The Great Remasking by HerbN

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

The Great Remasking by HerbN

I am on vacation this week. My in-laws had a non-refundable stay at a resort where they have a membership. Unfortunately, my father-in-law required medical treatment barring travel. As the stay was not movable or refundable, they offered it to us.

The last thing he told us last night when we called to say we were in and checked in without problem was “Have fun and wear masks.”

My in-laws are not what you’d call politically left. They watch Fox News. They rant about the Obamas still. I even, accidentally, said something that led my mother-in-law to rant about how Michelle Obama is a man. Like I said, not on the left and not on the mainstream narrative about Trump and Republicans.

But they are one hundred percent on board with the preferred Narrative about COVID. In doing so, they are part of the Great Remasking.

I’m not talking about the physical masks we are all forced to wear to get the necessities of life, although that is part of it. I am not talking about the Left letting their masks slip and show their actual view of us and their intentions, especially since we got uppity and elected Trump. I’m talking about the mask lain over all of us in the pre-Internet era.

Before the Internet it was hard, although not impossible, to see how many people saw through the mainstream media’s lies. It was hard, but not impossible, to get accurate news on events in the next state, much less across the nation. It was impossible, or so close as to be impossible, to get that information in a timely manner to counter the mainstream’s attempt to create the preferred Narrative.

It was impossible to know if you were and your immediate friends were all that was left of people who didn’t accept the Narrative. Some of us thought we were crazy because no one else thought like we did. Others of us felt a “last man on Earth” isolation. A third group thought we were the one eyed men in the land of the blind and realized that did not make you a king.

Then came electronic networks. BBSes using things like FidoNet at first and we many tiny contacts. Then came the World Wide Web and with it the widespread adoption of the Internet. People could put up websites and join message boards, under pseudonyms at first, and post what they were afraid to say to a neighbor or colleague (or in a sad comment spouse or partner).

We learned we were not alone. We learned that often our “radical” thoughts were tame compared to other people. Now and then we’d find that guy in the next cubicle who we were afraid to tell we thought the news was full of it on global warming had a well-done analysis of the math that not only reinforced our conclusion, but showed it to be a bit conservative on just how much manure the Narrative was shoveling.

Four years ago, amid much wailing and gnashing of leftist teeth, this realization reached a crescendo. Not only were leftist Democrats defeated with the election of Trump, but they were shorn of the ability to create an illusion that cowed most of the population and frightened the rest into silence. Ever since Trump there have been attempts to build the Narrative and force us to get back in line and shut up for fear of being seen as wrong thinkers. They got no traction until COVID.

Then they politicized a virus. Their allies in the media got into a 24/7 fear mongering. They got us to remask.

I am in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This is not Obama country. It is not Biden country. Yet I have to wear a mask everywhere. Here or home in Atlanta, I have to wear a mask even to buy groceries. Life requires I hide behind a mask.

And those masks are not just physical. In forcing a mask for the virus while simultaneously politicizing the wearing of masks they have undone the unmasking the Internet created. The undoing is not complete, but it has started.

Is the guy in line behind me at Kroger wearing a mask because he can’t come in without it, or is he wearing it because he’s back on the reservation?

The Great Remasking isn’t about physical masks, although it only works by making a physical mask a requirement to buy necessities. The Great Remasking is about taking away our ability to see we are not alone in our questioning the Narrative. It is about restoring the power to the media and the Left to tell us “this is the Truth and you contradict it at your peril”.

I am not sure how to fight back. A first step could be masks that signal. At first I thought a MAGA mask could do that, but my in-laws are very MAGA. They are also telling me to remember to wear a mask.

I think when I get home I’m going to go to the craft store and get some iron-on letters. A MAGA mask might not signal I do not buy the Narrative, but one that says “forced compliance” might. Sure, it will get looks, but if it gives one other person thinking they are the only one convinced we’re living in mass hysteria that they are not alone in their thinking, I’ll take it.

We may have to comply with the physical masking to buy food, but we do not have to comply with the Great Remasking.

370 thoughts on “The Great Remasking by HerbN”

  1. OK, I live in Oregon’s flyover country, where to our great disappointment, Despicable Kate Brown’s recall petitions fell short by 1%. Not being able to post sheets in gun stores had a lot to do with it–thanks to the Dem-controlled legislature for that goalpost moving crap. No county/state fairs nor farmers’ markets also had a lot to do with it. Arggh. (Not that I ever expected the recall election to pass, but I was hoping it would distract her in campaign season. Sigh.)

    Back to masking; physical masks are getting more unpopular. The face shields (which I can barely tolerate) are taking over, but the encouraging bit is what I saw at the Kroger affiliate; “You say I have to wear a mask to enter the store. You don’t say I have to keep the mask on after I get in. Right? Right!?”

    1. I have seen a place with a “no mask – no service” sign. Since they have a (very) local monopoly… the bastards get away with it.
      Other places in town have signs about the mask edict, er Gov. E.O. and don’t say anything more…
      OR specifically say that they will assume a medical condition barring masks for the non-masked.

      1. Virtually all stores quote the EO (and Kate conveniently extended the state of emergency (all 500 COVID deaths) to 11/3. Not sure she can get enforcement if a spontaneous Trump rally peaceful protest happens, especially after the sheriffs in counties neighboring Portland told her to pound sand with respect to them helping in the riots. (One sheriff said “If(!) she contacted me ahead of time, I’d have told her it was a problem of policy, not manpower.” Feel the burn!)

        Over here, some places say no-mask, curbside service. On the west side, I saw one shop that said “if you are not wearing a mask, we’ll assume you have a good medical reason”. They also had a walkup window where one could do business with the office closed to the public. It worked, only somewhat awkward.

    2. Wear Belgium Lace Masks.
      You want me to wear a mask, okay, I’m wearing a mask. Oh, now you’re going to tell me how to make it?

    3. Despicable Kate Brown’s recall petitions fell short by 1%.

      –
      Crying …. dang it.

      We’ve been out of communication until yesterday. Which … how far are you from the Hwy 97 fire? Last notice we saw, heading to Hwy 58 from Bend (via Ontario/Vale), was 97 was closed 95 miles south of La Pine. Not sure where that is. (Normally we would go 126, but luckily we treat the kid as the adult he is, if he has to check in, we have to check in with him occasionally too or when plans change. Just like mom has to check in with us. He let us know 126 was no go.)

      Since we’ve gotten home, the alerts have been constant. We’re miles from the Holy Farm Fire, up the McKenzie (Hwy 126). Hasn’t swept into Springfield proper, yet, but if it does, north west Eugene isn’t that far …

      1. La Pine is the last place to gas up before you hit the forest if you’re headed south to Klamath Falls– 95 miles south is basically *at* the lake, before town.

  2. “I am the modern man
    who hides behind a mask
    so no one else can see
    my true identity…”

    “The time has come at last,
    to throw away this mask.
    Now everyone can see
    my true identity…”

    2. “This could be the longest night in recorded history
      And as for sleep, you might as well just cross it off the list of
      possibilities
      (Now) The booth is in crazy mode
      And this is just a fan fight
      But I would smile if my man won
      If I just get through this night
      Oh, Oh

      “I could spend my time online
      Defending my side
      Pour my soul into each and every sentence
      Then brace myself from the tide
      Of attacks from the others
      They’ll state you don’t know both sides
      And I could bear the cold and stormy winter
      If I just get through this fight”

      From a non-released song off that same album.

  3. I’ve been thinking about crocheting masks. They would show “herd mentality” and yet, they don’t actually work. Is that too sly?

      1. You can order lace masks through Amazon. How do I know? They’re the ones my better half now wears.

        1. Oohhhh – something frilly, just a little bit teasing. Black satin lace, leaving the cheeks bare but shielding the orifices? Wicked!
          –

        1. Amulet?

          She had a snake for a pet
          And an amulet
          And she was breeding a Dwarf
          But she wasn’t done yet

      3. My preference is one marked like a Claymore anti-personnel mine “Front Toward Enemy”

      2. You could stitch this onto them
        歌舞伎
        Which is what Google translate yields for the characters for Kabuki

        1. “Hang DryWallz” might be less likely to be seen as an actionable threat, but would still be understood.

          (Standard disclaimer: IANAL, nor have I ever played one on TV. It’s remotely possible that I may have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express at some time in my life, but such a hypothetical stay did not qualify me to give anything remotely resembling actual legal advice.)

    4. I used the face shield today. Had the top up at my hairline (waaaaaaaay up there), so I could mouthbreathe fresh air at all times. Felt wonderful, modulo the frippin’ hot weather we’re having. Several days in the 90s; dry heat or no, it’s still hot.

    5. We’ve got locals shopping in various stores here with crocheted and black lace masks. I doubt that they’re all doing it without at least some thought.

  4. one that says “forced compliance”

    Monty Python’s last album was titled “Contractual Obligation”. As I think about it, I think this might be what I put on a mask…

    2. I’m not part of any contractual obligation. On Governor Jackboot’s executive order the jack-booted thugs will handcuff me, haul me to the police station, charge me with a misdemeanor criminal offense, and levy a fine of $500.

      I have to leave the house and go to the dentist this afternoon. I’m already pissed off about the mask theater.

      I will be doing my best to see he does not get re-elected in 2022. I’m not going to let this go. Let’s put it this way. If Hillary swans in and runs against him, I’d work for her campaign. We survived her and Dollar Billy before, we can do it again.

        2. “Polis Should Be Hung”

          “Are you expressing a threat toward the governor?”

          No, I’m just saying that given the balls he’s shown there’s got to be a dick to match.”
          –

            1. Merriam-Webster says: “The past tense of hang, in almost all situations is hung. You hung a picture on the wall, or you hung out at the mall. Only use hanged when referring to someone being sentenced to death via hanging.”

              You didn’t say he should be hanged… they’d be hard-put to make “common usage” stick, given your educational and work background.

        3. Heil Murphy has been my go to or Duce, Duce, Duce! That and giving the finger to every social distance sign. Don’t get me started on the we’re all in this together BS.

          With apologies to Orvan, mooing is good but baaaing is still best.

      3. Speaking of. they’re screaming about the recession.

        What recession? You mean the one where everyone with even the slightest bit of economic awareness knew it was coming because the economy got tanked for the panic? That one? The one predicted months ago? The one that was predicted because of the bushfires and the floods that followed, and the huge herd dieoffs? That one?

