My Friends Are Surrounded by Idiots

I have friends in Arkansas. They're surrounded by idiots.

Arkansas is one of those states situated so it has several states bordering it. Each of them, except one (so far), has done something incredibly stupid with respect to the coronavirus. Remember that Arkansas is in the middle of the Bible Belt. That should alert you sufficiently. We'll come back to Arkansas in a moment; that state certainly isn't immune to stupidity.

In the meantime: Take Mississippi, for instance. Please take it. Attach it to another country. I don't want to be identified with it.

Its governor, ever wise and ever brave, is not going to shelter its citizens in place. "We're not going to be China," he said, as if being China would be an admission that it had done something well, like shut itself down so its citizens could be safe--which it's done. As if Chinese citizens were so different from the people of Mississippi. As if its government could transmit itself into ours.

No, governor, you won't be China. You're going to be a hell of a lot worse than China, because your citizens will be allowed to pretend that the coronavirus isn't anywhere near your state. But it has to be, because of.....

Louisiana, which has just had its Mardi Gras, which means thousands upon thousands of partiers have gathered together, then gone home to spread the virus absolutely everywhere. Its governor said that the federal government didn't give it any kind of a heads-up that the virus was on its way.

I have news, governor: This federal government isn't going to do anything it feels it doesn't have to do to let anybody know about anything until after it happens. Its trustability had been established at or near zero long before this, though, on any number of topics. Weren't you paying attention?

Paying attention like Texas, whose lieutenant governor has suggested that grandparents were ready to sacrifice themselves by dying for their grandchildren, if need be, so they don't have to go without their just, uh, desserts. My reaction to that is in another, recently written blog. I invite you to partake.

Up the ladder we go to Oklahoma, whose governor took his kids out to show that the coronavirus wasn't a big deal. I want to see him in church on Easter Sunday, like our incredibly brave president suggests we do (wait and see whether he goes). And without masks, besides, so he can take full responsibility (The governor, that is; the president has said he doesn't take any at all. Remember him saying so?) for getting himself and his kids sick. I wonder what the guy's poor wife is thinking, unless she's that stupid, too. She married him. You never know.

In Missouri, which has gone rogue on sound thinking for about ten years now, that governor refuses to issue a shelter-in-place order, too. Another tough guy, warding off the virus just because he thinks it isn't a big deal. What, it's gonna hit the Mississippi River and stop? It already hasn't. Will it respond to a scolding? Does it know it's being naughty?

That leaves Tennessee, where in Cleveland, a pastor named Perry Stone said that the virus was a "reckoning" brought on by the nation's rejection of God and its acceptance of abortion and gay marriage. He thinks the Holy Spirit spoke to him. All that sinnin', you know?

That doesn't explain all the other countries--148 at last count--that have this virus running wild within them, too. Or maybe the Holy Spirit has allowed him to talk crazy about just the U.S. I'll get back to you if he comes clean on the others.

Not that Arkansas doesn't have silly defiance within it, too. In Greers Ferry, about 75 miles north of Little Rock, a congregation met very recently and 34 people got sick. That's the (holy) spirit. Has the guy in Cleveland, Tennessee, been there? Did the virus reach only those who are liberals? Did everybody pray real, real hard? Is that why only 34 of them got sick? Could there have been more?

The virus hasn't really reached those states yet. It'll get there. Then we'll see if the brave governors want to wander out into the illness, what with the lack of respirators that will become painfully evident. I'm guessing not; tough talk doesn't transcend self-preservation. To think that this is the limits of the virus is as absurd as the stances they're taking. But they still have time--time to think of something else to blame. Watch for it.

In the meantime, I have only this for my friends in Arkansas: Duck. Wash your hands often. Get some masks if you can. Stay home, and for heaven's sake, don't travel to any state that surrounds you.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark