To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
22
Dec
2021
Thursday December 9, 2021
The woman standing in line looked vaguely familiar. But because she was wearing a Covid mask, I could see only her eyes and forehead.
“Holly?” I asked, tentatively.
Her eyebrows shot up. Her eyes crinkled. “Jim!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around me. (Take that, Covid!)
I find it hard to recognize people with half their face hidden.
In the old days, people used masks to cover other parts of their faces. The Lone Ranger and Batman wore masks over the upper half.
Now it’s the opposite.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: COVID-19, Masks, whole body
18
Sep
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.
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.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Masks, Vaccinations, protesters, passport
9
Jan
Most people seem to be complying with the provincial order to wear masks indoors. I see people parking their cars, heading barefaced for their preferred store, and then going back to get a mask to wear. Unwillingly, perhaps, but they’re doing it.
A few people blunder in without a mask, and are given one by a clerk. They may grumble, but they wear it.
And a few refuse. Utterly and totally.
If the authorities can’t make up their minds, the skeptics might say, if their recommendations keep changing day to day, why should we believe them?
I use the word “believe” deliberately. Because at its roots, this is an argument about belief systems, an argument that goes back several hundred years to what historians call “The Enlightenment.”
Tags: belief systems, science, Masks