The Legion of the Maskless

By Frederick J. Blahnik

They are patriots of the highest order, these paragons of virtue,  these modern-day Ethan Hales, these dedicated upholders of uniquely American ideals and values.  Sort of like our brave early American ancestors who were actively  involved in the Boston Massacre or disguised themselves as Indians and then pitched bales of tea into Boston Harbor to protest British  government overreach.  I tell ya, Reader, the fealty to cause and raw patriotism these individuals demonstrate should never be questioned or downplayed.  They are truly American patriots of the highest order.

THEY are proud charter members of The Legion of the Maskless.

Yes, that’s right, The Legion of the Maskless.

Those other stupid idiots walking around sporting masks virtually full-time?  Fuckin’ scaredy cats is what they are!!  Stupid, cowardly assholes!!!  Lemmings!!  Blind conformists!!  Liberal Democrats!  Don’t those gullible cocksuckers know this whole coronavirus ruse is nothing more than a hoax being perpetrated on contemporary American society by leftist agitators and anarchists? 

The 350,000 dead (and counting) victims from the pernicious infection?  An exaggerated number, undoubtedly, but most of those who do actually die from Covid-19 are nothing more than old geezers who probably would have perished a month or so from now anyway stemming from pneumonia, diabetes, congestive heart failure or any of a host of other natural causes; take your pick from that lengthy list if you want! They are/were parasites on society, to put it politely.  A fatal coronavirus infection might actually prove to be a big blessing for some of these senescent, deplorable old goats inasmuch as it will spare them a hideous, more prolonged death from some other cause.  That’s basically a good thing in the long run, isn’t it?  Natural selection and the survival of the fittest and all that stuff??

The Legion of the Maskless groupies know that science and modern medicine are just cockamamie schemes cooked up by those aforementioned leftist agitators and CNN talking heads to brainwash every citizen into subservience.  The very idea of filtration, in this instance filtering deadly pathogens out of the air before they can enter one’s vulnerable pulmonary tract, is pure baloney.  Pure baloney, I tell ya!!!  It’s never been proven in everyday life!

Why, in order to debunk the underlying theory of filtration, the Legion of the Maskless have decided to start running their motor vehicles without air filters just to prove that debris sucked into one’s internal combustion engine from the outside atmosphere will cause no damage to the motor itself.  Furthermore, the Legion of the Maskless have elected to remove all filtration apparatus from their drinking water sources and thereafter just drink pure, unfiltered, old-fashioned tap water rife with nitrates and bacteria.  That glut of fancy filtration equipment which water has to pass through in order to be considered safe for drinking is a gigantic waste of money and is plainly a Leftist conspiracy intended to generate obscene profits and make ordinary citizens beholden and subservient to their various levels of government.

The Legion of the Maskless know that asking ordinary citizens to wear a mask when out in public is a ham-handed attempt to steal away our constitutionally guaranteed right to do exactly as we please(?) and obviously is NOT a compassionate attempt to prevent us from becoming gravely ill or from infecting other people innocent of any crime.

Let’s face it, The Legion of the Maskless know everything; there is nothing they don’t know; they are experts on every subject under the sun.  The opinions of virologists and epidemiologists and medical experts who have studied in their respective fields for decades and even scores of years pale in comparison to the instinctive judgment of  members of The Legion of the Maskless.  These gifted people just know through blind intuition that Covid-19 particles in the air are too miniscule to be filtered by any conceivable type of mask, including those worn by surgeons and ICU personnel.  Turns out, in fact, that those overly credulous medical people have been arrantly wrong all along:  Donning masks to squelch infections in a hospital setting is a silly waste of time, therefore there is no valid reason why they should be doing so! 

The Legion of the Maskless know this information is the gospel truth, hence why don’t doctors and nurses and all of the so-called “medical experts”?  Those guys are just a bunch of dupable fools, a bunch of born suckers, a bunch of impressionable conformists…..a bunch of ignorant nincompoops!!!  They should be coming and seeking advice from the Legion of the Maskless if they really want to know the truth about the efficacy of mask-wearing.  Members of the Legion of the Maskless will be more than happy to enlighten them regarding the foolishness and futility of mask-wearing to fight a worldwide pandemic; it’s useless and unwarranted; it’s totally unnecessary; it’s a damned Leftist conspiracy is what it is!!! 

After all, The Legion of the Maskless followers know far more about the subject than any practitioner within the medical profession, well…..both them and the nighttime pundits at Fox News.  Those evening commentators at Fox News admittedly know a helluva lot about the stupidity of wearing face coverings to combat a respiratory pandemic too, so their views and opinions should be widely accepted as well and not derided as liberal anarchists would ask you to do.

The Legion of the Maskless sycophants know literally everything when it comes to the efficacy of wearing face coverings to battle airborne pathogens.  What’s more, they KNOW they know better than any and all members of the medical and scientific communities, and what better way to broadcast this intellectual superiority than by gallivanting around in public sans a face covering for all to see?  Such a statement says everything the world needs to know; such a statement lets the highly naive public know in very stark terms that not only is the purported coronavirus pandemic a giant hoax perpetrated on the general public by our nefarious federal government, but that recommended and sometimes mandated mask-wearing is a diabolical extension of that hoax. 