        And they’re screaming about ‘3 trillion liters’ of water missing, somehow. Either Victoria sold it to the Chinese or/and the Greenies don’t know how to actually do math and science. Both are just as likely.

        I hate Victorians right now, but at the same time they’re also resisting a lot, but not enough to get Andrews kicked out of the government. But I’m tired of the situation I am in, and it’s not the ‘I’m trapped inside’ bit. I’m not bothered by that. It’s the whole ‘can’t move forward and do stuff that needs doing, because COVID.’

    4. “I’m wearing this so I won’t get fined” a la Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks.

  5. Herb, I live in Maryville, TN, just a bit down the road from you. There are many places (stores) that have some mask requirement listed. I ignore them all. Walmart, Kroger, Hobby Lobby, all of them. If they want to throw me out and not get my business, that’s up to them. The only time I wear a mask is in a doctor’s office (they definitely require them), even though we all know they’re useless. But we were in an oral surgeon’s office yesterday and after we got to the exam room we were told to take off the masks if we wanted, they didn’t care.

    I don’t insist that everyone else give up their masks; some are too easily frightened to listen to reason. But I do try to set an example as a citizen who will not be dictated to by jumped autocrats.

    1. I’ll only be here until tomorrow morning, then it is home to Atlanta.

      I will not that I’m going tubing with River Rat down in Townsville today and they note masks are not required down there way, just at the far end of Wares Valley. Perhaps Pigeon Forge is more pushy as it is touristy.

      Atlanta, however, is still panicky.

      1. If you’re driving, you can take a detour on the way back and drive the Tail of the Dragon. People come from all over the world to ride or drive it. It’s only 11 miles long, but there are 318 turns, all uphill or downhill. There’s plenty of video out there to give you an idea of what it’s like. If you go, don’t forget to see the Tree of Shame, where motorcyclists who had too much cowbell nail bits of their wrecked bikes to the tree…

        2. California SR 9 had a nice little road that ran from Silly Valley up to the Santa Cruz Mountain skyline. At the bottom of the route, there was a long gentle straight rise, then the road dropped off rapidly and turned 90 degrees left. The tree at the apex of the turn had an amazing amount of scarring. (I did the reverse on my Honda 350 years ago. Got the front wheel off the ground and decided that was as much fun as I wanted…) Eventually, TPTB leveled the rise. The turn was still there, but it was a bit more idiot resistant.

          For real fun, the road from San Jose to Lick Observatory and down the east side (you can get to Livermore from there) had a righteous amount of twisty turny bits. I enjoyed it in a car, motorcycle and a bicycle when I was living there.

          1. Shell Canyon Road on the west side of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. Don’t even think of taking a trailer or large mobile home down it.

            1. Oh heck – I grew up and learned to drive in West Virginia where some of the roads (usually unpaved for reasons that will become apparent) were so twisty that if you weren’t careful while you were coming down you risked running into yourself on the way up.

              Not a good state to learn to drive a stick; my father tried to teach me and I was doing okay until coming home one day I stalled out behind a 16-wheeler coming downhill on a (barely) two lane road, put it in park, got out, told Dad I was walking the rest of the way and would he please bring in the car?
              –

                1. well, if one of the areas is no-go, say CA or NYC, then we go near the other one.
                  IF both are in sanish areas, we either split the difference, or get two smaller places, and commute according to climate.
                  BUT the kids like each other, so they’ll probably try to be close, anyway.

            2. If you’re interested in getting Sarah to move to Texas, you’ve got to go to work on the boys. How to do that is left as an exercise for the reader.

              Me, I just hope that the Right Thing happens, even though I don’t have a clue what that Right Thing might be.

              1. That last paragraph is what I tell myself about this election.
                I mean, scarily in retrospect, Obama might have been the best man running in 16.
                And notice that I think he’s an insane communist.

                2. I have concluded we dodged a bullet when Obama was re-elected over Romney.

                  I don’t even say that about McCain, but I will about Romeny.

                  2. Meh – Romney might have been okay with a GOP House & Senate to keep him in line. He sure wouldn’t have stacked the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit the way Obama did.

                    The more that leaks out about McCain (and the slime working for him, pushing Hillary’s Russian Disinformation Dossier) the more I am convinced that, like Babe Ruth in 1935, had long since passed his retirement date. Whatever remained of his honour, he had surrounded himself with knaves and rogues. Republican officeholders need to remember that the acclaim of the Fourth Estate is proof you are doing things wrong.
                    –

                    1. I’m afraid that McCain had been bent long before. He was one of the Keating Five after all and never did see a war he didn’t like, good money in war. Yes, he acted honorably under extreme circumstances during the war but then used the credit he had gained for dishonorable things after.

                      I come from a military family so I’ve seen the good and the bad of it. Courage and honor in war ought not give a persona a lifetime pass.

                3. Generally, if what I am hoping for is personal to me, (getting a job being the big one, historically) what I hope for is “fairness.” If it’s not just about me, I hope for “right.”

                  So far, the fairness thing has happened pretty often.

                1. That is, of course, perfectly reasonable. What I mean is that you who should try to figure out the sorts of things that might entice the boys to move to Texas, and emphasize those things. I mean, here in Houston we have world class medical facilities and high technology centers and a relatively low cost of living, which can be helpful for young doctors or engineers just starting out. We also have parks and museums and zoos, just like home. I could be off base about how enticing those things might be, because unlike some people around here, I’ve never actually met Sarah or any members of her family. I’m making only partly-educated guesses.

                  I haven’t a clue how to actually communicate directly with them, but, well, you never know. People do the darndest things. My stepson wound up moving back to Texas so he could be close to a girl.

                  1. Er I get what you mean. But I don’t know the boys, only Sarah. Living in Plano, I’m rather partial to Dallas. We have everything that Houston has. Being inland we have fewer storms. Forth Worth and parts west are less expensive than Dallas and its suburbs.

        1. DAMNIT! Sara there, and close to Liberty Con. Tennessee is looking *really* attractive, but I *really* love Utah!

    3. I would love to know how an oral surgeon does an exam through a mask (presuming you did not take it off).

      1. Oh, of course my wife had the mask off for the exam. But so did I, and after a minute or two so did the surgeon and his assistant.

  6. I got a Medieval Plague Doctor mask. I also have one of those stupid paper masks with:

    MASKS ARE ALMOST
    AS USELESS AS
    GOV. NUISANCE

    printed on it with a green Sharpie. (This is Kalifornia)

    I point out how worthless the masks are at every opportunity, and that an average of 240,000 people die of one thing or another EVERY MONTH in the U.S. Has COVID19 increased the overall death rate? I don’t know. Nobody is reporting those numbers anywhere I can find them. It’s almost like somebody doesn’t want us to know.

    The stores I’ve gone to lately, employees follow you around pestering you to wear a mask. Some refuse to check out your purchases if you don’t wear a mask. The Karens are getting more insane, not less.
    ———————————
    People can make stupid mistakes, but only the government can force everybody to make the SAME stupid mistakes.

      1. I have two. One is a cloth mask with a plague doctor embroidered on it (long live the free market! Came from Estonia.) and the other is a fake-leather steampunk version. Which I will be wearing at work in the near future, because we’re about to start the Middle Ages, and the Black Death next week.

    2. I applaud the sentiment, but that’s way too much text for a mask. It’s hard-to-impossible for others to read if you’re moving, and even if you stand still, too many people’s eyes will glaze over long before they reach the end.

      What’s needed is a meme on the order of the word “USELESS” printed on a mask going viral and being generally understood as a shorthand for the whole rant about mask-wearing being useless and counterproductive.

    3. So warn them back, Lauren Bacall style: “…you just put your lips together and blow.”

      “Blowing them away” without even expending any ammunition…

    4. For data on excess deaths through July 31st, look here: https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid. The frame that has data from The Economist seems most useful to US folks. Read the explanations and caveats with care! Some of those graphs don’t say what you may think at first glance, due to delays in reporting among other things.

  7. I make sure to rant to non-melanin challenged individuals regarding the deliberate targeting of an entire generation of hispanic, black, asian, and whites by making the existence of prophylactic medications essentially unknown, and worse, disclosure of the existence of these by a doctor could lead to loss of medical loss of license in a number of states. Emphasizing the latter, gets a wide eyed expression and puts a small wedge into the narrative wall.

  8. This is why we need a strong, simple “wearing a mask only under protest” symbol. It needs to be super-simple to create (e.g. something that any non-artist can scrawl with a magic marker), it needs to be super easy to recognize at a glance (if an initialism, then no more than three letters, four at the outside), and it needs to be widely, and preferably universally, recognized as an unambiguous I HATE MASKS signal.

    Getting creative with masks is fun, but doesn’t further the goal. A creative mask is hard to do, which cuts against getting as many people to signal as we can. Worse, it’s ambiguous. It’s too easy for the I HATE MASKS signal to go unread, or to get read as the reverse. It’s too easy to read a creative mask as “I LOVE masks – look at how much fun I’m having!” Which is exactly the opposite of what we need to signal here.

    1. Just throwing an idea out to jumpstart thinking:

      Since a lot of the mask wearing is driven by fear, what about “Be Not Afraid” or BNA? It doesn’t quite say I HATE MASKS, but would be a familiar refrain at least for people who frequent ATH.

          1. I suggest a boot crushing a happy face — should be universally and instantly recognizable without additional explanation.
            –

    5. How about these three letters: HCQ in fat block caps? Since the mask-screechers seem to be much the same crowd as those denouncing any who admit Hydroxychloroquine ever existed, let alone might be effective against the virus if administered correctly.

    6. I have been considering a mask with “VIRTUE” on it – paired with a neck cloth with “SIGNAL.” (I did look at plague doctor masks on Amazon. Then decided I’d probably kill myself with one – excessive heat warnings here again right through Labor Day and beyond…)

      I’ll have to do some thinking about how to make it, though; neither Mom nor Gram ever managed to teach me needlepoint.

        1. I’d have to get a new virtue rag, though. Fabric paint wouldn’t show up all that well on a blue plaid (square from an old shirt that I use to clean my glasses).

          Sharpies, no. It must be from my all too many years in meetings, but even dried markers kick off an allergic reaction. (For a couple of years, I thought it was the freezer bag plastic – then the wife got her classroom and started doing a lot of materials at home.)

          1. You can get fabric paint pens in white, and even silver.

            Acquired allergy to Sharpies? Bummer. They can be handy. I use a silver Sharpie to mark black ABS sewer pipe when I work on drains.

