The Geshrey is here. Wake up, wake up you sleepy head. Get up, get out of bed. Your dreams are at an end and your nightmare is just beginning. Read on. You may need to bring a lunch because today’s issue is long.
I have to make a correction. In the last issue (No. 13) I said that I was paraphrasing Christopher Hitchens when I wrote that good men do good things and bad men do bad things. While Hitchens did include the statement in one of his books, the actual quote is attributable to American physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. Here it is in full: “With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things it takes religion.” (Since T-rump does not do things for religious purposes we are safe in saying he does bad things because he is a bad person.)
To reduce your chances of getting the coronavirus, medical authorities recommend washing your hands often with soap and water. Of course, we are not always near a sink so using a hand sanitizer is an alternative to washing with soap and water.
Many stores cannot keep hand sanitizer in stock. In the spirit of keeping the world safe, and with a thanks to Anna Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., I offer this recipe for a basic homemade hand sanitizer:
• 2/3 cup 99% rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) or ethanol
• 1/3 cup aloe vera gel
• 8-10 drops essential oil, optional (such as lavender, vanilla, peppermint, grapefruit)
• bowl and spoon
• funnel
• recycled liquid soap or hand sanitizer bottle
Mix the ingredients together and then use the funnel to pour them into the bottle. Screw the pump back onto the bottle and you’re ready to go.
—-Thanks to Mara for sending it to me. Mara is a loyal reader and to improve the blog she often offers suggestions.
Speaking of suggestions, I have one: Add garlic to the basic hand sanitizer recipe. Garlic is an age old protector usable even today against vampires and similar threats like T-rump. The only kicker is that you will have to lather it on your whole body, not just your hands. Pay careful attention to your head (to protect your intelligence) and your civil rights. Use liberal amounts of garlic. Being conservative will make everything worse.
Use the basic sanitizer to wash your hands whenever you do not have access to soap and water. Use the sanitizer with garlic whenever you see or hear T-rump, even if you have access to soap and water.
P.S. To all vampires. I am sorry to mention you in the same breath as T-rump. Please do not take it personally and take solace in the fact that I would vote for you before I would vote for him.
I routinely receive comments from my children about my grammatical mistakes and spelling errors.
Let me explain about spelling errors. Because I allow my fingers to do the walking on the keyboard, they often get lost. Then Spellcheck takes over. Or not. And, as we all know, Spellcheck does and doesn’t make changes at its whim! Editing? Fugetaboutit! At 77 years old, reading for editing purposes is not my forte. (At 77 I have few fortes left!)
A discussion about my grammar must include a reference to the Declaration of Independence. In his bookThe Founding Myth Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, Andrew Seidel makes the following points about the Declaration of Independence: its capitalization and punctuation do not follow previous copies, reason, or custom of any time period. I might add, neither does The Geshrey. Thus I am following a long American tradition that dates back at least to the Declaration of Independence and continues to this day. Poor grammar and spelling is the paste that binds America. It is patriotism at its best!
As I told my son when he pointed out one of my sentence fragments, “I wasn’t trying to make a sentence, just an emphasis. I am creating a new style: misspellings, wrongly placed commas, fragments, etc., are to be known as the “Kaminsky Method,” similar to the “Kominsky Method” on Netflicks. I probably should have said “Kaminsky Style” to be more accurate. I forgot to tell him that my errors are evidence of my patriotism and that the “Kaminsky Style” is the “American Style.”
Over the course of time I have actually received comments from readers. My favorite one is “[P]lease take me of your subscriber list. I am a Republican.”
Didja know that 65 years ago this past week a 15-year-old Black American girl, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested for that act. Colvin made that decision months before Rosa Parks would likewise make that same decision, and her [Colvin’s] actions are a key part of civil rights history. I do not know why we have all heard of Rosa Parks but not Claudette Colvin who was a also a hero.
As we pay tribute to Claudette Colvin we recall what Martin Luther King said, “[O]ur lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Didja know that everyone in Michigan is no further from water than six miles? —-Thanks RVTravel (Six miles is a long walk to brush your teeth!)
In public statements within the past week or two, T-rump has made some outrageous lies concerning the coronavirus epidemic. Here is what he said:
—-“A vaccine will be available in several months.” (Health officials say it will take a year to a year-and-a-half.)
—-“There are enough testing kits and everyone who needs a test will get one.” According to Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, we need millions and millions of test kits and there are no promises that this will be remedied very soon. In a CNN report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, only about 1500 people have been tested. (In South Korea 160,000 people have been tested.)
