SCHITTSTORM USA: 2020 has been a helluva year so far, eh?
January 2020: Well, I did a pretty good job of getting 2020 off to a crappy start.
Febuary 2020: Hold my beer
March 2020: Hold my bong
April 2020: Hold my pipe
May 2020: Hold my syringe
June 2020: ???
Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, something comes along to turn the pandemic into old news.
The Ever-Changing COVID Story
It may have been headed for the rearview anyway. Don’t look now, but the SEC’s most likely scenario on what we now “know” put the IFR (infection fatality rate) at only 0.26%. That’s a far cry from the 3% we were hearing in March.
Don’t hate the messenger here, but guess what? That is pretty comparable to a bad flu season. This is coming from the CDC, not the Hollywood Upstairs Medical College.
I know the whole thing really sucked around these parts and I have friends who are ER nurses and doctors that were slamboozled. But with respect to them, there is a growing body of evidence showing it wasn’t the existential threat we feared. I know 100,000 (and counting) is a lot of people and I hope I don’t sound insensitive here.
But emerging science is showing that it doesn’t really spread much from living on surfaces, the asymptomatic might not be spreading it, and “silent COVID” might be more widespread than thought.
The whole thing has been a horror show of conflicting info. The WHO just now is saying that there’s no need to wear a mask unless you’re taking care of a coronavirus patient. Huh? No mask, mask, no mask. Yet in scary displays of #groupthink, people are getting #maskshamed all over the place.
I know this is a unique and unprecedented situation. But with the constantly changing information, we shouldn’t accept anything we’re being told. I feel like everything is still on the table, from a massive second wave to it all going away.
We should even be questioning the wisdom of the lockdowns because they might not have even worked. The models that convinced us our officials to go into lockdown were and massively flawed and borderline fraudulent. When you take into account the incalculable amount of pain, poverty, and deaths caused or exacerbated by the lockdowns, it sure ain’t no slam dunk that they were the right thing to do.
We need to ask the question because you know the elected officials are going to tell us they saved millions of lives. But the virus might have been on it’s way out already when lockdowns went into effect. It’s possible.
We have to be willing to reverse course when new evidence appears.
Ignition
So everyone is locked down for a few months and then this powderkeg of Mr. George Floyd comes along and sets the country on fire. Watching that smug little douche cop stare defiantly with his knee on the man’s neck makes me feel rage and anxiety from picturing myself in that situation. Someone freakin’ stop him. I can only imagine what it would feel like to watch it as a black person.
To make matters worse, we have one of the least-qualified people in the country in charge. The Orange Pussbag hid in a bunker and reportedly refused to make a speech because he didn’t really have any new policy ideas. Awesome.
He did find time to have Antifa declared a terrorist group. That was the priority, not calming the nation. Is Antifa even a cohesive organization or just a right wing boogie man? I think the latter. When you elect a game show host con man, I guess you can’t really be surprised when he displays zero leadership ability. #NotWinning!
There is footage of all sorts of weird things happening, like cop-looking-guys breaking windows, seemingly attempting to instigate rioting/looting. A huge pallet of bricks appearing out of nowhere… people seemingly getting paid for rioting, etc. Like #COVID, anything is freaking possible at this point.
It’s the ultimate irony that in the so called “Information Era,” we’re so overwhelmed with misinformation that it’s hard to believe most of the crap we hear.
Everyone has their own set of facts.
If 2020 were an Athlete
If 2020 were an athlete, I’d nominate Ryan Leaf (see mug shot above). He’s a guy who got numerous second chances from teams who thought it couldn’t get any worse. But it did.
It’s hard to believe now, but there was actually a debate as to whether he should be the top draft pick over Peyton Manning. Supposedly, Indy’s scouts liked Leaf better, but he missed his interview and Manning impressed. Talk about dodging a bullet.
Leaf had a career 48.4% completion percentage, with 12 TDs and 36 INTs. His career was a trainwreck of fights with fans, teammates, reporters, and GMs, faked injuries, a poor work ethic, getting caught playing flag football while suspended, partying, and all sorts of bad behavior. His post-football career highlights include doing time for theft, burgarly and drug charges, getting kicked out of a rehab facility, and another arrest in May for domestic battery. This guy is a real winner.
It can only get better from here. Here’s to better days in June and in the rest of 2020. Be the Change. Come back tomorrow for El Vaquero Enojado. Follow us on Twitter at @BenWhit8, @MeetTheMatts, @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram @MeetTheMatts and like our Facebook page, Meet The Matts.
