“Vilified, threatened with violence, and in some cases suffering from burnout…”

So begins a recent AP article describing conditions for a number of state and local health officials. Apparently, an unknowledgeable, misinformed yet always opinionated slice of citizenry, along with politicians, are giving these weary public servants a hard time and a piece of their mind concerning the “restrictive” nature of masks, among other things.

The mind-blowing thing is that when we need these officials most, they are being threatened and leaving their jobs or being fired largely because they’re not offering the politically proper advice. People who don’t know their ass from their elbow are denigrating and marginalizing public health officials who are just trying to keep the public safe.

Sounds about right, par for the course.

Let’s see, what else might we expect before the year is over… Trump wins/steals/otherwise finagles another term; a 9.0 earthquake rocks a location previously unaffected by a single seismic disturbance; the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts; murder hornets fly through the eruption and migrate eastward; locusts invade; a shortage of coffee develops; schools in red and blue states open then close until 2022 because nearly a million students get infected with covid and spread it widely to teachers and relatives at home; the SEC decides to play football with spectators and no precautions, with the added stipulation that stations be provided where people can inject themselves with the virus; the entire populations of Meade, Pennington, Custer, Butte, Lawrence, Haakon, Ziebach, and Perkins Counties in South Dakota are walled off after 3000 local residents test positive for the virus following the Sturgis motorcycle rally; not one biker in attendance contracts the virus, but Mt. Rushmore somehow does and is later blown to pieces by a group claiming to want to put it out of its misery (and that Trump’s bust would be added “over their dead bodies”); the entirety of Greenland’s glaciers melts, and the Great Lakes dry to a trickle.

But lobster is still available at Red’s Eats, and life goes on largely unaffected for one small Maine town near the Canadian border.

The winners write the history, which doesn’t mean there aren’t other legitimate perspectives to be considered. History gets rewritten. Filled out.

I’m not sure what to make of the story about the end of WWII with Japan. For the longest time, we’ve been told that the a-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened the end of action in the Pacific theater. But now there’s a growing voice claiming that Japan was contemplating surrender before the bombs were dropped, when it looked like the Soviet Union was going to join the Allied effort, which would have been before August 6 and 9, 1945.

This sounds like an attempt to criticize the US for having an itchy trigger finger and using the bombs when it didn’t have to, especially if it had known that Russian entry into the Pacific conflict would have been enough to convince Japan to surrender. It seems there is growing support for the view that dropping the bombs was inhuman and unnecessary.

Is this just the latest attempt at revisionist history, or instead the result of finally hearing other voices who weren’t consulted when the victor’s draft was being written?

The current volume of disinformation is a telltale indication of just how many gullible people there are in the world. And a disproportionate number of them apparently live right here in the USA.

That being said, how can this not be considered a criminal act, given its sole purpose of sowing confusion and casting doubt on legitimate, perhaps lifesaving information, specifically in the case of aiding the public in its handling of the pandemic? What is this if not predatory and diabolical?

This is beyond dirty politics. This is hateful, intentional, counter-productive, malicious deceit. It’s the mad lunacy of angry lost boys like Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.

It’s enough to make one’s blood boil– that instead of finding remedies, people look for ways to make matters worse.

See, this is the thing… athletic directors and coaches can tout all they want the safety plans they have in place for the resumption of Fall sports. They can vilify governors and health officials and other “naysayers” until they’re blue in the face. But looming in the background of all this bravado and “life must go on” can-do spirit is a certain ignorance of the unwelcome reality: the virus will likely find a way to mess up their best-laid plans.

Futility abounds on many levels, and patience is in short supply. Chances are most of us are tired and frustrated with having to live with the restrictions of the last 5-plus months. But a forced and rushed return to some sense of normalcy and equilibrium isn’t going to be of much help. Our half-assed response to the virus will continue to prolong the agony.

As much as it may be the desire and goal of many educators, parents, and politicians, doesn’t getting kids back in the classroom in the midst of a pandemic sound inherently risky and ill-advised?

Is it being attempted simply because Trump wants it to happen? That’s the worst reason of all.

