facemasks and jews

One of the frustrating things about having a blog is the constant vague, underlying feeling that there is an obligation to actually write something every now and then.  This is especially true when you have a blog, such as this one, in which you really do not publish much very often.  The last White Fluffy Duckies was written and published nearly two months ago.  Frankly, I thought it had been longer than that.  I have found it increasingly difficult over the past year or so to come back here and record my thoughts, as society as a whole has become increasingly depressing.

Then there are those entries that practically write themselves.

Today, we will very briefly touch upon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.  At the outset, I will state that I will not dignify her by using her name again.  Much like the former guy, mostly known in this space as cadet bone spurs, she will henceforth be relegated to identification by nickname, reference and ridicule, which is still probably more than she deserves.  For obvious reasons, we will refer to her mostly by the title she probably adores, Rep. QAnon.

Over the course of the past few days, in addition to a myriad of of ignorant and insulting statements she has made over the years, including during the relatively brief the time she has been a member of congress, Rep. QAnon has equated mask mandates during a public health pandemic that has already killed more than six hundred thousand people in this country alone to the treatment of Jews at the hands of nazis in World War Two.  She has specifically stated that forcing people to wear masks in public is just like the treatment Jews in concentration camps felt when being herded off to gas chambers.  When the predictable outrage ensued, she doubled down, and said that there was nothing wrong at all in what she had said.

Nothing wrong.

She equated a public health measure that just about every public health authority endorses as saving lives with the mass slaughter of Jews by nazis, a deliberate genocidal attempt to eradicate the planet of Jews.  

Six million.

Six million Jews.

All killed.  

Deliberately.  

Ruthlessly.

And this cretin thinks it's the same thing as asking people to wear masks to help overcome a pandemic.

Somehow, placing a piece of cloth over your nose and mouth in an attempt to prevent the spread of a deadly virus is the same as gassing Jews.  We have reached the point where public health measures are to some people the equivalent of mass genocide. 

Let me teach Rep. QAnon a few words and places from history.  Maybe she should look them up in history books before she equates public health with genocide again.  I am not going to define them for her here, as it is just a waste of time.  For anyone to truly learn, they need to look this up themselves.

Holocaust.

Shoah.

Warsaw Ghetto.

Auschwitz.

Treblinka.

Bergen-Belson.

Sobibor.

And what is most personal to me, November 3, 1943.

I seriously doubt Rep. QAnon knows much about each of these terms, places and dates.  I doubt that she knows anything at all of the significance of November 3, 1943.  For that much I will offer a brief history lesson.

November 3, 1943 is known in the history of the Holocaust as "The Harvest Festival".  It is the day the nazis decided Jews were going to be exterminated.  Approximately forty-two thousand Jews were murdered in concentration camps that day throughout Europe, the single largest mass murder in a single day in history.  Nearly eighteen thousand alone were killed at a concentration camp in Majdanek.  Included in that number were members of my father's family -- my family -- who had not managed to escape Frompl, Poland before the outbreak of the war.  Those members of my family were likely killed that day.  The remains of the Majdanek camp still exists.  Tours are offered, including the barracks Jews were stored in while awaiting their fate, the gas chambers and the ovens.  There is also a large memorial which consists of a mountain of ashes covered from the elements.  You can walk up steps on the side of the mountain of ashes and peer over the edge.  What you will see are ashes of the people killed at Majdanek.  Included are members of my family.  

The ashes, the horrors, they still exist.  

Frompl no longer exists.  

My family, including great grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins, also no longer exist.

But Rep. QAnon still exists, as do people who think like her.  The deliberate ignorance she spouts still exists.  It is for Rep. QAnon and people of her ilk that for nearly eighty years my people have repeated the phrase --

"Never Again".

Never Again should one group of people be allowed to exterminate another for the simple reason that they are not like "us", whomever "us" may be.

Never Again should we allow ignorance and malice to flourish to the point where one people think they have the right to eradicate another, or to make false equivalences to measures having nothing whatsoever to do with Shoah.

About six months ago, a person who had been a friend on facebook published a photograph there of a nazi soldier harassing a small boy, one of those infamous "papers please" moments, and equated it with mask mandates.  I immediately unfriended her and have not seen her on my facebook feed since, nor do I wish to.  

And I say this now.

If there are any other "friends" out there who feel the same way, who think that public health measures designed to prevent the spread of a deadly virus are the same as sending Jews off to gas chambers, please spare me the job of finding out who you are.