The Legion of the Maskless devotees know all this and therefore it is incumbent upon each member to educate the public at large about the two hoaxes being foisted upon them.  The Legion of the Maskless takes this responsibility seriously; they feel it is their duty as front-line patriots.  And in the end, that is what people who adhere to the teachings of the Legion of the Maskless adjudge themselves to be:  Front-line American patriots defiantly battling their federal government to defend some undefined, invisible Constitutional right that apparently only they are privy to—the right to do whatever they please, whenever they please, wherever they please, however they please…..with nary a thought or a care for how their infantile behavior might adversely impact other citizens around them.  The “constitutional” rights of the Legion of the Maskless are paramount and come before all others.  If others’ rights—including and especially the right to avoid becoming deathly ill and by extension the right to continue living—are trampled in the process, who the fuck cares anyway?!

Yeah, who the fuck cares if some liberal agitator who probably believes that Black Lives Matter and that Donald Trump is NOT the greatest American president since Abraham Lincoln becomes deathly ill and maybe even dies???

Not disciples of The Legion of the Maskless!!!

No, most decidedly not disciples of The Legion of the Maskless!!!!!

Let’s just get rid of as many of those shameful, whimpering liberals as we can by whatever means possible!!!!!

The Legion of the Maskless followers know they are right on every subject imaginable, thus whatever imbeciles and stooges choose to think is absolutely immaterial to them.  These patriots of the nth magnitude have their invisible “constitutional” rights to defend, after all, and that is a tiring, full-time job in and of itself.  All that other peripheral stuff—facts, scientific truths, consideration of others, social responsibility, compassion, noble citizenship, irrefutable evidence—none of that theoretical horseshit matters one iota when you are one hundred percent certain the truth is on your side.

Understand now???

I thought you might after having the nuts and bolts of the situation carefully explained to you…..

Long story short, it always helps if you know everything and everyone else knows nothing, especially if you can sling an automatic rifle over your shoulder for added emphasis and then prance around in public implicitly threatening everyone around you with the weapon.  That allows you to be nothing less than an expert on every subject known to mankind and the following summation, probably more than anything else, best describes the Legion of the Maskless:  Brilliant in any and every discipline you can conceive and name, yet with no formal training or apparent expertise  in any of them.  Come armed with this hubristic attitude and you will almost certainly be granted admittance into The Legion of the Maskless on your first application.

Just don’t make the unforgivable mistake of ever forgetting the official motto of The Legion of the Maskless:  IGNORANCE CONQUERS ALL!!!!!  After all, facts and actual truths are dangerous little critters that pose a grave threat to every American citizen, ergo we must avoid those dastardly things at all cost!

A Morning Walk

(March 19^th, 2020)

By Frederick J. Blahnik

Note:  Since this essay was penned, irrefutable evidence has arisen indicating certain species of mammals can indeed become infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus, including dogs, cats, minks, and a handful of others.  That being said, animals other than human beings infected with the COVID-19 variant of a coronavirus are largely asymptomatic, are not known to die from its complications, and do not transmit the pathogen to Homo sapiens.

                Perhaps the one thing most striking about this hideous coronavirus pandemic we earthlings are presently facing is the fact it is peculiarly a human problem.  Nothing else on Earth is truly affected by it or adversely impacted by it.  The world as we know it moves on relentlessly independent of the existential risk the tiny coronavirus poses to every human being on the face of this planet.  The world we live in looks no different, feels no different, sounds no different, smells no different, IS no different in any appreciable manner from before…..other than the frightening, indisputable fact there is currently a Lilliputian predator “out there” that wasn’t present in its mutated, human-assailing form as recently as fifteen weeks ago, and that coldblooded little bastard is now busy stalking every Homo sapiens on Earth.  In that regard, our world—our HUMAN world, that is—is utterly unrecognizable from the one of November, 2019; that place now seems a billion miles away.  We are living in a totally different environment than before, no question, but the rest of the creatures that share this small blue planet on the outer fringe of the Milky Way galaxy are not.  Just one thirty minute walk this morning down to the “T” at the end of the gravel road my wife Carla and I live on in extreme southeastern Minnesota confirms this fact.

                So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must unite and move quickly to own it and rationally address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

                As I step out the front door of our split-entry, Wedgewood-hued house on a drizzly morning, a handful of robins—recently returned from their southern winter haunts—go hop-hop-hopping about on the front lawn of our modest estate in pursuit of dumb, oblivious nightcrawlers and obviously do not sense there is anything significantly different about this planet of ours.  The ones that aren’t hunting—they are temporarily resting in nearby trees and unwittingly offering the slimy subterranean denizens that frequent our estate a reprieve from death if the angleworms cannily choose to hastily avail themselves of said—chide me with their distinctive, strident trills as though I am the trespasser and nervy usurper on THEIR recently reclaimed territory.  The gall of those sassy birds!  The red-breasted animals are dapper and sanguine this time of year—happy to have escaped their crowded southern aviaries and eager to build nests so the female can immediately begin laying a clutch of eggs to hatch and thereby perpetuate their species.  Nothing markedly more complicated to their lives than that—eating and propagating and dodging any predators that might target them or their offspring.  The robins do not fear—nor are they even aware of—the grisly coronavirus crisis facing our cowering human population, and why should they?  All the robins of the world neither know nor care that the human population is facing an existential threat from one of the smallest, lowliest members on the organic food chain.  Make no mistake no about it:  The coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly human problem, and the rest of the planetary population does not care one hellacious shit about it.

