Not-So Roaring 20s

a fucking hold of it. I don't know about you, but I have talked to so many people over the last couple of weeks, so many people, and every single time that I pick up the phone to ring a friend, to talk to a colleague, someone has contracted COVID so much so that the United States is seeing about six hundred thousand new cases a fucking day. But I want to tell you this. On Day eleven of twenty twenty two, which is this yesterday, I found myself, you know, on

the twitters, right like doing what people do. And I go on Twitter and I see this from an er doctor named Sam Gale, right, gh A l I And he says, I cannot believe this is the tweet that this man puts out. I cannot believe that I have to say this, but do not consume your own urine in an attempt to treat COVID nineteen. Do not consume your own fucking urine as a way to combat COVID nineteen.

We are living in the stupidest fucking times ever. And every day I look at the news and I'm just like, wow, it's like the fuckery just took off in the twenties, right, Like we're living in the twenties. Remember the nineteen twenties were considered the Roaring twenties. It was you know, freedom and women accessing their like, their their femininity and their power. And you know, there was like gold rushes and there was, you know, all of this vibrance that was happening in

you know, the nineteen twenties. In the twenty twenties, however, it is like the gold rush is now just bullshit, right, It's just a flow of crap coming at us every which way. Anti vaxers. Just wrap your mind around this for a moment. That anti vaxers will take worse medication. They will ingest bleach, They will purchase whatever the Joe Rogans, the Tucker Carlsons, whatever these people tell them to purchase in order to come back COVID nineteen. They will do

a range of things. They will now drink their own fucking urine right as a way to remedy COVID. They will do everything except take the vaccine approved by humans for humans to take for free, So they will pay for bullshit. Right. They will consume disgusting bodily fluids, right, but they won't go to their local fucking pharmacy sit down for two point three seconds or a shot in

the arm that is free. They will even go so far as to spend hundreds of dollars on fake vaccination cards rather than to take a vaccine that is free. How do you combat that? Right? Like, this is no longer a oh well, we just don't trust, you know, the vaccine, because now, folks, the vaccines have been out for months, and the number of people that have died from taking the vaccine probably around about a goose egg, right,

like a zero. The people that have had extreme side effects right from the vaccine probably hunder you know, hint, hovering around zero, right percentage or zero point blah blah blah. It's not significantly, right, significant, right, it's not significant in any way. The amount of people, however, that have died from COVID over eight hundred and forty thousand. The number of people who are experiencing long COVID, namely fatigue, irregular heartbeat,

brain fog, major migraines that are uncontrollable. These are things that are lingering from the first, second, and now third rounds of COVID. You know, I was talking to my neighbor the other day and she was like, Danielle, you still didn't get COVID, And I was just like, no, And I feel like a pinball in a pinball machine, just fucking you know, moving through the obstacles, trying my best not to get something that is probably, at this point,

fucking inevitable. If you have six hundred thousand people a day that are contracting a'micron, what is the likelihood that I'm going to remain positive? That is shrinking by the day. Right, But just like another friend of mine who also has remained negative, She's just like, look, I'm vaccinated boosted. I still don't want it, right, Like, I still am going to continue to do everything within my power to ensure that I don't get it. If I get it, I

get it. But I'm not out here actively like hey, i'm acron, give me a call, Hey you want to hang out? No? Right, But you have these people, these anti vaxers twenty five percent of the population. I'm watching, folks, as the map of the United States is boot blood red right now, like, oh, where where is spiking? Where isn't spiking? It would be easier to color that portion

in right, everywhere in this country is spiking. We have Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia right, the DMV right now, the governor right which is currently going to change hands from Democrat Northam to a Republican Trump light Yunken this coming weekend. And Northam just issued a limited thirty day state of emergency for the state of Virginia because of their hospitalization rates and to open up more funding to be able to support hospitals that are being crippled not only right

by the influx. Because here's the funny thing. The number of hospitalizations right now in twenty twenty two in Virginia has surpassed the number of hospitalizations at the peak in twenty twenty. So while everybody wants to continue to say that the symptoms associated with amicron are quote unquote mild, they are mild for people that are vaccinated and boosted, right,

