, 12.14.2021 02:28 PM

My latest: my winners in 2021

Ah, 2021.

Like its immediate predecessor, the unlamented 2020, this year has been a real bastard.

Just when you think some degree of normalcy may return — just when you begin to hope that maybe, just maybe, things are going to get a tiny bit better — the merciless and relentless monster that is the virus throws us another curveball.

A happier Christmas at the tail end of 2021? Dream on. Choke on some Omicron, losers.

Oh, and here’s some extra Justin Trudeau, for dessert.

Misery loves company, goes the cliche, but the misery visited upon us by COVID isn’t in any way alleviated by the fact that all of us are experiencing it. We’re all kind of miserable, nowadays, and wondering if we are going to go through the entire Greek alphabet, naming the latest iteration of the virus. For years.

Well, not all is lost. Amidst the the death and destruction and despair, there are some tiny, shining lights. Like diamonds in the proverbial rough, or wheat in the chaff. Or whatever.

Last time out, we chronicled the losersof the year — in Canada, essentially our entire federal political class. This time, here’s some winners — the ones who, often unnoticed, are making our collective existence a bit better. A bit easier to hold onto.

Kudos to them, and to all!

Laurie Garrett, Journalist. Did you know there is a person who predicted everything we are going through, almost two decades ago? Did you know that she wrote a book called “The Coming Plague” that saw all of this coming and — like Cassandra, the prophet of Greek mythology — was kind of ignored? Well, not entirely.

American journalist Garrett won a Pulitzer Prize for her writings about epidemics and pandemics. But Garrett foresaw all of the current pandemic — although maybe not the name of it or Donald Trump (and who could’ve foreseen him, who Garrett correctly terms a “foolhardy buffoon”).

Having foretold exactly what happened to us, what does Garrett now say about the future? One, we will never go back to what was “normal” before. 9/11 changed everything, she says. COVID will, too. Two, the battle will go on for three years, minimum — and we haven’t even hit year two, yet. Three, the virus will never go away unless all of us are vaccinated — not just us solipsistic types outside the developing world. If all of us aren’t protected, then none of us are protected.

Anthony Fauci, Doctor. When the aforementioned foolhardy buffoon, a.k.a. Trump, is saying COVID will go away in the Spring of 2020 — and when he is counselling people to inject themselves with bleach, to kill the virus that didn’t go away — how does one keep one’s cool? Anthony Fauci, somehow, did. Must’ve been the Jesuitical education (which, um, this writer shares). The Brooklyn-born Fauci is chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden and, previously, served in that sort of role to many presidents. Including George W. Bush, who awarded Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Throughout the grim and grinding early days of the pandemic, Fauci was a voice of reason and calm — but he never sugarcoated the magnitude of the threat we were all facing, either. In my family, Fauci is regarded as a modern-day saint. Because he is.

Doug Ford, John Horgan and Francois Legault, Premiers. None of them are perfect — Legault, in particular, is presently presiding over a racist purge of Muslims, Jews and others who wear religious symbols while employed by his xenophobic government — but these three political leaders became popular, and mostly stayed popular, by being human. Not by getting right every pandemic-related decision. But by showing their heart, and mourning the loss of every one of their citizens. They’ll all be handily re-elected as a result.

You folks. It’s been hard. It’s been gruelling. Job losses, depleted savings, shredded futures — but you are still here, fighting, and I (for one) am grateful that you are. We need you around, you know? So keep on that mask, get vaccinated, get your booster, and look out for each other.

Because, whether you realize it or not, you’re a winner in 2021, too.

28 Comments

  1. Maureen says:

    Thank you Warren. That helped to lift my spirits today (along with the sunshine).

  2. Robert White says:

    Jesuits & Fauci beatification all in one article, Warren?

    Isn’t that sort of like a big oxymoron?

    As a signatory & charter member of the 2014 Cambridge Working Group Call-to-Action on deadly American manufactured Biosecurity Level Four Gain-of-Function pandemic pathogens purposed for offensive biowarfare I, for one, am going to read some Hunter S. Thompson as pennance.

    http://www.cambridgeworkinggroup.org/

    RW

    • Robert White says:

      I consulted with the Hunter S. Thompson Bible and found this quote from the old Bard himself.

      https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/202762-jesus-creeping-god-is-there-a-priest-in-this-tavern

      RW

    • Apropos your previous (and salient) post RW, I located a first edition hardcover copy of Songs of the Doomed in one of those little free libraries that have popped up in the last couple of years. Was it just serendipity or a sign from a higher power? (Inquiring minds want to know).

      • Robert White says:

        Hunter S. Thompson is 100% inspiration as a counterculture journalist all due to his thinking around authority figures like his own father.

        His rebelion was informed via his 50s upbringing which stiffled his creativity as a thinker in his formative years of growth thereby enabling him to experiment with counterculture as a means of political opposition. In many respects, Professor Emeritus Hunter S. Thompson was one of the first real Opposition Researchers that developed Gonzo style journalism as an art form of political skullduggery that is acceptable Opposition Research today.

        Below is an excellent review of Songs of the Doomed days and thinking. Bottom line is that Dr. Thompson was always on a search for writing contracts, and he had temerity in terms of his search for ideas & work.

        He was not a lazy writer IMHO. He just imbibed too much YoY. I agree with you that he is inspired thinking and serendipity as a working professional journalist top in his genre of writing. He knew to creat his own field of writing to differentiate himself from the masses and the great unwashed.

        https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/25/books/songs-of-the-doomed.html

        Cheers, Robert

  3. Gilbert says:

    Let’s make ine thing clear. Dr. Fauci is no saint. His dengue vaccine killed hundreds of children in the Philippines. By the way, Gibraltar has a vaccination rate of 100% and far too many cases. How do we define fully vaccinated? Five doses, six doses, seven?

