Out Like a Very Sick, Very Tired, Little Lamb
...And kicking off 2022 with a very unhealthy Rose Bowl. Cheers!
For the longest time during this pandemic (which, btw, is just life now), I naively thought we'd hit some kind of enough is enough benchmark or hold up, let’s try something new turning point, and things would start to go in the other direction.
At first, I thought a regime change or even a vaccine might do it, a miraculous restoration of faith in fact and reason and science and governance buoyed by, you know, a mutual need to want to go to a movie or have sleepovers again.
But that didn't happen; the opposite did.
Those who believed in magic and wellness and homeopathic treatment and white capitalist Jesus—who died for the most selfish among us to bring further misery to the most vulnerable (the young, the old, the disabled, the infirmed)—have dug in even deeper into their own self-loathing mythology.
They continued to go full death cult—their outrage, their divisiveness, their humorless talking in code and spittle-flecked sharing of nonsense lit the way. They went whole-hog insurrection. They went full-on terrible, creating symbolic leaders out of people like a teen killer who went on a murder spree with his semi-automatic rifle in the name of protecting property or just being a little shit who causes death and misery his brain isn’t formed enough to really fathom.
They promote a new face of their insincere movement weekly. Most recently, it was a 35-year-old Oregon man who got on a Christmas Eve phone call with the president of the United States. The president and his wife talked nicely to the man’s four children about their Christmas wishes and nodded and warmly suggested that he and his have a wonderful and bright day. The man couldn't help himself but to sign off with "Let's Go Brandon” the very clever right-wing code for Fuck Joe Biden, and hung up as if he was some mother's basement troll on an a.m. sports talk show.
Amplified by the conservative propaganda machine, he got to spend the subsequent week the news cycle cosplaying as a Joe The Plumber (remember him?) Some kind of mangled everyman who when Trump was president was the same who called for civility, he’s YOUR president too blah blah blah.
But in 2021 when everyone’s brains and bodies are broken, even on Christmas, his most sacred day of days, he could not surrender to better angles. Instead he told the current one in charge to fuck off after being extended a kindness.
This is what they're teaching their children. This is their version of being an American and being a Christian. It is, in fact, working in the opposite direction of both of those endeavors.
I got a handful of happy holidays and Merry Christmas texts and calls this year, one from a friend I hadn't heard from since around the time this whole pandemic began.
It didn't take long to kind of go through the awkward mess of attempting to summarize a time better left forgotten till they said they recently had a bout with Covid. "I'm sorry," I said. "I know so many people who are vaccinated are getting Omicron now; it's really scary."
And then, it happened, "Oh, I'm not vaccinated."
And for the next ten minutes or so, I was dragged out onto the dance floor of hearing, live, four or five well-choreographed talking points of the antivaxxers—everything from it alters your DNA, to it kills fetuses, to it’s a plot for communism, it actually makes you sicker—yep, the whole deal.
At one point, this person told me, "People just die; that's what happens." And when I said, "even children?" Their reply was the only children that die (of Covid) are those who are already “have something else wrong with them." Because Jesus loves only healthy people (he was the OG eugenicist after all!)
I got off the phone depressed, more than ever. Because, well, as much as I want to pretend they don't exist, they do.
They’ve become the majority of the now fully formed fascist GOP—and as their new Death Star rolls into position bigger and worse than ever, they will likely take over both houses in the next election cycle, and maybe for good the one after that. But it’s us, the constituents, who will continue to suffer and die.
The machine will continue in 2022 as in 2021 to convince the scared, those who rely on magical thinking and reaching for an undefinable better day, to vote against their own interest till this society is stripped down to the studs and ready for the wrecking ball.
We’re close now, I can feel it.
The Rose Bowl Game
The problem isn't just that we can't have nice things until we get our shit together, admit the truth—that our systems and our leaders have failed us, and misinformation, racism, and general intolerance is winning the day. The problem is we need to do an e-brake stop and pause everything before turning this thing around, stat.
Yet we keep on truckin’.
Yesterday, Pasadena reported its highest-ever single-day rise in coronavirus cases. Dr. Ying-Ying Goh, the city's Public Health Officer, reported 477 confirmed and 16 probable new Covid cases—almost double the previous one-day high of 253 reported on Jan. 5.
"And we know that this is a fraction of the actual cases that are out there because people are having difficulty getting access to PCR testing," city spokesperson Lisa Derderian said.
And yet.
AND YET>>>>
The Tournament of Roses Parade goes on. The Rose Bowl Game goes on.
Massive numbers of people from all over (Ohio! Utah! Wherever!) will converge starting tonight and create one of the biggest super spreader events of 2021, just in time for 2022.
Remember the Rose Bowl last year was canceled (moved to Dallas) because of Covid? Only this year's variant is up to 30x more spreadable, so it makes sense to have it be business as usual. I mean, we’re tired of the inconvenience. We’re tired of moving things around. Plus economy and …yeah.
On the parade beat, Kaiser Permanente will go ahead and enter its "A Healthier Future" (hahaha) float, sans the 20 or so "health care heroes" riding atop.
…They'll be busy heroing.
Yesterday, LA County reported 20,198 new cases (!) and 24 deaths. "we are, in fact, experiencing the worst of a surge at the moment," county public health director Barbara Ferrer said.
….As far as the game itself goes, both Ohio State and Utah (there for the first time as the Pac-12 champions) appear to have done just about everything right when it came to vaccination (both schools say they're 95-plus-percent vaccinated, though neither would release actual booster or talk about booster percentages).
While the programs have kept intel on Covid-related scratches to a minimum, it appears on the eve of kickoff both with going with full(ish) rosters, juxtaposed to the cancellations and skeleton squads we've seen in bowl season thus far which has already seen the no-go of a half-dozen games.
Business as usual, the programs attended Monday's welcome event at Disneyland. There, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said none of his team’s "key contributors" have tested positive.
Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham and Britain Covey, Devin Lloyd, Cam Rising, and Mika Tafua—four of the Utes' five captains—rolled in their own buggy during the Disney parade, all masked up and spread out.
"We seem to be doing OK — knock on wood," Whittingham said. "And I'm expecting Ohio State to be the same. Hopefully, the Rose Bowl will go off without any hitches. We'll see what happens."
If there are no late-breaking Covid scratches, Utah still has an edge even as four-point underdogs. Ohio State will be without Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, a duo that combined for pretty much all the Buckeyes’ offense in the air—135 catches, 1,994 yards, and 25 touchdowns—this season.
Both opted out to focus instead on their NFL prospects.
A pair of Utes, Mike Tafua (9.5 sacks) and Devin Lloyd (8), were the best pass rushers in the Pac-12, if not the nation.
Ohio State has been particularly anemic on offense when pressured by a formidable defensive front (see: Oregon.) As of 24 hours before kickoff the Utes will have all their offensive weapons in place and are accustomed to scoring 14 more points per game (35) than the Buckeyes allow (20). They're 10-2 overall when they put up more than 20, and let that defensive front do the real work—which is an almost certainty.
Take Utah +4 vs. Ohio State at the Rose Bowl Game 5 p.m. ET Saturday, Jan. 1 at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena