“Prophecy” classes canceled?! Wow! Imagine reality smacking head-on into religious ideology! Happens every time there’s a REAL crisis!
Tag Archives: health
Worst Quote of the Week – April 3, 2020
“I think we have a responsibility to our students – who paid to be here, who want to be here, who love it here – to give them the ability to be with their friends, to continue their studies, enjoy the room and board they’ve already paid for and to not interrupt their college life.”
– Jerry Falwell, Jr., on why he kept Liberty University open, despite the COVID-19 crisis.
As some 5,000 students returned from spring break, Falwell defied the national trend of closing campuses and ordered faculty to return to their offices, even as classes moved to online forums. Within a week, COVID-19 began showing up among some Liberty students. In some way, I really don’t have much sympathy for anyone at Liberty. It’s founder, the late Jerry Falwell, Sr., was one of the worst bigots this country ever produced. After the 9/11 catastrophe, for example, he blamed the usual cadre of un-wantables: feminists, gays, environmentalists, etc. He was also among the gang of right-wing assholes who declared that AIDS came directly from the “Hand of God.” At one time, many years ago, Liberty would not allow interracial “dating” and access to handicapped individuals. They may have changed their stance on those matters, but their early 1900s, Neanderthal-style reputation speaks for their ignorance.
I keep thinking, if people like those at Liberty refuse to accept the dire warnings associated with the COVID-19 scare and end up getting sick and dying, that’s fine with me. The fewer morons among us, the better! As we say in Texas, ‘You can’t fix stupid.’
Filed under News
Best Quote of the Week – April 3, 2020
“Donald Trump rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise. In the current crisis, we are all reaping what that movement has sown.”
– Katherine Stewart, on how President Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his religious-right allies.
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Photo of the Week – March 27, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci, at a White House press briefing on March 22, reacts to the incorrigible Donald Trump.
“I’ve been telling the president things he doesn’t want to hear,” Fauci declared. “I have publicly had to say something different with what he states,” explaining that he’s engaged in “risky business” but insisting that Trump is not and has not been “pissed off” at him to date. “I don’t want to embarrass him,” Fauci added.
Thankfully, Fauci doesn’t have to worry about embarrassing Trump. The President does a good job of that all by himself.
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Worst Quote of the Week – March 27, 2020
“Am I crazy, or are they crazy? Could I be right, and Harvard and all these CDC guys be wrong? Yeah, because they’re all conventional. They don’t talk about how you can keep yourself from getting sick … Why don’t you just not get it [the coronavirus]? Why don’t you just stay healthy?”
– Dr. Steve Hotze, a religious-right activist offering the view of a “medical professional who also has a Christian worldview” about how best to respond to the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
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Best Quote of the Week – March 27, 2020
“You’ve got to be realistic. And you’ve got to understand that you don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.”
– Dr. Anthony Fauci, on CNN’s “Prime Time”, on suggestions by Donald Trump that businesses return to normal operations by Easter.
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Gang of Imbeciles
“Greatness in the last analysis is largely bravery – courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards and respectable ways of doing things.”
Crises can make or break a leader. The 1979-81 Iran Hostage fiasco decimated Jimmy Carter’s final year in office and assuredly caused him to lose his 1980 reelection bid. The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing helped secure Bill Clinton’s image as a stalwart president. The Hurricane Katrina debacle, on the other hand, proved George W. Bush was incompetent and ineffective as Commander-in-Chief.
The current COVID-19 scourge is Donald Trump’s national crisis. It could be the savior of his presidency; the one element that ensures his place in the pantheon of great world leaders. Or it could be his death knell; the catastrophic event which will equate him with failure, except his most devoted followers. As things appear now, it’s turning into the latter.
Yesterday, March 26, Trump signed a roughly USD 2.2 trillion stimulus package unanimously passed by the U.S. Congress. Because the COVID-19 mess has created a new set of “social distancing” protocols aimed at subverting the virus’ spread, a large number of Americans have suddenly found themselves jobless. Restaurants, nightclubs, gyms, and tattoo parlors have been forced to shut down. History will determine if that achieved its intended goals. But, as of March 26, the number of jobless claims set a record at 3.3 million. Who would’ve thought an invisible microbe could wreak such havoc?
Amidst this cataclysm, our dear leader, Donald Trump, has openly considered easing restrictions to the practices of social distancing. Earlier this week, he suggested the U.S. could return to normal by Easter. “I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said. That’s akin to the captain of the Titanic shouting, “Pool party!”
It’s almost painful to watch Trump and his band of clueless minions pretend this crisis will obey a presidential command. Many conservatives tried to explain George W. Bush’s pathetic handling of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco by claiming his adversaries wanted him to stop the storm from terrorizing the Gulf Coast. I heard a few actually say that aloud! And I had the pleasure of telling them, ‘No. The issue was RESPONDING to the hurricane!’ Bush and the Republican Party were quick to declare war on Iraq in 2003. But, when a REAL threat emerges, they failed miserably.
If anything, the start of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. some forty years ago proved how dangerous social conservatism can be to a health crisis. Admittedly, thousands of people didn’t come down with HIV in a matter of days, as with the COVID-19 virus. But the reality is that national policy should never be based on individual predilections or religious ideology. Every time people make health-based decisions on their own personal religious beliefs, people die. Every single time!
But the AIDS epidemic showed that a slow federal response to a health concern can be lethal. I’m watching the COVID-19 pandemic unfold here in the U.S. in stark realism. As of March 27, the U.S. has achieved the dubious distinction of the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world. Meaning we’ve now surpassed China and Italy. Trump always declared America is #1 – and what do you know?! The old bastard has finally been proven right!
I really don’t want to see Donald Trump fail in this entire imbroglio. It’s not good to wish your national leader stumble and falter as a national crisis of any kind grips the nation. But, thus far, Trump has shown no real leadership, with the exception of the aforementioned stimulus package.
It doesn’t need to be this way for him – or for anyone. This could be his golden moment to prove he’s an authentic leader, not the failed businessman / tax cheat others claim he really is. Every country’s leader is forced to confront a national emergency of some kind or another. It just comes with the territory. The U.S. presidency, in this case, is not school a crossing guard-type of position. It requires more fortitude and clarity than most jobs, when in fact, the presidency is not a standard job. It’s more of a calling – kind of like human rights work, or teaching.
As I view it in this moment of national surrealism, Donald Trump is not listening to the tragic sounds of that call.
Filed under Essays
Tweet of the Week – March 20, 2020
“This might be easy for you, Senator, but you’re not a server losing wages, a single mom losing her job to stay home with her kids, or one of 5 million Texans without insurance. I’m glad you’re ending your long weekend and hope you’ll pass the legislation they need QUICKLY.”
– M.J. Hegar, former U.S. Air Force pilot, Afghanistan War veteran, and Texas Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, in response to a tweet by Sen. John Cornyn.
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Worst Quote of the Week – March 20, 2020
“They’ve redefined family for the first time in a federal – in a piece of federal legislation, to include committed relationships. The problem with that is it’s really hard to define a committed relationship, and it’s really hard to define anything related to that.”
– Rep. Andy Biggs, on a radio program produced by the conservative Christian group Family Research Council.
Biggs was one of 40 lawmakers who voted against the coronavirus stimulus bill, said he did so in part because the legislation included paid sick leave benefits for domestic partnerships.
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Chief Writing Wolf 