These are to say the least fascinating to me. Why does anyone buy into the provocateurs and trolls on the internet? in the Illusion of Choice – the U.S. population was 277 million in 1998 or so. Is that MEME been around longer than 20 years? It is a MEME with at least one pseudo-statistic. Are the rest suspect? The Sovereign Independent is a British rag of some sort but the article being trolled is readily available. Willy Wonka’s picture shows up behind a skeptical comment made by someone who either does not understand statistical evidence or simply does not understand the debilitating effects of SARSCoV2 otherwise known as Covid-19. (Rush Limbaugh called the Covid-19 virus a cold.) Repeating a lie often until one or some believe it is called gas lighting after the movie Gas Light. Some consider it to be marketing.

Indeed there is no vaccine for HIV although there are two in trials. Historical research implies that HIV/AIDS has been around since the 1800s. Initial techniques for mitigating HIV amounted to not eating chimpanzee meat. Vaccines target a specific disease-causing pathogen, such as a virus. One of the difficulties in developing a vaccine for the common cold is there are at least 200 different viruses that can cause cold symptoms, including adenoviruses, coronaviruses (this caused Rush Limbaugh to say – it’s a cold folks!), parainfluenza, and rhinoviruses. Rhinoviruses make up about 75% of all common colds. Of these, there are more than 150 strains of rhinovirus are circulating at any one time. There are vaccines that treat existing cancer, called treatment vaccines or therapeutic vaccines. These vaccines are a type of cancer treatment called immunotherapy. They work to boost the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Doctors give treatment vaccines to people who already have cancer. Cancer is a little bit different because apart of one’s own body has run amok. The Dr. Death meme merely doesn’t understand English and the difference between infection and disease. They probably did not do well in mathematics let alone general science class.

Fascinating MEMEs- cui bono?

Indeed what is the point? Who benefits? In the internet world ads drive the message. Indeed even the WordPress folks keep telling this puny author how much traffic is going to this site. So, where is the benefit?

This is merely a hobby to me. It is notable that while I am sure the MEME-makers are still out there, either I do not follow them on Facebook, subscribe to their YouTube channel or follow them on Twitter or their re-posters have fallen off social media tweet-storms since the forty-fifth president has been removed from those platforms for being repugnant about losing the election to the other guy.

Is it an attention getting device to attract readers which in turn attracts advertisers which begets money? The hunt for MEME-makers has sent me here to the Conversation for political MEMEs and a discussion about political cartoons and editorial cartoons. More is here and here and here.

This was my favorite part of the local news paper. Sadly we no longer have any local newspapers in Cincinnati. The pseudo-local newsy paper is the Cincinnati Enquirer but it is merely a wart on the side of the U.S. News and World Report. The authors of the editorial page and op-ed pieces have wandered off into the internet and obscurity. The political cartoonists are today’s MEME-makers.

Even the authors of the obituary page have left the house. Those folks are over on Legacy.com