ETtheLibrarian sent me these photos of the flag installation on the DC Mall.
From ET:
This is the flag installation on the Mall for those that have died from COVID. If you can get there before the exhibition closes you can dedicate one of the flags to someone.
You can visit this immense field of flags on the National Mall, in Washington, DC, from September 17 – October 3, 2021. Visitors are invited to personalize flags for someone they have lost.If you cannot visit in person, you can dedicate a flag on this website until September 30th, and it will appear in physical form on the National Mall.
Nothing really captures the horrible nature of what those flags stand in for, but the sound they make when the breeze goes by makes me feel they are whispering to us.
The exhibition is open for public participation
September 17th – October 3rd, 2021
Weekdays, 10AM – Sunset
Weekends 9AM – Sunset
What do you think of this memorial? Is anyone thinking of dedicating a flag?
Update from lowtechcyclist:
Quite stunning to see the COVID death toll represented like this. pic.twitter.com/mae0A9nWDw
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) September 20, 2021
WaterGirl
I found this comment by ET to be haunting. In a good way.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
I was there yesterday, and when the breeze briefly picked up, that’s exactly what it sounded like.
It’s a bit overwhelming. Numbers, once they get big, can get kind of abstract (even to a math geek like me), and those flags really bring home the realization that way too many people have died in this plague.
Even knowing what I know, I couldn’t help look at that sea of flags and think, “how could we have let this happen?”
A video clip and some better stills than I was able to take:
Ryan J. Reilly on Twitter: “Quite stunning to see the COVID death toll represented like this. https://t.co/mae0A9nWDw” / Twitter
Roger Moore
Demonstrations like this are very moving, but only to people who are capable of caring for people outside their immediate circle. The Republicans have shown they just don’t care. As long as it doesn’t affect them, it could be 10 times as many people, and they still wouldn’t care.
Larry B
Link to dedicate a flag is broken, goes 404.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist:
Reading that made me cry. The is absolutely the question.
The answer is quite damning, demonstrating the sad state of affairs for our country, even as many of us are doing everything we can.
MattF
@Roger Moore: The epidemic of infections inside family circles demonstrates (to me) they just don’t care, period.
dnfree
I have a relative in his forties, evangelical Christian, who thinks the death toll is a hoax. There is some argument that if a death certificate includes Covid plus anything else (pneumonia, diabetes), it isn’t really a Covid death. My attempts to explain how death certificates work make no headway whatever. In his view only about 6-7% of that number have actually died of Covid, and the rest died WITH Covid. So this makes no impression on him whatsoever except as part of the big hoax that only the gullible buy into, not astute individuals such as he.
WaterGirl
@Larry B: That’s odd. It opens right up for me in Safari and in Chrome.
Does this work for you, the naked URL?
https://www.inamericaflags.org
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: We really should not worry about how the GOP will respond to anything; they will be awful. Anything we do should be aimed at motivating our people and reaching out to the mushy middle. In that order.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: I added the tweet with the video up top. thanks.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wise words.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
I think there’s a degree of fatalism about COVID that also dulls people to the toll. They’ve been convinced that we’re all going to get COVID anyway, so there’s no real point in trying to avoid it. This goes along with the belief that if the vaccine isn’t perfect it’s pointless. I can completely see how someone who’s adopted that worldview could just be numb to it all. A certain number of people are going to die of COVID, so we should just accept it and get on with our lives.
trollhattan
@dnfree: A Covid fatality undercount would seem far more probable and anybody just throwing up their hands with, “How can we possibly know?” need only consider the extra deaths above normal to get a reasonable answer. IIUC India has grossly undercounted Covid, based on total deaths, which seems like something Moti would do.
Old School
Devastating.
Semi-off topic: Does anyone know why there are different totals for COVID deaths from different sources? There are 660,000 flags in that installation. CDC says 670,000. NBC reports over 677,000. There was a tweet in an Anne Laurie COVID update from this past weekend that had it over 690,000.
Maybe its a timing issue, but it seems like the numbers should be closer.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s OK from a purely political standpoint. I refuse to accept that we should just ignore GOP policies that affect the real world.