Just unfriend me.

it can and is happening again

To those who choose to ignore history, I invite you to come out west and visit the great State of Wyoming.

Specifically, I invite those of you who think it can never happen "here", wherever your "here" may be, to come to an otherwise barren stretch of land between Ralston and Cody, Wyoming, just north of Highway 14.  It is a really beautiful stretch of land, with fabulous views of the McCullough Peaks to the south and Heart Mountain, an iconic symbol of the Big Horn Basin, to the north.  The views would otherwise be a fairy tale if it were not for the history of the location.

In this otherwise idyllic stretch of land, you can find the remains of Heart Mountain Relocation Center.  It is now the Heart Mountain Educational Center and is a fascinating museum and testament to the evil we are capable of inflicting upon our fellow citizens in the name of so called patriotism.  It is not too difficult to find.  The smoke stack from the camp is still there and is visible well before you get to the site from either direction on Highway 14.

This is where thousands of loyal Japanese-Americans -- I emphasize Americans, as in citizens of this country, not Japan -- were sent to after being torn from their homes, stripped of their belongings, other than what they could carry with them, and sent to what was basically a prison on the middle of a scenic nowhere, all for the "crime" of being of Japanese descent.  To make sure they could not leave, the residents of the camps were surrounded by barbed wire fences manned by armed military guards.  While they called the residents "internees", perhaps to soothe the feelings of those who forced them into this existence, make no mistake about it  -- the Japanese-Americans forced to live in this camp were prisoners sent there without representation, without a trial, without due process of any kind were nothing more than prisoners.

Think it can't happen here again?  

Think again.

When the legality of the internment camps were challenged, the case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.  There, by a 6-3 majority, the Court ruled that systematically singling out Japanese Americans, who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor or the Japanese war effort, due to an unfounded fear of Japanese-American espionage, was perfectly legal and perfectly constitutional.  For those who can follow legal citations, look at Korematsu v. United States, 343 US 214 (1944).  For those who may argue that it was only conservatives who signed on to this absolutely abhorrent decision, please note that one of the justices always held up as a lion of liberalism, William O. Douglass, signed on to the majority decision, as did another who is generally considered one of the great justices of the twentieth century, Felix Frankfurter.  While there is some debate as to whether or not the Court finally got around to overturning this decision via a 2018 case, Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392 (2018), it is noted that Justice Roberts, called the Korematsu decision "objectively unlawful", "outside of the scope of presidential authority" and "morally repugnant", he did not outright say the case was overturned; therefore, it can be argued that Korematsu, a case that legalized racism against Japanese people in this country, is still the law of this land.

Years later, we visited Heart Mountain before the camp was actually given a National Parks designation and before the museum opened.  Our oldest was fascinated by the site, took photos and wrote a paper on it for his eighth grade social studies class.

The paper was returned by his to remain nameless teacher with a failing grade and a note admonishing him not to make things up.

Flash forward to this past year.  Just about a year ago today, while returning from a run picking up masks to be distributed to need based organizations, I thought I would stop at a popular local bagel shop, one of the few local businesses that remained open, at least at the time.  While filling my modest order, the owner who thought he was engaging in friendly banter, told me he was planning on finding a lawyer to represent him and other small business owners.  He wanted to sue China for creating the coronavirus and sending it here to the United States, causing him and his small minded -- oops, I mean small business -- owners to lose business.  He was not kidding.  I did not volunteer that I am an attorney.

As the pandemic continued, we stopped to pick up some donated masks from a friend who lives in one of the nearby towns.  Our friend is of Asian descent.  Across the street from her, a neighbor was flying any number of American flags on his house, his lawn, on the telephone pole on the property, etc.  On the telephone pole was a sign, pointed directly at our friend's home, advising everyone in this country to speak English and to boycott all Chinese restaurants.  Our friend and her family speak perfect English, and why not?  They are Americans, born and raised here.  To our knowledge, they do not own a restaurant of any kind.  We do not know much about her neighbor across the street, other than the obvious fact that they are jerks.

Throughout this time, the then president, not only said nothing about the overt racism against Asians, specifically Chinese, thereby giving license to the jerks like the bagel shop guy and our friend's neighbor, but encouraged this ignorance by calling the virus the China Virus, or Kung Flu, as if to emphasize to the world, that he too is a royal asshole.

