Virus#26: Chapter 13 lessons learnt from the COVIDs : the politicos

Chapter 13:” lessons learnt from the COVIDs: the politicos”

The politicos at first glance seemed to be running the COVID outbreak. The inability of the medical system to handle the initial wave was a result of continual cuts made to the medical system by the politicos. That meant less PPE and less front-line medical workers and in effect non regulation of long-term care homes. Some politicians accepted the blame while others like former President Donald J. Trump who so tragically bumbled COVID management created a whole host of diversionary tactics to shift the blame or change the topic on American’s minds. But during the second wave of COVID-19 in 2021 he was no more as he met his deserved electoral fate in the 2020 Presidential election leading to the victory of “Sleepy Joe” Biden. He also met a nastier defeat which we will talk about shortly.

By the time COVID Plus petered out in 2025 just about any political leader in power at the outset of COVID-19 in 2019 was either defeated in election, removed by coup or subject to an assassination attempt.

So there you have it the blame game is easy to play in retrospect and I place it on the politicos for a variety of reasons the primary being lack of proper funding, the deregulation of long term care facilities,  ignoring the severity of COVID calling it a nasty flu and in many countries the lack of socialized medicine making the lower groups in the socio-economic scale easy targets for the virus.

But I am not sure how apportioning the political blame will help deal with the next virus. I’d rather add up our collective lessons and learn from them.

Whether a democracy or authoritarian government most of them played it the same way with some willing to accept more risk than the others.

“Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time”: Hungarian Psycho Thriller?

Márta (Natasa Stork) a brilliant 40 year old neurosurgeon who leaves her practice in New Jersey to meet  Dr. János Drexler (Viktor Bódo) in Budapest returning to her home she never thought she would return to after some 20 years in the United States.

Did Márta actually meet Drexler at a medical convention in New Jersey or is this some obsessive fixation? Why did she quit her job as a leading neurosurgeon?

Márta was to meet Drexler at the Liberty Bridge in Budapest a month after their New Jersey medical convention but after flying to Budapest and going to the bridge at the appointed hour he is not at the bridge. Is the brilliant neurosurgeon suffering from some obsessive-compulsive disorder? There is no actual proof they met but Márta’s search of the convention shows Drexler was there. She confesses to an instantaneous connection to Drexler.

Márta is soon in a psychiatrist’s office relating her story instantly adding a psychological element to the story. Is she suffering from some metal illness that even highly educated neurosurgeons can fall prey to? Did she really have a conversation with Drexler at the convention or was it imaginary?

Well at least Drexler does exist but at their first meeting at the Budapest Medical Institute he claims no knowledge of her. Is Márta imagining the meeting and agreement to meet at the Liberty Bridge in Budapest?

As Márta rents an apartment in Budapest and settles into her new hospital job during a complicated neurosurgery Drexler shows up.

Despite Márta’s reflections to her Hungarian psychiatrist she ma be imagining everything Drexler shows up and eventually there is a torrid love scene. A result of a real Hungarian encounter or a mythical New Jersey meeting? I think the New Jersey meeting was real as Drexler admits to it but says he never took seriously the meeting on Liberty Bridge. But what is reality and fiction is becoming difficult to determine.

It so difficult to make a decision with this Hitchcockian inspired film. I watched it twice and the ending four times!

The film ends with Drexler looking for Márta at Liberty Bridge and she fails to show then switches to a scene with Drexler delivering an enormous speaker to Marta’s flat or is this imaginary?

A confusing film as it what is reality and imagination.

My take is that Márta is on track with reality and there was a meeting with Drexler and an agreement to meet at Liberty Bridge despite her meeting with a psychiatrist. Whether this was there any mutual intent to meet I will leave to your answer

However in a psycho-thriller I may be way out of bounds and that makes your interpretation of the movie precious.

Madness? Obsessive compulsive disorder? Reality with Drexler protecting his upstanding identity. Perhaps it is one over the other or a complicated selection of bits and pieces of what I have suggested.

As a viewer I feel this is in the Hitchcock tradition and like Jimmy Stewart in “Rear View Window” I am watching a thriller I can’t quite pin a finger on!