Scout211
That is a very moving display. I wish I didn’t live so far away. I would live to be able to visit and pay my respects.
Using just the numbers (a long line of digits) lessens the human impact. That thought was in my mind the whole time I watched that Jake Tapper interview yesterday with Mississippi Governor Reeves. Yeah, he was forced to say his “heart bleeds” for the dead, but most of his defense (like most of the Republican Governors) was all about the numbers. His state has less population! The more populous states have more deaths! (Never mind that Tapper was talking per capita deaths). It must be a political trick that operatives have coached them to use. They all use it to distract from the per capita death toll. It’s never about people, families, parents, grandparents or children. It’s just numbers. And California numbers are higher than ours!
Tony Gerace
@Roger Moore: Yes. I’ve come to the conclusion that only coercion (i.e., the credible threat of job loss) will convince covid-vaccine-refusers to act responsibly. I’m convinced that in many cases these people don’t even care about their “loved ones”. Unfortunately, there are two young men in my extended family who are refusing to get vaccinated because, I suppose, their big swinging dicks will protect them. One of them has a girlfriend who, for medical reasons, cannot be vaccinated — so he’s choosing to endanger her. The other one has a mother who is suffering from long-covid and a stepfather who died of covid in January. It is impossible to reason with people who are this stupid or to appeal to the decency of people who have no decency.
The Dangerman
@Omnes Omnibus: I browse Red State fairly regularly; could be my masochistic tendencies, but I like to get an idea of what is important from their perspective.
I’m probably gonna stop. The crazy has been dialed up to 13. They are gone.
Another Scott
It’s good that it will still be up for the October 2 Women’s March in DC (and around the country).
The first time I visited the Vietnam Memorial was similarly overwhelming. You start at one end and The Wall gradually appears as the walk descends. And it keeps growing, and growing, and growing, until it is looming over you. So many names…
:-(
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@Old School: There’s politically motivated under-counting and delayed counting— which, inconveniently for statistical accuracy, occurs mostly in the places with the highest fatality rates.
Roger Moore
@Old School:
There may be differences in how they treat possible/probable cases vs. confirmed cases. Even today, you’ll see a separate category for confirmed and probable cases, and it was much bigger earlier in the pandemic.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: There are so many ways the ‘numbers’ could be humanized.
(totally making up numbers)
200,000 grandparents
300,000 brothers
250,000 sisters
100,000 accountants
100,000 teachers
150,000 grocery store workers
100,000 doctors
100,000 nurses
etc.
Ken
@Another Scott: And yet there are more flags in the COVID memorial than there were US deaths in Vietnam. And Korea, and WWII, and WWI. Combined.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: You beat me to it. I have a post scheduled for later today about the women’s march.
Ken
@dnfree: Try not to overreact to the relative who uses the “died WITH covid, not OF covid” argument. Apparently prosecutors aren’t buying the argument that people died WITH axe wounds, not OF axe wounds.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@dnfree:
I’ve always thought this is incredibly stupid. I don’t know how death certificates work myself, but I think arguing about dying FROM COVID vs WITH COVID, is for the most part just splitting hairs imo when you’re at the point of being put on a ventilator. Sure, comorbidies contributed, but if not for COVID many victims would’ve had decades of life left
Roger Moore
@Ken:
COVID deaths are now in the same ballpark as Civil War deaths. Of course both numbers are estimates with large potential errors, but they’re in the same general range.
MattF
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And ‘died of being unable to breathe’… who can say why?
smith
This is one of the most striking things I’ve noticed about the Republican response to the pandemic: They never ever voluntarily express any sorrow or condolences about the loss of life, even when they are forced to acknowledge the death toll. One of the most telling contrasts between TFG and Biden is that the former never did anything but pooh-pooh covid deaths, and the latter, as one of the very first things he did as president, held a memorial service for those lost.
I realize that the intense denial that Goobers use when confronted with something overwhelmingly scary makes a lot of them wall off these feelings, but I suspect that someday the grief will break through, especially if they have had some personal losses.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Of course not, we should oppose them.
