So said William Goldman in his “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” to encapsulate his experience in Hollywood.
Up to now, I have avoided this blog during this difficult time in which we face something we can’t explain but that we know can kill us. As the weeks at home have confirmed: nobody knows anything.
This fact has not deterred the media and politicians from spinning whatever the alleged factoid of the hour. There are numerous examples of know-nothing expostulations, most on the cable nets all of which you would do well to avoid. Every physician who has ever held a thermometer, every pol from any level of government, can get booked to float imaginative comments on the great unknown.
Much of their doo-doo employs language culled from the time-honored properties of paid obituaries in the local newspaper. For example, we are said to be in a “war” against disease and those infected are engaged in a “valiant battle” to overcome illness.
In fact Covid 19 is a pathogen and not an army at war. It is not a warrior seeking to destroy us. To clothe it in properties associated with intentional evil as an “enemy” is an opiate designed to make people feel better, to deny science, and to accept illness and death as a lost “battle” and not as an inadequacy of preparation or therapeutics to stem and blunt pandemics.
Unprepared, ignorant and unaware, it has fallen to government to take steps to bar the barn door after Covid 19 has metaphorically galloped out of the barn. This has led to medical backing and filling accompanied by turning off the spigot of vibrant economies all over the world through convincing (and ordering) people to stay at home and to stop working.
Where and how this ends, “nobody knows anything.”
I have been watching and listening (as much as I can stand). Here is a potpourri of some of my observations:
-Vice President Pence has a problem with the verb “to say.” In commenting on what someone has said he will say this: “As Dr. Fauci just reflected….” or “Yesterday, the president reflected…”
-The much-lauded Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pauses during his statements are much like the Chinese Water Torture as in “What we are dealing with (pause one, two, three) is an improvement (pause, four, five, six) in the public health….” Spit it out Andy!
-Dr. Sanjay Gupta needs a rest. Give him a break and let another doc fill in for him, will you!
-Joe Biden is wise to keep quiet. Under ordinary circumstances, people don’t consider the election until after Labor Day, and these are not ordinary circumstances. His silence until “nobody knows anything” becomes “now we know something”–maybe in August–will serve him well.
-Tom Perez is the worst Chair of the Democratic National Committee in my memory. After giving us those debate extravaganzas, he now prevaricates on the nature of the August convention. Asked about the possibility (read, certainty) of a virtual convention, he answered, “Well, that would require a rules change.” Duh. Joe, make a change there and not just a rules change!
-I can’t stand Bill De Blasio. He’s de worst.
-At the daily Corona Task Force news conferences, Trump is reading his written statements for the first time, interpolating comments like “very important” and “fantastic, incredible” not to mention “we are pursuing that very powerfully.” Hey, he didn’t get elected because he was a whiz at the English language.
-Yes, EK, Dr. Birx does look like Renee Zellweger’s mother.
-Facebook should be ashamed of itself for permitting the mask ads from dubious sources.