Pandemics

Facing Up to the Monster Within Us

Sometimes the simplest demands can turn a man into a monster. Because the mask has become so polarizing, the extreme reactions aren’t really about being asked to wear one for an hour. It’s about communicating what side you’re on. — ProPublica, October 7, 2021, “We’re Losing Our Humanity and the Pandemic Is to Blame” In a well-researched October 7 article for ProPublica, Sarah Smith takes a fascinating look at how COVID-19 has turned Americans against each other, [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:09:35+00:00October 27, 2021|1918, Constitution Rights, COVID-19, Masks, Pandemics, Public Health|

Tale of Two Pandemics: Beware of Slackers

Some slackers faced death sentences during the 1918 pandemic. I guess we are all familiar with the idea that history repeats itself, and, accordingly, if we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we’ll keep on making the same blunders. The Philosopher George Santayana gets the credit for best expressing this theorem with this assessment: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He was looking at this from a historical perspective, a world view, [...]

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Pants, Masks and Coughing Freedom Fighters

America’s pandemic war zone: grocery stores. Adult content warning: There is explicit content in this article, generally avoided in mixed company describing an act best conducted behind closed doors, that may be offensive to some readers.  If you require more specificity before venturing into the following text, the offending word mentioned multiple times is comprised of four letters and starts with the letter “f.”   I was watching one of those “Talk Back” programs on a local TV [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:09:59+00:00July 8, 2020|Coughing, COVID-19, Essential Workers, Masks, Mortality, Pandemics, Uncategorized|

Modern Superheroes Still Wear Masks

Why all the complaints about wearing masks? It’s creating a new industry. Masks, for some, have become a symbol of individualism and a reason to resist and proclaim their Constitution rights. What about the rights of people who don’t want to be exposed to bare-faced people? It’s not about your right to wear one. It’s about our right to get through this with as few casualties as possible. Masks, in comic book America, denote bravery and heroism. [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:09:59+00:00May 20, 2020|1918, Masks, Pandemics, Politics, Science|

Curdling the Milk of Human Kindness

Sometimes it takes some digging to get to the truth I guess you might call this the era of fake news, so our biggest challenge as informed citizens is to get real and not live life like a reality show. It’s about exploiting our biases with adulterated or downright phony stories that get passed along until they amass hundreds of thousands, even millions, of believers. The 21st Century version is nurtured and promulgated by social media and [...]

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Will Small Contractors Survive Virus Crisis?

Your local contractor may be struggling to get his foot in the door for emergency relief. There are a lot of things I enjoy about living in a small town, not the least of which is knowing most everyone personally or by reputation. If you don’t really know who someone is, there is someone you know who does. The same can’t be said of life in urban America. For one thing, we seem safer here from this [...]

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Mosquitoes and Bats and  Swine , Oh My!

Mosquitoes make even bats look good. How does a weakling become a bully— one of such immensity that the whole world cowers before its invisible fury? This bully, known familiarly as COVID-19, has a posse of some familiar characters in the animal kingdom who have helped set it free while imprisoning the human race. The corona of the coronavirus is a cushion of protein, reportedly fragile and easy to vanquish with sudsy soap, alcohol, bleach and other [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:10:00+00:00April 1, 2020|Bats, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health, Humor, Mosquitoes, Pandemics, Rodents, Viruses|
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