Leave Your Cards on The Table
Tag Archives: Tom Waits
And God Said, ‘Knock It Off’
Finally, a religious poll I can have faith in.
The coronavirus has prompted about two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds.
While the virus rattles the globe, sparking economic upheaval for millions and killing more than 80,000 Americans, the findings of the poll by the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicate that people may also be searching for deeper meaning in the devastating outbreak.
Fortunately, we here at the HB hacked the lord’s computer and intercepted the message god has sent the world (the password was locusts):
Hi kids,
Sorry I had to turn the car around, but you just don’t listen. Every century or so, you children need a reminder of your place in the universe. Namely, under its boot. Shape up, or you’re getting a dino-spanking. A few tips if you want to end your grounding and get your video games back:
- Put on a goddamned, er, medamned mask.
When I gave you dummies brains, it was to hold dominion over this ant farm. Instead of using it for critical thinking, you’re eyebrow-deep in conspiracy theories, panic porn and Tik Tok videos. Now you don’t even bother trying to keep your siblings safe. Keep it up, and I’m sending you to the basement, which I shall flood. Again.
- Quit messing up my crib.
I clearly made a mistake in permitting just one Homo Specimen to exist. Now you’ve got only-child syndrome. You’ve barfed all over the rug, permanent-markered the walls, and somehow got shit on the ceiling. And yet you still bitch about the mess. I’ve got an entire Universe to tend to, and — news flash — you’re not the only specimens in my lab. I should have added it in my Top 10 To-Do List: “Thou Shalt Clean Up After Thyself.”
- Stop claiming what — or who — has earned my respect.
I work in mysterious ways, remember? Even claiming you know my will or have my PIN code is blasphemy, which is why you have the sniffles and a fever in the first place. And who is this dipshit false idol who’s supposedly ordained by me? That guy was a factory reject. He think Easter Sunday commemorates the day the Easter bunny died. He once asked me, “What is a million years to you?” I said, “A million years to me is only a second.” He said, “What is a million dollars worth to you?” I said, “A million dollars to me is as a penny.” So dummy said, “God, can I have a penny?” I told him, “Sure! Just a second.”
- Stop looking to me!
Why do you keep looking up here? I know this is going to sound like a Dear John letter, and I suppose it is. But you’re old enough to know: I’m not a great father. Truth be told, my first two kids ran away from home. I did unspeakable things to Job. I knocked up a hooker. I watched my favorite kid die. In short, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
With great vengeance and furious anger,
Dad
ps: Have you seen Tiger King? Jesus.
The Great Thinning, Part II
And so it goes.
As the COVID-19 death toll tops 67,000 (a government statistic, so likely a conservative tally), we pass grim milestone after grim milestone. In less than two months, we’ve surpassed the body count in the Vietnam War. We have endured the human loss of a Sept. 11 attack every other day.
Yet, we’re divided as a nation over whether we have it.
Last week, The Washington Times blasted a front page headline: Coronavirus hype biggest political hoax in history. The conservative paper will surely point out that it used the word “hype” with hoax. But do we really believe today’s American reader will get the nuance?
Consider: Dozens of cell towers were set ablaze a few weeks ago after a conspiracy theory conjured that COVID was caused by 5G transmissions. According to the Pew Research group, nearly one in four believe the virus is a man-made contagion.
Which brings us to another scaling back in The Great Thinning: Our view of medicine.
Just look at the all-star roster of charlatans to emerge in the pandemic:
- Dr. Phil
Dr. Awshucks put his loafer in his mouth with this proclamation: “The fact of the matter is we have people dying, 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that, but yet we’re doing it for this?”
Phil, who has no doctor’s licence, probably meant to say 3,600 pool deaths a year, which is about the national average. And you can’t catch an automobile accident.
- Dr. OzÂ
The perfectly-named Fox favorite said the idea of reopening schools was “an appetizing opportunity” in light of an article in a medical journal “arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality.” “We need our mojo back,” he told Sean Hannity.
Someone wants to be in a new Austin Powers movie. And what do you mean “appetizing?” Is that really the verb you want to use for schoolchildren?
- Dr. Drew Â
The former Celebrity Rehab host called COVID “way less serious than influenza;” referred to the pandemic as “a press-induced panic;” said “the flu virus in this country is vastly more consequential” and compared the probability of dying from the disease to being “hit by an asteroid.”
He retracted every statement.
And then there’s Dr. Bone Spur. The Pumpkin-in-Chief has been urging states to get back to work since we began keeling over, and his administration eased stay at home orders nationwide, lifting restrictions on everything from beaches to bowling alleys this weekend.
Maybe the timing is right. Maybe the summer will shoo coronavirus.
This much is clear: Darwin will take it from here. Because we’ve turned belief in him into an ideology.
Exhibits A and B: Gary Lenius and his wife Wanda. The couple ingested chloroquine phosphate, a fish tank cleaner, thinking it was the chemical Trump had championed for weeks in the virus fight.
Gary, a retired mechanical engineer living in Arizona, died in March and his wife was left in critical condition after ingesting the toxic chemical. Wanda told reporters that she and her husband took a teaspoon of fish tank cleaner, mixing it with soda, hoping it would protect them from contracting the coronavirus.
“We were afraid we were getting sick,” she said. “We were getting really worried. We saw his [Trump’s] press conference. It was on a lot, actually. Trump kept saying it was pretty much a cure.”
To which the HB would like to offer this public service tip: If you are considering ingesting or injecting any cleanser or cleaning chemicals into your body to fight COVID, by all means go ahead. You will do much more damage in a voting both than you will at your own aquarium. It’s a free country; you have the right to be wrong.
As do the protesters in that top photo, who stormed the Michigan Capitol to rail against…bacteria? Empty nail salons? It’s ironic that the same group that challenges the theory of evolution is now tossing around terms like “herd immunity.”
I’m not sure who they’re going to yell at when the governor lifts the state of emergency order because, at this point, who is ready wade back into those waters? Even if we do blow up the shark, we’ve left a lot of blood in the sea. You can’t yell an economy back into action.
Which is where Darwin steps in. As many of us celebrate gathering in malls or flocking to movie theaters again, the weaker of us may die off — including those who were in no rush to re-enter the currents to begin with.
So it goes. Those are the terms of use of personhood; you either work with science, or for it.