ETA: It seemed to me that your original comment was talking about how the GOP would respond to a demonstration like this. And, in that context, fuck ‘em. What we need is to motivate our people and secondarily recruit more people.
Major Major Major Major
A tragedy, and an effective protest as these things often are, but what makes me extra sad is how unavoidable most of them are. Per capita, we did better than Italy, not quite as well as Spain, only 20% better than France, etc. The West basically shit the bed across the board. We need to make it so we… don’t do that next time.
ETA: “unavoidable” in the “europe’s outcomes suggest hillary wouldn’t have done altogether that much better” sense
Soprano2
That seemed to be the attitude of the hearse driver I talked to at the cemetery last week. “When it’s your time, you’ll die no matter what” is how they put it. I think it’s going to be really hard for people to avoid Covid forever because it’s so widespread now, but I also think you should protect yourself by getting vaccinated!
Another Scott
@Ken: inorite.
“People don’t die of COVID-19. They die of sepsis. Stupid libtard.”
:-/
There will always be an excuse for those who want one. Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
pb3550
Yesterday about 1pm the number on the entry sign was 673,484. Stunning to walk through, especially stopping to read many of the memories on the flags.
Ken
@pb3550: I hadn’t realized that number is updating. I saw a picture yesterday with 666,6xx, which stuck in my head because I expected the evangelicals to start hyperventilating over the 666. Are they setting out more flags when they change the number?
Stacib
@Tony Gerace: This reminds me of my idiot nephew along with his idiot wife. They won’t get the vaccine “because you don’t know what’s in it”. This coming from a guy covered in tattoos, many done while locked up.
Roger Moore
@Soprano2:
Absolutely. One of the points we need to really hammer home about the vaccine is that it both protects against getting infected and reduces the danger if you are infected. It’s the best counter to the “what’s the point if you can still get infected” argument against vaccination. Yes, the protection is imperfect, but it’s a lot better than nothing.
trollhattan
Mark Nevada governorship as remaining in the Democratic column.
randy khan
My wife and I spoke briefly about visiting yesterday when we were out, and I just don’t think she could do it. Honestly, I’m not sure I could, either. Her dad’s death from this terrible disease still hurts too much.
I am reminded of the times that the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was laid out in D.C. The sheer numbers made it incredibly moving. I remember that the second time it covered basically the entire Ellipse. That was when they announced it would be the last time the whole thing would be displayed because it was about to be too big to put it all out.
Roger Moore
@Stacib:
They actually provided me with a list of ingredients as part of the informational material when I got vaccinated. Of course a lot of that stuff might as well be in some alien language to most people, but that’s true of many products you find around the home. Unless these people refuse to take any medication whose ingredients they don’t fully understand, this is just an excuse, not a reason.
Benw
I guess I can stand it because I’m here posting on BJ, but I can’t stand it, the middle picture
dnfree
@trollhattan: I’ve told him about excess deaths. I’ve e sent him articles explaining that deaths are probably undercounted. I’ve explained how death certificates work using real examples. It’s impossible to get through.
Ksmiami
@The Dangerman: Check out the comments on the Alabama pickers YouTube reaction to their recent Covid deaths. A few ppl are trying to promote the vaccine but the others are dug in. I’m almost tempted to throw in that as a liberal, I’m glad they are opting for illness and death, (just to trigger their oppositional disorder so they get vaccinated) but the harassment isn’t worth it.
E.
@Benw: That’s because you’re doing it wrong. You are looking at the picture and thinking, “Whoa, each one of those flags represents a person, with a family and friends who miss them.” Better to say, “Who cares? I don’t even know who most of those losers are. Cycle of life, move on.”
I learned this on Facebook.
Gravenstone
Even less now, thanks to his government’s mishandling of the pandemic.
Ksmiami
@Gravenstone: shithole state…
MisterForkbeard
@Soprano2: I’ve also heard this “If you get covid and die, you die and it was just your time” argument from a lot of anti-vaxxers. It’s an argument that they NEVER use anywhere else.
