Turns out the dead can do something beside vote Democratic.¹ They can also harangue us from beyond the grave about the pandemic.

This summer, at least two newspaper obituaries served as soapboxes for the deceased to churlishly blame other people, who haven't submitted to the so-called vaccines, for their deaths from the coronavirus "delta variant." For their part, the newspapers buried the real story since the deceased had received the full recommended inoculations, but died from the virus anyway.² It's a variant on the old joke about the operation being a success.³

To the dead's credit, they at least expressed themselves better than government officials above ground, who, as of this issue, have resorted to iron-fisted scapegoating to inject more people with experimental drugs.⁴ For example, the local power elite reimposed their much-beloved yet objectively ineffective prophylactic -- perhaps beloved because ineffective⁵ -- along with the highest-stage emergency designation in Travis County, after reported influxes of patients to intensive care units.⁶ They, and like-minded officials at higher levels, blame the influx on the delta variant, which in turn they blame on the "unvaccinated," which even now totals about 35 percent of the U.S. population, including some 20 to 60 percent of medical professionals, depending on the survey.⁷ Those professionals are willing to risk their livelihoods over what they believe to be right.⁸ What's the other side willing to risk?

All too often, the establishment response feels like being trapped in a societal-wide death cult, where instead of "taking the Kool-Aid," we're exhorted to "take the jab."⁹

This isn't the first time alleged medical science has tried to cloak itself in the pretense of religion.¹⁰ Some show biz type penned a 1975 bestseller, "Sugar Blues," a jeremiad casting sugar in the role of Satan.¹¹ After trying to read it, I felt like zapping the author with a custard pie. But I wouldn't want to waste the dessert.

None of the "pro-vaxx" hectoring, from His Fraudulency down, addresses the potential long-term risks from these drugs introduced in December without the standard testing and approval processes.¹² Instead, we read and hear a daily drumbeat of indignant assertions that they're safe and effective. They could, if so inclined, access the same medical databases I've consulted, to see peer-reviewed articles co-authored by credentialed doctors that raise concerns, but today's journalists apparently are incapable of the same basic research I learned to do as a J-school freshman, before the Internet was a household term.¹³

Moreover, the accumulating data indicates the drugs aren't so good in the short term. Too many "breakthrough" cases, like our obituary writers,¹⁴ too many reported blood clots,¹⁵ too many reported injuries from the jabs,¹⁶ and too many officially reported deaths attributed to the so-called vaccines undermine assertions of safety.¹⁷

More recently, reports suggest these drugs are "leaky," meaning they make their recipients more susceptible to the virus. Meanwhile, the recipients shed their mutated viral loads on each other and everyone else.¹⁸

Reports of those hospitalized like to emphasize their "unvaccinated" status. Nevertheless, Dr. Sebastian Rushworth has pointed out, according to official data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 94 percent "of the people who have so far died of Covid in the US had at least one underlying condition, and the average person who died of Covid had three underlying conditions."¹⁹

The decision to lock down was largely made based on the apparent success of the lockdown that China instituted in Wuhan early in the course of the pandemic, and on modeling done by statisticians at Imperial College in London, which suggested that half a million people in the UK would die without a severe lockdown. It’s important to understand here that modeling is not scientific evidence. A model is basically an equation that you invent – you feed the equation with all the variables that you think matter, and then you see what the equation spits out. So, the model will generally produce the result that you, the creator, want it to, since you’re the one deciding which assumptions will be built into the model, and you’re the one deciding which variables will be fed into the model.

So, we have here two very questionable pieces of evidence. “Information” coming out of China, a totalitarian dictatorship with a long history of using media to manipulate the public, and low quality modeling that has since been proven to be utterly wrong. These two questionable pieces of evidence were added to the idea that lockdown ought to work, because it’s “common sense.”²⁰

After a while, enough such data accumulates that even establishment media outlets can't ignore it. Perhaps for this reason, the media sentiment, reflected in Internet news aggregator pages that I don't customize, has shifted in the past five months from 100 percent "pro-vaxx" headlines to about 60 percent.

