"A Blessing From God"

WARNING: A SNARKY RANT TO COME (not that most of my posts don't have some degree of snarkiness in them)


Well, well, well.  Since I last wrote, would you have ever predicted all the s*#t that's happened in the interim?  Naw, me neither, and I do enjoy a substantial dose of sarcasm every day.

A few different comments/things I've read or heard have been bubbling up, churning their way into a blog post and I've chosen to combine them here.

I listen to far too many podcasts for my own good.  One I've come to heavily rely on during these unprecedented times (anyone else ready to see Webster's retire the word unprecedented) is the Osterholm Update: COVID-19 from the University of Minnesota.  In his most recent podcast, Dr. Osterholm described two phenomenon he's seeing: COVID Fatigue, probably familiar to most of you, and COVID Anger.  In short, people are exhausted and pissed.  There's a dynamite combination.  Subsequently I read an article about stages of grief as it applies to COVID.  This piece, and I apologize for not recalling its author and where it appeared, suggested that relative to COVID, anger may be perceived as a positive emotion in the sense that it has the capacity to spur you to action.  You're tired?  You're pissed?  Do something about it!  As my friend Karen always says, make a plan!  I'll offer a suggestion: send an email or text to anyone on your list under the age of 40(ish) and encourage, nay, insist they vote.  Without the power of the free elections, our democracy will be flushed down the anarchist toilet.  None of us, regardless of our political leanings, wants that and if you do, get yourself a passport and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way into the plane (here's the most current list of countries that will accept you...make sure you read the small print about COVID-19 testing, isolating at your own expense, etc.  There are some rather nice Caribbean islands on the list--remember everything there comes in on container ships and costs significantly more than it does on the mainlands).

Then I listened to, at least to my ears, a great explanation of the Evangelical movement on the NPR podcast Throughline.  This is a group of Christians that have defied my understanding and the podcast shed some light on the beliefs espoused there.  

Sometime this summer, I noted a rise in the number of articles about COVID-19s impact on women, in particular working mothers.  What I read surprised me not in the least.  A few headlines: Coronavirus is Killing the Working Mother.  Covid-19 Forced Mothers to Take Time Off Work--Rather than Fathers. Pandemic Could Scar a Generation of Working Mothers.  And this quote from an article in Fast Company: 

Companies need to ensure that working mothers aren’t set back generations during this crisis. It’s a moral imperative, as well as a business one.  

This doesn't even touch on the fringes of the disproportionate impact COVID is having on low socio-economic families, communities of color.

And then, to top it all off, the screaming moron in the White House (who, lest we forget is ON STEROIDS, like the country needed that), spouts this bullshit: Getting COVID was a "blessing from God."  Did you hear those who died from the virus rolling in synchrony in their graves?  The aggregate screams of those left behind?  I did.  

If POTUS hadn't already alienated the 'suburban moms' he claims to be so loved by, that one might be the final nail in the handbasket he is going to hell in.  Oh, and if you, average person out there who doesn't live in the White House, get COVID, he is going to make sure you are also blessed with free access to the experimental drugs given to heal him.  A): If you buy that, I have bridges, swampland, etc. for you, bring your credit/debit card.  2.4) If you're a working mother who needs a little time off, hey, this might not be such a bad deal!  Get COVID, have someone drive you to the hospital and leave you at the door and now, you can be assured of a few days of peace and bedrest, with someone bringing you meals while you're pumped full of a cocktail of free drugs that will heal you!  For some working mothers, this might not sound like such a bad deal (and please, please, hear the snarkiness in my tone as I write this).

I want to end with this image from last night's debate between Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence.  
Women, do you recognize this expression?  What I saw, because I do recognize this expression and God knows, I never mastered it and that certainly could be why I got myself into trouble more than once during my working career, was a woman tamping down, hiding, yet once again swallowing the rage and fury as she is being dismissed, overlooked, disregarded, slighted, onandonandon, because you are a woman.  Smile, lean in, and say, "I'm speaking."  Brava, Senator Harris.


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