He Aced It!

Hello, my name is David and I am a newsaholic.

I know, I know. We have tried it all. Family interventions. Rehab, JA (Journalists Anonymous), 12-step programs, no new relationships for a year, experimental medicines that make you vomit if you sip the news, intense therapy, non-intense therapy, group therapy, marriage therapy (under the theory I may be the man who mistook his wife for a tabloid), befriending God and the most extreme of all -- non-news days.

But nothing worked. I remain a news junkie.

Since the family now accepts that, they've already agreed on the message for my tombstone: "Breaking News: I'm dead."

Until then, the current news cycle is my best friend and these days it's a bit hard to keep up.

* Trump goes to Dade County, the global pandemic center, and doesn't wear a mask or mention the virus.

* A baby dies in Texas from Covid-19. An 11-year-old dies from it in Florida. A medical examiner so overworked he can't accept any more bodies says his autopsies show multiple blood clots in multiple organs of the victims.

* The White House tells the main truth-teller left in the administration, Dr. Fauci, to stop appearing on TV. He says he hasn't met with Trump in months.

* Fire season has started here in the West. Prison inmates usually help fight wildfires, but so many have Covid-19, there are not enough this year.

* In some sort of karmic justice, the city Trump chose for his convention next month, Jacksonville, is so filled with Corona-V that local Republican officials hope nobody comes.

* Mitch McConnell says he ain't planning to go. Neither are many GOP senators.

* Trump pardons his friend and political operative, Roger Stone, who was convicted of seven felony counts, including lying to Congress.

* Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, warns that the U.S. may reach "one of the most unstable times in the history of our country. We will have hospitals overwhelmed and ... exhausted hospital staff ... that's getting ill themselves." 

* Harvard and MIT are seeking to protect foreign students from losing their visas, while the President is threatening the tax-exempt status of institutions that he says indoctrinate students.

***

What can I possibly say about all of this?  I sat in the front yard watching the butterflies and the hummingbirds, and thought for a while. More passersby seem to wave at me nowadays, maybe because I'm becoming a fixture like a hedge, a sidewalk, or a clump of ivy.

I just hope they don't think I'm part of that bamboo forest that sends up sprouts here and there. I don't wish to be served up as the centerpiece at somebody's wedding reception.

Wait a minute! I just realized I neglected to mention the most amazing news story of all! The President has revealed that his doctors were surprised at how well he did on a cognition test. In fact, he says, he "aced" it.

As one who's no stranger to cognition tests, I'm speechless. First, it's not difficult to do well on a cognition test. It has questions like "Do you know where you are?" It's the sort of quiz you better ace because a B would be a failing grade.

Second, neurologists don't give you cognition tests for the fun of it. Either you've had a stroke (like I did) or you are acting strangely in ways that suggest you may have suffered some other sort of brain trauma.

My fellow stroke survivors will tell you that one of the common after-effects of a seizure is an almost preternatural tendency to tell the truth, even if you are otherwise a congenital liar. You might, for example, tell people you aced a cognition test.

And that your doctors were surprised.

***

Let's face it. The circus we are witnessing in Washington, D.C. has become a very tired act. Trump makes so many unsubstantiated claims that the Democrats are starting to not even respond to some of them.

What should logically happen at this point is the responsible media should just stop covering Trump any more than is absolutely necessary. But they can't stop, because they are addicted to his brand of news. What we need is a massive self-help movement for the mainstream media (MSM in Trump parlance).

The President may be lousy at governing but he's great at manipulating media. I can tell that many of my former colleagues are exhausted as a result.

Maybe the entire national media establishment, including Fox, should take a holiday this weekend and come out here to contemplate the butterflies and hummingbirds with me.

Think of it as therapy, or a non-news day.

I'm quite sure they could ace it.

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