Category: The Original Lemonade Stand

Hermione Luck / Chief Columnist

** before we proceed with the first March issue ever published, featuring Baked News and Amy’s Guide to Staying In, here is a Covid update … November, 2021 **

Now that we have the first twenty-one months of Covid under our belts, it’s very possible that normal has not only left the dock, but most likely, normal will never return. There will be some kind of new normal perhaps, there always is, because we’re told without a normal there’s only chaos, which apparently is not a whole lot of fun.

As Warren Buffet once said, “Low tide reveals who’s not swimming with a bathing suit.” In a similar way, Covid has brought with it a low tide of reality. And so it becomes that in this ocean of chance in which we co-exist, Covid and its army of variants have, my friends, changed everything.

The Covid upheaval has revealed ourselves both to one another and to ourselves … let’s start over with the leaders we choose – these are words from the president of the United States in 2020 …

Jan …  “It’s one person coming in from China and we have it under control”

Feb …  “Counts are going down, not up … fake news.”

Mar … “It’s going to disappear soon it’s like a miracle, it’s going to disappear.”     

May … “This is going to go away without a vaccine.”

Sept … “Masks have their problems too.”

Here is a basic report card as of NOV 1, 2021

• 772,332 deceased in America
• 5,049,593 deceased worldwide
• 249,666,088 reported infections worldwide
• 99.2% of all recent American deaths unvaccinated

How has American life changed this far into a new age of pandemic? In the cities, subway usage is down 58% and used car sales up 30%. In the rural areas, the home values in Boise have gone up 31%, in Provo 21%.

• 42% of Americans gained weight.
• 66% slept less.
• 25% drank more.
• Actually, maybe that would’ve happened anyway.

Of course, in this entire mess of statistics, there is one primary statistic that stands above all others … the first Covid vaccine appeared (327) days after identification of the virus. Amen. Before this truly miraculous effort to identify a vaccine, which begs us to believe in science, the previous record to develop a vaccine for an epidemic disease was four years. And so many viruses continue to have no vaccine at all.

The Covid vaccine was no ordinary effort. And now that it’s here, it takes everyone to make it a success. Worldwide, can we be united to face this task? Domestically, is it possible that America isn’t really all racism and guns?

Maybe I have this wrong. Maybe America still aspires to be something more than its contradictions. Maybe America has the courage to be the science and vision of the future, to be proud to present to the world its self-styled elusive ladder of success and idealism. Yes, come to America if you must, but buyer beware.  

No matter which culture we call our own, we are only safe on this transitory planet if everyone is safe … much like none of us make it to Heaven unless all of us make it to Heaven.

I know that’s hard for the 144,000 who believe they are chosen, but salvation begins with the acceptance that no one sits in the front row.

                                                                         Hermione

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March 27, 2020

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Is it safe to get takeout from restaurants?

Yes, but just in case, you may want to wipe down the packaging and containers. The CDC says there’s no evidence to suggest coronavirus is transmitted through food. It’s generally spread through respiratory droplets.

But according to CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, it’s a good idea to disinfect the takeout containers and wash your hands afterward. He stressed that coronavirus is a respiratory virus, and it’s easy to touch your face without realizing it.

The Trump Response

There is no life without takeout, you know this and so do I. Why tip 5% sitting down to a meal when you don’t have to tip anything at all? That’s why as your soon-to-be re-elected wartime leader, I’ve taken very smart steps, steps that only a very smart person would consider, to remedy the situation.

First of all, rather than increasing unemployment benefits, I and I alone, the buck starts here, have ordered FEMA to make available half a billion Big Macs and two billion KFC extra crispy chicken wings to be distributed throughout the country. Every administration should have a vision and here’s mine – ‘Let them eat wings.’ That should silence the critics who say I’m racist.

And none of this food needs to be sanitized because I am told by experts, top notch people, people with brains, I exclusively hire people with brains – I’m told that these foods already contain chemicals that can kill most anything.

Secondly, I never really liked Chinese food. And I needn’t tell you where this virus came from. So stay away from soy sauce, Moo Shu Pork, Orange Duck, and whatever looks like Chop Suey, and just like me, you’ll be totally safe. You can’t lose with the basics – Burger King, Micky D’s, Wendy’s, White Castle … White Castle, love the name.

How long will we have to keep social distancing?

Probably for several months. But you might have to do it “over and over again,” since the outbreak could come in waves. 

Research by the Imperial College in Great Britain “would suggest you have to institute these kinds of measures for five months, very vigorously,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center. “And then you may be able to relax for a period. Most likely, or at least if necessary, you would re-institute distancing as the cases go up again.”

