I just got off the phone with a canvasser who wanted me to go out and vote for The GOP stooge running for State Supreme Court. I told him that “due to a medical condition that suppresses my immune system, going out and vote today would put my life at risk.” (At this point the canvasser tried to express his sympathy but I talked over him.) “Now as courageous as such an act might seem. it’s all moot because I voted by mail two weeks ago. But I am nonetheless appalled that anybody would have the gall to ask me to risk my life to vote for a Republican stooge. Go fuck yourself.” Click.
Just by the way, the direct line to the office of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, Patience Roggensack is 608-266-1888. Tell her how you feel.
The historian’s curse: “May you live in interesting times.” has fallen upon us. The Pandemic experience in the United States runs from mild inconvenience to abject horror. We all cope as well as we can, some of us will pay for Trump’s dithering with our lives. In my home state, Wisconsin, The Republican Party has gamed the situation into the mother of all vote suppression schemes.
We are swimming naked in the tsunami of a major historical event. In addition to the vote-suppression gambit here in Wisconsin, our President and his clueless jackal of a son-in-law are playing games with the supply of medical equipment for their own profit.
Before I moan too much about how much this all sucks, let me make reference to the situation in the nation of India. They are led by a fundamentalist Hindu version of Trump. He announced a total shut-down of the country on 6 hours notice. You read that right, six hours. In a country with a huge underclass of migrant day laborers and poverty on a scale that most Americans could not imagine. With with urban laborers scrambling to get back to their home villages, the entire public transportation infrastructure ground to a stop. The rush on stores for necessities made our toilet-paper scramble look like a pajama party. Instead of allowing people to get what they needed and go home, the police moved in with riot squads, cracking heads and forcibly closing shops. Social distancing in India features hordes of people out walking, often many miles, to their home villages without adequate food. In the best of times, much of India’s labor force lives on the verge of financial ruin and starvation.The house is burning and Covid-19 is adding fuel. The Modi Goverment sprinkles gas on it. Are they evil or stupid or both?
By comparison, we have not even begun to suffer.
For my own part, The doctors had told me that I might expect my kidney transplant to take place sometime this summer. Needless to say I had my hopes up. Now the hospital has indefinitely postponed all non-emergency surgeries. Yeah it sucks but I cannot give in to despair. I do my dialysis every night at home. Despite the fact that I have nowhere to go and nobody to see, I rise early every day. I shower, shave, keep my hair trimmed, nails clipped and dress in clean clothes. Mrs. ruleoflaw and Lucky Angus MacPup sustain me in dark hours. My daughter reads to me through the miracle of modern technology. We’re finishing Patrick O’Brien’s “The Golden Ocean” this evening. Austen’s “Mansfield Park” is up next.
Keep your chins up, brothers and sisters. Life ain’t all bad.