August 8, 2021

Professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau contracted COVID and was sent home from The Olympics in Tokyo. Japan has not gained control of the pandemic so it is bewildering why a reasonably intelligent person would travel there unvaccinated. It cost him a chance at a gold medal (bad), he lost 5 to 10 pounds (good?), and he lost five miles per hour of swing speed (very bad). His specious and unsupported reasoning was that he didn’t want to deprive others of getting the vaccine. Unfortunately, golfers are not immune from the virus or stupidity. He might as well have said that his dog ate his homework. Clearly, he hasn’t done his homework.

I can’t wait for the FDA to grant full approval to the vaccines so we can get the next wave…of excuses for not getting vaccinated. “We can’t trust the government to deliver the mail so how can we trust it to deliver safe vaccines.” “I know this guy who knows a guy who had a bad reaction for a couple of hours.” “I am much too valuable at my non-essential job to take the time.” “I am going to wait until Donald Trump says it is okay.” “I will get vaccinated when Dr. Fauci says I don’t need to.” “Home schooling is terrific. Look at how I turned out.” “ I am waiting for a sign from God.” “Does anyone really know how the vaccine works?” And so on.

All these excuses point out how important it is to get the schools open. Golf courses have been open for a while.

July 27, 2021

Mississippi has some nerve. They are virtually last among the states (actually they rank 49th overall) in every category that means anything to its residents and their quality of life. They are near the bottom in education, healthcare, life expectancy, vaccination rates, personal income, infrastructure, economic opportunity and more. It was the only state to incorporate the Confederate flag into its own state flag. Those of us in the high tax states have to send money to Mississippi every year just to keep them solvent. They get $1.00 in Federal payments back for every $.85 they send to Washington, and they don’t even say thank you, y’all. Even the Ol’ Miss and Mississippi State football programs are losers.

With all of that, they have decided that what they really need to do is overturn Roe vs. Wade because that is what their problem is. Mississippi’s attorney general told the Supreme Court that Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong” and should be overturned as she urged the justices to allow a controversial law that bars most abortions after 15 weeks to go into effect. So the least productive and successful amongst us is trying to mandate how we lead our lives, and control the choices we make. There are a lot of things that Mississippi should be mandating, but eliminating abortion is not among them.

July 26, 2021

Achtung! Achtung! Don’t look know, but there are children in brown skirts going door-to-door trying to get you to eat cookies. Who knows what is in those cookies? Has anyone certified the cookies to be safe? And what are those young girls really up to? They promise to do their duty to both God and country, but whose God and which country? They probably want to take your Bibles, and give you the Koran or Torah in return. With all of their badges, they might be a paramilitary or terrorist organization.

The reality is we should all want to eat cookies. Cookies will make us all feel better. We should welcome the brown skirts into our homes (with another adult present), and try to understand what they are offering. There are several flavors of cookies, but they are all good. I urge all Americans to eat Girl Scout cookies. That is the one thing that we can all have in common. Cookies will bring us together.

July 23, 2021

I am part of a Zoom book group that gets together once a month to discuss aging and athleticism. We are engaged in trying to understand how the aging process affects athletic performance, and how to possibly mitigate some of its effects. We are not looking for the Holy Grail, and eternal life. We are just looking for ideas on how to shallow out the glide path. Unfortunately, there are thousands of studies that run the gamut from genetics and microbiology to personal observations. Conclusions are inconclusive. However, one concept that comes through very clearly is that older athletes are pushing the boundaries of what was once considered impossible.

We see it everywhere. Tom Brady is the poster child for exceptional performance at an “advanced” age. Phil Mickelson just became, at age 50, the oldest golfer to win a major golf tournament. Roger Federer is still competing at a high level. The average age of Olympic athletes is going up, not down. What is clear is that older athletes are able to compete longer by working out smarter and utilizing their experience.

