I am enraged. Thursday I left work early, sick. By the end of the day, I thought I was going to die. I took a COVID test, and it was positive.

If any of you think I'm kidding about almost dying, you can go fuck yourself. Without proper care, this illness would have done me in.

I am not going to die because I'm taking a medication that costs $721 with insurance.  Ten doses of three pills. It's an antiviral. Without the antiviral,  and a place to get proper care I would have gone to the hospital for sure.



The diner exists for debate and discussion of collapse, so I'm reluctant to share my personal details. I do not want the diner to become "social media." But at age 70, I'm right where the risk curves get steep. Getting the expensive-ass medication was not a mistake.

By "death of a less than useless eater," I'm not talking about myself. I mean Patrick Joseph White.

As I fought to stay alive, others were succumbing to a far different kind of death, one born not of illness but of ignorance and violence.

Patrick Joseph White opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on Friday, shooting dozens of rounds into the sprawling complex and killing a police officer. White blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Saturday.

Can we call this claim for what it is—ridiculous and without merit?

"He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people."

And Patrick Joseph White fucks over the millions to whom the vaccine has been a goddamn lifesaver.

The self-absorption and narcissism of this stupid drone leave a wife without a husband. She has three children, one unborn, and they now have no father.

Why?

Because we live in the century of the self, where ignorance is celebrated as a God-given right—along with the right to defend ignorance through murder and violence. In America, "Thou shall not kill" is without meaning. Violence is without shame in our society. Our mass media celebrates violence and death without stop. Do I ASS-UME too much?

No, I do not. Cretins like Patrick Joseph White are highly suggestible; their rage isn't even authentically their own. Their weak minds are filled with images of violence by media, and they act on them. Such people embrace madness and mayhem as a form of self-expression. It really is as simple as that. Violence is praised as "standing up for yourself" regardless of whether your reasons have any legs to stand on.

Some laid-off CDC employees said Kennedy shares responsibility for the violence and called on him to resign. I agree. Kennedy is another cretin who is all about "me." He is a science-denier and a man who should not hold public office. Kennedy is mentally deranged. He was not given his position because he is qualified to hold it. He was given the position because of the mistaken belief that talent is hereditary. And that is a very common expression of ignorance. The specific antecedents to talent are not genetic at all.