Chapter 41: COVID Chronicles

By Karen

Day 58

Twenty-Six 9/11s So Far & Romping with Roc and Tony

When it comes to COVID deaths, talking heads are saying, “We’ve lost more people than during the Vietnam War.” Horribly true, but too abstract.

As of the today’s figures, the U.S. has had 78,098 deaths. That’s roughly equivalent to 9/11 happening TWENTY-SIX times.

The World Trade Center blown up about EVERY THREE DAYS since this coronavirus nightmare began.

While we stay home fearing for our lives, thanks to 24/7 news, we essentially relive the trauma of 9/11 at least twice a week.

But it’s even worse now. Back in 2001, the last Republican idiot in the White House, George W. Bush, didn’t lack empathy. Remember him at Ground Zero with the bullhorn saying all the right things? He was at least able to grasp the enormity of the disaster.

Now we’ve got this bloated orange clown-face verbally abusing and gaslighting us every time he gets in front of a camera. Prancing, preening, lying, boasting about the “fantastic” job he’s doing to achieve the highest numbers of sickness and death on the planet. And Pence, the fawning, phony enabler, has done everything but roll in a tub full of blood so Trump can publicly take a victory bath in it.

As the virus insidiously spreads into states comprising Trump’s base, he insists businesses open so the racist zombies who worship him can come out to play. They will, and many more will die because they listened to Trump.

While his supporters sop up deadly virus, Trump is vowing to destroy the Obamacare they may depend on to avoid bankruptcy when they get sick. But they might go broke AND die, because they believed Trump is looking out for them.

In contrast to Hitler, who marched Jews to their deaths because he hated them, Trump is so stupid he’s marching his voters, the people who LOVE him, to their deaths.

Trump really seems to believe he can lie, cheat, steal and bully his way out of death itself. Come November, we’d better show him what a big mistake that was.

OK, now I feel better.

To end the week on a lighter note, last night as I was wrapping up, I went into the Man Cave Café and found Tony’s blue sparkle ball…

(Water dish is full of food because Max likes to drink with his mouth full.)

In addition to water sports, Tony’s fascinated by shadows. This morning, the trees whipping around in the skylight caught his attention…

A bit later, he joined Roc at the Kitty Condo for some fun and games with one-legged Froggy, and Roc found out just how strong he is (no kitties were hurt during filming)…

A 9/11 What-If

By Adele

I waited until eyes were dry and everyone calmed down after the frenzy the media re-whipped up over 9/11 to ask this question. But let me preface by saying the passengers and crew of Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania, absolutely did the right thing. They proved how courageous and selfless some Americans can be.

But what if nobody on Flight 93 had realized the plane had been hijacked or was part of some bigger plot?

What if Flight 93 had reached Washington and hit the Capitol, taking out a few dozen senators and congressmen in the biggest mass-assassination in our government’s history?

What if our legislators had tasted mortal vulnerability first-hand, and their own families had been subjected to the unimaginable grief of losing a loved one to senseless violence?

Do you think the halls of Congress today would be filled with the arrogant, greedy, self-serving liars whose behavior is now disgusting the whole world?

Might ramming discriminatory, oppressive, fact-free ideology down everybody’s throat lose its charm if zealots knew they might bite the dust at any moment at the hands of some bigger nut too fed up to let them keep living?

Instead of standing on the Capitol steps smarmily singing “God Bless America,” what if our representatives had been picking through the rubble, searching for colleagues’ body parts?

Since they’ve turned the Capitol into a temple of dishonesty and discord, if they knew how easily it could become their tomb, would they still want to be there? Or would politics start attracting people who feel compelled to serve regardless of personal risk, who would be willing to put the country and its people first and do the right thing, no matter what?

You know, people who think like American soldiers.

Today, would our leaders still be shouting that the U.S. is the greatest civilization in the history of the planet while we steadily lose our grip on education, healthcare, employment, and financial stability? Or would they display some humility?

Instead of trying to buy or impose our myopic beliefs on intractable enemies, would we be concentrating instead on putting our own house in order?

What if Flight 93 had not helped Congress evade the terrorists, but instead reap the inhumanity it had sowed…?

Thoughts?