I am convinced that 10, 20 or 30 years from now people will be writing books about how ridiculous we behaved in 2020.
They’ll be writing books about how a California governor – long since buried in history – fear-mongered about the pandemic, claiming at one point how half of Californians were going to be claimed by a virus.
Somewhere somebody will figure out the irony that the pandemic happened to let loose in the re-election year of Donald J. Trump, the one the media loved to hate with a vengeance and how they played that against the man. About how his administration rolled out a vaccine before he left office but how the media poo-pooed it as not going to work until the next guy took over and suddenly became the one credited with coming through with it.
We will see in 20/20 hindsight clarity how the taxpayers were fleeced, employees were sidelined and how government expanded its authority – all while the people (sheeple) slept through the nightmare.
They’ll have those books full of pictures full of stupid things, kind of in the same vein as those videos of early-day flight inventions that border on moronic. Those Plexiglas shields that we see in stores, they’ll tell us later, were a huge joke. The Plexiglas manufacturers were laughing all the way to the bank when their sales tripled to $750 million in the United States alone. Joseph Allen of Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health said there’s not a shred of evidence that it prevented anyone from getting COVID-19, the virus that is 99.7 percent or greater totally survivable.
* * * * *
Many of you may know that my mother died last year – not from COVID – but likely because of a stroke. Mom always insisted that she would live until 100 but I saw how she didn’t take very good care of herself – she took a plethora of prescription drugs and she suffered from bitterness – and likely wouldn’t make it to 85. She died two days after turning 80.
While she was living in an assisted living facility she befriended a sweet resident named Rosemary who I got to know as well. Mom saw how Rosemary resembled her mom and called her “Mama.” I never forgot this dear woman and seven months after mom’s passing I went to see her last week on my lunch hour. She was sitting in a wheelchair in the lobby where she could see others living life outside of her drab room. It took a while for her to remember me – I had that stupid mask on – but it finally clicked. I sat my 59-year-old bones on the floor and had a nice conversation with her. She is 97 and will be 98 in August.
My point of telling you this is rest homes are a lonely place. There are folks in there who would love a visit if only people went out of their way to see them. Some of the residents don’t even get visits by their own family members.
You’d be blessed for brightening someone’s day. And you’ll also get an idea of what it will be like when the day comes that you may be forced to enter one of those places.
* * * * *
It appears that the wanton reckless driving continues to be a problem in Ceres and indeed other cities in Stanislaus County.
An advertising representative reported to me an incident which I see periodically on Highway 99: Speeding and weaving through lanes to the point of nearly being clipped.
Invariably it’s always a young driver, typically a male under the age of 25. They seem to have a death wish. Unfortunately others get killed for their stupidity.
An eight-year-old Turlock girl died May 24 after being left completely paralyzed and reliant on a ventilator after the car she was riding in was broadsided by a speeding idiot on Golden State Boulevard in 2017.
Genevieve Grayson was just four years old when the family car was broadsided by a car driven by Jorge Tello of Delhi. Video showed the Acura traveling at breakneck speeds. Tello pled guilty in 2018 to felony reckless driving causing serious injuries. He was sentenced to a three-year prison sentence that was ordered suspended if he completed five years of probation. He also was ordered to serve 60 days in jail and pay restitution.
If you ask me, Tello got off easy. Genevieve shouldn’t have been the one dying in that crash.
* * * * *
So the District Attorney dropped plans to pursue the death penalty against Scotty Peterson. Big deal.
It was a big nothing burger story. Why? When was the last time you saw a Democrat governor in California who allowed anyone on Death Row to actually die in the death chamber? Oh we have a guy up there in Sacramento who told the Modesto Bee editorial board as a candidate that he supported the Death Penalty but the same year he took office did an about-face and placed a moratorium on them. It’s called lying. He knows California is full of low-educated voters who only “pulled the lever” for him because he has a D behind his name.
As long as the voters keep electing Democrats, Scott Peterson types will not die in prison from old age either. Unless maybe you’re Charlie Manson.
* * * * *
Every once in a while a meme sets the record straight in rather ingenious ways. There was a photo of two dogs and it reads: “Ever notice how dogs only come in male and female … and cutting the male’s b**** off doesn’t make it a female?”
Yet our kids are being fed a constant barrage of false information. Overheard a girl of about 9 or 10 arguing with her brother that “nobody knows how many genders there really are.”
This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com
