Tag Archives: covid-19

The Tyranny of the Stupid

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I think the single most upsetting thing about the pandemic is the sheer amount of stupid running rampant in the country. This country, that once sent men to the moon six times and out-fought and out-manufactured the Axis powers in World War II, has fallen prey to nitwits and charlatans who won’t take the science of the situation seriously.

These folks are so adamant about asserting their personal freedoms that they forget that with freedom comes responsibility, including the responsibility to choose to do the right thing, both to protect themselves, and others. You may have the right to be stupid, but you shouldn’t choose to be, and your right to be stupid ends where it affects my freedoms.

Last year, because we were stupid, we let let the pandemic get out of hand. Because the stupid would not refrain from gathering, and refused to wear masks, the virus spread further than it should have.

Last Thanksgiving and Christmas, because people were too stupid and too selfish to give up the gratification of holiday fun, the virus spiked, and people died. Needlessly.

Now we have vaccines that are highly effective, free, and widely available. And yet people still won’t take them. Because people are stupid, the virus is spiking again, and people are dying again. And for no good reason. While the vaccines are not completely risk-free, the odds of having a problem are exceedingly low. Millions of doses have been given out; the number of people who have had serious complications from the virus is around a couple hundred,

Because people are stupid, COVID restrictions will be coming back, even for those of us who have been vaccinated. Because people are stupid, there is more COVID around, and the odds of vaccinated people getting a breakthrough infection are higher. It won’t send us to the hospital or kill us like it would an unvaccinated person, but it’s still needlessly unpleasant. And of course, it can kill the unvaccinated. But because people are stupid, mask mandates will be coming back for sure, and if that doesn’t work, authorities will have to decide whether to implement further restrictions to protect people who are too stupid to protect themselves.

Because people are stupid, medical people, who have been dealing with crushing workloads and the emotional burden of dealing with comforting dying people, are dealing with a new load, this time, more or less self-inflicted,

Because people are stupid, we are having get used to there being a spike in cases in the two weeks following each holiday.

I’m not asking for the government to require vaccines. But I wish people would freely choose to do the smart thing.

The Christmas That Isn’t

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It’s Christmastime… but it isn’t. Not with COVID it isn’t.

Normally we would have a big family get-together Christmas Eve. Not this year. Last year, we weren’t able to, with Mum in rehab for her strokes. I was really hoping at the beginning of the year that we could have our get-together again this year. Nope. We’re going to have to content ourselves with video calls this year. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do it in 2021.

We’ve gone up to Rockport most years for the past several years, to shop the stores on Bearskin Neck, and see the decorations. Mum was very fond of the Christmas pageant, because it was a re-enactment of the Nativity. Even if we wanted to take the risk, it’s just not feasible this year.

I’ve gone Christmas shopping every year since I was in college. This year, I ordered a couple of things off Amazon, and that was it. (To be fair, most of this is due to the fact that none of the nephews and nieces are little anymore, and most of my siblings agreed long ago not to do packages.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to do a tree this year. I’m frankly not feeling it much this year, and I was concerned about laying out the living room — Mum now spends most of the day in her chair in the living room, and whatever I did, I would need to ensure that there was room for the chair and room for her to maneuver with the walker.

Most years, I like to make an occasion of putting up the tree, but not this year. I was also aware that I’d be doing most of the work of putting it up and taking it down. In the end, Mum wanted one, and I realized I did too, so I picked up a relatively narrow tree.

As it happened, there was a gash in the bark about 4 inches from the bottom. We had this a couple of years ago, and ended up with a tree that dried out pretty rapidly, so this year, I made a new cut above the gash, and cut off the lower branches. This had the benefit of making the tree smaller overall — both narrower, and shorter. I was able to use two fewer strings of lights. This meant I was able to skip the older LED lights I’ve been using for the past couple of years. My first set of LED lights were too blue for my taste; eventually, I found a couple of strings of warmer colored LED lights that I like much better. With only the warm LEDs and one string of mini-incandescent lights, this year’s tree is much more pleasing to me. And I was able to fit the angel on the top easily for the first time this year.

Christmas tree and Mum
Christmas tree and Mum

Even though it’s smaller, it’s still a pretty nice tree. And there’s still room for Mum next to it.