The problem with committing to writing a blog every day is you sometimes have nothing noteworthy to discuss, at least something that will fill a short article space. Sure, I can rant on about the latest stupid thing that Trump and his minions did, but that gets old. Every day is a new insult to our country and to analyze every single one of those instances is better left to the journalists.


So, here's a brief list of things on my mind this day.

SNL At Home

Have you had a chance to watch the two episodes of SNL produced all from within the cast's homes? Despite the lack of a studio audience, it's been pretty inspired comedy. It demonstrates the professionalism of those involved with the product, from the writers all the way to the video editors and everyone in between.


I've been a fan of SNL since it first aired back in the 70s. I was in high school then and I thought their comedy was edgy and a bit dangerous, as compared to the way TV was back then. Over the years, the quality came and went, but I hung in there as so many fans did.


Sure, their episodes are uneven. Some skits are funny as hell, others are just bombs. Sketch comedy is a brutal business and the way SNL's process seems to lend itself to disasters sometimes.


To be able to see new episodes in this stay-at-home format really has increased my appreciation for what they do. Bravo, Lorne Michaels and the entire team!

Nextdoor.com

I've already ranted about the people using this platform in our neighborhood but their complaints have grown both more strident and more ridiculous since I began posting there regularly.


The number of in-house epidemiologists we have here is simply astounding! These self-described experts (really covidiots) cite their sources as some idiot they saw on Fox News or some You-tube video they saw. They attack the true medical experts like Fauci, even questioning his motives, his background, and everything else.


Yet, these same morons think that everything that spills from Trump's lips is like words from the Lord himself. Talk about a bunch of delusional twits.


And the complaints? Don't get me started. Besides the constant whining about the amenities still being closed, they bitch they're "rights" are being taken away because they post stupid and misleading stuff on Nextdoor, and then the posts are removed.


The First Amendment's intention was to prevent the government from abridging the right to free speech. It was not written to allow anyone to write/say anything on any platform completely unfettered. NextDoor.com isn't run by the government; users must follow the guidelines prescribed by the moderators. The same goes for Twitter and all other social media.

Hot Peppers

Do you like spicy food? I mean really like spicy food? I do. And having grown up in a household of pepper-eaters (my mother's Italian), I grew up eating the stuff, the hotter the better.


When I met my wife, she wasn't a big fan of spicy food but over the years, she's learned to love it almost as much as I do. Every once in a while we buy chilis japones, those hot red peppers you get in kung pao style food at Chinese restaurants. We fry them up in vegetable oil until they just a little crisp and then put the result in a glass bowl with a spoon, where we apply it to any/all food we eat.


Without getting graphic, of course there's the natural digestive result that comes with eating hot food. But anyone who loves the burning going down to the point of an addiction tolerates the results with a modicum of acceptance. Even when it hurts, you still crave more.


I won't admit to the number of hot chili sauces I have in our refrigerator, either. Just know I regularly have to replace empty bottles of the stuff.


Yours in miscellanea,


Michael

May Day 2020

Is the year over with yet? The decade?

Today as I look out at this bifurcated country we live in, I wonder how the hell the United States can continue to survive intact. Of course, in large part, I'm referring to the political polarization that both sides of the divide engage in.

Sure, I could trot out the well-worn platitudes honed from years of cable news coverage, but we're not talking with each other--instead, we're talking at each other, which never bodes well for the future of a unified nation.

But I'm not going to do that.

Instead, I'll point to the more dangerous schism than right vs. left. It's the crazies vs. the sane people and I fear the former are taking over (that is, the inmates are running the asylum).

Case in point...the ongoing "freedom marches" being held across the country by covidiots who want their state governments to reopen the state immediately despite what the experts are saying about opening too early and inviting a resurgence of COVID-19.

It's not just those that are marching that bothers me. I've already written that they get themselves sick, they can infect the rest of us, overwhelm the healthcare system, invite an even further extended quarantine, etc. These people live in a world where Fox News tells them what they should think and do. Morons, one and all.

No, the ones I'm really fearful of are those who propose absolutely unscientific, ill-advised, and just plain batty theories about novel coronavirus. Some examples:

• The virus is a hoax perpetrated by [fill in the name of your least favorite liberal]
• Bill Gates wants to control us with all with his vaccine
• This is how the liberals will take away citizens' guns
• 5G technology is responsible for COVID-19
• The virus was manufactured in a Chinese lab as a bioweapon & it got away from them
• The world is conspiring to get rid of Trump
• People aren't dying, they're crisis actors we're seeing
• Hospitals aren't being overrun, it's all fake news

How the hell do these people dress themselves every day? Something tells me they have a screw or ten loose.

