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Y’all Went Ahead and Made Things Worse

It's not polite to say "I told you so" so I'll instead quote a movie called Fight Club and say "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."

I was really hoping that my first post after my vacation could just be about how fun and relaxing it was to be off-the-grid and with my family among the beauty of nature, but given that this is a COVID-19 blog I'd be remiss not to mention all the crap that's been going on lately. But for those of you just curious to see how I'm doing in my personal life, I'll start with that and label the COVID-19 news for you to skip or read afterward at your leisure.

Getting Away Really Helps
I'm pretty sure I covered this a few times before, but it's really healthy to take a break from the news and chaos going on around us once in a while. I was fortunate enough to do so over the course of a week with my in-laws at their cottage in the middle of nowhere of Michigan's upper peninsula.

Being without internet and having limited access to cell service or even electricity was exactly what I and my family needed to recharge our batteries, mentally. I helped fell a tree that was partially chomped by beavers, read a lot of my book, went on a trail run, drank and ate heartily, and played with my daughter, who seemed to have gained several points of intelligence and personality in the span of only five days! The weather was unseasonably warm, but that was just fine for us because the last few years it has been cold and rainy during this time of year instead. Overall I couldn't have asked for anything better!
There were long stretches of time where I just completely forgot about the pandemic and all the stressors associated with it. Furthermore, it restored my faith in humanity that in a very remote town in a county with zero confirmed cases of COVID-19, people were still being very serious about using face masks and practicing social distancing. They of all people have reason to brush off the threat and assume "it's just a cold" or "I don't need to worry about that because we're all fine" and yet they were doing their part to keep themselves and their fellow people safe from the invisible threat. It was absolutely wonderful.

It's such a shame that we had to return to the real world at all.

I Thought I Told You to Behave While I Was Gone
Firstly, for posterity, this happened a while ago but I really should have mentioned already that the President of the United States suggested that people be injected with disinfectant as a cure for COVID-19, which anyone with half a mind might realize as something that's actually highly poisonous and hazardous to do. Unfortunately, there's a decent percent of the population that's both too stupid to know that and too loyal to Trump to second-guess anything he says, so people actually started going ahead and trying that out, directly resulting in spikes of calls to poison control centers and related hospitalizations.

I've been trying my hardest to keep this blog as apolitical as possible, but so much of what President Trump does goes beyond left/right politics and into pure, unfiltered stupidity and recklessness that has repeatedly put people's lives in actual risk. It's a real shame that he's in charge of the nation during a global pandemic because we could really use a brave, intelligent, competent leader in a time like this.

In more recent news, there's now rioting in Minneapolis because, surprise, the nation's police forces are just about as perfect as our schooling, healthcare, and gun control and people are fed up with unarmed black people being repeatedly murdered by police. In response, President Trump tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” which just so happens to be a threat coined by Miami Police Chief Walter Headley, who promised violent reprisals on black protesters in 1967. Regardless if you think it's a coincidence that the man who is beloved by the former grand wizard of the KKK quoted a white supremacist, the President of the United States just directly threatened the lives of people protesting the absolutely rampant racism in the US police force. This is shortly after he retweeted a video of a supporter saying that the "only good democrat is a dead democrat." If you don't think that a leader brazenly inciting violence leads to their supporters becoming violent, just look into the the aforementioned Charlottesville car attack again.

Again, this isn't political. This is just stupidity and recklessness. If the most liberal democratic president on the face of the earth said and did the same things as this guy I'd be fucking appalled.

And if you're asking "what does this have to do with the COVID-19 pandemic?" Well the rioting itself is sure to have a ripple effect on the number of cases, and Trump's continued demonstrations of how dumb and reckless he is when faced with any challenge will undoubtedly be reflected in the country's continued ineptitude with the pandemic going forward. 

IN LOCAL NEWS

"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."

Stay healthy and sane.
-Ryan
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