COVID Everywhere

affecting or infecting our toxic political climate. So, for instance, Bill Maher went on his show as well as onto the view, lamenting about how exhausted he is from COVID, how it just needs to be done. Barry Weiss talked about how, you know, clearly the vaccines. You know, they told us that we were just going to be able to go back to normal once we got them, and that's not the case. So you know, fuck it, I'm

done with COVID or you know, Joe Rogan and his bullshit. Right, and you have folks, I guess one hundred and fifty or some odd doctors, medical professionals, nurses have all signed on to a letter sending to Spotify, which is the host of the platform host for Joe Rogan Show, to say, we're not telling you to take him off the air, but we are saying, is what are you doing right

to combat this misinformation? Like what kind of warnings can you produce before his show or after his show or book end to make sure that their people can go to an actual professional and actual medical expert to get their medical advice from as opposed to this man, I cannot believe, you know, it always pisses me off. And initially, folks, I'll be honest, I thought that it was just like jealousy, right,

like what is it that these people are doing? Why they command so much attention and have so many followers, and you know, what is it that I need to do in order to get to that space? Because for me, building a platform and building up a following has never been a sadly right because I guess I'm just not motivated by capitalism. Has never been about making the most money.

There are plenty of things that I can do that wouldn't be this right, but it has always been about the fact that I believe that I want people to be as informed as possible. Want folks to make informed decisions. I want an informed and activated citizenury. But then there are other people that get into this work under the guise of politics or under the guise of having a you know, adding to the public discourse, but that they're

truly just about entertainment and dollars, right. And maybe it's because I've never had the access to that kind of platform or dollars that I'm not driven by that. But there must be some responsibility, some accountability right for people who do have that kind of access and abuse it. You know, I watched it, and if you haven't seen it, you should, And it was sent to me by one of my followers, the clip of Barry Weiss on the Bill Mars Show, you know, and I just was so

fucking pissed off when I was watching it. And you know, I get it, folks, and Jonathan and I will talk about this later in the show. I get it. I'm fucking tired. I just said to a friend, I like, I don't want to cook anymore. But I have been staying home because I decided that until you know, New York, until New York City was in a more stabilized place where I felt comfortable. I wasn't getting on public transportation.

I wasn't going to dine indoors, and I wasn't going to you know, go into situations and places that required me to take my mask off or be around a lot of people. That is unnecessary. Right, So for me, it's I have access to a wonderful studio, but until I feel safe taking the train every single day with you know a bunch of strangers who you do not

know what their protocol is. It's mandatory in New York to wear a mask on public transit, but most people, at least the last time that I was taking the train, which was well over a month and a half ago, people were abiding by that. But then you have those folks that either don't wear a mask at all or wear it as a chin strap still, right, So taking having the privilege and ability to move myself out of

these spaces, you know, is not without its frustrations. You Know, there are days when I wake up and I feel like we should just have a dedicated hour of every single day where we are free to go into the street or into your backyard and just fucking scream, right like, just get it out, just you know, go out. Everyone's doing it at the same time every day at you know, at six thirty six thirty wherever the fuck you are, six thirty Eastern time because I'm Eastern standard bias. You

go out and you can just scream. No one's going to call the cops, no one's going to look at you crazy. It's just like blowing off the steam of what it's like to consistently, now two years be living in this pandemic where you have people who I want to say a majority of which, but I don't think

it's a majority. I think it's like half are dedicated to continuing to do the right thing for themselves and for their communities, right, And then you have other people that just like Bill Marberry, Wise, Joe Rogan and others that just don't give a fuck. Right, because those people that are immune, have immune disorders or are they have

immune systems that are suppressed. Guess what, they don't get to throw up their hands and say, oh, well, I'm done with COVID because the minute that they are not protecting themselves, they're dead. Right, and there are more people that are immuno compromised in this country, then you can fucking wrap your minds around for various reasons, whether it is you know, diabetes, obesity, you know, cancer survivor because cancer cancer is rampant, right, hiv age like whatever it is.

There are so many people that are compromised in some way or other. So just to say oh, I'm done, you think that the virus then says, oh, okay, well that person over there is finished, so I'm not gonna infect them. I'm going to go to the other person down the street. Like that's not how it fucking works.