The film has been selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards,

You can see the trailer herehttp://www.filmswelike.com/films/preparations-to-be-together-for-an-unknown-period-of-time

The film is in Hungarian with English subtitles and stats with digital TIFF Bell Lightbox on January 22 and after that virtually throughout Canadian theatres including the Vancity theatre in Vancouver, the Subury Indie Cinema and the City Cinema in Charlottetown all on January 29th..

This Lili Horvát film is 92 minutes long and is in Hungarian with English or French subtitles.

Virus#26: Chapter 12 lessons learnt from the COVIDs: the cult of the front- line worker

Chapter 12 “lessons learnt from the COVIDs: the cult of the front-line worker”

There are the medical professionals and politicians who form the top of the pyramid in the COVID narrative but there are also grocers, gas station attendants, bus and taxi drivers and a whole host of people in “essential businesses” that remained open throughout the COVIDs.

Hey I was one of those front-line workers as a cardiologist at a major Toronto hospital so I am the last one to express an uncaring thought or word about front-line workers. Indeed I’ll even go along with the politico propaganda campaign that called them heroes because given the poor planning and hospital cuts of the politicos for most countries in the world that had a decent healthcare system there simply were not enough front-line workers and a lack pf personal protective equipment (PPE) to fight the battle. Budget cuts or “rationalizations” if you prefer

However these medical front-line workers were manufactured into a cult by the media and the propaganda. Again back to my travels in the 1970s in the Iron Curtain countries where socialist realism art played a predominant role in the “education” of the proletariat. Brave factory workers with the hammer and sickle flag in one hand and a hammer in the other striving to meet the objectives of the Central Committee’s 10-year plan.

The media had a field day showcasing the brave front-line medical workers with sappy music and dialogue and special 3-minute specials like “Our Heroes”. I can tell you we were all simply doing our job under difficult conditions and for the non-physicians for substandard pay, no life insurance of short- or long-term disability plans. Although many jurisdictions did come through with some increases for medical staff battling the COVIDs. What good is a few extra dollars for your family when you die when you have no life insurance or are disabled without disability plans?

My thoughts on this was that the front-line workers were used as a propaganda tool for morale purposes for the politicos and for touching and emotional stories by the media. And as people are amoebas, they lapped it up.

What was disturbing was the militarism developing in terms of the vocabulary used for COVID such as “battle”, “war”, “skirmish” “front-line” and like the Americans in Vietnam we had daily kill and wounded counts. And then the inane flights of the American Blue Angels and Canadian snowbirds to “boost the morale” of the population or should we say troops. Speaking of war were the budget cutting politicos traitors? Some countries might call the politicos who had whistle-blowers and critics of government management of COVID disappear or fall out of windows murderers. Don’t get me wrong front-line workers are heroes as anyone with a brain realizes that. What bothered many of us these heroes were an agent of political control and shamefully used as propaganda.

“Draw with Me”: Transgender Coming Out

Jennifer Lopez, Brendon’Scholl’s Aunt

Brendon Scholl takes the difficult journey of “coming out” as a transgender teen youth initially a she but now preferring a pronoun of he. In between one uses the pronoun “they” when the trans person has not yet accepted a preference for a particular sex.

Coming out as gay is not easy but that is a matter of sexual preference but trans is more of a difficult question of identity.

Branon has Jennifer Lopez as an aunt who opens the film unfortunately for a moment making this short appear a bit like a public service announcement. But as Lopez says “This film is timely and important in its story and message and can have a huge impact. It’s a story that is very close to my heart, because it is a family affair. It’s about accepting change and challenges with love, and knowing when we do, everything is possible.”

It almost wasn’t possible as Brendon unsuccessfully tried to end the pain and confusion by attempting to commit suicide. It was art that helped Brendon get out what he couldn’t articulate but simply had to get out of his system.

This film is an official Oscar entry for Documentary Short Subject.

It was far from easy for Brendon first discovering he was trans and then coming out. Thank goodness he had a supportive family to help him through this but the acceptance was difficult for his mother and father and was far from spontaneous.

Brendon’s mother Leslie Ann Lopez hits the nail on the head and perhaps summarizes much about the film when she says, “Talking about your identity as a person- sexual preference has to do with who you go to bed with, and your identity is who you go to bed as.”

