Shoot the Shots, Make 'em Count

The Schloss-Blog can't believe we're still writing?about this sh-t - uh, shots - but we are.

Shots in the arm. And shots outside of Nationals' ballpark in D.C. Shots that help avoid a resurgence of COVID and shots that kill people and make them scramble for cover at what should otherwise be a safe venue at which to enjoy a Major League Baseball game.

Would rather be writing about shots of J.D. or Jim Beam, but, maybe another time.

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There were all kinds of shots fired in the last week. Some of my favorites were in one of the new books about the last days of Trump, just published.?In "Only I Can Fix It," ?by Washington Post award-winning reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, it is revealed that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told us how he really feels about Donald Trump, comparing him to Hitler having a Reichstag moment and living by the "gospel of the Fuhrer."

And those were his nice words.

Yes, Donald Trump was every bit the schmuck you thought he was, and beyond. A desperate man, much smaller than his 6-foot-3, 243-pound (ahem!) frame, fearing the investigations closing in on him and the ones to come.

Milley, for his part, was hell bent on not allowing the military be Trump's vehicle to elude all that, commander-in-chief be damned.

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But if you're a baseball fan, a sports fan, it appeared to not be so safe to go to a game last week.

At Nationals' Park in D.C., shots rang out, clearly audible in the stadium with a game in progress.

Cool, huh?

People scrambled for cover, for safety.

What would you have done? Hid on the ground in your aisle? Run for the concourse, not knowing if that was safe? Remained calm and figured out where the shots were coming from and then decided where to seek shelter?

Even the ballplayers didn't know what to do for sure as they scrambled for the clubhouse and even ushered some fans in seats close behind the dugouts along with them.

What if you were there? What if you had your kids or grandkids with you? Can you even imagine that happening? Would you know what to do? Is there an instruction manual for this, a set of guidelines to follow for "shots at the ballpark?"

No, there isn't.

So good luck.

Especially next time you're at a game in one of those shooting-gallery war zones, otherwise known as Chicago, New York or - anywhere.

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Speaking of shots, as we are this week, there's one (or two) we all should be getting, but we aren't.

Those who aren't are paying the price. You've heard the numbers: 99 percent of all COVID-related deaths now are those who have not been vaccinated.

About 83 percent of all new COVIDiot cases are the new, highly transmissible Delta variant and it's spreading like wildfire across southern (i.e., Red) states. And something like 97 percent of all those hospitalized now with COVIDiot infections are - you guessed it - unvaccinated.

Nice, huh? A percentage of your fellow Americans don't care if they die, apparently. They don't request the injection until it's too late - until they've been hooked up to a ventilator and pretty much left for dead.

Can you imagine, unable to gasp for air with machine assistance, begging for a shot (pun intended) at life and being tended to by a physician who knows you're beyond the pale.

Too many stories about doctors having COVIDiot patients ask them for the shot, only to have to tell them, it's too late.

By now, so many of us know or know of someone in our families, among our friends and co-workers or just in our lives who were too late.

They live in that other America, where the vaccine is not proven, they believe, where those who have had COVID believe the antibody will help them stave it off in the future, where politicians have doubted the efficacy of the serum.?

But it works. I know that. You know that. Your friends and families know that.

Everyone else is at risk, perhaps of dying.

In that other America.

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To borrow from the old public service ad campaign, friends don't let friends go unvaccinated. Don't let your friends. Don't let your family members.

There is plenty of vaccine available now. You can get vaccinated by walking into a CVS.

Or as the old ad campaign goes: don't let your friends be COVIDiots.

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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' show.