PANDEMIC RAMBLE #2

 first it was the NBA championship then it was the World Series and there was also Halloween and don’t forget Trump scaring some of America including his MAGA followers into standing in long lines to vote and soon it will be Thanksgiving and how can some people bear to be apart from family members and later Christmas will come and how can some people bear to be apart yet again from family members and it’s just family members in the house and they’ll say they don’t need masks because they know everyone there and they don’t know anyone who has the virus and someone will mention the Governor too scared of temporary lockdowns and how he bent the rules he wanted others to obey and observe and someone else will say it’s God’s Will if they catch the virus and too many people will sit together, eat and talk for far too long and roll the dice with their own lives and whoever they come into contact with that isn’t family

my home town still has high school football games in the midst of the virus and from what I hear people aren’t wearing masks and it’s a small town in what they call Texoma which is where Texas and Oklahoma are separated by the Red River and maybe they justify no masks by not living in a city and choosing to live their lives and roll the dice and God’s will and all things related to that, though some of them go to the mall in the nearest city to shop and roll more dice on their and other people’s health since the small town has very few businesses to speak of

someone posted a meme on Facebook where Lady and The Tramp are glum and sad because their Italian restaurant has plexiglass dividers and Lady and The Tramp are both covered by plexiglass domes and they can’t share a strand of spaghetti and I think to myself THIS ISN’T FUNNY

we get COVID-19 fatigue which is another way to say we lack faith in a better future and aren’t willing and able to be considerate to ourselves and others until that future arrives

as I wrote once before, people made it through World War II with the rationing of food and gasoline and no new cars to buy and that lasted for over three and a half years

in 2020, we yell, we throw masks on the ground in parking lots and pack way too many people inside a house just because it’s easier to stick your tongue out at notions of sacrifice, survival, science and a kinder, more considerate world

New Poem: LIGHT IN THE TUNNEL

 he will yell his head off

 but we don’t have to be scared anymore

 he can challenge the results he doesn’t like

 but we voted in such large numbers

 he can’t undo the will of the American people 

 >

 a rose breaks through concrete

 a nation recovers from submersion 

Second Version: PAGE TURNING ON THE RED HIGHWAY

Trump turns the page faster than Obama did with George W.
stomp that accelerator and turn your head from dead/dying
the president doesn’t want to answer for mistakes made,
powers unused, reluctance to lead by example,
and, of course, no face coverage except in private
only grudgingly because president can only defer so much

>

getting COVID-19 doesn’t change anything 

wife and youngest son getting it doesn’t matter enough

cocktail of medicine ordinary people don’t receive 

then back to the superspreader campaign trail

with the same dangerous applause lines

about how it’s politically correct to wear a mask

and open up America so the herd will think

it’s headed towards immunity while they’re 

on their way to too-early graves

>

the end of this poem can be written by you on 11/3

vote for science over endless plague

New Poem: MIKE GOES TO KINSTON

 it’s Desperation Time

 what’s a few more potential infections 

 it’s raining

 maybe the raindrops will dilute covid droplets

 I’m the good soldier

 doesn’t matter about my sick staff

 don’t want to cancel and go home

 won’t make nice with The Lincoln Project

 just want to be a stoic kinder gentler bigot

 hold on to the MAGAs I secretly deplore

 when I run for the top spot in 24.

New Poem: WHY WE ARE STILL FAR FROM NORMAL

 getting too used to rebellion against common science 

 battle whine of I won’t live this way

 getting too used to not caring about others suffering

 no tears shed for the dying with only health care workers 

 being the ones to see them off prematurely

>

you’ll go ahead and invite your friends over

for a mask free living room jamboree 

and snicker at the roommate who shelters in a motel

so he won’t risk missing work and losing pay

>

the long cold winter is coming

the end of this poem can only be written by you

New Poem: CARSON CITY (inspired by Zevon’s Detox Mansion)

 (Inspired by Warren Zevon’s song Detox Mansion)

Well I’ve gone to Carson City

Sun is shining, crowd is pretty

Spreading virus like Johnny Appleseed 

Giving suckers what I think they need

Playing Creedence’s Fortunate Son as warmup

Want the crowd to resent the Deep State

Wishing John Fogerty would STFU

About how I use his song to foment hate

Well it’s tough to be somebody 

And the polls say I’m falling apart

In front of the mountainous backdrop 

I refuse to learn lessons by heart

Well I’m done with Carson City

Closed my speech dancing to YMCA

Time to return to Air Force One

Rich and poor showed me love and cash today

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes offers a Coronavirus plan.

 Via Twitter:

OK, so from my interviews with a ton of epidemiologists over the last bunch of months, here's a pretty straightforward plan to suppress the virus and get the US to something like, say, 90% of normal life. Three steps!

1) Mask Up: Short of a national order (which strikes me as tough, enforcement-wise) getting all governors to issue state-wide mask orders would be enormously helpful. Messaging is vital. CDC data shows how important AZ's order was in suppressing its summer outbreak.

2) Bar Rescue: Have the federal government pay every last bar, restaurant, nightclub, theatre and concert venue to stay closed for the next nine months. You'd remove *enormous* pressure to reopen things that aren't safe, and it probably pays for itself.

3) National Test, Trace and Surveillance: This is the most complicated to [set] up, but one way to think of the goal is: what if every place people had to congregate was like the NBA bubble? A number of universities have used this approach and it's...worked!

And that's it! Those three things: masks, pay high-risk businesses to stay closed, massively ramp up testing. We could avoid tens of thousands of deaths and have something much closer to our normal lives.

It's not easy, but it's also not rocket science. It's doable and our federal government is actively choosing to not do it. And not just to not do it, to actually embrace the opposite approach, to promote actions and policies that mean *more* people contract the virus. 

All of this impotent wishcasting at this point. Obviously, it's not gonna happen because Donald Trump is president and the Republican Party supports him and controls the senate and they very much do not care how many people die. They just don't.

PANDEMIC RAMBLE

 Some micro and macro freestyle on the world since March:

 https://youtu.be/V-JxlQe6zTk