            1. It’s all markers for some reason – permanent, erasable, supposedly washable (yeah, the chemists never had children…). Something common in their formulations.

              Usual suspect is VOCs – but painting and solvents don’t bother me at all. Well, a bit when there is absolutely no breeze (I do all of my painting and such on the outdoor workbench.)

  9. Hi! Don’t lose faith, you are most certainly not alone. And if you ever find yourself near Vashon Island, please do visit. I’d be honored to shake your hand, and you can feel quite free to leave your mask in the car–or in the dumpster. 🙂

      1. That works.
        Or stencil a picture of Alfred E. Neuman from MAD magazine on the front with,”What? Me Worry?”

  12. The undoing is not complete, but it has started.

    I don’t think it’s anywhere near complete. I keep seeing MSM focusing hard on telling us Trump is pushing conspiracy theories. I doubt they’d be trying so hard to discredit him if they thought he didn’t have a chance at re-election and overthrowing their tyranny.

      1. Because they will not be reasoned with we will eventually be compelled to take unreasonable action to contain their madness.
        –

        1. ON a related note — I followed link from Instapundit to this Epoch Times interview with Roger Simon …

          … and he makes an interesting observation about so many Antifa being school teachers. The government needs to get a court ruling declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist group and bar them from any jobs involving teaching kids.

          They’ll mostly just go underground but that does impose added friction on them. AND it would mean they could be fired for crossing lines in the classroom.
          –

      2. I am at the point that I welcome the havoc. It gets us closer to kill them all. I see no practical way of saving this country short of that. Please, please convince me that I am wrong.

    2. Part of the success of the original masking was complacency.

      I fear COVID has created an avenue for them to try and repeat it.

    1. The fun thing about hanging around here is the occasional real surprise like this.That was fun to watch.

    1. Which is why I will NEVER shop at sprouts again. The manager told me I couldn’t come in, by corporate policy, even though I do HAVE a medical condition (besides that one) as in, I have RAGING asthma.

      1. *Wry* To quote you, “My middle fingers, let me show you them….”

        A possible glimpse of sanity? The local Publix had pulled up the one-way signs on the aisles. *Crosses fingers, knocks on wood.*

        1. The local grocery has NOT formally removed the arrows and the TelePorter distancing pads, but is also not replacing them as the floor cleaners erode them. I suspect it’s not quite Malicious Compliance, but it’s getting ever closer to “We follow(ed) the LETTER of the edict. GFY.”

          2. Dollar General (the only store I’ve been in, other than Lowes, since March) marked their 6-foot spots with duct tape. A few weeks ago they had snazzy new appliques with “courtest of VERIZON” on them. Figures dirtbags like Verizon would do that…

          3. The Wegman’s in Cherry Hill never had arrows in the aisles, and now they’re basically ignoring the 6′ thing at check out. If you stand back to wait for the other person to pay and leave, the cashier will wave you in as soon as there’s space on the belt. I know they won’t get rid of the mask requirement until NJ gov says so, but I’m hopeful. Of course Murphy won’t do anything until Cuomo does and then Wolf will follow suit. Stupidity.

            1. Cuomo won’t move until the McKinsey consultants he’s paying massive money to say so, so never. Wegman’s up here is the same, polite distance no more of this six foot nonsense.

          4. I have to admit that I pretty much follow the distance lines at the checkouts. Mostly because six feet is the distance that allows cross traffic. Once you’re in the checkout (when I use a cashier), a cart length is plenty.

        3. Only place I have seen those “one way aisle” signs here are at Walmart. I completely ignore them.

          They don’t bother me – although that might be because I usually have a heavy load, and they have the sense that it would be Vespa vs. Freightliner… I hate shopping, and move just as fast as I can getting it over with.

            1. The place I shop at has signs on the endcaps and on the floor indicating the directions you’re supposed to go. They’re ignored by everybody including the employees doing shopping for the curbside folks. I confess I sometimes follow them. I guess I’m not as big a rebel as some of you guys.

              1. I don’t mind keeping my distance from people who are nervous to see me. It’s less “rebel” and more “my body is trying hard enough to kill me already, a mask that cuts my oxygen and is a source of already-hostile bacteria for my damaged lungs might be the Last Straw.”

                That and the fact that they don’t work.

            1. I’ve not been in a Safeway since last year some time – and Albertson’s, it’s been several years (they always were too pricey for my family).

              I pretty much do the Fry’s on Kolb – the one on Golf Links, and the one on 22nd. The Walmart way out on Houghton Road, when I might go down to the Fry’s in Rita Ranch.

              Oh, the Fry’s south of Reid Park. Much better to go to for real Mexican ingredients – and the butcher, which is the only one in town that you can’t tell they have a fish counter unless you look.

              1. I’ve been going to the Fry’s at 1st and Grant, even though there’s an Abertson’s within walking distance of my house at Speedway and Silverbell.

      2. See, that’s actually illegal and against corporate policies, as well as treading very close to violations of HIPPA and the ADA. So you probably need to call Sprouts and ask them about how the ADA and HIPPA apply to their policy. Anonymously, even.

        Extra points if you ask about putting masks on service animals.

        Extra extra points if you claim to BE a service animal.

                1. It’s called Preemption. The federal courts have, naturally, been consistent in holding this since the war between the states anyway. Evan an Obama judge would be hard pressed, not that that would stop them, but they’d have to work at it.

              2. They will, once you pull out your cell phone, ask the manager to “Please repeat that policy, for the record” then get their name, store number and advise them you are reporting them to the corporate HQ and the (look up the name of) appropriate* Federal agency.

                *You can search this for yourself, or just go to How to File an Americans with Disabilities Act Complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. For HIPAA complaints

                If you believe that a HIPAA-covered entity or its business associate violated your (or someone else’s) health information privacy rights or committed another violation of the Privacy, Security, or Breach Notification Rules, you may file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

                at [link neutered because WPDE] hhs . gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint/index.html
                –

                1. This. You tell them “So despite the fact that I have notified you of my medical condition, you are refusing reasonable accommodations for it? Will you put that in writing for me, please? And while you’re at it, could you write down the phone number and address of your lawyer, to save time later?” And watch them finally start to engage their brain re: consequences.

            2. If you have the money to fight a lawsuit. I have heard of multiple instances where stores have responded to reminders about ADA with “bring us a court order.” Because paste eaters like Polis will close them down on some Karen’s word, and they are betting you won’t bother.

        2. >> “Extra extra points if you claim to BE a service animal.”

          Wait, would that make you a” service banshee?”

          Oddly enough, I’ve actually seen something close to that in an animated series.

            1. No, but it involved a banshee repeatedly using her death prediction ability to save a human’s life.

              The series was “Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends.” The central conceit is that mythological creatures like werewolves and minotaurs are actually aliens who came to Earth so long ago that legends have formed around them.

              The two main characters are a male human and a banshee who end up working together. Since they’re in a very dangerous line of work the banshee ends up predicting her partner’s imminent demise about once an episode, but to his endless frustration she can never give him any clue as to the nature of the threat. All she can provide is a countdown, which usually starts in the “15 seconds or less” range. Thankfully, it’s always enough for him to figure out what’s coming and avert death, but the poor guy probably got more than one gray hair from it.

              1. Loved that show. It was hi-larious, and there were also all kinds of real arc stories and adventures, and a lot of criticism of the whole “masquerade” type of storyline. Unfortunately, most of the episodes beyond first season never aired more than once in the US.

                  1. Don’t know, but if you can’t find it legit it looks like someone put the entire series on one Youtube playlist. It starts here:

                  1. Nah, but I liked her a lot. What inspired my screen name was that I kept writing or singing all kinds of death death death songs, because everybody loves a good murder ballad.

                    1. “… everybody loves a good murder ballad.”

                      Not everybody. A recent survey of victims of murder found that they all refused to comment.
                      –

            2. Emotional support banshee?

              –
              LOL — but no.

              1) Emotional support anything do not have public access rights. Well the person with them do not have the PA rights to bring in emotional support, anything.

              2) *PSTD task trained dogs/mini-horses are Service Animals (SA), and the person handling them, has the right to have them with them. (* Often confused with Emotional Support animals, or whatever.) Granted, by reasonable definition Service Animals are also provide emotional support, but the reverse is not true.

              3) It is the handler’s right to have their Service Animal (Dog or mini-Horse), or medical equipment with them. Not the animal’s right to accompany the handler. Animal has no rights. It is the handler’s right that gets abused.

              4) States can not take away from the handler’s right given by Federal ADA Law. States however can add additional rights. As well as limit the additional rights. Examples. Federal ADA does not address SAiT (Service Animal in Training). Thus SAiT handlers do not have PA rights with their SAiT in tow. But many states add that provision. Oregon for example SA law explicitly states SAiT = SA. Another state adds cats to the allowed SA list. California allows SAiT too but limits it to registered SAiT. California also provides extra protection to SA handlers if the SA is registered on the State volunteer registry. (There are no SA registry’s. Nor are there official cards, documentation, or tests. SA training organizations have their own standards. The community has “standards” but nothing legal, except animal must have at least one task that mitigates a disability or medical condition.)

              All of this only applies to the USofA. Not Canada or any other country. If an US citizen handler takes their SA to another country, they have to comply with the destination country ADA SA laws.

              I am a SA (specifically SD) handler & self trainer (okay, lots of help from “professional” trainers, but her training, incomplete, or lack thereof, is my responsibility; covid circus has made keeping this up a PIA).

              1. Now I actually want a service banshee.

                “Hang on, you don’t look blind. What service is she providing?”

                “She warns me if I’m about to get killed! Very useful in certain parts of town.”

                1. Makes sense to me. After all after someone asks if I’m blind, after seeing that I got out of the driver seat, and my SD is 16#s and looks it. Guess she’s my “back seat driver”, since she is clipped in the back if I’m the one driving. Well anytime she’s in the vehicle, except dad breaks that rule regularly & lets her up front (on my lap).

        3. I’m going to bet the argument is that they can of course let you shop with whatever online is. Plus additional fee of course. But ya. Remember all the “emotional support” animals on planes and such

          I’m sorry, there are a few things I’m not going to shop online for. Produce is one of them. (The folks gathering everything up just gonna go for easy stuff so that yam may have been picked over and replaced 45 times for a reason)

          1. That’s what they said. “you can pick up”
            Except grocery shopping, for me, involves forever reevaluating what I want to buy, replanning meals, etc. Because I’m not made of money and sales matter, as does discounted meat.