                So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must unite and move quickly to own it and rationally address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

                The pair of bluejays I can hear but not see squawking their signature raucous warning calls from the top of a nearby spruce tree as I shuffle out of our yard do not know there is a coronavirus crisis raging across the face of the planet.  Unlike the aforementioned robins, uber-hardy bluejays stay all winter in southeastern Minnesota and therefore were here when the coronavirus decided to migrate not unlike a multitude of those birds’ cousins and subsequently expand its range into North America from far-off Asia, at which point it instantly became a Western Hemisphere concern back in January of this year.  But the boisterous, blue-tufted birds had far more important things to do at that time, namely lurk around the feeders I have hanging on the back deck of our house and fight like the dickens to survive a Mephistophelian Minnesota winter in order that the females of their species–same as the robins–could lay eggs in the spring and hatch a brood of squawking little sapphire squabs to assure a continuation of their unique DNA lineage.  All the bluejays of the world neither know nor care that the human population is facing an existential threat from one of the smallest, lowliest members on the organic food chain.  The coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly human problem, and the rest of the planetary population does not care one hellacious shit about it.

                So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must unite and move quickly to own it and rationally address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

                Approximately one mile down the road in a westerly direction from our two-acre homestead I take especial note of two mounds of freshly dug soil in the roadside ditch.  Pocket gophers are fully out of their winter hibernation and busy digging tunnels again!  This is of particular interest to me owing to two separate observations:  Pocket gophers beginning to dig in the muddy soil is one of the surest and truest signs of spring, and it also means the frost from last winter has retreated sufficiently out of the ground to enable the ugly little rodents to commence their new round of home-building.  Either way, this is a good and joyous sign in a normal year—which obviously the current edition is not–but do those same pocket gophers that spend ninety five percent of their time underground know there is a coronavirus pandemic racing across the face of the Earth—threatening the health and much less frequently the life of every human being alive? 

No, of course not, the “stupid” pocket gophers neither know nor care about this.  Their species is not being threatened by a grave health threat of any kind if you exclude ornery famers who despise and oftentimes trap them, thus their roster of priorities is markedly different from the current human one:  Digging new underground lodges in tandem with a virgin network of tunnels to connect same, restoring their caches of food which were largely depleted over the course of the just-completed winter, copulating whenever possible to ensure that a new brood of youthful pocket gophers will be born in time to mature over the summer months and be responsible, fully capable adults when next winter rolls around, and staying on the lookout for opportunistic coyotes that may come snooping around at the same time a mature gopher may be making one of its rare forays above ground after dark.  All the pocket gophers of the world neither know nor care that the human population is facing an existential threat from one of the smallest, lowliest members of the organic food chain.  The coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly human problem, and the rest of the planetary population does not give one hellacious shit about it.

                So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must move quickly to own it and rationally address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

                I ultimately made it up to that “T” intersection with Robinson Creek Road (A fancy misnomer for merely one more gravel township road, this one admittedly slightly wider and more traveled than the one I live on) and now I’m on my return jaunt home, making good time as I trudge along at a brisk pace in an easterly direction.  Not far past our neighbors to the west—the Meyerhofers—as I walk by a small draw which features a muddy waterway on the north side of the crushed rock road where gnarly underbrush and a few scrub trees have managed to escape the farmer’s plow and are now clustered protectively along a moist shallow ravine, I look down and take note of a bounty of deer tracks of all sizes in the wet muddy gravel on the shoulder of the township passageway.  Being an avid deer hunter, I automatically recognize this to be a natural funnel for deer coming from the south because not far to the north of the brushy draw a fenceline harboring still more opportunistic small trees manifests, and whitetail deer—sublimely shy, wary mammals by instinct—are drawn like opposite poles of a magnet to naturally protected travel lanes wherever and whenever they may exist.  But do you think these uber-vigilant deer are worrying about the coronavirus pandemic which is currently the foremost thought on virtually every human being’s mind who lives on our shared planet? 

No…..think again! 

Even if deer were aware of the coronavirus—which they undoubtedly are not—they would not give one good damn about such a thing inasmuch as it is a purely human problem with zero relevance to their own well-being.  In fact, deer are facing their own existential crisis in the form of Chronic Wasting Disease—an affliction weighing heavily on their numbers and physically embodied by a microscopic organism even more diminutive and organically stranger than a coronavirus called a prion—so why might you think the deer of the world would care that the human population they share the crust of this planet with—legions of whom go out in the fall of the year toting twenty-gauge shotguns complemented by Yeti coolers heaped full of beer…..and then attempt to murder as many of their cervid kind as possible in “only” a week’s time–is facing the highly unlikely prospect of species extinction?  Well, they don’t; they could not care less.  All the whitetail deer of the world neither know nor care that the human population is facing an existential threat from one of the smallest, lowliest members of the organic food chain.  The coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly human problem, and the rest of the planetary population does not give one hellacious shit about it.