Or uttered in terms even Joe Biden will understand, if this virus is so deadly, how come so many people are still alive? How come we haven't read the obituaries of familiar people whose deaths would give us at least a fleeting satisfaction? Instead, the same assholes are still impinging on our lives. Now, they also self-righteously parrot the power elite's extravagant claims that have to be accompanied by hazmat-garbed teams scraping corpses off the pavement for an increasingly jaded public to heed.

If we're to scapegoat anybody, it should be those officials and self-proclaimed medical experts who've spent the last two years extolling measures that don't work, and disparaging those that do. Moreover, a spate of intended exposés of the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic revealed a behind-the-scenes outbreak of infighting and gargantuan egos among career medical bureaucrats, attempting to assert their dominance over one another: "How dare you question my recommendation? I am a board-certified physician!"²¹

As is, virologists have concluded their anti-pandemic measures -- the faces diapers, the social distancing, and the lockdowns -- prolonged the pandemic and spurred the virus to mutate.²² Even the Chronicle admits that the social distancing orders are responsible for a surge in opioid overdoses in the county.²³

In response, people, spearheaded by government labor unions, are finally pushing back.²⁴ Even the Canadians are revolting.²⁵ Afterward, the so-called medical professionals should be publicly stripped of their licenses, prohibited from working again in anything to do with health or medicine, and socially ostracized.

Austin Death Watch

They're not the only ones who deserve such punishment. The local power elite's tyrannical response to the pandemic is just the most prominent reason for Austin's decline in the rankings of best places to live.²⁶

Chronicalista Mike Clark-Madison finally admitted in the July 2 issue that "urbanists" with their repeated attempts at imposing new land-use codes have actually made things worse at the stated goal of providing affordable housing for other people. "Instead, we've made it about the levers of regulation, and thus about the power to regulate the lives of others and the money to influence how that is done, and thus become another special interest group."²⁷

Of course, this cri de coeur is just the latest in a pattern of Boomeroid Chronicalistas barely reaching a conclusion that's a starting premise in Austin Dispatches. By next week's issue, said Chronicalistas are back to struggling to make sense of the world while burdened with their anti-bourgeois, statist mentalities. The younger staffers can't even achieve that much.

In fact, the same July 2 issue contains an article lauding historical landmark preservation as some form of justice for nonwhites, even though such landmark designations make it harder for the property owners to do anything, and preserves property that might be redeveloped for affordable housing.²⁸

No wonder blacks are leaving Austin.²⁹ They have so many more reasons, too. Consider:

Local murders are at their highest number since the early '90s crack wave.³⁰ In response, the Austin power elite make excuses for some thrill-kill perp, probably from envy.³¹ A former Austin Energy employee confessed to stealing $43,000 in equipment.³²

A task force study excoriates the City's failed response to the snowstorm, particularly as we always hear the preening about local officials' responsiveness.³³ A decade later, the Chronicle concedes the City's Web site still malfunctions.³⁴

Williamson County commissioners sued the City of Austin for planning to dump street bums in a hotel simultaneously within city limits and Williamson County. "It is clear we cannot trust the city of Austin," Williamson County County Judge Bill Gravel said.³⁵

Travis County commissioners were shocked the Austin Convention Center Department wants to demolish the existing convention center downtown to build a new one.³⁶ CapMetro scaled back its bus service because of a staff shortage -- something you don't have to worry about when you drive your own vehicle.³⁷ The mass transit bureaucracy also has plans to create its own police force.³⁸

Austin Independent School District personnel are going door to door, attempting to reverse declining enrollment and "win students back." What about social distancing? "At stake is state funding allotted to the district based on the number of students in its schools."³⁹

Neighborhood News

To follow the local media reports, the new soccer stadium is the greatest thing ever. Yet as fans thronged the first super-spreader event June 12, residents of Quail Hollow, Gracywoods, and North Park Estates blocked the side streets connecting their subdivisions with Braker Lane, with signs declaring "No event parking."⁴⁰ Take that, soccer fans.