Do they wear seat belts in cars? Take blood-pressure medication? Go to the doctor? Try to eat healthily? Avoid travelling to wartorn areas? Try to avoid getting poisonous snakebites?
Then they believe in preventative action. They just don’t want to do it this time because it might mean admitting liberal were right about something.
Ken
@Gravenstone: I think that was Alabama, where the state health officer recently reported that they’d had more deaths than births over the past twelve months. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also the case in Mississippi.
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: I guess it’s time for a blue state to put out bounties on constitutionally protected action taken by Republicans and right-wing supreme court judge. These fucks are always pleased when the hurt someone else until it’s shown they get hit too.
MattF
@MisterForkbeard: As if politicizing vaccination is an OK-and-not-bizarrely damaging thing to do. Sigh. Now gonna cook some dinner.
Matt McIrvin
@dnfree: The “overcounting” bullshit is getting some completely unwarranted mainstream-media attention right now and it is pissing me off. I guarantee all the conspiracy theorists will be claiming vindication. Just count excess deaths and you can see that there’s massive undercounting.
Matt McIrvin
@MisterForkbeard: There is a lot of that kind of fatalism about common, scary diseases like cancer and heart disease, where some prevention is possible but obviously it’s far from 100%; I know that doctors have to work hard to get past it.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: True, but there’s a big difference between cancer and covid… and most people who GET cancer still try and get treatment. And stay away from plutonium.
Just get the vaccine, ya fucks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dnfree:
Wasn’t that the De Santis plan?
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: The deaths *were* mostly avoidable. Canada and Israel have much less than half our death rate. Denmark has about 1/4. Even within this country, Washington state has about half the national rate, in spite of open borders, a big city, an early outbreak, and plenty of death cultists. It’s true few Western societies *chose* to avoid the deaths, but it was very much a choice.
louc
This exhibit was originally sponsored and displayed by the City of Washington, DC in a little park by RFK Stadium/DC Armory. This was back in 2020 under TFG when we had “only” 250K-300K deaths. At that time, the artist was encouraging visitors to help plant the flags because the numbers were growing so exponentially. That could still be the case now. By the time the flags were planted, 10s of 1000s more people have died. I’m glad the display is getting more prominence than it did a year or so ago.
Kent
@dnfree: My evangelical MAGA kin are all “Why don’t they do that for abortion deaths?” As if that is some sort of own-the-libs response to the Pandemic.
To which I respond. “Why don’t you? I’m not aware of any laws stopping you or anyone else from doing that”
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
so powerful.
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: Controlling COVID before there were vaccines available was very hard. I think we could have done a lot better than we did. But we weren’t going to do suppression on the level of China or even Australia, who kept total numbers very low.
But AFTER the vaccines became available… it just incenses me that probably at least 95% of deaths that have happened since the spring of 2021 could have been avoided easily. Did these people do it to themselves? Maybe, but I’m still mad.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
I will be for real, with you. I don’t take any responsibility for this.
You want to blame someone. Blame those who found eleven billionty reasons why they couldn’t vote for Hillary in 2016.
Because, I guarantee you, that, if Hillary had been President when COVID Hit, 90% of our COVID DEAD would still be alive.
I believe that to the bottom of my soul.
I also blame Republicans. I said long ago, stop calling Dolt45’s COVID Response – Incompetence.
The Woodward tapes proved, beyond any doubt, that the response from them was DELIBERATE MALICE.
WE didn’t let this happen.
WE believed in science.
WE cared for our fellow citizens.
WE wanted for science to be followed and respected.
I take no responsibility for this. But, I know who to blame, and the chasm between folks like us and them is now the Grand Canyon. And, I don’t believe that it will ever be bridged.
Kay
@trollhattan:
Oh, I hope so. I don’t think it’s getting enough attention. Plenty from me- I’m my usual obsessive, hectoring self, but ya know, OTHERS :)
rikyrah
@dnfree:
They have been pushing ‘ underlying conditions’ since the beginning of the pandemic to minimize the number of deaths.
Phuck your relative. He’s a goddamned ghoul just like the rest of them. Who have kept this disease within our midst.
rikyrah
@Tony Gerace:
Yep.