And you know, Frankly, my friend and co host on Democracy Is said it best in Twitter earlier in the week where he was just like, you know, we need to also stop referring to these people who act out in the most ridiculous and stupid fucking ways as children, because he's like, I'm the father of three kids, right that are like seven and under, and they wear their masks. They don't complain about not being able to play with their friends, they don't complain about having to wear a

mask all day. That they know that they're doing the right thing right and so they're able to handle and adapt and be more nimble to this shift, this change in our societal gatherings in way of being than adults are. So like, let's not insult children who genuinely do and generally do follow the rules that are put out in front of them and say that these adults that can't be bothered to do so are acting like children, because

that's an insult to them. I'm just like, you know, even still listening to medical professionals, whether it be on TikTok or on cable news, say that people are still on their fucking deathbeds refusing ventilators because they were told by the likes of somebody who has no fucking MD behind their name, right that, or no degree in epidemiology. Because let us also be clear that Fox News has on a lots of doctors, right, none of them are

actually virologists, right or epidemiologists. No, they're not. It's like going to your dentist and asking them about your heart, right Like, that's what it is that they do. And so for me right now, it is just the level of frustration that I have that I realize that these people. I wish that we lived in a country that was actually about accountability, that we were going to begin to

do what other nations are doing which is issuing fines. Right, that if you are caught spreading misinformation, that no, it isn't just going to be that your band from YouTube or Twitter or Facebook, right, or your Instagram account is shut down for twenty four hours to give you another twenty four hours to come up with a different way to spread your bullshit. Right, but that your state or the federal fucking government was going to start instituting fines

against you. And I'm not talking about little fines. I'm talking about every time that you pose an infraction, that we deem these people as a threat right to national security, because you see, this misinformation is an assault on our bill, on our public health, and our public health should be tied to our security, right, because the more people that are fucking ill that can't go and teach in a classroom, that can't go be flight attendants on the plane that

can't go pick up your packages and deliver them to your home from the factories. The chain right of command and supply and production is fucked right now because of this. And so you want to talk about these people saying, well, we need to, you know, do what's right for the economy. Well, what's right for the economy is to ensure that those

that are working are actually fucking healthy. And if you are actively thwarting that, whether it is through a podcast and op ed through TikTok's or whatever, you're going to be fucking fined. You know, I don't know what state, what country it is right now, and so forgive me, but I will look it up. But what they have done is made it so that folks that are I believe it is sixty and above, that for every month that you do not get the vaccination or the booster shot,

you're going to be fined. I think it was something like two hundred and fifty or you know, maybe even upwards of five hundred dollars, right, And I'm just like, damn, imagine how many people would just fucking stop if your accounts are being flagged, your shows are being flagged with

major penalties. And I'm not talking for the Joe Rogans of the world that are multimillionaires that are like, oh, five hundred dollars and they're like, oh, I don't give a fuck, or the Marjorie Tailor Greens of the world who were getting thousands of dollars of fines on the house floor for not following House rules in terms of wearing a fucking mask. I'm saying that for people who

are uber wealthy, hit them majorly. But the everyday person right where still in America, a four hundred dollars bill can come up that seventy five percent of the population can't actually fucking pay. Imagine if you then were being hit with four hundred dollars bills every single month or week, or every time that you opened your fucking mouth, right,

what would happen? Imagine how quickly we could nip this issue of misinformation in the butt, right, But again, we don't do that here, right, because America is afraid of

the fringe. Right, They're afraid of the twenty five percent, and the twenty five percent fucking know it, right and are using and honing that fear capitalizing on it because they know anti shit going to happen to them, so they continue keeping on, to keep on, and I'm saying, start to hit people where it fucking hurts, right, Like these are the same people who are either spreading misinformation on their own pages and their own platforms, right, and

yet they were collecting the COVID relief money, right Like this is like the fuck shit that we live in. We're on one hand, you have no problem collecting the fun and money right that this administration is putting out, but like you should have had to show proof of vaccination in order to get that fucking money. Do you

know what I'm saying? Like we need to have if we're going to use the carrot and the stick, if we're going to say like, oh, well you get a free beer with the shot, well, then here's the thing. You shouldn't have been able to get access to federal moneies unless you actually were able to show proof a

vaccination for yourself and whoever else is eligible in your household. Right, Like we need to start actually tying real life consequences, because death clearly is not a motivator, right Like the possibility of dying, of not being able to get to a hospital or being turned away because there aren't enough beds clearly is not a deterrent for people still refusing

