BarretWallace

There you go thinking with silly concepts like logic and fairness.  If we were to demand the same for Trump, suddenly there would be significant screaming about infringing on his personal freedom.

Dang

Ivan Reitman, producer and director of 'Ghostbusters,' has died at 75 
 
Reitman was also behind classics like "National Lampoon's Animal House" and "Stripes." 

Reitman's directing credits include "Twins," "Kindergarten Cop," and "Junior," and "Dave."
 
And more. 

Unfortunately, I do seem to have passed the virus on to at least one person in the gaming group last Friday evening.  His symptoms sound rather like mine.  Group's not meeting this week.

3263827

And on the up side, the other three people who live in the same house I do tested negative today.

That's just because they aren't anchored to the sinking ship.
 
 
It will be a victory of sorts if Trump-endorsed candidates fall in droves during the primaries, either to challengers for Republican candidacy or to Democrat opponents on election day. Trump and Trumpism need to be discredited as a viable route to victory, and Trump's influence over the GOP needs to be undercut.

Meanwhile, I tested positive yesterday.

Lead para from NYT story:

 
 
We've discussed whether the Trumpist election refulsal etc. was considered socially acceptable?
 
There is no more question.  If one of the only two mainstream parties does this, the answer is Yes.
 
EDIT:  I'll amend this slightly.  I'll stick by it unless a significant fraction of registered Republicans leave the Party.  Because this is a line in the sand move on their part, IMO.  You cannot call this "legitimate political discourse" while asserting you support democracy.

National Butterfly Center on Texas border closing indefinitely after attacks from right-wing conspiracy theorists

I believe my remark may have been misconstrued. I wasn't referring to what's acceptable to "that crowd/faction." Obviously, many of them have wholly embraced those attitudes and publicly proclaim them. I was referring to American society as a whole. Time was, anyone even whispering such sentiments where the wider public could hear them would have been pilloried. Mainstream media would all take them to task. Politicians of every stripe would denounce them. If the speaker was a politician, his/her career would be ruined.
 
Now, while one side vociferously cheer them on, the other side roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders, and pass off those remarks as one more example of the decline of discourse in America. There are no consequences, no accountability, and no expectations of them. People -- at least prominent people -- can deceive, slander, and impugn with impunity. Even when that can easily be proven, it not longer seems to matter.

Okay, guys, I'm back.
 
No; that doesn't mean that I've started reading this thread: I still make a conscientious effort not to read things even from people I respect if there is even the _slightest_ chance that these things will end in an argument.
 
I am here for the same reason that I always come here:  Concern that what I am about to say may be taken politically.  Generally, my concerns are social, but for the past twenty years, I have found fewer and fewer people are able to make the distinction, so why take the chance, right?  This is where politics is allowed, within limits, and I think I can stay within those limits.
 
As all previous posts in this thread, it's going to be a hit-and-run thing: I still don't read this thread; I just really, really want to get this off my chest.
 
 
I used to reference "as my grandfather taught me" or "as my grandfather used to say."  I don't do that as much in recent years: he's been gone for decades now, and I have my own kids, and I spend my time doing my best to teach them-- and a lot of what I teach them is what he taught me.
 
I want to preface all of this with a caveat:  Do _not_ mistake what I imply when I do share something he taught me.  By all accounts-- my own included-- he was an absolute crapfest of a human being: vulgar, abusive, and hateful to his last paranoid breath.  By the time I came along-- my father was the last of his kids to have kids-- well, he hadn't mellowed out, really.  He got older and slower, but even into his nineties, he was a pretty big man.  He just kind of burned out.   The southernism is that he started "buying his ticket to Heaven."  It's not entirely accurate in the case; he was an atheist his entire life, though despite what I hear from atheist friends and acquaintances, it didn't make him one whit less of a ass than any Christian I have ever encountered, either, and he didn't have the fallback of "this is what my religion demands of me" to fall back on.
 
 
All that being said, he really did teach me quite a bit (particularly dodging: a good head weave really comes in handy when someone six-foot-six tries to sucker punch you.  Good thing age slowed him down enough for me to learn that without too much ill effect.
 
