Study: 400k Lives Might Have Been Saved

Article:

U.S. COVID Response Could Have Avoided Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths

In short, research indicates that nearly 400k deaths might have been avoided if someone sane had been in charge during the earlier days of the pandemic.  And for those too heartless to care about the lives, it also would have been less expensive for our country.

I get no pleasure from saying "I told you so."  Hell, I wish to god I'd been wrong about Trump.  I would wear a MAGA hat in my Facebook profile if it would bring back those 400k lives.

Again, if you voted for Trump in 2016, I blame you.  I'm not saying this to hurt you (though I do hope it hurts), I'm saying this so you won't do it again when the next obviously unhinged political candidate tries to run on a platform of xenophobia.  

Your decision to vote for that racist, misogynistic monster led to the deaths of 400 thousand human beings.  You helped bring this about.  You have killed.  You are a mass murderer.  

Don't say, "I couldn't have known," because we warned you at the time.  No, we didn't know about the upcoming pandemic, but we did warn you that Trump wasn't mature enough to handle any potential crisis that might come along.  We warned you, you ignored us, and now you're a murderer.

But no, some of you are going to read this, and shrug it off.  You're going to say the study is flawed, even though you haven't read it.  You're going to rationalize that Clinton would have somehow been worse.  Maybe you're actually that irrational, or maybe you've brainwashed yourself because it's the only way you can sleep at night.  

If you're that far gone, then there's nothing I could ever say that would convince you, and I'd appreciate it if you'd just stop reading my blog.  There is nothing for you here.  You will not learn, you will not grow.  Go stagnate somewhere else, you worthless piece of subhuman garbage.  You are no longer welcome here.

Twitter Laugh

It always gives me a cheap thrill when a celebrity (whether major or minor) likes, retweets, or comments on something I posted.  Legendary comic book author Gail Simone is especially good at interacting with her fans.  

Today James Gunn tweeted about Michael Rooker playing a character called "Savant" in the new Suicide Squad movie.  

Gail Simone replied with, "I created this guy!"

I replied, "You created Savant, or you created Michael Rooker?  Either way, good job!"

Gail replied to my tweet with, "I created Savant, I feel Michael Rooker was created when a case of bourbon fucked a motorcycle."

James Gunn replied with, "How did you know?"

I'm really proud to have been part of that exchange.

Link.

Dream: McDonald's Invaders

A quick and simple one.  Last night I dreamed that instead of those ordering screens in the lobby, McDonalds had video game machines that also let you order food.  You would play a level of a 3D Space Invaders style game, but with flying food instead of aliens.  You would attempt to only shoot the items you wanted to order.  If you successfully got through the level unscathed, you could submit the order and get 10% off the ticket.

This kept the line down at the counter, since most people wanted to play the game and get the discount.  Unfortunately, the line to the video game machines was pretty long, so people who were in a hurry still ordered at the counter.

Also, I slept in a barn, and discovered kittens under my bed.  Oh, and I went grocery shopping with Disney's animated Hercules.  But I don't remember much about that.

Dream: The Soulless

Some dreams are so good that I dream them more than once, with some variations.  Last night I went to see a Disney/Pixar movie that I had already seen in a previous dream.

It was basically a kid-safe zombie movie, though it was still very scary.  People were being turned into what they called "The Soulless" - bald, pale-skinned, mindless zombies who reminded me of the Darkseekers in 2007's "I Am Legend".  

The Soulless didn't eat people, they just grabbed them and turned them into more Soulless.  The Soulless were afraid of the light.  I don't think it actually damaged them, just caused them pain.  Or maybe light was just too bright, since they could see in the dark.  They would wander around aimlessly in the dark, until they detected a human, then they would converge on them.  

I say the movie was kid-friendly because it was animated, bloodless, and because nobody gets killed.  It ended with someone finding a cure, and everyone changing back to normal.  That said, it was still a very frightening movie due to how it was directed.  Plenty of suspense, lots of jump scares.  The animation reminded me of Onward or Frozen - CGI, and everyone has big, friendly eyes.  Even the Soulless were a little reminiscent of Casper, which dulled some of the scariness.

The theater I saw it in was interesting.  First off, it was absolutely freaking huge, like the kind of auditorium where you'd see a rock concert, with a monstrous IMAX-style screen.  Secondly, while the seating section closest to the screen was fairly standard, the back rows were on an incredibly steep incline, so that it was practically a vertical wall of seats.  No danger of anyone's head being in your way, ever.  

Oh, and the seats were extra wide, like loveseats.  Some people even brought blankets so they could stretch out and relax.  I'll tell you, I'd even be willing to watch Wayne's World 2 again if it was at a theater like this.

Anyway, dreams being what they are, sometimes I was in the movie, and other times I was just watching it.  Or a little of both - I was in the theater watching the movie, but the Soulless were attacking the theater itself.  I didn't get to see much of the movie itself this time, so I'm glad I'd already seen it in a previous dream.

Seuss, Potatoes, and Cancel Culture

I grew up on the periphery of Dungeons & Dragons.  Meaning that I never really played it, but I somehow wound up drawn to it in every other way.  I liked the dice, I liked the miniatures, I liked looking through the Monster Manuals... I just didn't have enough friends who were allowed to play it.

My best friend in elementary school came from a family of Christian fundamentalists.  His mother was especially devoted, and reminded me a lot of the mother in Carrie.  My friend had an Intellivision, while I had an Atari, so we had a lot of fun playing new games when we'd visit each other's houses.

I was jealous because there was a Dungeons & Dragons game for the Intellivision.  I asked him if he was going to get it, and he said, "My family isn't allowed to play Dungeons & Dragons."  I pressed him on that, and learned about all the kids who had gone crazy playing the game.  

