We Are The Virus?

                This morning (as I write this) I heard a commercial on a popular local radio music station reference the bright side of the worldwide COVID-19 lock-down. The ad was lengthy and extolled the virtues of human inactivity. It noted that, for the first time in memory, it is currently possible to see to the bottom of the canals of Venice. (Not if you can’t leave your home, it isn’t.) It touted “bluer skies,” cleaner air” and an increase in animal habitat, all because “humans are staying home.” I am not against clearer water, bluer skies, cleaner air, or expanded animal habitat, but I was nonetheless shocked to hear an ad touting the “brighter side” of the coronavirus given the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have recently perished because of it.

                I have also seen a few articles such as the one in scmp.com magazine which began: “Think Covid-19 is animal in origin? Think again. It’s anthro­pogenic: caused by human activity. The pandemic is a human overpopulation problem. You don’t have to live in Mong Kok to know there are too many of us.” The author claims humans unchecked expansion into new habitats is “bringing us into increasing contact with wild-animal pathogens against which we have no biological defenses.” (No, it’s because some of us in a certain Asian country are bringing wild animals home to our wet markets and bio labs.) He continues: “As Agent Smith puts it in The Matrix: ‘You humans […] move to an area and […] multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism […] that follows the same pattern […] a virus.’”

                There you have it. We are the virus.

                The author demands we “stop proliferating,” and says this is “something social distancing should make easier than ever.” He avers that global warming would be eased “by the presence of fewer people,” and wonders “Why are we not hearing the Catholic Church’s admission that the prohibition on artificial contraception was a dumb idea?”

                Speaking of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis spoke from his library on Earth Day, making an impassioned plea for protection of the environment. The Pope, who has often spoken of the dangers of climate change, said of the coronavirus: "We see these natural tragedies, which are the Earth's response to our maltreatment. I think that if I ask the Lord now what he thinks about this, I don't think he would say it is a very good thing. It is we who have ruined the work of God. We have sinned against the Earth.”

What happened to “We are the work of God?”

              U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, among others, used Earth Day 2020 to call for governments to pursue "green recovery" in response to the coronavirus crisis. That has certainly happened, as governments around the world have reveled in their ability to modify and control their subject’s movements and behavior. According to a news.trust.org piece, ministers from Germany, France and other EU nations have already “signaled their support for subsequent interventions to align with climate goals.” Get used to “sheltering in place” Continentals.

                Sadly, things aren’t any better in the U.S. Not too long ago, the vast majority of Americans believed in the Biblical characterization of mankind, as illustrated by the Book of Genesis: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’” Now, many of the coastal, big-city elite believe we (meaning everyone but the coastal, big-city elite) are nothing but a blight, with no right to infringe on nature. We are the virus.

                We have become ever less devout and ever more “progressive.” As we demean ourselves, we demean our Creator.

                We have lost the truth, the light…and our way.

Democratic Michigan Rep. Officially Censured For Thanking Trump

                Rep. Karen Whitsett (D-Mich.) contracted the coronavirus recently, exhibiting serious symptoms. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed hydroxychloroquine for her, a malaria drug that President Trump has suggested might be effective in treating COVID-19, and she subsequently recovered. Upon defeating the virus, she thanked Trump for bringing attention to the drug and saving her life. She is on record as saying that the drug "saved my life." She has since met with the president as well as Vice President Pence. Class.

                On April 25^th, Detroit Democrats voted unanimously to officially censure Whitsett for her “thank you” and trip to the White House. You read that correctly. This is who these people are.

                Whitsett told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and the state’s Democratic Party were trying to “silence her” for daring to visit with Trump and Pence. She said, “Why they would expel me is beyond words for me. This is something that I did not expect. I started out with a simple ‘thank you’ to the man who is the president of the United States. It’s a thank you. I didn’t know that ‘thank you’ had a political line.” She added, “I’m not going to stand by and be quiet, nor will I be silenced by anyone when it comes to the people in my community. I don’t care who it is. If you’re not doing right by us, if you’re not doing right by black people within our community, I’m going to stand up, and I don’t care who it is. I’m going to stand up against you.”

                Carlson asked Whitsett, who has previously questioned Governor Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders, if the governor had asked about her health. Whitsett replied that the governor had only sent her nasty text messages.

