Dispatches from the Coronavirus Days #5

And the Dumbest MF'er Quote Goes to: Ohio resident Bradley Sluder currently on Spring Break in Florida vowed to keep partying despite the global pandemic. "If I get Corona, I get Corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying."
This wise sage isn't alone either. A whole gaggle of dumbasses has vowed to keep up the frivolity, ignoring all CDC warnings to the contrary.

Dumbest MF'er First Runner up: Indiana resident Atlantis Walker ---yes, you read right, he's named after the fabled lost continent --- got all social justice on the virus's ass by saying, "This virus ain't that serious. There's more serious things out there like hunger and poverty. We need to address that." Wow. A truly in-depth analysis of our society. So what if a viral pandemic could conceivably make those issues worse. Not to worry, though. Bradley and Atlantis are not alone in their abject stupidity.

Seems Pricey but your Hiney Will Thank You: Speaking of lowrent, profiteering scumbags, a man in Canton, Michigan was caught selling cases of toilet paper from his trunk for sixty dollars each. Even better, he was in a Meijer parking lot when he did it! For those that don't know, Meijer is a massive Michigan-based department store that has spread into other parts of the U.S. A disgusted man took video of the incident and it has been shared over 1000 times online.
(Source: WXYZ Channel 7- Detroit)

Now it's a Tragedy, Now it's so Sad to See: Those words, first rapped by Yale University Poet in Residence Marshall Mathers,certainly ring true in two significant ways. First, Donald Trump's untrue insistence that he always saw Covid-19 asa  pandemic when he clearly dismissed it as a hoax early on. Second, now that a member of congress has been diagnosed, it somehow matters even more. Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart is urging people to take the virus very seriously, yet Florida continues to host the morons mentioned above on some of their beaches.

A Brief Herstory of Naming this thing: Covid-19 has moved so fast, jumping from animal to human and then to humans, that scientists didn't have time to give it a sexy name before the majority assumed it was "THE Coronavirus" despite there being many such as SARS and Swine Flu, and others throwing "China" into all references as a way to demonize an entire nation of people. While all indications are that it did indeed originate in China, referring to it as "The Chinese Coronavirus" as Donald Trump has or the "Wuhan Virus" as Tucker Carlson has serves no one except those seeking to create divisions among people. By the time the scientists came up with the semi-catchy name "Covid-19," the various deeds were done. Yes, we know it started in China and yes, we know the Chinese government probably lied about the infection and death rates. But blaming China accomplishes nothing good. For example:

Cotton Picking Fights: Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton wants to kick that mean old virus's ass 'Murica style. In typical flaccid rhetoric, Cotton said, "We will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world." So watch out, Blofeld! 007 comin' for dat ass!

Can't Spell Dirty Triflin' & Evil Without "DTE": This one could have been posted two Dispatches ago but I waited in the hopes that even a wicked utility company might do the right thing. Well, they haven't so far and there's no indication they're going to. I received emails from such disparate companies as AMC initially stating that would be limiting theaters to 50% capacity before wisely choosing to follow the governor's directive to close. Banks have sent emails insuring the safety of customers and their empoyees. Well, Detroit Energy (DTE) sent an email, too. It was heartfelt and reassuring for anyone who might need help with their accounts right now. I know I'll always remember the day I read those three magic words:

  PAYMENT DUE REMINDER

Feel the love, everybody. 

Feel the love.

More to come?

Read Previous Dispatch here.

This is What Brilliant Satire Looks Like.

Since the individual and, by extension, his followers and sarcasm/satire/parody are strangers to each other, may I present this brilliantly written and executed piece of satire for purely educational purposes?

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Quote of the Week brought to you by anti-Millenial Bashing

"Baby boomers reaped the rewards of an economic system that was geared towards middle class families and as they grew up into power and money, they changed the system to favor the wealthy and themselves."

                    -From a Comment on a Bernie Sanders Post

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I am not a nice man. You want something heartwarming...buy a puppy."

-Greg Palast, Kickass Investigative Journalist and Thorn in the Side of the Koch Bros.

On Genre Ignorance & Politics

Trigger Warning:
The following post contains a bit of name-calling and a judgmental, possibly even self-righteous tone.

There’s a reason most writers of speculative fiction, i.e. science fiction, fantasy, horror and magical realism, shudder when we hear some overpaid media pinhead use a clueless expression such as, “It’s like something out of science fiction.” It’s not because there aren’t situations that might actually call for such a dubious phrase, however. It’s because the majority of the time, it’s being used stupidly to make a point better made by just discussing the issue at hand.

The most recent example of this started with an idiot being allowed to speak for an even bigger idiot. That first idiot is Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the *urp* President of the United States. I’m pretty sure you’ve already guessed the identity of the bigger idiot. And unless you’ve been on a self-imposed media blackout the scale of which would be truly impressive as well as enviable, you are probably aware of Conway’s insistence on the existence of “alternative facts.”

Her unfortunate and no doubt intentional phrasing has entered the lexicon in a big and probably unintended way.  Instead of being a viable concept, it’s become a running gag on social media the likes of which we haven’t seen since, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Naturally, not every piece of commentary has been satiricial, and that brings me right back to where this whole thing started: This well-intentioned but ultimately clueless letter comparing science fiction to alternative facts.

 

The letter's author, one Gordon Merseth of Portland, Oregon, seems to be making a case for science fiction and the sub-genre alternate history as being akin to the altered reality the Trump administration seems hell-bent on fostering on the American public. While that attempt might seem to work on the surface, it's a specious comparison rooted in genre ignorance not unlike the writing of a certain English school principal I wrote about last year. In the minds of non-fans and even those who have little appreciation for science fiction, it is little more than a weird distortion of concrete reality bereft of rules and somehow disingenuous as a literary form.

 

Fortunately, no less than one of the greatest living science fiction authors of all time, Ursuala K Le Guin,  took Mr. Merseth to task for his lack of a foundation in the genre in a letter to his letter. In it, she wrote:

 

 The comparison won't work.  We fiction writers make up stuff. Some of it clearly impossible, some of it realistic, but none of it real - all invented, imagined --  and we call it fiction because it isn't fact. We may call some of it "alternative history" or "an alternate universe," but make absolutely no pretense that our fictions are "alternative facts."

 Even if I didn't know any better, I'd side with a woman the Library of Congress named a Living Legend because of her outstanding contributions to the world of English Literature.

I understand the desire to describe the Trump administration's blatant attempts to gaslight as many Americans as possible in terms that clearly and intelligently do so. But when someone tries to do that using concepts and forms of expression of which they are ignorant or simply misinformed, it becomes the focus rather than the original intended subject.

A Timely Sentiment.

Fascism.

Imma just leave this here and let ya'll do with it as you please...

My Literary Hero James Morrow's Thoughts on the Trump Victory.

"Beneath the disgusting and endlessly distracting masks of Donald Trump—misogynist, racist, xenophobe, religious bigot—lies the matrix of a face unprecedented among those forty-four men who’ve held our country’s highest office: the face not of a mere sociopath (the republic was hardly spared that in the past) but rather of a sociopath who can’t be bothered to disguise his lack of a conscience, knowing that a corrupt legislature will do that for him. And so we leap into a void ...not foreseen by the 18th-century Enlightenment rationalists who assembled our republic: a zone of raw nihilism and provisional absurdity, reverberant with the dark laughter of a nonexistent Providence, where ignorant armies clash by night and tell lies by day, waiting for Godot. Were the stakes not so large, and the impending piles of bodies not so high, my own inner sociopath would anticipate the next four years with sheer, salivating, hideous pleasure."