One of the most important things he taught me-- I didn't know it then; Hell, I wouldn't know it until... well, let's say "recent events" peeled back a lot of veneers on a lot of people in positions they have no business holding, okay?
 
it was something he didn't talk about often; I suspect it's because he learned in in World War 2.  He talked about a lot of things-- even Korea-- but he didn't talk much about World War 2.  This is the image that got me thinking about it today, tough given my work schedule, I'm sure you've all seen it already:
 
 

 
 
This image is from Canada (I am so sorry: I thought you guys could be safely inoculated from our special brand of entitlement.  I guess "polite" doesn't always mean "nice," does it?).  All these flags were hung up in protest of mask mandates an in support of a small group of man babies in something called the "Freedom Convoy."  
 
 
 
My grandfather and I had made the trip to Fairbanks (it was a regular thing to do in summer-- resupply and shop, etc, while you could drive out instead of having to rely on the bush pilots).  We had stopped somewhere (I really don't remember: I wasn't very old, and I was more interested in looking around and seeing stuff than haggling for bags of flour, cans of lard, and coffee).  I was staring at a motorcycle in the parking lot.  The back seat had an extremely tall sissy bar on it, and it featured a plate on the back that was essentially the Maltese Cross.  The fuel tank had a pair of swastikas on it and there were little chrome ziggurats screwed on to various parts of the bike.
 
My grandfather had finished loading the truck and come to collect me.  He stopped next to me and just stared at the bike for a long time.  He went so long without yelling at me for something that I was actually getting a little uncomfortable.
 
Finally, he stabbed one massive finger at the swastikas on the tank, arm straight and rigid as if he were attempting to cast out a demon.  "You know what the means, Boy?"
 
"No, Sir."
 
He never looked at me.  He just kept looking at the swastika.  His finger never wavered.  "Look at.  Look at it for a long time.  Burn it into your brain.  Never forget that symbol."
 
After an eternity, he let his arm drop back to his side.
 
"What's it mean, Gramp?"
 
"It means you're wrong!" he bellowed- not his usual bellow, but absolute venom vomited from somewhere deep inside him.  He paused a minute, and I could see in my peripheral vision how stiff he was; even at his side, his fist was clenched and his arm was flexed tight.  Whatever was playing out in his mind finally reached its conclusion and he continued speaking again.  "It means a lot of things, Boy, to a lot of people, and to the worst of them, it's a Goddamned holy symbol. but don't you ever forget that what it means more than anything else is that you are as absolutely, completely wrong as it is possible to get.  It represents and inhuman level of stupid, Boy-- a level that shouldn't be allowed to exist.  I don't care what you ever learn from me, or your parents, or from any school teacher you ever have, what you had damned well better remember any time you pick up a cause-- if this symbol is on your side, you are so goddamned wrong that you need to walk away, change sides, and figure out what's what.  If you can't change sides, then you need to spend every day begging whatever god there might be that he kills you, fast, before whatever the Hell is wrong inside you spreads.  If you're lucky, it'll be quick and painless, but if you ever agree with anyone using that symbol, quick and painless ain't something you are ever going to deserve."
 
 
Sure.  It sounds stupid, and it tells a lot more about my grandfather and my "formative years" than I am typically comfortable sharing, but--- well, I don't know that it was ever possible to do him proud, to this very day, at the age of sixty-one (sixty-two in March!  Damn, where did my life go?  I was supposed to have achieved.... something.... by now), I remember that conversation every single time I see a swastika (even the Native American "good one").  Obviously, today, I know what it means.  No amount of prying got any more detail out of my grandfather-- not that there was much; that was never really a safe thing to do, but today...  Well, I know what it is; I know what it means; I know who rallies behind it.
 
And I have to say that while he was right about most of things he taught me, I don't think it is possible to be more right about anything than he was about this.
 
 
I weep for the damage that unbridled hate and stupidity is doing to the human race.   
 
 
Thank you for the chance to vent.
 
 
   
 
 
 

Actually, I think traffic accidents can have some useful comparisons to Covid.
 
Consider: We are told to do various things to make driving safer. Speed limits, traffic lights, seat belts, etc. They do not guarantee you will never have a traffic accident, but make them less likely to happen, and less likely to kill you when they occur.
 