                Democrats are so committed to defeating their political opponents they have no time for human decency. This is sadly true on both a national and a local scale. How could anyone in politics--- or out—not ask after Whitsett’s health and tell her they are thrilled she recovered from COVID-19? But no, the governor sent her nasty messages. I thought Democrats purportedly disdained the politics of personal destruction and wanted to see the parties reach across the aisle. Aren’t they always touting tolerance? What happened to their mantra “Coexist?” They censure someone for thanking the president of the United States for helping that person recover from a deadly virus? Seriously? Sick.

   What if the tables were turned and Whitsett was a Republican and the president a Democrat? We all know that she wouldn’t have been censured. And, if she had been, instead of ignoring the action as they did in this case, the media would be all over it, with commentators such as Brian Stelter, Rachel Maddow, Chris Cuomo and Joe Scarborough professing their shock and revulsion ad nauseum.

   If people weren’t so ignorant, the entire Democratic Party would be “censured.” At the polls, this coming November.

Pandemic Hysteria And Economic Madness

                This is not your mother’s America. (See how non-sexist I am?) It isn’t even really America anymore. The U.S. federal government has approved trillions of dollars in stimulus money to be printed and released to fight the devastating economic effects of the policies it put in place to fight the spread of the coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-1984. Much of the money from the massive relief bill was intended to go to small businesses so that they could try to stay afloat long enough that they could reopen if and when allowed to by the government that shut them down in the first place.

                A good chunk of the money was to be funneled through the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides small businesses with forgivable loans to pay up to 8 weeks of payroll costs, including benefits, so that they can avoid laying off their employees. However, many business owners are finding that their employees don’t want to come back to work, as they are being paid more for not working than they were for working.  For example, Jamie Black-Lewis, a spa owner, told CNBC she obtained loans of $177,000 and $43,800 so she could retain her 35 employees, naturally assuming they would be thrilled that they wouldn’t be losing their jobs. Instead, she says, her largess was met with a “firestorm of hatred.”

                Black-Lewis told the network that many of her hourly employees were angry because they were preparing to obtain more money through unemployment than they would get by staying employed. She said that, to their minds, she had taken away “a windfall” they saw coming. She added, “I couldn’t believe it. On what planet am I competing with unemployment?”

                When Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf was asked about the issue of employees preferring unemployment money to work, he replied that there was “an easy solution,” adding that businesses should just pay them more. Everything is easy when you’re spending other people’s money.

                That was by no means the extent of the lunacy recently exhibited by the economically illiterate. The most ignorant person ever to serve in the United States Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), actually called for unemployed workers to essentially go on strike to protest attempts to get them to go back to work. In an interview with Anand Giridharadas of the VICE News show “Seat at the Table,” she stated: “Only in America does the president, when the president tweets about liberation, does he mean ‘go back to work.’ We have this discussion about ‘going back’ or ‘reopening’—I think a lot of people should just say, ‘No, we’re not going back to that. We’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we can put food on the table.’”

                In a tweet promoting the show, Giridharadas wrote, “If you’ve been advocating for a general strike amid the pandemic, @AOC gives your cause a boost in our interview airing tonight.” And who isn’t advocating for a general strike during an existential economic crisis in which tens of millions of people have already lost their jobs?

                We’ve gone berserk-- stark raving mad-- due to the stupefying ignorance and unwisdom of leftists in academia and the media wearing off on too many of us.

                Employment is when people get paid to perform jobs they otherwise wouldn’t do, also known as “work.” No one has the right to demand more money for not working. And, note to AOC: You don’t need to strike for the right not to work. Just don’t work. And really, is it worth suffering the indignities of work “just so that we can put food on the table?”

You can be idle 168 hours a week. Just don’t expect to be paid for it.

In fairness, it would be far better for the country if Gov. Wolf and AOC didn’t have their jobs.

"Experts" Wrong About Nearly Everything

    Just weeks ago, experts and authorities told us not to wear face masks. It wouldn’t help prevent anyone from getting the coronavirus we were told, would only prevent doctors and medical personnel from having them to use. (But, why did doctors need them if they don’t help stop the spread of the virus?) Now they tell us we must—or at least should-- wear them, preferably at all times. I now see many people wearing them while alone in their car! In some states you can now be fined up to $1,000 if caught outside not wearing one. What happened in the days between the conflicting advice/mandates? No coherent explanation has been provided.

                Also just weeks ago, the experts told us the models scientists and academics developed to forecast the spread of COVID-19 predicted as many as 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. alone. Similar dire projections we’re made for other nations. Now they have slightly tweaked those fatality projections…down to about 180,000 in the case of the U.S., or about 8.1% of their original forecast. Not so much as a “sorry for panicking you folks” has been heard.