to get vaccinated. And frankly, I think it was put up on CNN yesterday that there are still sixty one million Americans that refuse to get vaccinated, and there are over eighty million Americans that still haven't received their second shot, like haven't gone back to go get it. So I'm like, folks,

what the fuck, right, where are the penalties? Like we need to stop just looking for the rewards, right, like oh, you get one hundred dollars, so, oh you get an Apple gift card, and start looking into what are the actual penalties for bad behavior? Because I would have loved to see, you know, Bill Maher and his entire show and fucking HBO find right for the missation, the misinformation and lies that the show told and say so we're

going to make an example out of you. And now these shows that continue to promote false information are going to be charged like ten thousand dollars a minute for every fucking minute that that show is on the air. Like this is the kind of punishments that we need to be looking at in order to get to the

point where eighty percent of the country is vaccinated. Because here's the thing, folks, I don't really give a fuck about what the optimism that folks are having around the fact that so many people have been affected with omicron that maybe this is the end of the pandemic. We don't know what the fuck. We don't know. We barely know what the fuck we do know? Okay, we are

learning all of this in real time. So for those reporters and folks out there that keep asking stupid fucking questions like are we there yet right when we don't even know what portion of the trip we're on, the beginning, the middle, or the fucking end, it's a stupid question to ask because it is more likely that if you've been paying attention over the last two years, that there will be another fucking variant. And so the questions that should be asking is how do we prepare for the inevitable.

We'll worry about the end when the end actually proves itself to be here when we go six seven, eight months a year right without following a fucking ticker on cable news that is telling us how many people are dying a day from a virus that twenty five percent of the population still doesn't fucking believe exists. I'm just

I'm just so tired and so frustrated. And you will hear it in my conversation coming up with Jonathan, because it's been two years of this conversation, two years of the same shit, different day, and it's like, I just keep thinking about how this was able to happen right about how there were no mitigation efforts around the misinformation campaign that was run in twenty sixteen on Hillary Clinton, on the election, on anything, and so they're just going to be able to take this model and adapt it

to any issue and anything that they want. They've done it with critical race theory, they are now doing it with don't say gay, They've done it with abortion. Like it's just going to keep going and they're going to keep winning, and we're all going to be sitting around with our fucking hands up, looking up in the air, saying, I wonder how this is happening. The question that I have is like, when is there going to be a

campaign that is working on our side? Right? When are we going to see the tools and the tactics that the radical rabid right has been using a apted for good? Like where the fuck are those people? Where is that platform?

Where is that pipeline? You know, I had a call today and I have to say this that you know, I work in a variety of different spaces, and you know, for for well over a decade, I have worked in movement politics and with think tanks and various media outlets on what it means to secure our democracy and expand it, right, what it means to create a multiracial democracy. Right that is, expands upon the origination of the founding fathers and moves

into a space of actual equity. And I got to tell you that in the conversation we came to the conclusion that the next several decades, not couple of years, not couple of months, but the next several decades in America are going to be like nothing we've ever seen before. They are going to be some of the darkest, most dangerous times. I cannot stress that enough. And many can think that I'm being hyperbolic. Oh where's your proof in that, I'm like, open your fucking eyes. Republicans will no doubt

win midterms. Our government will no doubt grind to a halt. They will have all the machinations in place in order to make sure that the twenty twenty four presidential election is anything but free or fair. Voter suppression, targeting of marginalized communities and those that live at the intersection of many of those communities will continue to happen. You will see political opponents be slapped with lawsuits and be thrown in jail. You will see academics targeted like we are

seeing with scientists and doctors and nurses and medical professionals. Now, things will get much much worse. And if we are not planning for what that looks like recognizing that there isn't a way to stop this train as an individual from going off the tracks, from falling over the cliff, right, there isn't. There is only collective action. But we are not a part of a party that has a backbone that has a warrior not only warrior spirit, but an

actual strategic war plan about how we succeed. So if that is the case, then what are we doing to protect ourselves now in the best possible way that we can? Right?

And I don't think that we're having those conversations out loud enough because we're too afraid of being called crazy, a being called hyperbolic, a being called chicken little, Oh the sky is falling where they would rather right on the television behind me, make little jokes and small talk about politics and oh everybody and both sides and this that and the other thing, much in the same way that the you know, the morning show talk hosts did

in the in the film, don't look up. Leonardo Dicapri said, Everything doesn't need to be so fucking cheery. Everything doesn't need to be, you know, a joke or a giggle or light. What we are dealing with is existential. It's an existential crisis that this country is in. And so if we're not willing to say the scary parts out loud, then we're not really willing to tackle the problem, are we. I wrote a piece that is up on Zora magazine right now, the property under medium that you can check out.

