does not = 2.   For them 1 + 1 = Deepstatebogeymen5Gshriveledovaries.  Oh, and we must not leave out the part where they are special.  SO, SO special that they will be tracked.  SO, SO special that only they have insider info gleaned from rabbit holing Youtube videos.  SO, SO special that they will survive and the rest of us will all wither and die as our vaccine chips are activated when <insert latest bullshit conspiracy theory>.

The reality is many of them will die.  They will not be remembered as heroes.  They will not be lauded as champions of freedom.  They will simply fade into obscurity after their tale of woe is turned into tomorrow's cautionary tale in the NYTimes.  They will leave behind families bankrupted by their hubris.  (The average hospital bill should you survive is $70,000.  And if you think insurance companies aren't crunching the numbers right now?  Well, we already know you're dim, so...)  Some will bury a child who is dead at the hands of their parents' stupidity and ego.  Some will watch their child contract COVID, have seemingly mild symptoms and then watch as their once healthy child is revealed to have long-COVID symptoms, forever thwarting their desire to play soccer, baseball, football, hell, play at all.

The two weeks we traveled were not eye opening.  They were simply verification of what we knew.  People are dumb.  No masks.  No precautions.  Just hubris writ large.

And far too many of them will soon be "a faded rose from days gone by."  Delta has dawned.  Get vaccinated or get ready for that mansion in the sky.

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

Post script -  Current COVID models are estimating 83,000-142,000 more deaths in the United States between today and December 1st. Those same models show that we could prevent 48,000-108,000 of those by simply wearing masks.