Tag Archives: pandemic

Sports news

Why not just scrap the season?

A part of the Lone Star Conference decision to “postpone” certain athletic activities has me puzzled.

The LSC has decided to postpone intercollegiate football and other sports until the spring, meaning that the student-athletes can start blocking and tackling for real during, oh, baseball season.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rattled LSC officials. They aren’t comfortable letting the athletes participate in the fall when their regular sporting events occur. Who in the world can blame them?

Why not just scrap the entire season? Just call it good. Football, soccer, volleyball and basketball will be there next academic year. So, why not just tell the student-athletes they will have to wait. Perhaps there’s a way to extend their eligibility a year to enable them to play these sports even if they have completed their academic work at their schools.

The impact is going to disrupt a lot of activity in communities where these LSC’s 18 schools are located. I am saddened for those who like attending football games on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

There will be some economic impact as well on the schools that derive income from attendance at football contests.

The overarching issue is the safety of the student-athletes. Allowing them close contact with fellow competitors while the nation is fighting a deadly infectious virus exposes them to too great a risk.

Let’s just call it a season. Wait until the next academic year … and hope we have this virus contained a whole lot better than we do at this moment.

national news

Fool me twice?

You know how it goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Are we really ready to fool ourselves once again by sending Donald Trump back to the White House for another four years?

I see these compilations of public opinion surveys and notice Trump continues to rake in about 42 percent approval among registered voters. I am left to ask: Who in the name of political sanity is actually continuing to support this guy?

Are they not paying attention to the idiocy that pours forth from this individual? Are they giving him a pass on his dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, when he called it a “Democrat hoax”? Or when he stands before TV cameras as recently as this week and pokes fun at the name of the virus, while it is killing 1,000 Americans every single day?

I am left to scream at the prospect of this guy keeping the keys to the White House for another four years. This is a dangerous, perilous time. We must exercise some wisdom in deciding who leads us out of this nightmare. 

It ain’t Donald Trump.

national news

‘It is what it is’

There you have it.

Donald J. “Numbskull in Chief” Trump calls the death rate from the coronavirus pandemic a mere fact. That’s it. “It is what it is,” he said to Jonathan Swan, the Axios reporter who sought to get Trump to explain why the death rate in this country continues to soar.

He didn’t do it. Not only that, Donald Trump didn’t acknowledge the pain, the misery, the tragedy that has befallen more than 155,000 American families. He doesn’t speak to their suffering. Trump doesn’t offer words of comfort. He doesn’t turn to the TV camera and tell us he hurts right along with us.

He says of the death count “It is what it is.”

When in the annals of human suffering have we ever seen a president of the United States exhibit such utter callousness?

Donald Trump is presiding over a monumental failure of leadership in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic. What’s more, he continues to delude himself into believing he is doing a “fantastic” job.

It is shocking and repulsive in the extreme.

national news

The numbers don’t lie

As we watch Donald Trump try to short-sell the catastrophe that is killing Americans every single day, I want to remind everyone of a set of numbers that tell me one thing only.

The United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic is pitiful.

Consider that the U.S. population of 330 million people comprises less than 5 percent of the world total. Now, consider that 4 million confirmed infections from the coronavirus in the United States comprises about 25 percent of the world infection.

Five percent vs. 25 percent.

Does that suggest we are beating the virus? No. It does nothing of the sort.

Fatalities, anyone? More than 157,000 Americans have died from the virus … that we know about! India and China, two countries with more than 1 billion residents each, report far fewer deaths from the pandemic. Hmm. How come? I’ll concede that China, in particular, is capable of hiding those numbers from the world.

More Americans are dying daily in many states in this country than are dying in entire nations.

We aren’t winning this fight. Yet Donald Trump tells us that “It is what it is” when asked to comment on the death toll. Jumpin’ ever-loving jehosaphat, Mr. President!

He has no clue what he is doing. None!

national news

Chaos reigns!

You want chaos as it regards anything involving Donald J. Trump?

Try this on for size …

The Republican National Committee chose Charlotte, N.C., to stage its 2020 presidential nominating convention; then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he couldn’t guarantee that the health of convention goers would be protected from the fatal virus. So then the RNC moved the convention to Jacksonville, Fla., where Trump was supposed to accept the GOP nomination.

Then came word from the Republican sheriff of Duval County, who said he couldn’t guarantee the safety of those attending the gathering in Jacksonville. Trump then cancelled the Jacksonville event.

He moved it back to Charlotte, but with a wrinkle: There will be no media allowed to cover the event live. It’ll occur in the arena, but it will be done more or less in secret.

Eek, man! What’s going on here?

I can no longer begin to keep up with the machinations of what is supposed to be a grand political event. Granted, the pandemic has thrown a lot of it into a cocked hat.

Meanwhile, though, Democrats are proceeding Milwaukee, Wis., just as they planned to do when the pandemic started sickening and killing Americans.

Does all of this portend what another four years of Donald J. Trump would produce were he to actually win this presidential  election? I dread the thought.

national news

Trump: a lost cause

It is clear to me that for Donald Trump to speak candidly and frankly about the state of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic would be tantamount to admitting defeat … and admitting he was wrong to boast about the fantastic job he and his response team had delivered.

Medical experts are telling us that the pandemic is getting set to sweep into areas of the country not yet hammered by its misery. The Sun Belt has felt the virus’s wrath; so has the Pacific Coast; same for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Now it’s the Midwest’s turn to face down the coronavirus dragon, or so we are being told.

Dr. Deborah Birx, one of Trump’s pandemic task force response members – and an acknowledged expert on infectious disease – has issued dire warnings about what lies ahead for the nation. Trump’s response? He calls her “pathetic.” Good ever-loving grief, dude. Get a grip. She is the expert. You are not!

