Beware the headlines

 Thursday - Michael rabbiting on

This is one of those stream of consciousness blogs that we all decide not to write until after we’ve written them. If there is a point, it’s that you have to read beyond the headlines. It seems trivial to focus on these three examples when people are dying in Gaza and Israel, and in India, and...pretty much anywhere else you care to mention, but I suspect the same sort of issues are true there too. We just aren't close enough to know that they are.

The headlines are mine, but the stories are all true.

THERE REALLY IS ELECTION FRAUD BY MAIL BALLOT!

As mystery writers, we go to great lengths to set up complex scenarios with fiendishly clever antagonists. It’s discouraging when real life ones behave in ways that are incredibly stupid.

Barry Morphew sent in a mail ballot for his wife in favour of Donald Trump. “I thought he should get one more vote,” he reportedly said, claiming that he didn’t know a husband couldn’t vote for his wife. (Maybe he didn’t do that well in civics classes, or maybe he thought he was living a few hundred years ago.) He witnessed it himself. “Anyway, all those other guys are doing it,” he allegedly added, refering to the stories of massive voter fraud taking place. Thank you, Donald Trump.

An eagle-eyed election clerk was puzzled by the vote. The Morphews lived in a small town in Colorado and Mrs Morphew had been missing for some six months at the time. Missing Persons pictures were plastered all over the town. Now here she was voting with her missing signature witnessed by her supposedly distraught spouse!

Morphew has now been charged with first degree murder. As the cherry on top, he’s also been charged with fraud and various others misdemeanors related to voting by mail.

Sigh. It’s not even good enough for a short story…

VACCINATED NEW YORK YANKEE TEAM COMES DOWN WITH COVID. THE VACCINES DON’T WORK!

Eight members of the team of the New York Yankees came down with Covid. All had been vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine more than two weeks before so were “fully vaccinated.” That’s pretty scary. After all, mask requirements have just been lifted for vaccinated people, and now here’s a group of those people walking around spreading the dread disease.

A baseball side has nine players, so if you throw in a couple of reserves and so on, that’s probably two thirds of the team infected. Scary stuff. Could it be coincidence? Yes, of course, but the vaccine is supposed to be some 70% effective, so assuming it all started at a super spreader event (or on a plane), the chance is only about 0.8%. That’s about the same as tossing an unbiased coin seven times and coming up with a head each time. That’s pretty unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

What about the vaccine itself? Might it have been a “dud” dose for some reason? No, they were all vaccinated at different times.

But the whole edifice is wrong because of the assumption about “team.” It turns out that by “team” the report meant all the people who travel around together with the NYYs. That turns out to be some 50 people! Now 8 out of 50 is 16% - about what you’d expect from a super spreader event if all 50 had been exposed (which, of course, we don’t know). In fact, only one player tested positive.

There is a moral to the story. The vaccines don’t make you immune to Covid19. But the huge upside is the level of the disease. Of the eight people who tested positive only one developed any symptoms at all, and that one needed no special intervention.

Okay, I can live with that.

CHAIRMAN OF ANC NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (NEC) SUSPENDS SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT!

Ace Magashule in happier times

Yes, the president of South Africa was suspended by the chairman of the governing council of his party. In South Africa, that means he’s gone. He can’t remain president without the support of his party. Think of ex-president Zuma rubbing his hands in evil glee in the background.

Well, except that the chairman of the NEC is one Ace Magashule. One-time premier of one of our provinces, and supposedly the most corrupt of a pretty uninspiring bunch, he fell foul of a rule that says that if a party executive faces criminal charges (which he does), then he must step aside until the matter is resolved (which he didn’t). So, the president, as party leader, suspended him as chairman of the NEC. In fact, he was expelled from a meeting of the NEC. Police dragging him from the room would have made a great photo op, but unfortunately he was just disconnected on Zoom, leaving him to swear impotently at a blank screen. He responded by announcing that because of this illegal act, he was suspending President Ramaphosa effective immediately. The NEC yawned and gave him until last Friday to apologize. No such apology was forthcoming. Instead, he’s taking the matter to the courts. Good luck with that.

The last laugh

We’re just facing the start of our Third Wave, so a little light relief is welcome. Soon we’ll be facing another alcohol ban. Although known to have no effect on Covid, this weapon is highly effective because it shocks people into immediate compliance with mask wearing and social distancing. Dying is one thing, but dying sober is quite another.

Fortunately, my cellar is well stocked. Well, come to think of it, maybe another bottle of gin or two wouldn’t go amiss…