But people's idea of what mild is fucking varies. But what we know to be true is that when these health care workers right and hospitals are saying to their states we need help, that's not actually signaling to me that what is happening right now can just be shrugged off and brushed off and say, ah, well, we'll reach the surgeons peak and then it will decline. Yes, obviously

what goes up eventually does come down. But in this situation, the damage that is created on the up right and the damage that will be created on the decline is actually what we need to be focusing on. Because as I'm looking at this bloody red map of America where every fucking state is spiking or surging, right, because these are the only two alternatives right now. The vaccine number, however, hasn't fucking budged. It's still at sixty two point five percent.

How is that possible? How is it that every other person you may be talking to, texting with has COVID and yet only sixty two point five percent of Americans are vaccinated? And of course, right I continue to say

that when children are affected, people will do an about face. Well, that's not true because what we've learned, right, and what we've always known is Republicans don't give a fuck about kids, right, Stick those kids inside of a uterus, you know, maybe they'll pay attention to that, but otherwise they could give a fuck. Well, pediatric hospitalizations are up for children under the age of twelve, because when you look at the vaccination rates for children right, which was approved recently, it's

fucking paltry. But yet we're sending those same kids to school each and every day in some states that have mask mandates, some that don't, some townships that have mask mandates, others that don't, and we're watching the numbers tick tick tick all the way up. You know. I continue to say that it is going to be a incredibly long period of time until COVID is endemic. We are going to see a lot more variance, right, a lot more

mutations before this thing ever goes away. I heard a doctor today say, well, you know, this will eventually turn into the Spanish flu. The Spanish flu right now is probably, you know, floating around like the common cold. The Spanish flu was over a hundred years ago. I won't be alive, right, none of us fucking will when this shit is actually endemic. So I'm like, that's the question that I have, right, Like,

what's the timeline for this ship to be endemic? How many people need to be affected infected right by the virus?

And if you are endemic to omicron, does that like if armicron and the fast nature that it spreads turns COVID into being quote unquote endemic, is it just the Armicron variants that has become endemic, But that doesn't stop the virus from continuing to mutate into other variants that aren't Folks, It's like, it's so wild some days when you think about the situation that we are living in

right now. I went to the post office for the first time, and god knows how long I didn't even know where the post office was in my neighborhood, right because you do so many things online that you know, I forget certain things, and I only moved to this area a couple like two years ago, a year and a half ago, so I wasn't quite sure I know

where the fedexes are in the UPSs are anyway. So going to the post office, the workers are all wearing you know, K ninety five masks and gloves right as they're sorting through they have to touch papers, have to do this. They have dividers up, right, This man walks in packages mask under his chin, because that's where the fuck it goes, Right, You have a mask on walking around outside and you have it under your chin, but you walk into a building and it doesn't occur to

you to put it up. The worker at the USPS was like yelling, put your mask on. It is not a chin guard. She said it twice before the gentleman realized that he was talking to him, that she was talking to him because he's just so used to right nonsense that like nobody's going to say anything. And here's the reality, folks, right, is this that it shouldn't be

the burden on workers. Right, And this is this is going to get into my whole rant on capitalism again, because I'm just so overwhelmed with fuckery, right, Like I

just feel like we are suffocating in it. So you have a pandemic that is ravaging through the workforce, and the response to that is not to create safer conditions so that people feel like they can show up, right, it's about just speeding through this whole entire new you know, quarantine time that the CDC decides to release, right, it's that it's no, we're not going to ensure smart thinking in this new normal of of of the world that

we are living in. We're not going to say to ourselves, okay, hmm, it's been too years. The surges come in the winter, then things level off by the spring. So these are the mechanisms that we're going to put in place because we are starting to realize that normal and going back to normal doesn't actually exist. So we're going to work with the data and information that we have in front of us based on the last two years, and we're

going to rock from there. That's not what we are doing, right Because I said this, I said it on social media. I said, so here's the thing. You know that our biggest to gathering holiday right Thanksgiving, Hanka and Christmas? Right, big family gathering times New Year's Eve. So you know, every year, right until COVID vanishes from the earth, that between November and fucking March, right, maybe February, but most likely March, you're going to be witnessing an increase of

the positivity rate. So why wouldn't it occur to industry, to politicians to offer ways in which here's the thing.