With the internet, these whack jobs now have the way to join forces and enlist other brain-dead souls to their way of thinking.

You may be asking what does this rant have to do with May Day?

May Day was once celebrated in Soviet Russia (and still is, to some degree) in honor of the working class on whom the Russians built their communist world and of whom were taken advantage of by the Communist Party elites. It equates to a much lesser degree to our Labor Day.

The fact that on this May Day workers are demanding to be allowed back to work is, of course, a noble thing. I don't fault people for wanting to get back to making money. Too many folks are in a financial bind and being furloughed without pay is making it impossible to meet their expenses.

But when you see covidiots bringing semi-automatic weapons to these demonstrations or seeing anger toward a made-up enemy (George Soros, for example) makes me wonder if they have any sense God gave pocket list.

(Actually, I don't wonder, I know they don't).

Meanwhile, and this is true, Georgia, which flung open their doors wide a few days ago, has already reported a surge in COVID-19 cases since their grand reopening.

Of course, they did. Any wonder?

Yours in confusion,

Michael

When Will It Be Normal Again?

If you've been reading all the COVID-19 coverage online or watching cable news, you must've seen a title of an article or segment that opines about when will we be normal again? As if "normal" is the same for everyone, but I get the point. Let me start with the answer, then the analysis.

When will we be normal again? Never.

Seriously, never. Or at least never in our lifetime, though a lot of people will eventually return to some variation of their previous "normal." But, unless your head is completely full of air or rocks, you must know that if a pandemic like this could happen and it's not that fatal, imagine one where it is not only virulent but kills a large number of those who become infected.

So, we have to accept the fact that there will be a new normal but even how that will look is hard to predict.

Think about dining out in a restaurant. How many do you go to that are packed cheek to jowl with tables and customers and waitstaff? Probably too many to count, right? If you were the owner, how would you reconfigure it?

Here's what I would do:

• Reservations-only seating
• Staff must be checked daily for temperature and perhaps O2 levels
• Customers must be checked for temperature and O2 levels as well
• While in the restaurant, waitstaff must wear masks and surgical gloves (same for kitchen staff, too)
• Remove half the tables or more to allow for 6' minimum social distancing
• Tables, chairs, and other surfaces need to be wiped down thoroughly after each customer leaves

And even this isn't perfect. What if an asymptomatic person comes into the restaurant? No fever, O2 saturation levels are fine, but they're shedding viruses left and right--how do you prevent this? Sure, on-the-spot testing would help, but even if it was available, who could afford to do that every day for every person passing through the doors?

This is just one example. Think of your own and then you start to see the sheer magnitude that this challenge presents.

So "normal," as we used to know if, is history. What happens going forward is up to us as a race because just returning to our old ways will only open the doors for the same kind of pandemic or even worse--the one that will take out humanity altogether.

And what's the most asinine thing I see now are the covidiots protesting that their liberties are being assaulted. My only words to them are these: get with the program or get ready to lose you life or that of your loved one.

Yours in quarantine,

Michael

UV Light and Disinfectant -- A Descent into the Abyss

Donald Trump is nuts.

There, I said it. For years, the man has exhibited signs of mental illness, primarily malignant narcissism. His current behavior borders on sociopathy, at least according to a number of mental health care professionals, and to my mind, he always has.

However, beginning with his birtherism BS during the Obama years, he's been demonstrating even more symptoms of mental degradation, and since he's become President, based on the words he speaks and the tweets he posts, he has further descended into the abyss with no end in sight.

Some have suggested this is due to years of illegal drug use. Others have posited that it's symptoms of late-stage syphilis. I'm not convinced either of these is true.

Instead, I believe Trump suffers from early-onset dementia, which only tends to exacerbate his already known mental illness.

My mother-in-law suffered from depression (and possibly other issues) and when her dementia began to manifest in earnest, it was not only difficult to differentiate that behavior from her behavior before she went on antidepressants, but it seemed the two worked synergistically (and not in a good way).

Yesterday, Trump seriously--not sarcastically, as he's trying to say now--mused how ingesting/injecting disinfectant and UV light into the body of those infected with COVID-19 should be looked into as a possible treatment.

THIS from a man who was strenuously promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat novel coronavirus, a practice now dismissed by the CDC as potentially fatal based on data from clinical trials. And now he's talking about using Lysol and black lights? IN the body?

