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| Frank Sinatra |
In April 1966, Esquire published an essay about Frank Sinatra written by the master storyteller Gay Talese.
The piece was called Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.
It was a clever title. The normally mundane, that someone had a cold, was far from mundane when it came to Sinatra. Talese, in a way, anticipated Trump with COVID, when he wrote his Sinatra tale:
Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel—only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence, and it affects not only his own psyche but also seems to cause a kind of psychosomatic nasal drip within dozens of people who work for him, drink with him, love him, depend on him for their own welfare and stability. A Sinatra with a cold can, in a small way, send vibrations through the entertainment industry and beyond as surely as a President of the United States, suddenly sick, can shake the national economy.
And so we have Trump with a virus infection that appears little different than a flu infection--except for the very elderly with comorbidities. And it is a big global story.
Trump is overweight, doesn't work out and seems to feast on french fires so the virus may hold the view that it is time to take him out of the game but the odds are way in his favor. So much in his favor that one of his COVID policy advisers, Scott Atlas, has stated that Trump will likely recover rapidly.
Well, yeah, most likely. It's a 90% likelihood that he recovers rapidly.
But the thing I want to focus on is the damn manner in which emphasis has been put on Trump for not wearing a mask. For mainstream media, it is as if this is the only fact that needs to be considered. It is the way the anti-Trumpers roll. Attack Trump for anything and everything.
There is no consideration at all that Trump, by not wearing a mask, was taking personal risk to signal to America to get back to work. Who knows how many lives he has saved with such signaling? Who knows how much anxiety he has reduced in how many with such signaling?
No consideration of any of this by the Trump-hating bastards. It is all about hate of him. There is never mention of the fact that mask-wearing has never been fully tested for its safety and that Dr. Fauci and other power freaks have acknowledged they have not taken into consideration the suicides and drug-taking and increased child abuse because of the lockdowns.
None of this. Instead, it is elitist sneering that Trump is getting what he deserves for not wearing a mask. When in fact what this is teaching us is that even the most protected man in the world by having everyone around him tested frequently can't be protected from the virus. That the virus is out there and can reach the White House even with high-level virus protection protocol.
The lockdowns are silly. It does not stop the virus. It remains out there. What should have been done from the start is to allow herd immunity to develop. Let the elderly hunker down for two to three weeks and it would have been over. Instead, we have the virus lurking, and it appears to find ways to infect who it wants, even the protected president.
Yes, the president has COVID. It should signal that it is time to allow herd immunity to rip (with the elderly protected). If the Secret Service can't protect the president from COVID, no one is safe. It is just that mask-wearing and lockdowns prolong the period that it takes the virus to spread as more clever routes must be taken.
But most important, it must be noted that the current hysteria is about a virus that is not serious for almost anybody but the elderly with comorbidities. What the hell are "our" leaders doing?
They are destroying the economy and society for what?
It is time to follow Sinatra by doing what he did when he had his cold, he continued to live.
"[S]tanding at this bar in Beverly Hills, Sinatra had a cold, and he continued to drink quietly... here he was, the man himself, in the early hours of the morning in Beverly Hills...Now Sinatra said a few words to the blondes. Then he turned from the bar and began to walk toward the poolroom," Talese informs us.
Stopping life for a mostly harmless virus is for authoritarians and the wimps who too willingly follow.
Resistance against them is what enhances life. They are afraid of that and thus afraid of us also---more afraid of us, in fact, than COVID.
-RW
Great read. Bravo!
ReplyDelete"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;" (1 Tim 1:1-2)
Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them." (Psalm 22:5)
We've all known people who were simply cranky and belligerent, obstinate, willful, and unwilling to consider the possibility of their error. They are capricious to their benefit and dishonorable, as if their consciences were "seared with a hot iron."
These do not play well with others. These are the Faucians and Pelosians. They are weak, and so love coercive power, thinking they becone strong with it.
The brilliant Wenzel has given our rally cry, "Resistance enhances life." Thank you for that! Now I need a T-Shirt with it boldly emblazoned.
I agree, great post. But it would have been better without the term "herd immunity." It has no meaning for human beings and is an insult to the idea that "resistance enhances life." Human beings are unique, no two are alike, and each responds to illness uniquely. The number of individuals that defeat an illness or virus is meaningless to the last person to contract it. He and he alone can chose to live a healthy life and maintain an immune system as strong as nature provides. One that resists the viruses that are always there. In addition, each individual human being has the defining characteristic of rational thought. Thought, if chosen can help them be better more healthy human beings and thought that can inform their emotions so that they may resist the hysteria of herd behavior. A behavior that diminishes their humanity.
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