THE UN-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE OF 2020

The President of the United States finally lived up to the childlike appellations ascribed to him by both his political opponents and adversarial pundits.

What was supposed to be the first presidential debate of the 2020 season turned out to be more like a grade school lunchroom food fight with only one person tossing edibles. The president acted more like an upset and uncontrolled special needs child than the leader of the free world. Meanwhile Joe Biden leaned against the wall barely needing to duck away from the wildly thrown mashed potatoes.

While he did his best to angrily cast the mystery meat of the day at his foe, President Trump did more to defile the janitor in the hallway than his target a mere two tables away. He personified the disharmony within the streets of our major cities.

As a man who claims to be a protagonist for law and order, Trump showed himself to be incapable of adhering to the afore prescribed and accorded rules of decorum for this national debate. His repeated interruptions of both his opponent and the debate moderator displayed a lack of discipline necessary to conduct business in today’s political world, yet we know his capabilities in that arena.

President Trump is obviously the best of the two to govern and keep our country on the right track. His performance last night, however, most certainly calls to question what takes place behind closed doors when reporters and the public are not present. With this one performance, Trump may have inadvertently thrown away his presidency along with a handful of peas and carrots that only sullied the lunch lady who was not even standing between him and his target.

After the debate, I did a quick check of the pundits on most of the broadcast and cable stations. While I infrequently (almost never) agree with the political pundits on most of these panels, I could not find fault with the analysis I heard of what we had all just seen. It was not pretty. Any praise went to Joe Biden for keeping his cool and not needing to change his Depends while he was often unduly personally attacked by the president. Beyond that, his presentation offered little in the way of advancing the interests or bettering the lives of the citizens of this country.

In 2016 I voted against Hillary knowing that she would only continue the destruction of my beloved country that Barack had not completed in his eight year reign. I had serious questions about the non-politician businessman vying for the presidency. This year I will hope that there are other more disciplined debates to show the positives and negatives of both candidates. However, I would not be surprised if the Biden team declares victory and refuses to carry forth with any others.

TESTING, RE-TESTING AND DETESTING

Please excuse my ignorance and the apparently self-induced frustration due to that ignorance.

Despite my attempts to keep up with the ever-changing requirements, rules, restrictions and edicts coming from those in charge of my life now, I am sincerely confused. Mask or no mask, six feet or ten feet, test or no test? Who do I listen to? Who is really in the know and how do I know that he/she is in the know? Is it my governor or my mayor? Do I lock down or get locked up?

It seems that there is a constant conflict in statements between the CDC Director and renowned virologist Dr. Robert Redfield, top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, the World Health Organization and/or Health and Human Services. There are often differing opinions between those professionals and practicing physicians actually treating patients with Covid who are not associated with government and politics.

To mask or not to mask, that is the question.

For months now, I have been told that a mask only protects me, the person wearing it. I’m told that a mask may present problems rather than protect from them. I have, over the same time period, been told that wearing a mask doesn’t help me, but protects the most vulnerable; the elderly and those with compromised immune systems in the event I’m contagious and unaware.

I am told that I cannot assemble in any confined space (square footage not specified) if there are ten or more people within that space. Then it became, in some locales, fifty or more…twenty-five or more. For open spaces it has been no to sitting in cars in a church parking lot, with windows rolled up, listening to services broadcast over the airwaves. I have to check a map to see what’s open and what is forbidden in my particular county and city. Sometimes I have to check again at noon to see which of those rules may have changed since my morning coffee. Can my wife go into the doctor’s office waiting room while I see the doctor, or does she have to sit in the car during my appointment?

Testing and vaccines are the most recent items for alert and ridicule. Vaccines are in the development stages, not yet ready for release. This is the fastest any vaccines have ever been accomplished. Often, even for those wherein research, development and testing takes years, it is years beyond before any unforeseen side-effects are noted. How do I trust that I will not be one of the acceptable few to develop toxic, hideous, bursting lesions on one or many of my internal organs because I took a vaccine that may or may not prevent me from becoming victim to a virus that may or may not affect me or others even if I do contract it?

I don’t even know if I should be tested to see if I’m a candidate for that experimental stage vaccine or if I have to wait until I’m hospitalized and on life support before finding out that I should have taken it months ago.

The fact is, some of the “authorities” say that I should be tested to see if I have the virus or not. Others say that I should not, out of respect for others who may be sick, unless I have symptoms of Covid. Then again, I am told that I may have the virus within my body but not have any symptoms and I should be tested to see if I am infected, without symptoms, but communicable and therefore a danger to others with or without a mask.

What happens if I get tested this morning and stop by a store on my way home? Should I get another test tomorrow just in case I inadvertently and unwittingly made contact with an infected person or surface while I shopped?

I detest the way this infectious disease has become a political football. Football? Well, that’s another rant.