            1. Yep. Its idiotic. I’m supposedly a millennial and all into this new tech world as engineer, but there are certain things I will not buy sight unseen. Food, outside of prepackaged wont go bad stuff is one. Even my hobbies, I prefer to go drop money at dive shop rather than get some of the more critical stuff online

              1. I mean, I’m considering a Walmart subscription, because that’s where we get the litter and we usually have to go there JUST for the litter and cleaners. And it’s a huge store, and takes forever just to get in and out.
                I am not a typical person, as I’d live in one room save for fun outings. But meat, fruit and veg. Yeah, no. I have to see and evaluate. And most of the meat we buy/eat is in the 50% discount since the boys were teens. Otherwise we’d have had to go vegan….

                1. Stuff like litter and such though is just another dry good. Its less risky than just buying a shirt online so I can see that. Its the generic shopping that gets me.

                    1. Overheard a meeting of the curbside/online pulling folks at my store. There was one person who had been pulling iffy produce and putting it in the deliveries, despite being told to pick the best, and that person was no longer going to be working in that department. So yes, there are people watching the people who pull your stuff, if your store is being run right.

                      Of course, there’s no guarantee that your store is being run right.

                2. Relatives of mine once said “We’re economic vegetarians,” i.e. they were perfectly happy to eat meat when someone else was paying for it, but they managed on cheaper protein sources like rice & beans most of the time.

                  1. We did that the first two years of Robert’s life. If there was money for meat, it was bought for the toddler.
                    We also gained an enormous amount of weight, because neither of us does well with carbs, but….

                3. Yep. The kids finally got stopped asking me what was for dinner – “manager’s special” just doesn’t say much. (For a while it was rather more planned – when the Frys – Krogers to some people here – hopped on the “organic” bandwagon big time. Several months, that was the only thing in the specials – and I wouldn’t touch it for free.)

            2. True story.. I haven’t been in a grocery store since Gov. Blackface (D-VA) mandated that no food will be obtained without a face diaper.. except once. Instead I opted to do the curbside pickup thing, paying a premium of $5 per pickup for the privileged of someone else manhandling my melons. The one exception was when their online payment dohicky failed and they discovered after I had picked up my groceries that they hadn’t got payment. They called me up and asked me to come in to settle the bill. I informed them that was impossible because their policy was I couldn’t come in their store without a face diaper which I would not wear. They told me to come in anyway, so that’s what I did. Even though they handled the transaction with efficiency, that was the last time I went to that particular chain.

              Anecdotally, I have friends in the western (rural) parts of the state that are telling me patrons in stores there are beginning to routinely ignore the face diaper mandate. I think that’s they way that this thing will be ultimately stop. People will just stop doing it.. maybe not in the government suckling suburbs, but the rest of the state that has brains will stop and that will pretty much be that. Gov Blackface will have no other face saving option (pun intended) but to declare he is rescinding the madness. It’s very unlikely that will happen before the election, but I remain optimistic.

              1. Basically, this will continue as long as the government at some level wants it to, because until there’s no one to take the call, there are more than enough Karens to hit the tip lines, and all they have to do is yank licenses to get the business to enforce it. Until that chain is broken, this will continue. Oh, and “no one to take the call” will have to include the plaintiff’s bar, because once there’s no other way to enforce it you’ll see a plague of frivilous lawsuits because “Evil Business allowed me to get Wuhan Flu”.

                1. So far heavy handed tactics like tip lines and yanking business licenses have not entered into Gov Blackface’s (D-VA) repertoire. I think that has something to do with the makeup up the electorate in Virginia – part government slugs in the the north, military complex in the south, and ‘redneck’ in most other places except the college towns which are, well, you know.

                  There is a cultural identity (still) here that remembers the CSA capitol was indeed in Richmond at one time. No, that’s not a “we were proud to be slave owners” thing. More like “we were proud to resist the heavy hand of the government” – see the actual “very fine people at Charlottesville” (OMG! Imagine standing up for a statue of a confederate general in today’s BLM fearing climate). Thus, there seems to be some restraints on the governor here that are not present in say Colorado or California. How long that will last is anyone’s guess. A Biden win will probably be the final nail in coffin of Virginia’s freedom. The rural Virginians I know will not react well to such heavy handed intrusions. Nor will their friends in law enforcement (I hope, assuming they all don’t retire).

                  As to lawsuits, that is harder to tell. Certainly the carpetbaggers are welcome to try as everyone has a right to their day in court. I think it would be a uphill battle to prove to a jury of their peers exactly where and how someone contracted the China Flu, short of that person being isolated in an controlled environment like say a nursing home. It’s one thing to say “that woman who I dated exclusively for 5 years intentionally gave me VD”, and quite another to say “one of the hookers on that street gave me VD, so i’m suing every dope dealer that works that block.”

            3. In California one of the mall shops that had a one step up platform in front to get to the door (part of their branding) lost an ADA lawsuit even though they had doors on both sides of the step for wheelchairs because “it wasn’t the same experience”. Fudruckers also had a problem because people in wheelchairs could not see the place that they ground the meat. If that transfers to Co, and it may not, pickup only would be a slam-dunk loss for the store.

        4. ADA has stated as long as the store has curbside service and online shopping, they can refuse entrance.

            1. Except in Chicago, where you’re not even allowed on the bus, or any Chicago Transit Authority property, if you’re exercising your Second Amendment rights. Even if you have your State of Illinois FOID and CCL permission cards and a note from your mommy. You have to take private transportation or walk, even though CTA sucks tax money from all the residents of the state.

              Rosa Parks at least got to ride on the bus, even if it was in the back.

              1. The buses here in Tucson have electronic signs. They now flip between the route number – and “No mask, no ride.” Phaugh. Not to mention the alert signs on I-10 through town pushing the propaganda.

                1. Oh, yes. “Masks are required in every store” on signs over the highway. Though at least they’ve stopped telling me we’re all in it together.
                  No, Polis, you unredeemable ass, you’re putting us in it, and I doubt you follow it. And I hope you find out just how ALONE you are. And soon.

              2. The buses here don’t take cash, because everybody will die from contaminated money. You have to use a ‘transit card’ which allows them to track where and when you get on the bus or train.

                I found that out when I had to walk 5 1/2 miles after dropping my bike off at the shop. Who would ever have thought the bus wouldn’t accept cash? It took an hour and 40 minutes and the blisters lasted three weeks.

  15. There’s a trade off between the dubious protection from virii one hasn’t already been exposed to, and the increased danger from bacteria that one is already exposed to. But “the natural bacteria on the body must be perfectly safe!” Tell it to Staph, particularly multiply resistant strains.

    We have idiot kids going off to universities, and told to start wearing masks by the tens or hundreds of thousands.

    At that scale, there will be self sourced bacterial infections, from excessive wearing of dirty masks. Which the universities will call covid, and take as an excuse to go back to online courses.

    1. This. Between allergies and the damage caused to my body by PTSD-inducing levels of stress, I am prone too, among other things, cystic acne. To the point that once I was hospitalized to deal with it.

      End result: I have scars. Everywhere. Including one that means a swimsuit is Right Out – any degree of sunburn there is excruciating.

      My own skin bacteria have, indeed, tried to kill me before. This mask madness is… insane.

        1. Oh, sweetie. That stinks. Jewelweed soap works fine on the face too. Or if you have a bunch of chickweed in your yard and no pesticides, you can boil down chickweed and make ointment or tea. Super cheap, can’t be cheaper than weeds.

            1. [an oldie]

              Picture yourself near a stream.

              Birds are singing in the crisp, cool mountain air.

              Nothing can bother you here.

              No one knows this secret place.

              You are in total seclusion from that place called the world.

              The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.

              The water is clear.

              You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you’re holding under the water.

              There now, feeling better?

              2. I’m just guessing, but would that be from Deep Thoughts With Jack Handy? Because it sounds like one of those.

      2. … stress..

        I recall in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s there was concern about UV leakage from fluorescent lighting. The amount is/was trivial – after all, know anyone who burns or tans under normal fluorescent lights? Me neither. Finally someone pointed out the level was so low, the issue so really minor, BUT they were causing a LOT of stress, which was almost certainly a much worse thing. The issue faded away about then.

          2. I used to have to set my CRT monitor to refresh rates of 75 Hertz or higher, because at the de-facto-standard 60 Hz refresh rate, I could see flickering at the corners of the screen when I was looking at the middle of the screen. That problem has gone away for me with the advent of LCD screens, along with the high-pitched whine, right on the edge of hearing, that CRTs put out which meant I could always tell when a nearby CRT was turned on. (I probably couldn’t hear it now: last month, my wife, who’s a few years younger than me, was pointing out the high-pitched whine that a nearby electronic device was making, and I couldn’t hear it at all.)

            In the country where I live, fluorescent bulbs are a common thing for lighting your house. I’ve never been able to notice them flickering, but I’ve been replacing the fluorescent bulbs in our with LED bulbs as each one burns out. It’s just so much nicer to flip the switch and have the lights come on instantly, instead of “flick, wait three seconds, light blinks, blinks again, then finally turns on.”

            1. My experience is that the LED lamps that I have light about half a second slower than the CFL lamps that I have. I know that this is atypical, and I am at a loss to explain why.

            2. That problem has gone away for me with the advent of LCD screens, along with the high-pitched whine, right on the edge of hearing, that CRTs put out which meant I could always tell when a nearby CRT was turned on.

              Elf won more than one bet by reminding people they’d left the TV on in their space when they came out, and they’d go back to check– and it was on, every single time.

              Hearing it seems to be associated with “Odds,” though nothing like 100%.

              1. I wouldn’t be surprised if hearing the noise is something lots of people can do, but noticing it is strongly associated with paying attention to minor details and being curious about them*, which tends to mark one as Odd because most people would dismiss that sort of thing as unimportant.

                * For me, it took me a little while before I figured out the cause of the whine I was hearing. If I hadn’t been curious about it and investigated, I wouldn’t have figured out that it was caused by CRTs. So it may be that there are many people who can hear it but never investigate and never figure out the cause, so they don’t know that they can hear CRTs. (Or maybe that last sentence should be in past tense, of course).