You work from home. If your job allows you to work from home, we're not going to require you to go in that We're going to a lot for there to be more money right into places like the USPS, which we know was gutted under the Trump administration, to be able to employ somebody that stands at the door right as a guard to ensure that everyone that is coming in and I say two people because that person needs to have backup. Right, that's the reality of the world.

World that we're living in, the world is dangerous. People are assholes, right, And no hostess, no USPS worker, no delivery person, no anyone should have to deal with the trauma that patrons want to put out on other people, right, Like, that shouldn't be the case. So what investments are you making to ensure that the staff that is showing up

for work are fucking safe? None? What are you doing from the months of November till March when you have large swaths of the twelve to eighteen year old population that isn't fucking vaccinated but they are school age, Maybe during the November until March, right, that you should institute remote learning and that maybe may just maybe we should get off of the agriculture fucking calendar that our schools have been operating under since the beginning of public schooling

and move into reality, which is actually year round school where instead of much in the same way that many that follow education and follow the development childhood development right would say, there's no actual reason for kids to have off for two months over the summer, there really isn't.

And that instead, which creates a lot of lesson loss, a lot of memory loss during that time, particularly for low income children, right, because they don't have the benefits of having all the latest tablets and tools and this, that and the other. Thing. We know right by virtue of COVID that many kids didn't even have access to broadband, right,

so remote learning was damn near impossible. But see they knew this ship before, right, But still there was no investment that was going to be made because we only react as a country. We are not proactive, right, we only react to shit. Right. But here's an idea. Maybe go into year round schooling where you just break up those two months into breaks throughout the year that at every month or every quarter you do, you have two

weeks off. Right, Maybe that two week is a block, or maybe it's a week at the beginning and a week at the end, but that you continue, you have a continuity of learning. And so in this new normal where we know that the winter months are going to be dangerous months for this country, for the world right that experiences winter, that COVID will always be at an all time high, why don't we start to create a

new normal. This is what I don't understand, this is what drives me fucking crazy, is that it's like we never learn anything. We don't retain any of the information that we've acquired since twenty twenty and apply it to now and into the future. We just keep wanting to go back to normal and lose everything that this virus has shown us. You know, I tell people, on a personal level, think about your life pre COVID and think

about it now. For those people who did have the privilege and the opportunity to slow down, they will tell you that their lives are forever changed. I am one of those people. I think a lot more about my health and wellness. I think a lot more about rest and recharging than I ever did pre COVID days. I think a lot more about relationships. I think a lot more about how I spend my money and where I

spend my money. Right, I'm applying what I have been able to learn over the last two years because I know that frankly, I don't want to go back to the way that I was thinking and doing and acting pre COVID. I want those lessons that I have learned about slowing down, about meditation, about taking care and loving my body, about shrinking my orbit so that only the people that are around me are people that I trust, that love me, and I love them, and that is

my community and my village. Right, these are the things that I have learned that will forever be a part of my character, my life, my day to day. But why is it that when we're looking at the way in which our worlds have been like tremendously uprooted and are still just hanging up in the air above us, how is it that we don't use that information to build and think better. I don't get it, I really don't. It's like we're all still fumbling around in the dark.

But I'm like, there is some information that is out here that is apparent. Right. It's mind blowing, it truly is. And I think that you know, we will talk to our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel this week, who will you know, give us the latest and go over you know, more about these new variants and more about what we're hearing, what we are learning. But the reality is that you know, as my mother has said, you don't need the CDC

to tell you to wash your hands. You don't need the CDC to tell you that wearing a mask is going to prevent COVID at this at this point, at this stage of where we are in this pandemic that is never going anywhere, and so you have to do what is going to be right for you, for your families, for your loved ones in order to stay safe. Take the information that you have gathered anecdotally over the last two years and apply it. I just don't understand why