There's already been at least one case of someone ingesting disinfectant to get rid of COVID-19, which, of course, landed him in the hospital. Fortunately, he survived this stupidity despite Darwin's theory.

How many more covidiots will do the same because Trump thought it was a good idea?

Serious, people, this guy is without a doubt, 100% certifiable. And yet, he remains in office. Clearly, he's a candidate for invoking the 25th amendment, but he's not going anywhere until we vote him out.

Let's hope we actually do.

Yours in amazement,

Michael 

General Miscellanea

Sometimes I don't have a particular topic I want to discuss, so I'll fill this space with news bits and pieces, or as Stephen Colbert refers to a segment on his show, "Meanwhile."

Meanwhile...

We already finished season 6 of Bosch and it was every bit as good as the first five seasons. The downside of binge-watching, of course, is we have to wait another year, or maybe even longer now that filming is on hiatus, for season 7. I have to satisfy my Connelly cravings with the few remaining ebooks of his I haven't read (though none of them are about Harry Bosch).

Meanwhile...

We're going out shopping today after being home for a little over two weeks now. Running low on fresh produce and some other staples, as well as things we can live without, but we'll get while we're forced to be in the grocery stores. Of course, we'll be wearing masks and surgical gloves in our travels. Wish us luck--I hope we don't run into any covidiots while we're out.

Meanwhile...

The price of oil went negative for the first time ever yesterday. With that, investors are saying May is shot as far as manufacturing is concerned, though futures beyond that look hopeful. It's impossible to imagine that the price of oil -- not gas -- would get so low considering the oil shortages of the 1970s. Still, we don't plan to do any driving anytime soon.

Meanwhile...

We're about to hit our first triple-digit temperature days in the next week. What this will do for our daily exercise remains to be seen. We're not morning people and to shift our internal clocks to earlier than what they are now won't be easy. I don't want to be like stereotypical seniors generally are, up at dawn, in bed at dusk. Just because I'm sixty doesn't mean I have to act my age.

Meanwhile...

I'm getting a lot of reading and writing done during this long period of self-isolation. I have a 50-book target to read this year and I'm a little under halfway there already. My writing goals are a little looser. So far, I've finished five screenplays this year and I have two in progress as of this moment. I'm also in the middle of writing two novels and what I think will be a novella, though I'm not limiting that in case it wants to be longer.

Yours in miscellanea,

Michael

Covidiots and Random Thoughts Thereof

Today, we're getting more reports of protests against stay-at-home orders by those I call "covidiots." We've learned many of these protest groups are sponsored by right-wing groups such as the gun lobby PAC. Also, one can see Confederate flags and other hate symbols among the stupid fools marching like somehow their defiance will protect them against novel coronavirus.

If that was all it was, I'd say, go on, march around like little tin soldiers, give the disease to each other, be happy. But now we're seeing these protestors facing off against healthcare workers at hospitals and other medical places, taunting them and verbally abusing them.

Who the hell do these covidiots think they are? I mean, what planet did they descend from, and more importantly, how can we send them back.

It infuriates me to think that the President of the United States encourages such behavior in his tweets. He's supposed to be the leader of this country and he's acting like the world's biggest troll.

Sometimes, he acts the fool during his daily press briefings, aka his propaganda presentations. Other times, he'll say the "right" things (nominally) and contradict his very word on Twitter! What the hell?

I have a couple of theories about that. First, he has mental problems and his lucid moments are being overshadowed by his demented ones. That is, he's able to hold it together for a while, but then the demons in his head break loose and he becomes a raging lunatic. It's like his id becomes almost possible to control in public, but as soon as he gets on his phone in his private place, the demons are freed.

Why isn't the GOP doing something about this? As I've undoubtedly noted before, Trump will do their bidding and they're getting things done they never would've had a traditional Republican in the White House. They needed the perfect partner--an unhinged, megalomaniacal troglodyte who has no political loyalties and will sell his soul to the highest bidder of the moment.

Some say we were due to have such a horrible Chief Executive given our history of embracing authoritarianism and right-wing dictators throughout the world. The threat of communism so terrified both the left and right that they would do anything--I mean anything--to stop it, including getting into bed with some of the worse humans on the planet.

Trump's even worse. His adoration of despots is profound and unbidden. Putin, Kim Jong Un, Balsanaro, Duerte, Xi Jinping, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and others...Trump's ass-kissing of these self-styled "strongmen" is offensive. And yet, the GOP does not reign him in. No, in fact, they encourage him by their silence.

History will look back at this time and hopefully describe in painstaking detail how horrible this regime is. I know I'll never forget it.