Month: October 2020

Right away, let me say that I cannot divulge my inside source. If I did I would never again be able to provide my readers with stuff from inside our governor’s office . . . unfiltered!

What I am going to relate is what happened last week in a private meeting in California’s Governor’s office. Now I cannot pretend that what you will read is verbatim, because it isn’t verbatim, as this meeting was not recorded.

What was originally designed to be a free-flowing exchange of ideas, started off in the wrong direction when Governor Gavin Newsom (GN) complained that “this upcoming presidential election is getting all of the attention. I haven’t seen my name in the headlines in any of the major newspapers for weeks. This cannot go on!”

Unidentified aide: “Indeed we all agree, and we do not like it either, sir. Perhaps you should come out with a statement or a new position on one of the problems that we have in our state?”

GN : “I am not aware that we have any significant problems here in California that cannot be fixed by further lockdowns.”

Aide: We are all cognizant that the brilliant color coded tier system that you and Dr. Ghaly pulled out of thin air is working wonderfully to quiet the statewide discontent with your vacillating coronavirus non-plan. We agree with you that as long as no one can really understand that you have no real long term plan, we, err . . . you will continue to look brilliant. I am glad to see that the ‘first partner’ is nodding her head in agreement. Good.

GN: We must have some other issues here in California that will allow me to get one day’s worth of headlines.

Aide: Well we do have a few minor issues that could probably be addressed. How about the increased unemployment that is a big issue recently?

GN: Everyone knows that this problem will eventually go away once we get a vaccine. Anything else?

Aide: As you are aware, we have an exploding state deficit.

GN : Not really news. I’ll just plan to raise taxes. 

Aide: What about the homeless problem? At the start of 2020 we had at least 150,000 homeless here in California. The number represented about a quarter of all the homeless in the entire country. The Covid induced lockdowns and the emptying out of the prisons certainly has increased that number. Since polling has consistently identified this as the state’s number one problem, perhaps you could make a statement on that.

GN: Not a good idea as I have no ideas on how to improve this situation..

Aide: What about the state’s housing shortage?

GN: Again NAC (not a clue).

Aide: How about the continuing wildfires?

GN: I would prefer not to focus on anything that’s a downer like smoke, ash, uncleared forests, etc. 

Aide: Perhaps you need a fresh new liberal idea. Something that will probably “hit the fan” well after you have left office.

GN: A wonderful thought! Something that will not have to kick in until after my eight years in the Oval Office. I’ve got it. By executive order I am going to ban all new gasoline automobiles after . . . pick a date. How about 2035! That’s perfect. Certainly the ignorant voters in California will not be able to comprehend the probable economic devastation that this will cause, but if I say the magic words, “global warming,” they will all just nod and acquiesce. 

Aide: I will notify the press that you will be making a statement at one p.m.

Is anybody other than myself tired of the incessant coronavirus headlines? . . .  most of which are of the “woe is us” variety. To be honest, I no longer care that over the last week the death rate for our county went from two to five. I also no longer care that the case rate went up to 230 per day because testing has ramped up, or that the case positivity rate went from 4.2% to 3.9%.

Today however, one particular headline caught my attention:

“Coronavirus cases rising in U.S. children.” (should not a surprise to any rational person); 

For the same article, the sub-headline was:

“Increase tied to schools reopening and other activities” (duh . . . ya think?) 

The article goes on with a bunch of basically useless statistics, which state the obvious . . . kids can get Covid. The stats also demonstrate another obvious . . . while most kids have little if any symptoms, kids can die from Covid. There have been 625,000 youth cases, up to age 20, with 109 deaths. (The 0.017% chance of a youth dying is not mentioned.)

Some infectious disease specialist commented that ”some families will be grieving for a long time.” Again, a family will grieve if a child dies (not news) however kids need to return to school, and this is a pandemic.

I would have preferred the headline for this same article to read:

Good news; kids are going back to school and risk is extremely low”

Being a realist, I understand that it will be quite a long time until there is a Covid headline something like this and not of the “woe is us” variety.