“But we’re basically looking at doing this over and over and over again, even after a five-month period of strict social distancing, in order to curb cases until we have a vaccine.”

“Health officials say we’re at least a year away from the first publicly available coronavirus vaccine. In the meantime, they say everyone should avoid large crowds and stay at least six feet away from others.”

The Trump Response

C’mon, who thought up this crap? I can tell you honestly, I’ve been a victim of social distancing for most of my life and first of all, it’s not contagious like these quacks maintain.

… believe me, when it comes to social distancing, nobody knows the trouble I seen. And in spite of what the Democrats might tell you, I was the first person to ever speak that phrase. There are so many things I say first to myself.

And by the way, it’s totally fake news that I don’t listen, that I just shake my head at my cabinet members – who work for me in case anyone has forgotten – and then supposedly I do what I want.

So social distance if you want. This politically-driven Covid conspiracy features only one redeemable element – you don’t have to listen to anyone because you’re too far away. But for my money, and I have far more money than you can imagine, it’s beautiful actually, how much money I have

… for my money, social distancing is a crock. And you can take that to the bank.

Amy’s Guide to Staying In

Roasted Garlic Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Boats

Prep Time: 15 MINUTES. Cook Time: 55 MINUTES Total Time: 1 HOUR 10 MINUTES Servings: 6 Calories Per Serving: 307

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1 head garlic
• 3/4 pound ground spicy Italian chicken sausage or ground chicken
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 can (28 ounce) crushed San Marzano tomatoes
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 medium spaghetti squash, halved and seeds removed
• 1/2 cup whole milk or heavy cream
• 1/4 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1/8 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cups shredded fontina cheese or mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup shredded provolone cheese
• kosher salt and black pepper
• fresh thyme and or fried sage leaves, for serving (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Slice off the top portion of the garlic head to expose some of the cloves. Place the garlic on a piece of foil. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and wrap in foil.                         

Transfer to the oven and roast until cloves are lightly browned and tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool, then squeeze the garlic out into a bowl. Mash the cloves with a fork.

2. To make the meat sauce. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the chicken sausage and brown all over, about 5 to 8 minutes. Add onion and cook another 2 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low, add the tomatoes, 1 cup water, the bay leaf, oregano, and a pinch each of salt and pepper.

Simmer for 15 minutes or until the sauce thickens slightly. Remove the bay leaf, stir in the roasted garlic. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

3. Meanwhile, poke a few holes into the squash with a fork and place on a plate. Microwave 3 minutes. Let cool slightly, then cut in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and discard. 

4. In a medium bowl, mix together the milk, ricotta cheese, nutmeg, and basil. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in 1 cup fontina cheese and 1/2 cup provolone cheese. 

5. Place the squash in a baking dish and season the cut sides with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the remaining fontina cheese into the bottom of each squash, then evenly divide meat sauce among the squash cavities.

Now spoon the milk/cheese mix over the meat sauce. Top with the remaining provolone cheese. Cover the squash loosely with foil. 

6. Transfer to the oven and bake 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking another 15-20 minutes or until the squash is tender and the cheese is golden brown on top. The squash will seem a little soupy, this is OK. 

7. Let the squash sit 5 minutes, then use a fork to scrape the squash into strands, mixing the meat and cheese with the squash. Serve topped with thyme and sage

Hermione Luck / Chief Columnist

The Covid crisis has certainly put us back on our heels. Coming into Fall when we’ll begin the migration indoors, we look straight ahead at the specter of winter. The people in the know tell us that this will result in a surge of Covid cases.

We’re being told, by the end of the year, more than 100,000,000 people will have been infected worldwide, and that this almost inconceivable toll most likely will be under-estimated. Of those infected, more than 2,000,000 people will have died, and they say that a quarter of that total will be Americans. It just keeps on coming, doesn’t it? American exceptionalism – We’re Number One!

And just to cheer us up, these same experts tell us that all those horrific statistics could eventually triple before we get a handle on this thing. Meanwhile, back at the White House, our president questions if we can shoot sunlight into our veins to arrest the disease. You can’t make this stuff up.

There are rumors of vaccines of course, but none in sight. There are also conspiracy theories that Covid is a hoax, sort of like the school massacres at Sandy Hook and Parkland. Interesting how the concept of evil finds its comfort zone on both sides of the coin.

In its wake, conspiracists believing they are defending themselves from evil, determined not to wear masks, essentially asking the rest of the world to bend over so they can wave the flag before shoving the flagpole up our behinds.

We have to take this pandemic seriously right now if we are to prevent a worst-case scenario. But what about a year from now in 2021? What about after the vaccine has been discovered?

