Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Note: We are sharing approximately every other story from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, and are now sampling Volume Three’s ninety chapters. In today’s episode, with Covid 19 in the news, the cook has questions.
Labs, Secret Funding, and Beijing Hot and Sour Soup
Dateline: August 1. Begin Transcript:
“Hello, Boss!”
“You again? Don’t you have an assistant yet?”
“Why, boss, I didn’t know you cared!”
“Huh? I don’t care. You just get on my nerves, and the sooner you get an assistant again, the sooner I get a break from your nagging.”
“Oh. Well now. If I had a heart, I might be crying right now.”
“Well don’t cry in the soup. It’s probably salty enough already.”
“Boss! I work hard all day picking a new recipe to get you some variety in your life, and this is the thanks I get?”
“Huh? Oh, right, Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. So, anyway, boss, here’s what we have tonight: a Hot and Sour Soup, Beijing style.”
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that. Are there crackers?”
“Do you think there are crackers when they serve it in Beijing?”
“I don’t care if there are crackers when they serve it on Mount Olympus. I just want there to be crackers here, in my basement!”
“Yes sir, of course there are crackers. Everything in this basement is crackers. I mean, has crackers. Soup, crackers, spoons, napkins. Everything’s here, as usual. Oy.”
“Hmm… So what is it?”
“As I said, sir, it’s Hot and Sour Soup, from a recipe from Beijing, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Been on my mind today, sir, I guess.”
“Huh? What has?”
“Beijing, sir. You know, with all the revelations about the Wuhan lab, sir.”
“What lab?”
“The one in Wuhan, sir.”
“Where’s that?”
“In China, sir.”
“What’s in China?”
“The lab, sir.”
“What lab?”
“Oh boy. I’m referring to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, sir, the lab in Wuhan, China that’s been established as ground zero for the virus, sir.”
“What virus?”
“The one the whole world’s been talking about nonstop for the past year and a half, sir.”
“Huh? Oh. Right.”
“So, are you up on the latest about the lab, sir?”
“What lab?”
“The one were were just talking about, in Wuhan, sir.”
“Oh. I don’t know. I like them, myself.”
“You like them, boss?”
“Well, sure. They train well, they’re really affectionate, they don’t leave hair everywhere like a German Shepherd, they’re really a good choice!”
“What ARE you talking about, sir?”
“Labs. Didn’t you want to talk about labs?”
“No, sir, not that kind of lab, sir…”
“Oh, labs are great. I’ve had German shepherds, and Golden Retrievers and Great Danes…”
“Yes sir, I know, but…”
“And when it comes to labs, you have to be clear on which ones you’re talking about… the black labs or the yellow labs…”
“It’s actually the Chinese labs that are in the news, sir.”
“Chinese labs? Interesting. I’m not familiar with that breed. Can you buy them around here?”
“Probably in Washington, DC, sir. I think that’s where the Chinese labs are usually bought, sir.”
“Oh. Cool. Strange I never saw one there. That I know of. I spent a lot of time in Washington, you know.”
“Yes sir, I’m aware of that. But I don’t think you’d see the Chinese labs in Washington, sir. People just pay for them in Washington, but the labs remain in China.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Stop the presses.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that I was really hoping to get some insight from you about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, sir, and I should’ve known it wouldn’t work out that way.”
“There you go again about Wuhan. I don’t know anything about dog breeds in Wuhan!”
“Sir, the Wuhan virology lab… I think it’s formally known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology… has been working for years on viruses that attack animals, and trying to see if they can get the viruses to start attacking people too, sir.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“Well, because it’s basically an R&D branch of the Chinese military, sir.”
“Oh. Well, that’d do it.”
“So I was hoping you’d know something about it, since it’s been in the news, sir, and since you have so many connections in China, sir.”
“What does this have to do with Chinese dogs?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“But we were talking about Chinese dogs!”
“No, sir, YOU were talking about Chinese dogs. I was talking about Chinese laboratories all along, sir.”
“Well, what would we know about a lab in China? We can hardly keep track of our own labs in Washington! Man, back in the day, Senator Bill Proxmire used to hunt down things, and … man, the stories he could tell you…”
“Yes sir, I understand, sir. But what I was wondering about is how the people here have recently just started letting these casual admissions slip out, sir, almost as if they’re easing in a little truth so that a final report isn’t an absolute whirlwind, sir, you know?”
“Huh?”
“Well, sir, you know how the US Government was funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years, sir, right? Millions of dollars in US money, right?””
“Well, I don’t know, but if you say so…”
“There’s no longer any doubt, sir. The US was participating in funding that lab, sir, even though other countries like the French and even some divisions of the UN, have been warning for years that that particular lab has such sloppy security and safety measures that if they studied any virus, it would probably get out.”
“So what’s the point? What happened?”
“Exactly that, sir. They studied a virus, and it got out.”
“Oh.”
“Now, not everything is clear yet, sir. We don’t know if what escaped was a tweaked virus, a virus that was intentionally made worse somehow. It might be, but it’s not know for sure, yet, sir.”
“Oh. Okay then.”
“So we know the lab was doing ‘gain of function’ studies because we funded them. We know the lab was doing experiments on the very kind of virus that the Covid 19 turned out be from. And we know that some of the very first deaths attributed to Covid 19 were people who worked there.”
“Well, that’s interesting, but so what?”
“Well, sir, we know that a ton of people in Washington, both elected and civil servants, are now making quiet, really guarded comments, seemingly to prepare a soft landing for when the truth about the Covid labs finally comes out like an explosion, sir.”
“I miss those dogs.”
“What dogs, sir?”
“My labs. I have German shepherds now, but I liked having labs too. Hey, do you think I could get a lab now?”
“Well, I suppose so… but we were talking about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, sir.”
“Oh, we can talk about that some other time.”
“I know I’m just a nobody, sir, but you know, sir, this story has finally made it to the mainstream media, sir. It’s not like a few weeks ago when Rand Paul was the only one talking about it, sir. It’s beginning to look really bad for the American bureaucrats and politicians who helped contribute to the Wuhan lab, sir.”
“Now, there you go again. How come you keep bringing up those cute dogs when we need to figure this out?”
“There aren’t any dogs, sir. It’s only about the laboratory.”
“Well this just isn’t fair. Getting a guy’s spirits up and then not delivering the doggie.”
“Sir, I didn’t. I mean, I just asked some questions, and I kept telling you, repeatedly, that there aren’t any Wuhan labradors, sir.”
“Oh, well, that’s a pity. At least we can look on the bright side.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“What’s what?”
“Oh, never mind.”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three: How Is This Not Over Yet?”, available in paperback or eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
His newest nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” was just released on July 1, and is also available, in both paperback and Kindle eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
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