“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
—Albert Einstein
Smart Tony was so happy with the Science President for forcing everyone to get vaccines and telling them to stop with all their malarkey when they didn’t agree with his sciency ways. Getting kids vaccinated would definitely go a long way to making sure that people who almost never get hurt from COVID still don’t get hurt from it, even if a few thousand of them get hurt from the vaccines. “Heck, kids got to sacrifice for the country, just like Smart Tony been doing all these many months,” he explained to Joe in the Morning. “That’s what I call science! Them kids need to wear masks, get shots, and keep their distance just like we been telling them, and to stop asking questions and whining!"
One day Rachel in the Meadow mentioned to Smart Tony that people were concerned that he wasn’t talking enough about protecting old people, especially those who lived in long term care facilities, since those were the ones mostly dying, not all the kids and young people he and the Science President were focused on with forced vaccinations and masks.
“We’ve been shaming doctors who question whether masks work in old people, Smart Tony,” said the girl in the Meadow. “And we got a lot of state licensing Boards taking away their licenses if they dare say masks don’t work. But they point to all the deaths in those places that have occurred with everyone wearing masks, and then what am I going to say?”
Smart Tony got angry. “You tell them to shut up and listen, like you been doing, Rachel in the Meadow! You need me to get more of my university lackeys on your show to parrot all the science I tell them to say? Tons of them owe me their jobs and will say anything. Just tell me and they’ll be on. Or I can get my pals at Facebook to ruin their lives.”
The next day Smart Tony’s friend Jake expressed similar concerns, not that he thought Smart Tony was doing anything short of saving the world, but that other people were pointing to all the deaths in nursing homes and wondering why masks don’t save lives there.
“You know it’s treason and blasphemy to question Smart Tony! The Science President said that anyone who don't agree will be executed, right? Was that in this speech, or is it for the next one? Smart Tony is old and he forgets. I know the Science President talked about using the guillotine when people say crap like that; that’s the most sciency way to shut their mouths up!”
“That’s coming soon, Smart Tony, not soon enough,” said his good friend Jake “For now, we’ll keep taking stripping doctors of their licenses and shaming them any way we can when they question you. Still, I think it would be a good idea for you to visit a nursing home just to explain to them why all these doctors are wrong and why you are right!”
So, Smart Tony’s handler got him an invitation to visit a nursing home to explain why the sciency ways of the Science President and of all the doctors who talked on all of Smart Tony’s favorite TV channels were the only ones they should listen to, and why looking at how many people were dying in nursing homes didn’t mean that masks didn’t work. “Facts ain’t important,” he said. “It’s science that is.”
He gathered a group of nurses and nursing aides on a nice morning between breakfast and lunch. None of the residents would bother them during Smart Tony’s talk since they were shut in their rooms with their doors locked, just to make sure they were safe. The nurses wore three masks and two gowns and couldn’t get too close to anyone or talk unless they were called on. Smart Tony brought donuts!
“You’s guys is heroes,” Smart Tony said to them. “Some people are questioning all the sciency stuff that you do to keep people alive, but rest assured, the smartest doctors and scientists, and our Science President, all are working to make sure no one dies here, and as long as you listen to us and the good people at Pfizer, then…”
Smart Tony’s handler whispered something in his ear, and he nodded up and down.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean Pfizer. I meant the smart people at the CDC. Sometimes I get confused since all the people running the CDC used to be in Pfizer and Pfizer pays more money to the CDC than anyone else, that’s just how generous that company is. Anyways, you do what we say, and you’ll be safe, that’s my guarantee. Now, if you don’t got no questions, Smart Tony has to play some pickle ball, and he’s pretty damned good at it, that much I’ll tell you.”
A lot of hands shot up. Smart Tony whispered something to his handler, and then promised to answer a few of the questions.
“You, the short lady with the fat face, you first, and keep it brief.”
Regina, a nursing aide, spoke. “We lost 20 of our very old residents to COVID-19, and that occurred when every one of us was wearing a mask and a gown, sometimes two masks, and when all of us were screened before we even walked in the door. How can you keep saying that masks are protecting our residents if they keep dying despite all the masking?”
Smart Tony was none too happy with that question. “You are an insolent little wench, that’s what I say to your question, but because I is a man of dignity and science and intelligence, I will lower myself to respond. Let me make it simple, so simple that your little brain may even understand it. Masks work. Period and end of sentence. People is still dying because you’s guys, all of you’s, is wearing them wrong. And probably when you slip off the masks to eat or drink, that’s when the COVIDs jumps out from your gullet and kills everyone. That’s the only explanation, and I got lots of smart scientists from places like Harvard to back me up on that; they don’t got no studies to prove it, because they’s experts, they don’t need studies, they just know shit. So, because the Science President is so wise and generous, this is what we’s going to do. We’s gonna pay some companies who contributed to the President’s campaign a ton of tax-payer money to….”
His handler whispered something again. He nodded up and down.
“I didn’t mean we’s paying companies who contributed money. I means we is paying quality sciency companies hundreds of billions of tax-payer money to get you’s guys new masks. These masks are top of the line! They got filters to let you eat and drink right through them. All you do is blend up your food, put it in a bag, attach it to these new masks, and suck it down without ever taking the mask off. Poof, everyone lives, and you don’t got to take off your mask. You know the donuts Smart Tony bringed you? Well, the servants here…”
Again, some whispering.
“I mean, kitchen staff—sorry, Smart Tony is old and don’t got all the lingo right—the kitchen staff, not the servants, they pureed all my donuts and we’re handing it out now in bags. I got you the most popular type of donut too, the one with white powder on it. Me and my maid, we love a good donut from time to time, but that white power, it gets all over everything. Now it ain’t gonna do that cause it's liquified and in a bag! So go, enjoy the donuts, suck them down with the new masks, compliments of Smart Tony.”
