Random thoughts on the passing New Normal scene …

Placebo vaccines, more RFK, Jr, summer camp changes, bears swimming at the beach, Lynyrd Skynyrd documentaries ... and “how bout them Trojans!?”

Ronnie Van Zant and Lynyrd Skynyrd were the real Southern-Rock deal. I knew this of course, but my wife and I just watched a good documentary which reminded me. We’ve been watching a lot of documentaries since we “cut the cord.”

The story that “substantial” numbers of people in the European Union might have received “placebos” for Pfizer-BioNTech’s “Covid vaccine” is stunning in its implications.

Are 30 percent of the people who are immensely proud of getting their shots to “protect Grandma” proud of the fact they might have gotten a shot of saline solution to protect their grandmother? Do they care their wonder drug might have been a scam?

I thought Robert Kennedy, Jr. did very well in his town hall meeting with NewsNation. For the record, I note that the sky did not fall when this TV network “allowed” Kennedy to answer some vaccine questions.

It’s hard for me to think of a more prurient, immoral and dysfunctional person than Hunter Biden, the son of our president. 

Would a drug addict, serial customer of prostitutes, tax dodger and someone who had an affair with his sister-in-law, someone with no obvious employable skills, perhaps be the type person who’d profit from selling favors to his powerful political father? I’m just asking.

How long will the “watchdog” White House press ignore the fact “Joe Biden” suffers from ever-worsening dementia? 

I’m old enough to remember when Gov. Ron DeSantis was a political rock star for his willingness to challenge the Covid orthodoxy.  Today, DeSantis must be asking, “What in the heck did I do? What changed?” I think I know the answer: The “Narrative” changed … And, governor, you can’t fight The Narrative.

DeSantis has tried to make a big deal of this ESG trend, which is the movement to make sure companies are graded on their “equity” and social consciousness (instead of, you know, making money or delivering a needed widget or service to customers).

I don’t think my ESG score is very good …

I don’t know what it is, but I imagine my ESG score is not very good … so I better hold off on that public offering of my latest world-saving business start-up.  Dang you, BlackRock. Dang you, ESG.

After my article “Ed Dowd was dead wrong on one prediction,” a couple of readers suggested I was right that life insurance companies would get around the huge increase in death benefits by dramatically raising their policy premiums. 

I know my life insurance company doubled my premiums. “Doubled” = “an increase of 100 percent” - which is a little more than the government’s “official” rate of inflation (4 percent).

Anyone who believes inflation is only 4 percent probably also believes Covid poses a terrible mortality risk to healthy children.

How many more grand slam tennis titles would Novak Djokovic have won if he was allowed to play in every tournament the last three years?

Who can Novak sue for not having more big trophies or silver platters in his trophy case … not to mention, cash in his checking account?

Steve Kirsch keeps pointing out that the Amish Community is the perfect “placebo group” to study the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing deaths. He also points out the CDC won’t do any studies showing that the Amish have lower rates of deaths for Covid and other infectious diseases than the public at large. As always, the great “tell” is the studies that will never be performed.

Somehow I think a large number of funeral home owners are now able to afford a second home at the beach or the lake … but I don’t think I’m supposed to mention this.

Our family enjoyed a nice three-night vacation at Destin, Florida in May. Since then, I’ve read stories about a bear swimming in the Gulf of Mexico on the same beaches, various sightings of big schools of sharks and, recently, 11 people in the Panhandle beaches drowned from terrible rip currents. It’s also now 102 degrees. In retrospect, we timed our vacation well.

If you get bored and want to perform an interesting media study, simply chart the percentage of TV commercials that are paid for by Big Pharma. .

Lance Reddick’s TV characters would have investigated

possible vaccine deaths

If actor Jamie Fox did suffer a vaccine injury and if the late actor Lance Reddick died from a vaccine injury - and this was acknowledged - this might be “narrative-changing” information on the “safety” of the Covid vaccines. Easy prediction: This will never be confirmed or acknowledged.

Speaking of Mr. Reddick, I loved his acting in the TV series “The Wire” and “Bosch.”  Reddick’s fascinating, tough and truth-seeking characters would have wanted the truth revealed (and the guilty punished). 

If anyone wants to move from a particularly woke Blue state (or Blue city) to somewhere the cost-of-living is dramatically lower and the people are friendly, a dollar actually goes much further in my state of Alabama than in neighboring Florida. And we’re 2 hours and 15 minutes from the Sunshine State’s prettiest beaches  … and the swimming bears and the great white sharks.

Lately, my wife and I have been on a documentary binge-watching kick. (Like many Americans, we cut the cable TV cord as an inflation work-around and Netflix and other streaming services seem to produce a lot of pretty good documentaries).

We just watched a documentary on the great Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. This band deserved their stardom as they worked their good-old-boy butts off practicing in a little country cabin with no air-conditioning. One band member would have to sleep at the shack every night to keep their amplifiers from being stolen.

According to the documentary, Ronnie Van Zant perhaps died in the plane crash because, once the plane started to experience mechanical issues, he moved to the very front of the plane. Most people who died, including the two pilots, were in the very front of the plane. My take-away from this documentary is that if I’m ever on a plane that starts to have engine issues … I’m moving to the very rear of the plane.

Statistically speaking, it’s said that air travel is much safer than traveling in an automobile. This is no doubt true …. But I don’t think it’s true for famous bands and musicians.

I still can’t get over the documentary on Bernie Madoff that chronicled the one statistical analyst who kept trying to alert regulators and the media that Madoff was operating an obvious Ponzi scheme. My take-away: Always pay attention to the guy no one’s paying attention to.

My daughter just got back from five nights at Girl Scout camp. The camp was at Lake Martin. The cabins where she stayed are where Hank Williams, Sr. once wrote a couple of his biggest hits (like “Kaw-Liga” ).

In our After-Camp debriefing session, my daughter Maggie told me one of her 6th-grade camp mates corrected Maggie for not using this young person’s preferred pronouns. These pronouns were not “she’ but “they” or “them” … or something besides she or he.

All I am going to say here is that Camp is different than when I spent a couple of weeks at Camp Deerwood in Brevard, North Carolina in 1975.

Not that I’m counting, but …

It’s only five weeks until members of the Crimson Tide and Troy Trojans report for summer football practice!

Do you know that Alabama has been ranked No. 1 in the AP football poll at some point in the football season for 15 years in a row? This might be a record that will never be equalled. 

Alabama football coach Nick Saban, who made this record possible, preaches “consistency” all the time. Well, that’s consistency. If Alabama doesn’t win the national championship, it’s almost always in the hunt late in the season. 

Jack Nicklaus used to be like that. If he didn’t win the major, he was in the running to win it late in the final round. (Nicklaus finished as runner-up in majors an amazing 19 times.)

When I was a 23-year-old sports editor of The Troy Messenger, key boosters of then Troy State made the bold decision to move from NCAA Division II all the way to “big-boy” sports, NCAA Division I.  This was quite controversial at the time as many local residents argued there was no way our college teams could compete at that level.

I remember I wrote a column saying, “Go for it. This will work … Yes, we can win games against famous athletic programs and this will end up being the best marketing move our college ever made.” 

Last fall, Troy’s Division-I football team finished 11-2. The Trojans’ only two losses were to Ole Miss, in a competitive game in Week 1, and to Appalachian State, which Troy lost when the Mountaineers completed a “Hail Mary” TD pass on the game’s final play.

Troy finished No. 19 in the country in the final AP 2022 poll.

See, I stand by some of my old columns!