So emboldened by all of this, the jerks, the racists, the idiots everywhere are coming out of the woodwork.  Unprovoked attacks against Asian Americans are proliferating.  While the present president is coming out and saying all the appropriate things, the cat is out of the bag.  What simmered below the surface for years has emerged, and it is ugly.

And a significant enough number of the population thinks it is okay.

Think it can't happen again?  It already is happening.

Blacks are being attacked, often times by those charged by society with protecting us.  Nazis are on the rise.  So is antisemitism.  To my fellow Jews, if Heart Mountain can happen, so can Auschwitz.

Stay vigilant and remember, evil thrives when good people stay silent.

dr. suess, mr. potato head and distracted voters

 I had a really interesting conversation with my mother the other day.  We were talking, as we frequently do, about current events.  She was wondering why there are so many people in mostly red states, but all over, who consistently vote against their own self-interests.  It had brought to mind an instance I have talked before about a conversation with a conservative friend in the west who was railing against the passage of ObamaCare while it was being debated.  When I pointed out to my friend that her family needed something like ObamaCare as it would provide benefits to her grandchildren they otherwise would not be entitled to, her response was to tell me she would pray they would not get sick.

Anyway, Mom was musing about why people would vote for politicians who would push legislation that would deny them health care, or that would indeed prevent them from getting proper care, such as vaccines or just outright make them sick, as in refusing to impose common sense mask mandates.  In times of crisis, we both wondered why anyone would vote for a politician who would approve tax cuts for billionaires who do not need them while denying a raise in the minimum wage, that even if passed would not completely allow some people to afford basic rights such as decent housing and a meal.  We will not even get into the fact that nobody denies that ordinary people may need a lift nowadays, such as the stimulus payment that not a single republican in either the house or the senate voted for, and then decried as a "partisan bill".

Yet folks out there voted these people into office, and will undoubtedly vote them in again.  Steven King may be gone, but Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and their ilk are still there, and will remain after the next election cycle, or be replaced by others of the same mindset.

And this happens over and over again.

Why?

Why do those who clearly do not believe that government should stand by and do virtually nothing in a crisis vote for those who will do exactly that and will not lift a finger to help anyone but themselves and their rich benefactors?

I think the answer is in the fact that if nothing else, the modern republican party has become the masters of distraction,  This hides their true intent, their intrinsic evil.  While George Floyd is being smothered to death, these are the guys who are pointing to the skies and yelling about Halley's Comet.

So you end up with an unemployed, uninsured white male in Kansas voting for somebody who will deny him any benefits or assistance, because that candidate will vote to prevent late term abortions, even though our Kansan friend and his family and friends, will never get an abortion at all, and will likely not know anyone else who will.

And you end up with a low wage fast food worker in Iowa who will vote for somebody who will deny her the right to an increase in her take home pay, because that candidate will vote against allowing Central Americans fleeing violence in their countries from entering the United States and seek asylum, even if she has never met anyone who speaks only Spanish in her entire life and will never be at risk of such a person "stealing her job".

And in more recent turns of events, you end up with people getting hysterical over Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Suess and the Dallas Mavericks decision to eschew playing the National Anthem before basketball games, instead of asking how Texas could freeze and utilities in the state charge thousands of dollars PER WEEK to provide basic heat to their citizens.

So why do voters on the right do this over and over and over again?  I have known many of them over the years, and on the surface they seem like decent and very likeable people.  I have called many of them friends.

I believe the answer lies in what has been referred to as American's Original Sin, and others refer to as "fear of the other".  In the most crass and brazen terms a politician has ever used to explain how Americans vote, Lyndon Johnson crystallized the entire mess, when he explained:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket.  Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you".

And there you have it.

And there it is and will always be until we address this first.

And you can bet that the GOP will be out there calling the rest of us racists when we bring this up and scream instead about Colin Kapernick and the Dixie Chicks (ok, "The Chicks") instead.

our disgrace

 January 6, 2021 will go down in history as the date a president of the United States tried to stay in power by inciting an insurrection in which five people, including a law enforcement officer, were killed.

February 13, 2021 will go down in history as the date the United States Senate let him get away with it.

And make no mistake about it.  It was both sides of the aisle that let him get away with it.  Pay no attention at all to what the vote for or against conviction was.

Up until a few years ago, I would frequently act as a judge in collegiate mock trial tournaments.  One of my pet peeves was that the students would meticulously build up their arguments, and just when they got to the point where they were on the precipice of hammering it home, they would just assume everyone knew where their argument was leading and stop, figuring that the jury would know what to do with what had been handed to them.

