Sunday September 19, 2021
We’ve had a vaccination passport for slightly under a week here in B.C. Obviously, it’s causing problems for the stores and restaurants that have to check patrons at the door – especially when some of those patrons, who should know better, verbally abuse a high school kid 30 years their junior.
But the problems go deeper than that.
My daughter works in a shopping mall, where stores have taken different stands on vaccinations and masks. One of her co-workers asked her, “If you knew that none of the staff in a store had been vaccinated, and they refused to wear masks, would you go in?”
My daughter thought about that, and then said no. Partly to protect herself – even though she has had both vaccinations and has had – and recovered from – one of the earlier COVID-19 variants.
But also on principle -- because that store shows no regard for the safety of its customers.
“I don’t like my decision,” she admitted. “We’re splitting into two social classes.”
Indeed we are.
Enough’s enough
Lest there be any doubt where I stand on this issue, I have no sympathy for the protest mobs that have travelled – sometimes right across the country – to demonstrate in front of hospitals and medical clinics.
Protest at political rallies if you will – though I wish you wouldn’t. But you’ve gone too far when you start harassing healthcare workers already on the thin edge of burnout after 18 months of busting their butts to save patients from a disease that you claim doesn’t exist.
Your actions wipe out any tolerance I used to have for you.
I think you are ill-informed, ill-mannered, and ill-intentioned. Further, you are ignorant, disrespectful, and selfish. Your mothers would say you should be ashamed of yourselves.
The science is clear. Vaccinations reduce the risk of infection. Masks reduce the transmission of droplets.
Observing one of your demonstrations, I have to admit, I had a momentary urge to stomp on my accelerator and smash into the demonstrators milling onto the street. The same feeling probably motivated the young man who smashed into a Black crowd in Charlottesville, or the other young man who murdered a Muslim family in London Ontario.
Not welcome
Unlike those two young men, I didn’t yield to it. It was an irrational impulse, quickly banished.
But it tells me that I can no longer be patient with those who disregard the overwhelming evidence of medical science, choosing instead to believe the unfounded, untested, and unproven wisdom of a minority on Twitter and YouTube who prefer rumours to reality.
If I know you hold those views, I hereby declare that I will not go into your store. I will not buy your products. And you will not be welcome in my home.
Period.
A woman named Libby Jones posted a satirical piece on the Internet about a fictional Freedom Café.
It began, “Welcome to the Freedom Café. We trust you to make your own choices if you want to wear a face mask. In the same spirit of individual liberty, we allow our staff to make their own choices about the safety procedures they follow as they prepare and serve your food.”
For example, whether staff should wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Whether chicken needs to be fully cooked. How dishes should be washed…
“Water temperatures and detergent are highly personal choices,” the story explained, “so we allow our dishwashing team to decide how they’d prefer to wash the silverware you will put in your mouth.
“Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning.
“We think you’ll agree that it’s a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of no one ever being told what to do – and especially not for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy.”
Medical directive
Demonstrations against masks and vaccinations may protect what you think of as YOUR freedoms. But they don’t protect MY freedom to live without fear of infection.
I suggest that the anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-authority crowd should carry a “Non-Vaccination Passport.”
It would correspond to the Medical Directives that increasing numbers of people use to define the medical procedures they will accept, or reject, in emergency situations.
The Non-Vax Passport would specify, first, that should the passport owners contract a disease that they don’t believe exists, they must not receive any treatments approved by medical authorities such as Dr. Bonnie Henry. And second, they must not be treated by any nurses, doctors, or surgeons who have been vaccinated or who wear a mask.
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Copyright © 2021 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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Your turn
There wasn’t a column last week. But some of you felt that my introductory comments, or explanation, were as good as a column.
As Cliff Boldt wrote, “You have identified the core issue facing me and many others today. Earth is going through a series of issues that are all interconnected, and there are no rules which can be used to explain or correct the stress and angst many of us are feeling.
“Life has always been complex, but COVID has unsettled us by happening at the same time other social issues and pressures were lurking in the background. A case in point: many deaths in LTC facilities have identified serious problens that were there before -- just more complicated with the virus.
“Years ago, naturalist John Milne said, ‘when I reach for something in Nature, I find it connected to everything else.’ Or words to that effect.”
To my comments on spam filters cutting off mailings (see also the note about Poetry below). Ted Wilson mused, “Wouldn’t it be nice if that same technology worked for answering machines, recorded phone calls, telemarketers and the like.”
Kerry Mewhort wondered if my slap at “the Taliban in Afghanistan and Texas was a typo. No, it was deliberate. In both places, men are dictating what women may do with their lives and their bodies.
Sandy Carpenter noted the same line: “I started out feeling a bit sad as you described the world we're walking in right now. Then when you said, ‘the Taliban taking over in Afghanistan and Texas,’ I almost gave a shout out loud, because that's exactly how so many of us feel.
“I applaud your choice to turn to your readers and their comments about aging ~ words of hope to me as I ride the cusp of 70, newly retired, and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up! To be perfectly honest, I want to be purposefully contributing, while not working too hard! Sounds pretty selfish. That's why I read your column (one reason, anyway!). Thanks, Jim, for teaching me a good way to live in my young-old, going on old-old, years!”
Marilyn Josefson had a further thought about aging: “I think you need to consider a third stage in ageing--middle-old. I'm no longer young-old, but I'm not ready for old-old. For as long as possible, with God's help, I'll hang on to middle-old.”
Ralph Milton enjoyed reading all the letters that came in about moving into my 85th year. He reminded me that the late Dr. Bob Hatfield of Calgary “had what he called, ‘my warm fuzzie file,’ into which he put those things that affirmed his spirit. Reading through that batch of responses to your column tells me they should go into your warm fuzzie file.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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POETRY
And for those of you who like poetry, I tried to send out a new poem, but the server I use rejected it. No reason given. As far as I know, there’s nothing in the poem itself that’s would offend a spam filter, but something did. So if you’d like to read that poem, please check my webpage .https://quixotic.ca/My-Poetry And i you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca, or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blank email (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca (If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE
The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.