  4. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    Thanks but I’m still not a winner. You see, I haven’t accomplished my job in two successive elections — but not to worry, the third time is bound to be the charm, as God is my witness. I will not rest until he’s gone politically.

    • Dear friend, to quote the Prez (Mr. Theodore Roosevelt) “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed”. You are not alone. It is our job to try and keep those in power honest and accountable.

  5. Robert White says:

    ” If you are going to be crazy you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to get locked up.” Hunter S. Thompson

    Penance paid in full.

    RW

  6. Sean says:

    Eventually the Dino Bots will team up and defeat the Megatron variant and then we can all safely attend the local strawberry shortcake social in the parking lot of the local peeler bar in the spring of 2024.

  7. Pipes says:

    I think we are in a perpetual downward regressive spiral.

    On a side note-the sister in law is a registered nurse near you. She said a fella came into emergency arguing he wasnt sick because he wasn’t vaccinated, and he blamed something else.

    He has COVID and is now on a ventilator. Personally I’d give the ventilator so someone else.

    Merry Christmas

    • Pipes,

      Agreed.

      I won’t be making it into heaven given that my heart long ago turned to stone re: the unvaccinated COVID-19 afflicted. But hey, better they all drop dead than we get to 25-50 million dead à la Spanish Flu.

  8. Dear Warren:

    Please include yourself in the category of 2021 winners. Having this site is a public service par excellence. Thanks for your tireless efforts. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too. Don’t forget to have some Christmas cheer with our good wishes for 2022.

  9. A. Voter says:

    During the height of the early AIDS crisis, pneumonia was the number one cause of death among the infected. It was discovered that common drugs could be used to treat the pneumonias that patients had, and they could be sent home from the hospital. Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to acknowledge or publicize the drugs that were saving lives. Thousands of people died early, unnecessary deaths because of Fauci. The ideas of not trusting authority, doing your own research and looking for alternative cures grew out of activists dealing with Fauci.

  10. Douglas W says:

    Biggest winner of 2021 — PMJT: his grip on this country remains extremely strong.

    • Peter V says:

      Would you please assign a value to this, Douglas? Meaning a good or a bad thing? Should you clarify that you think Trudeau’s “extremely strong grip on this country” is a good thing, I’ll toddle off and gargle with broken glass.

      • Douglas W says:

        PMJT has set this country back.

        But he and his strategists know how to win.
        And, in the foreseeable future, he can do anything he wants because he has the support of the BQ + the NDP.

        As for the Conservatives, they’re in the wilderness, where they belong — until they can get their act together.

  11. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    I managed to advance my second booster from April to February this afternoon. Tonight, I did even better: I’m now set for January 19th.

    Please, please, please, do the same as Omicron is spiraling up exponentially in many provinces, including mine.

    [I absolutely have to stay healthy just in case Jesus finally has enough and decides to come back. He can then deal with these conservative-libertarian imbeciles. That way, we won’t need firing squads!]

  12. Phil in London says:

    I particularly want to agree wholeheartedly on “you folks” In Mid March of 2020 (hockey and Irish pubs were closing” I was thinking holy shit if this lockdown goes three weeks there would be chaos in the streets.

    Remarkably we have come a long way. There is one indisputable fact, when we’re conceived one of the first things to form is the asshole, some of us never seem to leave that stage but for the most part we have all dug in and been useful.

    Even those opposed to measures and vaccines are not on the whole inhuman some are stupid, some are justifiably suspicious and some are scared but damn it we are surely near the end of this long journey.

    “Illegitimi Non Carborundum”

    If my Latin is off in the spirit of the season forgive me but I am told this means “Don’t let the Bastards take you down”. I’m winning the cancer battle, my family is more united than ever and we are confident in our future.

    Merry Christmas Warren and everyone.

  13. Steve T says:

    I’m hardly a fan of Bill 21, but it seems somewhat excessive to call it a “racist purge”. That language seems intended to invoke images of much darker global regimes, which is not really accurate.

    You’ve recently written about we as a society need to avoid hyperbole in this area, and I’d suggest that there is a bit of hyperbole surrounding Bill 21 at the present time.

    I say all of this knowing full well that Quebec’s underlying mantra is the promotion of “French culture” at the expense of everything else. There is more than a little bit of irony in the federal government critiquing Bill 21, when the feds themselves have bent over backwards for 40 years telling Quebec how “special” they are. The feds are reaping what they sowed.

  14. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Steve,

    Trust me, we aren’t that special: to put it in politically incorrect terms, this is a society that still suffers from The Plains of Abraham complex. It is excessively insular in nature with political leaders who see absolutely no systemic racism in this province. Funny, it somehow exists everywhere else across the globe but by all means No, not in Quebec.

    And don’t get me started about the francophone inferiority complex that does not trust or have confidence in francophones to remain francophones without relegating them to second-class status in their own society. Quebec is not now and will never be assimilated Louisiana.

    And then there’s the peculiar way that most francophone men regard women: screw the shit out of them six ways from Sunday and when they complain and are no longer reflexively subservient, just dump ’em and shack up with a younger model. And you can count on your ever willing government to be more than enthusiastically discriminatory making damned sure that women in Quebec never achieve legal equality with their married counterparts. It becomes a contest who can be more backward or cowardly in North America, successive provincial governments or the federal courts. If Lola knew what was good for her, she would have moved somewhere else after that legal disgrace. Somehow, Quebec premiers smile on and promote the myth of égalité homme-femme. Actions, or lack of same, speak louder than words Legault!

  15. It is interesting to read the comments on this article.

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