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
I would like a monument like that for our COVID Dead. They deserve nothing less.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
“I will be for real, with you. I don’t take any responsibility for this.”
Totally agree. I don’t take any responsibility, either. I thought I made that clear when I wrote this:
It is still quite damning for the state of affairs in this country as a whole, but it is not the responsibility of the people who are doing the right thing. Still, as far as the US goes, how the mighty have fallen.
We didn’t let this happen, but we weren’t able to stop it. Sane government like we have had in the past could have stopped it. But when one of the two major parties goes rogue, the country is in a world of hurt.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
Glad you chose to add it – I’d say it did as good a job of conveying the enormity of it as well as anything could, short of being on the ground there. And it came really quite close to that.
@smith:
It was a very telling moment indeed.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Agreed, but to be fair, a lot of the western world didn’t fare all that much better than us, as Major^4 pointed out above. And it’s worth noting that other nations are facing the same kind of extreme polarization/authoritarianism we in the US have seen for the last decade or two, just to a lesser extent
It seems like bizarre US politics are leaking out to the rest of the world, thanks to the internet. For example, I browsing Tumblr the other day and found out that the guy who was a lead writer on one of the Digimon shows, and more notably wrote the seminal Serial Experiments Lain anime, recently put on some weird play at a convention based on Digimon Tamers:
One of the notes on the Tumblr post mentioned that Lain is about isolation and alienation, and that somebody with that distrustful kind of mindset can be influenced to either go politically left or politically right
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: In the spring of 2020, Trump’s administration was actively stealing medical PPE from my state, to hoard it pointlessly and distribute some of it to Trump’s allies. Doctors and nurses died because of that. Kushner actually had a commission coming up with action plans that were not put in place because they felt blue states would take the political hit.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
I think it would be a lot less, but I think 90% is overstating things. The reported death rate for the US is similar to countries like the UK and France. Obviously we could have done a lot better, since some of our states have done drastically better than the country as a whole, but 90% lower would have taken a completely different approach.
Ruckus
@dnfree:
Something I believe is happening is that people making the types of decisions like your relative, is the end result of anything that does not fall exactly in line with their beliefs is reconstructed to be able fall into line with their beliefs. I see this far more often in people with very strong religious beliefs but this rationalization process is part of humanity. I don’t understand why reality has to be denied so strongly but it is and this entire Covid mess shows this rationalization in it’s stark difference to acceptance of reality. It may have to do with our current politics (which is not a whole lot different than it’s been for decades, except for being more obvious) with one side denying reality, denying a reasonable future for most, denying anything but the value of money.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: and mask and vaxx resistance has not been unique to the US
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
And thank goodness he was wrong on that count. Kushner needs to be criminally held accountable for that. And if not, he should be sued into oblivion. I wonder if it difficult to establish standing or because he was acting in an official capacity as a WH advisor/employee that somehow makes him immune to a civil lawsuit/criminal charges
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t think this is mostly about US politics leaking out. Those kinds of politics find a home in just about every country. Most of Europe has had “national front” style parties for a very long time. Japan has long had extreme nationalists who refuse to accept that their country did anything wrong in WWII, visit the Yasukuni Shrine, and so on. I think a big part of it today is that Putin is actively funding those kinds of parties throughout the West, and the problems we have here in the US are at least partly a result of that.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: Canada is the big (only?) exception among Western countries of appreciable size that aren’t their own continents. Could we have done that well even with a competent leader? I doubt it. Career civil servants at the CDC and FDA and everywhere have been screwing up left and right.
I’d love to be able to just blame Republicans too!
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Perhaps not. But I think having so many politicians at so many levels of government outright pander to that element is uniquely American. My perception is that certain other national leaders like Bolsanaro in Brazil were equally bad as Trump in pandering to the Covidians. But here in the US we are pretty unique in having an entire major political party engage in Covid death cult thinking. Correct me if I’m wrong about that. But I don’t think that even the Tories in the UK were nearly as bad as our Republicans, especially those from hard core red states.
Ruckus
@Tony Gerace:
THIS.