Brendon has turned into a trans activist and Director Constantine Venetopoulos makes a poignant comment when he says, “What I truly believe drew me to the story, though, was Brendon’s confidence in knowing who they were at such a young age, and being ready to use their experience as a tool for other youth who were struggling with their identity and coming out. I thought ‘I wish I had someone like Brendon to talk to when I was struggling in the closet as a kid.”

Again the director states he had returned to his high school in Greece for a screening of the film. After the film his older brother asked what a parent should do if their child comes out as gay or trans and his reply was, “It’s not about what you should tell them, it’s just about listening to them.” As Brendon says, “Believe us when we say who we are.”

You can catch the trailer https://vimeo.com/450714908 and the film https://vimeo.com/ondemand/drawwithme/483848439

Virus#26:Chapter 11 lessons learnt from the COVIDs: the failure of social distancing

Chapter 11: “lessons leant from COVIDs: the failure of social distancing”

During the COVID-19 waves there was a politico-medico obsession with social distancing to the extent failure to adhere to it could result in warnings from COVID-19 “police forces”, fines, imprisonment and of course the dressing down given by “outraged” municipal, state, provincial and federal governments. These dressing down tantrums were as tedious as the propaganda supporting social distancing. Mayor John Tory of Toronto was on the public stage and seemed to revel in indignation to the point of absurd comedy. Premier Ford of Ontario looked like the big bad wolf ready to huff and puff and blow the house down i.e. close the economy again.

There is a bit of contradiction in the term “social distancing” in that yes it enabled crippled hospital systems ravaged by the financial cuts imposed upon them by the politicos to barely hold and treat the infected and that fitted the political agenda which almost always was short term. The contradiction is that social distancing protected many from immediate infection but made them easy targets for subsequent waves particularly after economies began reopening. Once reopening occurred any pull back would not be tolerated by populations ravaged by unemployment and its consequent suicides, depression and anxiety. So it was short term pain for even longer term pain. Social distancing ruined millions financially as well as psychologically. It also bankrupted governments.

It introduced a stubborn and pervasive nasty streak in both politics and social life. Demonstrations became violent and food lines were a breeding ground for extremism which we will deal with later. Although we have no data backing this up the thought by many of us physicians in 2030 was that had there been no social distancing herd immunity, as ugly as it would be to develop, would have reduced the decimation caused by social distancing.

Lastly we must ask why was social distancing so widely accepted during the early COVID–19 days? Aside from the long arm of a pathetically small group of COVID police it was fear that kept many in a state of what seemed to be eternal lockdown. And the fear was fuelled by governmental propaganda, people’s ignorance and the never-ending media stories about doom and gloom with real time spinning casino wheels spewing out deaths and infections. Just when the curve had flattened in many countries then horror stories about India and Brazil flooded the telescreen with mass burial grounds being the topping on the fear flavoured sundae. You gotta scratch your head and wonder why COVID-19 was really any worse that many other pandemics where there was no social distancing? I mean the conspiracy theorists had many holes in their arguments but one that made sense to me was bring the fear to a feverish (no pun intended) pitch and set  the way for Big Pharma to develop a most profitable vaccine.

New Italian Grape in My Hood: Nero di Troia

Yes from Puglia in Italy comes a new grape in my hood called Nero di Troia which is primarily found in the Apulia region of Italy and is according to some rustic, tannic and very productive. It translates as “black of Troy” but DNA analysis shows no relationship to Greek grapes.

On the nose a good dose of black earth, black cherry and blackberry. On the palate the tannins are widespread in the mouth but not exactly forceful. This is the first wine I can say I have noticed “spread out tannins” in that they coat the entire mouth. Interesting. It is a very easy drinking wine and certainly could be appreciated as a sipping wine. But I would not call it rustic. With notes of black cherry, Ontario sugar babe watermelon and Ontario purple plums and a certain smoothness. Medium length finish but again rather strangely it coats the entire mouth. There is a very slight sweetness to it. 6 months in New American oak but done so well I can’t detect it so perhaps the oak has wrestled with the rustic and tamed it? The Liquor Control Board Vintages catalogue suggests it is a good match for pizza topped with steak or mushrooms. Mushrooms as a topping but steak? Never heard of that topping before but it would match the wine. I’d go with a shrimp and okra gumbo many recipes of which you can find on the internet but remember when sautéing the okra do it long enough to deslime the little buggers.

