Belated Out of Office Notice
Posting resumes next week
Although expecting to be busy and on the road this week, I thought I would be able to kick out a couple posts as I managed last week. My time has been even more limited than planned, crammed to the brim with the bizarre daily routines that once made up my normal, not-sinking-into-debt-while-writing-a-biology-blog life.
On a related note, San Diego and LA (outside of downtown) have reopened and de-masked to a degree not seen since summer, 2020.
Most of the super-vaccinated, those that only took the shots as an imagined passport to societal normalcy in the first place, are tired of the virus and seemingly more hesitant to refer to the current moment as “since Covid” by the day, as if rapidly growing ashamed of the childish, self-imposed mental illness they gave into. (No one speaks of or appears to suffer from health issues from either the virus or the shots, but that has always been true to a certain extent in California - as if we have received the “blank” version of both. This might also be related to pre-existing immunity to the spike protein from exposure to the virus from Chinese students and travelers in 2019, as I have speculated before.)
Others, of course - college students and younger adults especially - are still walking and electric-scootering around with ridiculous duck-faces (n95s). And many of the hispanic working class, in Chula Vista especially, still clings to the plastic masks that were officially denounced as useless half a year ago.
Expanded thoughts on what this may mean for coastal / Blue America’s political and social destiny in a coming post.
Newer subscribers: For a taste of the “normal” content offered by this journal, I recommend the currently pinned post:
If that is not satisfactory, consider reading and discussing some of the work by “Jon” at Inflamed Cynic, who has recently dived into some political themes that I have long wanted to feature more here. An example:
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Far too many masks here in Dunedin, central city especially.
My travels in last 3 weeks to Australia;
* Sunshine Coast, Queensland - really low mask compliance a % or two at most.
* Melbourne, Victoria - a little higher but no masks required for retail or cafes/restaurants so most are not complying. Maybe 7/8% or so in the streets of the CBD.
* Christchurch, NZ. In places like libraries and upper middle class bookshops the gaslighters are out in force. They lunge at you "wear your mask". They seem to love doing it. But outside of these environments compliance is low.
* Dunedin (home and a University city) - mad. 30/40% compliance on the streets in the CBD. I've taken to insulting them.
Covid isn't totally dead in LA. I have a friend who got one shot for a production gig but started feeling a little dizzy after his regular exercise...so he didn't get another shot. Now he's thinking of trying to get more "industry" jobs (entertainment) and he's already been turned down from a few small jobs because he hasn't been fully jabbed. It's required by SAG/AFTRA. So the covid insanity is far from over there, it's just buried under the surface.