Of Communion, Conservatorships, Conservatives, and Covid

Last weekend, a conference of Catholic bishops in the United States overwhelmingly approved a draft statement that could potentially prevent prominent Catholics—including, conspicuously, one prominent Catholic in particular, President Joe Biden—from receiving Communion due to their support for abortion rights. This despite admonitions from the Pope against the statement.

(Is the Pope Catholic? Some American bishops might have their doubts. And so much for rendering unto Caesar….)

The coverage of this vote, in an effort to explain to laypeople (and Jews) the significance of the Eucharist, frequently mentions the belief of devout Catholics that, when they eat the cracker and drink the wine, the Communion comestibles are literally transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

So, if I understand this correctly, Catholics believe that supporting a woman’s right to choose an abortion is a mortal sin, but they’re perfectly OK with cannibalism. And not for nothing, but these folks have also been eating Jesus for some 2000 years now. How much flesh and blood did the man have?

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On Wednesday, June 23, and Thursday, June 24, the front page of the New York Times featured stories about the New York City mayor's race, Supreme Court decisions, the ongoing deterioration of American democracy at the hands of revanchist Republicans. . . and Britney Spears' attempts to free herself from a conservatorship.

Now, I have nothing against Britney Spears.  I've never particularly cared for her music, but as far as I know, Britney's never hurt anybody or kicked puppies, and she's brought joy to millions through her catalogue of danceable bubblegum pop.  She’s a grown woman who, like all of us, has made some mistakes in judgment and haircare, but she certainly has a reasonable case that she should be free to manage her own affairs.

All that being said: IS THIS FRONT PAGE NEWS FOR THE PAPER OF RECORD? FOR TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS?!?

This is why they hate us.

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The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a high-school cheerleader who was disciplined by her school after she posted a vulgar Snapchat rant about not being selected for the varsity squad. Now that’s what I call team spirit!

Anyway, a good decision by the Supremes, but, frankly, this whole case falls under the heading of, "How is this even a question?"  To recap: The cheerleader, Brandi Levy, posted a mini-rant in which she cursed out the school, softball, cheer, and "everything." She didn't threaten anyone.  She didn't use any racial or ethnic slurs.  She wasn't on school property when she posted the screed--from her cellphone--on a Saturday.  And she posted it to her followers (about 250 of them) on Snapchat, a social media tool designed to be ephemeral: Snapchat messages automatically disappear after a few hours.

I'm glad the Justices found in her favor, but, much like the Britney Spears' conservatorship question, I can't help but think there are more important things for us to be spending time on.

One interesting note: The decision was not unanimous.  It was 8-1.  The "1" was Clarence Thomas, which I found a little surprising considering that he's "Mr. Originalist."  One would think this open-and-shut challenge to the First Amendment would have garnered his support.  Yet, no.  I can only assume that this speaks to Thomas's commitment to always be on the wrong side of every question.

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I’m tired of Facebook posts sharing news articles with headlines like, “Young Mother, 24, Dies of Covid Despite Being Fully Vaccinated.” I don’t doubt the veracity of the headlines—I’m not engaging in Trumpian shrieks of “Fake News.” Nor do I mean to belittle the anguish faced by the families and loved ones of those who die after vaccination. But I do question the motives of those who publish such “news” stories and those who share them online. These stories are the epitome of fearmongering and serve no purpose other than to generate clicks and undermine efforts to vaccinate as many people as possible—which, to be clear, is the only way we will ultimately end the pandemic.

Let’s consider a scary number: According to the CDC, as of April 2021, nearly SIX-THOUSAND fully vaccinated Americans had contracted Covid! Terrifying, no?

Well, actually no. Because as of today, over 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated. So, even if we assume that the number of “breakthrough cases” (positive Covid diagnoses after vaccination) is now at 10,000–or, hell, let’s say it’s skyrocketed to 100,000–that would still mean that the positivity rate among the vaccinated is less than one in a thousand people. And the death rate is less than one-tenth of THAT. So another way of looking at all these “scary” headlines is that Covid vaccines are more than 99.99% effective in preventing death from Covid.

That’s a death-prevention-efficacy rate that rivals seatbelts!

The frustrating part of all this is that the people I see sharing these posts are usually intelligent, liberal types. They’re sharing the posts mainly in an effort to encourage people to remain vigilant even after vaccination. But another unavoidable consequence of such stories is that the vaccine resistant—the ignorant MAGAts who have decided that science is a liberal plot—get more ammunition to double-down on their hostility to vaccines: “See, vaccines don’t prevent Covid! It’s all a scam.”