I've tweeted it out and I'll continue to tweet and share it across social media. But it's the theme is what does it mean to be an American now? To be an American right now? When we have no shared values, we have no shared path right. Half of the country doesn't believe in truth factor science, right. The other half of the country believes that these people will come around, you know, at some point, who are we right when we say that we are American? And like, oh, well,

I'm an American? What the fuck does that actually mean right now? In this climate? And so I pose that question to all of you today on today's episode and answer me in the comments section or hit me up on Twitter or on Instagram. What does it mean to be an American to you right now? What does that mean? And you know, has it shifted, has it changed? And

what does that look like? So I'd love to hear from all of you in the comments section or on social media with the hashtag hashtag woke af Coming up next is my conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, who is reporting live from Tennessee, where he is back in the midst of what he says feels absolutely crazy. He's like, there's just COVID everywhere. So that

conversation is coming up next. Folks. You know that if it is Wednesday, we are in the doctor's office with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, to bring you the latest in COVID nineteen. Jonathan, you are now back at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. How are you doing. It's an interesting time here. I would just tell you that there is a lot of COVID. A lot of people don't think it's COVID. They think their pandemic is over, but they're getting quite ill. So it's it's intense time.

We're trying to basically rent a college in the middle of a pandemic, like many schools are, and it's definitely a challenge. I mean, you can't just ignore it. People think you can just ignore it doesn't work that way. You know, We've got some people are doing great, some people are sick, and we're just trying to balance it as best we can. So it's it's challenging, but so far,

so good. You know. I don't know if you've seen the clip that has gone around of Barry Weiss and Bill there Bill Maher on his show, but essentially and Bill Maher also just got pushed back from Whoopie Goldberg about making jokes about COVID and saying, you know, we're just all over it. The vaccines clearly don't work, and

everybody is over it. And this was his refrain that he keeps saying with millions and millions of followers, what do you say to that to these people who are either you know where you are located right now that think that if you ignore something it goes away, or feel like we're in a position when we are knocking on a million people's door of deaths in this country. So when they say I'm over it and it's done, and we're exhausted and let's just throw our hands up.

What's your response to that? Well, confidentially, I'm going to read a text exchange I had with one of my fellow professors. Okay, well, it can't be confidential if it's on the show. No, no, no names. Okay, I'm saying, I'm not going to divulge who they are. Okay. My colleague said, Hi, there, I have a few students at this point who are isolating because of COVID and are

quite symptomatic. What is the strategy? So we talked back and forth and I said, you know, make sure they stay home zoom if they can, because they're actually quite sick. And she said, yeah. All the students had COVID before and on our vaxed and boosted and are now sicker than they were before, and they're freaking out and I'm freaking out. Meanwhile, in the past week, my youngest child has been identified as a close contact and my husband had to be tested because he was a close contact.

The school can't handle it, and staff are starting to call in sick and they don't have enough teachers. So I don't know how you that's just one thing. Like we've got students who are vaccinated, boostered and have had COVID and are now quite sick, and schools that can't run even if they're in Tennessee where, you know, whatever, because they can't get teachers because the teachers are sick.

So Bill Mark and I can ignore that, you know, maybe Bill Maher wants to come teach the class because but it's having some very real I mean, you know, again, we can put our own narrative on it, but when people are really sick and they can't work, that actually impacts things. So you know, it's just it's like, on one hand, you want to say, yeah, we get it right, Like you're not the only person that's over it. You're not the only person that wishes and hopes that we

can go back to quote unquote normal. But it's been two years. We know that that's not happening. We know that the mitigation methods that have been put in place, from the vaccines to the boosters, two wearing masks, two remote you know, remote operations, if in fact you can

do so like is working. So I'm just you know, at this point, Jonathan, where we are two years in right, and you I just recently listened to Faucia as of course everybody has where they are saying that they believe amicron has reached its peak, right at least in the in the cities where it started, like in New York where where I am, In the cities where it started and came out aggressively, it has peaked, and it's on the decline and the numbers are dropping. Many are saying

that is this the end of the pandemic? Do you even think that we're in a position to be having that conversation, being as how this is the third major variant since twenty twenty. We have no idea. That's the terrified thing. We have no idea, Like we can put our narrative on top of this. As much as we have no idea what's happening, we have no idea what

