Just Play Through the Pain!
Back in the day when I played little league baseball, I remember some over-zealous coaches who would rather have a winning team than teach us kids all about the game we loved. One day, a ball bounced off an infield rock and hit our young shortstop in the mouth. He fell to the ground, some blood dripping from his lower lip. The coach asked the youngster if he was okay. After an affirmative answer, he pulled the boy to his feet and slapped his butt with, “Joey, you’re fine. Just go play through the pain.” In that moment, I learned that some believed machismo was the very essence of “being a man.”
One of the greatest American motivators is money. Many have lost their lives because a determined boss would have rather made his numbers than make sure a worker didn’t get harmed by rushing safety processes and cutting corners. Sadly, there is no rule book or policy history we can turn to for help with a global pandemic. Rather, it’s a practice of trials and observation — when A happens, employ plan B and measure C, the result. It takes a smart government to employ such discipline in times like these, and political affiliations are now ruling the amount of common sense applied to the science.
I live in Florida, and this is my situation. On the 29th of July, the state reported 17,589 new Covid-19 cases and we had a positive infection rate of 18.44%. It was the eighth consecutive day the state reported more than 12,000 new infections. The last time Florida had such high numbers was on January 7, 2021, when the state recorded 19,816 new cases, its highest-ever, single-day number of Covid incidents. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida now accounts for about 20 percent of reported Covid cases across the United States. Despite this terrible spread of the Delta variant and rising death toll, Governor Ron DeSantis has pulled a page from the screenplay Jaws to make sure that ”Shark Delta” doesn’t disrupt the state’s tourist trade.
Florida ranks 48th and 49th of all the states in inoculations at assisted living facilities. According to the Associated Press, “As coronavirus cases continue to soar, two Florida mayors are announcing mask and vaccine mandates and defying the governor who is firmly opposed to any pandemic restrictions.” DeSantis has threatened to bring the state’s legislators back to Tallahassee to pass a law banning mask mandates. The governor here, and those in many other Republican states, would rather control the policies of local communities and put more people in harms way. Why are they doing this?
As the AP reported, “All 67 of Florida’s counties are considered areas of high transmission, meaning they have more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days. DeSantis has remained staunchly opposed to restrictions, mask mandates and vaccine passports, a stance central to his reelection campaign. He was defiant Wednesday as he criticized the new CDC guidance during a Salt Lake City gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that pushes conservative policies in Republican-controlled state legislatures.” So, what the hell is the governor of Florida doing during environmental, health and building inspection crises in the state? Well, he’s flying off to another state to deliver speeches. He’s so self-centered and partisan I truly believe he doesn’t give a single shit about what any Democrat in his state thinks. He’s such an asshole.
Here’s what Ron DeSantis said on 7-28-2021, “I think it’s very important we say, unequivocally, no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions, no to mandates!” He’s really going all in on a stupid attitude that this is just a “seasonal spike” and we’ll all be fine. Most attitudes are just opinions without facts.
Florida law is clear. According to Fla. Stat. Annotated §100.36(1), “Any member of the governing body of a municipality or charter county, hereinafter referred to in this section as ‘municipality,’ may be removed from office by the electors of the municipality.” Unfortunately, that would take too long while giving DeSantis and many other Trump sycophantic governors the time needed to kill more people. Plus, a recall election can remove only one politician, while others in the anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-government, law and order movements will murder us all if we let them.
They just want us to just play through the pain, take one for the team and then get onboard cruise ships to spread the virus. Deep down inside, though, they’re just coaches being pushed by political ambition and a Napoleonic need to control things to make them seem a bit taller. Taller than what?

Some state Republicans are frothing at the mouth and wasting their taxpayers’ money by hiring idiots to field incompetent and unprofessional “recounts.” In Maricopa County Arizona, a grifter company named Cyber Ninja’s opened the voting machines which, according to federal law, must now be replaced. This will cost the county millions of tax dollars. But rather than worrying about whether the big lie is worth it, these inept politicians are ignoring the science of virology and casting aside reasonable, inexpensive and proven methods of mitigation, such as mask wearing. Rand Paul is at fault for pushing the NIH and CDC to end the mask advice early. We should have never taken our masks off.
The time has come to unmask the truth about Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis. They should be arrested for aiding and abetting murder. Yes, the more they push back against the CDC and science, the more people will become infected, all in order to look good to the tRump-lickers. Why?
This week in Jacksonville, Florida, one hospital reported 35 people in the ICU with Covid-19, and some of them are children. In Jackson, Mississippi, there are seven children in ICU with two of them on life supporting ventilators. Why on earth are these politicians allowing this to happen? Why are they forbidding school boards from enacting mask mandates? Kids under 12 cannot get the vaccine, and because so many parents are anti-mask and anti-vax, high schools will be breeding grounds for Delta and perhaps other variants this year. Teenagers will die, kids will die and if those youngsters bring the virus home, their siblings and parents could die.
Ron DeSantis can pound his chest raving about the great job he’s doing, but sooner or later the truth will come out. He stopped daily Covid stats being released by the state’s health department so he could avoid confronting and handling the problem. He’s a scumbag politician of the lowest order, nothing less than a mammoth mound of waste material.
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