David Roth, at Defector:
… In place of any actually ennobling liberty or more fundamental freedom, contemporary American life mostly offers choices. But since most of these are not really choices at all in any meaningful way, it might be more accurate to say that we’re offered selection. The choice between paying for health insurance and running up six figures of non-dischargeable debt because you got sick, for instance, is honestly less a choice than a hostage situation. But because the second outcome is still extremely possible even if you choose to pay for health insurance, it’s more correct to say that the choice is already made, and that the decision is more about choosing from an array of variously insufficient and predatory options the one whose name or price or risk you like most. Sometimes there isn’t even that, and the choice is a binary one between something and nothing. None of this is really what anyone would choose, but these ugly individuated choices are what we get.
A wide selection of products and political identities and their respective signifiers are also available. This long and stupid pandemic year has been miserable for basically everyone, but it has been great for those optional political identities and their attendant signifiers. It is maybe more startling than surprising to watch those partisan identities prove more durable, or at least more relentlessly assertive, than basic concepts of civic empathy or shared purpose, just given that the person who was president for most of this was himself more a collection of signifiers and grievances and curdled memetic selfishness than a whole person, and that the plague was interesting to him only in how it reflected upon and threatened him. There are, it turns out, tens of millions of people who are not just also like that, but whose single most deeply held value is that they must be permitted to continue being like that forever. For these people, having to do something other than whatever they want to do, at any moment and for any reason, really is a much more urgent threat than sickness or death; to be without the agency to make the same stupid non-choices, every day, is not fundamentally different than being killed, because making those facile choices is for them what it means to be alive.
You will not be surprised to learn that the same people who regarded being asked to wear a mask in the grocery store as the same thing as being imprisoned in a gulag are also those most unwilling to get vaccinated. With masks as with the vaccine, some minimal personal imposition delivers both personal and broader social benefits, but they just can’t get past that first part. The result is that the vast majority of people are effectively the hostages of the most selfish people the world has ever seen. The urgency of this is new, but the situation is not.
That minority’s inability to take anything in stride, or to sublimate even the smallest personal comfort for the most urgent and essential collective good, invariably winds up being political, but it is also its own pursuit and even lifestyle…
… It is hard to think clearly about our plague, because it is scary and big and the conversation around it is so full of bad science and bad faith. The government denied and elided and obfuscated about the pandemic even at its peak, and in the vacuum created by the lack of any coherent message or cohesive society the national conversation just reverted to its default settings. The broader complacent and unreasoned acceptance that props up our otherwise untenable status quo is shot through all these facile “it’s a private matter and a personal choice” formulations; if you have accepted that mostly useless choices between dreary outcomes are all you could ever get as a citizen in the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth, then you have also accepted that these choices are actually very important, and that making them is the thing makes you free. None of these personal choices actually make anything better for the person making them. In the case of the vaccine, those choices have devastating downstream impacts for all the people who glance off the choice-maker as they carve their personal hero’s journeys through the world. None of this matters as much as the idea that the choice is theirs to make…
Open Thread
germy
And of course my sinclair station keeps running stories like this:
https://cbs6albany.com/news/coronavirus/utah-woman-39-dies-4-days-after-2nd-does-of-covid-19-vaccine-autopsy-ordered
The station keeps running “Open up!!” stories, but I notice the majority of their anchors are broadcasting from safe and remote locations.
Baud
@germy:
AstraZenaca is apparently having all kinds of problems. Expect the bad faith actors to confuse the situation.
dmsilev
Republican: A person who believes that businesses must have the right to refuse to bake cakes for gay couples, but must not be allowed to verify that their (straight) customers have been vaccinated against a deadly virus.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Slapdicks, all of them.
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: Um, “Except” – or “Expect” – ? (Nemmind, I see ya fixtit.)
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: what is a slapdick? An idiot?
I am afraid to google. :-)
Baud
@Uncle Cosmo:
Hmm. It’s already corrected on my screen.
Poe Larity
I expect a Constitutional Demasking bill to follow this Constitutional Carry stuff.
Baud
Which is why the GOP is now 100% pro choice.
Miss Bianca
That is an excellent read. So much so that I finally broke down and subscribed so I could read the whole thing! This guy is an amazing writer. He might even get me more interested in sportsball again one of these days!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
This is my surprised face.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Haha. Definition #1
Picked it up from Aussie dashcam compilations. The term “slapnuts” also exists down under. I think it has the same definition.
WaterGirl
@Baud: just like everything else with the Republicans.
Choices for me, but not for thee.
Voting for me, but not for thee.
Freedom for me, but not for thee.
Safety for me, but not for thee.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: For decades, I’ve supported the GOP’s right to suck some ass’s asses.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
It was smart of him to distance himself from his rock background by dropping his middle name. Reminds me of when Hillary Clinton dropped Rodham.
sab
@Baud: AstraZenaca on very rare occasions causes blood clots. A bad case of Covid often causes blood clots. Vaccine or not seems pretty much of a no brainer to me.
Baud
@sab:
Thankfully we have better choices in the U.S.
craigie
This sentence:
is the nub of our issue, in fact of all the issues.
Benw
@Miss Bianca: Dave Roth is great, I miss old Deadspin.
@Baud: ha!
Miss Bianca
@Baud: I was wondering if anyone besides me was going to think of that
@Benw: Deadspin! That’s the name I couldn’t remember! I know I read at least one article of his over there that really impressed me – something to do with TFG, as I recall.