it's going to be like in a year. I certainly think that having a variant that gave a lot of people exposure to the virus that was non that was largely non lethal for people who were vaccinated, that was probably not the worst thing in the world to happen. But we have no idea there could be a new you know, velasco raptor a new Terrontosaurus rexam maximus or something like that, Like we have no idea what's coming, and so it's kind of like again, cavemen are like, man,

we've been dealing with dinosaurs for fifty years. Now enough dinosaurs. We're going to go outside and we're just gonna have a picnic or something like that. It's great to it's great. Good, Yeah, it's great if you say that. But t Rex doesn't care or he just wants to eat people, and so that's the same thing. Like at this point, having a little humility is better. I mean, no disrespect to Bill Maher. If he can stop the virus from mutating, I'm all

for it. You know, what is really troubling to me is one that I know that Bill Maher and Barry Weiss that their comments are pervasive, right, And it's this kind of negligence and dismissiveness about the virus that I think is just as dangerous as the virus itself. But what is troubling me, Jonathan, is that latest polls, I think it was NBC News poll this week, say that of Americans no longer trust the CDC, right, that their feelings with regard to what the CDC is saying around

COVID and what they should be doing. They no longer trust. What do you make of that? And how this administration needs to be tackling the trust and transparency issue That the CDC, even after Trump was gone, has messed up themselves, right, like has put their own foot in their mouth. It's not even about having an administration that was lying on them that they have had significant missteps that have caused this decline in trust. Well, I mean, I don't know

for sure. I would guess that the CDC was great at I mean, first of all, the CDC was undermined. We kind of took it for granted for a long time. But the CDC was not great at the challenge we're facing now, which is an evolving, continually changing threat where scientific consensus is fleeting and the knowledge is really it's almost like a real time kind of deal where there's a new variant, there's a new thing. And so I mean, I think that countries that have mobilized a strong public

health infrastructure, you know politics aside. I read the Israeli newspaper every single morning because I figure, you know, they have a functioning thing I read a lot of the European countries, you know, even New Zealand now, how they're dealing with it. Everybody's dealing with the same problem. But if you have a kind of vibrant, functioning public health infrastructure.

I thought that the head of the CDC we made a really good point the other day, which is our public health infrastructure is not set up to face the challenge we're having right now. So the CDC themselves are admitting it. You know, doctor Lenski basically just said, you know, absolutely, we need to change the way that we get knowledge out We needed the way. We need to change the way we get data. So it's not like there's some mystery.

They recognize that. Also, it's just that, you know, again like if we're dealing with like polio and smallpox diseases that we thought we had overcome but some people want them to come back, then they were great about that, a kind of sitting target with a long peer review process data gathering. But right now the virus changes and we have to change right away, and things like that,

and not everybody knows and so things like that. So the CC is really kind of a relic of an environment that wasn't as politically contested and an environment where

the virus wasn't mutating as quickly as this one. And so, you know, but at this stage in the game, right, we know that this current administration, this is one of the things that they are running on right for midterms, is they're dealing with the vaccine rollout and they're dealing with, you know, the mitigation efforts around COVID, except it hasn't worked right, and there are more people in hospitals now

than we're in twenty twenty. There have been more deaths now than there were in twenty twenty when this came about. So what is the conversation here? What is the what is the thing that they can say right or do two years in? You know, it's humility. Honestly, I don't know if COVID I just drank some coffee, but it's humility. It's humility, right because we're facing I mean, COVID. Humility would probably be the best thing for our country right now.

We don't know all the answers. We were again, we were kicking deltas, but if it was just the delta variant, we would be done by now. The vaccines were completely effective. We could have dined indoors, we could have done whatever we wanted. That that ain't That ain't the world we're

living in right now. And so the virus just changed the rules, and it changed the rules in ways that if you did modeling for the statistical likelihood of a variation that looked like omicron, you wouldn't have been able to do it like it was. The virus is outthinking us, it's outperforming us. And so I guess the issue is look at places that are just like doing, like Florida or the Bill Marshall, and you'll see and you'll see that it's not like they're coming out of it any

better in a certain kind of way. And so I think some kind of humility, like, man, we don't have all the answers right now, we're doing our best. Let's all join together, that kind of thing. Um. You know, I think that. I think that, Um. I think that's a I think that that's going to be the issue, because again, this thing's going to keep changing in ways we can't anticipate. You know, I just don't think that

