Corona Virus Thoughts #22

500k dead. Vaccine roll out botched in Oregon and my faith in Oregon governing has been shaken, if not shattered. But at least one of our political parties tries to govern and believes people in governing should actually govern and not deride governing when they are the government.

I still can’t schedule a vaccine appointment for my 89-year old father. I tried again today at 5:30 in the morning online and on the phone. Nothing. I could go on about the OHA web site and the various categories of people/workers…and I won’t…go on. There is no point. It doesn’t help to berate.

More stories have surfaced about the rich and famous jumping the line for vaccines. Business as usual in America. John Rockefeller paid someone to take his place when he was drafted in the Civil War and Bill Clinton rode out the Vietnam War with his cushy student deferment.

Dad and I were watching local TV news the other day and stared in disbelief as the perky announcers broadcast a story of a Portland-area teenager and her mother who were trapped in Texas because of the ice storm. They were trapped there because they had flown to Texas together to participate in a teenage beauty pageant (do they still call them beauty pageants?) that attracted contestants from all over the country.

Let me add to this: they traveled to to Texas DURING A PANDEMIC and IN WINTER to compete (is that the word?) in such a competition.

The mother and daughter did a Zoom interview with the news station and were PISSED. They were AGGREIVED. They were PUT OUT and SUFFERING and just wanted out to get back home.

The announcers empathized with the mother and daughter and never once thought to ask them why they made such a useless, superficial and potentially dangerous trip during the Pandemic. If the announcers were journalists, they might have.

If anything symbolizes the selfishness, entitlement and immaturity of certain people during a national emergency, it is this event. “Give me my nail job or give me death!”

I wonder when the day will come when I stop writing about the Pandemic because it won’t be a story anymore? How many Americans will have died by then because of sheer idiocy practiced by so many Americans and shoddy governing. Remember when Jared Kushner was in charge of the Trump Administration’s virus response team? There ought to be criminal charges connected to that appointment or at least a slew of civil suits.