Maybe the worst thing about this are the cancer patients, cardiac patients accident victims, etc. who die needing an ICU bed that’s occupied by an unvaccinated spreadneck.
I know what you mean about these deaths feeling worse, in a way, than last year. Last year was unavoidable horror. These deaths are (mostly) avoidably tragedy. Yet I cannot rejoice in the least. Wring my hands, wail and gnash my teeth, seethe or weep. But not rejoice. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Someone pointed out the other day that the job of right-wing talk radio host seems to have a high mortality rate. Much higher than right-wing television show hosts, who are all vaccinated and all in on the grift. It is sad for the young families that these people leave behind -- one child not even born yet will never know her father -- but as the ancient Greeks would say, it was their own hubris that made them think their innate immune system would make them invincible to the novel virus. And it might have done, if they had understood that the vaccine works with, not against, their own immune system. If they had trusted the science, even if they didn't understand it.
When someone says in my earshot that they don't know what's in the vaccine, that they don't understand how it works, I ask them if they've ever started a car or boarded a plane and if they would please take the time to explain to me how both of those machines work. Because otherwise? Shut up.
The link I included with the piece written by the friend who pleaded that his friend not be a punch line enraged me. The man was a victim of forces bigger than he? C'mon the hell on. He died of a virus for which there is a vaccine.
And sure, lots of COVID-deniers are deceived by the commentators they listen to. But most of them are adults who have choices about whether to wrap themselves in political <s>cocoons</s>shrouds. Yes, it might be hard for them as members of their communities to imbibe mainstream sources. It's also hard for minors in their families to get vaccinated or wear masks. And I know where my empathy goes, not as policy, but as my simple and exhausted response....
I read that people from my home state (Missouri, if you're new here) were going to get vaccinated wearing disguises to avoid social censure. Missouri friends? If you have to do that to take care of yourself, you're not in a social group. You're in a cult. Get out and get out now.
But if you can't or don't want to leave the cult, put on that disguise and get vaccinated. I'd love to read that Beagle Nose shares are going sky-high.
Those of us who have masked and distanced, then vaccinated (and, many of us, continued to mask and distance), have been experiencing COVID-deniers and -minimizers gibbering and capering and sneering about our gutlessness and so on. Not all, COVID-deniers, of course, but plenty of them.
And it's still going on, though there seems to be a shift to less of a mardi gras style and more of earnest nasal demands that children should be shoveled into schools operated like Petri dishes.
It's exasperating. Lots of us who mask and distance and vaccinate and distance and mask are exasperated. Maybe some of us are gibbering and capering and sneering, though I don't see pro-maskers getting up in non-masker faces to spit and yell.
Of course, it's horrible when people die of COVID, including those who have denied its existence. In the case of COVID-deniers it's even classic tragedy in that the flaws and virtues of the COVID-denier have led to their demise.
But it's hard to treat it as tragedy because it's so damnably *stupid*. So exasperating. And so hospitable to COVID viruses and their mutation.
I have typed in "tots and pears" on a couple of social media posts when a vocal science denier dies, mainly because they don't die alone. They have the potential to take legions with them. But I wrote this in an upcoming column: I'm not going to fight with them any more. I'm going to let the virus do the talking.
Yeah, I don't fight, either. I seriously dislike repetitive conversation* and I don't particularly want to provide recreation for perseverant muttonheads.
My best hope is that some combination of low theatricality and mandates will permit and encourage those folks to subside quietly into taking some care without having to proclaim a change of mind. Changes of mind being considered shameful these decades.
The latest stories about the Delta variant seem to have moved some of the less hesitant to get vaccinated. For those who still aren't vaccinated, well, they're lost to me. May hell mend 'em.
I sometimes think there could have been better public education initiatives on explaining how the virus and vaccine works, public health in a pandemic, and vaccination safety & efficacy from MEDICAL & PUBLIC HEALTH experts in a neutral way. It's stunning how medical advice got twisted into a political thing. Of course, we know who was responsible for derailing science. It's not too late to educate.
People who have not been vaccinated and have health concerns should discuss it with their medical doctors.
I wish they would impose penalties for not getting vaccinated, enforce strict rules on where unvaccinated can/can't go, and a limit on ICU beds available for unvaccinated people needing care for COVID. They affect the well being of the rest of us. It's time they suffer the consequences of their reckless, irresponsible behavior.
Maybe the worst thing about this are the cancer patients, cardiac patients accident victims, etc. who die needing an ICU bed that’s occupied by an unvaccinated spreadneck.