Another aide put up her hand. “Smart Tony, Regina is right to say that we’ve lost 20 people to COVID. But we also lost 80 of our dearest residents to the quarantine. When you lock up elderly people, Smart Tony, when you deprive them of human touch, of social activities, of exercise, of joy; when you scare them day and night and suffocate them and us with masks, then they die. They stop eating, they fall, they get more confused, they whither away. Can’t you see that the cure is worse than the disease?”
“You’s one insolent young lady, aint you?” Smart Tony snapped. “What, are you reading internet misinformation? This is COVID! It ain’t some head cold. If it weren’t for Smart Tony, a billion million people would be dead by now. And you worry about some old fart not playing bingo? I’m a life saver; if it were up to me, I’d lock up the whole country in small boxes for ten years or so to make sure none of them get the COVID, and we’d sew masks on their faces and give them shots every day. So don’t you go and spitting your right-wing anti-science stuff on me. Don’t go citing a bunch of facts that contradict what Smart Tony and all his smart doctor friends say. Facts ain’t science. Experts are what science is. But, just to show you I love you, I am giving each of you this action figure of a true scientific hero. And you won’t pay a dime; the Science President bought them all for you at tax-payer expense. Ain’t it cool?”
He shows them the doll and tells them to each get one on the way out in lieu of their pay checks.
A lanky man rises his hand and Smart Tony calls on him. He's from the kitchen staff. “Smart Tony, you are so smart that I value everything you say. But I got COVID right through the mask…”
“Yo, brother,” said Smart Tony. “Don’t blame the damned mask. It was your sloppiness that gave you the COVID, or your bad behavior, not the mask. Go on.”
The man nodded and apologized. “What I want to say, is that I got COVID, it wasn’t that bad actually, but now they say I have to get a shot if I want to keep working here. But I have antibodies, I’m immune, and I’m afraid of the shot. I’ve had reactions to every vaccine I’ve ever had. I have several auto-immune diseases that my doctors fear will flare if I get the shot. Why do I have to have to get an immunization for something that I already have immunity to, especially since the immunization may well harm me?”
“First of all, shut your face or I’ll shut it for you. Second of all, didn’t you hear the Science President’s speech? Everyone gets the shot, no questions asked. That’s science. That’s how we save lives. If you die of the shot, it ain’t the shot that killed you becasue the Science President made sure you can’t sue no one, no one is liable, so that means it can’t kill you, it can either save your life, or you die of something else. And just so you numskulls know, we don’t care if you have immunity from COVID. We only care if you got it from the shot. That’s what my sciency friends at Pfizer said to me, and they run the CDC and FDA, the two groups our Science President says we can trust the most, so who’s Smart Tony gonna believe, some minimum wage employee who cooks mashed potatoes for old farts, or all the sciency guys in industry telling us to force people to get the shot? Your fired! Next!”
The questions kept coming and Smart Tony was getting irritated. Didn’t they watch CNN and Rachel in the Meadow and Joe in the Morning? Didn’t they read and listen to all the smart doctors from the Ivy League tell them to shut up and do what they say? Didn’t they hear the Science President’s speech? He was tired, it was well past his nap, and he’d likely miss his pickle ball game and all his TV shows because of this malarkey. Plus, he was hungry and was craving a powdered donut. Finally, he put up his hand and told them all to be quiet.
“You’s guys need to suck it up,” he said. “When you ask questions, you ain’t being sciency, you’s being just jerky. When you’s start staying stuff like, this many people died of this, or that many people died of that, you ain’t following all the made-up studies that my friends in the Universities and their drug-company supporters tell you to follow, you’re being like Rand Paul and them guys trying to make Smart Tony sad. You want to make Smart Tony hate you? You want him to take back them donuts and the action figure he brought you? You want the Science President take back them masks so you can’t never eat again? No, right? So, here’s my advice. Shut up your face and open up your ears. We’ll tell you the facts, and you just do what we say. Stop looking at everyone who dies. Just watch my friends on CNN and they’ll tell you that it’s the kids that’s dying, not all the old farts you’re seeing. Hell, they’d of died anyway. Let’s just immunize everyone like a hundred times, wear so many masks that you won’t know what life was before science took over the world, scare you every second with the newest variants, and then, maybe, you’ll eventually get to live your life and play with the action figure I was nice enough to give you. So, you got more questions for Smart Tony, or can he go to the john and change his depends before it leaks all over this place?”
The next day, Joe in the Morning covered Smart Tony’s brave foray into the nursing home, saying that he has “taken bold and scientific steps to stop deaths there and that everyone who worked there appreciated everything he did, other than a few right-wing anti-science troublemakers who were all fired for spreading dangerous misinformation.” The New York Times declared Smart Tony a Hero once More in its front-page headline, and the mayor of DC again presented a bill to build a monument to the great man, something that the Science President said would be even bigger than the Sam Adams Boston Lager monument on the Mall.
“Science always wins over facts,” Smart Tony said to Rachel in the Meadow. “That will be my legacy, and if I just keep doing what I’m doing, this COVID won’t never go away, and the world will have Smart Tony to thank for it.” And with that, he and Rachel shared a powered donut, although the white powder splattered all over them, and they laughed and laughed, because to them, it was all just so much fun!
The songs from my new book, The Great Stupidity, will be out soon. In the book, a blacksmith's son tries to save the world from the Black Death, and he travels through many adventures to see the Great Frenchie, who is the wisest of the wise and smartest of the smart, to see if gluing together a Saint's slithered toenail will do the trick. Here's a song from the book! It's called Faith with Numbers, and you can open it and play it on my website! Click below!