Easter Going to Be a Problem
Easter Going to Be a Problem
What's a novel virus to a soldier of God?
I wrote yesterday about a my brief encounter with an erratic man who claimed to be my neighbor and knocked on my door at 1:30 Wednesday morning (and then peered into my windows) before I confronted him and he hit me with a sob story about his wife being in a car accident on East Broad and taken to Grant Hospital.
I gave the man a socially distant, crinkly $5 bill on the off chance he was telling the truth.
That idealization lasted until I woke up at noon and Ben Koo, a friend of The Rooster and someone you should follow on Twitter, linked me to a Nextdoor thread from Grandview entitled “Suspicious man knocked on my door asking for help.”
Nextdoor doesn’t consider Franklinton a “surrounding neighborhood” even though we’re 1.5 miles apart, so I couldn’t see the comments. Koo said it was roughly 135 comments of people experiencing the same thing:
That’s “Tajh,” Honestly, I’m not even mad about the $5. I spend money like once every 13 days now and I feel like Bill Gates.
If your hustle is knocking on strangers doors late at night (what the fuck???) and hitting them with some sob story to try to prey on their sympathy for pocket change… I’m thinking that psychosis requires a hardcore drug addiction. His haunts around Grandview must have run dry if he’s trying to grease us Franklinton Freaks. Hope he gets the help he obviously needs.
The second worst thing I learned yesterday was Bernie Sanders bent the knee to Joe Biden. Touché to the Baby Doomers, you have correctly put my uppity ass in my place and shown me a lesson I won’t soon forget:
Congratulations to the Democrats for once again falling into the electability trap. Here’s a glimpse at Joe Biden’s healthcare plan, which at best leaves 10 million Americans uninsured.
Ah, tax credits! Who doesn’t want to also deal with the IRS while your sister dies of cancer and your family goes bankrupt right in front of your eyes?
I ain’t voting for Biden. He said it himself — nothing will fundamentally change if he wins.
MIKE DEWINE LEAVING EASTER CONGREGATIONS TO THE DISCRETION OF PEOPLE WHO THINK, AT WORST, THE SPOILS OF GOD AWAIT THEM AFTER DEATH
Ohio has been killing the quarantine game. New data suggests coronavirus could peak in the Buckeye State on April 19.
I’m feeling optimistic despite belonging to the same union as Georgia, who had a governor that claimed to discover last week that asymptomatic carriers could transmit COVID-19 to other people.
I’m worried about Easter. Unlike a lot of Millennials, I don’t have to worry about my Boomer parents taking the quarantine seriously. They’re no fools.
Some of my friends aren’t so lucky. It’s anecdotal, but all of the parents breaking social distancing vote Republican. Some are rabid Fox News watchers. Others are more normal-brained.
They all take Easter Sunday seriously. And with the wave of “light at the end of the tunnel” news, I’m worried Easter could set us back weeks if not months.
Mike DeWine, who has made a career from welding the Religious Right and Big Business Republicanism together, refuses to take the kids gloves off when dealing with gatherings of 10+ people in a religious setting.
Let me be blunt: I’m not about to enforce any of what I’m about to say. That’s what DeWine might as well have said. There’s a certain type of preacher that will host services because they won’t see themselves as endangering their flock. How could they? They’re covered in the blood of Jesus. And what is a little coronavirus if it leads to the kingdom of Heaven?
MARION CORRECTIONAL GUARD BECOMES FIRST C.O. TO DIE FROM CORONAVIRUS
Another area where we’ve failed is releasing prisoners. After sending 36 letters to judges about potential release of prisoners, DeWine announced he’s looking at 167 cases — some with fewer than 90 days remaining on their sentence.
With ~49,000 souls in state incarceration, DeWine’s lack of action is almost unconscionable even before you realize he could free every one of them tomorrow.
I’m not advocating for every serial killer to be freed tomorrow. What I’m saying is at some point DeWine’s inaction becomes an intentional desire to kill off an “undesirable” population.
Even if you think everyone in prison deserves to rot, prisons are not isolated from the community. People who are not prisoners work in prisons. They’re at risk, too.
From Sarah Volpenheim of marionstar.com:
MARION — A Marion Correctional Institution officer has died from COVID-19, the first Ohio corrections officer to die of the disease, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine confirmed.
John Dawson, 55, Mansfield, died Wednesday after he tested positive for COVID-19 on March 30, the second MCI corrections officer to test positive for the virus, DeWine said at Wednesday's press briefing.
"Mr. Dawson's death reminds us that as we celebrate the fact that Ohio is doing comparatively well, we are still seeing a large number of deaths. People are dying every single day," DeWine said. "Our heart goes out not only to Mr. Dawson's family, but to all those families who are suffering because they have lost a loved one because of the coronavirus."
Dawson had been a corrections officer at MCI since 1996 and worked in the control center handing out equipment to staff, DeWine said. MCI is a minimum and medium-security prison that holds more than 2,500 prisoners, many of them in dormitories of dozens of people in close proximity.