All in all the year is very young but this is the most interesting red so far!

If I owned a restaurant, I’d seriously think of making this my red house wine.

(Zensa Nero di Troia 2019 (Vegan) IGP Puglia, Orion Wines, Lavis, Italy, $16.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 17390, 13%, 750 mL, Robert K. Stephen a little birdie told me so rating 90/100).

Virus #26: Chapter 10 Lessons to be learnt from the COVIDs: Propaganda’s effect

Chapter 10 “Lessons learnt from COVIDs: propaganda’s effect”

In the guise of an advertising campaign Canadians were bombarded with an incessant stream of propaganda. Propaganda is primarily a tool of totalitarian governments to maintain control of its citizens. The volume of it will dim independent thinking. However, at some point, particularly with people not familiar with it, it just becomes noise.

As for COVID-19 it had some effect at least for wave 1 and 2 but after that point it was resented and rejected by those who previously lapped it up. Masks have been proven to have almost no beneficial effect. Social distancing was manslaughter for those “in shelter”. About the only truth was the benefit of washing your hands.

It was really disturbing for me that so many people blindly accepted the propaganda for so long. In the end social distancing and mask wearing were tired old phrases and too bad so many millions smiled like deer in the headlights. Many of these people were highly educated (and well paid until they lost their jobs) and what a shock to see them parrot what was being rammed down their gullet.

So why all the propaganda? Firstly it was a legitimate excuse to reward advertising agencies run by the friends of the politicos. Secondly it was an attempt to silence anyone who had different ideas about social distancing through shame and ostracization. Thirdly it justified all decisions taken by the politico-medicos. It also showed the paternalistic attitude of the politico-medicos. I think it also had people in so much fear they were easier to control.

At the end of the day it served to justify the decisions of the politico-medicos and crush anyone with opposing views.

But what is the expression? You can fool some of the people some of the time but not all the people all of the time?

I had the great opportunity as a long haired knapsacker to spend a year in the Iron Curtain in the 1970’s. Czechoslovakia in 1974 was particularly bad with propaganda being blared over loudspeakers in the street Gustáv Husák communist leader had witnessed the Czech uprising of 1968 and decided to try crude mind control through propaganda being blasted out to the street in loudspeakers.  In Canada’s case television and radio were the loudspeakers bolstered by an unthinking and compliant media. Even my favourite classical and jazz stations had their announcers cozy up to the party line. The sad thing was they actually believed the loudspeakers and became the loudspeakers. So much for the integrity of the media!

Virus #26:Chapter 9 lessons learnt from the COVIDs; people were amoebas

Chapter 9 “lessons learnt from the COVIDs; people are amoebas”

At least a toddler has some power of rational thought including the power to stand up to parental dictatorship. That may manifest itself in stubbornness, anger or temper tantrums hence the expression “terrible twos”.

The overwhelming majority of the population sucked up the steady stream of propaganda shoved down their throats by advertisements from the politicos and reinforced by a media that lost my respect very quickly for parroting the party line. Like Radio Moscow in the old Iron Curtain days. And the blind acceptance of the media campaign knew (at least initially) no differentiation on class lines or educational levels. It permeated their brains like they were brainless amoebas. Less thoughtful than a toddler.

Doctors, lawyers, accountants, construction workers and those in the service industry humbly bowed down to the exhortations of “social distancing”, “stay at home”, “stop the spread” and countless hackneyed phrases developed by the politicos and medicos supporting them.

Anyone voicing any opposition was treated as an uncooperative conspiracy theorist. Anyone suggesting a cheap fix to boost immunity like Vitamin C and D was a dupe of the conspiracy theorists despite the fact that there was ample medical research supporting the fact that these vitamins were actually used by China in the first wave and then adopted by some American physicians initially in the Long Island, New York hospital community then globally.