—-He has a “hunch” the death toll is much lower than reported by the World Health Organization. (A “hunch?”) Currently the mortality rate in the U.S. from the coronavirus is over 3.0%. This means that for every 100 people who get the disease, between 3 and 4 will die. But because of the lack of testing kits and testing, the true rate is unknown.
—-“You can go to work if you are sick.” Health officials tell us to stay home.
Now matter how hard I try I cannot imagine a more irresponsible and reprehensible thing to say than to tell people who are sick with the coronavirus to go to work. Going to work, going into crowds, being within 6 feet of someone who has the disease exposes you to it. If you are elderly or have an underlying health problem, getting the coronavirus can be a death sentence.
The White House task force led by Pence is trying to counter the lies being being told by T-rump. But they are trying to do it in as way that will not anger T-rump and cost them their jobs. (Of course, Pence cannot technically be fired but T-rump has the option of choosing another person to be his VP in his re-election campaign.)
Why would T-rump want to spread lies about so serious a health problem for all Americans? The answer is apparent. “It’s the economy, stupid.” T-rump closely watches the stock market. It is apparent that he is trying to counter the “alarmist rhetoric” [read “truth”] being published about the coronavirus that is driving the stock market values down. He is more concerned with the stock market – and the effect a down market will have on his re-election – than being truthful because when the stock market dives, people worry about the economy.
The “go to work statement” (and the other lies) is further evidence that T-rump is uncaring about the health of the American people when such care would not benefit him personally or politically. This attitude is consistent with his absence of care about health insurance and the possible consequential loss of access to health care as I discussed in Issue No. 13.
Didja know that scientists are investigating a new material that could turn clothing into a health monitor: Nanomaterial can operate as an early-alert system, sensing slight changes in body temperature —thanks ScienceDaily
In this past week a Federal Judge chastised Attorney General Barr for his less than candid public comments about T-rump’s actions as reported in the Mueller Report. The judge stated that the misstatements were made to show T-rump in a good light. Like father, like son, T-rump’s lackeys lie when it is just as convenient to tell the truth. They lie even when it is easy for anyone to discover the truth. Remember “believe me, don’t believe your lying eyes?” That is the business model of the T-rump White House. (I am going to resist talking about the Nazi business model so both of us won’t get nauseous.)
Not convinced about T-rump’s business model? Ponder this. Indur Goklany is an Interior Department official who Trump elevated to a position guiding the department’s climate policy. Goklany pressured scientists to include inaccuracies in their reports. One claim, which they called the “Goks uncertainty language” after his nickname, inaccurately said that there was a lack of scientific consensus that the earth is warming. The false language appears in at least nine reports. —-Thanks New York Times
I guess Goklany, like all of T-rump’s lackeys, fears the loss of his job more than the loss of his integrity. Interestingly, with all the losses of integrity, no one in the T-rump administration can find any, notwithstanding that integrity is all around and is easy to find. Many people would be happy to help the T-rump administration find integrity. Unfortunately, no one in the T-rump administration that lost it seems interested in recovering it. (Has T-rump himself ever tried to find his lost integrity? Doubtful, since he never had any to lose and would not know it if he tripped over it.)
Political parties are allowed to make unsolicited calls soliciting donations, even if you are on the Do Not Call Registry. But to contribute, do it directly to the party and not to some unknown person who called you out of the blue. Scammers are everywhere these days, but thankfully they are easy to spot. They are Republicans who pretend to care about the National Interest and the American People.
Didja know that the Animal Psychological Association reports that dogs are as smart as a two-year-old child and can learn up to 150 words? Didja now that T-rump is working on his vocabulary? He is looking for synonyms for “best,” “greatest,” and “covfefe,” although I really think that for him to learn more than 150 words may be an impossible dream.
Didja know that according to a 1891 patent drawing, the correct way to hang toilet paper is to have it roll out from the front and not the back?
Didja know that Doris Day’s real name was Doris VonKappelhoff?
Didja know that you can contact me through the “contact me” space in the picture at the top of the page?
Just so you will not leave The Geshrey feeling that you wasted all of your time reading it, here is some advice: When someone presents a very questionable viewpoint say, “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
I leave you with this novel thought: Sleep with one eye open if you do not have hand sanitizer with garlic handy. Keeping one eye open won’t protect you but you will see what’s coming, hopefully in time to defend yourself and vote Democratic in November.
-30-
P.S. In the original draft of the fifth paragraph of this issue I had the sentence “[G]arlic is an age old protector usable even today against vampires and other ignorant narcissistic bloodsuckers like T-rump.“ I decided not to use it because I felt calling T-rump an “ignorant narcissistic bloodsucker” was too crass. True, but crass.