Gather round kiddies, because it’s time for Uncle Will to regale you with the funny side of Ebola. Oh, yeah, there is one. Just need a trained professional to find it. Take the widespread fear and paranoia making people crazier than the trajectory of an arrow with a gelatin shaft. Okay. Not entirely side splitting. Well, how about the prospect of a global epidemic on the scale of two zombie apocalypses? No, you’re right. Still less humorous than polio. Which never was a laugh riot.
So, “funny side” might be an exaggeration. But you don’t have to dig too deep to hit a rich vein of irony. Such as Todd Kincannon, the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party who called for anyone coming into contact with Ebola to be “humanely executed.” Humanely executed? Like Edward G. Robinson in “Soylent Green?” Methinks Mr. Kincannon might be suffering from a tertiary case of “intellectual deprivation.”
Then there’s officials in Maine who announced they’re prepared to enforce a “voluntary” quarantine on Kaci Hickox, a health care worker who treated Ebola patients. How do you enforce a voluntary quarantine? Two guys in hazmat suits strapping a screaming woman to a gurney, and shoving her into the back of an ambulance doesn’t seem very voluntary to me. Optics-wise, that is.
Those of us who see black helicopters in our sleep, worry that authorities plan to use this crisis as a precedent. In the future, will government monitors demand we uphold our New Year’s resolutions as well? “Keep moving Tubby. You got 12 miles to go on that stationary bike.” “Hope you’re enjoying that piece of chocolate cake, mister, because it’s the last you’re going to eat, if you ever want to see your 5-year-old daughter again.”
Might make more sense to quarantine all the grandstanding science- adverse politicians calling for a quarantine. Yeah, the country is in the middle of an epidemic. One of fork-in-the-eye ignorance. It’s turning into a dumb-bucket challenge to see which clueless governor can raise the anti-Ebola flag higher. Really sticking it to that pro-Ebola contingent. Stupidity is contagious and hysteria has its own logic. “What’s the problem? If she’s a not a witch, she won’t burn.”
Yes, indeed. To call this virus awful is like referring to genital blisters as annoying. But the best way to keep this dread contagion off our shores is to stop it in West Africa by augmenting their lack of doctors and hospitals and conditions less sanitary than most gas station rest room drain traps. Can’t do that if all the potential medical volunteers worry about a forced indefinite stay inside a transparent inflatable bouncy house after coming home.
And someone has to stop the infighting amongst our medical experts. The CDC is running around like a lab full of chickens with their heads cut off, and the Surgeon General is apparently wearing Frodo’s ring.
Oh, wait a minute, that’s right. We don’t have a Surgeon General. Republicans have refused to confirm Obama’s nominee because the NRA doesn’t like him. Well, just hand out a bunch of guns all around and we can shoot the Ebola. That’ll teach that darn virus. The 2nd Amendment Antidote. There’s your funny, Rico. Ha- ha- ha- ha- ha.
Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed political comic. Email Will at durst@caglecartoons.com.
