Lots of small and annoying stuff today….
1. I left “Bite me!” unsaid, but I admit, I thought it. Picking up a prescription at the pharmacy, a woman about my age wearing a big enough mask for three heads shielded her face with her hand as I passed her on the way to the counter. It really pissed me off, and after two steps, I wheeled around, raised my hands, wiggled my fingers, and wailed at her in my best Biblical leper imitation, “Unclean! Unclean!” Several customers laughed. I’m not putting up with that crap…
2. Related to this post and the one that spawned it: Broadway star Laura Osnes—never heard of her!—was fired from the cast of a one-night production of “Crazy For You” in the Hamptons. The theater required all staff and cast to be vaccinated, and Osnes refused. The two-time Tony nominee revealed that she hadn’t been vaccinated and won’t be, because she doesn’t trust the vaccine.
I’d fire her too.
3. Congratulations, BLM, race-baiters and anti-white racists! You’re making black Americans sick or dead! The New York Times reports that far fewer blacks in New York City are vaccinated than other groups, and the reasons given by those interviewed for the story are telling:
- “Since when does America give anything good to Black people first?” This from a an reacting to efforts to make vaccinations in the African-America community a priority.
- “I’m supposed to worry about getting sick when I go outside, versus getting killed by a cop or something like that?”
- “They came out with one so fast for Covid, and now they want to pay you to take it. It seems fishy.”
- “It reaffirmed my hesitance, it reaffirmed everything.It just shows Black lives don’t matter. You can test that on us just like you tested syphilis on us.”
That was a young black woman reacting to the fact that the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been directed to Black and Latino communities by health officials, because not only did it require just one shot, there were more flexible refrigeration requirements for that vaccine. It seemed like the perfect choice for mobile vaccine clinics at public housing projects and churches that were key to the government’s plan for vaccinating minority neighborhoods. In April, though, the federal government ordered a brief suspension of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine when it was linked to blood clots in the brains of several women. “They’re experimenting on us,” another black woman told the Times.
The level of distrust that the Left has worked to create between black Americans and White America—just to pick up some cheap, emotion-driven votes—is the classic destructive Genie who can’t be put back in the bottle.
Good job, everyone!
4. A NYT article about a new Titian exhibition at Boston’s Gardner Museum is headlined in the print edition, “Do Classic Paintings Get a Pass?” A pass from what, you might ask. Why, a pass from moral scrutiny, of course! After all, that bull-disguised Zeus in “The Rape of Europa” isn’t properly vilified by the painter at all. \
Boy, progressives morphed into Cotton Mather so fast, I barely noticed!
Remember when President Bush’s ultra-conservative Attorney General was mocked mercilessly by the news media and Democrats for covering the bare breasts of two art deco statues at Justice?
Well, they were right the first time. Applying #MeToo era standards to 16th century artists and classical art is as ridiculous as, well, an amazing number of things the Left is advocating these days.
5. Believe it or not, the Olympics fined the Norway’s beach handball team (What the heck is “beach handball?”) because its players wore shorts like the player on the left,
…rather than the bikini bottoms like the player on the right, which are mandatory. The International Beach Handball Federation requires that women wear bikini bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg.” The sides of the bikini bottoms must be no more than four inches. Men, on the other hand, can wear shorts as long as four inches above their knees as long as they are “not too baggy.”
No double standard there! But after all, beach volleyball and this mutation have always been as much about titillating male spectators as sports. Apparently the rule will be changed, giving women less revealing options.
Ethics Alarms 
Quick correction: The big brouhaha about team handball uniforms happened not at the Olympics but at the European championships.
Incidentally, although virtually all women competing in beach volleyball (different sport) wear a sports bra and bikini bottoms, they are not required to do so, and some players wear uniforms very similar to those worn by the men.
I’m completely confused by the two Times articles, then. I’ll take your word for it, but nowhere in either artical does it clearly say the players were fined after X tournament. Terrible writing.
This tells the basics in a readable and what I think is an accurate manner:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/norwegian-women-s-beach-handball-team-fined-not-playing-bikinis-n1274453
I wanted to write about this story when it first broke a little over three weeks ago, but the reportage was so bad–conflating beach handball with beach volleyball, talking about the Olympics (which hadn’t started yet and didn’t have a competition in the sport, etc.)–that I couldn’t be bothered to try to sort through all the misinformation. The voyeurism associated with the required uniforms was the center of the story, and everyone understands that much, at least.
Thank you, Curmie, and thanks for making me feel better about my confusion. The ethics issue was clear, the rest was mud.