                So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must move to unite and quickly own it and address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

                Upon reaching my place of residence after finishing that brisk thirty-two minute morning jaunt, I still have one item of business to accomplish before stepping inside Carla’s and my house to eat breakfast.  Some reckless motorist accidentally hit and killed a skunk (Yes, redundant language, I know; what person in their right mind would purposefully hit a skunk and in the process stink their vehicle up for the next two weeks?!) on the road only about an eighth of a mile to the east of our place.  The air is waterlogged and heavy this morning, a strong breeze is blowing out of the east, and this combination of meteorological conditions means our two-acre property is receiving a powerful dose of skunk “redolence” for the indefinite time being.  I therefore stop to grab a small scoop shovel from the garage attached to our house and thereupon walk down the road in an easterly direction until I come face-to-face with the dead skunk lying in the middle of the road (Wasn’t there a vintage Rock n’ Roll song with that weird, albeit iconic, title back in the 1970s by one hit wonder Loudon Wainwright III??  Come to think of it, with a erudite name like that the guy was condemned to be a one hit wonder in the world of pop music!).  In any case, two things strike me immediately when I take the mandatory deep breath and look down at the stricken animal. 

First, the sheer size of the black-and-white varmint.  Skunks are naturally small mammals–and I have seen many a skunk in my day to use as accurate frames of reference–but the one I am staring at now is extremely large for its species; I whistle under my breath at its impressive stature.  Secondly, and more poignantly, it becomes immediately obvious this was a female skunk because the animal’s belly is grossly enlarged independent of the post-death bloating which naturally occurs in any deceased animal, belying a late-term pregnancy and doubtless a large batch of baby skunks soon to come from within that distended belly—a batch now needlessly aborted owing to an egregiously speeding driver. 

I say that because we all know skunks are not speed demons by nature and this skunk in particular could not have been moving very fast secondary to her third-trimester pregnancy, so whoever hit her—and I have a strong suspicion who that might be based on unsavory past experiences with a now-adult neighbor girl–should have had ample time to see the ambling rodent before inadvertently ending its life.  Let’s put it this way:  A deer abruptly shooting out from the shoulder of the road, skunks definitely are not!  And if this minor rant makes it sound like I am some kind of nutty skunk lover with a peculiar infatuation for the malodorous little animals, well,  I am not, but I nonetheless felt pity and remorse at being forced to witness any healthy creature have its life gruesomely ended right before it was due to give birth and extend the circle of life—ANY life, really, apart from those goddamned, lifestyle-altering coronaviruses which swooped down on mankind out of nowhere just months ago.

Anyway, I somewhat troublesomely scoop the oversized skunk up in the bowl of my dinky shovel and—after walking some distance to the east (I’m quite certain the neighboring Lilly family will graciously thank me for that!!)—throw it as far as I possibly can into a plowed field.  But as I do so, I wonder if this skunk was overcome with angst—right up until the fateful moment when the Grim Reaper carried it away—regarding the coronavirus scourge that is the prevailing, foremost thought on every human’s mind nowadays. 

And of course I know the answer to that question is an emphatic “No!!!”  Doubtless the stricken skunk had only one thought on her mind at the instant she was struck and killed, and that was simply finding the best place in the natural world to safely birth her large litter of kits and then conscientiously raise them through the upcoming summer so that all of them would be ready to accept the mantle of adulthood and full independence when late fall arrived.  That was almost certainly all she was thinking of at her moment of death–that, and probably where she was going to find her next meal to ensure both her own survival together with the survival of the  myriad progeny temporarily residing within her womb; both were of equal importance in her mind.  All the skunks of the world neither know nor care that the human population is facing an existential threat from one of the smallest, lowliest members of the organic food chain. The coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly human problem, and the rest of the planetary population does not give one hellacious shit about it.

                So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must move quickly to unite and own it and address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

                My walking for the morning is now complete.  Truth is, I even managed to squeeze in one necessary chore to this daily walking routine, the aforementioned disposal of that dead skunk before my wife or I would probably have somehow carelessly driven over the slain creature during a transitory episode of daydream-driven dementia while running an errand.  And as I re-enter our yard from the east and hear that same pair of bluejays from before squawking up in the treetops and as I intuitively smile at the robins gamboling about on our filthy-from-winter lawn in joyous pursuit of non-thinking earthworms and just take note of the fact that everything around me looks exactly the same as it did before the coronavirus pandemic became easily THE most compelling issue on every earthling’s mind in the early spring of 2020, I experience an epiphany and realize that we human beings constitute just one species of life on the surface of this Earth. 

