Re: Song of the Day
 

The patients are the ones who are here because they never wore a mask in the first place. I actually have had some ask me to take mine off. Which is never going to happen.

Re: Song of the Day
 

I don't know and don't want to know. Me personally, I wear a KN95. But I do that 100% of the times indoors anyway.

Re: Makes No Sense at All
 

Pretty sure I was bringing the average audience age down.

Re: Makes No Sense at All
 

Yeah, merkin talk belongs on the FB.

Re: Makes No Sense at All
 

When my daughter was 12 I took her and 2 friends to see The Warped Tour- the girls were geeked to see "pretty boy" bands- GOOD CHARLOTTE!

There were like 60 bands on 6 stages all in one day. It was in Comerica Park's parking lot. Hard to explain, but there were two big areas connected by a 20 yard narrow choke point. We were on the wrong side of the choke point to get where the bands they wanted to see would be. So we started trying to get through the choke point, but there all these snotty nosed 13-15 year olds pushing and shoving. I was in charge of 3 girls' safety. So I pull us back out of the push.

Look at the schedule to see who is playing on the side we are on. Oh wow! A band I know!!!! The Damned! Not a 70s band I liked but still a popular one.

"Girls, c'mon, there is a band over here that is famous! You'll love 'em!"

We got really close to the stage, because, no crowd. In the 70s and 80s they wore make up to look like (I think) zombies. They had dropped the make up- they were just themselves- 60 year olds with long stringy hair rocking to stylized punk songs.

The 3 girls were staring at me as if I was out of my mind. So we went back and fought our way through the choke point so we could see cute boy bands!

Re: Makes No Sense at All
 

You spared them the sight of Captain Sensible dropping his pants. That doesn't happen until the end of a Damned show. So good parenting!

Re: Makes No Sense at All
 

I read books on parenting and whatnot, so thanks!

PS Taxwonk is getting a heart transplant in the next few days. Hopefully we will see him here again soon.

Re: Song of the Day
 

I'm totally just done with everybody. People are so fucking bitchy and self-righteous these days about almost everything I Can't Even.

Fucking cranks on the Right talking about CRT and "Let's Go Brandon" (thank god we decided not to hold Easter, so I don't have to listen to my right wing relatives talk that nonsense). Science illiterate utopians on on the Left asserting China's was the correct Covid response.

Turn on the news and its dimwits in FL trying to stuff homosexuality back in the closet. Or some buffoon defending allowing a person who is still very much a male physically being allowed to compete against female swimmers.

The Neocons are back, hectoring for a confrontation with Russia. Yay! Love those assholes.

Who's woke? Who isn't? What's woke? What's not?

Elon Musk is taking over Twitter. He's dangerous. Why, is he going to preclude free speech? No. He's inclined to allow too much of it! We need more preclusion of it, to stop misinformation. What's misinformation? Well, just ask five people. And you'll get five different answers. But each one of those five assholes will be cocksure he's got the only true definition.

The grumpy old men with no personal lives want everyone back in the office, to stroke their egos. Workers are all complaining they're fried. Some correctly, others because they're precious shits.

People are sticking these annoying "Joe Biden Did This" stickers on the gas pumps. Guess they don't like inflation. But they sure liked all the free money they received from Uncle Sam during Covid, which in significant part caused the inflation.

And then we come to masks. Where everybody knows everything and no one knows really knows much. And a whole army of folks want to demonstrate their position by wearing or not wearing them. And every semblance of common fucking sense goes out the window.

I just left a crowded grocery store and coffee chain. Masks? Next to none.

Those are facts.

Here are some more facts:

If I was to wear a mask in there, I'm stopping what percentage of possible transmission? Well, the figure is so small it's not even worth noting. Irrefutably, there is no sane cost/benefit to me wearing a mask into those places, as nobody else is doing so. The only logical reason is Ty's - that he wants to avoid getting sick and sickening his spouse. My spouse isn't masking in any of those venues anymore than I am. So that cost/benefit does not apply to me. My immunocompromised friends and acquaintances are not even masking in crowded venues.

This view that one with minimal if any chance of harming anyone else by not wearing a mask - in a society where almost no one is masking anymore - must act like its March 2020, is simply not well reasoned.

If everyone starts wearing them again, I'm happy to do so. I like hiding in plain sight. But if there's no possible benefit to doing so, and there isn't when everyone else has eschewed them, I needn't wear one.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Flower, that's your cue for an irony ruling.

The cost is practically zero, though.

Seems like a pretty big benefit to me, but ymmv.

A few weeks ago, I noticed almost no one wearing them at the grocery store. The other day it was almost everyone. I suspect it was just different staff making different choices. But the only downside for me is that I tend to get a little warm so why not keep wearing it for my benefit and for the benefit of anyone else who is still doing so.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Yeah, except that's an impossibility under the given facts. Qualifies also as a logical fallacy.

If the crowd isn't masking, as a matter of science, and epidemiology more specifically, any single person's masking becomes immaterial. The use of a mask nevertheless would have limited if any benefit. If one is irritated by masks and that irritation outweighs the scant potential (hypothetical) benefit to others, then wearing a mask would be unwise and irrational.

The mask thing in this country has demonstrated our national lack of facility with logic and rational thought. Or, alternatively, the left's and right's dislike of both.

Through most of the pandemic, not wearing a mask was illogical and irrational. Even if you doubted their efficacy, why take a chance? The cost/benefit could only run to one conclusion - wear a mask.

Now, unless you've a unique health issue, or are in regular contact with people with a unique health issue, if you're in an area where no one is wearing them anymore (which is most areas), the cost/benefit is turned 180 degrees. In that instance, where the chance of you harming others is negligible if it exists at all, do you nevertheless mask? One could make the argument that extreme vigilance is always warranted. That even if the risk is akin to being struck by lightning, one must gird against the possibility of that black swan. But that is not rational, or logical. That is the tail wagging the elephant.

Logic does not support the tail wagging the elephant. Logic supports doing that which is reasonable. At this point, where the virus is endemic and weakening with each uptick, it is eminently reasonable to, if healthy, ditch the mask.

The counter to this is a more emotional than logical argument. Hence, "selfishness" is usually invoked. This also fails, of course, as it's not selfish for society to tailor its vigilance to the level of risk. OTOH, the argument that people should address today's risk as though it were March 2020's could be seen as quite selfish. Society acts in a manner that's reasonable for the greatest number of its members. Asking it to observe extreme vigilance in the face of increasingly minuscule aggregate risk with no epidemiological basis for doing so seems the definition of unreasonable.

Where the rubber meets the road is some folks want a society where the protection of all at any cost is the paramount concern. This is a plank of progressive thinking. But its also something that will never occur on planet earth. Instead, societies apply a balancing of interests and that often appears insensitive. The people who desire the society described in the first sentence of this paragraph are, however, unable to express their goal in exactly that way. Because they know in response, pragmatists and realists will cite the fact that it is impossible and impractical, utopian. The tail does not wag the elephant, and it never will.

So instead, the people who desire a protection-of-all-at-any-cost society try to argue the merits. They claim the science supports them. Just as the people on the right did when they argued against wearing masks when the pandemic was raging.

People want the society they want, and the science they want. And neither seems to comply.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Your glasses don't fog? When I wear readers and a mask they fog.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Wrong, but what evs You do you.

Re: Song of the Day
 

If your glasses are fogging your mask isn't fit tight enough.

Re: Song of the Day
 

It fits very tight right underneath my nose. So tight my nostrils aren’t impeded at all.

Re: Song of the Day
 

Ok, that's better material.