there is going to be humility. I don't think that, Like I don't, we don't even have empathy, you know, like I just and all of these things are needed in order to be able to muster through something together as a collective, as a community, right, But we're not. We're so divided and with forty percent of people not

even now trusting the CDC. If there is a new variant, which I'm pretty sure there will be, I don't know why there wouldn't be, right, Like, I don't even understand why journalists are asking questions two doctors and medical professionals about, you know, is this it? Are we done? As if they're going to be able to articulate, yes, absolutely, we're finished. You all, can you know, burn your masks and like go back to doing what you were doing in twenty

nineteen and forget about the last couple of years. One of the things that again is not being spoken about a lot, and I like to bring this up when I have you on is the emotional aspect of COVID

and the fact that suicides are on the rise. How do you think that we should be having those conversations about the other ramifications around COVID, which are one the fact that we don't have conversations about long COVID and I just saw a tweet from somebody who said, I've been working out every day of my life since high school and now I can't walk up the stairs. And this is uh weeks past when I when I initially

got COVID, and I'm really getting concerned. And then you have other people that are in emotional and mental distress with suicides being on the rise. So how do we have the conversations about the other ramifications of COVID that aren't really you know, um attached to the attached to the virus itself. Well, let me ask, what would those conversations do. I mean, I think we need to have

those conversations. I'm just saying that at the core of it is that we is that we're going outside every day is a risk the way it's never been before. So we're living in a really risky world right now,

and there's so much change, there's so much despair. And then I mean, I'm an optimistic person, I'm like fucking bummed out about all the political dysfunction, the rise of Like you know, I'm I worry every night that um that the Republicans are going to win the midterms and then they're going to like decertify the Arizona election results, and our whole system is going to collapse, like like political instability, you know, Putin reading the Putin of course, dude,

what we really need in the middle of this is like war and made another country. That's exactly what everybody wants. Um. So it's just like it's just like there's the thing itself, which sucks. Um. And then uh, and the thing sucks right long, COVID sucks, but also just COVID itself sucks. How it tribalizes, how it everything it's it's doing, and so and then and then just it's just a you know, it's like a party for a holes in terms of just who gets to you know, who rises to the

top at a moment like this. Um, it's it's not our best and our brightest, really honestly, and so um that's the understatement. Yeah. So it just feels like it just feels like back slighting and who and so, I don't know, there's so much despair now. People want it, right, Biden won because people wanted this pandemic to be over. They wanted some competency and stuff like that. But until we get a hold of the pandemic, Like I don't know, it just seems like it's it's open, it's I don't know.

There's always going to be some idiot in the middle of the street saying, like, you can stand in traffic. The car's not going to hit you. The government shouldn't tell you we can't stand in traffic. You know, that's kind of and anybody dumb enough to stane in traffic is going to get the megaphone right now because nobody

else wants to stand in traffic. Yeah, it's really depressing like these Yeah, I mean, you're going to you're full of good metaphord to day, but it's also just like, you know, we've been talking about guns, we've been talking about COVID, we've been talking about mental health, and I feel like what is most frustrating is that all of these dots are not connected in a way that people

can see here or understand them. And I know that there's always going to be a order of the population that are going to bury their heads in the sand like ostages and just you know, you know, they're they're the people and don't look up. They're the people that are going to stare at the ground even though the comment is literally hovering over their heads like they're going to refuse any type of information. But I'm like, what

about everybody else. Everybody else can't get exhausted at the same time and just decide to throw up their hands. And I'm wondering, though, if that's where we're headed, where we're just going to following this and when we get to the spring, you know, if there is another variant that pops up over the summer, I don't think that we have the mental capacity anymore to deal And and that's like, that's what I'm seeing, That's what I'm hearing, and I that worries me. Yeah, no, I mean I

don't know what to tell you. I'm worry Yeah. I mean, it feels like we're living in wartime. Honestly, that's what I feel like. We're this is a we're living in I mean, we're living in wartime and so sorry about that and so um and so I don't know, like it's weird to think about like a year ago where everything felt so horrible or whatever, and then now things are worse, right, So maybe now is better than we're

going to have two years from now. So maybe now is as good as it's going to get, you know, like, yeah, I don't know, you know, or I mean, that's honestly really terrifying to think about, right because I thought we thought, honestly at the beginning, that the worst of it was going to be, Oh my god, what if there's no vaccine that can be created? What if we're two years in and there's no vaccine. Well, we got a vaccine, and we thought that that was going to be the

silver bullet, and it's not. And so I'm like if and I'm reading people's comments, like on social media, and I'm just what the fuck is wrong with you? Like you're talking about ventilators killing people? And I'm just like are you, Like are you that dumb? But then I go back to all of the things that the Republican Party is doing two schools right and in our classrooms, like trying to literally end critical thought, and I'm just like, no, wonder why we're here, Like, no wonder why we're here.

