Quick Hits – November 1, 2022

The problem with mask wearing

Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions. – Khaled Hosseini

And sometimes those consequences come flying at you a lot sooner than you’d think!

It’s already bad enough that our pediatric hospital wards are overflowing with children suffering from breathing difficulties linked to the typically mild annual RSV virus, but now medical facilities have to deal with an early flu season that promises to be the worst in 13 years. According to William Schaffner, the medical director for the nonprofit National Foundation for Infectious Diseases:

The data are ominous. Not only is flu early, it also looks very severe. This is not just a preview of coming attractions. We’re already starting to see this movie. I would call it a scary movie.

Once again, despite the obvious underlying issues involved, the “experts” and the media are tiptoeing around the proximate cause in the hope that we’ll forget about all their former glorious pandemic proclamations. Thankfully, there are exceptions. Marlene Martin, community liaison for the Summit County Ohio health department was dead on when she noted that:

Some of the increase has to do with masking and social distancing guidelines relaxing and also the fact that people have been masking for the last couple years and have not been exposed to illnesses that would help facilitate a more robust immune system.

Though I’d replace the word “some” with “most” because anyone with a fifth-grade education knows this dire flu spike is a direct result of the pointless COVID mitigations that will be coming back to haunt us for years to come.

What on God’s green earth made those medical “experts” and nanny-staters believe we could play God and change the course of a global pandemic without inviting the kind of fallout that makes the disease pale in comparison? So now, in addition to a myriad of hospitalized children, we can look forward to our ICU’s exploding with senior citizens who, like those sick children, failed to develop the robust immune systems required to fend off the current variety of the annual flu.

That certainly answers the question, “What harm is there in wearing a mask?” Apparently, quite a bit. Oh! And staying home doesn’t save lives, either does it?

To make matters so much worse, the inevitable backlash from the “we know what’s best for you” progressive Democrats’ insistence on mandating COVID vaccines means just 128 million folks have received flu shots this year compared to 154 million in 2020.

Given the inestimable vagaries of this existence, anyone over 30 should’ve long since realized this life is generally the equivalent of a giant whack-a-mole game. Pound one of those little critters over the head and one or two more will pop up elsewhere in an ungainly equal and opposite reaction. If you doubt me I’d encourage you to read up on the “Butterfly Effect.”

So, now we’re looking at an overlapping 2022-23 RSV, flu, and COVID season that may well put pandemic hospitalizations to shame at a time when our medical facilities inexplicably haven’t begun to prepare for it. Something about failing to follow the science, right?

The only positive thing in all of this BS is that insipid Anthony Fauci has been awfully silent these days.

A truly terrifying Halloween sight!

You can have your Freddy Kruegers, your Jasons, Chuckies, and Michael Myers, but they don’t begin to compare to the shocking sight I saw last week.

To set the stage, my traditional morning dog walk takes me past four to eight High School bus stop, and For 22 long years, that prospect inevitably involves at least two to six teenagers glued to their eerily glowing early morning cellphone screens as they stand six feet apart to avoid acknowledging each other’s presence. I’m convinced it was teenagers who invented the term “social distancing.”

And these kids know each other from the nearby neighborhood, too.

All I can say is, it’s going to be fascinating to watch these youths move into the workforce and various positions of power. Perhaps, just like cursive was rendered obsolete by the keyboard, speaking directly to one another will be soon superseded by texts and PMs.

But before we get to our terrifying sight, you might want to gird your loins, or at least brace yourselves against a wall for the impact, because last Thursday I saw two young men enthusiastically great each other as one of them approached a nearby stop.

Why, they actually shook hands, patted each other on the back, asked how the other one was doing, and engaged in a full-blown conversation. It was such a disturbing scenario that my heart started racing, I broke into a cold sweat, I had to reach for my inhaler, and I seriously considered dialing 911.

Before you get too terribly excited about it, that warm interaction had absolutely no effect on the other waiting students who stood steadfastly glued to their handheld devices such that they couldn’t even muster a short “hello.”

So, that’s going to be next year’s front lawn Halloween diorama – two backpack wearing high school boys shaking hands with smiles on their faces. The neighborhood will never be the same.

Yet another terrifying sight!

Though it’s not nearly as frightening as the previous possibility, strange things can happen when aging stars realize they’re no longer relevant. So, not only has Madonna incited feuds with the likes of Cardi B, Kim Kardashian, and Miley Cyrus, but she just posted a topless photo of herself in a gold corset with emojis inserted in strategic locations.

I’d never really considered it before, but for the first time in my life I’m seriously considering the possibility of being gay.

First, Madonna’s had so much plastic surgery that she looks a lot like the shot of Mick Jagger on the cover of the “Goat’s Head Soup” album. It’s as if like someone put a foot on the top of her head as they pulled her facial skin upward with both hands and stapled it in place.

And if I had to endure that kind of bad boob job/breast enlargement result, I wouldn’t be going public with it anytime soon. As the great philosopher Bill Burr once mused, “Would you rather be 50 and look like you’re 50, or be 50 and look like a 28-year-old lizard?”

There’s certainly something to be said for aging gracefully.

This whole sad Madonna scenarios begs one of my mother’s favorite questions, “How can we miss you if you won’t go away?”