our leaders won't do the same thing, shifting gears. I want to talk about Kevin McCarthy, that spineless piece of shit who is the minority leader in the House of Representatives and as a Trump lackey, Trump lap dog, just a peon, an accolade, a hanger on, or he's disgusting, right,

he's an embarrassment. But anyway, he gives an interview to Bright Bart where he has declared that when Republicans take back the House and take back the House with a historic margin, that he is going to ban certain leaders in the Democratic Party from being able to hold committee seats. And this is his response to Democrats and Democrats alone stripping dangerous terrorists that are in the Republican House leadership

from having committee seats. Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert, among others that have lost right or that should lose their seats for the bile shit that they have said. Right, and it is amazing to me. It's like Republicans just operate on a tit for fucking tat and context doesn't fucking matter. Right, We're gonna impeach Joe Biden for what exactly?

Trying to keep the American people safe? What are you going to search around for hunter Biden's laptop again, so we can come up with a whole other fucking goose egg, Like, what is it that you're going to look for? Oh, Joe Biden, he adopted a dog, but it wasn't the right dog, so he should be impeached. Like, just think about the circus, the circuits that we left with the election of Joe Biden and what is going to happen in twenty twenty three, because you know, here's the reality.

We're gonna lose midterms, right like, unless something extraordinary happens in the next ten months, right before the November elections, we will lose. And the reason why is that the party that is in power in the White House, in the executive always right, traditionally loses in the midterms. But here's the thing. If we continue to talk about and treat these mid terms as if they are fucking normal and that we are not working against the fucking Antichrist here,

then yeah, we are going to lose. But by Kevin McCarthy saying the fucking quiet part out loud, which is that we're just looking for retribution, right like, we're just looking to cause harm. We're not getting into office and you can rely on us to do anything right for the American people. Remember, these are people that were in power right and didn't offer not a fucking thing during their last year in office, not nothing right, nothing to

help the American people. So tell me, right, other than low voter turnout because everyone is just exhausted and outdone by the current state of the world, right, and not seeing the advantage of what it means to vote for the quote unquote good guy or dare I say the less bad one, how it's affecting their day to day lives. Because here's the thing, that child tax credit, the stimulus money that you got, that shit is going to be

long gone from people's memories. Right. What they will remember now is that COVID is still around, right, that they have lost more friends and family, that the country is more divided than ever, and because we have a media that both sides the fuck out of everything, they'll blame Democrats just the same way that they blame Republicans, not understanding because the Democrats do a shit job at messaging just how dangerous at times are that we are living in.

So now you have Joe Biden finally recognizing, almost a year later after his administration takes office, that maybe we should do something about voting rights, because you know, democracy, Maybe we should actually figure out what it is that we are going to do to make sure that we don't have a full blown authoritarian fascist takeover the way that we've seen transpire around the globe in places like Turkey and Hungry and Russia, right, that maybe we would

do something about it, and that you would find a way to get those two pieces of fucking shit Joe Mansion and Kursen Cinema on board with, you know, saving the country. I gotta tell you that I sat on Twitter yesterday for like a good amount of time, and you know, like I tell you all, I try and take my own advice. I try only to dip in, you know, kind of survey the situation, read some news, you know, take some notes, you know, and then pull back.

And I do this because it's not safe, right, It is emotionally and mentally unsafe to be on social media for in my humble opinion, more than like ninety minutes. Right, It's like staring at the sun. You shouldn't do it, not even for a short period of time. But when I'm on there, writer author love the ij says, this was yesterday. It is day ten of twenty twenty two, and this is like the longest year ever. And this

is what I'm coming to just get. And I'm having conversations that I hope that you all too, are two with the people that you care about about their emotional and mental capacities at this time. And I talked about this yesterday and I'm going to continue to talk about it because I don't want us to just power through right We're not. We won't make it if we just put our heads down and just get the thing done, because we don't know when the end is. We don't

know where it is. We don't even know at what portion of this pandemic we are in, right, Are we in the middle? Is at the beginning? Still? Right? Like? Are we close to the end? We have no fucking idea. And that's how we are losing days and weeks and hours and minutes of our lives racked with anxiety and stress. I mean, the amount of things that have happened already only ten days, eleven days into this new year is astronomical.

