How was your week? If you haven’t died or gone broke, congratulations. It’s been quite a week on our small dysfunctional planet and I decided to put down my Sharpie and write about it. I was using the Sharpie to draw fangs on my respiratory mask to use when the plague finds its way to Southern Arizona and I want to cut in line. The mask makes me look like a surgeon channeling a piranha. They’ll scatter like flies at Walmart.
The week began with the tenth debate in the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. The panel was expanded to include Tom Steyer because white billionaires were underrepresented. The chief moderators were Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell of CBS News and it went something like this:
“GK: Good evening and welcome to the tenth Democratic presidential debate. I’m Gayle King.
NO: And I’m Nora O’Donnell. This evening’s debate also features questions submitted over the Internet. If you have a question you would like us to ask one of the candidates, just go to Twitter and use the hashtag #clusterfuck2020.
GK: Our first question is for former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg, why do you believe it would be a mistake to nominate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders?
MB: Because he’s a godless Communist who likes Fidel Castro and honeymooned in Russia and Vladimir Putin wants him to get the nomination because Donald Trump will beat him like a rug.
GK: Senator Sanders, do you have a response?
BS: Yes. Get off my lawn, you mealy-mouthed homunculus!
GK: Senator Warren.
EW: I have a plan for that. Clean green lawns all across America. We’ll pay for it by taxing rich people’s gardeners.
GK: Vice-President Biden, do you have a comment?
JB: Listen, here’s the deal. (Pause)
GK: Uh, what’s the deal?
JB: I forgot.
GK: Senator Klobuchar?
AK: If we spend the next four months arguing over lawn care Vladimir Putin will spend the next four years defoliating it.
GK: Mr. Steyer, how do you react to what Senator Sanders had to say?
TS: What’s a homunculus?”
Those are pretty much the highlights. The eleventh and final debate is scheduled for March 15th in Phoenix. It will be boisterous, unless the coronavirus hits Arizona by then and health authorities lock out the audience. That would be a drag, although I admit watching the candidates argue while wearing respiratory masks would be a new level of entertainment.
Speaking of coronavirus, the other big story not only went viral, it is viral. Americans are worried about coronavirus, but fortunately our Commander in Chief is on top of things. “(W)e’ve had tremendous success,” Donald Trump declared at a news conference on Wednesday, “tremendous success beyond what people would have thought.” He celebrated the tremendous success by designating Vice-President Mike Pence with the unenviable task of leading the nation’s response to the pandemic. Pence declared that he will defeat the virus with conversion therapy and prayer. “The coronavirus is not acting as God intended,” intoned the man who resembles a walking Q-tip. “We will pray it back to China, or wherever it came from.”
The stock market had dropped faster than Trump’s pants in a teen pageant dressing room, but Trump assured the media it was not because of coronavirus. The actual culprit, he insisted, was the Democratic presidential debate. “I think the financial markets are very upset when they look at the Democratic candidates standing on that stage,” he opined. The market was so spooked by the Democratic debate that it recoiled the day before it happened. But Trump is optimistic. “I think the stock market will recover,” he said. “The economy is very strong.” The next day the stock market validated Trump’s optimism by falling another 1,200 points.
During Trump’s news conference the first instance of “community spread” occurred in California. A seriously ill woman was diagnosed with coronavirus. She had not traveled out of the country and had no known contact with any person believed to be infected, but contracted it anyway. Then a whistle-blower reported that infected patients had been flown into Travis Air Force base, not far from where the woman lives, and that health workers without proper training or protective gear were exposed to them. Since the virus is an airborne pathogen that spreads easily, it’s not hard to imagine an infected health worker taking a lunch break, or shopping at a mall, all the while unknowingly contaminating the surrounding air. The Trump administration apparently invited coronavirus into the country and set off a chain of infection that is untraceable and unpredictable.
It’s time to pray for a miracle and, lo and behold, the President promised one. “It’s like a miracle,” he declared to a White House gathering Thursday evening, “it will disappear.” Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow downplayed the stock market’s death spiral. He characterized the plummet as “a short-run correction” and added, “we’ve been through this many, many times before.” Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told a CPAC audience how to calm the markets. “I’m like, ‘Really what I might do today,’” he told the throng, “’is tell people turn their televisions off for 24 hours.’” I’m like, bummed that the White House Chief of Staff talks like a Valley Girl, but he might be right about the TV thing.
