Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
Because god knows we need it.
"Be aware to trim your nose hairs, cause they could put up a fight!" Japan's state of emergency has been lifted after their initial bout with COVID-19. To both cautiously celebrate, and to remind people to be diligent, disinfectant company SMV Japan released this silly animated music video.
And it's not because it's my birthday. That has very little to do with my current mood. I'm in this headspace because of all the awful going on in this country right now and our seeming inability to remove the cancer that's metastasizing from from the White House.
It seems COVID-19 and the very reasonable recommendations about staying home, closing non-essential businesses, and wearing masks and practicing social distancing when you do have to go out have brought out the absolute worst in a certain (i.e. racist, Trump rimming, MAGA-hat-wearing) portion of the population.
My heart goes out to my non-white brothers and sisters who are bearing the brunt of this behavior. It's as if the United States is finally vomiting up 244 years of suppressed hate, and instead of it blocking out the sun as it did in the I Am The Night—Color Me Black episode of The Twilight Zone from 1961, the country—or at least Minneapolis—is going up in flames. I have feared all along it will take just one more incident to touch off a conflagration that will consume this country like none seen in our lifetimes. And George Floyd's murder seems to be the spark thrown into that dry tinder.
And you know what? I say burn it to the ground. The horseshit treatment of minorities has gone on more than long enough. It needs to be stopped, by any means necessary. Being nice and playing fair only leads to genocide. Racists are bullies just like Trump, and the only way to put them in their place is to smack them back into the 1860s where they belong.
I fear that even if Minneapolis does not spread to the rest of the country, the rage of the minority Reich Wing when Trump is removed from office will reignite a whole new set of fires because you know that after months of Citrus Calignula's sowing seeds that the election will be rigged or the results illegitimate when he loses that his followers will not acquiesce to a peaceful transfer of power. He is, after all, their GOD.
And regarding the Orange Russian Wig Stand's threats to shut down his Twitter account? Be serious. Trump cut off his only conduit to his brain-dead sheep? Oh PLEASE.
And his promise to muzzle social media? BRING IT, BITCH.
The man is pissed. And well he should be.
I am an infectious diseases physician. Let's be clear about masks. I wear a mask to protect you. You wear a mask to protect me. That's how it works, and it's simple. Without your mask, you are telling me and everyone around you that you don't care about others. And that's not how we get through a pandemic." ~ Stan Schwartz, M.D., Tulsa
Preach.
From The Palmer Report:
There's a moment in a science fiction TV show called Avenue 5, in which the captain says "We just watched seven people stupid themselves to death." And yes, the title of this article is from The Office. What can I say? Those of us who are dutifully staying home during the pandemic are watching a lot of TV. As these past few days have played out in the real world, these lines keep coming back to me – because we're sadly seeing a whole lot of people stupiding themselves to death right now.
It's one thing to go to a grocery store right now, masked up, taking as many precautions as you can. It's a far less safe thing to eat in a restaurant right now, where you can't stay masked up while eating (if you must do this, please be as careful as possible). Then there is this whole other ballgame where a certain segment of people are tempting fate by doing the most risky and stupid things they can possibly do in a pandemic – and they're being egged on by the President of the United States.
We keep seeing the images of partiers crowding into confined spaces, smashed up against each other, in large numbers – and almost none of them are wearing masks. No matter where in the country this kind of incident happens, it's nearly a statistical given that at least one of the people in that crowd has brought coronavirus with them, which means that a large chunk of the others will leave with the virus. They'll take it back to their families, their communities, their workplaces. This is how the second coronavirus wave begins, while the first wave is still going on.
The amount of stupidity on display here is mind boggling. In every one of these images we're seeing of tightly packed mass crowds right now, a percentage of the people in each image will be in the hospital or dead within a couple weeks. That's frankly their problem. But first they're going to spread the virus around to a bunch of unsuspecting people in their community. That's unconscionable. And yet Donald Trump keeps egging them on to carry out this murder-suicide routine. When this is over, Trump must be criminally charged for these deaths.
As Ben and I were saying yesterday, the stupidity we see rearing its head on Memorial Day will start bearing its deadly fruit in about 2-3 weeks.
For me personally, grocery shopping is fine. Picking up take-out food or medications (conveniently located in my grocery store) is fine. But anything beyond that is just plain crazy until there is a proven vaccine in place and I've been innoculated.
I may end up spending the rest of the year at home.
I want to be fashionable as much as the next gay, and since it appears wearing masks in public (at least among people who actually care about others) is the new norm, these caught my attention.
You can get yours here. (He's currently sold out of these designs, but I'm sure he'll be getting more in soon. He's been overwhelmed with orders since he put these online.)
From John Gruber:
I'm old enough to recall when wearing seat belts became mandatory. Roughly speaking, these laws spread quickly from state to state, starting with New York in 1984 and becoming the rule rather than the exception within a decade. ("Live free or die" New Hampshire is the only remaining state that doesn't require adults to wear a seat belt.)
