Since March of this year, the world, aside from Red China, has been engaged in a continuous observance of Festivus for the past ten months as there’s been non-stop airing of petty grievances.
My passport is useless.
I can’t hang out at bars.
I don’t want to wear the mask.
Why is that guy sitting thirty feet away from me in an open space not wearing his mask?
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Not since the Second World War has something fully consumed and regrettably transformed American society.
But to quote President Trump in context, COVID is what it is.
And it’s all too real.
And spectacularly unpredictable in its effects on people.
And can be deadly.
Grievance #1: Fools Who Believe COVID is a Giant Hoax.
There are terrible days that I’ll never forget in my life:
9-11.
The day my younger brother died.
Katrina.
And in 2020 March 31st carved its notch of infamy on my psyche and perhaps in my vital organs as well for I could literally feel the virus march through my body.
I’ll spare you the details in this column but I felt it attack my lungs, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, legs, and toes in addition to enduring short term memory loss, difficulty making basic mathematical calculations, and an inability to operate a vehicle.
It also was the only time I’ve ever got to a point of saying my final prayers, preparing my soul with the expectation that I would not see the next morning, and texting someone where I had a check that I had not yet deposited.
Some people are asymptomatic, others had mild symptoms such as fatigue or an infrequent cough. And then there are those who have not yet contracted COVID.
In the first two cases, you’re the lucky and in the last just hope your luck doesn’t run out.
Grievance #2- Wear Your Mask Properly
Seriously, if it’s not covering your nose then you’re not helping others or yourself.
Grievance #3 Be Mindful of Spacing
I can’t count the times where I have encountered people who you’d think have no particular place to be literally walk up to people’s heels while yapping on the phone or rush into elevators when there’s already the recommended maximum number of people in the enclosed space.
Grievance #4 If You’re Sick Then Isolate
We all heard the story of the couple traveling from Orlando to Los Angeles on the United flight that had to make an emergency landing at MSY.
When you check in for your flight you must declare that you are not suffering from COVID-19 symptoms and yet these two individuals who knew better boarded a five hour long flight anyway.
And now the person who tried to save that man’s life is suffering from coronavirus symptoms and people on that flight have to quarantine because of the selfishness of others.
How many people are now dead because of individuals who were COVID positive and knowingly put others at risk of infection merely because they didn’t want to be inconvenienced?
Grievance #5. COVIDIOCY
In the midst of this pandemic, there’s been no shortage of stupid decisions by the government and others.
Recently I attended Mass in a church that could hold 500 people comfortably but due to state restrictions were compelled to reduce the allowable attendance to 50.
Unfortunately the concept of reduced capacity was lost on the church staff as they proceeded to group the 50 attendees into a small area of the church, six to a pew rather than scattering parties throughout the church’s spacious seating area.
I’ve seen restaurants and other public establishments do similar things.
Grievance #6 COVID Statism
At the beginning of this ordeal, a legislator who is wise far beyond her years predicted that governments would become too comfortable handing down arbitrary social and commerce restrictions. She was right on the stimulus money.
Grievance #7 Our Lady of Phase Two
Thankfully she’s neither my Lady or Mayor but what’s happened in Orleans Parish throughout COVID even surpasses my low expectations of City Hall.
Mayor Cantrell’s petty spat with Christian singer Lauren Daigle reminded me of the warden’s battles with Andy Dufrense in Shawshank Redemption.
This wasn’t about public safety but a perceived challenge to her authority and the mayor demonstrating the lengths she’ll go to exact vengeance.
And it’s not a good look for a city that lives and breathes off the hospitality industry.
Not one of Warden LaToya’s edicts has been challenged by the City Council so if you’re mad about things in New Orleans, remember her seven accomplices in your own airing of grievances.
By the way, city officials are on the ballot in the fall of 2021, which will be more of an IQ test for the voters of Orleans Parish than an election.
Grievance #8 Time Magazine’s Democrats of the Year
A pandemic has wrecked the world economy, millions have died, hundreds of thousands of medical workers risk their own health and by extension their loved ones providing care for the seriously ill, and thousands of scientists across the planet feverishly work to develop medicines and vaccines to stop the virus yet that joke of a periodical gives its prestigious annual recognition to a man who hid in his house for most of the year and a cackling sidekick who is the mascot for political opportunism.
Grievance #9 Communist China
Well you won’t hear them mentioned in connection to their virus in the establishment media so I might as well do my part here.
Remember when their propagandists tried to claim US servicemen planted the virus in that now forgotten place called Wuhan?
Or the more recent yarn about how tainted Italian seafood imports caused it?
The separation of Communist China from the coronavirus narrative in media and politics is an astounding feat and underscores how dishonest and compromised the media and the Democratic Party are.
And apparently things are going well in China as they’re buying oil for their industries while we are buying their medical masks just to walk inside a gas station.
It’s obvious the Chinese government knows more about COVID than they’re sharing with the rest of the world.
And at the end of the day even if you truly believe that: 1) this didn’t come from a biological weapon lab, 2) it wasn’t intentionally spread, and 3) Beijing was unaware of what was happening with the outbreak, then the Communist regime’s lack of information sharing on the virus is unforgivable as tens of millions of people suffer from this plague and hundreds of millions more are adversely affected by social and economic extension.
If the images of tanks plowing over their citizens in Tiananmen Square didn’t convince you of the evil nature of that Marxist regime then this pandemic should.