Penny Thoughts: Curious How Riots Have Cured COVID-19

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of The West Alabama Watchman.

For the past week, we have witnessed another great American tragedy, which began as a justified protest of the death of a black American citizen at the hands of a white police officer. This tragedy has devolved into a series of rampages commandeered by some violent anarchists most of whom it is thought have come from outside of the plagued cities and are youngsters in their late teens or early twenties.

Minneapolis, Oakland, Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, Denver, D.C., and Portland present a line-up of the American cities in which there have been destructive riots resulting in fires, looting, and property damage. Their mayhem is a testimony to the dissidents’ false protests and an insult to those who have legitimately sought to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.

As a superfluous aside, does anyone else see the irony in the fact that the sites of the most virulent episodes are taking place in areas of high population concentrations? This reminds me of one of Thomas Jefferson’s observations on over-crowding: “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” As geometry tells us then, quod erat demonstrando,or in its abbreviate form, Q.E.D.

Riots have also spread to European cities, which begs the question of a global coordination of such displays of outrage using the murder of George Floyd as a rationale/excuse/pretext for their destructive actions.

Nevertheless, our undivided attention, obeisance and devotion to the strictures and mandates the “pandemic” have been shifted, but this might be a confirmation of our shortened attention spans, as a function of our addiction to current media streams. The main-stream media, social mediums, computers and smart phones have fashioned all of us into “news junkies”. We have allowed ourselves to be seduced by the alluring sirens of what we take for current information, and we have done so without verification of its veracity. Consequently, we start jonesin’ for more and more gratuitous and self-affirming platitudes from those sources.

We have been spirited from the “Russian Collusion” to the “Mueller Investigation” to the “Flynn Trial and Conviction” to the “Democratic Party Primaries” to the “Impeachment” to the “COVID-19 Pandemic” and now to the “George Floyd Protests/Riots”, all  in a matter of roughly 18 months. It is little wonder that we are investigating the efficacy of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) as a possible platform to process all of this. Such quick changes in focus might trigger an “information overload” and indicate in youth an affliction called ADHD. 

So perhaps it might serve to question what happened to the sudden disappearance of our COVID-19 pandemic/threat/menace. It would seem that the Minneapolis and subsequent demonstrations/riots have given us a cure or at least a reprieve from the loudly proclaimed ravages of this worldwide pestilence by the esteemed medical “experts”.

Those demonstrations/riots have re-focused our attention, but the “pandemic” has left us with an impressive registry of former social amenities we enjoyed before it. What we have surrendered to COVID-19 includes the following: hand-shakes, hugs, large gatherings, gathering at our houses of worship, sporting events, wedding parties, swimming at the beach, even going to the beach, fishing with no more than two in the boat, shopping in local small businesses, going to restaurants and/or bars and bare faces. The list goes on too far and too depressing for me to further cite.

Add to this, the disturbing and obsequious contradictions from the various, disparate sources of research on COVID-19 and our antipathy has reached an unsettling crescendo. There has even been some research offered that COVID-19 is not a virus, but rather a bacterium which causes blood clotting.  If proven true, that would mean it could be treated with antibiotics.

Given all this one might fairly wonder if we could be secretly celebrating the protests/riots because we have seen, via the wonder of contemporary media, that we do NOT have to give up all those amenities listed above! To wit: behaviors of the rioters. Hence, we are CURED of this COVID-whatever.  Right!?

Well, not exactly. As with previous protests/riots, one way or another they will be quelled or burn out of their own accord – or, perhaps cynically, when there is nothing left to destroy. Following this, the media will instantaneously find something else to fill the vacuum of our ADHD societal affliction. But, wait for it, that will be when the long awaited and devoutly predicted “Second Wave” of COVID-19 will suddenly crystalize right before us. The marionette Fauci will have been vindicated of his not-so-secret duplicity with another and perhaps even more virulent “pandemic”.

The sad fact is that he will also tell us that the “science” tells of this “fact”.  And this reminds me of Carl Sagan’s observation: “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful.”

Perhaps this time a “change” in the media focus will have produced a cure!