by John Walters
200K (is not o.k.)
We’ve passed 200,000 dead via Covid-10 since the start of March and Clay Travis is still mocking folks for being “coronabros.” Note: I returned to Twitter a week ago, decided to follow Clay to see what he was saying, and then unfollowed him six days later. Honestly, I think he watches A Face In The Crowd (a severely under-viewed but highly prescient 1957 film starring Andy Griffith as a megalomaniacal southern demagogue rabble-rouser) at least once a week, simply for pointers.
Anyway, let’s concede to this: Americans who remember AIDS do not take Covid-19 as seriously, in general. Now, there are some key differences. What makes Covid-19 more scary is that your lifestyle, or a blood transfusion, is not the entry way to contracting it. So, on average, any person can get Covid-19 whereas with AIDS the majority of us had nothing to fear.
On the other hand, AIDS was a death sentence in the 1980s. And actually, the healthier you were (if you were gay), chances are you had an even better shot of getting it. Healthier—> more physically fit —-> more sexually attractive —-> more sexually active —-> higher risk.
AIDS took the healthiest (gay) men, and some women, and struck them down in their primes. It also had symptoms that any observer could plainly see: lesions on the skin, severe weight loss.
Covid-19 is the opposite. It is mostly a herd thinner, proving fatal mostly to those who were not so healthy to begin with. I don’t doubt for a second that there are conservatives who don’t even mind the disease (considering its victims), they only mind it being an inconvenience to the economy. And sports.
If everyone who contracted Covid-19 had the same chance of perishing, or even a higher chance, then our leaders (and Clay Travis) might be taking it more seriously. But it doesn’t work that way. And so mostly they don’t care.
Gilda
We’d seen Gilda a time or two before—you may know it from one scene in The Shawshank Redemption—but never as we had last Saturday night. TCM’s “Czar of Noir,” Eddie Muller, featured it on Noir Alley, the channel’s weekly tribute to film noir.
As part of the outro to the film, Muller explained that as a teen he’d first seen the 1946 film and, like most boys, fallen hard for Rita Hayworth (how could you not? There’s never been a sexier woman in any film, and she even gets the movie’s best line: “If I was a ranch, they’d call me ‘Bar Nothing’.”). But then, Muller explained, he saw the film again in his late twenties “and I got it.”
What Muller “got,” and as he shared this he conceded that he’d be losing “a swath of TCM viewers,” was that Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) and Ballin Mundson (George McReady) were also an item. Just as Gilda (Hayworth) had married Ballin for the money, Johnny was shackin’ up with him as a kept man.
Muller then went on to show many of the sexual innuendo moments in the film while pointing out that Mundson’s cane is the most shamefully obvious phallic symbol in film history. Our favorite moment: When Farrell proves his toughness to Mundson early by knocking out his henchman, Mundson’s cane, which he is holding gingerly in his hands, goes from having its tip on the ground to rising up 90 degrees. As Wayne and Garth might have said, “Schwwwwinnnng!”
So was the film’s villain really keeping both Gilda and Johnny, ex-lovers themselves, as his carnal pets? Muller has too much class to add this note, but I don’t: Dude’s name was Ballin! You figure it out.
The media (& most everyone else) is STILL not “getting it” about the GOP-NAZI “response” to COVID : it’s not that those in charge don’t take the deaths (thus far & in future) seriously, they WANT THESE PEOPLE TO DIE! The victims are mostly old, or poor, or black (or the trifecta) & many/most are recipients of Social Security, Medicare &/or Medicaid; three federal programs that the REPUBLICANS have wanted ELIMINATED since they began. With the so-called “herd immunity option” championed by the GOP-NAZIs, 6 MILLION AMERICANS WOULD DIE (hmmmmm, WHERE have I heard that number ….) before the virus had spread among most of the population & these bastards don’t just think that it’s totally acceptable but as a TARGET GOAL to SAVE BILLIONS on the programs THEY call “entitlements”. And thus, save themselves millions/billions on taxes.
Rich Republicans ONLY want money (& power) for THEMSELVES. The idea of giving money to others (even to save lives) is repugnant to them. That poor whites have been suckered into voting for this party is the BIGGEST CON OF ALL TIME.
I agree, Susie B
I hope there is a God.
When these hypocrites die, I hope their final days are spent in misery. And I hope the afterlife for them is an eternity of torture.
I feel 100% comfortable in saying that.
Preach the words of Jesus. Act the complete opposite.
Slap at the hand of the poor. Line the pockets of the rich.
Dismantle healthcare for the unemployed and low income earners. Benefit from a government health care plan.
It. Never. Ends.
The help me help you segment of the MH comments section:
“We’ve passed 200,000 dead via Covid-10 since the start of March and …”
I know, I know, the 0 key is right next to the 9 key. Honest mistake.
Also – although it’s in vogue to trash the republican party for being power-hungry (they definitely are), the democrats are no saints. They just look much, much better right now, with help from republicans.
This is the last bastion of my GOP friends: “everyone’s dirty.” Sure, guy. Keep telling yourself that. Rather than simply admitting your guys are the worst crooks ever to take power in this country. The implausible deniability factor is ridiculous.
They are not “my guys.” And, what they’re doing is not okay. I’m just saying if you think that the unquenchable thirst for power is limited to republicans, you’re living in a dream world.
Probably not the best time to morally equivocate. But if it assuages your feelings, go right ahead.
I don’t think that’s what Micah is saying, I think Micah is wondering if the shoe was on the other foot would Dems try to get a SC justice voted on before an election if they had the majority of the Senate.
They did try during Obama’s last year and that’s led to this conundrum.
but I agree with you that the inability to keep POTUS in check so that they can maintain power is a a huge fault.
Scalia died more than 300 days before the election. What is the statute of limitations here? I think we both know it was unprecedented what Mitch did in 2016 and now he turns around and defies his own dictum. Conservatives historically have loved and lived by double standards.
I think it’s beyond a statute of limitations question – McConnell has gleefully ignored his duties on multiple fronts for the sake of partisan gain and killed the Senate in the process (it was already on life support as a functioning body).
The Constitution, voting, the workings of Congress – all require some basic shared willingness to pretend we believe in their integrity. Reagan said you shouldn’t trust government, Gingrich said you shouldn’t even pretend to work with the other side, and finally Republicans said they would elect an actual clown if it got them what they wanted. And now the clown is saying you shouldn’t even trust the integrity of your vote.
Micah might be right that Dems will return the favor of abusing power (by packing the court or some other maneuver), but maybe not – Dems still seem to have some naive faith in the system.
I think it might be broken for good. The only glimmer of hope might be a decisive landslide and a return to a progressive liberal democracy. We’ll still have the 40% howling about a socialist takeover ending life as we know it (while I’m still waiting for Obama to take my guns), but if Dems control Congress and WH, I’ll have no problem ignoring the howling. and might even take some pleasure in it if the bowls are politically impotent.