DIFFERENT COUNTRY? DIFFERENT THAN WHAT?

Every time I read, “We’re a different country now,” I start picking things apart.

We’re different because some man or woman got their feelings hurt?

Different because someone didn’t get their way and had a meltdown?

It sounds different, but what’s really going on?

I call it EMPOWERMENT, where normally quiet people discover the sound of their voice and like it.

The tone is another matter.

When I try and imitate some of the loudest people I sound like an a-hole. Copy an expression I’ve seen on leaders in the media? Now I’m an ugly a-hole?

That’s no way to spend a day, copying others because you need more attention. Especially if you copy people who’ve been working on their act their whole life.

It’s a different country when amateurs, decent people, try and learn to communicate like a fire-breathing blowhard alternating between anger and sorrow like someone off their meds.

Then I come across something like this:

please, take risks. please, take up space. please, be as beautiful as you know you can be. please, ignore the haters in your mind. please, keep testing the boundaries of the art you both make and enjoy. please, fall in love again. please, live.

It’s a love note posted on twitter for the world to read. Thanks @JoelakaMaG.

And it’s asking please, please, please without sounding like begging. I read it as an encouraging please.

Different Country Of The Same People

How many good men have doubled down on a sudden sense of victimhood? Without any change, or loss, good men discovered they’re not getting what they never got in the first place. Now they’re pissed off permanently.

Anger is their calling card, the first impression they leave on new acquaintances. If they get the same in return, a new best-friendship blossoms.

The next thing you know the two buddies are huddled up whispering special tidings to each other.

“The election was stolen.”

“Don’t need to remind me it was rigged.”

“Jan. 6 was a normal day at the Capitol.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve seen more commotion at a Little League game.”

2

How many good women have turned into zealots about covid being a hoax, a figment of some doctor’s imagination, and overall no big deal?

An English newspaper picked up a story from Nebraska about a woman coughing on others.

Looks like a nice lady emboldened by the education and science she consumes to come up with this:

When asked her why she doesn’t have a mask on she responds it is because she is not sick.

‘I don’t need to have one on, I’m not sick and neither are you,’ she says. 

When the woman points out that just because neither are sick it doesn’t give her the right to cough on strangers she begins to dramatically cough on the woman again as she laughs, claiming she has allergies. 

It’s a different country when regular shoppers turn into infectious disease experts who know if you are sick or not based on now they feel.

What’s the best response in keeping with peace, love, and understanding? It’s not knocking her appearance, where she lives, her education, or mental capacity. I settled with:

“I hope you don’t end up triaged to a hospital hallway waiting for in ICU bed and a ventilator while gasping out your last breath, ma’am.”

Who could ever see that coming? There’s over 600,000 dead who aren’t looking today and doctors say it’s a bad death. I’m not a death-wisher and neither are you, but the lady seems like she might have a death wish on her own.

Let’s Remember 2021 Differently, Starting With:

That is most definitely a stop sign. The right color, the right octagonal shape.

It even comes with an identifier for what it is, but there’s no sign for what it’s not.

Not a suggestion, not a recommendation, not a question, it’s a command.

Instead of posting a traffic cop on every corner, we have stop signs. Some of us obey them, some sort of obey, and others blow through. That’s when the traffic cop comes in.

It’s the same with traffic lights and speed limits and safety belts and drivers licenses, car registration, smog testing, and insurance.

That’s seven things to know about before you turn the key or push the start button. There’s more, but these seven things are called necessities, mandates, laws, rules, and if we don’t follow them we don’t drive.

Covid safety includes four elements: a mask, a vaccine, distance, and hand washing.

If you see covid safety as a hurdle you must fight and claw over, to protest and demonstrate against, just stop.

Stop sucking up misinformation, disinformation, and veterinary worm medicine. You are not a horse. Even if you had a mean brother call you ‘horse faced’ you are not a horse.

And neither is Joe Rogan, but what is there to do? If Joe and the Cornhusker lady got report cards for their covid awareness, they’d be grounded for flunking.

You have my permission to stop being a problem to yourself. But you say you don’t need and didn’t ask for permission?

If Fox News gives you permission to be a wing nut, consider this for balance:

You are better than that. Why not show it? Make this a different country by embracing the common good.