Maybe we should tell the MAGAts that once the vaccine is injected, it transforms into the body and blood of Trump. 

Eternal Waking

In the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel masterpiece, “Sandman: Master of Dreams,” the eponymous hero curses someone with “eternal waking.” The bad guy is next shown in the throes of a nightmare, from which he, blessedly, awakens—only to realize that he’s in another nightmare, from which he, blessedly, awakens—only to realize…. You get the idea.

While, thankfully, not nightmarish, I very occasionally suffer from a very similar malady. Just the other day, I woke up, got out of bed, fed my cat, poured myself a cup of coffee… when suddenly I realized, “Wait, I’m still in bed.” Sure enough, I found myself back in my bed, waking up. I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, turned on the shower… and realized once again that I was still in bed. By the third or fourth time this happens, I start to pay very close attention to my surroundings to assure myself that THIS TIME I’m really awake. I feel the pressure of my feet on the floor as I stand up…and yet, I’m still not really up.

OK, the fact that one of these times I walked into my living room, where I found a retired army general singing Magnetic Fields songs, should probably have clued me in to the fact that I was not quite awake yet, but still! After about five iterations of this false waking, one does start to worry. Maybe this is your life, now. Or maybe you died and this is what the afterlife is.  Finally, my cat decided I had been in bed long enough and it was time to feed her, so she stomped on my rib cage until I woke for real. One of the few times I’ve been happy to be so awakened.

I wonder if this is a common occurrence. Do other people suffer from eternal waking? And am I still asleep now as I type these words? That would explain a lot. Like the penguin in a tutu that’s sitting next to me on the couch.

Opening Day

As I write this, I’m sitting in the house. Not MY house. THE house. As in the part of a theater where the audience sits. For the first time in nearly two years, I’m attending a members’ meeting of my local community theatre. The meeting is about as boring as I remembered these meetings to be, but I don’t even care. It’s one more step on the road back to something resembling a post-Covid normalcy.

I know we’re not at normal yet. Every day brings worrisome news of some new variant that’s more contagious, more lethal, or both. And at the same time, I’m sitting maskless amongst a group of community theatre actors. And if you know anything about “community theatre actors,” you know that that’s a synonym for “older than dirt.” Let me put it this way: I’m a veritable whippersnapper in this crowd. These are presumably the most at-risk folks, but we couldn’t stay away.

At the same time, as California has officially reopened, the paranoia and neurosis run deep. At my workplace—a college—we’ve been informed that, come August, we will be back to business as usual. In keeping with the state and county guidance, we will allow the public back on campus, we will forego mask requirements, and even social distancing will be a thing of the past. Which would all be a lot more impressive if we hadn’t had to create the fall schedule back on March. As it is, the college will be open, but most of the classes remain online. Fall, then, will be a nice, liminal sort of semester—a transitional zone between sheltering in place and resuming normal, public human interactions.

A lot of people don’t see it that way, though. They’re kind of panicking at the thought of interacting with the unmasked public. Have they been vaccinated? For the most part, yes. But when you point out that the CDC has declared that vaccinated people are essentially safe—no need for masking, no need for distancing—you’re met with greater of lesser degrees of hysteria. “It’s not 100% safe!” Well, no, it isn’t, but, then again, you realize nothing is, right? You weren’t “100% safe” at work before Covid-19, either. At some point, you just have to start living your life again, right?

Here’s the thing that gets me: All through the awful year of 2020, as the Moron-in-Chief railed against medical science and insisted that the coronavirus would just disappear like a “miracle” and peddled snake-oil cures and advised people to drink bleach—all through that time, the non-brainwashed among us pleaded with people to listen to the doctors, listen to the science. Well, now the science is telling us that we can venture forth without masks, we can stop social distancing, we can get back to our lives—and people don’t want to hear it!

I know that people are nervous. I’m sympathetic—I really am. But in the end, you have to take a plunge sometime. The time has come.

Toucan, But You Can’t

The more I think about it, I’ve come to realize that watching Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s gave me a highly unrealistic expectation of the likelihood of encountering a toucan.

And, before you ask, No. I had no such thwarted expectations of meeting a leprechaun. Or, for that matter, a giant sentient pitcher of Kool-Aid. I mean, I wasn’t stupid! I knew that those things weren’t real. And as for tigers and rabbits, well, those were comparatively commonplace. One could see tigers at any zoo, and rabbits might even show up around the neighborhood. So I harbored—subconsciously, yes, but also definitely—a belief that one could very likely run into a toucan down any random street in Queens. I mean, the kids in the commercials certainly took the bird’s presence in stride.