UncleEbeneezer
You’d think professional athletes would better understand the concept of TEAMWORK and that some things you simply have to do to win. I mean, it’s a personal decision whether or not to catch that fly ball to end and win the game. But his teammates have every right to be pissed if he chooses not to do so.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Oddly, I took Mellencamp more seriously as Johnny Cougar.
Benw
@UncleEbeneezer: are there lots of pro athletes refusing to get the vaccine?
prufrock
@Miss Bianca:
If you read the comments, you’ll sometimes see variations on the phrase, “stick to sports.” This is making fun of the directive sent down by the hedge fund idiot who bought Deadspin to the writers who often wrote about whatever struck their fancy. Even though such articles often had the most views.
Can you imagine telling Roth, the best chronicler in the world of TFG’s weirdness, to stick to sports?
Brachiator
People in the US and elsewhere are doing stupid things with respect to the pandemic. People did stupid things during the 1918 and 1957 flu pandemics. It’s not just a Republican thing.
In the past, some people would try to invoke God’s will. Very little of that this time around. But I noticed some dopes insisting that right wing/libertarian “personal responsibility” could beat the virus, as though false patriotism and American Exceptionalism could do the job. But out here in Southern California, most dopes talking this nonsense have been getting the vaccine.
Other people seem to have a rotating wheel of excuses to rationalize their bad behavior. I know one person who does not go to doctors and who uses all manner of “organic” and “natural” remedies to heal himself who is rigidly opposed to the vaccine. He has always lived in another world.
burnspbesq
If I’m ever tempted to read anything by David Roth again, kindly whack me upside the head with a two-by-four. He combines the worst of David Dayen and David Broder.
sab
@Baud: Yes indeed. But Yurp and Africa do not.
bbleh
Think anxious, slightly dim-witted 11-year-old, and you’ve pretty much got it.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, but what about John Cougar Mellencamp?
J R in WV
None of my mostly liberal (wildly progressive left wing former hippy) friends are avoiding vaccination — in fact nearly everyone is now fully vaccinated and as immune as vaccine can make one. My swell but conservative religious neighbor is not, nor his wife or kids. He did leave the Republican party last fall — to become a libertarian. Go figure!
I think we will find that most people avoiding vaccination will be highly religious and politically conservative. Or just stupid.
Miss Bianca
@prufrock: Indeed, on the comment thread on that very article I saw “Stick to spores!” which I thought was very funny in light of your remark.
burnspbesq
Deadspin sucked for the entirety of its mercifully brief existence. A bunch of snide, condescending frat boys who mistakenly believed they were the smartest guys in the room, and still can’t figure out why they didn’t get hired by Goldman or McKinsey (I knew Jim Spanfeller in undergrad, and that description fit him to a T).
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq:
I used to do computer support for a corporate legal department, I’ve been tempted.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
A local Republican state Rep, AL Cutrona, whom I’ve talked about here numerous times, loves to bring up a friend of his who owns a restaurant and lives in the same town as him. The business owner friend says that dropping the mask mandate would help business.
Now I ask you BJ, how the fuck would dropping the mask mandate actually help businesses?! This asshole ran and won last November on anti-lockdown BS; that it’s bad for business or something.
This guy, while not a medical expert himself, was legal counsel for an infectious disease practice where his father was a partner. This guy should know better but evidently cares more about his political career in the Republican Party than about telling the truth. Business will not improve until COVID-19 is brought under control. It’s that simple.
This asshole fuck has also never condemned the Insurrection either. Never even mentioned it, has co-sponsored a bill to prohibit establishments in the state from requiring vaccine passports, and recently voted to strip the governor and the ODH of it’s emergency public health powers. I absolutely hate this guy and the local news never contradicts him. Nor anybody else they interview for that matter it seems. They’re not even Sinclair. They’re locally owned. I don’t get it.
Villago Delenda Est
These people often self-identify as “Christians” while ignoring the bottom line of the Gospels: “Don’t be an asshole.”
Gvg
I don’t associate with republicans, so my actual experience with vaccine resistant has been a few people who have medical conditions that seem to have resulted in fear of medicine, not very logically. One old lady said she had heard the reaction was worse for people with fibromyalgia. I said she should talk to her doctor. Another is a black middle aged coworker who is immune compromised who says she is a skeptic…..not sure how to react to that but she has always had health issues and is being very careful otherwise.
My boss is nursing a baby and wanted more info. This week she decided with her doctor that it was OK. I can understand wanting that info.
I still suspect some of it is really repressed fear of needles.
sab
@J R in WV: Or phucking afraid of needles. I had no idea how many people are afraid of needles.
My step-son, former drug addict, is afraid of needles. Spent his twenties shooting up everything. Now, clean and dry, he was afraid to get vaccine. But bravely, he bit the bullet and got it. Then commented that the actual shot didn’t hurt at all. Well yes. These are medical professionals injectimg you now. If they are competent you shouldn’t feel it at all.
sab
@Gvg: We agree.
Bill Arnold
@sab:
Here’s the actual report:
Events of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia following AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine (Saad Shakir, Samantha Lane and Dr Liz Lynn, 05 April 2021)
“Consistent with causality” means “close temporal relationship (4-16 days after vaccination)”.
I don’t know if the rate of Thrombotic thrombocytopenia during the COVID-19 pandemic is different than the pre-pandemic baseline; not clear that this has been examined. (COVID-19 sometimes causes clotting; that causality is clear.)