What about when everyone returns to their jobs, or at least locates the jobs that are left over? What will we do to prevent another pandemic in the future? Can we learn from our mistakes, or are we destined to repeat them?

I have an idea … let’s take a deep dive into one especially vulnerable group of people who die from Covid. I’m talking about rampant obesity and its role in the death totals of the pandemic. There are no official figures yet, but so far it looks like once you factor out the senior citizens, and then the people with underlying diseases, you come to obesity as a primary Covid vulnerability.

• And who is most likely to be obese? The poor. And why are they likely to be obese? It’s not that they have sh*t for brains, it’s that they eat sh*t for food.

• What can we do about it? Let’s start with the history of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

In the 1940’s, the first legacy food policies were directed at the problem that 40% of military recruits were malnourished and underweight. Government subsidies addressed this incidence of malnourishment with a sense of purpose and self-preservation by creating The National School Lunch Program and general assistance programs such as food stamps.

Unfortunately, this well-meaning effort gave birth to the mass production of highly processed, carbohydrate-oriented convenient food products bringing with it the American birth of caloric obesity. The American diet thus began its pendulum swing, flipping from undernourished to overfed, from labor-intensive whole foods to hollow food products that needed little preparation or cooking time.

And here we are – out of shape, stomachs bulging, behinds taking up two parking spaces, huffing and puffing running after a bag of Cheetos.

Military America is now in a worse recruit situation than in the 40’s. In 2018, a council of retired admirals and generals discovered that 71% of young people between the ages of 17 and 24 did not qualify for military service, and obesity was a primary cause.

You ask what can we do – subsidize food stamps so the poor can shop at Whole Foods? Educate the young as to how a dead-end mortality rate occupies the dark side of obesity? Stop dropping bombs on the rest of the world using the money to drop healthy recipes on the rest of America?

Sure, there a lot of ha-ha’s making the rounds, but one thing is clear – America is eating itself into oblivion. The question is, do we really care?    

Eat what makes you healthy

Hermione

White House Briefing Question 

Mr. President, you have pitted state governors against each other, equated the virus with the common flu, denied there are shortages in critical protective equipment, and refused to take early warning models seriously — leaving states, hospitals and medical staff unprotected and unprepared.

How would you rate your performance to date? Might there be anything you would do differently? 

The Trump Response

How would I rate my performance? How would you rate your question? That’s a nasty question, don’t you think? Would you ask your mother a question like that? It’s a very nasty question.                                                                                 

You understand I’m the President and you’re not. You understand that, right? Raise your hand if you understand that. I don’t see you raising your hand. Do you have a hand? No hand? Are you a cripple or something?

How would I rate my performance? I get beautiful overnight ratings if that’s what you’re asking – the best overnight ratings, higher ratings I’m told than Lincoln or Washington. Better ratings than you I’d bet.

So, my performance … I would give myself a ten. When you get better ratings than I do, get back to me and maybe I’ll give that more thought.

Is there anything I would do differently? Sure, there are plenty of things I’d do differently. Not let you in this room for one thing. I don’t like people like you. You remind me of Eddie Haskell. Do you know who Eddie Haskell is?

Look, this is like a thirty-five-hour-a-week job. Luckily, I can do that in half the time, so it doesn’t really cut into my morning shows, but I can tell you I don’t earn bupkis considering the hours I put in.

• Do you know what bupkis means?
• I think it’s Hebrew … or Hawaiian.
• It’s definitely something with an ‘H’.
• It means goat turds. A pile of goat turds. A worthless pile of goat turds.

You didn’t know that I speak two languages, did you? You people in the press, in the fake news business don’t know a lot of things about me, a lot of things.

I’m the most open and personable president in history and yet you don’t know squat about me. Squat, from the Latin. That’s three languages.

Hermione Luck / Chief Columnist

What bothers me today is the day-care approach that Republican politicians use to foster allegiance with the conspiracy sect in their ranks. These politicians feed from the trough of easy votes by just diapering the problem and letting it stink.

Look, there will always be 25% of America in need of therapy or in the minds of some Democrats, a segment of America in need of lobotomies. Without conscience and at the altar of gerrymandering, Republicans have skillfully offered sanctuary to capture the allegiance of this voting block.