      3. No allergies (Poison Oak/Ivy doesn’t count), but genetic version of *Rosea. Untreated = Little blisters all over my face; treated, just patches can occur. Mask makes it worse.

        * So not fair. I don’t drink that much. Have never drank to excess. One small drink is my limit. I get sick before excess … 1 1/2 wine flips are not to excess.

    2. Man, if only campus authorities were as diligent about the rampant STD rates at universities as they were about the WuFlu … *smirk

      I won’t put money on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the next big wave of lockdown protests came from the college campuses. I’ve noticed little waves here and there of twenty-somethings that have noticed that they’re being effectively caged in unless they’re “peacefully protesting”. I’m not saying Silent Majority kind of numbers, but Gen Z does have a lot more smart cookies than they’re given credit for.

      1. Some colleges are requiring students to install phone apps tracking their GPS coordinates and correlating it with possible COVID exposure, even limiting student off-campus activities (e.g., shopping, work) to ONLY “approved” venues.

        In at least one instance, the students were informed of this requirement only after having paid tuition.

        College forces students to download location-tracking COVID-19 app

        I am not a fan of “There Ought To Be A Law” Syndrome (TOTBALS?) but a DOE regulation barring mandatory installation of phone apps would seem not inappropriate — pending Congressional action to make such restrictions permanent.
        –

        2. Can they require that each student have a phone, and that it be a particular kind? There are still a lot of phones that can’t run any “apps.”

          I know a lot of schools required Apple computers as early as the 1990s. Some schools included the price in their tuition, probably so IT could preinstall spyware on them.

          Maybe they can just staple RFID tags to their ears like cattle…

          1. The Alcatel flip phones (Tracfone and AT&T sell them) use a Linux-based OS (Kios) and only take a handful of apps. It’s a phone dammit, not to be used as a portable computer.

          1. no one without a smart phone can be smart enough for university, obviously

            if you aren’t going to commit yourself to routinely paying far too much for services that aren’t truly necessary to your business, and which have poor ROI, then maybe you aren’t college material

          2. I just bought a burner smart phone (refurbed Apple 6s) because some of our new travel trailer’s functionality is hidden in an app. (Less than I thought; the overhead lights have *very* carefully disguised light switches. Sigh. OTOH, the built-in stereo wants blue-tooth as an alternative to the underdocumented remote.)

            I think I’ll use the Apple for travel, relying on the Alcatel flip phone. That’s primarily for emergency usage, and will get used frequently when I go over the Cascades for the medical trips. Now that I’m in maintenance mode for the eyes, that’s about 2X per year.

            I haven’t been convinced of the benefit of scanning the QR squares…

              1. Yes, though some of the URLs are getting long with random-looking strings of alphanumerics in them. Makes it hard to want to bother.

            2. You still doubt that QR Codes are useless?

              Look, the whole “scan for more info” thing would be awesome except that all it’s got in it is a little bit of text. That’s not enough “more” to be useful. Most people who put QR codes in things use the QR code to hold URLs to their Web site, but they also have the domain name somewhere on whatever thing the QR code is on, and it goes to the same place for the same info.

              Some people took to putting up little squares with just the QR code, going to something they think is interesting. The idea being that curiosity will cause people to scan it, but how am I to know if it’s interesting enough to be worth the ten seconds or so of work to scan the QR code without some information that’s readable to me? Experience has taught me that there are a great many things in this world that are not worth ten seconds or so of my time. I’ve seen things like entire apps or games or something squeezed down to fit in QR codes, but those are parlor tricks, so they’re kind of remarkable in the same way that a waltzing bear is remarkable.

              So, absent some compelling evidence to the contrary. I’ve concluded that QR codes have no benefit.

              1. They have plenty of benefit in their original application: replacing one-dimensional barcodes in inventory management. With their redundancy so they can still be scanned if a corner is torn or dirt gets smudged across a third of the QR code, they work nicely in a crowded warehouse. And with their higher information density, you’re not limited to just ten digits for your product IDs, so you can do things like encode source information in the product ID (the 001-xx series comes from our factory, the 002-xx series is parts we ordered from Amazon, the 003-xx series is working parts we recovered from defective products that the customer returned for a replacement, and so on).

                Another useful application of QR codes is encoding information that you would need to type in where making a typo would be easy: for example, if you use a two-factor authentication app like Authy, the initial cryptographic “seed” for your 2FA is a long series of hex digits that would be very easy to fat-finger, and if you fat-finger it while entering it into the app then the generated codes won’t be correct. Which is why the site presents that number as a QR code instead of something you have to type into your phone: scanning it takes less time than typing it in manually and is less error-prone.

                As for websites, the only time I’ve found QR codes handy is when I was shopping for an electronic device at Best Buy one time, and they had barcodes that took you to that product’s page on their online store, including customer reviews. That was useful to me, and it was far easier to scan the code than to type a URL like https://example.com/product-info/0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4 into my phone. Most of the time, I agree with you: a QR code alone isn’t going to get me to scan it just out of curiosity’s sake, and a lot of the URLs they put into QR codes are already shortened enough that it would have been faster to type. Still, I’d rather see a QR code than a URL with an alphanumeric product ID in it, as the QR code is less visually jarring. So I guess that’s one more benefit.

                1. Heck. I worked for a company that specialized in inventory control devices and barcode scanners. I was the programmer who wrote the programing tool(s) that allowed programmers to write software for scanners (generated DOS based C code). Program has been shelved now for a good 15 years since embedded Windows is the base OS on the devices now.

                  Job before that generated labels for inventory control of tree seedlings. Job afterward above job had an inventory control with barcode options.

                  Thus not a newbie or non-technical savvy consumer when it comes to barcodes. My phone, nor my families phones, have the ability installed to scan QR codes … okay installed, because phone comes that way, but it has to be allowed …

                  Just saying ….

          3. My wife got rid of her smartphone and bought a “flip phone.” It has a dialing directory and a camera and not much else.

            What she didn’t know was… it runs Android. I don’t blame her, it would never have crossed my mind either. But every could of days she loses use of the phone, because it spends two hours or more “updating”, and that can’t be turned off. Apparently it’s getting the full Android load, evenif there’s no hardware there to support it.

            1. That sounds like something else is jacking up– my dad has a flip phone for durability reasons, and it doesn’t update even the once-every-two-months-or-so that my phone does.

        4. “Show me how.” *pull out flip-phone*

          I am ever more liking the line: “Remember when the phones were tied to the wall and the people were free?”

          1. “I texted/tried to call you 4 times!”
            “I was riding my motorcycle. I don’t answer until I stop somewhere long enough to bother calling back.”

        5. The university I work at is requiring such an app for faculty, staff, and students. I’m not doing it though. Screw ’em.

          1. while I have a smart phone, work has some policies if I access say email and other work stuff (payroll, health, HR), or the new Covid tracking crap, that I refuse to allow. “You want me to use that app? You provide me a free phone, otherwise you do not get that kind of access to my personal property.”
            Plant President -“Good Answer!”
            I can access all of it at home from my secure browsers, so it’s not anything needed to function.
            They don’t get to decide what my passwords should be, when I change them and to what, what I have deleted what they will delete without my say, or whether or not I am able to power off my personal phone.

        7. I can foresee absolutely no way that this tracking app could possibly be misused . . .

    3. Here I can go on a rant because there is practically zero effort to ensure that people understand that you have to regularly wash reusable masks or they’ll end up carrying other nasties. Nor does there seem to be an effort to ensure that people know how to properly put an mask on and off without contaminating themselves, and how to properly wear it. Notice the number of people wearing a mask off their nose.

      1. Regularly wash? You mean “Disinfect every hour, after changing with gloves and disposing of gloves” right? Or just dispose of every hour.
        Seriously, that’s your clue and you don’t see it?
        IF the masks were for health purposes, they’d be treated FAR more seriously. And used ones would have to be disposed of in medical waste receptacles.
        Look, it’s like I said when I said “this isn’t as lethal as they’re spinning”: We had the diamond princess and VAST numbers of the homeless NOT — remarkably NOT — getting dead. Also, according to medical professionals, not showing up at the ER any more often than usual, and not for Winnie the Flu.
        This is the same thing. IF the clue were more obvious, it would pinch your bottom.
        They’re NOT bothering to teach people, or to disinfect masks, or to make sure they’re disposed of properly, because theater props don’t need that much care.

        1. One advantage of a mostly rural environment is that you automatically social distance. At most I wear a mask for a short period once a day, then it goes into the wash. Popular Mechanics had a good run-down of it months ago, but don’t have the URL.

          Just a comment on my own practices, but the hand sanitizers go on my hands or I wash them before putting one one, then I apply hand sanitizer or wash my hands before taking them off.

          1. Oh,hell, Kevin.
            Americans automatically social distance, except perhaps in NYC.
            Do you know btw there is ZERO scientific evidence that social distancing does anything too? The entire thing is based on a computer model by a middle school student during Bush’s administration.
            Europe — and btw, all numbers are pretty much the same everywhere — only “distances” three feet. Which in the US is known as “We’d best be good friends” unless it’s someone you live with.
            Again, look at the insanity that’s being MANDATED with no analysis, no discussion, no proof it helps anything.
            Then look at the death numbers which, with less than two comorbidities (And these are comorbidities like COPD and cancer, okay?) is around 10k. And pretty much zero for young people.
            IF you think you’re doing anyone a favor or being considerate, or whatever? Stop it. It’s all Kabuki.

              1. Excuse me?
                Did I tell you to go away, or call you names?
                The “Oh hell” was exasperation at the “social distance” thing, not you.
                Are you okay? Is the insanity getting to you?

              2. I mean, you said you wanted to discuss. I was discussing. What did I say that was so horribly offensive?
                Am I perhaps speaking Mandarin Chinese without knowing it?

              3. Kevin… dude. It’s gotten into your brain.

                Step back, take a breath. Sarah’s being short over all this because it’s really stressing her that she can’t do any of her outlets because of this stupidity. And you’re misunderstanding the intent of what she is trying to say.

                Take a break, go out and smell the late summer air. Try to let it flow over you.

            2. But Sarah! “If it saves only one life” surely it’s worth the minor inconvenience?

              [and giant cockroaches *might* attack Cincinnati…]

            3. Iowa seems to go at about 4 ish feet as a default, closer if they’re deaf.

              Which I believe I already recounted here with the story of me being chased around a table because people keep trying to talk to me, and I keep taking a step back to my preferred ~5 ft.