               Just a few decades ago, experts told us they were certain we were entering an era of global cooling. The evidence was overwhelming, they said, so get used to it. Stock up on warm clothes and have a hot toddy, the science was settled.

               Around that very same time, the experts informed us that the planet was running out of oil and consequently we had better find alternative energy sources pronto, or we would all be screwed. There is a reason for the skyrocketing price of gasoline and the long lines at the pump, they said. Sure, OPEC was embargoing, but petroleum is a finite resource which the earth is no longer making, we were warned. In just a few decades it would be as scarce as the passenger pigeon. It was an oil crisis. 

              Today, too, we find ourselves in the midst of an oil crisis, but this one is a little different: we literally don’t know where to put it all. We have too much of it. Preposterously, the per barrel price of crude oil actually temporarily went below zero dollars recently.  Guess we could’ve been paid to take some off the hands of its producers. To my knowledge, not one expert has ever blushed or cleared their throat-- let alone apologized-- for these insanely incorrect predictions.

                In fact, whether picking which players to start for your fantasy football team on any given week, playing the stock market, or trying to determine what the global climate will be like in 50 years, the best bet is to do or believe the opposite of what the experts tell you to.

                Our hyper-credentialed society is marginalizing many of its smartest and most creative individuals. We have become far too dependent on these arrogant, never-have-to-say-they’re-sorry, authoritarian ass-hats called “experts.”

                And now, with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, experts have convinced our leaders to proactively commit societal suicide so we can avoid death.

                Some say bad is the new good and good is the new bad. Others say 40 is the new 30 or orange is the new black.

                I say experts are the new morons.

New York Mayor De Blasio Stunned By Recidivism

            New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was shocked—shocked I tell you! —to learn that some of the more than 1,400 criminals he recently let out of prison to lessen their chances of contracting the coronavirus have already committed additional crimes. The mayor was so gob-smacked by the news that more than 50 inmates who were released have since committed offenses and been sent back to jail—with some of those already re-released—that he lamented the fact to reporters at a recent briefing according to the New York Post. De Blasio opined: “I think it’s unconscionable just on a human level that folks were shown mercy and this is what some of them have done.” He added, “We’re going to just keep buckling down on it, making sure there’s close monitoring and supervision to the maximum step possible.” Note to de Blasio: criminals are not, in fact, typically known for their peerless consciences nor their exemplary humanity.

This is one reason why progressives should never be put in positions of power over nations or cities. They are an existential danger to individuals and societies because they fundamentally misjudge human nature, their own included. They are much too willing to give criminals a pass, while taking every opportunity to savage those who disagree with them. And they pat themselves on the back for doing both.

               

Harvard Professor Says Homeschooling Should Be Banned

                Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, in an article titled “The Risks of Homeschooling” published in a recent edition of Harvard Magazine, argues that the practice of homeschooling is a violation of children’s rights and should therefore be banned. Bartholet, the director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, cites a child’s “right” to a “meaningful education,” by which she means a child’s right to be taught what she wants them to “know.” She laments the number of kids being homeschooled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and says she is worried about child abuse. She frets about the number of homeschooling parents who are “extreme religious ideologues,” by which she means Christians. Professor Bartholet worries that these children might not be properly introduced to “ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints.” This tolerance obviously does not extend to homeschooler’s viewpoints, or those of the devoutly religious.

                Bartholet doesn’t think parents should have “24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18.” (Oddly enough, the law essentially does). She adds, “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.” Tell that to those about to have an abortion, lady. Or to, say, university professors who incessantly try to brainwash their students into becoming mind-numbed Socialists, rabidly robotic social-justice warriors, and contributors to the Democratic Party. It’s also a tad ironic when you realize Professor Lizzy is almost certainly a big fan of the draconian measures governments have recently taken to prevent their citizens from leaving their homes. She claims “there’s really no organized political opposition” to homeschooling. Yes there is, Liz, it’s called the NEA. And the Democratic Party. It is, however, correct to say that there is really no opposition to Big Education.

                In truth, nearly all states have homeschool regulations in place. Bartholet is just jealous that she has to temporarily share her power with—gasp!—parents and families. I mean, how gauche! The illustration that Harvard Magazine chose to accompany Bartholet’s article is itself a perfect illustration of how elites think about education and the family. It depicts a sad homeschool child imprisoned in a house while other kids frolic outside. The house is made of books, one of them being the Bible. In reality, it is the government mandated school system that is a prison, outside of whose walls a student is not supposed to think.