Trump’s aversion to admitting failure or to acknowledging a mistake is well-known. It’s his modus operandi. He fires off rebukes and epithets to those who surround him, those he enlists – ostensibly – to assist him in putting down crises. This is what he has done to Deborah Birx as well as to Dr. Anthony Fauci, another world-renowned infectious disease expert.

I am at the point now of giving up on Donald Trump ever being able to discuss with us the gravity of the crisis that continues to unfold. It continues to spread its tragedy. It has killed more than 155,000 Americans. It has sickened more than 4 million of us. Some of those infected happen to be friends of mine and even some members of my family. I do not feel comforted one tiny bit by anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

Nor do I ever expect to hear anything approaching an honest assessment of the battle we are waging. Why? Because Trump has wrapped himself tightly in a blanket of false delusion.

medical news

COVID compounds our sorrow

I just received a tragic bit of news from a friend who lives in Amarillo.

His wife died this past spring. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She also had tested positive for COVID-19. My friend told me this: The worst part of it was that I didn’t get to see her the last 4 months. Her nursing home was in total lock down.

That statement, right there, should tell us all plenty about the terrible nature of the pandemic that has killed more than 152,000 Americans. More deaths will follow. We are not experiencing, as a senior Trump administration official said, a time of “triumph” in the fight against the pandemic.

This story has created an unheard-of phenomenon in many respects. One of them involves the isolation that COVID patients must endure. They cannot have family near them as they struggle for life. No friends. No loved ones. They die separated from those who cherish them the most.

Which arcs back to another aspect of this disease. It is the special relationships that nurses, doctors and care facility staff develop with these patients. Think of this for a moment. These medical responders become “surrogate loved ones” for the people in their care.

How many stories have you heard since early this year about nurses and physicians sobbing at the death of patients who cannot feel the embrace of their spouse, their children, their parents? I have lost count. Yet every story I hear told fills me with heartache that tugs just a little harder than the previous time.

Then there are the stories of patients who are released from medical care and reunited with the people who love them. The happiness we see and hear from the medical personnel is as joyous as the sadness felt at the end of the tragic stories.

My friend’s story is not unique to the larger world. To him, though, it is unbearable, unspeakable and unimaginable. It hurts to hear this news because of the unique misery it brings to those who must endure it.

medical news, national news

Take it seriously, folks!

The death of one-time Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain ought to be a wake-up call to those who think the COVID-19 pandemic is some sort of “hoax” cooked up by Democrats to harm Donald Trump’s re-election effort.

Same for the infection of Rep. Louie Gohmert. Or perhaps the positive test registered by Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien.

Let’s shut the hell up with the conspiracy nonsense, shall we?

Cain’s death is particularly poignant in this regard: He attended that Tulsa, Okla., rally where the sparse crowd piled into the arena, most of whom were not wearing masks or maintaining social distance. Cain was one of them.

Then he got sick. Now he is dead.

The Godfather’s Pizza mogul ran for president in 2012, touting his economic wizardry and assorted cures for what he said ailed the U.S. economy. He now will be known, arguably forever, as one of Donald Trump’s staunch minions who didn’t heed the warnings of medical professionals to take measures to protect himself and others from the killer virus.

Yet, there remains that cabal of goofballs who insist the pandemic is a made-up matter. It ain’t real, they say. They contend it’s part of some Deep State plot to deny Donald Trump a second term as president.

Those who foment that lie are full of sh**. They know it and so should the rest of us.

Herman Cain’s death is a sad but profound reminder that the best medical and scientific minds in the world are trying like the dickens to find a cure for this menace.

As a friend of mine in Amarillo — who, along with her husband has recovered from a positive COVID-19 test — has told me, she is in “take no prisoners mode” with regard to the conspiracy theorists. She vows to shut down anyone who refuses to take this killer seriously.

So will I.

medical news

Quack now advising POTUS?

Where in the name of Hippocrates did Donald J. Trump find the quack who’s saying masks won’t help stop COVID infection and talks about “alien DNA”?

Her name is Stella Immanuel, and even though she has a medical degree, I won’t put the “Dr.” in front of her name.

According to the Daily Beast: She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.

Joe Biden calls her a “disgrace.” He is correct.

Immanuel, who resides in Houston, has become a star on right-wing media. She also has Donald Trump’s ear.

God help us.

national news, State news

Is there a lesson to be learned?

The news that U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Loony Bin, has tested positive for the coronavirus ought to send a clear message to the moronic conspiracy theorists out there who joined Gohmert in dismissing the value of mask wearing.

The Texas Republican had visibly and vocally eschewed wearing a mask, calling masks overrated as a preventative measure against the pandemic. Then he tests positive. Gohmert is now isolating himself in his East Texas home.

Will this clown’s infection stem the naysayers? Will it shut them up? Hardly. These idiots keep yapping about masks being part of some sort of nefarious conspiracy concocted by someone, or some organization, perhaps the Deep State designed to rule the world … or some such moronic tripe.

Gohmert is the unofficial chairman of the Wacko Caucus within the Republican congressional delegation. His initial response, I hasten to add, is that he now will wear a mask “religiously.” He says he feels fine. That’s good. Really, it is. I don’t want him to suffer.

According to CNN.com: “I will not be around anybody for the next 10 days without making sure that I have a mask,” Gohmert said. “Because that’s the real danger. Once you have it, giving it to somebody else, and that’s when a mask if most important.”

I do want his positive test result to send a chilling message to his fellow pandemic goofballs to listen to the docs, who tell us to wear masks and to stay the hell away from everyone else.

Oh, have I mentioned that we passed the 150,000 death count in this pandemic battle? There. I just did.

This is serious stuff, folks. Just ask Louie Gohmert.