Anyway, any specialists reading and able to interpret that report: please feel free to comment.
sab
@sab: My boss has a brother who is seriously overweight, diabetic, kidney issues and well above fifty. Won’t get vaccinated because doesn’t want to be injected with other peoples DNA. Rest of the family is sensible. But every year he has an excuse to not get flu shot. I suspect needle phobia. Sad, because I like the guy a lot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Yet they cannot see the hilarious irony of using the pro-choice slogan, “My body, my choice”.
Miss Bianca
@burnspbesq: I haven’t read the rest of the Deadspin writers, but based on the little I have read of David Roth, I am frankly scratching my head at your description of him as a “Broderist”. I didn’t see any evidence of that tendency.
sab
@Bill Arnold: So what are you saying? Not being an expert, I don’t know. Just repeating health agencies. Am I wrong?
Geminid
@Poe Larity: Proponent’s of an unregulated right to carry concealed weapons can call it “Constitutional Carry” all they want. But if it’s so constitutional, why exactly do they need a statute to implement it? Because current 2nd Amendment law, as expounded by Justice Alito in the Heller case, recognizes the right of government to impose reasonable regulation on sale and possession of firearms.
In Virginia, Republican legislators pushed through various gun rights laws 2005-2012, but could never pass “constitutional carry.” Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and the General Assembly passed six good gun safety measures last year. I don’t think the pendulum is swinging back either, and those laws are here to stay. When a gun rights activist challenged Emmit Hanger, my Republican State Senator, he used her advocacy of unregulated concealed carry against her in his campaign literature: ” My opponent would allow anybody, regardless of background or training, to carry a concealed weapon.” Hanger won his primary easily.
I read that South Carolina and other states have jumped on the “constitutional carry” bandwagon. Ohio may be next. These states are buying a whole lot of trouble, murder, and mayhem.
Bill Arnold
@Villago Delenda Est:
They also ignore “don’t kill”.
People not taking anti-pandemic precautions seriously are essentially asserting that they have the right to kill random people[1], occasionally including themselves. Some believe, because they are huffing malignant propaganda, that the gun is not loaded, or that that gunfire is blanks and the people who are appearing to die are crisis actors.
[1] or cause potentially lifelong morbidity in others or themselves.
Bill Arnold
@sab:
You are not wrong; the authors are warning that the problem looks real, if rare.
I was simply having difficulty reading the actual report.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It wouldn’t, but it’s easy to understand why some people think it would. They see the mask mandate as alarmist and scaring people into staying home. If we just told people everything is fine, things would go back to normal and business would return. It doesn’t matter to them that people’s worries are justified; to them it’s the worry that’s the problem, not the thing people are worried about. It’s basically the same theory Trump was operating on: COVID is a PR problem, not a medical problem.
Cermet
@sab: Really outstanding that he is clean and sober! Also good he got the vaccine.
I watched them put the needle into my arm and felt absolutely nothing. It was so weird not even feeling it touch the skin. I did notice the needle was the tiniest needle I have ever seen.
WaterGirl
@Cermet: My second shot burned like hell.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s your interpretation of the gospels. They’ve been taught a completely different interpretation, which is that you’re only required to be nice to other Christians and should be terrible to everyone else. Conveniently, their belief also says only people who agree with their interpretation of the gospel count as Christians.
Baud
@Cermet:
My shot was fine. My arm was more sore than usual for about a day afterwards compared to the flu shot. No biggie though.
mrmoshpotato
@Villago Delenda Est: They read the Golden Rule as “Be an asshole unto others as you would not want them to be as asshole unto you.”
Brachiator
@Bill Arnold:
The most accurate translation might be “Murder not!” It is not a general prohibition of all killing.
L85NJGT
Deadspin? “Dead Wrestler of the Week” is worth some time, and Margary’s “Why Your NFL Team Sucks” has some funny posts in the comments, but otherwise, I can’t tell the difference between that content and the new zombie Deadspin.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Which flavor did you get?
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Speaking of Broder, CNN went to a road side diner in rural Oklahoma and of the 15 people there, 13 were white and very overweight, wearing trucker hats and long beards (they looked like a caucasian version of Al Qaeda).
As I watched, I thought, “this is what the Times and WaPo does” – they go to these reactionary enclaves, pretend they’re interviewing a cross section of swing voters and peddle a false, rigged view of public opinion.
Imagine the media going to Berkeley in 1968 and interviewing 13 long bearded hippies at a head shop and pretending they’re swing voters. But that’s what they do in reverse every election season thanks to Broder.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: I have stopped going inside the Aldi near my house because they are lax about mask enforcement. I go further away and spend more money at Trader Joe’s, where they are still limiting occupancy and are strict about masking. And I am thrilled to do so.
The people who really care about business will do everything they can do to help people feel un-skeeved-out about their health.
Vaccines for kids will be a big help. I strictly limit shopping because someone needs to stay home with the toddler.
FYI, I am trying to train a toddler how to mask and distance. None of the parenting books are worth SHIT.
Baud
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
So they’ve shifted their reporting from interviewing people who supported Trump in 2016 to interviewing people who opposed Biden in 2020.
Progress!
JMG
A bit off track, but I need to tell this story. We had WMVY-FM, the best noncommercial radio station in these parts, on while making dinner. It is a public, non NPR station on Martha’s Vineyard that only does music and basically is a progressive FM station from the early 70s that doesn’t have Led Zeppelin (Van Morrison on as I type this). Anyhow, the 6 o’clock news came on and gave listeners instructions on how to enter a Zoom meeting for Vineyard residents with the Steamship Authority board, which runs the ferries between the mainland and the islands (Vineyard and Nantucket) which means of course it is the most important governing body there. Anyhow, after the instructions the DJ said, “it is also possible to enter the meeting telepathically…….I mean telephonically.” If he really wanted to be hardcore he’d have never corrected himself. Anyway, I spilled a glass of wine because of this.