              1. I once worked at a commercial flight school operation that was looking for a contract to pick up as Japan Air Lines(great, motivated, highly-focused students) was winding down their training operations there. What we ended up with was Gulf Air (UAE and Oman), whose mostly ex-RAF flight crews were beginning to retire after decades of flying, and said airline needed a lot of new pilots to make up the shortages.

                A very different bucket of fish, indeed. Most seemed to have got in the program because of who they were related to, one shining exception being an ex-IrAF NCO we called “Fred”. One of the first things we noticed was that their idea of personal space was a couple orders of magnitude closer than any of ours. Usually when you’d have a conversation with one (or more) of them, and found yourself backed into a wall, or corner of the room.

                I wonder how they’re dealing with the current bug?

      2. Notice the number of people wearing a mask off their nose.

        That probably has more to do with “I am wearing the mask, go away” than not knowing how they work.

        Same way that some places had “Luchador masks don’t count” signs out fairly early.

        1. Yes. I wear the virtue rag over the mouth, and that’s it. Mostly so that the stores (where they never gave me a hassle before the Brown Vagina mandated them) don’t get into trouble.

  16. Make your own mask out of very sheer fabric. Something that is obviously useless. In the past I have used a beard net, although that is pushing it. Most mask requirements that I have seen just say paper or cloth covering nose and mouth.

        1. You wanna know something?

          The number of Muslim men who go shopping seems to have dropped drastically.

          The number of Muslim women out shopping hasn’t increased, but they walk and talk a lot more assertively. I don’t think they’ve realized this.

          Oh, there’s unintended consequences allllllll over.

          1. If it weren’t for unintended consequences, some government projects would have no consequences at all!

            I hadn’t consciously noticed before, but since you mention Muslim women, I think you’re right!

          2. Reminds me of a chapter heading in “The Drifters” by Mitchner. Before the war a tech-rep got used to seeing a particular muslim man leading his wives down the street. After the war the man was following his wives. The tech-rep said “Achmed, this is progress.” Achmed looked at him like an idiot and replied “No, landmines.”.

        2. Moslem muslin? Or take advantage of the words being close and sow confusion (perhaps even pretending confusion in order to cause it. See: “Who’s on first?”).

  18. Every time I wear my plague doctor mask to Wal-mart I get positive reactions. Nothing overtly negative except for the occasional small child getting weirded out (although one group of kids loved it).

    Just remember: if you decide to get one yourself and you wear glasses, get one designed to fit over them.

      1. Well, around here the levels of sarcasm at stores go up and down, but they’re pretty high right now. Even a lot of my co-workers are openly wearing masks under the nose instead of over it, and the managers aren’t saying a thing because they’re doing it too.

        1. West side of the Cascades, *in* a doctor’s office was the only time I’ve been admonished to cover my nostrils. Ever. (Both admonisher and admonishee had COVID in the Dec-March timeframe. Sigh.)

        2. Best mask-failure I’ve seen was pictures from Hometown News Channel’s Facebook feed, in July I believe, saying “Sheriff’s Office is asking for information on shoplifter at Auto Zone” with pictures of the suspect. And to commit crime in front of cameras, young Mr. Einstein has opted to wear his mask around his chin…

              1. Of course. The sneeze would contaminate the mask, which would have to be replaced. They don’t grow on trees you know either in availability or price.

          2. Yesterday, when I went to donate a case of water for the Louisiana victims of Laura (God Bless the Cajun Navy) the sheriff’s deputies accepting the donation were unmasked. Well, one was, but not the one who helpfully reached in through my open car door to haul the water out.

              1. Don’t you GET IT man? He’s like strikin a blow for LIBERTY, man!

                That’s some serious Thomas Jefferson level civil disobedience stuff right there.

                1. He’s obviously an NPR listener who heard the interview with the author of the book declaring looting as reparations.
                  –

          3. Some local Einstein robbed a bank near here, wearing no mask at all.

            Most of us figure he either got lonely, or else very tired of his own cooking.

  19. Random off-topic thing: My family has been going through my grandmother’s things. We found a stack of old science fiction magazines: Pulps from 1975 or so, a series of magazines called “Gallileo”. I think they were my Uncles. I’m reading through some of it now.

    2. Gallileo was a Sci Fi magazine in late 70’s (see here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(magazine) ). it only lasted 16 issues from 1976 to 1980. I had just renewed it for 2 years as high school student when Issue 13 came out serializing Larry Niven’s Ringworld Engineers. Never saw more than the 2 final issues of the 12 I was supposed to get (yes I’m still bitter it was a fair amount of money before I got a real (ish) job at $2.50/hr ). Large format slick paper but the market just tanked for that stuff.

      1. There were half a dozen others in the same general timeframe; large or slick format, lots of artwork, coverage of movies and gaming, and SJW editorializing. Omni is the only one that ran very long; I suspect Guccione kept it going with Penthouse money just to be able to point out he published things other than porn.

        1. I’m not interested in looking it up, but I think Omni had the distinction of selecting editors* who thought reader opinions (as expressed in $$$ spent to get the magazine) mattered.

          It’s an idea so crazy it just might work.

          A quick search indicates the magazine was a project of (then Guccione girlfriend, later wife) Kathy Keeton, and lasted nearly as long as she did, Omni going online only in early 1996* and Keeton dying in September 1997 “of complications from surgery for an intestinal obstruction.” At the time printing was suspended reported circulation was a robust (for the field) 700,000 copies a month.

          *Editors:
          Frank Kendig, launch – 1978
          Ben Bova, 1978 – 1981
          Dick Teresi, 1982 – 1984
          Gurney Williams III, 1984 – 1986
          Patrice Adcroft, 1987 – 1990
          Keith Ferrell, 1990 – 1996
          Pamela Weintraub 1996 – end

          Ben Bova, originally hired on as fiction editor, moved up to editor upon Kendig’s departure.
          Robert Sheckley was fiction editor 1980 – 81
          Ellen Datlow was Associate fiction editor of Omni under Robert Sheckley for one and a half years, and took over as Fiction Editor in 1981 until the magazine was suspended in 1998.

          Above material and issue downloads:
          https://anarchivism.org/w/Omni_(Magazine)

          See also:
          keithferrellwriter . com/omni
          isfdb . 1zorg/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?25946
          –

          1. I think Omni lasted a bit longer. It was published by the same publishing house that did Penthouse. Best thing ever was a competition for grafitti we’d see in 2001 (asked in 1980 or 81 I think). The winner was “Disco still S*cks”.

            2. My mother used to buy me subscriptions to Omni. I have no idea why. I used to say (not to my mother) that Bob Guccione’s other magazine had better intellectual content.

              1. At the end of Omni’s tenure that was likely true. I was subscribed 1978 to 84. I had noticed the fiction get lousy in the end of my college years a situation likely due to Ms Datlow ( Thank you dear hostess, that explains a fair bit).
                I think a lot of the upsurge in Sci-fi magazines in the late 70’s early ’80 s can be traced. to Star Wars and other things briefly taking Sci-Fi mainstream for a bit.

                1. I think I was thinking of fact articles. The fiction articles were weird. In Omni, they were labelled as fiction with titles and everything. In Penthouse, they were in the section titled “Letters from our Readers.”

      2. I remember back when Analog switched to a larger format. My grandmother thought it was a science magazine (it had a painting of Jupiter on the cover), and bought me a subscription to it.

  20. I got -something- in January, and never really got over it. Humidity makes breathing uncomfortable, and Florida + masks = 107% humidity. I’ve been masking at the grocery store because the Dragonette works there and I don’t want her getting in trouble, but I don’t see that lasting much longer.

    1. Now’s a good time for drinking aromatic teas, etc., and eating good so your body gets ready for winter. (You can make licorice, mint, the throat coat stuff, etc. as ice teas or just cold steeped teas. I like to grab a water bottle or a pitcher and just let the herb teabag sit for an hour or so.)

      Fun fact: B12 also helps your body make new blood cells, and lots of vitamins and minerals are helpful to rebuild your bod. So if what you got was WuFlu in your lungs, or even if it wasn’t, that might help.

      If you could do a low humidity, high heat activity, that might help. Maybe a heating pad? But obviously have somebody with you if you experiment. (I’m a big believer in baking out bad health stuff, but that’s just me.)

      (I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the Internet.)

      1. Also living in Florida, high heat is dead simple here, low humidity requires a change of time zone.

    2. Get your home’s vents checked for mold – not often checked by the doctor’s tests.
      We had a horrible respiratory infection one year – MONTHS of it – and, accidentally, when we were getting our HVAC system cleaned, the workers called us in and showed us the mold. We gladly paid the extra it took to eradicate it.
      Our infections cleared right up.

        1. It was SO nice switching from the cooling regime to the heating regime last Fall and NOT having the nasty hot-dust smell* through the place.

          * As opposed to the good hot-dust smell of that baking on vacuum tube envelopes. I miss that.

    3. When wear one, it reminds me of wearing a handkerchief as a dusk mask in childhood. Same damp smell, courtesy of the humidity. There’s a cone-shaped mask I wore at a funeral for a relative who died of the virus, and it did better. OTOH, every one of them are hot, but then, even dusk masks can get hot.

        1. No, it doesn’t stop viruses, it helps stop droplets. Wearing one doesn’t do a thing for me, just those I might be around. I have no illusions that this would keep me from catching it. But this borders on arguing for masks, and that’s not my point.

          1. Blink.
            It doesn’t do a thing for those you might be around either. You have to adjust your mask (have to. People do it without noticing) because it cuts your oxygen down by 60%. And now you have it on your hands. Anything you touch… You can disinfect enough.
            You also have other friendly bacteria which you exhale and become not so friendly hanging out on the mask humidity and reproducing.
            You. Aren’t. Helping. Anyone.
            Not you, not them. You’re just complying with the illegal mandate of your local tyrant. (I have to also, if I want to go out.)
            Sure, if you’re in the habit of sneezing and coughing on people without covering? Then a mask is good. And if you have a cold and are sneezing and coughing, by ALL MEANS wear the mask. Other than that? Bah.

            1. If I had COVID, the first thing I would do is take off the mask. Losing 20% of you blood oxygen when you have a disease that critically reduces your blood oxygen is just stupid.

          2. Mental experiment time. You know the kind of screen that is used, or used to be used, to cover windows? I want to say metal or plastic, with a mesh size of one or two millimeters?