So that’s where things stand as I write this on Friday afternoon. The Democratic race mimics The Hunger Games and the stock market remains in free-fall while a dangerous virus makes its way to America and the Trump administration addresses it by telling us to turn off our television sets and wait for a miracle.
Damn. My Sharpie went dry.
© 2020 by Mike Tully
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Cough If You’ve Heard This Before
Every mid-winter without fail, I come down with a cold. It’s what I do instead of Lent. No big deal: a runny nose, bad attitude, body aches, maybe a cough. On rare occasions, a slight fever. But, really, just a few days of discomfort, ibuprofen, hot tea with brandy, and quality time just hanging out in bed – with my wife and dog if I’m lucky and they’re feeling lucky. But this time, unlike in years past, I reassure myself by noting that, while I might be miserable, gloomy, and doomy, at least I don’t have the PLAGUE!
Or a job. Thanks to my half century of participation in the workforce and contributions to Social Security and the Arizona State Retirement System, I am gainfully unemployed. I am not required to get up early, shower, slam down a breakfast drink and plunge into a workplace rampant with all manner of toxicities. Long before a happy new virus that sounds like a looney Trump tweet (“covfefe” and “COVID-19”: coincidence?) began rampaging through the 21st century like Godzilla with a hangover, I was already avoiding door knobs and elevator buttons. I would wait for somebody else to open a door and quickly slip in behind them without touching the germy hardware. I held my breath in elevators. I ate alone to avoid contact with fellow humans. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way it was safe and I never contracted the PLAGUE!
Retirement is a rolling containment zone. Lunch in retirement is not like lunch in the workforce. When I worked, I lunched alongside other people who worked, all of us cramming our lunch opportunity into whatever time window our bosses gave us, never able to relax because we had just left the workplace and would shortly go back. I spent my lunch hour catching up on the paper and carefully avoiding spilling anything on my shirt. Even business casual attire draws the line at food stains. In retirement, my shirt looks like a Jackson Pollock and I don’t care. With the flexibility afforded by retirement, we usually have lunch outside the normal hours, after the wage slaves have returned to their respective plantations. The after-hours lunch crowd is sparser and grayer. Social distancing? Long before the caramba! virus provoked warnings to maintain six feet of separation, we retirees were already doing it. At-risk population? Welcome to our reality. Look around the late lunch hour and you’ll see a bunch of widely scattered old folks, dutifully marinating their hands in an alcohol solution. We already know to be careful. We already knew a crowded place riddled with contagious humans is No Country for Old Farts. We don’t need to be reminded by the PLAGUE!
By the way, I just saw you touch your face. Stop that. It’s against the new order. You need to recalibrate your relationship with your face and never, ever touch it. Think of every face as a potential “Me Too” complainant. Unless, of course, you’re a beautician, in which case you need to wear gloves. And a face mask. And constantly sanitize everything you touch with an alcohol solution. And, to help you keep sane while treating clients like plutonium, consider taking some alcohol solution internally. You know, just in case, to ward off the PLAGUE!
As I write this it’s just been announced that the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Championships will be played in virtually empty arenas. The only people allowed inside the game venues will be a scattering of coaches, staff and family members. Years ago, several of us camped overnight outside McKale Center with a couple thousand of our best friends, hoping for a good place in line for Bob Dylan concert tickets that went on sale the next morning. (Don’t ask; that’s a whole other column.) In the wee hours, my friend KG and I needed to use the restroom. Fortunately, the kind folks at University of Arizona Facilities Management left the doors to McKale unlocked so the restrooms would be available to the large crowd spending the night outside. We walked into the large, empty arena and found it to be an eerie experience. There was a low, rumbling noise from the HVAC system and the sound of our steps echoing in the cavernous space. Will that be the new, COVID-19 inspired soundtrack for our beloved annual national basketball festival? Dribble-dribble-dribble rumble, echo, repeat? Now, there’s a compelling gameday atmosphere!
Meantime, while the NCAA is announcing games to be played in empty arenas in order to discourage the spread of the virus, while the NBA has suspended its season until further notice, while schools are closing or going online, while airlines are cancelling flights, and concerts and festivals all across the country are being cancelled, guess what? President Trump threatened to continue holding political rallies. I just heard that he backed down and cancelled a couple of them, but Trump lives for his adoring devotees, so who knows how long he can hold off? The Germophobe in Chief nearly became the Super Spreader in Chief, but fear not. His spokesperson assured Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney that the President is “the best authority on this issue.” Are you convinced that Trump is the “best authority” on the PLAGUE?
Talk about March Madness.
© 2020 by Mike Tully
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