5. HAH. HAH. HAH. What’s this? The people who aren’t getting vaccinated are … gasp … black people? A favored group? Weren’t they supposed to be … deplorables and … Trump voters who were refusing to get vaccinated and annoying Ahnold? Next thing you know, black people won’t be automatically voting for Democrats.
Frankly, I’m amazed the Times ran that story. The fact black people are not getting vaccinated has been kept on the low down.
Dang it, that should reference No. 3.
I think the correct usage is “on the down low” if you mean something kept quiet. But I got the drift.
You’re right, Chris. Hah. I was close though, right? Would this be cultural misappropriation?
If you did say “Bite me!” the perfect response would’ve been: “But then I’d REALLY get the virus!”
Re: No. 5; My Kingdom for some Shorts.
There’s an International Beach Handball Federation? What’s beach handball and why does it need a federation?
jvb
5. It’s a stupid rule, but it should be enforced until it’s changed.
Right, but stupid dress codes always die the same way: people defy them, and punishment makes those enforcing stupid rules look stupid. This was a perfect example. A centuries old jacket and tie rule for meals at my college died when student after student showed up wearing ties, jackets, and no shirts or pants. The school gave up.
Unfortunately those who are tasked with enforcing the rules arn’t likely those making the rules. This may be the case with the Olympic Committee, but I’m willing to bet it is normally a lowly grunt normally given this task.
#5: Hey, no double standard!
https://newsthump.com/2021/07/27/norway-mens-beach-handball-team-fined-after-refusing-to-play-in-mankinis/
(Spoiler: From a British Bee-like site.}
1. You take a lot of risks that I wouldn’t, just because of the Don Vito Corleone lesson not to piss off people whose capabilities you do not know. Then again, that woman was doing the same, and didn’t have to be so stupidly obnoxious.
2. I would have sacked her too – unless she had a legitimate religious or medical reason not to get vaccinated.
3. Good job indeed. That said, you won’t hear about it in the media, who are too busy pointing the finger at the Trump supporters who won’t get vaccinated. Never mind the fact that less than a year ago their golden girl Kamala was saying she wouldn’t take a vaccine if it came from Trump. You can’t fix stupid, we already knew that. You also can’t fix hateful, partisan, or anyone who’s drunk the race-based Kool-aid.
4. I wish I could say I didn’t get it here, but I get it all too well. This is an excuse for cutting off the past from the present, so that only present values are thought of as having any merit. You’re simply not allowed to look at that stuff any more. The review is almost an apology for daring to show these six pictures (there are actually seven in the series), all of which are from Greek mythology. Two of them show Zeus having his way with mortal women, which he was known for. Two show Diana, one casting out her maid Callisto for LETTING Zeus have his way with her (sort of), the other turning Acteon into a stag for daring to see her bathing. The other two are a scene of the lovers Venus and Adonis and Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda from Cetus, the sea monster sent by Poseidon to devour Andromeda because her mother, Cassiopea, had dared compare her to the Nereids. Greek mythology wasn’t always pretty and it wasn’t at all fair to women. It was also written down over 2,000 years ago and those paintings were painted going on 500 years ago. Excuse me if they don’t square with the values of 2 years ago. Me too and BLM are becoming the modern Taliban and Khmer Rouge, who want to destroy everything and start again at “year zero,” they’re just more polite about it.
5. Dumb rule.
On #1: the woman’s behavior constituted an insult and a non-verbal rebuke that was undeserved. Plenty of people saw her reaction. If she had reacted to a black man that way, she’d be judged a racist. I almost got in her face and told her off, but opted for pointed satire.
I know the media has made so many people into phobics, but that’s their problem. They will not make it mine, or if they do, they will at least find the experience unpleasant.
On a related note…
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoNewNormal/comments/p409b0/well_that_escalated_quickly/
Steve-O, #2:
She had a religious reason (belongs to an evangelical group), said she “didn’t believe in it,” but beyond that, the option was to submit a negative COVID test – a swab – which, apparently, she refused. The religious reason would have been fought as well anyway since the idea was to be unable to threaten anyone else in cast, crew or management.
I should also add that public health authorities did everything they could to forfeit trust.
#1 bothers me, and I think we’ve been down this road before, so I won’t repeat myself, except to note that quite a few of the ethical values in the expanded six pillars of character have to be brushed aside to make room for the one or two that have to do with confronting what is perceived as offensive behavior.
But, I’m uncertain. Maybe she had it coming. It did get a few laughs so it worked out for the best. Highlighting insane mask phobia is good and necessary, and there is an ethical duty to confront it. So, maybe it was the right thing after all. Balancing ethical principles is hard.