Which brings me to Joe Biden. Joe Biden has been accused by the blame conservative media of “losing his fastball.” One letter writer claimed that he had no idea where he was. FYI. He is in the White House. Joe Biden is just doing what aging athletes have discovered. He prioritizes quality over quantity, and uses his experience to “read defenses” and make the right calls. As aging athletes have learned, it’s more important to remain fresh and avoid self-inflicted injury. Inexperienced Republicans should underestimate Joe Biden at their own peril. Tom Brady is still winning Super Bowls.

July 22, 2022

Summertime, and the living is queasy. While we should be out at Nauset Beach getting ready to catch the next wave on our surfboards or boogie boards (assuming there are no sharks), we are girding ourselves for the fourth wave of the pandemic. The coronavirus is hot, hot, hot. It may not be as hot as the weather and fires out West, but it’s close. We will soon be trading scuba masks for face masks…again.

People say they are scared to get vaccinated. No wonder. The conservative blogosphere is scaring the bejesus out of people. Disinformation is deadly. Maybe we should recriminalize marijuana because these disinformers are smoking something. They are hallucinating. 660,000 dead is a hoax. The January 6th attack on The Capitol never occurred. Flooding in Germany, droughts in the west, fires in Portland, and historic rainfall locally is not happening. Before you know it, they will be saying that Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos faked their space launches.

I would rather be flying Delta than getting delta. The lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are turning into just hazy and crazy. If we can avoid catching the fourth wave, we will be sitting on top of the world. If not, we will be huddling under the boardwalk.

July 16, 2021

ICU in September

Don’t look now, but COVID is back in the guise of the Delta variant. Cases are rising almost everywhere, and ICU units are refilling up. I hate to be the one to spoil your backyard BBQ’s and pool parties, but September will be here before you know it. That is when we have all decided to return to “normal.” At the rate we are going, normal will unfortunately be what we have been experiencing for the last year and a half.

The unvaccinated are showing up in hospitals and morgues. Hospital workers are not sure whether they should get angry or just give up. Newly admitted patients, many of whom are young, say they are embarrassed to be there, but it is often already too late. Politicians are pretending that there is nothing to see here. They demonize Dr. Fauci with slogans like “Don’t Fauci Florida,” or saying they don’t want the “Ouchie Fauci.” They are killing their own citizens with misinformation. They are guilty of political malpractice. Members of CPAC cheered anti-vaccination diatribes. Soon they will all need CPAP machines. They claim that volunteer outreach efforts to get people vaccinated will lead to the government taking away guns and Bibles.

I can’t believe this is America. We cherish our freedom, but freedom doesn’t give you the right to be stupid. How did we get to be this dumb? The rest of the world hated us because we refused to acknowledge the coronavirus. Now they hate us because we have vaccines, and refuse to use them. They would die to be in our position, and we are dying despite our position. ICU in September.

July 9, 2021

Marc Theissen had a recent editorial in the Washington Post and reprinted in the Springfield Republican titled, “Give Trump Credit For Vaccines.” Trump desperately tried to take credit for the vaccines, reportedly wanting to name them the Trump vaccines. Trump would have a hard time spelling DNA never mind knowing the difference between DNA and RNA. The research that led to the development of the vaccines was initiated by Nobel Prize-winning scientists. That is the same Nobel Prize that Trump coveted, and hated President Obama for receiving. According to Walter Isaacson in his book “The Code Breaker,””the invention of easily reprogrammable RNA vaccines was a lightning-fast triumph of human ingenuity, but it was based on decades of curiosity-driven research into one of the most fundamental aspects of life.”

We should give Trump credit for the 50% of the population that refuses to get vaccinated for all sorts of spurious reasons. He poisoned the well early on, and it remains poisoned. This is the same person who used extraordinary means to stay alive after contracting COVID, and then used his bully pulpit to get vaccinated in secret.

Isaacson utilizes thought experiments to discuss the morality of genetic engineering. Here is one that he did not come up with.

You have not been vaccinated.

99% of the people who have died from Coronavirus have not been vaccinated.

What does that make you?

July 7, 2021

Recent surveys have shown that 65% of Americans believe that alien life exists. Our defense department has documented hundreds of occurrences that cannot be explained. They label these episodes as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. I am believer, and I also believe that alien life is already here. We have ample evidence because, in the parallel universe where the aliens come from, up is down and right is wrong. Do they have ulterior motives?

