Note: This is usually a weekly drop on Wednesdays, but after I started writing a little about my travels, I decided to post every day during my drive (see the second section). Since I already had mused a bit on masks, etc., I stayed with that material up front.
Last week the CDC announced that Americans who have been vaccinated no longer require masking and social distancing, with some exceptions. This is wondrous news, and seems logical based on what we know of the vaccine’s effectiveness. That the announcement came just a day after the Conservative Wahoo Substack criticized President Biden for wearing a mask around people whose employment is contingent upon having been vaccinated suggests the immense influence of this modest scribble. Seriously though, there just didn’t seem to be a strong case for requiring these measures anymore in the face of mounting statistics.
In our troubled country where even unadulterated good news must be filtered through ideology, there are some who are clucking about the wisdom of the CDC’s pronouncement by wielding the illogical “but how will I know that the person near me in the store, at the restaurant, etc has been vaccinated? I’m going to keep wearing my mask until more Americans have the shot” argument. The answer is, their vaccination status is irrelevant to you. Twitter gadfly Tom Nichols had thread on this subject. It is worth reading as a demonstration of the concept of “I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you”. Click below to read the whole thread.
There are a lot of good reasons to keep wearing masks. You may have a compromised immune system. You may have a family member who has not yet been able to get the shot and you want to show solidarity with them. You have discovered that you prefer the anonymity wearing a mask gives you. You may like the fact that not only did you not get COVID, but you didn’t get any real colds last season. A LOT of good reasons. Fear and mistrust that those around you haven’t gotten their vaccinations is not a good reason. It is silly, and there is a whiff of virtue signaling to it.
As I further ponder the questions of masks and vaccinations, it occurs to me that there is quite likely a large number of Americans who have both bitched about/resisted the wearing of masks, and who are resisting calls to vaccinate. It also occurs to me that this group of double druids quite likely contains a statistically significant number of people who voted for Donald Trump. So—work with me on this. If you accept the statistical basis of the CDC’s call and the logic it confers (“I am protected no matter what you do, and I am unlikely to spread the virus to others”), the people MOST LIKELY going forward to actually GET the virus, and to become sick from the virus, and to die from the virus and to pass the virus on to others just like them, are those who have consistently minimized its seriousness in fealty to their corrupt caudillo (who is incidentally, vaccinated and has been since before leaving office). And….this group of more vulnerable people will almost certainly bask in the glow of the CDC’s guidance like everyone else, and gather unmasked to celebrate the birth of the nation whose Constitution they recently supported overthrowing. We could see an uptick in infections and hospitalizations as the summer goes on, and especially after July 4th, an uptick that would be somewhat more overrepresented in the Trumpenproletariat.
Cross Country Drive Log
My cross-country drive got off to a start Sunday morning, but not without some complications. I had hoped to visit my parents and a couple of siblings and their families in North Carolina as the first stop on the trip, but the cyber-attack on the Colonial Pipeline and the subsequent ridiculous hoarding of fuel that followed has led to empty gas pumps across North Carolina and a concomitant change of route.
I had planned on taking a bunch of old t-shirts with me and then depositing them in the trash can after each day’s workout, but She Who Must Be Obeyed stridently objected and now I have to stuff sweaty shirts I don’t like into a plastic bag for nine days on the off chance that she might “…wear them while gardening”.
The nature of my work means that I will do a lot of telephone calls while driving (hands free, do you think me a savage?) and work at the computer in the late afternoon through to bedtime. When not on calls, I’ll spending most of the time driving listening to podcasts, history podcasts specifically. The Age of Napoleon has most of my attention.
DAY 1: Looking at the 350ish miles I had in front of me from Easton MD to Wheeling WV, I decided to get underway at 0900. Waking naturally at 0630, I puttered around for a little while, largely determining whether I wanted to hit the treadmill before I left or wait until after I got to Wheeling. The morning caffeine perked me up, and so I worked out, took a shower, closed down my office, and said my goodbyes. I departed a 0914, which I noted at the time as a sign of how laid back and easy going this trip is going to be. The drive was unremarkable, save for the presence of a large “Trump 2020” billboard 20 miles east of the WV border in PA, and then another smaller one down the road a bit. Sad! At some point, the car’s tire inflation warning system came on (two days after having had the car serviced for the trip) and so I inflated the tires to the driver’s manual recommended level (natch) but no joy, the warning would not go out. I figured when I stop I could get a read on where my route and Volvo dealers intersect so that I could have this obviously faulty system repaired, but when I did stop, I instead googled the problem and found a handy Youtube video that revealed a ridiculous on-screen series of commands required to “reset” the tires. Voila!
There was no sign on the door of my hotel about masks, but I had a mask at the ready. When I entered, I saw that the desk clerk (can we call them this anymore?) was not wearing one, but I asked anyway if they were required. She answered yes and hurriedly fixed hers. Although she tried to tempt me into turning my arrival gift into empty calories from the little store, I chose the points option instead. Dinner was relatively early (two meals a day on this jaunt), and I selected “Generations” which was just down the road from my hotel. A mask here and there, but basically it was a happy, Sunday afternoon crowd with a lot of TV’s fixed to the Pirates game. Six lemon pepper wings and a French Dip (with beer battered fries) later, I was on my way back to the hotel, likely having consumed a few hundred more calories than necessary, but all in the service of this Humbert Humbert-like (minus Lo, you savages) bit of Americana. Until tomorrow!