The silly reason of keeping strangers healthy

A bit more than a month ago I wrote about encountering the book Brendan and Casper by Mark Roeder and then reading its prequel A Better Place. Today I finished Brendan and Casper. It was less than 250 pages and took me only four days. The men have been a gay couple since the prequel. In this one Casper graduates from Indiana University, where Brendan took a local job for two years while Casper completes his degree. Then they move back to the small town that was the happy ending of the first book. This is where they went to high school and where Brendan has the job of assistant football coach waiting for him. They buy a farm and settle in. A dozen years later they are given custody of Casper’s three nephews because Casper’s brother is on the run. The boys are teen and pre-teen. Now in their mid-thirties Brendan and Casper are fathers. I was disappointed in this book. It’s an enjoyable read, but not a lot happens. That’s probably true for most families. I’m sure Roeder was writing to give their readers an idea of what gay life could be – it doesn’t have to be dramatic. Gay dads can be like other dads. However, it is conflict and resolution that drives stories and there isn’t much in this book. One bit of conflict was when will the boys’ father come to visit and they need to keep him safe. The other bit of conflict is which of the three boys, if any, are gay. Opinions point to the youngest because he takes ballet lessons and is quite good. However, ballet as a source of conflict is dropped quite quickly when soccer friends of the middle boy say they also take ballet to improve their soccer game. There isn’t even much drama in the boys dealing with the reasons why they ended up in a new family. An annoyance with the book is all the things that happened between this book and the previous one that are mentioned but not explained. Casper has reconciled with his brother, who was abusive in the first book. Brendan has reconciled with his mother (his father isn’t mentioned). At the start of the book, set in Bloomington, there is talk that Brendan and Casper rescued Aiden from the streets. Brendan’s football playing career ended with an injury. In the first few pages of the book the author’s various novels are listed as parts of series. There are now ten books listed between the two I read. So all those incidents happened in one of those ten books. Alas, the author is not so good that I would want to read any of the ten books, certainly not all of them. I think the author dwells too much on unimportant details (complete meal menus are mentioned a lot), he offers too much explanation (except when he doesn’t offer enough), and the prose is merely functional (in contrast to the lovely prose of Richard Powers, the writer of the work I read before this one). If I hadn’t already bought the third book about Brendan and Casper I probably wouldn’t bother. I checked that first few pages of the third book. The series listing in the front lists 15 books between the one I just finished and the third book. The latest in the discussion around COVID... Allison Carter of the Indy Star tweeted:

“I trust my immune system” is such a weird reason not to get the vaccine. Yeah, I trust mine to protect me too, which is why I gave it a detailed dossier on what the virus looks like so it can handle it.

Michael Harriot tweeted:

I’ve been told by multiple people that cops are now arresting drivers who chose not to get a government-issued “driving passport.” Others were ticketed for exercising their “freedoms” by not following the tyrannical “seatbelt mandate.” I thought this was a free country?

Harriot wrote a thread about Chip Roy, who used government healthcare to beat cancer, but ranted about vaccine mandates. Here’s how it ends:

He’s not concerned with freedom, liberty or any of that BS. They will WATCH YOU DIE & say you had the “freedom” to choose not to breathe. Think about what he’s saying: “I don’t care what science, doctors, law, or the Supreme Court says. It’s my choice to not give a f--- about my fellow Americans.” Isn’t that the OPPOSITE of a patriot?

Leah McElrath had a response for Matt Walsh. First, part of what Walsh tweeted:

COVID is here to stay. You’re going to get it. It almost certainly won’t kill you but it could. ... Stop cowering. Live your life while you can.

And McElrath’s response:

We’re going to be hearing a lot more of this type of rhetoric in coming months. People who are trying to sound scientific will pivot to using the word “endemic” instead of pandemic. It’s the same argument: We’re not going to let mass death interfere with making money anymore.