                All in all, Professor Bartholet, you—and those like you—are just another brick in the wall.

The China Syndrome

 In 2015, it has recently been revealed, the Obama administration gave the Wuhan laboratory $3.7 million for research, money that was funneled through the National Institutes of Health. Talk about sowing the seeds of one’s own destruction. The grant was meant to facilitate the study of bats that carry the viruses that triggered the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s as well as the current coronavirus pandemic.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appeared on a recent edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight to address the issue. Gaetz stated: “What’s really troubling to me is either conspicuously or miraculously the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is able to sequence the virus on January 2 but China doesn’t admit to the virus existing until January 9 and then the Wuhan Institute of Virology doesn’t release this important scientific information to the world until January 12. So at best, Americans are funding people who are lying to us and at worst, we’re funding people who we knew had problems handling pathogens, who then birthed a monster virus onto the world.” The United States’ own naivete and desire to “help” others once again comes back to bite it in the ass.

Most credible sources now believe the Chinese Virus did indeed originate in the Wuhan labs. President Trump recently vowed to stop giving taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a decision which will certainly prompt many in the mainstream media to call him a mean-spirited, xenophobic racist. (It has, in the roughly 24-hours since I wrote this.)

Remarkably, this is not the most troubling revelation pertaining to the U.S.’s relationship with China to surface this week, a subject which would take an entire book to properly explore. Police departments across the nation are using drones made in China to conduct surveillance and enforce social distancing rules, leading to concerns that the Chinese communist-government-backed company that manufactures the drones may be using the data the drones collect for nefarious purposes. State and local governments of/in at least 22 states are using drones made—and donated—by Dà-Jiāng Innovations, or DJI, a Chinese technology company headquartered in Guangdong Province. This despite the fact that officials of the U.S. government say it is likely the drones are providing vital data on U.S. infrastructure and law enforcement to the Chinese communist government. But what the hell. Forget the spying and the cyber vulnerabilities. Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. Right?

Imagine what the Founders would think.

Florida Senator Rick Scott tweeted: “Think about this for a second. This virus originated in Communist China and the Chinese Communist Party’s lies helped it spread around the world. Now we’re using drones made by a Chinese company and backed by the CCP to enforce social distancing. This is crazy!”

Batshit crazy.

NBA Working On Televised H-O-R-S-E Competition

                Reports say that the NBA and ESPN are working on televising a H-O-R-S-E competition, with several high-profile players engaging in the traditional playground game remotely, most likely from their own home gyms, in proper social-distancing compliance. It’s not exactly March Madness or the Stanley Cup Finals, but we’ll take it, I guess. What choice do we have?

                One of the worst things about being interminably locked inside of our own domiciles during the Chinese Virus Pandemic has been the lack of any major sporting events to relieve the stress and tedium. While several stations have aired exciting and historic games from the past, sports programmers have understandably scraped the bottom of the barrel trying to come up with new events to air, given the ban on large gatherings and the mandatory 6-feet remove of all contestants from all others.

                For example, here is the schedule from a recent Saturday evening:

*7 PM: ESPN—Midwest Corn-Shucking Championship

*7 PM: ESPN 2— North American Tiddly Winks League (regular season play)

*7 PM: NBC Sports Network (NBCSN)—NHL Figure Skating Exhibition

*7 PM: FoxSports—Pro-Am Parchesi Tournament

*9 PM: ESPN—“UNO” Round Robin Card Exhibition

*9 PM: ESPN 2— Organization of American States Geo-Cashing League (OASGCL) Action

*8 PM: NBC Sports Network—Pokemon Go World Championship

*10 PM: FoxSports—Hacky-Sack Semi-Pro League Action

*10 PM: ESPN—International Rock-Polishing Finals

*10 PM ESPN 2— Radio-Controlled Boat Racing (European League)

*10 PM: NBC Sports Network—World Paper Football League (WPFL) Semi-Finals (from Belfast)

*11 PM: FoxSports—Wisconsin Town Team Underwater Basket-Weaving Invitational

                The first major sports league to begin post-pandemic play will enjoy astronomical television ratings, if not particularly high attendance figures. For now, bring on the NFL draft!