Even the other reasons– parents aren’t equipped to do the teaching, finding day care is a nightmare, inequitable access to technology and bandwidth, parents need to go to work, kids need the socialization– all of this would seem to pale in comparison to the obvious risk of exposing our kids and teachers to a deadly virus.

We’re growing increasingly comfortable with huge trade-offs and gambles. Preserving life seems not to be the first order of business. There’s a strong hint of desperation and undue economic pressures.

The Trump camp is not even trying anymore.

This in reference to the latest fear-mongering ads concerning the dystopian world of defunded and unresponsive police departments. It’s all we need to know about The Base. The sacred Base, the only ones who will buy such lie-infested, fear-laced, unapologetic drivel.

OK, bullshit.

Who but the Base would ever consider such “efforts” to be true and accurate and the way things are? One might even wonder if the Base themselves wouldn’t be offended.

No one could possibly be that gullible.

And Joe Biden doesn’t get off scot-free here. His ads are dripping with sentimentality and over-the-top music and predictable opportunism. That’s the trouble when your opponent is such an easy target– there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit with Trump.

I’ve always yearned for a candidate who could just sit and simply talk to us. No need for the drama and theatrics.

Just paint a picture of how things are and tell us what we need to do to make them better. No music, no video montages, no messianic inferences, no promises difficult to keep. Just a hopeful, well-conceived plan.

I disagree with a recent editorial that suggested that, while the baseball season was suspended, the country itself had suffered a blow to its… what? Esteem? Identity? Is it really that serious, that big an issue? And should it be?

Yes, baseball is our “national pastime”, whatever that means. But its absence shouldn’t cause such an emotional roller coaster ride, should it? How empty are our lives if that’s all it takes to go off the rails?

I suppose I shouldn’t be so critical. The assaults on what’s familiar and enjoyable are piling up in the midst of this miserable pandemic. And just because I haven’t missed baseball doesn’t mean no one else has.

Donald Trump is way worse than a bad joke.

He’s the antithesis of virtue. He’s created a climate in which we question every intention, doubt our goodness and ability to rise above anything, including this damned virus, which he still maintains will just go away. Eventually, he may be right.

He’s a drag on us all. In general, he has defiled every institution, everything he’s touched. How can people even consider voting for him again? How and why did he happen? What is he doing here?! How can he live with himself?

Maybe we’ll all get to watch him disintegrate. It won’t be pretty, but maybe the nightmare will soon end.

When it comes to teachers returning to the classroom, there’s no sense of duty to which to appeal. Returning has more the feel of foolhardiness and suicide than it does bravery and responsibility.

It’s a false narrative to claim teachers have an obligation to get back in the classroom. They most certainly do not. This is a nightmare scenario precipitated by serious and catastrophic inaction and outright deception on the part of Donald Trump and his stellar inner circle, among others. And some (many?) parents want their children back in the classroom for a variety of reasons, which also puts undue pressure on teachers and administrators.

These are circumstances the likes of which no one has ever seen. I doubt if many education majors signed up or trained for holding in-person classes in the middle of a raging pandemic (unlike doctors and nurses, who signed up for exactly this scenario, whether they realized it or not). Anyone arguing that teachers and medical personnel are in the same boat here are dabbling in false equivalencies, comparing apples and kiwi fruit.

Teachers returning to schools is desired in no small part as a means of covering Trump’s huge ass, as a way of making it look like things are getting back to normal. Leave it to him and Ms. DeVos and others to expect people to do things they’d never do themselves.

I hope teachers don’t acquiesce. It will be dangerous for them and the ones they teach.

How much more evidence will it take?

What the hell has to happen before members of the Republican party wake up and grow an actual spine? Is there anything left that will convince our elected representatives in Congress to step in and tell Donald Trump that it’s time for him to stop talking? Or, better yet, leave?

There’s this: Trump is now floating the idea of postponing the election in November, because he’s concerned about mail-in ballot fraud. His concern is unfounded, beyond his authority to act on, yet still part of his strategy. And this of course doesn’t keep him from pedaling the lie and planting the seed. Who knows? He might have adapted the idea from his “good pal” and father figure in the Kremlin. Or it might be just another gem from the mind of Stephen Miller.

I can’t even shake my head anymore.