Nobody except psychos want to work in prison. They do it because it’s a way to pay bills.
Mr. Dawson went to work for 24 years. His reward was to be killed by government malfeasance. The governor offers a few platitudes and everyone says “that’s too bad” instead of realizing it was an entirely preventable death.
DEWINE REFUSES TO REBUFF TRUMP’S NOTION OF CORRUPTION
Sorry to keep shitting on DeWine. What else is there to do?
Ohio will hold a convoluted mail-in election on April 28th (ballots must be postmarked by April 27th because fuck you that’s why). Yesterday, the 45th President of the United States conjured a tornado of horseshit and strawman arguments against mail-in elections, which he doesn’t want due to wanting as few people to vote as possible to increase his already baked-in electoral advantage.
DeWine gave a masterclass on threading the needle between not bashing Trump and defending the integrity of the state’s election.
From Andy Chow of wvxu.com:
Ohio officials say the state's vote-by-mail process is safe and not corrupt, in contrast to President Donald Trump's recent comments during a press briefing and on Twitter.
Trump called mail-in voting "horrible" and "corrupt," saying there's a "tremendous potential for voter fraud."
Voting is still open for those who haven't cast a ballot for the Ohio primary, but it's mail-in only.
Gov. Mike DeWine says he hasn't heard the president's comments but says Ohio's vote-by-mail process is safe.
"You know we postponed the election or we expanded the election basically because we didn't think it was safe, but yes it's safe for people to vote in Ohio and we're asking them to do that," says DeWine.
None of the statehouse media would dare challenge DeWine at this point. You almost have to tip your cap.
To give you an idea of the cult of personality that has gripped the Republican party and the minefield DeWine must navigate, here is an Oregon Congressional candidate’s ad that my friend sent me in utter disbelief:
I shouldn’t complain. DeWine’s somewhat-independent political brand allowed him to shut down the state a month before his southern counterparts.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF CUTS AT CLEVELAND.COM
The private equity ghouls that control cleveland.com used the pandemic as an excuse to union-bust their remaining staff. It’s a tragic story for a newsroom that had as many as 300 employees a decade ago.
One of the most legendary newspapers in American history has been reduced to writing stories like this:
DAYTON, Ohio — A woman accused of shoplifting more than $1,200 in groceries from a Kroger store is facing multiple charges after she told police she was infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Fox 19 reports Stephanie Incarnato, 28, of Dayton, is charged with exposing others to a contagion, two charges of possession of drugs, and one charge of theft. She will be held in isolation at the Hamilton County Justice Center for 14 days, according to cincinnati.com.
Incarnato is accused of stealing $1,280 worth of groceries on Tuesday from a Kroger grocery store in Sharonville, Ohio, WLWT Channel 5 reports. When she was arrested, she gave police a false name, told them she had the coronavirus and Hepatitis C, claimed to have swallowed narcotics and also said she was pregnant, cincinnati.com reports.
Well, at least they linked and cited the reports. That’s more than most aggregation sites.
I realize I’m the last one that should be bashing aggregators. In my defense, I’m one man who also tries to weave his neurosis into a semi-understandable narrative instead of regurgitating entire news reports into soulless paragraphs.
OF COURSE BUS WORKERS BEARING BRUNT OF PANDEMIC RELIEF
One reason parts of America took so long to shutter schools is because in the richest country in the world is that school is the only place hundreds of thousands if not millions of children have access to such luxuries as heat, air conditioning (negotiable in Ohio), food and medical care.
This is the case in Ohio, which has led to schools starting delivery services in order to ensure their students can eat.
Of course our public schools were underfunded before the pandemic, which means they’re underfunded now. Districts are turning to bus drivers, who are already underpaid, to put themselves at risk for the good of the cause.
From Lisa Rantala of abc6newsonyourside.com:
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — School bus drivers in Central Ohio are demanding better protection as they claim meal drop offs are exposing them to deadly coronavirus dangers.
A day after Scoring Our Schools found out face masks weren’t mandatory for area districts continuing to serve meals, drivers wishing Westerville City Schools started calling in with concerns.
“Not one driver has ever been tested. We have no idea if one has been infected,” said one driver who provided her school district credentials but asked to remain anonymous. “There’s no masks. There’s no social distancing.”
While WCS is keeping its daily delivery service intact, Olentangy Local is reducing its service to one day a week. In a letter released on its website, the district stated, “One if our food service workers started to experience virus-like symptoms on Friday.”
This is how bosses use workers at times like this: Put them at risk for no added benefits. If the drivers went on strike for basic things like hazard pay, paid sick leave and personal protection equipment… suddenly they’re the assholes. Wild how that works.
THOSE WMDs. Obituary for Dylan Joseph Bourbonnais… Colleges with empty campuses face uncertain financial futures… 100,000 from Dixie fought for the North in the Civil War… Marijuana use spikes to all-time high during coronavirus shutdown… My bullet proof vest and the illusion of perfect protection.