We don't care about education, we don't lift up things, we don't talk about science in any real way, like, and so there's just this one big disconnect so that all you need is one worm, like a Joe Rogan to have the most popular podcast in the fucking world be on the wrong side of damn near everything, and then we're just screwed. I just I guess it just shows me how everything in America seems to have been built on a deck of cards by a deck of cards. And it's windy every day now, and every day it

just collapses. I mean. Part of the issue is also that you can you can use that playbook on any issue. That's kind of the other frustrating thing. Like I was thinking, like, imagine if you ran across the highway naked, how many people would get hit by a car? Forty percent? Maybe, So why does the government tell us we can't run across the highway naked? Right? If you smoke four packs of cigarettes today, your chance of getting lung cancer is

thirty percent? So why is it bad? Why shouldn't everybody be able to smoke four packs of cigarettes today? Why do we limit smoking? Like you could the number of things you could use the logic they're using against vaccines and COVID and stuff, you could pretty much apply that to any law or any anything. With modern medicine. It's not like any single thing is one hundred percent, and many things are evolving, and many things we learned fifty years later that we you know, we went down the

wrong path and we went on the right path. And so in a way, there's there are rules about a lot of things. You know, why should there be a street light a stoplight when you drive down the road. Why shouldn't the guy with the biggest car just to ride down the middle of the road. When that kind of like sense of like trust in at least a kind of common foundation of knowledge gets eroded, you know, that's a that's a pretty place, bad place to be

as a society. As you were saying, the fault lines were here and we hadn't dealt with them for a very long time. But this is the kind of exposing and obviously enhancing and so the Rogan kind of logic, I mean, pick anything right. My employer, believe it or not, requires that I wear pants to come to work. What right do they have? I mean, likes there's like there's no end to that logic. You can protest anything, and

it leads to all these absurd things. But I mean it's also important to think about how deep that is. It's super deep, Like we have people here at Vanderbilt in the ICU who are dying who don't believe COVID is real, and they're dying of COVID. Like it's not like there's some aha moment, you know, ideology like this is quite profound, and so I guess, I guess I haven't taken drugs since high school? Can you restart taking drugs?

I'm not supped to do exactly. Yeah, I like, you know, it's just like that comment of the amount of people, nurses, doctors yourself who are saying, like people's last breath, their last words are this isn't real and that's how they're dying. And I'm just like, what do you think that you're dying from? Like, I'm just so confused by it, and I'm also confused about how they find their way to the fucking hospital. But I mean the issue is also like so many people, I don't know, it's just um,

it's just um, I don't know. I mean, again, the extreme cases of the ones you hear about on social media, but really it's the everyday version of this kind of disbelief that's I mean, there's always going to be a version. I mean, so media is built for these extremes, but it's kind of the everyday level of disbelief that we're living with now. Also that's almost more terrified. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. But but let me again just tell people,

I love puppies. I love puppies. There you know, there's probably an island somewhere that is not affected by any of this crap. Um, No, there isn't. Yeah, isn't there the Atlantis Island. It's built by like somehamas. Yeah, that's something like that. You can go on a water slide or something like that. Like, I don't know. There's gotta

be There's gotta be somewhere. But it's just funny because like if you read wartime journals like Hemingway's journal from World War One, people are always imagining, like somewhere else in the world that's not affected by shelling or bombardiment or trenches. You know, that's where we are now. We're like imagining like, oh, there must be somewhere that's not infected by like people trying to overturn the election and

fiato that kind of thing. So I don't know, folks, but all I have to say is, you know, if you find that place. You let us know here so that Jonathan and I can come and visit. It's got to be that behind. I mean, I don't know. It looks like a fun there's a water slide. It still has COVID. Sorry. As always, Jonathan, we appreciate you your insight and sticking with us as we continue to trudge our way through year two of a pandemic. Just you know,

shock of power. Everybody hanging there as always, dear friends. Power to the people and to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.