Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Be safe out there.

 

Individualism, regional divisions, fragmented government. Sounds like . . . Belgium.

The nation with the highest number of cases per million --- by far --- and the highest number of deaths per million --- by far.

Why Does Belgium Have the World’s Highest COVID-19 Death Rate?

 

And New York, where the leaders are political heroes and victims of a cruel federal government - not like those monsters in North and South Dakota.

 

If only there was some way to create that bill without larding it with student loan forgiveness, prison reform and election policy overhaul.

The Democrats crafted a bill that would never pass.

 

How a divided Congress works. One house passes the bill that's its wish list. Other house does the same. Then they negotiate. Except this hasn't happened here. Senate hasn't passed anything, because McConnell won't even bring HIS wish list to a vote because it wouldn't be popular. This leaves Pelosi to negotiate with a constantly moving target. That's never gonna work.

 

Do you think states like South Dakota should have learned something from what happened in New York - in April?

It's late November.

 

Thank goodness Joe the Cobbler had the unalienable right to ride his custom trike to Sturgis this year for the Electra Glide Freedom Festival!

 

As awful as Bolsonaro is as president, or dysfunctional Belgium is as a government, the high COVID-19 death toll in both countries could have been avoided if only there was a bit more empathy and solidarity. Years ago, in London, a Chinese lady told me the reason why she wore a mask wasn’t because she was afraid she would catch something from others; she wore a mask because she didn’t want to pass on her germs.

As populations all over the world face lockdown fatigue, people long for a return to normal. But “normal” is what got us here in the first place. The transmission of this virus is determined by one factor only: people’s behavior. No country, no government—rich or poor, democratic or otherwise—will prevail against this invisible enemy, unless we all become team players rather than rugged individualists.

 

A wish list in an unprecedented pandemic. School loans and prison reform just have to be addressed right now.

There was never going to be a second stimulus bill before the presidential election, and there probably won't be now before the Georgia run-offs. The Democrats are too close to having both houses of Congress and presidency to throw bones.

Which, hey, politics ain't beanbag. I get it. But it's the Democratic governors shutting things down pretty hard, and their counterparts in Congress with a ludicrous bill that no one will pass. Is some of that the Republicans' fault? Sure. Not all of it. Not even half, at this moment.

 

Testing, though it is not 100%, at least you eliminate the positive ones for a time. Others can work. If we were able to do this the first time around...every little bit helps. Of course we know this and if not for trump we may have been closer than we are to recovering.

 

When the media decides speaking truth to power is talking shit about the masses, that's one hell of a media. (Though I imagine Foreign Policy is an operation long steeped in elitism.)

I'm a team player. I do all the stuff. But I keenly aware, too, what being a team player means, too, when it's the left saying it.

Further, a more interesting story is how many people I know - that any of us know - who got the virus and insist they did nothing wrong. It's a big mystery, to the point where they wear their masks in the Facebook post when they announce they got it! The faceless evil out in the world gave them the ro, and their contracting it is not evidence of a mask's imperfection, but the moral rot of the other.

 

c'mon