Marissa Higgins of Daily Kos discussed the governors of both Texas and Florida (the national COVID hot spot) signed executive orders barring government entities, including public schools, from issuing mask mandates. School leaders in Dallas are defying the ban, announcing students and staff will be required to mask up. Houston school system is also considering defying the ban. The system’s superintendent told the Texas Tribune “If we have an opportunity to save one life it’s what we should be doing.” In Florida, both Rocky Hanna, superintendent of the Leon County School District, and Carlee Simon, superintendent of the Alachua County Public Schools are discussing defying the ban. Georgia Logothetis, in her pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Simon’s op-ed in The Washington Post:

I will certainly do my part. I value life too much to take chances with the lives of others, even under the threat of retaliation. As our school board chair has so aptly put it, better a loss of funding than a loss of lives.

Court cases could be interesting. Gabrielle Banks, a Houston Chronicle reporter working in federal courts, tweeted a link to an article in that paper and saying:

Harris County judges unanimously pass mask mandate for courthouses superseding @GregAbbott_TX order, officials say.

Dr. Catherine Weaver, Associate Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at University of Texas, tweeted:

I want the world to see the blatant hypocrisy we see in Texas everyday. Schools aren't allowed to require testing, vaccinations or masks by mandate of our Governor, but you can't go see your elected officials unless your test negative first.

McElrath linked to an article in the Chronicle saying LBJ Hospital has erected overflow tents. This hospital in in the 5th Ward, which is half black and half Hispanic. McElrath quoted Jesus Jiménez who tweeted with an image of a press release:

Gov. Greg Abbott announces Texas will be seeking out-of-state health care personnel to help with the latest surge, and he is asking hospitals to voluntarily postpone elective medical procedures.

McElrath responded:

Hey, Mister “Mitigator” @GregAbbott_TX: How about you lift that order PROHIBITING school districts from choosing for themselves about whether or not to implement mask mandates? Or are you determined to kill as many children as possible before we kick you out of office?

McElrath tweeted a thread:

Empathy fatigue is a real and often unavoidable response to collective trauma. When we experience it, we need to take proactive self-protective measures—like temporarily logging off and turning off the news—and to engage in self-care to the extent possible. Unfortunately, what I am seeing more and more is people instead are embracing sadistic impulses. We all have those impulses. They are part of the human psyche. But embracing them is a choice. It is not unavoidable, and it is dangerous. Invoking Darwin in response to the deaths of others during a pandemic expresses a belief those others are less “fit” and therefore deserving of death. It is also a public admission of a feeling of gratification that one believes one is more fit than those who have died.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted cafe owner Katnony Jerauld of Amador City, California. Jeraud wrote that she respects customer’s individual liberty to not wear a mask. She also respects her staff’s liberty to not wash hands after using the restroom, to not cook the chicken all the way to 165F, to touch your food with unwashed hands, and to choose how hot the water should be when washing silverware.

Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. We think you’ll agree that it’s a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of no one ever being told what to do – and especially for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy.

Yesterday I wrote about the new climate report issued by the IPCC. David Roberts, who writes about clean energy and politics, tweeted:

Perhaps the release of the new IPCC report could be an occasion for political reporters to press some prominent Republicans to explain why they have no plan at all to reduce US carbon emissions & remain utterly hostile to international climate diplomacy. ... Another fun journalistic project: over the decades, hundreds of conservatives, including elected pols at the state & federal level, argued that climate change is a hoax engineered by the left & scientists hungry for grant money. Maybe go follow up on that with a few of them?

Simone Biles won several medals in the 2016 Olympics. At the time the gymnastics team doctor was Larry Nassar, who has since been convicted and imprisoned for sexually molesting hundreds of girls, including Biles. In this Olympics Biles dropped out of several events for mental health reasons. She got a huge amount of pushback, and also a huge amount of support. Rev. Ted Lasso tweeted:

People are madder at Simone Biles than they ever were at Larry Nassar.

The reason people were mad at Biles is because she wasn’t out there earning medals for Team USA. They want the prestige of the medals compared to other countries (and USA came out on top). They don’t care about Biles the person. As Told By Kaki works at a food bank. She is frequently asked if she think people lie to get food at a food bank. Her answer: “It doesn't matter and we don't care.” Her reasons: This particular food bank has plenty of food. People don’t wait in line for hours for fun. Not enough people are taking advantage of this resource. One doesn’t need to be in extreme poverty to receive food assistance. Food is a human right and their mission is to give out food. Having a car or cell phone does not mean they don’t have food insecurity. It is easier to get help for food than for the phone bill.