I don’t actually want to know any more THAN this:
Topless protesters storm stage as Bernie Sanders campaigns in Nevada
Shant Shahrigian / New York Daily News— A group of protesters blew their tops — literally — as Sen. Bernie Sanders was campaigning in Carson City, Nev., on Sunday. — The Democratic presidential hopeful had just finished introducing his wife Jane O’Meara Sanders as …
Heck: Topless girls on skates on ice, just thirty miles away in Reno.
That’s relatively normal for Nevada, which is, on balance, FAR more normal than these days of madness in which we (by “we” I mean “we” as in “We, the People”) now find ourselves enmired.
Nu?
Evolution is highly controversial while the Earth is no more than 6,000 years old. Imaginary babies trump actual women. Facts are all part of an agreed-to “alternative” narrative version of history that finds global warming to be a Chinese Hoax, while all of our economic malaise, drug and crime problems are caused by criminals sneaking over the Southern Border and we need to build a wall across the entire 1,954 miles of the Mexican border.
(According to the most recent reports, one mile of new border fence has been constructed, while 100 miles of replacement fence have been installed.)
The deranged Donald has gone all Caligula on us, to the degree that he can manage, firing and humiliating, and humiliating and firing whomever he can blame for testifying under oath in obedience to a legal subpoena.
Attorney General Billy Barr got caught blatantly interfering in the sentencing of a Trump crony and today, over 1,100 Justice Department alumni released a letter calling for his resignation and/or the resignation of current Justice Department personnel when pressured to act unethically or unlawfully.
Oh, and Cambodian authorities allowed a cruise ship (Holland America’s Westerdam) to dock after several ports had refused — because of a China connection — to allow the cruise ship to dock. Many passengers disembarked to fly back home (three continents, that authorities know of) and then, wouldn’t cha know it? it turns out that it WAS a plague ship, and many of the disembark-ees are undoubtedly in the two-week PRE-disease period, during which they ARE infectious — according to the various media reports.
Luckily, it is NOT a terribly bad flu.
It now has an official name: not coronavirus (the generic name for a whole family of virii, including the common cold) but, instead, COVID-19.
Perhaps this is what Donald Trump’s precognitive glutei maximi were attempting to tweet out when the mysterious COVFEFE entered the Twittersphere, and, thus, the Zeitgeist of the Twilight of the American Experiment.
To put it more elegantly, the New York Times‘ online headline says all that needs be said for now:
Coronavirus Infection Found After Cruise Ship Passengers Disperse,
Feb. 16, 2020
Here’s a little reality check: as of February 8, at least, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that (lowball) 14,000 Americans have died of influenza this season. Highball: 36,000, but for some reason, media reports pretty universally repeat the LOWball number as THE estimate.
Just so you understand that whatever you’re fantasizing about the coronavirus, er, COVID-19 (sounds like an Ed Wood film doesn’t it?) is already in your environs.
The same CDC reports that there seemed a slacking off of the flu in January, but it’s now spreading again.
click to enlarge (opens a new frame)
So there’s THAT.
The king gone mad. The Red Death stalking the land.
Oh, and now over $133 million for Trump’s golfing trips.
That’s over 300 years’ worth of presidential salary.
So, really, topless protesters in Nevada isn’t all that surprising a thing or big a deal, when you think about it.
No word on the Asteroid or the Army of Mutant Yeti, yet, but hey, it’s not like we aren’t on a roll.
Courage.
Cross-posted from his vorpal sword
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.