People who still want to believe that the world is flat or that white makes right or that nothing makes any sense, or the old way was better are always looking for something that they will never find, because it doesn’t exist. When there was a billion people on the planet it wasn’t as crowed. People still died at younger ages because we didn’t have the experience and possibilities to build on. Some things didn’t change till after I was born, like healthcare. Some of it hasn’t changed yet. Some of it never will. But damn if half of us stop at least trying or looking forward far more crap will never get better.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Honestly I think the best we could have done (pre-vaccine) would be about 20% lower, maybe 25 if you caught me in a good mood.
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
I know all of this. We lived through the Hunger Games of Spring 2020 with PPE.
Why folks believe that the VACCINE would have been any different, I don’t understand.
We KNOW that Dolt45 didn’t order MORE vaccine from either Pfizer or Moderna when offered by the companies.
What do people think he intended to do with the vaccine, since he didn’t order enough of it?
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And I sincerely doubt that having Hillary in charge in 2020 would have made them any less of a problem. In some ways, our best chance was to have a vaguely sensible Republican in charge, someone who would have let the scientists at CDC, FDA, and NIAID run things and just served as a figurehead for those efforts. Mitt Romney, and even George W Bush, probably could have pulled it off. There was no way Trump was going to.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Sorta feels like everybody has just lost their minds these last two years, and in like, one of four ways. Except for me, of course.
Cacti
Thanks for this.
My wife dedicated one to her father who passed back in February. :-(
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
I believe Hillary would have handled COVID on the same level as the other women leaders around the globe.
Ken
That would be a worthwhile repurposing of Stone Mountain.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: Even if we had Germany’s rate we would be around 375,000 deaths–and they didn’t have to deal with anti-Merkel reactionaries controlling more than half the country.
It’s important to figure out all the non-Trump things that went wrong and fix them while we have the chance, and blaming Trump won’t help us do that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
It really does. I’d to ask these so-called “free speech” crusaders where the hell they were when Trump was trying to “cancel” NFL players who knelt during the national anthem in protest? Or when Colin Kapernick was blacklisted from the NFL for the same?
Also too, I’d ask, was it “cancel culture” when racist segregated bus companies in the South were boycotted? Or Apartheid South Africa? And if answered in the negative, why not?
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: the only way for the chasm to be bridged is if we push our enemies on the right – right on into it..
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I don’t disagree with you that often, but I really do disagree on this.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
Granted, but not that I mentioned this in the post, but I could’ve sworn the guy was also sharing Q-Anon conspiracies, which are definitely US-centric. I don’t understand why foreigners would care so much who won the 2020 US election to the degree they do
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Yes.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t see why the country as a whole couldn’t have done as well as Washington, Oregon, and Utah have. Doing that well would mean cutting the death rate roughly in half. Rather, I understand exactly why the country as a whole didn’t do that well, but an alternate universe USA where people are remotely sensible could have done that well.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
I think Hillary would have done a find job of dealing with COVID, starting all the way back with not eliminating pandemic preparedness from the National Security Council. But she would have been hamstrung by GOP officials throughout the country, who in addition to their general cussedness would have been doing anything the could think of to undermine her in the hopes of helping their candidate win in November.
PST
Is there going to be an “I got the booster” thread? Today I got a flu shot in the right shoulder and a Pfizer booster in the left. I also had blood drawn, so I feel like a pin cushion. I see now that I may have jumped the gun on the booster, since the full FDA has not approved it yet, but my doctor advised me to have it so I stopped at a drug store on my bike ride home. She told me I could get it on the same day as the flu shot, which she administered today, so I guess she thought I qualified even under the old criteria.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
National mandates are national mandates. Doesn’t matter if the public transportation goes through a Red State. It’s a National Mandate. Same for airplanes, Amtrak, Greyhound.
WaterGirl
@PST: Yes, I should start putting up an I Got the Booster! thread. Look for one later this week.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: Hate to note that an ever-increasing number of those whispering souls would probably still be be ranting about Joe Biden being literal Adolph Hitler and breathily calling out for “hoooooorrrrse paaaassste”
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Is there a vaccination policy yet for Amtrak? I haven’t seen one yet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Did you see my comment to you?
