This Silly Week

Attention all for a quick poll question: What is the greatest threat to American democracy and way of life today?

ISIS

the Ebola virus

an electric fan?

The answer should become evident by the time we reach the bottom of this post, but I can’t help noticing that events from this past week got, oh, how would the French term it…oh, yes, silly. Things have been silly for a while, but last week got very silly indeed!

Let’s start with the two really serious events which should be given serious consideration: ISIS and the Ebola virus.

ISIS, the latest terrorist group to push the envelope beyond Al-Qaeda’s wildest dreams, has become more terrifying than the German Nazis (1933-1945) as the most villainous group of people in recorded history. I don’t want to praise them, nay far from it: we have no choice but to acknowledge that their reign of terror established a new yardstick to measure mankind’s inhumanity to their fellow man. ISIS is poised to outdo the Master Race who raised genocide to a science.

We started efforts to contain ISIS, but the media lately have chosen to focus away from the ISIS cancer to an issue which has been recognized as a more immediate threat to US citizens: the Ebola virus. At this time, there are a total of three people in the entire country who have been officially diagnosed with Ebola. They and a few others brought home from West Africa are being treated here. It’s terrible that these individuals have Ebola, but the numbers are not that staggering considering we live in a country of 310 million people.   Now I was never that good at math, but with my calculations I believe that leaves 309,999,997 people unafflicted with Ebola. These numbers do not support the rush to fear being distributed by media outlets.

Ebola is an epidemic in Africa where it has killed over 4,500 people. Panic over Ebola is the epidemic gripping the United States now. The media frenzy is working overtime to cover more aspects of this story than is actually humanly possible. Don’t get me wrong, the virus is newsworthy. Still, the coverage which reached wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling proportions of the virus this week makes one long for the media overdose we suffered during the O.J. Simpson trial.

It may not be too long until angry mobs are running through the streets of America BYOTAP (Bring Your Own Torches and Pitchforks). Ah, but what will the angry mobs be running out of their towns? Who the hell knows. There’s only three people in the entire effin’ country who have the virus! They can’t appear everywhere at once just so people can exact their frustration over the virus on them. 

Many people in this country are advocating banning flights from Africa to stem the tide of the Ebola epidemic. If only it were that easy! One fellow blogger is strongly behind this idea, which is amusing since the town where he lives is almost totally dependent on tourism for its economic base.

It would be nice if we could somehow convince members of ISIS to travel to West Africa where they could contract the disease and we could allow nature to take its course. Well, at least one of our problems would be solved.

Which leaves the lowly, contemptible device known as the electric fan to be the greatest threat to American democracy today! Thanks to the media taking a break from its coverage of ISIS and Ebola, we now know that this device held up a political debate in Florida earlier this week. By the way, this is where the week got very silly.

It seems that former governor (also former Republican and Independent, but current Democratic candidate for governor) Charlie Crist met current Republican governor Rick Scott in a debate. The Scott campaign showed up and realized that Crist had an electrical fan beneath his podium. They cited this as a violation of the “no electrical devices” clause in the debate agreement. Scott refused to take the stage for seven minutes, during which time he presumably stamped his feet and held his breath until he turned blue.

Crist defended his need for the fan for his own comfort. Pundits have speculated that the Scott camp did not want Crist to be comfortable so they can get footage of him sweating under the stage lights as proof that he was not being truthful with his answers. They would then be able to use this footage in campaign commercials for whatever time is left before Election Day.

The electrical device ban was obviously meant to curtail use of communication devices between the candidate and campaign advisers in a remote location. But a fan? Seriously? Why would Crist need a fan under his podium?

Well, I’ll go out on a limb and surmise that, since Florida is geographically the state closest to the equator (where the average temperature is officially termed really, really hot), that overall Florida’s average temperature is very warm. Oh hell, let’s come right out and say it: it’s effin’ hot! It’s effin’ hot under the stage lights in Florida!

Atlanta, which is in Georgia and geographically further away from the equator than Florida, bills itself as Hotlanta. Now if they think it’s that hot in Georgia, than obviously it’s not as cool as Rick Scott believes it is in his home state. Besides, if Scott is that cold, then why has never showed up in public without a full head of hair to keep his scalp warm? Hmmmmmm????

It’s true: the media abandoned stories about a terror group and a terrible disease for a story about an appliance.

Very silly, indeed!

(Thank you for reading! A fan! It blows, it sucks! It’s a fan!)