That epiphany is further reinforced when Spartacus comes racing down to the end of our driveway to greet me.  Spartacus, you see, is Carla’s and my American Eskimo hybrid dog who is too skittish to take along on walks away from our property because he panics at the sight of any vehicle on the road and pursuantly scoots off chaotically just to get away from the motorized monster.  Spartacus is neither a smart dog nor a brave one, but he is extremely friendly and extremely loyal and those estimable qualities alone render him a cherished yard companion.  So, anyway, Spartacus comes running up to me as I access our acreage from the east and I ask him point-blank if he harbors grave concerns about the coronavirus pandemic currently bedeviling the human populace of the world. 

As expected, Spartacus shoots me a blank stare, but his tail continues to wag indefatigably throughout and his eyes sparkle like glistening diamonds purely at seeing me return to the premises following a short absence.  Spartacus obviously isn’t aware of any existential crisis facing mankind, nor would he give a roaring rip if he were to somehow find out such was the case, that is, with the exception of Carla and me—his regular food sources; he would surely miss us a lot if we were to somehow mysteriously disappear from the face of “our” planet!  And by extension, Spartacus is a reliable bellwether for his canine species.  All the dogs of the world neither know nor care that the human population is facing an existential threat from one of the smallest, lowliest members of the organic food chain. The coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly human problem, and the rest of the planetary population does not give one hellacious shit about it.

So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must move quickly to unite and own it and address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

 Although we Homo sapiens habitually feign superiority and near-godliness and infallibility and invincibility, it becomes abundantly clear the world would go on very smoothly and tranquilly if the entire human population was suddenly wiped off the face of the Earth.  We are not special; we are just one species among many.  The existential fear we are facing right now is the same one every species of animal has faced at one time or another throughout the eons since that first scarcely organic fish crawled out of the primordial soup of a prehistoric ocean and struggled mightily to breathe atmospheric air through its primitive gills until evolution gradually interceded and worked its adaptability magic.  We do not own special privileges on this planet, although large numbers of us for some reason believe such is the case.  The COVID-19 pandemic we are currently facing—this existential scourge, this mass assault on our exceptionalism, this ultimate wake-up call—should make every person alive step back for a moment to reconsider their place in the larger scheme of things. 

Almost every human being now alive will survive our generation’s personal existential scare, just like our ancient ancestors survived apocalyptic Ice Ages and massive volcanic eruptions and devastating meteor visitations and Bubonic Plague infestations and mindboggling earthquakes and God only knows however many other species-threatening calamities that have preyed upon humankind ever since our ancient human ancestors first ventured northward off the plains of eastern Africa toward the Middle East millions of years ago, but that is completely missing the point; that information is neither enlightening or germane. 

We should rather use this challenging moment in history as a reality check, to recognize and acknowledge our relative insignificance in the bigger order of things, and just stop for a moment to pay homage to the sobering fact that our collective exodus from the Universe as we know it would not even create a minor wrinkle in the infinite fabric of space/time.  We human beings are larger than life only in our own minds; no other living creature feels the same way about themselves, and the inanimate actors which populate our Universe obviously could not care less either.  We are not special; we are not exceptional; we are not indispensable; we are not irreplaceable.  Akin to spoiled, bleating children, we only feel that way while constantly reassuring each other about this false truth.

Yes, we only feel that way.

We only feel that way…..

Until the day comes when we no longer may be granted the privilege of surviving, let alone flourishing, on the surface of a planet and within the confines of a solar system and a galaxy which are wholly indifferent to our continued presence….

.

So let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:  This coronavirus pandemic is ours and ours alone, and thus we tribe of vastly disparate human beings must unite and move quickly to own it and address it or risk facing planetary irrelevance…..

Heaven on Earth (Part 4)

By Frederick J. Blahnik

December 31^st, 2009.  7:15 a.m.  Driving north along a gravel township road in Pleasant Valley Township, Mower County, Minnesota, United States of America, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, As Yet Unnamed Universe Because the Existence Of Alternative Universes Can Never Be Empirically Proven.  The road itself is a veritable skating rink, totally glazed over with residual ice left behind from the great Christmas Day meltdown, when an epic blizzard long forecast for that day degenerated into a rainy, soggy mess in the face of uncharacteristic, mid-thirties temperatures. 

Just off to my left lies a great, majestic orb hanging in the New Year’s Eve day sky—a gargantuan “blue moon”, the second full moon of this December.  One stares at it—fully mesmerized—wondering with equal parts awe and bewilderment how something so typically small and self-effacing could now be this gigantic and overpowering.  The morning air is crisp and pregnant with the sounds of winter as I carefully glide down “325^th Street”–which in reality is nothing more than a narrow, nondescript, gravel township road–towards a “T” intersection with its big cousin, blacktopped Mower County Road #6. 

And that spectacular blue moon continues to dangle low in the northwestern sky, barely clearing the flat horizon, seemingly begging everyone on Earth to indulge in her once-in-a-year pageantry.  And what a unique day Ms. Luna has chosen to spotlight! 

For this is no ordinary day, not at all, not by any means……. 

