HEAT

2020 is half over, it’s July, and it is hot.  Heat waves are cooking up the nation, even here in Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes and ice fishing.  Well, I guess there will be ice fishing sometime later this year, but with global warming you never know.  I always thought those people who drove pickups out on frozen lakes were kind of nuts anyway.

Speaking of nuts, the political rhetoric is heating up as we enter the final stretch of virtual campaign mode before November.  Trump is accusing Biden of wanting to defund the police and leave you vulnerable to bad hombres as your 911 call is being ignored.  Biden is accusing Trump of dereliction of duty by not responding to reports that Russia put a bounty on the heads of our soldiers.  Trump is calling Black Lives Matter proponent’s thugs, and vows not to let statutes of our great past patriots—many of which were confederates—go down.  Biden says he wants to restore the soul of the nation, which he believes somehow got lost with the current administration.  Millions are marching in the streets demanding justice in the name of George Floyd and many others who were victims of police brutality.  Oh, yes, all this going on while we are in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of 130,000 Americans, a pandemic that POTUS and his Vice say is under control.  Really?

Trump says he doesn’t want to wear a mask because he doesn’t want to look like the Lone Ranger.  Lone Ranger or not, he is still looking for the silver bullet that will make the virus “magically disappear”, whether it is hydroxychloroquine, Clorox, or a vaccine that is on a warp speed track.  With this president denial is just a river in Egypt, and he thinks his troubles will go away with happy talk and firing anyone who doesn’t kiss his ring.

People in Florida, Texas, and Arizona are experiencing record numbers of Covid-19 cases as they prematurely opened their states up for business and people behaved like the virus was past.  Governors were reluctant to issue mandated orders, such as staying home and wearing masks because, hey, this is America and people should be free to do what they want.  Free, I guess, to infect others.

The nation is running a fever.  Our collective body politic is sick.  Will we recover?  Someday.  In the meantime, the heat is on.  Stay hydrated, wear sunscreen, and oh, yes, a mask.  Hi ho, Silver, away!