The majority of physicians in the Western World hitched their wagon to the hope of a vaccine or cure developed by Big Pharma with financing by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   And a minority of physicians, like myself, realized by the time it took to develop a vaccine the virus would have mutated rendering the vaccine futile. Our minority view was that a strong immune system created by a healthy diet and lifestyle bolstered by some key supplements was the best defence. Yet the masses were so conditioned by Western medicine to believe that Big Pharma products were the answer they failed to see that Big Pharma makes huge profits not by developing a cure but perpetuating their profit by developing and selling drugs that managed, into eternity, symptoms but never cured them. Why this blind faith when Big Pharma had failed to deliver a cancer of Alzheimer’s fix despite some 85 billion USD spent of finding the magic bullet.

When the second COVID-19 wave hit with devastating impact some of the terror stricken and obedient masses became more difficult to control as hungry and displaced persons are often harder to rule especially when desperation began to nudge obedience and money to subsidize the unemployed and displaced ran out hence the development in the United States and other countries of what we can generically call “Fuck the Vulnerable Movement”. You could kind of see this coming with the economic havoc caused by the first COVID-19 wave where BMW’s and Mercedes’s were in the food line pick up.

By the time Virus # 26 descended a deep political polarization had been growing throughout the globe. But more about that later.

I and many others wondered if the slick political-medico machine had faced massive resistance at the outset and social distancing had been rejected and herd immunity developed whether the second wave of COVID-19 would have been so crippling. However amoebas simply sucked all the politico-medico mantras up setting the stage for a slaughter. “Stay Safe” at the end of the day meant “Be Prepared to Die”. The assassinations of many of the politico-medicos was too little to late for the millions that died because they had “Stayed Safe”.  

VIRUS#26: Chapter 8 lessons learnt from the COVIDs: people were treated as toddlers

Chapter 8” lessons learnt from the COVIDs; people were treated like toddlers”

Now if you have raised children when they get to the terrible twos and have started their growth into toddlerdom you find constant repetition is necessary to correct their behaviour. Keep drilling the message in. In political terms it amounts to parental dictatorship.

From the Canadian perspective the COVIDs exposed provincial and federal governments as purveyors of crude propaganda. It wasn’t some exhortation to revolution but rather a more mundane “keep safe”, “wear a mask” and the wretched phrase “social distancing”. Over and over ad nauseum until after a few weeks of it most of us were getting tired of if not angry about these advertisements. Or was it propaganda to egg the masses on to a state of jellied minds? It assumed social distancing was effective where I have previously said social distancing was a miserable failure as it only delayed a second wave of COVID-19 and hit hard at the compliant who being “in shelter” developed no immunity. Like lining up victims before a firing squad.

Millions of taxpayer dollars were quite frankly pissed away by governments on “advertising”. The assumption being citizens had the lowest common denominator of intelligence whereas the governments spewing out “the message” proved to be so terribly wrong and that is why the second wave of COVID-19 was so deadly.

And in some respects, at least for the politico-medico elite, the propaganda campaign was a success as people did behave like obedient toddlers. As in a political propaganda campaign those who resisted were treated as ignoramuses and ostracized and were subject to fines and in some cases imprisonment perhaps acceptable in a totalitarian state but in Western democracies mostly unheard of.

The mainstream media purred the message on without question. The fifth estate were no more than appendages of the ruling parties. The good citizens of Western democracies criticize totalitarianism but couldn’t see the “medically based” COVID totalitarianism as anything but benign. And when all the toddlers jump on the bandwagon, they become sheep and it so passed they were being led to slaughter.

Poetry Corner : “what about Pence?”

What about Pence?

There has been much focus of late on Trump
for his years in office you look like you were paralyzed like a gopher on a stump

You’ve had a good VP play and had your day
But particularly today why do you have nothing to say?

Some may opine you are in league with a bully boss
fascinated with self aggrandizement and orange skin gloss

Pence, you appear to lack a spine
are you supporting the incendiary Capitol swarming swine?

Your passiveness on the Corona Task Force was very lame
for thousands of deceased Americans do you have a sense of blame?
or would the easier fix
be to blame Fauci and Brix

You might even be called a bauble head
but that won’t bring back the dead

About you history will have little kind to say
so next time when you are at peace please think of your role in all this and pray