The house managers and senate democrats did exactly that today, just as they have done so for years.

Anyone who practices law knows that the only way to convince a jury is to bludgeon them with the facts.  Subtlety, as I have told the unfortunate college student attorneys who have had me as a trial judge, does not work.  It has not worked in the past.  It is not working now.  It will not work in the future.  You must put your jury in a position in which they have no choice but to vote in your favor.

In this instance, the only way you were going to get the senate republican jurors to vote to convict would be to outrage the American public with the facts of the insurrection so badly that the republicans would fear for their jobs so much that they would have no choice but to convict him.

And that required witnesses.

Lots of them.

All of them.

I thought the house managers had finally gotten it right this morning when they moved to call Jaime Herrera Butler, the G.O.P. representative who was going to testify as to the conversation had between Kevin McCarthy and cadet bone spurs in which the cadet made it clear he did not care if the mob got to all the congressmen and the vice-president in the Capital on January 6, 2021 and did whatever to them.  Remember, a gallows and noose had been erected on the Capital grounds by the mob.  Rep. Butler literally begged for other patriotic G.O.P.ers to come forward, assuming there were any.  We now know there are a total of seventeen.  Ten in the House who voted for impeachment.  Seven in the Senate who voted to convict.

I really thought we were headed somewhere when the Senate voted to hear witnesses.  The only way to get a conviction here was to have Rep. Butler testify, followed by anyone who volunteered to testify about the events of the day, followed by Kevin McCarthy, and ultimately followed by Mike Pence.  By then, the outcry would have been such that I have little doubt that the G.O.P. would have begun believing that to save their hides, which is the only thing they really care about, they had to convict.  The only way cadet bone spurs would get out of it would be if there was no testimony.

And the democrats caved.

They agreed to a stipulation that what Rep. Butler had said the night before about the conversation between cadet bone spurs and Kevin McCarthy was true in exchange for her not being called to testify and that no other witness would be called either.  Considering that the G.O.P. simply wanted no witnesses at all, they got exactly what they wanted.  They could now vote to acquit on the grounds that there was no jurisdiction to even try cadet bone spurs even though that vote had already been taken and jurisdiction established, without addressing the merits of anyone's testimony and dealing with the potential ire of the public.

And the democrats let it happen.

So what if the republicans would have tried to call "one hundred witnesses". 

LET THEM.

I bet every one of the witnesses they wanted to call, including Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Hilary Clinton and Casey Stengel for that matter, would have been more than happy to comply, testify and pour even more fuel on the ex-president's funeral pyre.  I for one would have also been entertained by Casey Stengel testifying considering his performance before the Kefauver Committee sixty years ago.  We all know what the G.O.P. did today was a bluff.  They were not going to call a single witness, even Nancy Pelosi or Kamala Harris, because they could not afford to allow them to continue to bludgeon cadet bone spurs, which is exactly what would have happened, which would have put them all in a position in which to save their own seats they would have eventually had no choice but to vote to convict.  So they huffed, puffed and bluffed.

And the democrats fell for it.

I am beyond disgust.

They should all rot in hell.

Even the democrats.

the constitution is dead

The United States Constitution is dead.

Well, maybe not dead, but it certainly is on life support.

And make no mistake about it, the cause of death is Donald Trump and his enablers in the federal and state governments, as well as the right wing media.

We have long known that Donald Trump (yes, for this one I am actually going to use his name.  While this is not a legal document, indictments require use of actual real names) has absolutely no regard for the United States Constitution.  Want proof?  Look no further than Trump International Hotel in Washington, where foreign governments and dignitaries have been lavishing business ever since he took office, billing the government for layovers at his properties overseas and here in the United States, especially at Mar-a -Lago, n clear violation of the Emoluments Clause.  His response is to refer to the "Phony Emoluments Clause" and claim that as president he is immune from prosecutions and civil lawsuits.  Notice, he does not claim that he has not been profiting off of all of this.

The phony Phony Emoluments Clause.  You know, the one that has been part and parcel of the Constitution since it was written at the birth of the nation in 1787.  Clearly, the founding fathers wrote the Phony Emoluments Clause into the Constitution two hundred and thirty-seven years ago with the thought of getting even with Donald Trump all these years later.