Roger Moore
@Gvg:
I can completely understand why someone with Fibromyalgia would be deeply skeptical of the medical establishment, given that much of the medical establishment refuses to believe Fibromyalgia is a real thing. Hopefully they’ve finally found a doctor who they can trust and who will tell them the vaccine is a good idea, but I can understand why someone in that situation would be deeply distrustful.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The people who don’t care about masks and social distance would flock to many bars and restaurants. Already been happening in places.
In Los Angeles County some places just ignored the rules. Some dopes even claimed that the health officials were making up the rules for social distancing, etc.
Later some places were allowed to have outdoor dining. I would go to one place where the owner would complain loudly, but he would also scrupulously follow all the health department rules. Tab;es outside widely spaced. Staff all wore masks. Lots of hand sanitizer.
Another place I walked by had outdoor dining in a 3 wall area, with tables packed together. Poor ventilation. But the place was packed with mask-free customers laughing and drinking. You would not get me in that place if you paid me. But the idiot customers were happy.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
They very much understand it. They’re consciously copying a slogan they think will be convincing to people on the left.
sab
@Suzanne: Try it with an autistic child. My step-daughter is a miracle worker. In her twenties I thought she was a phuck-up. As a fellow adult, I watch her being a parent and a step-parent and I am in awe.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@JMG:
It’s how I do all my Zoom meetings.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
3… 2…. 1….. “I don’t know Matt Gaetz, I don’t know what he looks like, I wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing next to me”.
Mary G
@Suzanne: I can’t imagine how you do that. My mom couldn’t keep shoes and socks on me.
NotMax
@Baud
The tell is if the place offers a red plate special.
//
For any who don’t grok the reference, here ya go.
piratedan
@Roger Moore: exactly… you inform them that the number of patients are overflowing icu’s and they respond by saying 99.5 recover… so it sucks for those folks but i have my rights and business that are more important
Geminid
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I would like to see journalists interview trump voters at a Starbucks. They could find plenty. But the reporters and their readers and viewers may be more comfortable seeing bigotry in “others,” and less comfortable seeing it among their own.
Procopius
@Geminid: Ohio is already an “open carry” state, which is why the cop who shot Tamir Rice should have been tried for murder.
cain
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
You know that never would have happened. The media doesn’t like talking to left wingers or democrats for that matter. Because they make sense and they are boring.
But the crazy that comes out of a “real american’ – their audience, woke liberals will angrily watch. If all of us just not watch this shit they will change very quickly – but the demographics show that it’s probably all of us that is watching this stuff and getting triggered. We are the intended audience.
mrmoshpotato
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: “He was a coffee boy!”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Geminid: But Broderism never sees bigotry in reactionaries. Broderites are worst than apologists, they always attempt to normalize hateful views.
cain
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Literally it’s the “swamp” that Trump supporters are rejecting – in front of their faces. heh.
sab
@Procopius: Prosecutors jumped in and said it was according to police protocols. As an Ohioan I want to know what the phuck was wromg with police protocols. My husband’s police friends arw doing the blue line thing.
Basically , the prosecutors purposely charged the wrong guy. So he couldn’t be convicted. And the actual perp went uncharged. Watch for this. Prosecutors do it a lot.
bluehill
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I wonder how Nestor fits into all of this. Clever misdirection by the writers. Maybe Nestor is Gaetz’s Ghislaine.
Gin & Tonic
@Bill Arnold: Huh. I thought thrombocytopenia was the opposite of clotting – it was the inability to clot (at least that’s what I recall from my son’s bout with it many years ago, when he had essentially no platelets.)
Central Planning
@JMG: that’s funny. On Spectrum News this morning in Rochester, NY the reporter was interviewing the senate or assembly leader, or at least someone important, about the recently passed budget, and I swore she (not the reporter) could have also been talking about a ménage a trois… something about a 3-way and things slipping in there. I haven’t found that clip online yet :(
Jim, Foolish Literalist
caring and sensitive
@Miss Bianca: Defector at $79 per year ($99 if you want to comment) is the second best bargain on the internet (BJ is #1). I check it out daily and at least once a day a comment will have me literally (that’s for you Steve) laughing out loud
Geminid
@Procopius: Virgina is an open-carry state also. I rarely see any one carrying a firearm, though, except for gun rights rallies. Texas adopted open carry a few years ago. I was surprised, because I figured it already was.
Unregulated concealed carry, though, is far worse. It encourages vigilantes like the man who murdered Trayvon Martin.
Last year, the organizer of the disastrous “unite the right” rally in Charlottesville applied for a concealed carry permit. Virginia is fairly permissive regarding concealed carry permits, but the local Commonwealth’s Attorney successfully argued against granting the man a permit. The organizer is an ambitious loser with a multi-million dollar civil suit hanging over his head. With a concealed carry permit, he’d be calculating how he could murder someone “in self-defense.”
Roger Moore
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
What they’ve done is actually worse. In a number of cases, they’ve gone and interviewed people who were pointed out to them by the local Republican party leaders and who are themselves members of the local Republican establishment. It’s complete BS.
schrodingers_cat
I am among those who those who are too young to get the shot in MA but in a little over 10 days vaccination will be open to everyone.
caring and sensitive
@prufrock: And last week commenting on a column about SCOTUS the comment was “stick to torts”
silent-q (not paranoid Q)
@WaterGirl: So did mine! Ana started that way for several days.
