Hate as a saving virtue. Virtuous gays. An outing with 3 kids. The Rules – if anybody cares
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Matt Taibbi has a column today entitled Looking Back on the Sadism of the Covid 19 Shaming Campaign. He describes the despicable things that were said about and done to unvaccinated people.
He shares Matt Orfalea's 10 minute video entitled The Unvaccinated – Nobody is Safe featuring prominent talking heads of this Covid episode. Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden, the governors of New York and all the talking heads on media.
As a conservative attending hyper liberal Reed College and then the University of California in the 1960s I was figuratively vaccinated against this kind of nonsense early on. I have been called a racist, social Darwinist and all that claptrap all my life. Being assailed about Covid policy was nothing new.
I had been attuned to the vaccine controversy for a couple of decades. I had read and reviewed several books. I had better than average background information against which to compare what I was hearing about Covid. I knew the process of developing vaccines. I had been following Bill Gates' harebrained schemes for geo-engineering and listening to him prattle about vaccines for a decade. I had the context into which I could fit the message from Judy Mikovits' movie Plandemic when it came out in March of 2020.
Among the perhaps 100 recognizable public faces in this new movie by Orfalea there was not one that I would have trusted as of January 2020. Therefore, none of them surprised or disappointed me with their stridency about the vaccines. I judged their message on Covid by what I knew of their character, trusting none of them and assuming the message was propaganda. I am gratified to be so fully vindicated. Glad as well to be fully alive and likely to be so for a while to come.
My fondest hope is that more and more people realize how thoroughly, vigorously, consistently they were lied to by all of the trusted institutions in American and Western society: government, business, academia, the research establishment, the education establishment. Moreover, I hope that they appreciate that it was not confined simply to the west – it went on with equal vigor in Russia and China.
My hope is that people, awakened to the debacle of Covid 19, now apply critical thinking to the other issues of our day. These include homosexuality, transsexuality, the pharmaceutical industry in general, big medicine in general, academia and academic research, the climate change/global warming issue, subsidiary issues such as solar power and electric vehicles, and banking and finance. In short, I would hope that people are skeptical of just about everything. Go with George Carlin. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. They are looking out for themselves, and they don't care whatsoever about you.
I have a couple of notes on the subject of homosexuals. I have been moved by Glenn Greenwald's account of his husband David Miranda's sickness and death. I trust Greenwald's integrity and appreciate his ability to honestly express difficult emotions in a case like this. Andrew Sullivan, too liberal for me on most topics, has a wonderful article this week on queers versus homosexuals. I grew up with homosexuals. We got along fine. It wasn't until they decided that they were queer and became very demanding and got in my face at every turn that I started to change my mind about them. I'm a simple guy. I'm with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, allegedly saying of Oscar Wilde "it doesn't make any difference what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses." Sullivan is alarmed that the damned queers are doing it in the street.
The kids and I had a wonderful outing today, leaving Oksana to enjoy the morning by herself. With Marianna on the Kids Ride Shotgun seat the four of us rode 6 miles across the Dnipro River to the wharf where the tour boats usually tie up, hoping for an ice cream. For whatever reason – fear of rockets might be one – there are no tour boats whatsoever and likewise nobody open selling ice cream. We found another place halfway home. It was a good proof of concept for Marianna’s bike seat. Eddie carried his bicycle up and down stairs. I carried mine and Zoriana's, and she took care of Marianna.
I learn something about child psychology. When Zoriana has something to do, like take care of her little sister, she's very responsible. When she has nothing to do she annoys everybody in sight to get attention. We need to find ways to keep her busy.
I make another observation. It's good to be the guy in charge when there are four opinions how to do anything. When I'm out with the kids we do it my way. I have previously described the difference between an outing and an excursion. It's an outing when it's only me, an excursion with Oksana. And, on an excursion, I am compelled to entertain alternate opinions on every decision. This morning's outing was relatively easy not because I had to, but because I got to do it all by myself.
Yesterday morning just before our Toastmasters meeting a conversation came up across the table from where I was sitting. Some guys have the gravitas, or call it cojones, to get women to talk about somewhat intimate questions. Vitaliy was holding forth on the topic of how to attract a man's attention, to initiate a relationship.
The kids and I had just walked in from the street, where I had observed and remarked to Eddie on how short the skirts were, how obvious the outlines of the underpants and the skimpiness thereof, and how in many cases a bit more cloth would've flattered the bodies more. I had an opinion to offer on Vitaliy's conversation. Our interlocutor suggested it would make a good topic for a speech.
The upshot is that two weeks from now he and I will deliver speeches with differing advice on how to attract a man. A dangerous topic anywhere, though less in Ukraine. My wisdom largely coincides with Sherrie Schneider and Ellen Fein's 1995 "The Rules." Their rules have been updated (to sell new books, natch) and they have gotten divorced, but there is a reason the book sold so well. See Wikipedia for their original list. My challenge is to keep it light. I'm planning to make a video as I practice the speech. Let's see how I do.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where we are floating into summer without concrete plans. Eddie's trip to Germany is cancelled. All hotels in Leipzig are full of refugees, they say. We're looking at spas in western Ukraine.
I am unvaccinated.