dipstick noun
dip·stick | \ ˈdip-ˌstik \
Definition of dipstick
1: a graduated rod for indicating depth (as of oil in a crankcase)
2: [euphemism for dipshit] : NITWIT
Another morning, another bout of depression. This one weighs especially heavy, keeps me in bed until past seven, a good hour and a half beyond my usual rise time. It isn’t the coronavirus per se that’s causing the malaise although the virus is, as usual, the root cause. Nothing has changed between our household and COVID-19. We only do what we can; limit our trips, maintain social distance, wear our masks, wash our hands and continue in our quest to find a gallon of bleach.
But there’s a creeping, single minded hopelessness about those things that we can’t control; the protests, the suicidal/homicidal nuts who frolic on the beaches against orders, the science deniers, anti-vaxxers and the outright lunatics who assault rent-a-cops doing their subsistence pay jobs in asking shoppers to wear a mask.
But it’s the extraordinarily stupid who trouble me the most, the ones who bluster about their rights and their individual freedoms and all the while allow themselves to be led by the nose by a cadre of assorted knaves; corporate interests, politicians worried about where the next feathers for their nests will come from, a yo-yo in the White House and an ever growing cast of charlatans and rapacious aspiring apostles who manage to infiltrate youtube.
It was just my bad luck that I stumbled onto one of the latest in a long line of video messiahs, a woman named Peggy, who tries to make the case that Gavin Newsom’s stay at home orders are illegal. She’s particularly outraged over the closure of the Orange County Beaches (stay tuned). This being America, the land of the free and home of the wide-eyed, any random pretender regardless of qualifications can post a youtube video and claim expertise on anything from scooping dog poop to nuclear physics and gain a following of zealots, all of which feeds the idea that America’s national drink should be snake oil.
But back to Peggy a revivalist who doesn’t ask the flock to accept her doctrine on faith alone. No she posted her bonafides, such as they, are on her youtube page. Among her qualifications for making the legal argument against the State of California Peggy cites:
“I am not a lawyer, but I have a keen interest in the law.” And? Well, Tom Cruise isn’t a jet pilot but he played a jim-dandy one in Top Gun (“I feel the need — the need for speed.”). Who among us doubts that the Navy has Tom on the top of it’s hire list if it ever runs short of flying aces?
Peggy goes on, “With a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Master’s in International Policy Studies, the study of civics is my passion, and educating others is my duty.” And to think that Alan Dershowitz wasted all that time and money at Yale.
She also claims to have been a college instructor, a position that seems to be missing from her LinkedIn page (I know, I should’ve left well enough alone).
Currently she owns a yoga studio in, yes, Orange County, the very county that Governor Newsom put in time out for unmasking and crowding beaches. Okay maybe it’s just a coincidence
Who could argue with a curriculum vitae like this when it comes to looking for expert advice on Constitutional Law?
But wait, she doesn’t stop at practicing law. She crosses over to epidemiology claiming that COVID-19 is not an epidemic. She even uses charts to prove it. Well, they aren’t really charts, they’re pieces of paper with a few numbers written in crayon.
It’s at the very bottom of her youtube page that Peggy gets to the real crux of the matter. She concludes with a link to her Paypal page and the postscript, “Your support allows me to research and create more videos for you!”
What lesson did I gain from this? Well, clearly I’m wasting my retirement. I need to make youtube videos and link to a Paypal account. Since Miss Peggy has the market cornered on law and medicine, I’m thinking auto repair. I don’t know a thingamajig from a doohickey but I have a passion for cars and I can usually find the dipstick. In fact when I scanned the comments on Peggy’s page I found a whole shit ton of dipsticks.
For instance one dipstick named Cheri apparently is absolving China for the coronavirus and laying the blame on 5G technology. She’s also worried about old people on the hill and their hot spots, or something; it’s really hard to tell. “This is about control. And about 5G which is being rolled out in 24 hour shifts 5G technology has been proven to be deadly it zaps the immunity especially of the hill and the elderly at each hotspot in the world 5G technology was rolled out some months before this is about the New World order and no it’s not a conspiracy theory if you believe the main stream media then you are a tinfoil hat nut you better get on the Internet and do your research like this woman has done this is about control and about forced vaccinations that will be equally deadly.”
