This post was actually sitting in my DRAFT folder for nearly 5 years–in the middle of an election year, the first of two impeachment trials and a pandemic onslaught–and I brushed it off and thought it sadly still rings true.
Yesterday, the COVID news was pretty staggering–the European Union is prepared to ban travelers from the US (along with Brazil and Russia) because of our climbing cases–in contrast to its own steadily declining numbers after months of strict safety measures and lock-downs with few tattoo parlors open, I suspect. It’s the inverse of March when Italy and Spain were the president’s newest punchline since China’s numbers had temporarily declined.
Now the the United States, with only 4% of the world’s population, has the dubious distinction of hosting 25% of the world’s new COVID cases.
Red-hot centers of COVID spiking–New York Times, 6-23-20
To no one’s surprise (except the administration), there is a direct correlation between easing restrictions with alarmingly escalation in new COVID cases. Michigan, as of this writing, is one of only three states still on the downturn–along with New York and New Jersey. Just over a month ago, “that woman from Michigan,” governor Gretchen Whitmer was again ridiculed by the president for holding her state hostage–then was therefore honored with a lampoon on Saturday Night Live.
I had a flashback to 2006, while shopping at Meijer this morning, dodging mask-less customers as well as the ones with them parked oh-so-effectively under their nostrils.
My wife, kids and I were at K-Mart and a four year-old was being pushed quickly past the toy-section by a mom and grandma as junior screamed that he wanted a ball. “No,” mom and grandma said in perfect harmony. He screamed some more, they denied him again. He screamed one more time and then mom caved, “Fine, take it!” and handed him his prize. “You see, you see!” said grandma. “That’s why he keeps screaming, you give him whatever he wants.” In the parking lot, to our great surprise and pride, Aidan said, “I can’t believe she gave him the ball. That was kinda dumb.”
Too many times the screaming kids have been given the ball, particularly lately. Leaders have become so frightened of the screaming kids that they keep giving-in or ignoring the misbehavior.
The Black Lives Matter movement has been catapulted to mainstream support with the world-wide protests following the death of George Floyd. Even the monolithic NFL’s commissioner Roger Goodell has come surprisingly close to apologizing and even entertaining ideas that they may have been wrong and that Colin Kaepernick ought to be signed by one of its teams.
More notably, the removal of confederate statues and congressional portraits along with insensitive branding and musical groups names (“Lady Antebellum” is no more) has been moving at lightning speed. Just three years ago following the Charlottesville white supremacist rally which resulted in one death and 19 injuries the de-confederation movement hit the inevitable wall that Sandyhook hit when it seemed certain that stronger gun-safety laws were inevitable.
Washington DC’s mayor-approved messaging just down the street from the White House
The NRA and Mitch McConnell mantra–just wait and it’ll all go away. Just put the ball in the kid’s hand, stick him out of sight in the car-seat and drive away with the music nice and loud.
“Gone with the Wind” was removed from HBO’s streaming platform primarily due to its kid-glove treatment of both slavery and Ashley heading off to a Klan meeting and getting rightfully shot by union solders. Technically it’s still an amazing piece of filmmaking with deserved Oscars on all levels–but is as certainly dated and misrepresentative of reality, just as Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” and DW Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” did far more damage on the propaganda front than the artistic leaps in filmmaking they represent.
Slaves and Arrogance
The south has nothing going for it but “slaves and arrogance,” Rhett Butler scolds the southern gentlemen at the Twelve Oaks barbecue and is nearly called to a duel by Charles Hamilton, Melanie’s brother and Scarlett’s first of three husbands. “I’m sorry if the truth offends you,” replied Rhett, a Hollywood Dr. Anthony Fauci, as he leaves the hot-heads behind on his way to his doom with Scarlett and her flying vase.
While slavery was certainly at the root of the Civil War, the actual reason for the fighting was to keep the union together–more of Abraham Lincoln’s primary focus. Or, to put it bluntly, not allowing the members of the agreement from up and leaving because they don’t like the contract they signed. Lincoln didn’t give up and allow the screaming child to have its toy.
It’s the same hypocrisy of driving to an anti-government rally on a public interstate, using the free wifi at a local library and assuming the drinking fountains along the way are relatively lead-free. I’ve written before about removing the word “tax” and instead, every April 15th, you have to submit your “membership dues” to the greatest country club in the word–again that 4% of the world’s population enjoying the best natural resources the planet has to offer–a better deal than Costco.
US Depression-era Heroes at the Berline 1936 Olympics, featured in Daniel James Brown’s “The Boys in the Boat”
I’ve just finished reading Daniel James Brown’s Boys in the Boat, a Seabiscuit-like underdogs story of the 1936 gold-medal rowers from the University of Washington at the Berlin Olympics–but primarily it’s a story of the Depression, of gutted communities, abandoned dust-bowl farms and the families that somehow survived bankruptcy, eviction, no electricity or water and when things finally began improving found their sons drafted into World War II for four years. This wasn’t three months of quarantine without a haircut, this was sixteen years of hardship–but through all those years they had a firm parent, FDR.
So the mini-canons fire on Ft. Sumpter every day, as the commander-in-chief surrenders his heavy reins of leadership to the states, counties and cities while he holds densely seated-rallies last night in Arizona (40th state in testing). In an election year, he can’t make any unpopular decisions with his base. Even a lame-duck Donald Trump might have been less harmful than one bent on re-election regardless of the immense collateral damage. Michigan’s deaths alone two weeks ago surpassed the victims of both the September 11th and Pearl Harbor attacks combined.
Dr. Anthony Fauci in the storm’s center
I wonder if any congressmen would like to go back what feels like a hundred years, to January, and re-cast their impeachment votes. Kind of startling that President Pence probably would have not as visibly let the kid have the ball (he would have ordered a couple dozen on his Amazon app) and might have some pretty high poll numbers right now–just by shutting his mouth and letting the adults keep pushing that cart right on past the bouncy balls.
