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It's still morning and I've already been bombarded with enough bad news to ruin the rest of the day. Our smart phones carry with them a waterfall of fear and ignorance and greed and treachery and horribleness, all accessible with a few taps of our thumbs. Whoever invented these things should be flogged and then buried at sea. We wake in the morning and reach for them like suffering addicts. They come with us everywhere. We don't take a shit without bringing our phones for the ride. And invariably, all they do is stomp on our dreams.

Within MINUTES, here is what I awoke to....

--It's 117.5 degrees in Canada, and people are dropping like flies. This is....you know....Canada. The Great White North. A nation of hockey and arctic frozen tundra and snow. There's clearly a disturbance in the force, don't you think? A guy there baked a tray of cookies in his car yesterday. All you MAGAs made fun of Greta Thunberg and how she's PISSED. Our climate has become so unstable that it's killing people, yet we continue to whistle past the graveyard, most likely wearing ear buds and singing along to "Love Shack". Thanks to us, our grandchildren will be marching on a field of bones.

--Delta variant Delta variant Delta variant Delta variant. Here we go again. There's never gonna be herd immunity in the US because the US is filled with balloonheads. So the only other option is for everybody to get vaccinated. But that's not gonna happen because it's filled with balloonheads. And so here we are. Cases spiking yet again, and there's talk of the dreaded masks making a comeback, which I'm sure will go over well with the All Lives Matter crowd. Our children remain mostly unvaccinated, and soon they'll be piled back into classrooms as a viciously contagious variant hovers in the air. In a terrifying prequel to what may come, 80 teens and adult staffers from a Central Illinois summer camp have just tested positive for the virus. Masks were not required at the camp, nor were vaccinations, although everybody was eligible to receive one. "If you're not vaccinated, you're in trouble." So says the Surgeon General. I suspect he's smarter than most of you.....despite all the research you've been doing on YouTube.

--Hope is fading in Miami. 149 people remain unaccounted for in the building collapse there, and are presumed dead....buried in rubble that people are still trying to understand. It looks to be non-nefarious. Just a combination of hubris and cost-cutting complacency....and perhaps the folks living there not being in the tax bracket necessary to counteract the two. This event is our nation's infrastructure crying out "I can't breathe", and if we don't remove the knee from the neck it's gonna happen again. (note to self - we won’t remove the knee. it will happen again)

--Today I learned that the White House just raised the salary of federal firefighters, the ones on the front line of catastrophic wildfires, to $15 an hour. RAISED it to $15. It was $13. And I was trying to grasp the mindset of being treated so cavalierly. Someone who could bring home more money manning the drive-thru at the Eynon McDonald's (now hiring at $18 an hour).....having to make a financial decision like this. And I'm not one of those fools that don't think the McDonald's workers deserve $18 either. They surely do and good on them. But I do think that being on the frontlines of wildfires is as selfless and as patriotic as fighting a war overseas. These guys should be paid more than minor league baseball players.

--Serial rapist Bill Cosby is being freed. His conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the sort of technicality seemingly only dusted off when the defendant just happens to be worth a jillion dollars. So keep an eye on your drink if America's Dad walks into your bar, ladies.

--There was one single bit of good news. The Trump Organization is expected to be charged with tax crimes tomorrow. Ironic that this pack of financial gangsters could be brought down with the same tactic used to stop Al Capone. Follow the money. These greedheads were too rabidly dishonest to cover their tracks, and I expect them to start singing like Pavarotti to avoid the clanging of metal doors behind them. Trump himself just had his July 4th hate rally cancelled over "partisan political concerns" in, of all places, Alabama....so he's frothing at the mouth looking for a new place to light all his fireworks and terrify local dogs. When the home of Roy Moore doesn't want you, it might be time start looking for real estate in the jungles of Guyana.

***

God I hate my phone.

In a bit...

--tf