Traffic accidents are also "contagious" in that one person's bad luck or bad judgement can harm other people, too.
 
Suppose 20%, or whatever, of drivers refused to go along with these safety measures. They think accidents can't happen to them. Nobody they know died in a traffic accident, it must be all a hoax. Traffic laws are intolerable, tyrannical assaults on their FREEDOM!!! Or other narcissistic fantasies. They don't wear seat belts, they drive 100 mph, don't signal, etc. Accidents will go up. A lot. And they won't be the only ones who die.
 
Because that's the nub: In traffic and in public health, there's a limit to what you can do to protect yourself. You can never say, "Ha, I'm safe, screw the rest of you." What people around you do matters at least as much as what you, personally, do. It's a social contract: You follow the rules to protect everyone else, and they follow the rules to protect you. It's no guarantee, but everyone's odds get better.
 
So get your jab. Wear your mask. Avoid crowds when possible. Encourage the people around you to do the same. The life they save may be yours.
 
Thus endeth the sermon.
 
Dean Shomshak

You know what's probably the worst side-effect of really suffering through COVID-19 (well, nothing is quite as bad as either death or living in a crippled state brought on by hubris)? Anyhow, if you were against vaccines while running around with a like-minded crowd and then you change your stance on vaccines following your bout of debilitation...would those same people be sympathetic to you? Are you now distanced from those who shared in that unanimity of feeling? Are you the Cylon to their mankind?

And even if you completely recover, unless you've got VERY good insurance, your share of a 2 week stay in the ICU is likely to be PAINFUL.  And the stress for you, your family, your friends....while the resistance of the anti-vaxers is boggling generally, I am utterly flabbergasted when they have kids.  What...a hospital trip for one of your kids doesn't *terrify* you?  
 
I will admit to being too self-centered, thus never married, never have had a kid.  But even I get that much.  

My bad.  Let me try again: Influenza killed 61,000 Americans between October 2017 and February 2018, a five month period widely regarded as an unusually severe flu season.  Covid has killed 40,000 Americans in January, and January isn't over.

At some point we'll get to a whambamthankyoumaam variant.

My uncle in the Philippines has COVID. He has been vaccinated, but he's still in bad shape.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer carried this problem into the tv space in the late 1990s. Every season had to have a bigger bad with the whole world in jeopardy again. It became a joke between the characters that they actually had to use the plural of apocalypse. It probably helped that the show was part comedy and that you weren't expected to take it all that seriously in the first place. Agents of SHIELD followed in these footsteps for sure. But the Netflix Marvel shows did not, and I think there was something really refreshing about that.
 
As for Peacemaker, well, I couldn't get past the first 20 or so minutes of Gunn's Suicide Squad movie, so Cena's show will pretty much sit at the bottom of my tv watching priority list. Somewhere below catching up on the third seasons of Titans and Doom Patrol, neither of which I intend to watch at all, so there you go.

There’s really no good solution. Distance learning sucks. Some kids simply can’t do it. Meanwhile my kids are going to in person school and exposing themselves to COVID while doing nothing in class because the regular teacher is… out with COVID, so they have a sub. 
 
Meanwhile I have to go to war with the high school tomorrow so that’ll be fun. 

I am horribly torn.  On one hand, I miss my people and I yearn for the day when I can socialize without fear again.  On the other hand, I have no idea when that will be able to resume.  In particular, my Saturday gaming group might resume this weekend.  Two of the usual attendees (a high school classmate of mine and his dad) were hospitalized with Covid recently, and I think they finally got their jabs.  I have no idea whether they are still contagious.  I want so badly to relax around the game table with everyone again, but don't know if I can relax enough to relax!  We've put off a Christmas gathering several times because illness is hitting one of my sisters and her husband.  Argh...Covid will probably never go away completely, but I look forward to when it becomes more endemic vs. pandemic, sort of like the flu.

One of the things I realized is that I'm still not comfortable going out into the real world because of COVID. I had vaccine and booster, but I still live with high risk people. The fact that I have to take public transportation to get to work increases my risk all the more.