And then there’s John the dipstick, who’s afraid of losing music and warns of the dangers of locking seals in car trunks and of course they, the ubiquitous THEY are going to take away our guns. “98% of us are healthy with strong Immune systems. If we Californians, follow Gov. Gruesome’s illegal health mandates, we will suffer, in general, the following: loss of exercise, loss of fresh air, loss of sunshine, loss of social contact, loss of collective music, loss of collective WORSHIP, loss of freedom of speech, loss of right to PROTEST, loss of right to assemble, they want our loss of RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. Lock a SEAL TEAM 6 member in a car trunk for 3 months with only water & Minimum rations. What would be the results? Both his original condition & what was endured are EXTREME, but still real. His immune system, psychological condition, emotional state, physical strength and many others would ld be greatly reduced in strength.
If you’ll excuse me I’m heading out to the garage to make my first auto repair video. I think I’ll call it Paulie’s Nuts and Bolts.
Do these people care about anyone but themselves and freedom to do whatever they want regardless of how it may impact others? They must love Donald Trump, who loves no one but HIMself….but what they don’t want to acknowledge is that he’s only on their side for their usefulness to him, and he would turn on them in a millisecond if they no longer served his purposes.
Well of course they don’t care about anyone but themselves. This country has become a free for all; armed nuts in the Michigan State House, packed beaches in California, barber shops opened against social distancing regulations. The list is long and depressing. These are of course the same folks who will demand emergency, all hands on deck medical treatment if they get sick.
And of course they love Trump but like Trump they would turn on him once he no longer served their purpose. It’s a sort of a sick twist on the symbiotic relationship.
OMG, Paulie. It bloody well shouldn’t be like this. It’s a scary, very contagious, poorly understand virus, people, and it’s everywhere. Why is that so hard to understand?! All you can do is keep taking care of yourself! 😥
Jane, America has become a free for all three ring circus. Just today in Wisconsin bars were opened up and of course you can’t very well have a drink and wear a mask so…no masks.
In Texas, the AG sent a shot across the bow of the City of Austin and Travis County stating in part, “the County nor the city can impose civil or criminal penalties for not wearing a mask in public.”
In California and other states, business owners are opening their shops of all sorts in defiance of state orders. The governors are in a bad place with this. They can order the forceful imposition of compliance but the result is going to be increased protests and more defiance and William Barr, Trump’s AG getting involved on the the side of the protesters/scofflaws. And so they sit by and watch and issue warnings.
My post was tongue in cheek but this woman Peggy actually exists (I didn’t use her full name or business name because I don’t want to be sued) and the comments that I included are real. She’s just one example of many. Americans want their free-DUMB.
When I said in my post that I woke up depressed it’s because I was VERY depressed. I feel like our society here in America is going to crater over this.
I hear you. There’s no doubt, it’s depressing as hell. Even with the excellent leadership that’s desperately needed, there doesn’t seem to be a unifying rallying call. None of the most egregious of mass shootings brought a unifying call. A pandemic that’s threatening the entire planet isn’t creating unity. Scary stuff indeed.
It’s hard to absorb that things have become this dysfunctional in the country that was the acknowledged leader of the ‘free world’ until a few years ago. I wish it were otherwise. 😥
Stay above it, my friend.
Hovering.
I find that above 35,000 feet works best.
That’s why I’ve sworn off some news feeds and wandering too far off my Youtube playlists. And why I never read comments. Too many crazy people out there and it’s too easy for them to assemble in social media space. It’s unfortunate that their crazy can’t be confined to virtual social media space. A failing of the 5G technology, I suppose.
I rarely use youtube unless I need instructions on how to repair something. I also usually avoid comments like, well, a virus. I gave into a double temptation this time. The best that can be said for following temptation is that it resulted in a blog post.
Thank you for visiting Sandy.