I received my 2nd shingles vaccine about a month before my COVID. The second COVID vax was slightly better than my shingles. It was probably good that I had the shingles shot to compare against. Otherwise, I might have been a tad whiny about my Pfizer after effects.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Happy, and likely infected sooner than later !
debbie
Uncle Cosmo
@Villago Delenda Est: “Old Testament Xtians” if you scratch off the undercoating. Worshiping Bad Daddy Yahweh who smites the living shit out of their enemies while they hide behind the old guy’s robes & stick their tongues out. Sent his Son down to save the lockstep faithful & smite the living shit out of anyone left to smite, and screw that Religion of Love bullshit.
silent-q (not paranoid Q)
@Geminid: Pandemic year notwithstanding, I see a surprising number of open carry in our C’ville Starbucks. I assume most of them are cops, but I don’t hang around long enough to find out.
The local ‘bucks was my erstatz office for several years and witnessed some weird there. After that one guy flipped a table, I made it a point to bounce when I heard raised voices or saw a gun.
Captain C
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
“Pay no attention to those photos of him and that guy who looks exactly like me but is totally not, and those two, uh, women who are totally 18 or 20 or something. I guess. Because I totally wasn’t there.”
Ksmiami
Hey John Cole and other W Virginia peeps, please tell your preening asshole of a senator to do the people’s work and stop pretending that there are any good faith Republicans anymore. Democracy is hanging by a thread- oh and fuck him and his high 🐴
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic:
You know more than I do then. Here’s from a piece on that report confirming your knowledge:
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
But the place was packed with mask-free customers laughing and drinking….. But the idiot customers were happy.
You also got a sense that they were pleased with themselves for being defiant. But yeah, I wonder how many customers and staff might have come down with Covid, or if some fool passed it along to someone else.
I can understand some restaurant owners feeling pressure at having to restrict their activities. But those who openly defied the health recommendations just made things worse.
And you also got the stupid “we are too rich and too white to get sick” nonsense from customers.
But I note that even a lot of these people have been getting the vaccine. There are some limits to their idiocy.
Gin & Tonic
@Bill Arnold: OK, thanks for the reference. So I was right on the definition, but didn’t know about the “rare cases.” What my son experienced was the uncontrolled bleeding. It was touch-and-go for a while.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
My 86 yr old mother refuses to get the vaccine because friends and at least one evangelical family member keeps sending her articles that say the vaccine isn’t safe and liberal billionaires like Bill Gates via the Gates Foundation are behind it all. No amount of logic will sway her. Guess I will see her again in her coffin at this point. Of course, she is uneducated, ignorant, stubborn and incredibly selfish. And funnily enough more religious with every passing day as she approaches the Pearly Gates. I’d be sad if I wasn’t so incandescently angry about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
Yeah. I’m allergic to that literal translation because it allows for stochastic killing (i.e. probability close to 1) (including mass killing) for thrills, convenience, profit, or no reason at all.
E.g. Tobacco companies, Purdue Pharma (OxyContin) are innocent mass killers by that translation.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s good, but I hope that flipping POS doesn’t get immunity. They should still be slapped with their own skeleton.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I guess the wiggle room be left is to “strengthen” the filibuster by making it talking filibuster.
He wants infrastructure goodies for WV however, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he has in mind.
mrmoshpotato
@caring and sensitive: And figuratively laughing your ass off?
J R in WV
Regarding folks open carrying, if they also have a set of handcuffs on their belt around back, then they’re cops. I saw a young black woman carrying at Kroger’s a little while back, coming towards me, and once she was past I saw there was a lot of other cop hardware on her belt.
Very professional looking, as opposed to the crazy gun nut look.
Anonymous
I suspect Joe Manchin is a criminal shit-head now nearing age related dementia. Cop friends tell me the gossip is that he’s been mobbed up since he was selling carpet, his only real job ever.
But don’t quote me!!
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore:
CNN loved doing this shit in 2016 – interviewing top members of the local Russthuglican party and passing them off as base voters.
mrmoshpotato
@schrodingers_cat: Woo hoo!
guachi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That opinion by Manchin is so stupid it deserves an entire post taking it apart.
Geminid
@silent-q (not paranoid Q): The people you see carrying at Starbucks might be cops. But some might well be gun rights activists. They like to choose various Starbucks as venues for exercising their open carry rights. Ostensibly, they are getting people accustomed to having armed neighbors. But I think they just get satisfaction out of scaring people.
Ksmiami
@guachi: Agreed. Does Joe even recognize reality rn? I’m starting to really really hate him to the point of defunding his pet projects and having Schumer threaten his committee chairs etc
Omnes Omnibus
Manchin has yet to torpedo any Democratic legislation. Right now, we are just watching the process play out. Oddly enough, this kind of shit is the way things work in a functioning legislature. Dollars to doughnuts, he is on board if he is needed. There is a reason for the sausage making analogy.
James E Powell
@guachi:
Don’t be made a Manchin for being the guy he’s been the whole time we’ve known him. Be mad that the voters in Maine, Iowa, and North Carolina who decided that they would rather have the government do nothing.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: They can do infrastructure though reconciliation, they can’t do that with voting rights.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: If Chuck Schumer doesn’t want Joe Manchin as Chairman of the Senate Energy Commitee, Mitch McConnell will happily give Manchin the Chairmanship, if Manchin will make McConnell the Majority Leader.
Jay
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
So she hates the amazing Dolly Parton as well?
