Today's Op/Ed

Generally, I can do without Dana Milbank - he's been way too willing to go with the Both-Sides-y thing, pretty much just trying to be fashionable, writing to a fickle Editorial Policy rather than trying to stay true to any kind of universal principles of good journalism.

But anyhoo, when he gets one right, I'm willing to point it out.

WaPo:

“I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the Internet of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized. They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over and they can stick because now we think there is a metal piece to that.”

— Sherri Tenpenny, testifying to the Ohio legislature about coronavirus vaccines at the request of Republican lawmakers

I remember clearly the moment it began: right after my first covid shot.

I was going through security at the airport, and I set off the metal detector. Annoyed, I removed my gun from its holster and put it on the conveyor belt. I still beeped. I removed my machete, nunchucks and grenade launcher and put them through the X-ray machine. But I still beeped!

I had become magnetic.

The next morning, as I was eating my oatmeal, my spoon stuck to the roof of my mouth. I might have choked, but fortunately the spoon was jarred loose when the magnetic force slammed me against the refrigerator, where I remained suspended until family members were able to pull me down.

Things really got weird after my second dose. Strolling back to my car from the vaccine clinic, I suddenly found myself plastered to the grill of an idling UPS truck. I took a walk in the woods to get away from all the metal, but I got lost: My compass stopped pointing north and pointed only at me. Worst of all, I discovered it’s true that opposites attract. Walking through the Capitol one day on my way to a hearing, I turned a corner and was suddenly joined at the hip with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Awkward!

I know the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that “receiving a COVID-19 vaccine will not make you magnetic” because they are “free from metals such as iron, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earth alloys.” I know the “real” scientists don’t give a twopence about Tenpenny’s claims. They say that even if the vaccine were 100 percent metal, it wouldn’t be enough “to allow magnets to be attracted to your vaccination site.”

Oh yeah? Tell that to the cast-iron wok that is currently stuck to my left shoulder.

These “scientists” are the same ones who tell us the vaccine doesn’t implant microchips in us and does not cause our bodies to “interface” with 5G cellular towers, as the osteopath Tenpenny professes. Yet I canceled my Verizon data plan shortly after my second dose, because I am able to stream video through my vaccination site. I was never good at trivia before, but now I blurt out every answer while watching “Jeopardy!” — in Siri’s voice! Explain that, CDC.

Admittedly, it is possible that none of this is really happening. It may instead be that I am dead, but I don’t know it. Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have suggested that loads of people died after getting the vaccine. Scientists say that’s the classic “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” logical fallacy, and that those who died were no more killed by the covid shot than they were by watching Carlson’s show or listening to Johnson’s speeches. But why listen to scientists? Tenpenny and her ilk say the vaccine makes you infertile and disrupts your menstrual cycle — and I’ve had neither offspring nor menstruation since getting my shots.

It took some getting used to, but I’ve begun to enjoy my newly magnetic personality. In fact, I’ve tried to maximize my magnetism by getting a third vaccine dose, and a fourth — Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. Now I no longer have to pay Metro fares; I simply run toward a moving train and peel myself off its side when I get to my stop. Whenever I go to the beach, the tide comes in as soon as I arrive.

Tenpenny and her ilk also say the vaccine alters our DNA. Those fun-sponges at the CDC say “the vaccines cannot affect or interact with our DNA in any way.” But I’m not so sure. Since taking the vaccine, I’ve stopped believing in anything resembling science in favor of stuff I read on social media. I’ve become totally immune to what “experts” call “facts.” And I have a feeling that my magnetic powers have become so great that the whole universe revolves around me.

See? The vaccine did change my DNA: It turned me into a Trump Republican.