Chicken-Fried News: Jesus take the wheel

click to enlarge Chicken-Fried News: Jesus take the wheel
Jerry Bennett

As the number of confirmed COVID-19 infections rapidly approached 5 percent of the state’s population, its leaders are hard at work avoiding dealing with it.

Gov. Kevin Stitt has completely taken his hands off the wheel, preferring Jesus to take it instead.

Diana K. Davies, a minister at Oklahoma City’s First Unitarian Church shared on Facebook her experience with a clergy meeting and the governor on Nov. 23.

“He then ‘randomly’ called on two clergy to share ‘best practices.’ These just happened to be the minister from an evangelical megachurch in Tulsa (seated in front of a large American flag), and the lead minister from a Pentecostal megachurch in OKC. Both are white men. Both praised the governor’s leadership and explained why they were continuing to meet in person and why they were opposed to a mask mandate. The governor then announced a day of prayer and fasting on December 3 and asked us to ask our parishioners to ‘take this seriously.’ The end,” Davies wrote on Facebook.

This came a week after Stitt opted to do the bare minimum, closing bars and restaurants at 11 p.m., because that’s, you know, the universal coronavirus curfew as the daily spread of the virus runs laps around its rookie spring and summer numbers.

And Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt even came out of hiding for some lackluster and half-assed rally around his own hands-off “personal responsibility” governance, lobbying people who see not wearing a mask as some bold patriotic stance rather than self-absorbed posturing that is certain to doom dozens of members of their own community to the intensive care unit or the grave.

Holt’s little press conference calling for the cancellation of Thanksgiving was held a week before the holiday. You know, after travel and lodging plans have already been made.

At this point, maybe COVID-19 should run for a state or municipal office in the midterms. It’s certainly doing its job a hell of a lot more efficiently than either of these elected schlubs.

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