That's just inhumane, reading those stories. Get the damn shot.
Heartbreaking. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-us-hospital-icu-bed-shortage-veteran-dies-treatable-illness/
I know what you mean about these deaths feeling worse, in a way, than last year. Last year was unavoidable horror. These deaths are (mostly) avoidably tragedy. Yet I cannot rejoice in the least. Wring my hands, wail and gnash my teeth, seethe or weep. But not rejoice. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Someone pointed out the other day that the job of right-wing talk radio host seems to have a high mortality rate. Much higher than right-wing television show hosts, who are all vaccinated and all in on the grift. It is sad for the young families that these people leave behind -- one child not even born yet will never know her father -- but as the ancient Greeks would say, it was their own hubris that made them think their innate immune system would make them invincible to the novel virus. And it might have done, if they had understood that the vaccine works with, not against, their own immune system. If they had trusted the science, even if they didn't understand it.
When someone says in my earshot that they don't know what's in the vaccine, that they don't understand how it works, I ask them if they've ever started a car or boarded a plane and if they would please take the time to explain to me how both of those machines work. Because otherwise? Shut up.
Or a cell phone. Or a computer.
The link I included with the piece written by the friend who pleaded that his friend not be a punch line enraged me. The man was a victim of forces bigger than he? C'mon the hell on. He died of a virus for which there is a vaccine.
And sure, lots of COVID-deniers are deceived by the commentators they listen to. But most of them are adults who have choices about whether to wrap themselves in political <s>cocoons</s>shrouds. Yes, it might be hard for them as members of their communities to imbibe mainstream sources. It's also hard for minors in their families to get vaccinated or wear masks. And I know where my empathy goes, not as policy, but as my simple and exhausted response....
I read that people from my home state (Missouri, if you're new here) were going to get vaccinated wearing disguises to avoid social censure. Missouri friends? If you have to do that to take care of yourself, you're not in a social group. You're in a cult. Get out and get out now.
True, that.
But if you can't or don't want to leave the cult, put on that disguise and get vaccinated. I'd love to read that Beagle Nose shares are going sky-high.
Those of us who have masked and distanced, then vaccinated (and, many of us, continued to mask and distance), have been experiencing COVID-deniers and -minimizers gibbering and capering and sneering about our gutlessness and so on. Not all, COVID-deniers, of course, but plenty of them.
And it's still going on, though there seems to be a shift to less of a mardi gras style and more of earnest nasal demands that children should be shoveled into schools operated like Petri dishes.
It's exasperating. Lots of us who mask and distance and vaccinate and distance and mask are exasperated. Maybe some of us are gibbering and capering and sneering, though I don't see pro-maskers getting up in non-masker faces to spit and yell.
Of course, it's horrible when people die of COVID, including those who have denied its existence. In the case of COVID-deniers it's even classic tragedy in that the flaws and virtues of the COVID-denier have led to their demise.
But it's hard to treat it as tragedy because it's so damnably *stupid*. So exasperating. And so hospitable to COVID viruses and their mutation.
I have typed in "tots and pears" on a couple of social media posts when a vocal science denier dies, mainly because they don't die alone. They have the potential to take legions with them. But I wrote this in an upcoming column: I'm not going to fight with them any more. I'm going to let the virus do the talking.
Yeah, I don't fight, either. I seriously dislike repetitive conversation* and I don't particularly want to provide recreation for perseverant muttonheads.
My best hope is that some combination of low theatricality and mandates will permit and encourage those folks to subside quietly into taking some care without having to proclaim a change of mind. Changes of mind being considered shameful these decades.
The latest stories about the Delta variant seem to have moved some of the less hesitant to get vaccinated. For those who still aren't vaccinated, well, they're lost to me. May hell mend 'em.
I sometimes think there could have been better public education initiatives on explaining how the virus and vaccine works, public health in a pandemic, and vaccination safety & efficacy from MEDICAL & PUBLIC HEALTH experts in a neutral way. It's stunning how medical advice got twisted into a political thing. Of course, we know who was responsible for derailing science. It's not too late to educate.
People who have not been vaccinated and have health concerns should discuss it with their medical doctors.
I wish they would impose penalties for not getting vaccinated, enforce strict rules on where unvaccinated can/can't go, and a limit on ICU beds available for unvaccinated people needing care for COVID. They affect the well being of the rest of us. It's time they suffer the consequences of their reckless, irresponsible behavior.