It’s official, or as official as it can be on my say so. We can stop worrying about global warming, international terrorism, party politics, and the Game of Thrones unsatisfying ending (just bby what I hear, I never watched the show). We can forget about all of them because I am no so sure we will make it through February. Stupidity has finally caught up with us and we are surely going to perish.
Check out these symptoms.
The coronavirus is a horrible, unexpected, seemingly uncontrollable health disaster. According to this morning’s news over 8,000 cases have been confirmed by the World Health Organization resulting in 361 deaths and that will probably be higher by the time you read this. The interwebs are buzzing, as they should be. We should be trying to do what we can to understand how to prevent its spread. But you aren’t going to find it looking for Corona Beer Virus. That’s what people are searching for on Google trying to find out more about it. Maybe it was last week’s Superbowl hype that had everybody thinking beer instead of flu like pandemics.
Speaking of flu, according to the CDC, as of January 31 there had been 300,000 hospitalizations due to the “common” flu this season and over 10,000 deaths (that’s ten thousand) (one comma and lots of zeros), 80% of whom reported not having received this year’s flu shot. I would call that a horrible, unexpected, clearly controllable health disaster.
There was a report over the weekend that if former Vice President Joe Biden wins this year’s election the Republicans will begin impeachment immediately upon his inauguration for something or other. I found it telling that the news reports last month were that the Democrats voted to impeach Donald Trump. As I recall my civics class, admittedly many, many years ago, it is the House of Representatives who impeach. It’s a shame we have replaced a rather well thought out form of government with a couple herds of sheep.
Americans don’t have the market cornered on odd political stances – or odd politicians for that matter. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quoted in a Reuters report last month that he wants to lose weight but won’t join the 300,000+ who are expected to sign up for Veganuary 2020. (Yes, it’s a real thing and had been since 2014.) (Sigh) According to Johnson, “I thought about it but it requires so much concentration.”
Speaking to The Financial Times, Mastercard’s CEO expressed his dismay at countries adopting or considering nationalizing payment systems saying consumers worried about their privacy may shift back to cash for purchases. Oh my, what would the world be if we were all reduced to being able to buy only what we can afford. Soon people would be forced to work for what they want. In case you are wondering, Mastercard reported $17 billion dollars in revenue for 2019. For comparison Americans spent $1.6 billion to treat the flu during the 2018-2019 flu season. Sorry, no word on if that was cash or charge.
Last month the Japanese billionaire selected to be the first civilian passenger to the moon aboard a SpaceX rocket halted his search for “a girlfriend to take on a voyage around the moon.” About 28,000 women applied. And I still have trouble getting a woman to go to the movies with me.
Finally back in the coronavirus world, a man was escorted off a Dallas to Houston American Airlines flight last Thursday when he refused to remove a full-face gas mask. According to a passenger, “My gut reaction was that he was probably worried about the coronavirus and had put on the gas mask as overkill kind of protection. But then I noticed it didn’t have the filter, so that didn’t really make sense. What we heard from the lady sitting next to him was he said he wanted to make a statement. I don’t know what the statement was. I’m not sure what his goals were. To me, it seemed inconsiderate.” That might be considered understatement!
There you have it, living proof we’re never going to life long enough to see melting glaciers turn the midwest back into swamp land, California fall into the ocean, or cars flying themselves powered by dilithium crystals. Stupidity is the pandemic that is going to get us.
(The real proof is that the best part of the Superbowl for me was the commercial starring Punxsutawney Phil and that Bill Murray guy. See, even I’m not immune to stupidity, but come on, that was good!)
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