Skip to main content

COVID ISN'T A GAME

 



The Russians invented it, we're playing it.

Do you remember Christopher Walken in Deer Hunter, the epic film about the absurdity of the Viet Nam War? That classic scene when Walken was forced to play Russian roulette for the entertainment of his captors had me flinching in my seat as he pulled the trigger.

When your life depends on chance, in Walken's case, 6 cylinders in a pistol chamber, one loaded, five empty. The chamber is spun around like a casino wheel, you aim the pistol at your temple and pull the trigger. 

You're playing the ultimate game of chance, if you win you live, if you lose you die. The odds are 6 to 1, not bad in Vegas, but are you willing to bet your life or your good health on it? Remember, in a game of chance, the odds favor the house.

Why am I going on like this? It's simple, I have family and friends who are rationalizing their protection against COVID, they're thinking that with such a small fraction of the community getting sick that I'm not likely to get infected any more than the common flu. This reasoning is fallacious, the common flu is not likely to kill you but COVID is like that bullet in a 6 round cylinder, and the odds are stacked against you.

Why play that game when the alternative is so simple; Masks-Distancing-Hygiene. The real danger is crowding, the numbers in support of avoiding crowds, aka super-spreader events, are staggering! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CHAOS REVISITED

  " a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order." Isn't four years of this enough, seriously? The constant media drumbeat, TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP, dominating the headlines, the news shows, and our conversation. This did not happen by accident, this was a calculated strategy by a certified narcissist. "Narcissism:  a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others." The Trump supporters say that "this is just Trump being Trump" that, my friends, is precisely the problem. Now that he's lost the election and his sycophants in Congress have replaced their horns with silence, if not acceptance, wouldn't you think the man would suck it up, acknowledge the inevitable, exhibit a modicum of humility and devise an exit strategy that would highlight his accomplishments not feed his  addi...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT MUST BE SUNDAY

" Life is like a river, if you cannot let go of the past, it will drag you down the stream.” ―Amit Ray I've Been Thinking... A few months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about life when he said to me: “Maria, if you want something new, you are going to have to first get rid of the old. It’s the only way to make room.” Damn, I thought. Ain’t that the truth? One of my big New Year’s resolutions for 2020 was to clear out the old in every area of my life. I had made a promise to myself that this would be the year I would take a hard look at how I was living my life: my beliefs, my attachments, and all my stuff. I started sorting through things from my office, things from my time as First Lady of California, things from my parents, things from my kids (do yourself a favor and do not save all of your kids’ school things like I did), and so many other things that had found their way into storage when life got the best of me. In fact, I was already in the thick of shredding, di...
Post a Comment
Read more

A TALE OF TWO CITIES~A REIGN OF TERROR

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." Charles Dickens Paris in the 18th Century was in turmoil, it was the reign of terror, the French revolution was raging the atmosphere was chaotic. Washington, DC in the 21st Century is in turmoil, the pandemic is raging and the atmosphere is chaotic. Is this an analogy?  Maybe, but we need to fill in a few gaps.  Paris in 1789 was suffering from unemployment, hunger, and p...
Post a Comment
Read more