A Weed-Eater loose

I have a regular topic of conversation with a colleague who lives in Georgia; it’s basically Death To All Squirrels. He insists that they’re not bad with gravy and biscuits, but that’s not really much of a recommendation.

I bring this up because one of those convos brought me to today’s earworm; frankly, my colleague had me at the words, “There’s a Ray Stevens song…”

“The Mississippi Squirrel Revival” seems particularly appropriate for the week in which WaPo has published two stories about White evangelical goobers who would definitely worship at the First Self-Righteous Church. The first one reports on klansters in Appalachian Ohio who cashed their 2021 Stimulus checks but then whine endlessly about how the government support going to other people is screwing with the economy, driving prices up and is Communistic. Several of them are otherwise living on Social Security payments.

The second story is from Appalachian Virginia and reports on critical care nurses who’ve had to endure more than a year of Covid-denying klansters refusing to wear masks, opposing vaccines and deriding everyone in the medical profession as simultaneously lying, greedy and incompetent.

The kill shot for me was Jessica Goff, who said that the virus was a hoax and would go away after the 2020 election. When her own mother came down with it, was hospitalized and intubated, Goff became furious with the doctors for not bringing out sock puppets to convince her of the severity of the case; she told her mother to refuse remdesivir. When—despite her best efforts to the contrary—her mother recovered, Goff declared, “It was definitely a miracle,” but not a medical one. “I had rallied the prayer warriors.”

She still thinks the virus that has killed more than four million people worldwide is exaggerated and that the medical profession is falsifying cases to make money.

So, here’s my wish: may a plague of flea-infested squirrels descend upon every branch of the First Self-Righteous Church and run up the skirts and trousers of every single person there.

That would be a better recommendation than serving with biscuits and gravy.

Oh, here’s the song.