And so when you think about that and the capacity that people have to hold, that we all have to hold, you have to let some things go. So what do you think folks are going to let go by the time that we show up in November of twenty twenty two? What do you even think this country is going to

look like? Where in the pandemic will we be? Will we be riding high off of a really good summer, right, or will we be stopped dead in our tracks with a lethal fucking variant and then that just sends everything tanking once again. It is just, you know, it's hard to figure out how to feel, let alone, where to go and what to do. And we have to be honest about that. We have to be honest about these feelings. We have to be honest about the exhaustion. We're not

producing in the same ways that we were producing. But industry is beating us right all into submission. They don't care if you're sick five days. Well, I'll tell you that a friend of mine, her kids tested again after five days. Guess what, They were still fucking positive, right, So they weren't going back to school. And you know, so it's just like we don't allow our bodies to

even heal, right, because got to work. So what do you think the effect is on our minds with what we are dealing with and what we are taking in. I think that midterms are going to be devastating, and I don't even think that people understand how fucking devastating things are about to get. And this is why I say, if you are not grounding yourself in some type of

self care, some type of wellness practices. If you are not figuring out what is going to keep you moving, keep you breathe, keep you in a place of positivity, of joy, being able to dip into frustration, rage and then pull yourself back out. If you are not figuring out how to maneuver, you will end up spiraling out of control. The things that we don't talk about that the news isn't covering on a regular basis, the rate

of suicides right. Opioid use is on the rise. People are just looking for any fucking way to numb themselves, and we're not paying attention to it. We're talking about the long term, long haul COVID in terms of its physical effects, but what about the mental and emotional ones. These are things that we are not addressing. What is this doing to our kids, the ones that are young that will never remember anything before, right, and the ones that do remember before, but each and every day that

feels like a distant memory. You know, in generations, you know, as generations pop up, you have you know, the silent generation, the baby boomers, you had Gen X, which everybody ignores. You have you know, the millennials, now the millennials and

all of these things. But you know, while we talk about the population size and we will often talk about those different pivotal moments that bind generation, this is going to be a major moment that not only shifts the way we work, how we work, how we engage, what community looks like, what that means, right, It's going to shift how we see and view the world as a place that is unsafe and unstable. And so what are

the ramifications of that. What are future politicians if in fact, we keep some sembilance of government right living through this, how is that going to shift how they think about capitalism, about government, about democracy. It's wild, you know, it is just every day is wilder than the next. And it's frustrating. It's frustrating to feel like you're the only sane one.

And that's the beauty of woka f Nation is that you're not alone in your sanity, like there are other people who think like you, who are feeling the same way that you are. And it's hard, right, It's it's hard to send people emails and say, oh, I hope this finds you well, I just you know what I say nowadays, send an email to somebody and I said, I hope that this email finds you in the best

spirits you can possibly be in at this time. It is long and drawn out, but it's the fucking truth, right, because part of my understanding of this moment is to just be honest. I just want to be as authentic as possible. We're dealing with so much fraud, so many lies, that I want my word to be that of one

that is matched with integrity. I wonder if more of us were to think that way about being impeccable with our word, about our word mattering, about being as authentic with ourselves and with others as we can possibly be, maybe that shift right would help us better navigate these very unstable and uncertain times. January sixth is now the remembrance of that is in our rear view mirror, but the reality of what we continue to face as a

nation is still staring us directly in the face. Ri Melbourne and MSNBC had an interesting opening around his January sixth segment where he talked about the inequality that we are witnessing, the gross inequality, and how this Justice Department and Merrick Garland have the ability and the sovereign authority to deal with the fact that these sentences either or not happening for these insurrectionists because now we're referring to them as maga tourists, or that they are so light

it means absolutely nothing. And that sure you want to say, oh, yeah, well, we're just you know, doing these low level things so that we can get to the big fish. But again I state, if you do not send a stark and clear a message to white Americans that they are not able to defecate in the halls of democracy and trespass at will because they feel like this country fucking owes them something, then what are you doing exactly except setting up the mechanisms of another coup. I don't understand that.

