Rant #2,545: Bits and Pieces

Today is December 4, and we welcome back "Bits and Pieces" from the edge of extinction with today's Rant.

There are a number of issues that need to be spoken about here, but not in large doses, so I felt it was time to resurrect “Bits and Pieces” from the dead, or at least from the very comatose stage, for today’s entry.
 
So here goes—
 
• Rafer Johnson Dies: Many of you would ask just who Rafer Johnson was, but even those who knew probably forgot about this once-major figure, who passed away the other day at age 86 with scant mention.

 Johnson was a former Olympian, set numerous records during his time as a track and field star in the 1950s and 1960s, and with his imposing frame—long and lean at 6 feet, 3 inches and probably 250-some odd lbs.—he demanded the respect of just about anyone around him due to his size and athletic accomplishments.
 
He was also one of the most visible black icons in the country during the 1960s, powered on by his transition to acting, where he appeared in numerous films into the 1980s and 1990s.
 
But Johnson will be most remembered for a single moment in time, and something that he did during that single moment.
 
Johnson and fellow ex-athlete and transitional actor Roosevelt Grier were with Robert Kennedy during a campaign stop in California on June 6, 1968, and both ex-athletes were extremely involved in his campaign.
 
As Kennedy took the podium that evening, shots rung out from the crowd, and Kennedy was pretty much hit head on. Johnson and Grier tackled the shooter, Sirhan Sirhan, and then attended to the fallen Kennedy, who died a few hours later of his wounds.
 
Both Johnson and Grier were looked at as national heroes for their role in apprehending Sirhan.
 
Johnson was also instrumental in bringing the Olympics to Los Angeles, and after years of being famous, he kind of faded into the woodwork until his death.
 
• Coronavirus Vaccine Schedule Announced: Now that it appears we have something tangible related to good, viable and approved or nearly approved vaccines announced to put the pandemic into submission,

 Those on the front lines fighting the pandemic—doctors, nurses and others working in hospitals and serving the most severe patients—will get the shot first, followed by those long-term patients in nursing homes.
 
The Center For Disease Control (CDC) has made this recommendation, but the problem—if you want to call it one—is that most of the population won’t get the vaccinations until late spring or early summer.
 
Thus, any type of herd immunization—where a majority of people get the vaccine, and the benefits of getting it are even passed on to those who pass on getting the shot—cannot be felt until probably the fall at the earliest.
 
So those who are looking forward to a normal 2021 better be braced for just the opposite. Most of 2021 is going to replicate 2020, as far as what we can and cannot do. It won’t be until a majority of the population is able to get vaccinated that we will feel the real, tangible effects of the shots, but at the very least, in the fall, winter and going into 2022, we will be on the right path.
 
2021? Pretty much another washout, but at least we will be headed in the right direction.
 
• After Coronavirus Scare … : Heck, I am no different from any other human being on the planet now.

I am sure I have come into contact with people who have had the coronavirus, and I probably came into contact with them when they were infected and didn’t even know it.
 
As I illustrated earlier in the week, I got a scare when I was told, two weeks after the fact, that a person I had come into contact with for an elongated period of time had the disease, and was self-quarantining.
 
The person had no symptoms, and I had not seen this person for about two weeks when I was told about this person’s malady.
 
To err on the side of caution, I went to my local walk-in clinic, and the whole thing—from the wait to the actual administration of the tests—took about an hour tops.
 
I received the results of the quick test a few hours later, and they were negative.
 
Yesterday evening, I received the results of the most substantive test, and they were also negative.
 
If I even had the disease, we would never know now, because I had no symptoms during the two-week period in between my last contact with this person and my finding out that this person had tested positive.
 
But again, even though I might have erred on the side of caution, I feel good that I took the tests, and evidently I am clean.
 
It makes me feel better, and my family feel better, and that is really what counts.
 
• The President Continues His Losing Streak: President Trump simply can’t win for losing, and he keeps on losing every court battle related to the veracity of the presidential election.

 
Look, I supported the guy, I voted for him, and I do think that he was a good president.
 
But his latest tactics are painting him as a crybaby and a sore loser, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why he wants to go out this way.
 
He has provided no tangible evidence that the election was rigged, or that votes were fraudulently cast, and his refusal to pass over power to Joe Biden and his team has become an absurdity that I cannot understand.
 
What he fails to see, and what his people fail to see, is that what happened was not illegal, it was just different.
 
Mail-in ballots did him in, and the misuse of this voting option was NOT illegal, but it was kind of underhanded.
 
The system was never designed to handle so many mail0inn ballots, which prior to this election, were only used in the most dire of circumstances by those too frail to visit the polls or the elderly, or those who had no other way of voting, like by service members.
 
This year, because of a horrid loophole that no one could have foreseen—the presence of the coronavirus—people who were not frail and were not elderly decided to vote this way, whether they really feared the virus so or were just too lazy to go to the polls.
 
This is where the thrust of the president’s might should be directed, to ensure that such nonsense never happens again.
 
Each mail-in ballot should be notarized, and there should be a limit to how many people can use this way to vote, with those ailing and our elderly citizens being given first dibs on voting like this.
 
You cannot have people who frequent Target on a regular basis claiming “illness” as a factor to vote via mail-in. It is unfair, and President Trump should be directing his energies this way rather than the useless way he is doing it now.
 
But we know why he is doing it.
 
I mean, even in a loss, he received upwards of 74 million votes.
 
That ain’t hay, and you just know that in 2024, he is going to be running again, counting on his continued popularity to unseat Biden.
 
I mean, if Teddy Roosevelt could do it, why not Trump?

• John Lennon's Death Remembered: On December 8, it will be 40 years since John Lennon was gunned down in New York City.

WABC-TV New York, the flagship station of the ABC network, is going to be running a special on the tragedy, "Eyewitness To the Death of John Lennon," which begins airing on various platforms today and will actually air on the channel for everyone on Sunday, December 13, at 5 p.m., which I believe is 40 years to the day that the channel aired his tribute live from Central Park in 1980.

There are various accounts at who actually broke the horrific news first--some claim it was actually news anchor Chuck Scarborough on WNBC Channel 4 in New York--but nationally, the news was first reported by Howard Cosell, who was part of the crew doing Monday Night Football on the ABC network.

The local ABC affiliate in New York--channel 7--covered the ceremony from Central Park, and among its reporters at the time was Geraldo Rivera, who was a close friend of Lennon, so it will be interesting to see if Rivera, long gone from the station, is part of the remembrance. 

He should be, but whatever the case, it will be another chilling Sunday afternoon in New York when the special runs.

Have a good weekend, and speak to you again on Monday.
 
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.