I recall a similar sort of opposition to these laws as we see now with mandatory face masks. Opposition to compulsory seat belt laws always seemed crazy to me, because the evidence was so overwhelming that seat belts save lives and greatly reduce injuries that it was clearly worth making an exception to the principle, widely held in America, that the government generally shouldn't tell people what to do. But crazy or not, opposition there was. "Fuck you, I don't want to wear one, it's a free country." Word for word, the same sentiment then about seat belts as now about face masks.
One of the arguments against compulsory seat-belt-wearing was that sometimes wearing a seat belt makes things worse. "What if I'm in an accident and my seat belt gets jammed, trapping me in a burning car?" "I read about a guy who wasn't wearing a seatbelt and he walked away from a terrible accident because he was thrown out of the car before it was totaled."
I don't agree with it, but to some degree I get it: What right does a government that sells you lottery tickets have to tell you that your odds are better if you're wearing a seat belt?
But there's a fundamental difference between wearing a seat belt in a car and wearing a face mask in a store. A seat belt really only protects the wearer. There are tangential arguments that society as a whole benefits from fewer car crash deaths and injuries, but the primary reason we have laws requiring you to wear a seat belt is to protect you from harm. Face mask requirements aren't like that. They're more like laws banning smoking in restaurants and making drunk driving a serious crime — they protect us all from harm.
From earlier in my childhood, I recall ubiquitous signs at the entrances of stores and restaurants: "No shirt, no shoes, no service." There were variants, but that exact phrasing was common. I always considered those signs so strange, as I couldn't imagine why anyone would even want to go into a store or restaurant without a shirt or shoes, let alone need a sign telling them that doing so was not permitted, but I figured it must have been a problem with hippies or something. (There were a lot of old people complaining about hippies long after there were any hippies left to complain about.)
Basically, other than poolside or at a beach, anyone who wants to go into a public establishment barefoot or shirtless is an asshole. It seems pretty clear that the people today angrily objecting to mandatory face masks aren't really concerned with the epidemiological efficacy of masks. They're concerned with asserting their perceived entitlement to be an asshole. You don't need to hang a "No assholes allowed" sign to enforce it as a rule.
No apology from pastor of Butte County church where 180 were exposed to COVID-19
This is the reason you are not supposed to be gathering in groups. But don't listen to science you fucking idiots, listen to the raging orange moron in the White House. Because when the fuck has he ever been right about one fucking thing?
So many outbreaks have started in churches and a lot of our elders go to those churches.
And while we're witnessing Charles Darwin in action, be vigilant. Listen to your own self-preservation instinct. Regardless of what may be open, STAY THE FUCK HOME and WEAR A GODDAMNED MASK WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO OUT.
In addition, I see a Trump voter. I see a selfish narcissist who doesn't care about anything or anyone beyond himself. I see a sociopath. I see a Karen and a Kevin.
I also see Charles Darwin in action.
I just wanna bitch-slap them!
No shirt, no shoes, no mask, NO SERVICE!
Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.
Because your grandmother's life does.
Because people of color lives do.
Because the lives of the LGBT community do.
Because women's lives do.
Because a woman's right to choose is on the line.
And because I can not fucking take 4 more minutes of this batshit insanity, much less 4 more years!
Of course her name is Bethany…
From I Should Be Laughing:
Jake Bland is the operations manager at Hometown Hauling, a refuse collection company in Louisville, and he's also on the truck picking up his customers trash. One day, during his regular route, he noticed that there was no trash out in front of one house, owned by an elderly woman; in fact, it had been a couple of weeks since she'd put the garbage out.
But rather than move on to the next address, Jake called his dispatcher, Bernice Arthur, and voiced his concerns. Bernice then called the 90-year-old customer and was relieved that she answered the phone. Relief turned quickly to grief when the woman told her she hadn't put her trash out in a few weeks because she didn't have any:
"She just didn't have nothing to eat….and that's why she had no trash to put out there."
The woman depended on public transportation to get to and from her local grocer, and because of a now limited public transportation schedule, and a fear of getting on a crowded bus with strangers—many unmasked—during a pandemic, she wasn't able to get any food.
For ten days before Jake Bland came along.
Bernice said the woman told her that she had no family to help and Bernice cut her off:
"You have a family now."
Bernice asked her to make a shopping list and, after his shift, Jake returned to her house and picked up the list, went shopping, and brought everything back to Mrs. W. And his company paid for the food.
Jake offered to help her put everything away, but Mrs. W told him to leave it in the garage to keep everyone safe.
Bernice and Jake have vowed to check on the many elderly and disabled customers that they have, and will continue to check on Mrs. W.
I wonder if all those people marching on state capitals because they want a beer and a haircut, or to get their hair and nails done, have given one thought to people like Mrs. W. Or are they too busy in their own little shallow worlds to think of others.
Luckily for several people, Jake and Bernice didn't think like that.