Scholar Hopes Coronavirus Pandemic Helps "Abolish" The Family

                The coronavirus pandemic should spur Americans to abolish the family. So says Sophie Lewis, a “scholar” at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and popular speaker at American universities. Ms. Lewis recently wrote an editorial published by Open Democracy, a U.K. based radical political website populated by crackpots and asshats, in which she stated that “the private family qua mode of social reproduction still, frankly, sucks. It genders, nationalizes and races us. It norms us for productive work. It makes us believe we are ‘individuals.’” She added, “We deserve better than the family. And the time of corona is an excellent time to practice abolishing it.”

                Actually, scholars, “experts,” and universities now, frankly, suck. And those who swallow the pseudo-intellectual tripe they trowel out are a pathetic lot, indeed. As Ms. Lewis inadvertently illustrates so well. With what would Lewis replace the private “qua mode” of reproduction? I’m not sure I want to know. The family “genders,” “nationalizes,” “races,” and “norms” us? I am really sick of leftists indiscriminately “verbing” nouns and other parts of speech and attempting to repurpose half the words in the dictionary to their sinister ends. Families do help mold (and reveal the identity of) those that belong to them. This is part of their role, along with providing love, financial, emotional and physical support. That Lewis takes umbrage with the notion of families preparing children to do “productive work” is telling, as well as pathetic and disgusting. That she thinks it mistakenly “makes us believe we are individuals” is even more telling…and sicker still. Are we to be faceless, genderless, robotic tissue masses who can only think as a group? Indistinct, amorphous piles of protoplasm? And she thinks this is a good thing?

                The scholarly Lewis bemoaned the fact (as she sees it) that the nuclear family reproduces human beings along the lines of binary sex, national identity, etc., etc., “as feminists for decades have excavated.” Say what? Lewis certainly wasn’t “normed” for productive (or coherent) writing.

                She stated that “The pandemic is no time to forget about family abolition,” noting that reports of domestic violence have increased since the mass quarantine began. Yes, we’d all be better off if we were holed up with randomly selected strangers from off the street. She cited the words of the feminist author Madeline Lane-McKinley, who said, “Households are capitalism’s pressure cookers,” before concluding by stating: “We do not yet know if we will be able to wrench something better than capitalism from the wreckage of this Plague and the coming Depression. I would only posit with some certainty that, in 2020, the dialectic of families against the family, of real homes against the home, shall intensify.” Say what?

                If there was any justice in this world, Lewis and Lane-McKinley would be living in North Korea or the Congo.

                Winston Churchill said of capitalism, “it’s the worst form of government…except for all of the others that have been tried.” The same might be said of the nuclear family. The family is the most important institution in the country—indeed the world—today. It prevents more insanity and evil and fosters more good than any other. It was designed by our Creator to do just that.

    Perhaps that is why Ms. Lewis disdains it so. 

Michigan Governor Deems Abortion "Life-Sustaining"

                Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer effectively banned the sale of flower and vegetable seeds and ordered the state’s citizens not to visit friends or family. She also prohibited them from going to their second homes, even though they own them and pay takes on them 356 days of the year. These measures obviously smack of authoritarianism, if not outright Fascism or Communism. She couldn’t bring herself to ban elective abortions, however, as most states have done during the coronavirus crisis to make certain doctors and health care providers are focused on taking care of those who are suffering from the Chinese Virus (or have other life-threatening medical conditions), the supposed reason that her many bans and orders were necessary in the first place.

                During an interview with Democratic political strategist David Axelrod, on his The Axe Files podcast, Whitmer said, “A woman’s health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is fundamental to her life. It is life-sustaining, and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of.”

                A woman’s “health care,” i.e. abortion, has nothing to do with whether a woman can decide “if and when” she has a family. She can decide whether or not to have intercourse or whether or not to use contraception for that matter. What’s more, “her ability to decide if and when she starts a family” demonstrably, specifically and definitionally is an election. Moreover, it may or may not be fundamental to her life, but it is inarguably fundamental to her baby’s life—or lack thereof. Incredibly, this is the one and only area where Whitless Whitmer doesn’t think the government has the right to intrude on a person’s rights. “By God, we can tell the people they have to stay home, must cover their mouth and nose, can’t visit relatives,  go to their lake home, get married, attend a funeral…or buy tomato seeds…but infringing on their right to exterminate their small children would just be wrong.”

                People around the nation are dying due to not having elective surgeries and holding off on check-ups. And Whitmer chooses to call abortion “life-sustaining?!” She would’ve fit in nicely as Joseph Goebbels’ right-hand-woman in the Third Reich’s Ministry of Propaganda. This is preposterous and sickening-- akin to calling casual sex orgies abstinence-sustaining, the Holocaust Jew-Affirming, or a CNN report truth-enhancing.