A new year awaits less than twenty four hours hence, and not merely a standard, run-of-the-mill year either……but a whole new decade!  If one hasn’t particularly liked how the past ten years have gone, you can now—with some small degree of luck—enthusiastically enlist in the dynamic new decade parked immediately in front of each of us and steer your life in a decidedly alternative direction. 

New year……. 

New decade…… 

Same old issues and problems as before, you say…..??? 

Well…..does it really matter in the big scheme of things??

Truly?!?!?!

Today is undeniably a day to look forward, NOT backwards! 

As I swing a right turn onto County Road #6 and head off toward another day of work in Rochester, I reluctantly bade the transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime blue moon farewell in my Elantra’s rear-view mirror.  And this curious thought strikes me as I drive south on the uncommonly lonely highway:  How many other wayward travelers have carried on a similar conversation with “Ms. Blue Moon” in centuries past—long before I was even born—and how many more will be asking the same existential questions as me in the distant future…..long after I am gone?  Will anyone even still be around to witness the sheer beauty and peculiar awesomeness of our Universe then?!?  Unlike the moon and the sun and the stars which are not saddled with organic vulnerabilities, will humankind overcome its intrinsic foibles and blunders and blatant stupidity to survive for near perpetuity as well?

Only time will tell, but today is not the day to worry about esoteric celestial matters.  No, today is a day to exalt in the advent of a brand new year and a brand new decade, if only owing to the fact so many other earthlings did not experience our same level of good fortune and last long enough.

Therefore…..let the partying and merry-making officially begin!!!!!

A Supreme Character Test

By Frederick J. Blahnik

March xxxxx, 2020

                April xxxxx, 2020

                Let’s consider for a moment this real-life scenario:  What if someone offered you a bounteous sum of money which you neither earned nor deserved…..with absolutely no strings attached?  Would you go ahead and keep that money?  Would you celebrate your “good luck” and maybe thank God for His benevolence and charitable nature?  Might you convolute logic and rationalize that you were somehow entitled to it after all?  Might you use as your justification for keeping this undeserved bonanza of money the fact that untold others had similarly been offered the too-good-to-be-true financial package…..and then—following a not-long period of introspection–you subsequently discovered that you lacked the moral strength to instinctively do the right thing and emphatically turn down the offer of a “free” dowry?  Yes, what WOULD you do with an unsolicited gift of money that one day just showed up in your mailbox or was anonymously deposited into your bank savings account?

                A true character test.

                Yes, this “dilemma” poses a true character test to any individual who finds themselves in a similar situation.

                And yet such a thing has just happened throughout the length and breadth of the United States.

                Just as Adam and Eve had their moral resolve tortuously challenged in the mythical Garden of Eden eons ago, so too has the entire retired population of the United States (along, in total fairness, with myriad others who are currently younger and working) been ethically tested over the past several months.  And how each member of that aging demographic responded to the welfare payment (Forget “stimulus check”; “stimulus check”, my ass!; “stimulus check” is just a pitiful euphemism meant to conceal the ignominy of doling out gads of welfare money to undeserving citizens for anemic, immaterial reasons) they were proffered by a panicky, incompetent federal government says everything one needs to know about that individual’s  underlying character.

                During my first day spent in Economics 101 at Winona State University with blonde-maned Dr. Ellis many, many years ago (I minored in Economics in college), our classroom full of wide-eyed matriculators was taught that there is no such thing as a free lunch; you never receive something for nothing; if something looks or sounds too good to be true, it IS too good to be true.  I, like all of my classmates, was taught this basic tenet of economics the very first day of class, and then the professor proceeded to hammer the point into our heads for virtually every day of the following semester given its foundational importance.  Yet if you never had the privilege of sitting through a formal Economics class for an entire semester (or were forced to do so, depending on your point of view), do not feel left out:  Experience teaches us the very same lesson over time.  Everyone learns—or at least everyone SHOULD learn unless they are an incorrigible imbecile—that there are no “free lunches” in life.  Nothing comes free.  If you do not go out and earn something with either your muscles or your wits or some combination thereof, you are not deserving of it.  Experience is irrefutably the best teacher, especially when it stems from mistakes made along life’s serpentine pathway, and over the course of many years of living everyone should become well aware of the seminal economic lesson I was taught in my first day of Economics 101.

                There are no “free lunches” in life!!!

                NONE!!!!! 

Long story short, if someone is ostensibly receiving an item, a service, or just plain money for “free”, someone else will invariably be forced to pick up the tab for that gratuity somewhere down the line in either direct or indirect fashion.  Nothing in life is free; someone is always left holding the tab, whether that individual is a direct beneficiary of receiving an object or service or, alternatively, an innocent third party who was not directly invested in the transaction but winds up being charged for it anyway.

There are no “free lunches” in life!!!

THERE ARE NO “FREE LUNCES” IN LIFE!!!!!

                HAVE YOU ALLOWED THAT CARDINAL PRINCIPLE TO SINK IN YET?!?!?!

                But let’s set abstract concepts aside now and move forward to the present time period, a volatile era that features desperate conditions facing American society secondary to the coronavirus pandemic which is ravaging our country and the world as a whole.

