According to my fitness tracker, my breathing was kind of meh overnight. Which may help explain why I’m a complete and total space cadet today. Stupid pollen. But slog through the springtime I must.
I’m not good for much else at the moment, so I’ve been binging an audiobook – The Book of Lost Friends. The story jumps between post-Civil War and 1987 Louisiana and Texas. Given I haunted those locations just a few years after 1987 and given my long fascination with learning all I can about slavery in America, this one is totally up my alley. I’m the kid who read every book in the fifth-grade school library on the subject. Even more than a century after the war, there is still a cultural vibe in the deep, deep, deep South that echoes the times of slavery, sharecropping, and Jim Crow. Don’t get me wrong, we have come a long way. But you still get the sense that people sort of “know their place” based on race, economic status, etc.
Sometimes in the North, where we’re proud to have had stops on the Underground Railroad, we want to think we’re better than that and have always been better than that. Changes in geography and changes in time bring different norms and beliefs, though. The Klan was quite active here in Ohio. Again, we’ve come a long way, but those beliefs haven’t been one hundred percent eradicated. Hopefully we challenge them when they come up in conversation.
Those who seek power – most media, many politicians, you name it – seek to divide us however they can. Then they can swoop in as our saviors with their “solutions”. Let’s try not to fall for it.
In the latest Covid news, the new mask guidance from the CDC seems destined to divide people. We’ve been told vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks, but non-vaccinated people should continue to do so. Individual businesses can continue to require masks, in which case everyone should wear them. But then … do we really think everyone will follow the guidelines … and … we’re violating medical privacy laws if we ask for documentation of vaccination status before admitting someone to an establishment maskless … but, if we stop people to ask without requiring documentation, do we trust them to tell the truth … and … wouldn’t it be pretty easy to fake a vaccination card? Sigh. This Washington Post article discussed the issue pretty well.
I suppose the risk to the vaccinated is low enough (not zero, but quite small as far as we know) that who cares about the non-vaccinated? They had their chance? Indeed, it’s now fairly easy to find an appointment for a free shot. And many public health departments are changing strategy to try to reach everyone – offering evening hours, mobile clinics in areas where transportation issues may abound, etc. One wonders if just a few more weeks to carry out those efforts would have been a good idea, though.
I don’t have all the answers. I’m glad I don’t have to. Now I’m going to get back to my audiobook …