Shakti
@rikyrah: At the very least she wouldn’t have made budget cuts to the CDC and other disease prevention programs.
Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised
I don’t give Trump credit. That fucker cost me my job and fucked up my ability to work.
I don’t forgive anyone who saw the fucking chaos that was wrought and then decided to enthusiastically vote for that. Disgusting shitheads.
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I must have missed it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
It was comment 67
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: The Republicans’ best pitch for votes over the past few years has been straight-up extortion: “vote for us or else we’ll do our best to wreck everything in the minority”. But the fact of Republican administrations makes even that nonsense: they’re worse when they’re actually in power. You don’t get the sensible Republican gray eminence. They don’t do that these days.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Now that I’ve retired I want to go see The Wall. And I don’t want to go see The Wall.
I see the aftermath of war every time I go to the doctor because VA. For a long time it was Vietnam vets mostly. Now we have been at war for so long in this century it is just as often people far younger than me. From that standpoint it seems like it absolutely never ends. And most often never even slows down.
The field of flags is the current war monument, that is one of republicans against humans, of money over humanity, of the only good color/size of paper is green – 66x156mm.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: we were never gonna be Australia but yeah, without all our deeply entrenched dysfunction we would resemble Canada in more ways than one!
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
National mandates are national mandates until they get blocked by lawsuits. Seriously, the problem Hillary would have faced is that even if she did everything right, there are too many things that require state and local cooperation. Even under Biden, most of the mask and distancing requirements are still state and local, and he hasn’t been able to do much to enforce them beyond areas like interstate transport where the federal government already has a strong role. Similarly, the vaccine mandates are being run through OSHA and thus can apply only to employees, not customers.
Admittedly, a hypothetical Hillary Administration would be facing a more favorable court environment, since there wouldn’t be any Trump-appointed judges. But the amount of resistance state and local officials can exert is considerable, and Hillary would have been facing every ounce the Republicans could throw at her.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I would simply not talk to them
Ruckus
@Ken:
Add up all the military dead from WWI to the end of the just over Middle East wars and those numbers of American war dead still don’t add up the Covid dead. That’s WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan total is 623,660. Current US Covid deaths 680,250.
Subsole
@Ruckus: If they valued money, they would value those other things, because those other things increase prosperity and stability.
They value spite.
The money is just a way to express spite, or give them a perch from which to express it. The money is only a means, not an end.
Ruckus
@Subsole:
If you look at the republican population over all you might be correct, I should have been more specific, I am referring to the upper crust of the republican party, those whose pockets are overflowing with greenbacks and who really, really want to see a hugely subservient population who is willing to work for peanuts and create even more wealth for the those not in the hoi polloi.
Subsole
@Ruckus: Fair point.
Even so, it seems they’d make even more money out of a healthy, vibrant market economy than a plutocratic oligarchy. That kind of greed eats itself before long.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
In 2018 we had, according to the CDC, 39,707 firearm deaths in the US, and a total of 246,041 injury deaths.
The Vietnam war actually covered 20 yrs (1955-1975) and had 58,220 US deaths.
US Covid deaths as of yesterday’s total 680,250.
Ruckus
@Subsole:
Some of them could. Most of them would. Most of the working class would. A better economy is one that more people are better off in, not one that only the very top make everything and far too many sleep under overpasses. At least now many of them have tents here in LA…..
Some, like the pillow guy, likely wouldn’t be able to sell the level of crap they do if people weren’t quite so willing to have zero scruples and 98% ignorance.
Ida Slapter
I was so moved by the earlier thing about this on here that I went to the website and dedicated one to my first cousin, who died in May 2020. They are supposed to email me when and and show where it is posted. I sent the info to his wife and kids afterward, and they were sad but also happy to know he’d be remembered. The message I wrote on his flag will feature a punchline from a favorite story about him. It’s YAHOOOOOOOO!, and we all hope somebody will walk by and laugh like we did.
I’m going to send them this link so they can see these newer photos. Thanks for your post!