For perhaps a more controversial example, I point to the Good and Welfare Clause, which requires him to care for the good and welfare of the people.  No masks.  No urging of masks to protect yourselves.  No urging of social distancing.  Modelling that shows he does not care a whit about the good and welfare of the people.  On top of everything, word has spread that anyone left in his government who dares to even hint at helping the incoming administration in a smooth transition of the government will be fired, including members of the coronavirus task force, from whom critical information is going to be needed to distribute potential life saving -- no, society saving -- vaccines.  No financial assistance to those in dire need in these critical times.  No attempt to even try to come up with an aid package.  No fire side chats.  No words of comfort to an increasingly desperate populace.

Nothing.

And then there is the outright blatant attempt to steal the election.

First he tried, with the assistance of Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, to pack the federal judiciary.  He made no bones about what he was doing, outright saying he wants the election to go to the Supreme Court, where he figures his three appointees will take his side in the fight.  Thankfully, thus far, no court, no justice has ruled in his favor on any of the phony issues he has raised to date.  Funny thing.  Even most arch-conservative judges have some sense of moral integrity and take their oaths of office seriously.

So when you bring ridiculous claims before the courts backed up by nothing, these judges will do their duty and uphold the law as written, just as conservatives say they should.

And it's not like they have not repeatedly had the chance to make their case.  Remember, just prior to the election, Trump and his minions sued in Pennsylvania to exclude absentee ballots, before any such ballot had even been cast, on the grounds that they were rife with fraud.  The judge in that case, a Trump appointee, set a deadline in the case for Trump and his gang to produce any evidence of such fraud.  The case was then dismissed when not only was no such evidence produced, but THEY DID NOT EVEN TRY.

And now, case after case around the country has been dismissed because when confronted with the requirement in any case to produce evidence backing up your claims, Trump and his minions have failed to produce ANYTHING.  In some of the cases, the attorneys involved, knowing of the disciplinary consequences their license and therefore their livelihoods may be facing have either moved to dismiss their own cases or have withdrawn from representing the Trump, the Trump campaign, the RNC, etc.

So all legal avenues shutting off in front of him, he is now resorting to calling in republican state legislators to bully them into refusing to certify state election results so that he can have faithless legislators appointed in those states against the will of the voters, who will presumably vote to put him in office when the electoral college meets.

In other and plain words, HE WANTS STATE LEGISLATORS AROUND THE COUNTRY TO DISREGARD THE WILL OF NEARLY EIGHTY MILLION VOTERS, MORE PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER VOTED FOR A CANDIDATE IN ANY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN OUR ENTIRE HISTORY AND APPROXIMATELY SIX MILLION MORE VOTES THAN HE GOT, SIMPLY TO STAY IN POWER AND TO SATISFY HIS UNQUENCHABLE EGO.

The 12th Amendment of the Constitution sets forth how the electoral college is appointed and how it is to vote, at least in terms of the mechanics.  For the 12th Amendment to work as intended, it is assumed that there is a certain level of good faith that must be observed.  While it does not specifically state so, it has always been assumed that the electors from each state will vote as the popular vote in their state dictates.  Indeed, earlier this year, the Supreme Court validated that very concept in a unanimous decision.

So now, he has called Michigan legislators to the White House to discuss appointment of faithless electors.  This after he called republican members of the Board of Elections to bully them into trying to change their votes to certify results in Wayne County.  For some reason, the legislators are going to Washington, although their doing so at least hints that they are going to change their long standing statements in public that they will appoint electors who will vote the will of the people in their state.

And not a peep from congress. 

Oh, Mitt Romney has blasted what is going on, but we all know that the president will never listen to any criticism of Mitt Romney.  Nothing from Mitch McConnell.  Nothing from Lindsay Graham.  Nothing from any g.o.p. senator or congressman.  No indication that anyone with the ability to stop this is going to try.

As noted above, the 12th Amendment requires the good faith of our elected officials in order to work.  If there is no good faith, there is no 12th Amendment.  In turn, if that happens, there is no legitimately duly elected government.

And if all that is allowed to happen, the United States Constitution is dead.

and the winner is...

By now, it should be clear to just about anyone who is paying attention that the only way to stop the spread of the virus, or at least slow it down before vaccines which are showing promise are generally made available to all of us is to have a uniform national response that all, or at least so much of society follows as to effectively flatten the curve.  That includes the usual calls we have come to hear for mask wearing, social distancing, etc.  As the virus proliferates, it includes banning the type of social gatherings where the virus is likely to be spread, which unfortunately includes many businesses and gathering places that we all enjoy patronizing.

