The delta variant continues to be in the news. It's concerning, but I don’t know what I can do about it personally. I got vaccinated. Everybody I know well enough to discuss vaccinations has been vaccinated. I live in a city that is around 75% vaccinated, and in my neighborhood that number is almost certainly higher, perhaps significantly so. What else can I do? Going back to my old ways of social distancing won’t help much, neither will wearing a mask (although I willingly wear one when asked). It’s like, I want to do something, but anything I do will be doing something just for the sake of doing something -- hygienic theater.
I suppose I could be more cautious with the kids, since they are too young to be vaccinated. But they already mask up when in public indoors, and they hang out almost exclusively with kids of vaccinated parents. We go to the pool a lot, and they obviously don’t wear masks there, but it’s an outdoor, private pool in a mostly liberal area. I can only also assume vaccination rates are high and risk is low. My best assessment is that it would be worse to keep them shut away, limiting their social engagement and exercise. As we've all learned over the past year and a half this carries its own risks to health, particularly mental health. Plus, I’ll be first in line to sign up my kids for their own vaccinations once they drop the age limit, which can’t happen soon enough. (Fingers crossed on fall.)
You’ve probably heard that right now Covid is a disease for the unvaccinated, and I think that is right in terms of who is still getting sick and dying, but it’s not true in terms of the disease’s wider ramifications. Sick people use up resources and put strains on the system that hurt everybody. They also keep the virus alive and in the news, which freaks people out (even if they are vaccinated and highly unlikely to suffer serious illness themselves) and slows down the economic recovery. Most worrisome, it allows the virus to mutate in ways that could potentially make vaccination ineffective. Thankfully (to put it mildly), this hasn’t happened yet, but the possibility of returning to square one with a vaccine-resistant variant is always there, hanging over us like the Sword of Damocles.
Sometimes I can't help but find myself in the mindset of “I’m vaccinated; fuck all y’all that aren’t,” but I try not to stay there long. It’s a quick off-ramp when I'm heading uncontrollably into a stretch of Covid dread. The better attitude is, “What can we do to compel unvaccinated people to get vaccinated?” I’m in favor of persuading people; I’m in favor of punishing people (provided it doesn’t create a counterproductive backlash); I'm in favor of paying people; I’m in favor of doing anything that works.
One thing that definitely needs to be done is the FDA needs to officially approve the vaccines. Right now they are being dispersed on an emergency approval. This might seem like a technicality that doesn't actually matter, but I heard a reporter named Derek Thompson on The Bill Simmons Podcast make a very compelling case that it does. Surveys show more people will willingly get vaccinated if the FDA officially signs off on it, and it allows municipalities, schools, employers, and the like to legally mandate vaccination. So, let's get on that, FDA.
One thing that definitely doesn't need to be done is any sort of federal laws or decrees. They will backfire. If right-wingers feel the Biden administration is too heavy-handed they will be even less likely to get vaccinated than they already are. It's ironic, isn't it, that the people who clamor the most for "freedom" are the ones most controlled by the actions of their political opposition? It's just in an inverted manner.
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Never Have I Ever is back with a new season. I’ve been watching it with S and her sister (who just moved to the DC area, which is very cool). I love that show. Apparently, smart, subversive comedies centered on female high school students are my thing. (See also: Booksmart.) This one being centered on a South Indian girl born and raised in America only adds to the hilarity. There are cultural things they reference in the show I wouldn’t really appreciate if I didn’t spend so much time around S and her family.
I also started watching this show called I Think You Should Leave. It’s pretty good – weird as hell but legitimately funny. It’s sketch comedy, so there are definitely some swings and misses. (Is there a less reliably funny form of comedy than sketch?) But I’ve also found myself legit LOLing watching it by myself.
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The Milwaukee Bucks recently won the NBA championship. I watched all their playoff games and found myself cheering for them like I was born and raised an Elm Grove.* I don't know why they captured my fancy the way they did. Usually when I come into a sporting event with no routing interest, I subconscious pick a team halfway through and root for them for the remainder of the game, but I don't really care. I don't have that emotional investment. This time I did for some reason.
And that reason might be Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, aka, "The Greek Freak." He's just so awesome to watch, and he has such a humble, intriguing backstory. How could you not root for him? Also, the Bucks were playing against Phoenix Suns, led by Chris Paul, and I'm really sick of those State Farm commercials.
*That, apparently, is a suburb of Milwaukee.
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I heard an interesting interview on The Michael Shermer Show
with Whole Foods founder John Mackey.
Mackey is one of those guys whose ideals would probably be described by
most people as pretty liberal, but he’s also an unabashed advocated for
minimally regulated capitalism, which puts him at odds with, say, hardcore
Bernie supporters. Like, he wants a lot
of the same things people on the left advocate for, but he thinks the invisible hand of the
market is the best way to get them. I
found myself mostly agreeing with 75% of what he said, mostly disagreeing with 20%,
and stridently disagreeing with 5%. (One thing I really take issue with is his characterization of resentment toward super-rich people as "envy." To some degree, yes, of course there is envy, but more so I think it's that many people feel, rightly or wrongly, that billionaires represent the injustices of an unjust economic system.)
Mackey is a vegan, really into animal rights, and he and Shermer were positing that people in future generations might look back on our treatment of animals today with similar shock and horror to how we currently look back on slavery. I have heard this proffered before, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. It's not an apt analogy, because killing other living creatures is absolutely vital, at the most basic level (sustenance), for human beings to survive. For millennia we had to hunt, and even today when we don’t, when we can healthily subsist on a strictly plant-based diet,* we still kill a lot of critters growing food, either accidentally (e.g., crushing small animals with heavy equipment) or intentionally (e.g., spraying pesticides). I don't think we could grow enough food to support everybody on the planet without doing these things. So, the question becomes: Is breeding cows for food so much worse than exterminating colonies of weevils for food? The answer might be yes, but I don’t think it's a big enough yes that future generations will look back on it like we do on past atrocities.
*Although I don't currently eat an entirely plant-based diet, I'm totally down to transition to one as a society. It's more efficient and much better on the environment. I think lab-grown meat will really have to take off for us to get there though.
So then, what current widely accepted aspect of society will be judged harshly by future civilizations? I don't know.
Possibly nothing, at least not at the level of something like slavery. It seems reasonable to me that it was so
awful that we simply don’t have anything analogous to it in today’s society. One possibility I will throw out there, however, is closing our borders on refugees -- just our treatment of refugees in general. We can all see how people might look back on "kids in cages" with utter disgust (because most people feel that way now), but even more mundane, acceptable refugee laws are quite terrible if you think about them on an overall human level. If I were in charge, I would allow in more refugees (more immigrants in general) by a massive factor. My feeling is, if you can get to this country, you can stay, and you can become an American citizen, end of.
Republicans often claim that Democrats support "open borders," but it's not true -- they don't. But I do. Maybe not absolutely 100% open, but pretty damn close to it. When we get to the point where you fly over the country and see something other than endless swathes of city-less land, then we can talk about the country being "full". Until then give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. There's always room in Wyoming.
Until next time...
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