                Offering so-called stimulus money to aggrieved parties is a good strategy and sensible government policy—Agreed!—but the crux of this matter lies in determining who in fact is an aggrieved party.  Not everyone is; not even close to everyone is!  Rather, that number is majorly closer to a minority of the adult American population than a majority of same.  A government that is presently in debt to the tune of multiples of TRILLIONS of dollars should understandably be prudent in their distribution of welfare checks and not go crazy, panic, and consequently just start mailing out thousand-plus dollar checks to virtually  every citizen of adult age regardless of need or circumstance.

Including and especially retirees.

These people have not been forced into perilous financial straits as a direct result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic like hordes of their younger, actively-working compatriots have been, therefore the elderly should not be gifted with lavish welfare checks under the guise of some undefined, illogical “need”.  Doing so is not responsible governance and it is not right.  Need should be the sole criterion for determining who will be receiving stimulus checks from the federal government, and I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how the vast majority of senior citizens living in the United States today have been uniquely victimized and plundered by the ongoing pandemic.  The reason no one has come forward with a rational explanation for this query is because none exists.  Retirees, and the elderly population specifically, have not been unjustly burdened by the ongoing health crisis and hence there is no earnest reason why they should be financially rewarded as though they have.  It follows then that to accept welfare checks from one’s government at any level with no justification for receiving said largesse is just plain dishonest and unethical.

The solution?

Inordinately simple.

If you have not been adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic but have received a government stimulus check regardless, either forward it to someone who you know has been directly hurt by current circumstances or just give it back to the federal coffers and indicate that you want your share of the pie to be dedicated to paying down our astronomical national debt; this decision will honor future generations while simultaneously burnishing your legacy.  You wind up creating a “win-win” scenario, in other words, the gold standard in any and all arenas of strategizing.  Either of these solutions is honest, creditable, and easy to facilitate.  The only way you can go wrong is by choosing to keep money you neither earned nor deserve.  That action would basically define dishonesty and is only marginally better than frank larceny.

So what will your decision be?  Will you choose to be honest or dishonest?  Veracious or mendacious?  Principled or unprincipled?  Ethical or unethical?  A hero or a villain?  A giver or a slimy taker?  Your thoughtful response to receiving a stimulus payment from the federal government in the mail will unequivocally answer all of the preceding questions.

I can only hope you make the proper decision.  If so, I can hereby guarantee that you will be able to comfortably co-habitate with your conscience afterwards.  And if not—NO!!!

Doing constructive things—Always!—is vitally important.  They don’t have to be big, bold, monumental endeavors, but you should never allow yourself to just lie around reading, watching television, and contemplating the meaning of life non-stop.  An element of work and physical creativity and corporal engagement must enter the equation at some point.  Domestic livestock may be afforded the “luxury” of a life predicated upon, no…..showcasing lassitude and abject detachment and utter uncaring, but I feel safe in saying we humans were created for reasons far more ennobling than mere existentialism.  If you want to live the life of a cow, be prepared to submit to being milked twice a day every day of the week…..before being summarily sent to the slaughterhouse the minute your daily production begins to drop off.  You say you’re a bull so you don’t have to worry about that heinous fate?  Well then, your visit to the slaughterhouse will arrive much sooner!

KNOW WHEN TO QUIT!!!!!  Sometimes it may be when you are ahead, sometimes it may be when you are behind, and sometimes you may have just broken even…..but there will never be a time when a little angel will come and tap you on the shoulder to inform you that you should stop doing whatever you are doing.  NEVER!!!  You have to figure out that bit of information by yourself and, granted, oftentimes it is the most difficult and elusive decision to arrive at amongst a veritable battalion of daunting ones.  Ceasing whatever you are doing, especially if you have invested mucho time into a venture, is never easy but sometimes necessary in deference to the “Big Picture”.  Ergo, I reckon “knowing when to quit” and intelligence should stand side-by-side as synonyms in the wise man’s thesaurus.

Try your hardest at all times.  If that isn’t good enough to merit a brief mention in your local newspaper or a ringing of the bells atop the steeple on the cathedral down on Alder and Sixth—well, that’s okay too!!  At least you’ll be left with the giant consolation of knowing you did your absolute best and had no more left to offer and, believe me, that’s worth a lot too.  One should never fill a car up with gasoline before taking it to be scrapped at the local junkyard, and you likewise should never hold back in effort while vainly hoping for a second or third or even fourth chance to succeed at whatever endeavor you may be pursuing at the time.  Oftentimes one opportunity is all you get, and—truth be told—one is all you should ever rightfully expect.  To assume more than that is simply being avaricious.

“Could’ve”s, “would’ve”s, and “should’ve”s don’t amount to a wheelbarrow full of cowshit after the fact.  You’ve gotta pull the trigger when the gun is in your hands—when you have unquestioned possession of it.  Because once a weapon leaves your hands, commiserating and second-guessing yourself on alternate courses of action is as meaningless and useless as a Donald Trump promise or a fart into a forty mile per hour gale.  You consistently have to leverage power when you possess the means to do so; such won’t always be the case; such is oftentimes definitely NOT the case!  If you choose to not leverage power for whatever reason when you have command over it, trust me on this:  That power will automatically transfer to someone else, and if that individual is astute he/she will make dazzling use of the potency that you were too ignorant and meek to wield yourself.