By now, we have also become used to the anti-mask, anti-lockdown you cannot tell me what to do crowd, as they tout their right to make the rest of us sick and question the efficacy of just about any common sense method touted by medical experts to slow the spread.  These folks apparently believe that individual responsibility is what counts, regardless of the fact that once anyone shows any irresponsibility, it increases the risk for everyone else.  We all know that there will always be irresponsible people out there for whom nobody can tell them what to do no matter what.

But I now give you the clear winner of the debate:

A friend who lives in the middle of the country recently commented on restrictions the governor of the state this friend lives in had just imposed.  The friend challenged anyone to show where any such restrictions had resulted in a flattening of the curve or any measurable success in dealing with the virus.

In the county where I live on Long Island, we had such restrictions in place since the early days of the pandemic in March, eased a bit during the summer and now slowly being reimposed.  Our positivity rate as of yesterday was 3.49%, which we consider to be terrible.  The rate in my friend's state as of this morning was 15.6%.  While I did not comment on that particular post, as it would result in nothing more than the usual gang from the right coming down on my neck, the comments posted after my friend's challenge crystallized what the rest of us are dealing with.

The highlight; frankly, one of the dumbest statements I have ever seen, came from the genius who posted that he was fully protected from the virus by his second amendment rights.

I repeat.  He thinks the second amendment protects him from contracting the virus.

There are sane people who reside in this part of the country.  One of them asked midwest gun guy what part of the virus he planned on aiming at when he pulled out his high tech weaponry.  In response, midwest gun guy replied that if a mask can stop the virus, he can stop it with a gun.

He thinks he can shoot the virus.

I repeat.  He thinks he can shoot the virus.

Who knew?

How could all of our doctors, researchers, public health specialists and scientists have gotten it so wrong?

And why aren't our soldiers, national guardsmen, sheriffs, police departments, highway patrolmen, state and local militias and neighborhood watches out there protecting us?  For that matter, where are the second amendment enthusiasts, private militia gangs, the you can't take my guns away and you can't tell me what to do crowd?

Any minute now, I expect to hear a veritable fusillade of bullets from our duly appointed law enforcers and patriots whizzing past my windows, followed by street cleaners driving by to clean up the remaining bodies of dead viruses in the street.

Any minute now...

Any fucking minute...  

ruth

The mother of an old and dear friend passed away last week.  Ruth -- I will use only her first name to protect the privacy of the family -- was the kind of person who you could only love.  She was a completely devoted wife, mother, grandmother and friend.  Back in the stone ages, when I was in college, she was the one who would occasionally host her sons' friends and provide us with a nice home cooked meal around a large and boisterous dinner table.  She was a loud, loving, boisterous and sometimes profane sounding person, who left a mark on all of us.

I am told that she is also a statistic that our present administration would just like to forget exists, but cannot in the long run ignore.

Ruth was diagnosed with Covid back in March.  While she made an initial recovery, there were debilitating effects which required her to undergo extensive physical therapy.  Several months later, in the course of her recovery, she suffered a severely broken leg in an accident that required a number of surgeries.  After each one, my friend tells me he could see her strength ebbing.  Indeed, about a month ago, on the occasion of my birthday, my friend told me Ruth was fading away.

He also told me he blamed cadet bone spurs.

No, he did not blame him for Ruth contracting Covid.  She could have caught anywhere from anyone or anything.  Instead, he blamed him for his callous response to a pandemic that has resulted in vast numbers of unnecessary deaths.  He blamed him for creating a task force manned not with experts in epidemiogy, infectious disease and public health, but with political sycophants who appeared to be more interested in protecting the president's image than in finding a cure or therapeutic.  Most of all, he blamed him for minimizing the virus and the count of those who contracted or died from the it so as to make himself look better, Ruth now being one of those.  Ruth's death certificate may state that her cause of death was complications from her numerous post-accident surgeries, but my friend and I agree that Covid-19 was a contributing factor.

In this time of political and cultural polarization, we must not lose sight of the fact that the casualties of this time are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends to all of us.  Ruth was one of them.  Minimizing death counts, calling them fake news and demonizing anyone who tries to say otherwise is an insult to the memory of all of the victims, such as Ruth.  Please remember that before you start your daily rant against everyone who does not necessarily believe as you do.

And please remember to wear your mask outside and social distance as possible.  Do it for Ruth and my friend's family.

May Ruth's memory be a blessing.