2021: A Variant Of 2020

 

Remember last year at this time when we couldn't wait for 2021?

Putting on my history major hat, I can safely assert that historians in the future will say the year 2020 "really sucked" and  2021 "sucked too but not as much."

We started the year with a vaccine that promised to almost, kinda, sorta, maybe protect us from the dreaded COVID-19 disease. Of course, everybody was tired of COVID-19, except maybe Dr. Anthony Fauci because he got on TV a lot, and all of the whoody-do TV talking heads thought he was dreamy.

My favorite moment in the early rollout of the vaccine was when Saint Anthony explained that we might need to wear two masks instead of one even if we were vaccinated.  

My question: How about we wear three masks and triple our protection?

We never got to that point because it was hard enough to convince many people to wear one mask, much less two. Lord, don't talk about how hard it was getting some to get the vaccine.

But don't complain about anti-vaxxers when Dr. Smarty Pants is running around talking about wearing two masks, and the vaccines might/might not work, but you should get it anyway. Oh yeah, they come in two doses, and they have various side effects that range from a sore arm to spontaneous combustion. 

2021 began with, and this was a big surprise, Donald Trump acting like a big old baby.  Everybody accepted, as fact, that Trump lost to Joe Bident. Everybody except Donald Trump.  

He held a STOP THE STEAL rally, which somehow morphed into a HANG MIKE PENCE rally.  The whole thing was a mess and could have been avoided if only Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia had just listened to the My Pillow Guy.

On January 20th, President Joe was inaugurated and promised to take two naps and hit the early bird special at a local restaurant. He vowed to launch a full-scale investigation of why they took "Matlock" off the air.

Despite his age, President Joe inspires the American people with his rhetoric which said (and this is a direct quote), "I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. So the best way to get something done, if you, if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to, anyway."

 

The year brought many challenges to President Joe and he responded in the way only President Joe could. Inflation (President Joe:  "What? Naw.")  Skyrocketing gas prices. (President Joe:  "Listen, pal, walk or buy an electric car".)   Supply Chain crisis.  (President Joe:  "So your kid doesn't get the GI Joe with Kung-Fu grip, big <bad word> deal".)  Small business labor shortage. (President Joe:  "Pay them more money. Gah, do I have to think of everything?")

President Joe had a big idea called "Build Back Better" which could have been titled:  "Shut Up And Give Us The Money".   It sort of petered out because people didn't elect President Joe to rubber stamp every goofball idea that Bernie Sanders  and AOC have flying out of their pea brains.  They elected President Joe because he was not Donald Trump.

The new administration's foreign policy took a hit when we left Afghanistan and forgot to turn off the lights.  President Joe insisted that it was the right thing to do and we looked good bugging out in a dumpster fire sort of way.

In off-year politics, the state of Virginia elected a Republican governor mainly because the people of Virginia realized that the education industry hates children and hates their parents even more. 

Former President Trump still shows up from time to time to chew the fat with Hannity.  He has stuck his big fat face in the Georgia gubernatorial race by convincing former Senator Perdue to run against Governor Kemp because "Kemp can't beat Stacy Abrams".  All Kemp needs to do is note that he has won an election in the past four years and the other two have not.

Hollywood held the Oscars and nobody can remember what film won "Best Picture".

Disney+  showed the documentary on The Beatles making the "Let It Be" album.  In it, Ringo admitted to the legendary producer George Martin that he (Ringo, not George Martin) has just "farted." We always thought it was Yoko.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won The Super Bowl led by 108-year-old Tom Brady, whom we still continue to hate because he's won 400 Super Bowls and cheated on a Super Model girlfriend with another Super Model.

The most crucial event in the history of mankind occurred when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series. As a result, belief in God is currently around 99.9 percent in the state of Georgia.

 

 

 

 

Bob Dole

 

 

 If you thought anybody would beat death, it would have been Bob Dole.

Here's a small Wikipedia account of what Bob Dole went through as a twenty-two year old man in the last days of World War II.

"Dole was seriously wounded by a German shell that struck his upper back and right arm, shattering his collarbone and part of his spine. "I lay face down in the dirt," Dole said. "I could not see or move my arms. I thought they were missing." As Lee Sandlin describes, when fellow soldiers saw the extent of his injuries, they believed all they could do was "give him the largest dose of morphine they dared and write an 'M' for 'morphine' on his forehead in his own blood so that nobody else who found him would give him a second, fatal dose."

Dole was paralyzed from the neck down and transported to a military hospital near Kansas, expected to die. Suffering blood clots, a life-threatening infection and a fever of almost 109 degrees; after large doses of penicillin were not successful, he overcame the infection with the administration of streptomycin, which at the time was still an experimental drug."

If you want a fuller, complete account of Dole's wartime injuries, pick up the book What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer. Dole out-lived Cramer by almost nine years.

Dole defeated prostate cancer too. Unfortunately, that victory made him unable to win the marital New Hampshire primary, if you catch my drift. He was given another "experimental drug": Viagra. 

He was known as a caustic politician. In addition, he was considered a hatchet man. However, today he would probably be considered the nicest man in Congress.

He was a funny, witty man. My favorite line of his:  "Jimmy Carter gave a fireside chat yesterday, and the fire fell asleep."

Despite his heroics and wit, Dole always seemed to be on the losing side.

Gerald Ford picked Dole to be on the ticket in 1976. Dole did okay until he called World War II a "Democrat war" in the Vice Presidential debate with Democratic vice-presidential candidate Walter Mondale, who he outlived.

He ran for President in 1980 and lost to Ronald Reagan.  He ran for President again in 1988 and lost to George H.W. Bush.  He ran for President in 1996 again and lost in the general election against Bill Clinton.

Dole was the last of "the greatest generation" to run for President. Clinton was the first Baby Boomer.  Dole really didn't have a chance due to a combination of a good economy, the advent of the internet, and the usual mainstream media drooling over a young Democrat. 

A new cast member of "Saturday Night Live," Norm McDonald, perfected his Bob Dole to include Dole's habit of referring to himself in the third person.  When Dole appeared on the program after the '96 election, he said, "I don't run around saying Bob Dole does this and Bob Dole does that. That's not something Bob Dole does."  Incidentally, Dole outlived McDonald too.

Dole was a tough old bird who loved his country and gave it everything he had. What a life!