This solid 25%, many of whom have drenched themselves in far-flung conspiratorial rhetoric, can’t help themselves. They are livid because they are on the wrong side of the hourglass and they feel time has run out … on themselves, on their families, on their dreams. They are mostly undereducated white men who are faithful adherents of two of the more overlooked parts of the Cub Scout Honor Code – to be loyal and reverent. Loyal to their projectile paranoia, and reverent to their right to have equal access to wealth and power.                                                               

I think we’re in the middle of a slippery slope, my fellow Americans. From the country that still debates the JFK assassination, that still obsesses whether the moon landing took place in Burbank, a country that hasn’t fully decided if Obama was born in Hawaii or Kenya, we have people allowed to vote believing the following conspiracy theories –

… Bill Gates has put microchips in the Covid vaccine to control the minds of the entire world

… Lizard aliens can make themselves appear human and are manipulating the world which apparently explains why Elon Musk has antennas on his head

… the school killings at Parkland and Sandy Hook never happened, the Holocaust didn’t happen, and the government controls the weather

… Bin Laden lives. On orders from the government, Navy Seals covered up the failed attempt

… Covid masks make children easier to kidnap, and spreads the disease geometrically

… vaccines will change a person’s genetic code, and can cause impotence for men who think with their penises                                                                                     

Perhaps more disturbing is a possible insurrection from the far right with their blueprint directly in front of our eyes. In 1978, William Luther Pierce wrote a book called The Turner Diaries which outlined how ‘patriots’ could overthrow the government.

Among its suggestions? The book coined the phrase ‘the day of the rope’ where patriots would storm Congress, go after elites, after which journalists and members of Congress would be publicly hanged. Timothy McVeigh sold copies of this book at gun shows in the nineties.

So what can we do about all this? In the 1800’s, Native Americans on the plains dealt with violence within their culture in an interesting way. Anthropologists are fascinated by the fact that murder and violence within these tribes were virtually non-existent. Scholars attribute this to important roles being assigned to tribal deviants.

For instance, homosexuals became herbal doctors, thus balancing the power of the position with the tribal discomfort of their sexuality. For sociopaths (akin to our own skinhead conspiracists), the position of Contrary Soldier was created.  

These members of the tribe rode backwards into camp, said yes meaning no, and washed with sand and dried with water. The punishment for murder or violence within the tribe was banishment. Unfortunately, it isn’t likely that the Native American approach to preventing violence would work well in a country such as ours.

I guess that only leaves us with going back to the old days when life was simpler, and we could get what we needed at the corner market.

Practice safe friendship

Hermione

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May 1, 2020

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White House Briefing / Agnes Killjoy

Mr. President, you have recently been quoted as saying there already exists a number of possible cures for the coronavirus. You’ve mentioned Lysol, sunlight, and chloroquine among the remedies for this pandemic.

There is also speculation that you are currently leaning to a new and possibly revolutionary solution to the problem. Can you expand on this subject?

The Trump Response

Let me tell you, I can expand on almost anything. I really can. I love to expand … in so many ways I can expand. You have no idea.

First of all, let’s deal with Lysol – look, I don’t like needles. Who wants to shoot themselves up, all those tiny holes? They say people can leak with a lot of holes … no one wants to leak.

But Lysol, how can you beat Lysol? It’s been around for like a hundred years, right Mike? (Vice-President Michael Pence nods and licks himself.)

And as for sunlight, like they say on television, orange is the new black, baby, the new black. That’s why colored people love me – I’m orange, they’re black, and some are brown, they’re all who knows what? It’s all a new political rainbow, and I’m their pot of gold.

Now chloroquine, have any of you tried it? I think I’d try something first before I say it doesn’t work. Why be so negative? The whole lot of you, really so negative. I don’t understand why there’s so much controversy about this when no one really knows anything. Fake news.

That’s where I come in – when no one really knows anything. I’m good at it. And the Democrats, if they don’t believe in chloroquine, why do they tell me to take it myself? To take a lot of it. I don’t get it?  

As for the new announcement, yes, I do have a new announcement. It’s a very very big announcement, a beautiful announcement. I haven’t cleared this yet. (Dr. Anthony Fauci winces) but who doesn’t love Jell-O? That’s right, think about it – all these people go into the hospital, right? And most of them come out pretty good, really good.

Their lungs, their lungs are fine, and I’m thinking to myself, what do all these people have in common besides both their lungs? I guess they also have two eyes, most of them. And two legs. Alright, almost all of them have a lot in common.

But they’ve all been served Jell-O and now they’re better. The ones who didn’t make it were too sick to eat Jell-O.

You see, sometimes it’s so very really simple. It doesn’t take a genius my friends, but if you need a genius, I can guarantee you that I come from good stock, very good stock … we’re all on board up here in the old noggin. (The President of the United States points to his head.) Maybe history will remember me for “Let them eat Jell-O” instead of wings.

• That might become a famous statement someday… very famous. Any more questions? I give famous answers.