I really don't. You know. One bright spot so far of today is this that was reported so right now. There are multiple cases that are in the hands of US District Judge Amid Metta, and he was questioning both Trump lawyers and the lawyers for the House Democrats there.

So this is multiple cases based around January six that are charging the former twice impeached disgrace president of the United States with conspiracy with far right wing groups, conspiracy to overthrow the government and Trump lawyers, of course, of course, just want the cases thrown out. Right. They have no merit because they argue that the president was acting in his official duty as the President of the United States,

questioning Congress in the same way that he would question bills. Right, except the questioning of bills didn't end up with one hundred and fifty officers injured and six people dead. Right, So let us not claim And if Donald Trump was in fact operating in his quote unquote official duties, if that is what the judge says, then Donald Trump, as president of the United States, was threatening a coup and

leading one. Right from the ellipses, we know that Trump does not have the very best people around him, nor can he afford the very best lawyers because the ones with actual degrees from real universities don't want to fuck with him. So I want to say this to you because I thought that this was really interesting. So meta, judge,

Meta the US district judge. He says to the Trump attorneys, and this is not verbatim, so you know, but it's my It's basically, he says, what do I do about the fact that the president didn't denounce the conduct he goes, what do I do with the fact that for nearly two hours, two plus hours, one hundred and eighty seven minutes, that the President of the United States, by various accounts, was sitting and watching TV watching the insurrection unfold with glee.

I added the glee part with glee and said and did nothing. And Meta goes further to say, and then when he finally did issue a tweet, it makes more problems. It exacerbates the problems that were already happening and unfolding at the Capitol building. It doesn't make it lesson he goes, what am I supposed to do with that? And to the attorneys for the House Democrats and the Capitol Police and others, he says, you know, to what extent are we to police a president's speech? Right? Where do we

draw the line? Well, to me, the line would easily be drawn at you know the fourteenth Amendment, which basically says that you cannot threaten to overthrow the fucking government, right, that that is an act of treason punishable to the fullest extent of the laws. So where do you draw the line on the president's speech? When the president is himself or herself if ever, we get to her inciting violence. Moe Brooks right, who's being sued by Congressman Eric Swalwell.

He's being sued and now is under even more investigation for his speech where he told the rioters in January sixth to go fight, fight, fight, fight for your country. Go take your country back, folks. I mean, it's like people are literally organizing, had organized in plain goddamn sight. They know what they said. You can pull up the fucking transcripts of what they said. So how is it that Trump's attorneys come in and they say, oh, well,

the whole thing should be dismissed because he's president. You see. Because Donald Trump presumed and until now right and we will wait to continue to just wait and see, presumed that the office of the presidency was like Willy Wonka's Golden ticket. You can get to do whatever you want, right, you got the keys to the kingdom. And he took that as meaning that he was, in fact a king, a dictator. I can say and do whatever I want

and it's protected. I can use whatever agency and department that I want to investigate people that I don't like, to lock them up and throw them in jail. Kevin McCarthy is saying the same thing right now. I don't like you. Not that you did anything illegal, not that you threatened to kill a member of Congress, not that you're lying and spreading false information about the election, about

our government, or about a pandemic. No, it's just that I don't like you and I don't want you to have a voice, So I'm going to take it from you. That's how these people are operating. So what do you do with that? Right? Like, what do you do with

the information that is in front of you. So Judge Metta hasn't signaled one way or another yet how he is going to rule, But based on his questions to the Trump attorneys, I would say that we're going to move to fucking trial because there is no if we are living in a country of laws, which I do not think that we are, at least the laws that apply to everybody, which they never have. But it's so blatant. Now, then how do you not hold the president of the

United States accountable? Because essentially what Donald Trump did is just tell every piece of crap human being that if you want the best criminal in the world, if you want the protection, just run for president, because then you get to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and everybody and everything will cover up for you, because you know the stakes would be just too high to go after a sitting president. My god, my god, what have

we come to? That is it for me today? Folks on woke a f as always Power to the people and to all the people. Power. Get woke and stay woke as fuck.