Dispatches From Isolation Vol 2

Emergencies don’t make stupid people smart, it exposes just how stupid they really are. Such is the case with the #CoronavirusChallenge. Smart people don’t need to be told that licking a public toilet seat isn’t a good idea, neither do most dumb people. But that special breed of dumb people - the type wear slip-on shoes because tying a knot is too complicated for them - will lick a toilet seat for social media attention, and they got it.

Some got more attention than I assume they wanted, but not as much attention as they deserved, in my opinion. Such is the case with two guys named George Falcone and Cody Pfister. George, a New Jersey resident, decided coughing on a grocery store clerk he was arguing with (who the hell argues with a grocery store clerk?) and telling her he had coronavirus was a good idea. He “now faces charges of making a terroristic threat, harassment, and obstruction of justice.” With Cody, a 26-year-old Missouri man, it’s a little different. Perhaps unable to find a public toilet, he decided to film himself licking items on the self at a local Walmart, then posted the video to social media (because what’s the point of keeping that much stupid to yourself, right? The world must know!) Cody is now facing charges of making a terrorist threat. These people are weapons-grade stupid, and they should be remembered.

Some people live lives that are an example to others, and some lead lives that are cautionary tales.

The hive-mind at work

It’s weird how Rachel Maddow says on her show last week that the media should stop carrying President Trump’s daily Coronavirus Task Force press conferences because of all the “lies” in it going unfiltered to the public, then all these “think pieces” start showing up saying the exact same thing. The New York Times editorialized about it, the Washington Post “media reporter” weighed in, and the Times again “reported” on it. They even quoted Ted Koppel saying, “Training a camera on a live event, and just letting it play out, is technology, not journalism; journalism requires editing and context.” In other words, you’re too stupid to understand what’s happening here, you need a “journalist” to summarize the hour-long event in a 30-second package for you.

The media is scared. President Trump’s approval ratings are up, and a clear majority approve of his handling of this crisis. They can’t have that, and that’s what they’re trying to stop.

The idea of information needing a filter is not only incredibly condescending, but it’s also the exact opposite of what these very same people say when it comes to James O’Keeffe and Project Veritas every time they expose the left. Weird, right?

Please don’t tip the help

Harvard is laying off cafeteria workers. That, in and of itself, isn’t very shocking. People are being laid off all over the place. But the businesses that are laying people off aren’t sitting on a $40 billion endowment like Harvard is. Seems they’d rather sit on that pile of money than use a rounding-error amount to keep the riffraff whole during this emergency.

As if that weren’t bad enough, people are defending the decision of Harvard and other incredibly wealthy schools. The reason? The educated people the school employs and churns out are much more important to the world than the people who clean up after them. A real person wrote the lines, “Those schools need a single-minded dedication to their missions of learning, research and innovation — no matter how urgent or extreme the demands of the day. And that means saying no to a lot of those demands, in the process acknowledging the elitist ethos these schools have long embodied.” Gross.

Disney is a blessing and a curse

Working from home (and staying home all day) with 2 kids under 3 you really learn to appreciate Disney. Not as a company so much, but for some of the products they churn out. They’re heroin for children without the track marks and stealing your stuff to buy it. My kids request to watch Frozen 1 and 2 more times each day than MSNBC lied today, by a lot. The opening credits serve as a siren song to them, freezing them in their tracks and drawing them in. When my wife and I need to get things done, it’s perfect. When we don’t, it’s awful. Not that the movies are that bad – the first one is good; the second is a typical “message movie” of liberal garbage. Still, you have to take the good with the bad and enjoy your breaks when you find them. Ultimately, you just have to “let it go.” I’ll show myself out.

Stay sane, stay safe.