Lessons from the Pandemic

In this episode, Tim and Rick talk about where they were when the country went into lockdown/quarantine. Tim shares how he foretold what was to come with his statistics high school class and that his at-risk students were vulnerable to missing out on their education because of their lack of access to online learning (while upper-class parents were able to pay for tutors and private instruction for their children). Tim believes a generation of students is damaged from the lockdown and what will be the ripple effect because of it? Tim also breaks down what “Cattening the Curve” is in how he explained the whole pandemic to his class. Rick explains he understood the danger of the hospitals being overwhelmed with how the virus was multiplying vs the number of hospital beds that were available. The economy vs human lives is discussed. Rick made a commitment to take care of his new puppies by first taking care of himself —by wearing his facemask and getting the vaccine. He also shares a video he made of getting the historic vaccine for the first time and Tim talks about Nicki Minaj and her cousin in Trinidad that she tweeted had global consequences for people of color. Rick tells Tim about how he first found out about the virus being aerosol based because of the infection at a Washington state church’s choir practice and how he almost lost a Trumper cousin to the virus’s MAGA misinformation while at the same time, a MAGA cult victim friend of his died. In this week’s “Let’s Trigger Rictor” segment, Tim asks Rick if LGBTQIA+ should be separated by preference and gender. Tim also educates Rick on the new term 2-Spirited that has been added to the full acronym: LGBTQIA2S+. Rick does think LGB should be separated from being lumped in with gender identification. Clips include Fox News’ Tucker Carlson interviewing Dan Patrick, the Texas Lieutenant Governor, who advocated for the elderly to die for the sake of the economy, CNN news clips of Bob Woodward’s tapes of Donald Trump admitting the virus was aerosol based and withholding that information, Dr. Hiren Mehta from Florida, Malcolm Clark from the LGB Alliance, and various Tiktokkers.