The wife (Cruella) and I were down in Los Angeles visiting our son and his soon to be bride. The next morning we were supposed to have breakfast with our friend Tamara. But that night we got a call from Tamara saying she had heard from a friend in D.C. that because of the COVID-19 virus Trump was going to institute a national “shelter in place” order the next day. Since we didn’t know what “shelter in place” meant, we got up early the next morning and hightailed it back to NorCal.

That was two years or 731 days ago this past Sunday.

We all know what happened since then. It could have been so very different. Then again maybe it couldn’t. In any case I’m here to lay at least some of the blame where it belongs.

We can start with the alleged human who was president from 2017 to 2021. It’s obvious he looked upon the pandemic as a hinderance to his only concern, getting re-elected. Here’s the irony: had he acted as a president should act, taken the pandemic seriously, allowed the science to dictate the policy, heeded the experts and followed their recommendations, he probably (scary thought) would have been re-elected. Let’s face it, a good portion of the six million people who voted for Biden over him did so because of his poor handling of COVID. Had he handled it better, he’d be in the Oval Office today to mutter sweet nothings into Tsar Vlad I’s ear as the bombs fall on the civilians of Ukraine.

But the Impeached Impeached Insult Comic(tm El Jefe) isn’t the only one to blame. There were his consorts in the various levels of government and the media. You remember them, the ones who decried and denounced any attempt to mitigate the pandemic. The ones who said masks don’t work, who said don’t get the vaccine (cause it’s got a microchip that will turn you into a robot), who made things worse for the rest of us and then many of whom, well, died of COVID. One positive outcome of the pandemic, the return of irony.

Short aside: Someone who has cancer and then dies when they get COVID died of COVID, not cancer. Same way if you’ve got cancer and get hit by a bus you didn’t die of cancer. Consider COVID an enormous bus.

Moving on.

Let’s not forget the drunks down at the end of the bar aka the Qwack jobs spewing their misinformation. Everything from COVID being a bioweapon released by China to, again, the microchips in the vaccine to how this was all a Democratic ploy to win the election which they had already stolen because the numbers in all of Q’s messages added up to 2020 which is the year the Mayan calendar said the world would end and you know DO THE RESEARCH.

Sigh.

Of course all of this misinformation wouldn’t have been possible without the technology to spread it. Remember when we all thought the advent of the internet would bring peace and serenity to the world? Wow, how gullible were we? Instead we got a world more in rift then ever before, a world were “the truth” is what you want to believe and what backs up your beliefs instead of merely being the reality of any situation. It was going on before the pandemic of course, but with societal mandated sitting at home on the couch even those who previously had little or no time to delve into the deep recesses of the hive mind began a descent into the mindlessness of some of the most bizarre tropes.

Which they then liked, re-Tweeted, upvoted, liked again, all the while thinking themselves the smartest guy in the room.

Now the armchair immunologists have begun morphing into armchair Eastern European experts.  The very nature of being an expert has come under fire. Let’s get this straight. Anthony Fauci is an expert. Antony Blinken is an expert. The plumber you called to fix your toilet is an expert. YOU are not an expert just because you read a couple of articles on the web about a particular subject. Your diploma from the University of Google does not supersede a PhD from any university in any subject.

So all of you, us, who claimed “to know” what was really going on are as much to blame as all the previously mentioned. You, we, I,  have an opinion, but an opinion is not a fact. If we come away from this pandemic having learned one thing I hope it is that. That and the fact (not opinion) that in life there are times you just have to bite the bullet and do what’s best not only for yourself but for those around you.

Either help to create a solution or sit down, shut up, and thank those who did.

Meanwhile, you can just blame it on Cain

Shapiro Out