These aliens come from a world where global warming doesn’t exist. They don’t trust the earthling scientists, who all agree that climate change and global warming are existential threats. All the aliens have to do is look out the windows of their alien space crafts to see the devastating hurricanes, raging forest fires, record temperatures, melting glaciers, and rising oceans. Admittedly, their views are hampered by Trump 2020 stickers and Confederate flags.

The aliens believe that the last US presidential election was stolen even though every audit done since then has shown no proof. It is what we earthlings from the United States call the “Big Lie.” The aliens attacked the U.S. Capitol, and tried to tell the rest of us that it was a normal tourist visit that never happened. They wanted to see what our reaction would be. They got their answer, and are obviously getting ready for something bigger.

The Coronavirus doesn’t exist in the world where the aliens come from. As a result, they don’t wear masks, or feel the need to get vaccinated. Ironically, as the new Delta variant spreads around the globe, it is the aliens who are dying. 99% of US organisms that have died from COVID are aliens, who have not been vaccinated.

Finally, the aliens have their own sources of information. They tend to listen to other-worldly broadcasts from their control rooms back home wherever that is. They take their marching orders from human-like forms whose bodies have been taken over by the aliens. These humanoids spout evils lies designed to foment internal strife. Beware, the aliens are already here.

July 3, 2021

Sha’Carri Richardson, America’s best hope for a gold medal in the 100 meters in the upcoming Olympics in Tokyo, has been disqualified for using marijuana. She may be able to anchor the 4X100 relay team. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) claims that marijuana is a performance enhancing drug. Per the WADA, drugs are banned if they meet two of three criteria…they enhance performance, pose a health risk, or violate “the spirit of sport.”

I don’t think that there is any credible evidence that marijuana poses any significant, or even insignificant, health risk. Otherwise, why have many states legalized marijuana already for either recreational and/or medical use? It is a booming business. As for the “spirit of the sport,” that is truly a highly subjective catchall that allows the powers that be to decide the fate of captive athletes based on a “feeling.”

Is marijuana a performance enhancer? Based on anecdotal evidence, marijuana is as much a performance enhancer as alcohol is to steady one’s nerve before playing golf or going on a long drive. Marijuana sharpens nothing. It dulls the senses and impedes reaction times, or so I am told. You don’t use marijuana before you do something. You use it after you have done something.

This unfortunate story feels similar to the NCAA’s stranglehold over college athletes. The college “plantation” system did not allow athletes to benefit monetarily from their name, image, or likeness. This finally has changed. In a similar vein, the WADA and the IOC control the lives of Olympic athletes, many of whom are black. This will change also, but probably not in time for Sha’Carri Richardson. We will all be deprived of watching her flaming red hair race down the Olympic track.

June 27, 2021

The Summer Olympic Games are less than a month away. The track and field trials were great, and they identified a whole new generation of world class athletes. I can still remember some of the races from 1960, especially Wilma Rudolph’s triple gold medal winning performances. These athletes are critical to the US team’s success. Do you go out fast, or hang back setting up a ferocious kick? I thought that is what people were referring to when they were talking about critical race theory. As it turns out, it isn’t about the Olympics at all. I couldn’t understand why people were so opposed to discussing the Olympics in school, and why Congressmen were questioning five star generals in hearings. With all of the uproar, I thought there was a call to defund the Olympics.

As it turns out, critical race theory isn’t nearly as much fun as the Olympics. CRT originated in the ‘70’s, over fifty years ago. It is nothing new. Conservatives for some reason have decided to make all old things new again. CRT examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race. That seems like a good thing. As General Milley said when being questioned by alleged sex trafficker, Matt Gaetz, “ I have read Lenin and Marx, but that doesn’t make me a Communist.” You would think the schools were trying to turn students into racists as some people claim. This all seems like much ado about nothing to me. In the meantime, I will be setting my DVR so I don’t miss a second of the Olympics, which really are a big deal and critical for many.