RSA
@Miss Bianca:
I’m also a subscriber. Diana Moskovitz is Defector’s investigative reporter, and her work is excellent. Drew Magary’s Fun Bag every Tuesday is also not to be missed. There’s also good food writing. For me, it’s worth the subscription, even though I let spectator sports go for years at a time.
Mary G
Jay
@Geminid:
Manchin’s not crossing the isle.
Every time his vote is needed, he delivers.
When his vote isn’t needed, he get’s to be an “contrarian” for his base.
It’s all kabuki theatre for the rednecks.
Haydnseek
Thread’s probably dead, but Google the Deadspin Food Archive. Read everything you can by a guy named Albert Burneko whose style I won’t even try to describe, except to say that he’s absolutely hilarious.
L85NJGT
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh stop with the thoughtful analysis. We wants to get our 15 minute hate on sellout Democrats.
Ksmiami
@Geminid: well with the filibuster and the curtailment of voting rights, I expect the GOP to be in control in 2022 and the end of our democracy so… I just don’t understand why Manchin is obsessed with a relic of process thats been weaponized against the ppl he is supposed to serve. And I am sick of being in fear of our own team… this is why the party always undercuts itself.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jay:
Gilligan’s Isle? What about the coconuts for Mary Ann’s coconut cream pie?
Neera Tanden says “hi”!
dexwood
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: My wife asked her 93 yo father if he wanted to make any changes to his funeral arrangements when he said he wasn’t getting the vaccine. He’s three weeks past his second jab.
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, the far-flung Isles of Langerhans.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
OMB director is not a hill worth dying on for any politician.
He’s voted against the AHCA, against the 2017 tax bill, for the latest COVID relief bill, voted to convict Trump on all counts both times, and some other big votes I’m forgetting.
Mike in NC
Watching a new HBO documentary series called “Exterminate All The Brutes” about imperialism and genocide through history. Includes footage of Trump calling immigrants “animals” at one of his hate rallies.
mostly a lurker
@Gvg: I confess that, while I’ve just become eligible for the vaccine, I’m 1) extremely phobic about needles [and, though I do manage to make myself get a flu shot every year, I keep hearing about how much more painful this vaccine is] and 2) a year of near total lock-down, and barely leaving my apartment, has made me a tiny bit agoraphobic, and so I’ve been procrastinating. Nevertheless, I hereby promise that I am going to be a grown-up and schedule my vaccine by end of week.
RSA
@Haydnseek: Yes! Burneko is worth reading, as is Chris Thompson. I think they can be self-indulgent, but they’re good enough writers to carry it off, and when it comes to actual recipes, they give great value.
raven
@mostly a lurker:
“how much more painful this vaccine is”
Than what?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mostly a lurker:
I get it. My sister is needle-phobic and is talking about getting something from her doctor to calm her down, and hoping to find a J&J shot for just that reason. Seems reasonable to me. She has never gotten a flu shot
FWIW, this was not my experience (Moderna), but I’m generally okay with needles
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT: What do you all think of this article from the War Nerd? The War Nerd: Amateurs Talk Cancel, Pros Talk Silence
The piece is interesting in the sense that it makes a good point about the Victorian British and how they were able to whitewash their genocides in Ireland and India simply ignoring them in their literature, I don’t care for the title or the bolded section. I’m waiting for Dolan (aka the War Nerd) to start ranting about those DAMN SJWs/feminazis and their identity politics! He awknowledges ethnic hatred/racism and how blind a certain class of a Leftist are about those things which I give him credit for. However, that bolded sentence is a total strawman imo. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have inclusive language or pointing out the lack of it, in contemporary and historic writings.
I mean, I’m sorry. I understand that just because there are depictions of immoral characters/actions doesn’t mean that the author endorses them, but it depends on how they’re portrayed in the narrative and I feel like Dolan isn’t acknowledging this
You can learn a lot about a writer and the times they lived in by reading between the lines, not just by looking for their aversions. Hell, JK Rowling’s infamous antisemitic scene from that one Harry Potter book is evidence enough of this
raven
To some I’m a wise man, to some I’m a fool
But I need a little something to keep my cool
I sleep with the sun and I rise with the moon
And I feel alright with my needle and spoon
Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Tanden never got out of Committee.
There never were the votes to get her confirmed, so she withdrew.
Manchin never voted, for or against, because there was no vote.
Cabinet appointee’s need more votes than 50+1.
mostly a lurker
@raven: than the flu shot; usually, I explain my phobia to the shot-giver (it’s been a while, but I used to faint after shots), nicely ask them to talk me through it slowly, and never, ever look at the needle. I’ve mostly done okay the past few years (though once it felt like I’d been punched in the arm for a week). But I keep hearing that the covid vaccine hurts or burns, and that it can knock you for a loop for a couple days. I am going to get it, but I’m dreading it.
raven
@mostly a lurker: You’ll be ok. Hang tough.
gwangung
@mostly a lurker: There’s more than enough people who’ve gotten vaccinated to inform you. Ive never heard about the shot itself being that bad…it’s just a reaction afterwards…and often way after you’ve gotten home.
Elizabelle
@Ksmiami:
Patience, grasshopper. Let this one play out a bit. No need to be all doom and gloom at this juncture.
Villago Delenda Est
@mrmoshpotato: My thought prezactly!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, that’s a good description of it. Treating a deadly respiratory virus as a PR problem.
@Brachiator:
You couldn’t pay me enough to eat indoors at this point either, even vaccinated. The vaccines are less effective against the South African variant
mostly a lurker
@gwangung: see comments 49 and 85 above.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: therein lies the rub though. I’ll be personally ok no matter what, but so many others are destroyed by Republican government to the point where we find ourselves in an existential battle. And the enemy never rests.
