Rant #2,659: Bits and Pieces

Today’s Rant is the perfect time to resurrect “Bits and Pieces,” the entries where I cover several topics that I don’t feel need to be done into in depth.
 
So without further ado, let’s get going on this …
 
New York State Opens Up: So, are you masking up or taking the full plunge into freedom?
 
I have to tell you, most people I saw yesterday were masking up when they went into stores, but I know that is not 100-percent true.
 
My wife’s bank continues to require a face mask when doing business inside, but she said that plenty of people came in yesterday without the mask.
 
They offer the mask, but if the person doesn’t want it, they don’t push it upon them, and I think that is how most businesses are going to handle this, including supermarkets, which I will find out about today first hand because today is the day I do my family’s food shopping.
 
Will I wear a mask? Probably, but I will at least have it handy just in case I decide not to, but yes, I probably will wear a mask.
 
I guess I got used to it, I guess I still believe we need precautions in place, I guess … I guess … I guess …
 
I guess I still don’t believe a blessed thing we have been told about this virus, the effects of the inoculations, or anything else related to what we have gone through for the past year, so like my mother said yesterday, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
 
Sage advice from a 90-year-old woman who has seen it all in her lifetime, so I don’t think I am going to go against her wisdom at all.
 
Israel Continues To Protect Itself: Look, if someone were constantly shooting destructive missiles at you, you would act the same way that Israel was acting in response to this.
 
Would you sit there and let this artillery destroy your country and wipe out your people?
 
No, you wouldn’t. You would retaliate, and you would do it just like Israel is doing—you send over missiles, we will send over more missiles.
 
The Palestinians--;led by Hamas—are out for one thing, which is the destruction of Israel and the ridding from the earth of all Jewish people. They have proved it time and time again, and have once again proven to be nothing but barbarians.
 
Of course much of the world frowns upon what Israel is doing, but if your very survival depended on protecting yourself from outside attacks, you would take every measure to do so.
 
The Palestinians have thwarted each and every olive branch that the Israelis have given them for the past 70-plus years, so they have proven in this conflict that once again, they don’t want peace, they want to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth.
 
Now Lebanon may be getting involved in this nonsense, but what these infidels do not understand is that Israel is actually holding back, even though they are still protecting themselves.
 
If they are pushed too far to the edge, Israel will really let those opposing them have it … and no one wants to even think what would happen if that day comes.
 
Demi Lovato Makes a Personal Declaration: I have to question myself about even giving a scintilla of space to this story, but it is so highly laughable that I guess I figure I just have to give my own two cents about it.
 
Lovato, the singer who has had more problems during her “growing up” phase than most people have in a lifetime through their own different personal phases, has declared in a video to the world that she is "non-binary," meaning that she is genderless, is neither male nor female.
 
This is the same person who has tried to commit suicide on more than one occasion, has abused drugs, and has had more mental episodes than anybody who has checked themselves into a mental institution, but the world sits at rapt attention to her banter, because, I mean, this is Demi Lovato talking, and when she talks, people listen.
 
I don’t know, how she can claim to be non-binary if she wakes up every day from sleep, goes to the toilet, and has to sit down to relieve herself? Did she suddenly grow a male aperture overnight?
 
This is just an excuse for people like her to use to not only justify whatever she does—sexually or otherwise—for now on, and it is also a way to garner publicity.
 
No publicity is bad publicity, even when it frames the person generating the publicity as an idiot.
 
Yankees’ Pitcher Cory Kluber Pitches No-Hitter: In this joyless year, at least I have something great to talk about, and that is his no-nitter last night against the Indians, where he came thisclose to having a perfect game, with just one walk, and no hits on his line, striking out nine.
 
Yes, this is one of I think it is six no-hitters that have been thrown just one-quarter into the MLB season, but it is a feel good story on a number of levels.
 
Kluber, once one of the top pitchers in baseball, battled through a number of injuries in recent years, and last year, he pitched just one inning before going down again to injury.
 
The Yankees, sorely in need of starting pitchers, took a flyer on him, and even though early on he struggled, he has kind of settled in as the Yankees No. 2 starter behind Gerrit Cole, and yesterday must have been a heartening day for him, seeing that just six months ago, he was on the proverbial scrap heap.
 
Even if you are not a Yankees fan, this story has to make you feel good, because it proves once again that we all, in the right circumstances, can get second, third and even fourth chances at success.
 
And yes, you have to be lucky, too.
 
That concludes this latest edition of "Bits and Pieces," and now, for me at least, I will go to the supermarket, and I will probably wear my mask, and I will bet that most shoppers there will too … at least for now.
 
I guess if the Lone Ranger can do it, I can do it too.
 
“Who was that masked man?”
 
“He’s the … “
 
At this point, I don’t know, I really don’t know.