THE MAINE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE CORONAVIRUS

 

THE NEW NORM

 

The population of Franklin County Maine is 30,000.  We are a rural county in the western mountains.   Sixty-one percent of our population has been vaccinated.   One out of every ten people in our county have contracted the coronavirus and one out of every thousand have died.

 

The thirty-nine percent of people in the county that aren’t vaccinated are not going to get vaccinated – almost all Trump supporters.  That is just the realization of the who we are. 

 

Our governor has tried everything from giving away lottery tickets to vaccine mandates; but you can’t fix stupid.  

Vaccine mandate protest

Maine is still making vaccines readily available for anyone that wants them; but I think the attitude now is to open up the state and let the people who aren’t vaccinated, and aren’t going to get vaccinated, contract the damn virus and hopefully develop some degree of immunity as a result – and deal with it the best we can, by supporting the hospitals.

 

When you look at the New York Times Chart of cased for Franklin County Maine, you can see the dramatic increase of cased beginning in late August.  This corresponds with the opening of all schools for in-person learning.

Add to that Thanksgiving, now Christmas and New Years and this contraction level with hospitalization and deaths is going to be the new norm for a while. 

 

For my wife and I, it is stay home and stay isolated by choice – which is actually not a hardship for us; though we do miss eating at restaurants, which was our major vice. 

the Ol'Buzzard

 

WHY TRUMP WAS ELECTED

A huge percent of the American population is stupid – and proud of it.   These were the uninformed voters that elected a narcissistic con man to the Presidency.  

In one of Jay Leno’s skits he asked people on the streets in California basic Civics questions – here are some of the responses:

Name the three branches of government.   Most couldn’t answer.

What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?   No one knew.

Who did the U.S. fight in the American Revolution?   A man hesitated and then answered France.

It the President and Vice-President die who becomes President?   When told it was Speaker of the House a woman insisted that, No - It was the Secretary of State.

When asked who runs the Judicial Branch of government, people could not answer.

One person could not name the Vice-President of the United States. 

Another guessed that the American Flag had thirty stars.

A number of people were asked, who said ‘Give me liberty or give me death.”    Most did not know and one man answered Bonaparte.

This is a disgraceful display of our inadequate educational system.    But beyond that is demonstrates the feckless nature of a majority of Americans.   They don’t know, they don’t care to know, and they are proud of their ignorance.   These make up the majority of the Tea Party Republicans and the majority of the Trump voters.

Let’s look at the darling of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin.   When asked the ‘got-ya’ question about Paul Revere’s ride – here was her answer.

 

You can’t fix stupid; but we could better educate our young people.    In the meantime, we must loudly confront ignorance wherever it exists; especially the lies and half-truths that are spun in the Republican bubble and that have fueled the election of Donald Trump.

the Ol’Buzzle