CarolPW
@gwangung:
WaterGirl (above somewhere) described her second vaccination as burning like hell, so there have been reports here of injection pain. It’s unfortunate that the few ouch!! reactions are more memorable than the numerous reports of minimal to no problems.
If a needle hits a nerve it would hurt a lot even if nothing was injected. If the needle hits a capillary, there would be a pretty big bruise even if nothing was injected.
I had a headache after my second injection. The champagne I drank that night took care of it.
Geminid
@Jay: I know Manchin is not going to turn Republican. And Chuck Schumer is not going to threaten Manchin’s chairmanship.
guachi
@Jay: Cabinet appointees don’t need more than 50+1. That’s exactly as many as they need.
Gin & Tonic
@mostly a lurker: My own experience, for what it’s worth, is that the Pfizer vaccine was no big deal. Shingrix was way worse in terms of after-effects. But I have no needle-phobia (I’m a regular blood donor, 11+ gallons.)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@mostly a lurker:
@CarolPW:
My first shot actually hurt worse than my second honestly. My arm was sore (worse than a flu shot but not THAT bad) for a day or so. My second shot, no arm pain but mild fatigue/generalized aches for a day. The reactions are different for everyone it seems. Still, far better than ending up in the hospital for sure
debbie
@mostly a lurker:
I am phobic about needles, but not as phobic as I am about COVID. Get the shot.
BruceFromOhio
This has eroded my ability to tolerate idiots to any degree. The naked racism, fascism, and blatant danger of the Trumpistas, Christianistas throws gasoline on everything.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
How’s this for a meeting of the minds, with Lee Zeldin’s maybe in a jar on the shelf nearby
Kay
It’ll be interesting to find out who was on that donor’s plane with Gaetz.
Kay
It would be just so incredibly perfect if we found out there’s actually a Qanon-like sex trafficking ring, but it’s all GOP pols and donors and media personalities.
Every accusation is a confession. Always.
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sure Giuliani will lock up the Duke asshole vote. Not sure if that’s enough to carry NY State, though.
L85NJGT
Very sore and stiff at injection site, worse than any flu or tetanus shot, no other side effects.
We shall see about #2. Anyway, keep your arm moving while you wait the fifteen minutes. Maybe that will help.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Speaking of, I wonder why Rudy never ran for NY Governor? Unless he tried and I don’t know about it?
Ken
@Kay: I would have said “inevitable”, not “incredibly perfect”, but we end up at the same place.
dmsilev
@Kay: Seems almost inevitable, doesn’t it? Has anyone checked to see what Gaetz’s favorite pizza place is?
Kay
@Ken:
Read this Twitter for informed Gaetz gossip.
Maybe DeSantis! They’re hinting. Frankly I don’t see how DeSantis can avoid involvement with this- these are all overlapping circles of Florida corruption.
glc
@mostly a lurker: I haven’t had a shot that hurt in years. Way back when, they hurt. These things they use now barely fall in the category of needles. You do get side effects. And my arm was quite sore from the shot a day later. But the shot itself was like any other I’ve had in recent memory. And sore is no big deal. I understand some people need pain killers (headaches? soreness?) but I didn’t encounter that.
I hope your experience fits my rosy description. But that’s what I’ve been hearing generally as well
Adding … or, I suppose, I could just say I second the other replies. You should be fine. I never look either, as far as that goes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ken:
@Kay:
That would be great if DeSatan got involved in this. He’s dangerous imo and he wants to be President some day
Kay
@dmsilev:
They’re just the kind of people who travel in big, loud groups. The man who brags by showing his House colleagues nude photos of women he supposedly slept with also brings as many people as he can on his sex trafficking trips. They don’t go anywhere in twos. The whole point is to show other men. If it was actually private or secret they wouldn’t do it- the point is to show people.
Ken
Hmmm. And computer chips have also gotten smaller. Coincidence? I think so.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I just don’t think there are separate circles of corrupt Republicans in Florida politics., like some focusing on environmental degradation and some focusing on campaign finance crimes and others on sex trafficking. It’s all one big group.
different-church-lady
Well, you gotta understand: for almost all people who are mentally dysfunctional, the dysfunction will be always be more powerful than they are. Even when they have the consciousness to try to overcome the dysfunction, it will rear up like a monster and assert its dominance.
So yeah: paranoid people cannot be reasoned with, even if they want to be.
PIGL
@craigie: Singapore has hit up on the right solution: a dozen strokes of the cane.
different-church-lady
BTW, my tolerance for paranoid people has become COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY EXHAUSTED. There’s not a goddamned drop left in that tank.
L85NJGT
A day may come when the courage of the Florida voter fails,
when they forsake crooks and fascists,
and break all bonds of perversion, addiction, and racism….
but it is not this day!
Ken
@Kay: But surely at the Republican conventions, they have breakout groups? Environmental degradation in Conference Room B, campaign finance crimes in the Auditorium, sex trafficking in the East Ballroom.
Sanjeevs
@Kay: The guy who brought Gaetz on a trip was appointed to the board of Orlando airport by DeSantis , at the request of Gaetz
gene108
Florida Democrats step on their dicks
They should leave it DeSantis to clear the record. Just stay silent. No Republican would ever do this for an elected Democrat.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ken:
That sure would be awkward for the the new Q-tingent of the party wouldn’t it
VeniceRiley
I saw this particular Cletus Safari with my own two eyes! The interviewr had an English accent that made it all the more absurd.