            I recall that there were situations where water would stick to it, and it would block water from going through. But, I think you could also get water spraying to pass through it.

            “How well do masks separate out droplets” is an interesting question. Several interesting variables. Droplet size distribution may depend on body fluid properties, which may vary from person to person. You have a range of velocities/forces acting on the things, from sneezing to holding breath. Depending, after a certain amount of time, they may well act as an aerosol.

      2. This is not btw SHOUTING you down, and I’m not calling you names. I understand the barrage of gaslighting has been amazing. I was half convinced in February. I don’t know if I snapped out of it early because I have friends everywhere in the world (note, China’s African colonies were also not dropping dead) AND because I think HALF my close friends are medical professionals. (And I don’t know why. No.)

        2. February is when I was saying, “Okay, people are reporting R0 numbers of about 6, which means it’s going to spread like wildfire. And there are already cases in my city, which means I’m going to get it sooner or later. Now, so far it only appears deadly to people with compromised respiratory systems, which means heavy smokers or people who live in China (air pollution), so I’m probably going to be okay. But probably isn’t a guarantee. So you know that open-source project I’ve been working on for four years and have almost gotten ready to release? Let me just go ahead and release a pre-alpha version right now, because if I die from this thing, I’d hate for all that work to end up going to waste. But if I’ve made the GitHub repository public, then at least someone else will be able to take it and carry it forward, maybe.”

          Turns out, of course, that my worries did not come to pass: if I ever caught COVID-19, I was one of the people who was completely symptomless. But I rather suspect that I never caught it. Point is, February was when I was thinking, “Let’s push an alpha version of my project out the door Just In Case™.”

          1. Interesting: WordPress doesn’t allow the <sub> tag, so when I wrote R<sub>0</sub> it didn’t honor the tag and wrote R0 instead of R₀. But writing the Unicode subscript-zero character works. Well, I’ll know next time.

  21. I live in a mostly conservative area (although the new Powers That Be are trying to cancel that out by importing hipsters and Californians to cancel out our military backbone, but I digress). We unfortunately also have mask mandates now and businesses openly state No Mask No Service on their doors and windows.

    The first time I went to the grocery store in my required mask, I wrote “CHICKEN LITTLE” on that mask, making sure it was perfectly legible to anyone who saw it no matter where the mask slid down on my face. People read it, and either nodded back at me or backed away from me. I gave the people backing away a cheeky toodle-loo wave.

    I’m wondering now if making decent sized yellow Star of Davids and sewing them on my white cloth masks would be a little too much or just enough to get the point across.

    1. While I think it would be clever, I’m afraid a lot of people just wouldn’t get the reference.
      We lose so much when we forget our history…

  22. I knit masks that I give out. They are socially acceptably, not medically effective. My s-i-l, the doctor with the masters in public health is the one who asked me to do them. There has only been one time someone was asked to change out to a different style. My friend wore a knit mask on a flight out to Az but was told it wasn’t appropriate on the return flight. Guess it is arbitrary and up to the PTB. I will continue to make a distribute them.

    1. I have noted, with mild amusement, that the face masks vended at my local grocery, clearly state on the package that these are “Fashion” masks and provide no medical protection.
      –

      1. The masks I bought from the ‘Zon look like surgical masks, but are noted as “non-medical”.

        It’s only when I have to go to town. Cue the John Denver: “Thank God, I’m a country boy!”

  23. “A MAGA mask might not signal I do not buy the Narrative, but one that says ‘forced compliance’ might.”

    Is there an effectively brief way to convey, “I am only wearing this because this world is full of officious jerks”? Perhaps Latin has a phrase for it, or German a word (although I shudder, considering how long such a word might be.)

    The issue, of course, is to express that fear of our fellow Karens citizens is greater than our fear of the WuFlu.

    One of the long-standing strengths of American life had long been that politics did’t actually matter much. You could go abut your daily life with negligible attention paid to politics, even to the extent of not voting because Tweedledee or Tweedledum, you were losing your brand new rattle.

    Now we’re in the situation of living next door to a house full of raucous college students, playing their awful taste in music too often* and too loud. Okay – their lease is probably up at the end of the Spring Semester and they’ll move on and maybe the next cohort of college kids won’t be so bad, maybe for a change we’ll get grad students or co-eds (who tend to go to parties, not throw them) and we’ll have some relative peace. They aren’t actually bad and when I was their age I liked partying, too. But Dear Lord In Heaven, I weary of picking up their beer cans (and the occasional half-keg) that turn up in my yard.

    *Back when the album came out the students in the house backyard-adjacent to ours played the damn thing all the time. ALL THE TIME. I liked the album, liked Paul Simon, had been a fan of Joseph Shabalala’s chorale for a good five years and delighted at the attention given them through that album. But Good Gawd, guys — enough is enough. Buy another fricking album already! Buy two – anything but Led Zeppelin IV — I’d heard a lifetime’s worth of Stairway To Heaven by the end of the Seventies.
    –

    1. or German a word (although I shudder, considering how long such a word might be.)

      –
      Long enough to wrap around your head and continue on the other side, no doubt.

    2. To this day, I cannot listen to anything from the “Dark Side of the Moon” album. Gave me the bad habit in high school of sleeping with a king size pillow wrapped around my head.

      Pity, too – IMHO, that was just about the best album that Floyd ever released.

  24. I wonder about your take on those clear and flimsy face shields? (Haven’t read back far enough if you’ve already commented.)

      2. Just ran across this. It is utterly useless to protect other people, but looks like you care and might actually help with asthma instead of hurting.

        1. er… NO. It doesn’t help with asthma. If I wear an actual mask (cloth) I need an inhaler within an hour.
          With the visor, I’m still re-breathing and it’s more “makes it more likely I’ll need an inhaler that week.”
          Also for the record it protects other people FROM VIRUSES as much as cloth masks. Not at all.
          It protects people from uncovered sneezes (Which is what the scoundrels default to saying cloth masks are for) about as well as cloth.

          1. The link I provided should have sent you to a positive pressure HEPA mask. It blows fresh filtered air in your face. It does not filter your exhalations, but I would expect it to be good for things like pollen and smoke.

    2. I used one today. Horrible for visual acuity, but if you tilt it up high enough, you can get fresh air. OTOH, I generally don’t look the the kind of person a Karen wants to mess with….

      They’re cheap and last reasonably long if you keep the shipping sleeve for storage. My asthma and related distress is mild right now, so that’s the route I’m taking for town trips.

      1. One of them (which we have) is okayish for visual acuity. Not great, but okayish.
        HOWEVER (as younger son said) we’re postponing our outing to draw dinos until they let us go barefaced.

      2. I’ve been ignoring masks except for doctors’ offices (thanks to asthma and claustrophobia and anxiety). I had to wear one for almost two hours last week at the eye doctor’s. The next day was the first time in weeks I’d had to use my inhaler.

  25. I think my Trump 2020 mask says it all. A gun store her is very strict about masks and number of people in the store. I believe it is because Karen’s have reported “Problems”. San Antonio is in Texas BUT it is governed by the Dems.

    1. Much of the store-strictness in general comes down to “If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow” aka “Nice business you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.” Gun stores are especially vulnerable.

      The spirit of Operation Chokepoint lives. Unfortunately.

      1. That is the point behind crypto-libertarianism: any visible business or human artifact will be corrupted to enforce totalitarianism. So don’t have anything visible.

  26. Sadly, we’ve had a few people that I know around here get fined and not allowed into places for failing to play in the kabuki theater. Especially large chain stores-most of the ones around here are more scared of the government than any ADA lawsuits.

    I am so very tempted to get one of these and HEPA filters and use it for EVERYTHING. I’m doing it right, aren’t I?

    The plague mask is a tempting idea as well, but I think people wouldn’t get the joke.

  29. On the matter of iconography, how about using the Queen of Hearts (the John Tenniel illustration, NOT Disney’s)?

    I trust no explanation of the underlying reasoning is required.
    –

    1. Michiganders might find this better suited, with appropriate captioning:

      Some minor alteration to make the face more closely represent Gov. Whitmer might be desired.
      –

    1. ‘Bacterial Collector’ or ‘Bacterial Concentrator’.

      Or ‘in violation of’ followed by citation of the local anti-KKK ordinance.

  31. Pingback: Guest Post and Vacation – Herbert Nowell

  32. I have a feeling this is going to get shouted down, but know that what follows consists of a comment and two inquires. Both are exactly 0% political.

    About a decade ago, my father was in an ICU close to death. I had a cold and couldn’t go in. A nurse came out and handed me a standard mask, and said I could see him if I wore it. The idea is that is would stop droplets from my mouth and nose and help keep from spreading it. That has shaded my opinion of what’s going on now. Surgical masks won’t keep out airborne viruses, but will help contain droplets from the mouth and nose. It’s known that the wu flu, like other nasties, hitches a ride on those droplets. That, and asymptomatic cases are why I wear one in public. Usually that means folding a bandana and tying it around my face because I forgot a proper mask. So it was that when I saw the bank required face masks, I tied on my bandana, and stood in line thinking “This does not look cool.”

    FWIW there’s a study that claims droplets will go through bandanas, but the same study described bandanas as made from tee-shirt material, which makes me think it was rave “bandanas” that are made of a single layer of that material and pulls up over your face like a tube. I defer to an earlier, unrelated, study that placed bandanas on about the same level as dusk masks.

    I have wondered how to safely stencil a Guy Fawkes mustache and goatee on a white mask without ending up inhaling the dye. The same with “Make America Free Again.” But I’m a bit partial to bandanas, especially when I’m wearing a cowboy hat.

    Anyway, My point is not to persuade. My point is I wear a mask in public for a specific non-political reason. And this leads to my first inquiry:

    Some think masks are not effective in helping slow the spread. Why?

    This is an inquiry, not a challenge, nor is it an argument. I just want to know.

    Second inquiry:

    Even when we had “shelter in place,” most around here continued to work because most here are employed in essential services. When “shelter in place” went away, it seemed to make relatively little difference. That means I’m living in sort of a bubble. I get the impression that “shelter in place” and “lockdowns” are still going on in other parts of the country. Is that indeed the case?

    Fire away.

