With a plethora of possible topics, I found myself struggling for a tone or direction this week.
It’s the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and there are endless things to be said, especially with the backdrop of America’s disastrous Afghanistan pullout last week. Countless false stories are being written about how America “pulled together,” after 9/11, and how different we’ve acted in the face of Covid. Obviously, those writers didn’t actually live through the events in 2001, lest they’d remember that less than a month after the Towers fell, we were back at each other’s throats. Absolutely nothing about America’s reaction and response to Covid is surprising nor dissimilar to 20 years ago. Additionally, the entire world is at each other’s throats disagreeing over the virus; let’s not pretend we’re special.
Speaking of Afghanistan, the Taliban is going door-to-door hunting for Americans to slaughter. Good times. https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-soldiers-door-executions-110701194.html
https://nypost.com/2021/09/05/california-woman-in-kabul-says-taliban-hunting-americans/
Covid remains never-ending and divisive. More and more Americans are obediently wearing masks again for no rational reason, especially since cases of the delta variant have peaked. Not to worry, though, there’s plenty of doom and gloom to come as we head towards another dark winter. The flu will miraculously make a comeback, and we have multiple more variants lined up ready to scare the living shit out of all of us prone to such fear porn, which seems to be about 70% of America. https://www.newsweek.com/mu-covid-variant-that-may-evade-vaccines-found-46-countries-territories-1626462
The NFL is back…yay. That about covers that subject for now.
Within less than two weeks, the nation’s largest state will either have a new governor, or the same one. While a recall of Gavin Newsom would be a huge national story for a day or two, and assuming Republican Larry Elder were to become the new governor, California would see a sea change in regards to how it responds to Covid on a statewide level, it’s neither likely to happen nor much more of an event than a paragraph deserves. Job done.
As has become the norm over the last few years, the news is endlessly negative and divisive. I thought it would be nice to offer a positive message in light of that reality, but I just couldn’t muster the words necessary. Not because I’m in a bad place personally, but rather, it seems, too many others are…and they want to stay there. I could key in on that, I suppose; here we are, a year later, in the exact same space we were 365 days ago. Americans are endlessly on edge with no end in sight and very little hope of things changing anytime soon…or maybe anytime at all. Well, that’s uplifting.
And then I stumbled on dueling stories about the exact same thing, which perfectly represent our national mindset today. Both sides needlessly celebrating non-victories and preaching to their respective choirs about why they are on the right team and the “other side” is endlessly wrong, and of course, stupid.
The subject of the anti-parasite drug for animals known as Ivermectin has been a hot one over the last few weeks, especially since Podcaster Joe Rogan made it known that he had taken it once he contracted Covid. On one side of the argument, conservatives, including Doctor and Senator Rand Paul, have claimed that because former President Trump took Ivermectin and touted it, liberals refuse to even study its’ possible uses as a treatment for Covid. Paul’s position is that the drug is approved for use in humans to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms, head lice, and skin conditions such as rosacea, and should at least be researched to combat Covid, not discarded solely because Trump said it might work. On the other side of the debate, liberals argue that some studies have been conducted to evaluate the drug’s efficacy against COVID-19, however, the data has been inconsistent, inconclusive, and too small to be considered high quality. And that there is simply no reliable evidence that ivermectin should be used for COVID-19. Not to mention, misusing it can lead to very dangerous outcomes. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/rand-paul/2021/08/30/rand-paul-ivermectin-senator-undecided-on-drug-to-treat-covid/5652636001/
Cue the phony overreactions and false celebrations!
Hungry to show how stupid anyone who voted for or still listens to President Trump is, the traditional media breathlessly and excitedly reported that Oklahoma hospitals were overwhelmed with patients having overdosed on the drug Ivermectin. In fact, the situation was so bad that gunshot victims were being neglected. “The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated,” said the story repeated by dozens of American and overseas news outlets. https://www.foxnews.com/media/rachel-maddow-liberal-figures-false-story-hospitals-ivermectin-overdoses
It was 100% false, and Fox News and conservative pundits from coast to coast reveled in the fact that the “mainstream media,” got it wrong…of course they neglected to report that while the Oklahoma story was false, it is undeniable that hundreds of Americans are, in fact, overdosing on Ivermectin to the tune of a 245% increase in just one month as word spreads throughout social media. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/04/1034217306/ivermectin-overdose-exposure-cases-poison-control-centers?ft=nprml&f=1003
It’s the most deliciously emblematic story of the weekend. We are now so far gone to polarly opposite ends of the Earth that we literally misreport and celebrate the exact same story. Liberals are disgustingly excited to see Americans making themselves sick…so much so that they report anything they hear that they want to be true, making fools of themselves and furthering our mistrust of anything we see, hear or read. Conservatives, meanwhile, are so hell-bent on not believing anything said by anyone associated with science and medicine, and so desperate to find ways to prove that there’s a sliver of truth in anything ever uttered by Trump, that they celebrate when their liberal counterparts misreport, and then they, themselves ignore the fact that hundreds of people are, in fact, falling gravely ill, engaging in the very behavior their orange leader led them to.
Come to think of it, I should have said more about the NFL season starting…it will be fun to be reminded that there was a time when the people that made the biggest fools out of themselves were sports fans, making up truly asinine arguments to defend and justify their team, as opposed to now…a time when health professionals, political leaders, and media members now makeup news and twist themselves into pretzels to defend and justify their team.