1. I literally laughed at loud at your response to the obnoxious woman! Her actions begged for a dramatic response. She might think twice before using that gesture again.
3. The law of unintended consequences at work. There are already many other examples from the Left’s actions and there will be many more in months to come.n
5. Another example of the unnecessary sexualization of women’s sports. Have you seen the skin-tight shorts worn by female volleyball teams even in high school? My daughter, a standout volleyballer in middle school, declined to play in high school rather than wear those. (And that was fifteen years ago.) They look uncomfortable as hell anyway. For all I know, the middle schoolers may be wearing them now as well.
3. The vaccine is only approved for experimental use. Everyone who takes it is being experimented on. That portion of their concerns is indisputably true.
But not just black citizens.
Truth be told,most medical treatment is experimental…
5. So women want to be paid as much as men, and by God, they want to look like men in the process. This despite markedly inferior athletic ability and muscle strength.
Nothing at all irrational about that.
I’ll make this last point — How many young Western women have you ever seen wearing thigh-length shorts or *gasp* bodysuits on the beach in the summertime? If you’re like me, none, and especially none playing sports on the beach.
So the requirements for swimwear (maybe restricting them to bikini bottoms is a bit much) for a beach version of the sport seems rational and fair. And if we want to be inclusive, I guess, Muslim women can wear a hijab and face coverings, but that’s a religious exception.
If I have learned anything from this blog, it is that Ethics, or at least Jack’s version, has nothing to do with empathy or kindness. You knew nothing about the woman in the pharmacy, and she knew nothing about you. You could have been an antivaxxer, defiantly not wearing a mask, and shedding COVID because you had an asymptomatic case. She could have been on chemotherapy or a recipient of an organ transplant on immunosuppressant drugs. Maybe she suspected SHE had COVID and didn’t want to give it to you. The possibilities are endless. I believe what you did was reaction born out of frustration with the unending course of this virus, and therefore understandable. I also believe it was unkind, and in my book unethical, as was the laughter that followed.
And I think it was the proper response to a public “calling out.” If she had approached Jack to speak to him privately, fine, but if she’s making a public put-down, she needs to be challenged. The problem with people who do this to others (whether correct or not) is that getting away with such bullying encourages others to hit on anyone who appears to be vulnerable. I would have laughed, myself. Her behavior was rude, unfair and what-Jack-said.
#3 The majority of black communities have both lacked and resisted public health care from the beginning. Leaving aside the “lacked” part — the majority have been poor, and all poor communities and individuals, not just black, have been on the leftover side of tax-payers and property owners since Day One. The health-care resistance, however, is down to still-rampant superstition, old-mama-tales, power-hungry black preachers in church or out, and so-called leaders such as Al “the Sharpie” Sharpton, the teachings of Malcolm X, and today’s BLM who promoted fear and suspicion of anything “white.” Another cause of resistance is a tendency to irrational thinking wherein potential side-effects (mild to flu-ish, indicating they’re doing their job, gone in three days ) are worse than death. And spreading worst case scenarios taken from the few who were allergic – which shows itself for instant treatment within the half-hour the vaccinated person waits near or in the place they were vaccinated. The idea that the Tuskegee Experiment some 92 years ago involving 142 black people could correlate with the attempt to protect 7,624,000,000 people worldwide today is stupid as well as dangerous (as many are promoting it deliberately, using it as an excuse for their unreasoning fear as well as pushing white guilt).
The responsibility also sits with the major American press who routinely ignore anything regarding those communities. even when it is worthy of being disseminated in large headlines, and tv interviews, and classrooms, to everyone. There are plenty of role models the press doesn’t care about.
For instance, Though apparently she did appear on a Saturday morning CBS-TV news show (tons of black viewers, I expect), I do not remember hearing anything about Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, the lead scientist on the team that developed the most effective (so far) WuFlu vaccine, Moderna. And she designed it on her six years of experience studying the spike proteins of similar viruses … within two days of the novel coronavirus being discovered. The vaccine rolled out 10 months later. Now that takes talent.
And, for blind courage: a 52-year-old critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay who volunteered as the first person in America to get the vaccine outside of a trial.
Youth also plays a factor. (The NYTimes article was about vaccination rates among young Black people.)
https://www.nbc26.com/news/coronavirus/cdc-estimates-covid-19-fatality-rate-including-asymptomatic-cases
Couple this with the substantial proportion of Black people in NYC who already survived COVID-19, and you can understand the low vaccination rate.
#1: I thought the proper response to such people was to advise them that Kleenex and diapers were on isle 7.