    1. Droplets: If you’re a kid and in the habit of sneezing on people, yeah, it will stop those. It WILL NOT STOP VIRUSES.
      I don’t know what hospital made that asinine decision (unless your dad was already dying and it was kabuki.)
      When they heard I’d HAD TB, before they tested it was gone, EVERYONE wore REAL masks to interact with me (At the time, in 1995, these looked like duck masks. I have no clue what they did, but they weren’t your fabric masks.)
      No one is shouting you down, but read the packaging on any cloth mask: for fashion only. Will not prevent illness.
      Also, btw, in hospitals they could put a mask on you, you go in, you come out, they remove the mask and dispose appropriately. You don’t touch the mask/play with it or wear it all day, much less for days. I suspect people with masks (and the case of Hawaii since mask order confirms this) are WAY more infective. Because touching the mask gets virus all over your hands.
      There are NO studies. They aren’t proven to stop disease ANYWHERE except in highly controlled hospital settings. And even then, honestly, it’s more to prevent the surgeon sneezing on the OPEN patient.
      The only evidence we have is this vast “study” we’re making. Where it has no effect on transmission of diseases, BUT it does lead to an alarming number of BACTERIAL diseases. Like people are developing face-staph. That’s fun, innit.
      ALSO and BTW for asthmatics and people with impaired respiratory function, those things ARE PROVEN to have adverse effects. And as for “Just don’t go out” (What, to hide from something with lower mortality than the flu? See CDC revisions, and pull the other leg. It plays jinglebells.) what about the risk of depression and suicide? Because those ALSO are through the roof.

    2. I have several reasons to think it might not slow spread. Item 1, there’s a decent chance that it already spread, at least for one strain, before the orders when into effect. You can only slow spread by isolating people if the people haven’t been exposed, gotten infected, and then recovered. Item two, masks are a mechanical process. You are relying on either pore size, or a complex flow environment, to create conditions to separate virii and droplets from the air. a) this means you actually need discipline and care in handling contaminated masks after they have been used for a time. b) fit matters, and is a much more complicated subject than most realize c) you have to create a pressure difference across the mask, assuming it is sealed, before you can pull the same air intake, which takes physical work from your body. Which is a health issue, potentially. Item the third, the public health experts are for damn sure not consistently treating it as a real problem. That “BLM is important enough for public health that the trade off is correct” announcement is flat out a concession that COVID is a matter of political advantage, and not the most important ’cause’ for the Dems this year. There would be grounds to be suspicious from the low level of restriction on international travel, and unwillingness to use lethal force in securing borders, but the announcement puts it firmly beyond plausible deniability. Item the fourth, people are still buying food. It isn’t a case where the logistical slack exists to permit, or the whole population has the supplies to allow, true isolation. If someone does not discuss the bacterial angle as a trade off, they haven’t thought through the masking well enough to implement any sort of reliable isolation procedures to keep things from spreading at local food distribution hubs. From that perspective, there may be zero reason to suspect that current measures could have had significant impact.

      Second inquiry: Feds, States, counties, cities, and employers have covid 19 policies. Largely put in place by fiat and designed by impulse. It’s a patchwork, and impossible to predict when people will screw around with you.

    3. That was probably an act of mercy by the hospital– because dying alone is just wrong.

      We’ve got a test on how effective layered cloth masks are. From the Spanish Flu.
      It didn’t work, even nurses got no benefit from it, and you’ve probably seen some of those in old history books– they looked like q-tips, the layers were so thick.

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362677/

      Definitely enough to stop droplets. Did nothing.

    4. Because the people telling us to wear masks aren’t wearing masks themselves, which tells me that they don’t actually believe that the masks are effective.

      General principle, broadly applicable: when someone’s words and his actions differ, his actions will tell you what he truly believes.

      1. Also note that the stadium was empty. Dr. Fauci could have sat three seats away from his friend and still carried on a conversation just fine, but he chose to sit right next to his friend. I don’t blame him in the least for sitting right next to his wife; it makes no sense to socially distance in public from the people you share a house with. But he and his wife should have been sitting in seats 4 & 5 while his friend sat in seat 1. The fact that he didn’t tells me that he doesn’t believe in the social-distancing guidelines either.

      2. Nancy Pelosi didn’t wear one to her hair salon appointment the other day. Got captured on video and everything. She seems upset that other people are upset about it.

    5. Als here:
      https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/flu/8150flu.0013.518/13/–influenza-a-study-of-measures-adopted-for-the-control?page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image

      Has death rates listed and stuff, terrible format though.

      That means I’m living in sort of a bubble. I get the impression that “shelter in place” and “lockdowns” are still going on in other parts of the country. Is that indeed the case?

      My parents are still not supposed to leave their house.
      In rural Washington.

      Otherwise, Iowa never had them– yes, I pissed folks off by asking, when he announced we were functionally the same, if that meant that the states who had been locked down for weeks at that point didn’t need to be hiding from a virus and could get rid of their masks– so I don’t know.

    6. Oh, the reason I say it was probably a mercy alternative to not seeing your father at all?

      Because when the Contessa spent three weeks in the neonatal ICU, we had to scrub down, sanitize, scrub, sanitize again, put on suits with booties, put on hair covers…

      No masks.

      Neonatal is pretty much EVERYONE in there has weak lungs, and by definition a weak immune system.

      Only one of the doctors ever put on a mask that I saw, and that was the hauling-a-kid-out-to-emergency-surgery guy.

  33. You know it has all gotten beyond ridiculous when you enter an elevator which is NOT 6 feet across and you see the “stay 6 feet apart” sticker in the center of the floor.

  34. Distantly related topic: women are hanging hair driers and curling irons in the tree outside Nancy Pelosi’s residence after she got caught wandering around a salon (opened especially for her) without a mask. She promptly said the salon owner, reported to be a single mom, had set her up.
    My husband suggested the original leak of the video to Fox (allegedly by the salon owner) might be a politcal dirty trick by the progressive wing of the Democrats. I think he may have a point.

    1. “My husband suggested the original leak of the video to Fox (allegedly by the salon owner) might be a politcal dirty trick by the progressive wing of the Democrats. I think he may have a point.”

      In San Francisco? In Nancy’s neighborhood? (I don’t know SF but Speaker Pelosi declared it was a “neighborhood salon” — not that I believe her usage of “neighborhood” corresponds to common understanding.)

      If that salon owner is Republican she only converted recently. Possibly influenced by the fact the Speaker has delayed previous relief bills and is clearly holding up the current one. Because so long as she gets the moolah for her union money launderers who cares what happens to entrepreneurs?
      –

      1. Hah-hah!. Reminds me of a joke from back in the 80’s. The original was about Jim Bakker, but this version is even more spot-on:

        Cop pulls over a car driving erratically and the driver turns out to be Bill Clinton, with an obvious prostitute in the passenger seat. He’s no dummy; he knows arresting Clinton, or even issuing a ticket, would make his life hell.

        Instead, he gives a warning: “You should be more careful about the company you keep, or people will lose what little respect they have for you.”

        Clinton starts to spin some sort of excuse, and the cop says, “Shut up, I’m talking to the hooker.”

  37. I was thinking of this and the Huns today:

    If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Chesterton

  38. I’d love to wear a non-functional mask, and have a few, but with the wildfires I started suffering shortness of breath and now use a charcoal filter one (recommended by my doctor) whenever I’m out and about. drat it. And even with the ‘gold standard’ CDC saying stop pushing testing, our officials whose line was LISTEN TO THE CDC are now ignoring it. Can’t wait for this to be over.

  39. I’m just gonna drop this here as relevant to the topic even though I’m too indolent to find a suitable comment to which this could be posted as response …

    Canadian Disabled Seek Euthanasia Because of Poor Social Services
    By Wesley J. Smith
    Disability-rights activists are some of the greatest and most effective opponents of assisted suicide/euthanasia, correctly identifying it as a form of discrimination.

    Canadian cuts in social services for the disabled during COVID proves their point. Some poor people with disabilities in Canada are growing so desperate, they are asking their doctors to kill them — not because of their disability, but because of financial desperation. From the City News story:

    Kim is a recipient of Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and says her life has been “pure hell” during the pandemic. CityNews has honoured Kim’s request not to use her last name.

    “It’s like I’m being punished for being born disabled, like I committed some kind of crime,” said Kim.

    According to the story, such desperation is becoming ubiquitous among the disabled community. That has led some to seek euthanasia as the only way out:

    The COVID-19 pandemic has made things even more dire for those with disabilities. A Stats Canada survey released last week found 61 per cent of people with disabilities are struggling to pay rent or buy medications as the cost of living goes up.

    Even more chilling is that some are talking online about applying for Medically Assisted Dying (MAID). One woman on Twitter said she enrolled because she “can no longer afford to live, nor can I afford the food and medicine I need to get better.”

    Kim says she knows of more than 50 people who have applied for MAID while some, she says, are taking other routes. “I’ve lost six friends to suicide since [the beginning] of COVID,” said Kim. . . . “They don’t want to live this way anymore, there is no safety net at all for people that are disabled,” said Kim. …

    [END EXCERPT]
    –

    1. But… Isn’t health care free in Canada? That’s what they always tell us. “We must abandon our Eeevul profit-driven health care system for the superior Socialized Medicine Model they use in Canada!”

      Under Socialized Medicine, each patient is an expense which ends when the patient dies. In Private Practice, each patient yields profits which end when the patient dies. Which patient would YOU rather be?

  40. Last Sunday evening in Nashville walking from the hotel to Broadway no mask as usual whenever outside. Got to the main drag and was handed a mask and told that it’s the law. Wind blowing and raining and I have to wear a mask outside where the avg distance between people is about 25 feet. However, once I got inside a bar I could take it off. Somehow I’m safer in a room with people unmasked 6ft away than I am on the street.

    I have glasses and wear hearing aids. There’s only so much room behind my ears.

  42. As far as a message on masks, I sharpie “Resistance is futile” on the blue things in big block letters. The runny jagged ink gives it a goth look and gets the point across nicely, I think.

    There is a pack and ship place I frequent (due to job) that has a sign on their door which reads, “Mask Or No Mask, All Are Welcome”. The owners and employees don’t abide our state’s mandate. ~standing O~

    And my personal ‘peaceful’ protest is to not put on the damn thing until I am already few steps into establishments demanding compliance and yanking it off before I reach the door on the way out.

  43. Pingback: Yes, Virginia, There is a Communist Coup Unfolding in America | The Universal Spectator
  44. Pingback: Yes, Virginia, There is a Communist Coup Unfolding in America - Patriots' Soapbox 24/7 News Network

Comments are closed.