What Do You Do When Life Gives You Lemmings?

What do you do when life gives you lemmings?  You know what lemmings are, I assume.  Lemmings are little arctic tundra rodents with a huge reputation for mythical group behavior.  The things lemmings are most famous for is something they do not actually do.  Presumably, lemmings are far too smart to do what their reputation says that they do.  The thing they are reputed to do is mass suicide.  What really happened was more like mass murder.  So, what do you do when life gives you lemmings?  I guess that depends on who you are.  If you’re a lemming, it is probably something like making more lemmings.

The myth about lemmings comes from a 1958 Disney documentary called “White Wilderness.”  The myth states that as a means of population control, lemmings would start mass migrations to cliffs above the ocean, and then throw themselves off in herds.  It is a tragic scene to imagine, and positively brutal thing to arrange for the false documentary.  You can watch a little of it here if you like.

Nature is a bit too rational to do such an idiotic thing.  The documentary was really just the abuse of a bunch of lemmings.  But that was 1958.  Thank goodness, we know better now.

Tomorrow is June 20th, 2020.  Tomorrow is noteworthy for a couple of reasons.  First, it is the day after Donald Trump invented ‘Juneteenth’, the celebration of the end of slavery in the United States which was actually celebrated on that day, June 19th 1865.  (Trump’s creation of the awareness of the day is just another suicidal pack of lemmings.)  

Sadly, tomorrow, Trump will assemble another suicidal pack of lemmings.  Fortunately, this is also a metaphor in the sense that it is not 100,000 furry arctic rodents shoved off of cliffs by Walt Disney documentarians.  So they are spared.  But, truly tragic is that it does involve assembling 100,000 humans, 20,000 of whom will crowd into a an arena for one of Trump’s pointless rallies.  Keep in mind, Oklahoma is a reliably red state.  Trump will win Oklahoma in the coming presidential election.  Strategically, it has no value for Trump to hold a rally in Tulsa. This is a risk with no reward whatsoever.  And keep in mind, this will be June 20th, 2020.  We are currently plagued with a pandemic.  Covid-19 has killed over 119,000 people, and the cases of infection and hospitalization is rising.  100,000 people will congregate to show affection or loyalty, or whatever this is, to Donald Trump, and place themselves, and everyone they come into contact with for the next two weeks, at risk for infection.  

Statistically, it is determined that 100 Covid-19 infected people will be present in the arena crowd.  Of those, 20 will be shedding the Coronavirus.  Each of those can be expected to infect 40 to 50 people each.  (And then they tell two friends, and so on…). I’m being cheeky there.  Maybe you remember the old commercial about geometric progressions of phone plans.  In the ad, subscribers “tell two friends.”  Infection in a pandemic is likely to be much worse.  

Incidentally, there is some early research which indicates that the reason some patients have such a horrible time with Covid-19 may be their blood type.  Beyond age, and other factors, of the blood types; A, B, AB, and O it is blood type A that must have the greatest concern.  Keep in mind that this is early, and I am not a scientist.  This is just relaying news that I read yesterday.  I also happen to be type A+, so don’t expect to see me at a Trump rally.  (As if that were the only reason). 

What does the modern GOP do when life gives them lemmings?  They make a horror show.  Opening tomorrow in an arena…hopefully not near you!