Reporter: “But what if I told you Trump got vaccinated?”
Cletus: “he’s a Neeew York LIBERAL!”
Reporter: Then why did you vote for him?
Cletus: Best avalable at the time.
Reporter finds guy that got the shot…
Reporter: Why did you decide to get it?
Guy: My wife!
Of all the Cletus safaris over all the years, this one was the most authentic.
Mary G
Schadenfreude alert:
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
What makes you think this, out of curiosity?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mary G:
I bet Gutfeld is just gutted lol
cain
I think we all know how much McConnell’s word is worth. The man is completely inconsistent about everything.
joel hanes
anent medical debt being non-dischargeable :
Hospitals sell the debt of those too greatly in arrears to collection agencies, some of them predatory.
Those debt obligations can be purchased, often for one cent on the dollar, and the charity RIP Medical Debt does just that, and then forgives the debt. The organization has now bought and forgiven over three billion dollars of medical debt.
Your donation of $100 will relieve some desperate person of $10,000 in debt that they can’t repay and that’s been hanging over them, blighting their life.
Perhaps the best charitable donation I made in 2020.
https://ripmedicaldebt.org/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: Ha! there was so much gloating on RW twitter about the triumph of RW comedy, and that’s just what filtered through to me through left twitter
people were sharing his monologue, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit through six minutes of it
cain
@Jay:
I would say all those quotes is definitely so that it gets the Bernie-type people all a flutter. The rubes love when the liberals are all gnashing their teeth and their senator is making it happen.
I’m more worried about Sinema than I am about Manchin.
cain
@raven: Cool.. which hiphop artist have you been listening to?
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Are we calling Trump “Don Trump” now? Seems like the man is looking to get permission from the mob boss.
cain
@Mary G: I couldn’t verify that anywhere else. I think it’s still on. We will have more things to mock still then.
cain
Last?
Ken
@Mary G: Three episodes isn’t all that bad, considering the competition. I’ve always thought Turn-On was the funniest case, as you could say it was cancelled after half an episode.
Ken
Sorry. But yes, I expect people will be heading over to the new thread, if only to speculate about what happened to Cole.
James E Powell
@gene108:
I’ve mentally written off Florida. The Democratic Party there just doesn’t seem to care about winning statewide elections.
James E Powell
@raven:
Love Savoy Brown. Very popular band in my high school circles, wannabe rockers. Right up there with Cream and Led Zeppelin for us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell: I’ve heard Nikki Fried on a couple of national podcasts in the last month. I think she’s very interested in winning a statewide election. Which, as Ag Commissioner, she already has done.
ETA: she sounds like a competent pol on those shows, talks like a normal person, brings questions back to what she wants to talk about. How much of a chance she actually has, fukifino.
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is Nikki Fried. Never heard of her before and I’m curious why the Ag Commissioner is an elected position. Is it one of those things like in Texas where some state office has more actual power than the governor?
It’s not her or any particular person I’m reacting to. It is a history of Democratic self sabotage going back standing around sucking thumbs while Jeb Bush purged the voter rolls leading up to 2000, then to the #$%@! butterfly ballot in 2000.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
@Jay: LOL Probably!
@dexwood: I haven’t seen her in years. I’m too poor to travel to see her because flying myself and two kids is muy expensive and she’s been too wrapped up in her latest boyfriend. He passed recently (not from Covid) so she started talking about flying out to see me. She always says she wants to fly out when she is between relationships. I told her that I won’t ever get to see her again because no one will let her fly unvaccinated. Didn’t change her mind. I guess that solidifies exactly how important I am to her, as if a lifetime of neglect wasn’t enough. I’m a slow learner I guess. Oh well….
JustRuss
@mostly a lurker: I had Pfizer, both times I didn’t feel the actual shot at all. That’s been the experience of most people I’ve talked to. Just looked straight ahead and conversed with the nurse while she did her business, no pain at all.
Arm was a little sore after the second one, but not bad. Everyone’s different of course.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Am I utterly selfish for booking a transatlantic flight for the express purpose of getting vaccinated? Take as a given that I’m incalculably privileged to have the option, between the resources to get the ticket, a job willing to grant me leave for the purpose, and dual nationality allowing me entry at both ends of the trip.
I’m months away from eligibility where I am. I could literally get my first shot tomorrow at my destination if I weren’t nearly half a planet away.
joel hanes
@James E Powell:
Savoy Brown
Street Corner Talking
Can’t Get Next To You
All I Can Do
Sloane Ranger
@Baud: Not better, not even different. We have all three options here in the UK.
The blood clots which MIGHT be a side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine are so rare that there’s no consensus among experts on how often they occurred “naturally” with estimates varying widely.
In the UK the medicines regulator keep lists of reported possible effects from all medicines and, in the words of a science writer, if you ever read those, you’d never take any medicine ever again- for anything.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Sloane Ranger: The impression I got from Greek reports was that there’s a slightly above background noise risk of blood clots from the AZ vaccine, but there’s a much higher chance of the same thing happening to you if you catch COVID, so they advise people to take the shot anyway.
Sloane Ranger
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Like I said, the experts can’t agree among themselves!
What worries me is the way the anti-vaxxers are taking this and running with it. Plus, possible side effects from the Pfizer and Modern vaccines aren’t getting anything like the same attention.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Moderna. But my first shot didn’t hurt at all. Someone explained in an earlier thread recently that that can happen if they happen to stick you in your nerve endings, and even a good shot-giver can’t know where those are.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
This is why we need medical tri-corders, like in Star Trek. Absolutely painless shots. ;)