Of course we now know this was all just an urban legend.  Supposedly there was a kid who jumped off a roof because he thought he could magically fly.  Basically an updated version of an older legend about a kid who tried to fly after reading a Superman comic.  

Now, I was sure the video game was nothing like the tabletop game, but my friend's family decided to play it safe, avoiding anything with the D&D branding.  Though oddly enough, they did allow him to watch the cartoon.  (A side note:  Decades later I did get to play the Intellivision D&D game, thanks to a collection on the Playstation.  It sucks, so I'm glad I didn't miss much.)

Anyway, this is actual Cancel Culture.  Thanks to an urban legend, I wasn't able to collect enough friends to give D&D a try.  The game was effectively cancelled for me, as it was impossible to play without friends.

Recently, Mr. Potato Head got a new branding.  The character will still be called "Mr. Potato Head", but the actual toy line will just be called "Potato Head".  They weren't pressured to do this because of pitchfork-wielding "SJW commie Liberals" or whatever, they did it because they thought more inclusivity would expand their market.  In other words, more girls will buy them.

Also recently, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books decided to stop printing six of them, due to racist imagery.  I'd only heard of two of them.  One of them, "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street", was a childhood favorite of mine.  I do hope that they edit the objectionable parts, so they can republish it someday.  But again, this was a business decision, from a company that wants to stay relevant.

And also recently, Warner Bros decided not to put Pepe Le Pew in the new Space Jam sequel.  If someone hadn't made a big stink about it (pun intended), I doubt most people would have noticed he wasn't there.  It seems kind of a random thing to complain about.  I mean, do you really expect every single Bug Bunny character to appear in every single Bugs Bunny cartoon?  I mean, there were 49 Road Runner shorts, none of which featured Elmer Fudd (as far as I know).  Is that also Cancel Culture?

Yes, Le Pew is problematic.  His older cartoons make light of sexual assault.  He's the Leisure Suit Larry of Loony Tunes, and I'm not surprised they want to phase out the character.  But it's still a company choosing not to include one character (out of hundreds of Looney Tunes characters) in an upcoming movie.  

If you really like Pepe Le Pew, feel free to get mad if/when they exclude his cartoons from future Loony Tunes DVD sets.  But you have nothing to get mad about right now.  He wasn't deleted from the movie, he just wasn't written into the movie.  And what do you want to bet that most of the people complaining never even planned to see Space Jam 2?

And also also also in recent news, in addition to the Muppet Warnings (which I already covered in an earlier blog), Disney+ is moving a couple of their animated movies out of the children's section of their app.  Not taking them down, just no longer putting them in the kid's section.  

None of these are Cancel Culture.  A company deciding not to continue publishing a product, is not the same as a book being banned.  A company relabeling a product isn't the same as taking it off the shelves.  A company deciding not to include a character in an upcoming movie isn't the same as erasing the character from history.  And content warnings are not censorship.

But when the religious right tries to make everyone live under their rules, effectively cancelling other religions so that there's is the only one left - That's the real Cancel Culture.  When someone says, "I find this movie offensive, so no one should be allowed to see it," that's Cancel Culture, and it's a lot more common among Conservatives than it is with Liberals.

I'm not saying people aren't easily offended these days.  There are a lot of people out there getting offended by things they probably shouldn't.  A few months ago I got reamed out on Twitter just for saying Barbara Gordon was my favorite Batgirl.  Apparently you're considered ableist if you don't think Babs belongs in a wheelchair.

Burger King came under fire recently from feminists, for tweeting a bad joke.  Except, I've heard feminists make the same joke in the past.  I'm one of the most feminist people I know*, but I do think people are going overboard here.  But that may just mean that I don't have the same life experiences as the offended parties.  There are some jokes that just get really old, really fast when they involve things that happen to you.  

(* Disclaimer: I'm not saying I'm a great feminist, I'm just saying I know a lot of really sexist people.)

I'm just sick of everyone pointing fingers at everyone else, when it's obvious both sides are just as brittle.  I'm sick of what used to be universal issues being split along party lines.  Everyone is offended, but everyone claims it's the other side that's too easily offended.  If you're a Liberal Democrat SJW, you're supposed to be offended by some of the Muppet humor that hasn't aged well.  If you're a Conservative Republican Christian, you're supposed to be offended by the warning labels before the Muppet show.  For some reason.

The thing is, getting offended because you think people are too easily offended... doesn't that seem hypocritical somehow?  (Side note: Is it hypocritical to write this blog, which is essentially me being offended by the hypocrisy of people getting offended by other people getting offended?  I'll have to say no, because I'm not the one claiming I never get offended.)

Instead of getting triggered by other people's "offensensitivity", maybe stop for a second, and try to see it from the other person's point of view.  So, you don't personally find the crows offensive in Dumbo.  But you're white.  Is it possible, at all, that the reason you don't find the crows offensive is because they aren't making fun of you?  Is it possible that the reason you're not offended by the Chinese caricature in a Dr. Seuss book, is because it's not making fun of you?  

And maybe you're thinking, "But if they made fun of white stereotypes, I'd laugh too.  Why can't they take a joke?"  Look, I could try to explain why "punching down" is bullying while "punching up" is satire.  But if you have to ask the question, you're not going to believe the answer.  You probably also don't believe in racial/sexual inequality or institutionalized bigotry, and I'm just not qualified to convince you.

But at the very least, don't be a hypocrite.  If you're going to gripe about other people being too sensitive, then you don't get to be triggered by Muppet warnings and rebranded Potatoheads.  At best it makes you look like a whiner, and at worst it makes you just as guilty as the people you accuse.