I’m retrospect, I think much of my general dissatisfaction with life can be traced to such early disappointments.

Emergency Procedures

Emergent Biosolutions has emerged as more of a problem in the realm of coronavirus vaccine production. The company has won contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to produce vaccines developed by Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Very few doses of any vaccine, though, have been distributed because the company’s quality-control levels fall short of your average meth lab.

Actually, I take that back. Walter White would never accept such shoddy manufacturing practices.

There’ve been all manner of production snafus, most notably cross-contamination of the two different vaccines. Apparently, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup theory of vaccine production didn’t fly with government regulators.

And while the rest of the world has become adept at basic hygiene over the last 18 months, Emergent employees still display some lapses.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that squirrels have taken up residence in the company’s cafeteria.

I would like to formally offer my own home as a production facility for vaccine production. Sure, I’m not the cleanest fellow in the world. Maybe I haven’t changed my bedsheets since the Million Nazi March in Charlottesville—I’m protesting! But, hey, my kitchen can’t be that much filthier than Emergent’s. And I’ll let the government rent it out for pennies on the BioSolutions dollar!

#Trendwatch

 Back in the day, before our reboot, we used to do an occasional feature called “Trendwatch.” We would go to Yahoo! and see what the trending stories were, mainly as a way to test our knowledge of pop-culture and current events: Do we know why the thing trending is trending without actually clicking on the link.

We wanted to revive the practice, but Yahoo! is SO 2012. All the kids these days are on Twitter, so “Trendwatch” will now become #Trendwatch, a review of the top trending topics on Twitter. The advantage being that maybe that hashtag makes things searchable and will expose us to all new followers! 

That is how these things work, right?

Anyway: Number 1: #JacobdeGrom Well, we know what this is about. You will recall our earlier discussion of Mets’ pitcher and resident super-alien Jacob deGrom. He started the game tonight against the San Diego Padres. He was his usual brilliant self: Six innings, one hit, no runs, ten strikeouts. As I watch the game now, the Mets’ bullpen is doing their best to throw the game away, but deGrom continues to dominate.

Number 2: #SmackDown I assumed this referred to what people want to do when listening to the ravings of Marjorie Taylor Greene, but it turns out it’s a wrestling thing. Or “wrestling” thing. Or wrestling “thing.” Anyway, it’s apparently on TV tonight, so watch if you’re into that sort of thing.

Number 3: #spacesgottalent The description: “Musicians are throwing it back to the 2000s as they perform for a panel of judges on spaces.” I first read that as “. . .in space,” and I thought, “I have no idea what that is, but it sounds incredibly cool.” Then I read it correctly as “…on spaces,” and I thought, “I have no idea what that is.” But whatever it is, musicians are performing on it! So… watch if you’re into that sort of thing.

Number 4: #TheLastDriveIn I think this is a series on Shudder, which I think is like Netflix for horror movies. . .  I thought Netflix was Netflix for horror movies.

Number 5: #readytolove Also apparently a TV show. Certainly not descriptive of Your Not So Humble Correspondent. More like #readytomisanthropize here.

Hoist by Their Own Cyberpetard

Every day, it seems, we glean a little more insight into the wonderful world of Bitcoin. Only a matter of time before we’re cryptocurrency savants. Whether we achieve this knowledge before or after the whole thing completely collapses like the scam it is remains to be seen.

To recap recent events, a few weeks ago, Russian-based cybercriminals hacked into the servers of Colonial Pipeline and locked up their systems, causing chaos up and down the East Coast. The hackers, working with a syndicate known as DarkSide, demanded 75 Bitcoin in ransom to release the company’s computers. Colonial paid the ransom, which was worth somewhere north of $4 million at the time of the payment.

Forward to this week: The FBI announced that they had essentially hacked the hackers. They were able to identify DarkSide’s Bitcoin “wallet” and received permission from a judge to confiscate as much of the ransom as they could. In the event, they were able to claw back about 75% of the money that Colonial had paid.

While I still have no clear idea what Bitcoin actually… is, one thing I did understand was that the whole appeal of the currency—especially to criminals—was its untraceability, it’s imperviousness to such mundane things as confiscation by legal authorities. Only, now it turns out that—go figure!—the same internet that facilitates criminal activity can be used to combat criminals, using many of the same hacking techniques employed by the criminals themselves!

Duffel bags full of cash are looking better by the minute.