Signs of Life

222,988  American deaths from covid-19 as the slaughter continues. It’s also seventeen days till the Election, fourteen days till Halloween, and 1366 days since the Genius of the Stables took office. And it’s Wear Something Gaudy Day.

And I see that after six years of silence the Afarensis weblog has abruptly come back to life. I’m looking forward to new posts. And Ed Darrell has rescued an old comment of his from oblivion (well, the archives of P. Z. Myers’ blog)—this one about Charles Darwin’s alleged racism. And the Quote Investigator features an Arthur C. Clarke observation to the effect that “There is a hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags will not wave in a vacuum; our present tribal conflicts cannot be sustained in the hostile environment of space.” Also the History weblog is noting a project that is digitizing some 30,000 Hittite cuneiform texts. It’s encouraging to see signs of life in the rubble.

I Really Don’t Care

212,768  American deaths from covid 19 and counting. I read online that President Trump is having trouble breathing and that White House officials are “concerned”. In the words of one of the Trumps, let me just say “I really don’t care. Do U?” Maybe they could ask Eric Garner or George Floyd about it; I’m sure they’d have something to say on the subject were it not for their untimely deaths.

Ah, but I should be concerned, say the pundits, since the election could be thrown into chaos should one of the candidates (God forbid) die or become incapacitated. And that would be different how? One party—mine—is already doing everything it can to throw the election into chaos by practicing massive vote (not voter) fraud, while the other is hoping that a grotesquely feeble candidate will inspire a turnout so massive that all the fraud in the world won’t be enough to stop the juggernaut. It’s a sad end for the American experiment, but not undeserved—from where I sit, anyway.

I can’t help but hope that posterity will take our intentions into account as well as our achievements; our reach always exceeded our grasp. It’s like that epitaph for Wernher von Braun—“He shot for the moon—and hit London.” Rest in peace, American hopes and aspirations for a better tomorrow. It’s over. Time to pack up our things and go home.

Gullible's Travails

211,109   American deaths from covid 19 so far. And the federal government, whose job is to deal with threats of this sort, is doing nothing under the alleged leadership of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. Why Americans chose to put such low-level intellects in charge is a mystery, but the consequences have been bad for the nation.

Some joker apparently hoaxed our gullible and not-too-bright President into thinking that the “Portland Sheriff” gave him his support. There is no such person. Portland sprawls over three counties, and they have sheriffs, but Portland doesn’t. (Sheriff is normally a county function.) If he means the sheriff of Multnomah county—the county that is almost (but not quite) synonymous with Portland—he has specifically denied it. But with the Dopey Don all things are possible—and my guess is that somebody told the President he was the Portland sheriff in hopes that Trump would make an ass of himself by repeating it. As happened.

I’ve got to go; I hear the bell ringing for the daily corpse pickup. It’s time to bring out our dead.