The Austin Community College Board of Trustees voted Aug. 13 to mandate face diapers indoors on campus.⁴¹

On June 27, I managed to navigate the southbound MoPac frontage road-Duval Road overpass-Gracy Farms Lane intersection without having to stop for lights or traffic, for only the third time in the 21 years I've used that intersection. Anybody else who's driven there will know what a remarkable accomplishment that is.

KXAN-TV's traffic Web page reported collisions at Parmer Lane and MoPac Expressway on May 25 and 31, at northbound MoPac and Burnet Road on May 26, at MoPac and Braker on June 2 and 23, Aug. 5 and Sep. 17, at MoPac and Duval on June 23 and Sep. 2 and 16, at Alterra Parkway and Domain Drive on June 25, at Gracy Farms and Metric on Aug. 3, at Research Boulevard and Braker on Sep. 1, at Metric and Energy Drive on Sep. 20, and at Metric and Cedar Bend Drive on Oct. 7. On July 8, I witnessed a near-collision at Metric Boulevard and Lamplight Village Avenue, caused by some dumb fuck who U-turned in rush-hour traffic.

A May 28 thunderstorm shredded foliage and briefly knocked out power.⁴²

Ownership of the Taco Cabana chain, which includes a location at Parmer Crossing shopping plaza, has changed hands.⁴³ The owner of The Shops at Arbor Walk filed for bankruptcy.⁴⁴ Five businesses have opened in, expanded in, or relocated to the neighborhood.⁴⁵ A Mexican restaurant at The Domain has changed its name.⁴⁶

On the Metro

June 6: My friend Lillian Martinez Simmons threw a backyard party at her Round Rock house, thereby ending an anti-pandemic-induced social drought of 18 months.⁴⁷

Jun. 28: I saw a dead dog lying on the side of Dessau Road between Wells Branch Parkway and East Oxford Drive.

July 22:Witnessed a near-collision at Immanuel Road and Purple Martin Drive.

Aug. 2: An evening rush-hour thunderstorm knocked out traffic lights along Interstate 35 between Wells Branch and Howard Lane.

Aug. 3: I witnessed the aftermath of a collision at MoPac and Century Park Boulevard.

Aug. 13: Some fucking gypsy tried to panhandle me at Wells Branch and Farm-to-Market Road 1825. I told her to maintain social distance and she scurried away quickly.

Aug. 20: At rush hour, I witnessed someone standing in the center turn lane of Lamar Boulevard near Walnut Creek Bank Road, absorbed in his cell phone as traffic whizzed past him.

Aug. 23: Witnessed the aftermath of a traffic-snarling collision at East Wells Branch and Tudor House Drive.

Sep. 7: The lights malfunctioned at the intersection of Immanuel and Oxford at rush hour.

Sep. 15:Witnessed a school bus run a red light at the intersection of South Heatherwilde Boulevard and East Wells Branch.

Sep. 17: A couple of chick drivers collided on the southbound frontage road of I-35 between Own-Tech Boulevard and Howard and stalled evening commuter traffic.

Media Indigest

Statist shill Ken Herman left the Statesman.⁴⁸ For the first time since I've been reading the Statesman, it published a combined edition for Sunday and Monday on Labor Day.⁴⁹ The paper's finances must be worse than we know.

Business Roundup

After servicing my car, the dealership summoned a rideshare to my complex. However, four successive drivers failed at finding the intersection and entryway I specified, a feat matched only by most cabbies.

From the Kitchen

With the brief reliberalization of stores, I bought a package of frozen Skyline Chili, from Cincinnati. My verdict: Glorified hot sauce. My family makes better chili.⁵⁰

Speaking of recipes, after 28 years, I finally read the book that instructs how to recreate brand-name foods. Specifically, I created a small batch of peanut butter cups. The trick is to paint melted chocolate on the inside of the paper cups without them sticking to themselves.⁵¹

NOTES