My wife is constantly encouraging me to do more positively themed soapboxes. I’ve told her that the very nature of having a platform to share my views implies negativity because no one really wants to listen to someone saying everything is great. But, she’s right…it doesn’t have to be negative ALWAYS. And so, this week, I come to you with amazing news.
Congratulations, America! In addition to such great contributions to the world such as Jazz, Thomas Edison, potato chips, and the credit card, The United States has once again bestowed upon the world another gift; we have cured the flu!
The viral disease that we came to know as influenza in 1933, but more commonly has been referred to simply as the flu, has been ravaging the Earth for 6,000 years, but it has taken America only 10 months to eradicate it from the globe. All hail the Red, White and Blue.
As many as 650,000 people in the world die every year of the flu…well, they used to. Now, and forever more moving forward, the number will essentially be zero.
You see, we are nearing the end of the annual flu season in America and lo and behold, basically no one has gotten or died from it. Astounding doesn’t begin to explain it. On average, 50,000 Americans die every year of the flu, including 200 children…almost 800,000 of us wind up in the hospital as a result! Not anymore!
Do you want to know why? Well, it’s all those fantastic masks and social distancing, of course. Thank God for our brave and heroic leaders.
All of this, of course, is complete provable bullshit. But, it makes for a great story and reenforces how brilliant the worlds’ health experts and politicians have been. It also gives them a launching pad for never ending power and control. Every fall moving forward will be declared “mask season” and people will be told to cover their faces from October to March to STOP THE SPREAD of the flu. No hugging, touching, feeling (#Journey) or indoor dining, either. I mean, my God…you might catch a sniffle and we can’t have that anymore.
Let’s start with the dishonesty and work our way towards the stupidity, lunacy, and criminality of all of this.
Flu cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are, and always have been, based entirely on estimates and mathematical extrapolations. For starters, do you even know anyone who has ever been tested for the flu? Brandon is literally the only person I have ever met who has. Our ability to test for the flu is beyond lame; the test we have is only good if someone is tested within 48 hours of getting ill…and prior to making everyone stark raving made over a sore throat, no one ran to the doctor with initial symptoms of the flu. Doctors simply diagnose patients as having the flu based on observation, then they report those numbers and the CDC and WHO put that information into a giant calculator and tell us all how many people got and/or died from the flu.
Shift to now. The one place no one wants to be is anywhere near a doctor’s office or hospital. After nearly a year of scaring the living hell out of people on every level, many of us refuse to go near a medical facility even if we are sick. Since 99.97% of all people under 50 survive Covid, and since many employers will insist you stay home (many without paying you) if you test positive, there are a lot of us walking around with stuffy noses, sore throats, and a mild fever hiding it. Those who do seek treatment almost always do so virtually, since doctors don’t want you spreading the dreading Corona, and they diagnose you, via a Zoom call, as having Covid. You are, what we call, “presumed Covid.” Yes, that’s a thing…Google it. No one presumes the flu anymore, we all presume Covid. That’s a hell of a way to eradicate the flu; just assume no one has it.
Those who do seek treatment often do so well after the first 48 hours of symptoms because they’re hoping and praying, they don’t need to go near a hospital. Once they do, if they even are given a flu test, they of course test negative, since it’s well past its’ incubation period. Ironically, they also test negative for Covid, but they are PRESUMED to have Covid because…well…SCIENCE. Thus, no flu.
As for the children, of course they’re not getting the flu sine we aren’t letting them go to school in much of the country, nor play sports or have play days.
But wait…How is it that half of the country spent the holidays traveling and visiting loved ones, mingling households, not wearing masks, hugging one another, and being told that they were surging the spread of Covid, and yet no one got the flu? This makes absolutely zero sense! And there it is…no sense at all. And we’re all falling for it over and over again.
And what if…just for a moment…we grant them their asinine reality and cede that yes, the almighty masks and social distancing and working and learning from home are the reasons that absolutely no one is getting the flu (even though millions of people are)…have we truly, really, honestly, sunk so low that this is the life we choose? We’re so afraid of body aches and chills that we’d rather live with our faces covered and the absolute minimal amount of human contact possible? Jesus, what has happened to us?
I long for the days of shoulder blocking endless New Yorkers as I make my down the Avenue of the Americas, or literally feeling droplets from a dozen strangers spewed down upon me at a Metallica concert. I long for those days because that’s what we used to call life…and living.
We’ve been promised an end since the beginning. Two weeks to stop the spread became a few months and then many months, and then an entire holiday season and then a year and now…as they roll out the vaccine, we’re told a few more months. The almighty Anthony Fauci says we’ll see some “some sense of normalcy” at the end of summer…which is mid-September but he doesn’t quantify the word “some.” Awesome…so we can go back to football games, but we still have to cover our faces like a bunch of criminals? Which…how ironic is that…for another time I suppose…
I hate conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. There is almost never a bogeyman behind the door or under the curtain. However, there is a stark difference between a conspiracy theory and linking logic to come to a conclusion…and the truth of the matter is that we have handed the dorks, nerds, losers, and weaklings of the world the key to power and control over all of us and they are never going to let go of it if we allow them.
If you’ve ever had power over another person, you know the feeling…it is, in fact, exhilarating. Those of us with morals and values recognize immediately the Spider Man quote; “With great power comes great responsibility.” Most amongst us don’t have morals or values, and certainly not the dorks and nerds who were tortured as children and molded to believe that they were outcasts only to become the learned…and now, the powerful. They are salivating at the idea of being able to tell us all to MASK UP (a la South Korea…Google it)…at their very whim or whisper.
And so…to summarize…if all goes to plan, we will basically, irradicate Covid in 2021…and yet, amazingly, we will all be told that the flu is bearing down upon us come fall and that we all must mask up and socially distance to avoid getting a virus that we’ve all been perfectly happy living with (the flu) for centuries…and I remind you…the reason we never wore masks during flu season is that there is absolutely no evidence that living like god-damned raccoons prevents the spread of influenza. But who cares? Living has been redefined as not living. All we care about now, as a collective, is remaining alive…like zombies…and not enjoying life in all of the ways that we used to. No more concerts, comedy shows, or festivals in the ways that we used to enjoy them because that sort of fun isn’t allowed any longer lest you get a runny nose. We’re teetering and waiting for a consensus to arise and extend an answer to us all. So far, the verdict is that yes, we’re “all” willing to stop living to stay alive. I hope and pray that enough of us will reject that and demand a return to actual normalcy, but I have my doubts.
As for my wife…positivity is negative. After all, god forbid any of us test positive for Covid since it’s a death sentence…even though it isn’t for almost all of us. But hey, at least it isn’t the flu…