After careful consideration, he decided to forgive with however much sincerity he could conjure and even go a step further and apologize despite the fact he hadn’t really done anything wrong and was not the principal instigator and party to blame insofar as a grossly overblown misunderstanding. This was quite simply the easiest course of action for him to take even though it may not have been the technically correct one, and it did inarguably make him feel better and did resonate better within the hallways of his conscience. That does matter in the big, mile-high picture; that should count for something—some small thing, perhaps—shouldn’t it? Peace of mind cannot be easily corralled or quantified, but it does exist just as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow morning in the east or Donald J. Trump will tell yet another lie.  Carrying around massive guilt akin to a three hundred pound yoke weighting down one’s shoulders for twenty four hours of each day can be exhausting as hell, both physically but especially emotionally.  The avenue of action he was considering was therefore preferable in his mind; this way was undoubtedly better and would serve as salve on his restive soul.  Simply apologize and relieve himself of the tranche of guilt he was feeling, despite the fact said guilt was ninety nine percent artificial and he had done nothing egregiously wrong to incur such disproportionately harsh punishment from the falsely aggrieved individual.

…..they kept her alive because they had been granted stewardship over her medical care and had the capability of keeping her alive; this small subset of individuals possessed the means and the knowledge and the wherewithal. That’s it.  Nothing more.  There was no better reason than that.  No valid reason and certainly no defensible reason.  Capability equaled a mandate in their over-educated, faux compassionate minds, thus they exercised this godly “right” of theirs and insisted on keeping her alive in a semi-vegetative state for an indefinite period of time, all while there remained no realistic hope for a return to a quality lifestyle for the gravely ill patient and even as the hospital cash registers continued to ring “Ching-ching-ching!!” non-stop throughout the day—day after day after tedious day…..night after night after tedious night.  Immoral?  Inappropriate?  Grossly irresponsible?  One could make a stalwart case to support such semi-obvious assertions, but who other than God can truly answer that sort of question?  Certainly not this scribe, although I am sure you can readily deduce by this point where my heart stands on the matter.  Living and existing are not the same, especially if that existence is totally dependent on external equipment and nearly fulltime nannying.  There is a right time for everything—being born, being parented, maturing, copulating, marrying perhaps, pursuing a career, parenting, getting drunk as a skunk, kicking the kids out the house, growing old (If you’re lucky!), and, finally…..dying.  It is no shame or abject embarrassment or evidence of a character defect to accede to Death’s pernicious clutches when that cryptic entity comes banging ferociously on your front door.  Contrarily, fighting like a crazed maniac at prohibitive expense just to (re)claim a few more days or weeks or months of compromised “living” is far more indicative of significant character deformation, namely selfishness and blind narcissism.  The planet Earth can get by just fine without your saintly presence; it did in the past and it will in the future too. No single person is indispensable, and that’s the way the world should operate. Therefore when death comes to embrace you and lead you home and the arguments it makes are unerringly strong and persuasive, just submit to the obvious and agree to accompany the Grim Reaper to wherever it chooses to lead you.  Granted, no one wants to die, but no one wants to go to the dentist for root canal work or pay exorbitant taxes to a pitifully underperforming government or host your impertinent mother-in-law for a long weekend either, yet those are odious things we must do regardless when the moment calls for it.  Same thing with imminent death.  Accept it when said becomes the obvious outlook, both for yourself but especially for someone who may be immoderately close to you and whose health you have taken ultimate responsibility for or been similarly invested with this improbable power.  Don’t fight death irrationally just to claim a moral victory and to earn an additional pittance of time spent on compromised “living”, if one should even dignify artificial, kept-alive-only-by-the-miracles-of-modern-medicine purgatory by referring to it as that.  You were not responsible for your creation, and you are not the architect who will orchestrate your eventual demise either.  To think otherwise is risible.  You don’t own your life; someone far mightier than puny, fatuous human beings rightfully lay claim to that distinction.  Yes, you admittedly can delay the onset of death just a little bit, but at what cost?  Yes, indeed, at what cost(s), both financial and otherwise???  Just so your loved ones have to worry ceaselessly and wind up being responsible for footing the mindboggling expenses and labor investments attendant to caring for an invalid or semi-invalid for a few more weeks or a few more months or—at the absolute best—a few more years?  And that’s just you personally.  I neglected to mention the gargantuan financial stake society is forced to shoulder in the form of Medicare subsidies (Yes, Medicare is for all practical purposes a federal government welfare program for all but the healthiest geriatrics) just to appease your blind intransigence and honor your foolish desire to mimic Ponce de Leon and start chasing after the Fountain of Youth at a point in time when, ironically, all hope appears (and realistically is) lost.  So go ahead and believe that you are a hero for fighting like a grievously wounded tiger to live for every last day and second that you can coax out of your exhausted, irreparably broken body, but just don’t expect—Nor should you expect!—plaudits and thank-yous from those people and deities whose opinions matter the most…..