My computer inbox is crowded each morning with reports on the three maladies du jour – Covid 19, racism, and Cluckism. Taken individually they are overwhelming. Taken together … what is three times overwhelming? Or is it overwhelming to the third power? My in-brain abacus must be missing a ring or two, since I can’t seem to come up with a sum.
These three plagues are interrelated in that the last one actively interferes with progress on the first two. Doesn’t prevent progress altogether, but presents a big speed bump for certain. I am long ago grown tired of wondering if today will be the day that P.Cluck puts on a mask. Who cares any longer? His chance to lead anyone but the clutch of cult members who follow him around is something he tossed away years ago.
Let’s have a moratorium on publishing his every tweet and/or fatuous self-promotion. Maybe every Saturday CNN could summarize these items in a single article for those of us who cling to sanity with broken fingernails and weakening grip. We could then clip out this section (metaphorically speaking) and place it in the bottom of a parakeet cage where it belongs. (The parakeet is also metaphoric. Would that make it a metaphorakeet?)
******
Dr. Fauci isn’t sure that a Covid 19 vaccine will be as useful as it might. The number of people in a recent poll who said they wouldn’t get the vaccination when it is finally produced was about 30%. If the numbers are accurate, this would mean that the sought-after herd immunity wouldn’t have a chance to kick in.
It would be yet another instance where this anti-vaccine cohort would be depending on the rest of us to protect them as we do with measles and mumps and polio et al. No matter. If we have to save some of their ignorant lives to get the result we need, we’ll do it. Again. My own preference would be to isolate all of them in one or two states, perhaps Mississippi and Alabama, and let them live together in pox-filled peace and tranquility.
While I’m on the subject of the coronavirus, I am happy for two things. First, that our cats don’t have it. Second, that if they did, they aren’t like this guy. I’m not sure my protective mask would be up to the task.
******
On Saturday my neighbor Ed and I are going to build a pergola-like sunshade that will provide some protection for people sitting in chairs in front of our home. At midday the sun out there is reminiscent of scenes from Lawrence of Arabia.
Ed is a knowledgeable and experienced construction person, which should balance out nicely with my cluelessness.
.
My plan is for him to do the sawing, nailing, fitting, and planning. My role will be to hand him whatever tool he requires, much as an operating room technician assists the surgeon. I will also be in charge of the large box of Band-Aids necessary whenever I undertake any sort of carpentry chores. On the average I will lose 240 milliliters of blood per day any time that I take a saw in hand. My DNA is all over the place by the time that project completion rolls around.
If we do finish the thing, I will provide photographic proof of same.
******
I’m going to close with a quote from my favorite cynic. It explains the speech of P.Cluck at Mount Rushmore quite well, I think.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken
Little Home In The Valley 