Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for August 15, 2024

Burn the witch! /s

“I don’t take responsibility for ANY of it!”

I’m already working on the story I’ll tell my grandchildren about it.

This is the opening paragraph of Jackson’s "The Haunting of Hill House. Many regard this as the most chilling opening of any horror novel. Weirdly… but wonderfully, the last paragraph of the book is almost identical to this first one.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

I taught this story many times, always had great discussion around it.

And here’s the really scary part…. I’m pretty sure that one of the country’s political parties believes right now that if another world pandemic comes along the best strategy would just be to do nothing and let nature take its course. And a big chunk of its followers believe the same thing. It really makes you wonder. What if something like Ebola came along, which – I just looked it up – can have a mortality rate of 80% to 90% in the absence of available care? Would these people just yawn and say things like “can’t do anything that would mess up the economy”?

Don’t worry, a little horse medicine and bleach will fix those coughs right up. Did you know, by the way, that Donald Trump has repeatedly promised he’ll pull federal funding from any school that mandates vaccinations? Not just covid, but ANY vaccination. Make Measles Great Again!

How many people’s knees hurt now that they have had 3 or four shots? It is a bit of a lottery with Covid. My Dad died of a condition called Waldenstrom Macroglobulinemia. He had Waldenstrom for years, it is a slow uncomfortable death. About four months before dying he had Covid, that didn’t kill him, so yes we over reacted to Covid. The science to Covid wasn’t allowed to be question, so it was never science we were responding too just fear.

My son worked as an RN during the early weeks of Covid, putting in 60 hours weeks because of the increased patients. He contracted the disease which only lasted for a couple of weeks. However, it damaged his internal organs enough that he was unable to sit up for another 10 weeks or so and spent six months in the hospital. He came home, on home health nursing care, and extensive physical therapy, and we were glad to see him getting stronger. He had high hopes for returning to work when his body had finished recovering. He had a minor heart attack, which may or may not have been Covid related, but, in his weakened condition, it killed him. He was 56 years old. My brother was luckier. Covid killed him within a week.

Trump has said that no one could have foreseen Covid. Well, somebody did.

The Obama administration established White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense after the Ebola epidemic of 2014. They set up 40 clinics in hot spots all over the world, whose job was to monitor the local situation and immediately send for adequate help to contain any threat. One of those clinics was in the Chinese province where Covid originated.

To research this for validity look for “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.”

The Trump White House defunded the office, as part of the budget cuts when he cut taxes. It’s impossible to assess the full impact of this 2018 decision, but it is clear that eliminating the office contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response. When asked about the slow roll-out of coronavirus tests in the U.S. on March 13, President Trump responded, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” Trump is not just responsible, he likes to name things after himself, and this one is truly deserved== THE TRUMP PLAGUE.

This is based on Shirley Jackson’s novel “The Lottery”. It is right up there with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” in the annals of satire.

Beware people with simple solutions.

Traitor Trump would not have cared if twenty million Americans had died of COVID but he had won the 2020 election—because none of them were HIM.

Remember to just flag the posts that are lies and move on. Don’t give the non trolls the attention they crave and ignore the trolls.

Magats continue to try to re-litigate covid in order to absolve Their Messiah of any responsibility whatsoever.

They truly believe Their Messiah’s claims that is was Someone Else’s Fault.

Hydroxychlorophine, ultraviolet light, it’ll really do a number on it, ivermectin.

“Those stockpiled medical supplies belong to US, NOT the states.”

Those people need to stay on that ship. We don’t need more cases.

You do more tests, you get more cases. So I’ve told my people to slow down on the testing.

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“I don’t take responsibility for ANY of it.”

If you ignore the problem, you will eventually go away.