Get the popcorn ready
It was bound to happen, but somehow we are all surprised anyway. The facts on the ground don’t seem to match what is happening in Austin. I know you’re shocked. The largest school district in the state is about to take on the governor and I’m sitting here with popcorn.
They aren’t the only ones. We recently got the electronic message from our local superintendent. They won’t be one of them, but he did manage to throw some shade on the governor before the message was done. It was clear that they likely would have had a mask mandate had there not been an executive order expressly forbidding it.
It is becoming increasingly more difficult not to call the governor an idiot. It is becoming increasingly more difficult not to call anti-vaxxers idiots. I’m not going to try anymore. Peruse social media and they are the jackasses that keep asking you if you’ve done your research on the vaccine. They are the ones that ask you if you’ve accessed the Google machine when the CDC talks about how we should continue to mask up.
They are the ones that spout off “alternative facts” about the vaccine. They probably came from OANN, Newsmax, or Fox News. Maybe they watched a video from the same guy that claimed his pillows cured cancer. At this point I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m sick and tired of being tolerant to nonsense.
There are no acceptable alternative views on this. Not every viewpoint is valid. Somewhere along the lines we somehow confused tolerance and open-mindedness with allowing every jackass with a computer to spout off bullshit that doesn’t make any sense. So, I’m sorry the governor is offended. I’m sorry if local government entities need to treat his little executive order like the toilet paper it is. Actually, I’m not sorry.
Figuratively speaking, he needs to sit down and shut up. Anti-vaxxers need to sit down and shut up. Either you can get the shot or you live in isolation. It is high time we started requiring it. Don’t pussyfoot around these people anymore. They are idiots and no amount of tolerance or consideration for their feelings is going to make any bit of difference. They are idiots pure and simple.
I’m sure the governor and lieutenant governor are going to flap their gums about nonsense when HISD votes on their mask mandate. I don’t give a shit. It is time for them to either do their jobs or sit down and shut up. The time for tolerating fools is long gone.
What also concerns me is the fact that minorities are having a harder time accessing vaccines and an underlying motive for this refusal to mandate masks is the rightwing hope that it will be the people of color who die and not their white supporters.
1It’s beyond time to push back against partisan “the base” adoration. Science has the key to ending this pandemic nightmare: make public health a top priority! Tell the governor and lieutenant governor “NO we ain’t gonna kill our people on your orders.”
“…vaccination is not a ‘deeply personal decision.’ It is a routine public health requirement in a civilized society.” — Bill Kristol
2Nick- please proofread your posts. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with you as my child’s teacher. “There” not “their.”
Remember: people WHO, things THAT.
I agree with most of your posts but cringe at the grammar.
3I wonder where the parents of the school kids stand on the governor’s stance. Being Texas and all, I’m thinking they (majority) still support abutt head as governor and his ignorance. That’s sad. I feel for all the teachers (that have been vaccinated), all the kids, the parents and grandparents in families that support doing the right things for public safety. The rest of them can go to hell.
4Same in florida and several other states.
If Typhoid Mary were still around and still insistent on working in food prep jobs, she’d be a right-wing icon and would have her choice of Liberty University graduate lawyers to defend the “right” to spread disease.
But you can be damned sure that Abbot would not let her work as a cook in the Governor’s mansion in Austin.
[linda: I agree about the need for proof-reading, but will give Nick a pass on this one since it comes from the heart and he has skin in the game.]
5It’s infuriating that Abbott is using the 1975 emergency act to keep us from responding to an emergency! I hope we can all vote in 2022 and take his magic wand away.
6I apologize for the errors. I find proofreading others work easier than proofing my own. However, I appreciate all constructive criticism and will try to do better next time.
7My Michigan friend’s cleaning lady (unvaccinated but masked) was “outraged” that her sister, an OBGYN nurse of 30 years, was being forced to leave her job because she refuses to be vaccinated. Seriously? The company the cleaning lady works for lost a big job at a motel because the motel owners required vaccination and the cleaning company cited “freedom” instead.
I think this is what it’s going to come down to—getting hit in the pocketbook—to make people comply. They’re not willing to do it out of concern for others, but maybe if it affects their wallets, they will.
8Nick@7: you are absolutely right. It is very difficult to proof one’s own work. I know this from years working in legal support where accuracy was very important. Proofing our own typing rarely yielded the desired results. Alas, I only worked in one firm where a second pair of eyes was required for all outgoing docs.
9Back to the topic: a related story out of Dallas where Clay Jenkins removed JJ Koch from a Commissioner’s Court meeting because Koch refused to wear a mask. Koch has announced he is suing Jenkins and Paxton now feels the need to become involved. More popcorn needed here.
10Then there’s this from Politicususa:
“Make No Mistake About It: Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Calling For A New Civil War”
https://www.politicususa.com/2021/08/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-civil-war.html
And she’s thinking of running for President. She needs to be kicked out of Congress. Her picture makes me nauseous.
11Nick: Hear, hear! Enough with tolerating idiots. They should all sit down and shut up.
Treehugger: I used to be a proofreader, and I still screw up trying to proof my own writing. It’s practically impossible, because you see what you wanted to write, not what you did. And Koch should just shut up and wear a damn mask.
Steve from Beaverton: MTG needs to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with some VERY serious Secret Service agents, the be expelled from Congress. Not likely, but highly desirable.
12Make that “then be,” as I go about proving my point about proofreading your own writing.
13I’m now hearing that the Lege can’t get a quorum together to suppress votes because too many GOPers have the Delta ‘rona.
Only in Texas. Er, Texas and Florida.
14Nick–Another editor/proofreader here who often misses errors in her own work. Best advice I can offer: If it’s at all possible, write your stuff, walk away from it for as long as you can stand, then go back and read it again. (Don’t read it right away; you won’t catch as many typos–which is what the “their/they’re/there” errors usually are.
Linda–Let go of the “who/that” thing; it’s a shibboleth, made up by some smart-Alecs in the late 1800s/early 1900s who decided it *should* be a thing, although it hadn’t been for centuries of English before. (They also didn’t think English infinitives should be split by analogy with Latin infinitives, which *can’t* be split. They were wrong about that, too.) One great thing about English is that it grows and evolves, and one evolution that is past due is the loss of the “who/that” shibboleth.
15Yep, see: I forgot to close the parenthesis!
16The writer opined in the article:
It is becoming increasingly more difficult not to call the governor an idiot.
Really? My governor is an idiot (Pete Ricketts), and he still seems way ahead of Greg Abbot.
Maybe it’s just idiots all the way down.
17When it comes to this Guv, it’s fun to go look at what he’s said before (he’s like Mitch McConnell in that way).
Last year (about this time), IIRC, letting local school boards decide “what’s best” for their communities was sacrosanct – he wasn’t gonna interfere, blah blah blah.
But like with any Abbott deference to “local control,” his support fades when “the locals” “choose wrong.”
Fucker.
18Here in blue-land we are scratching our heads at what’s going on to the south of us (and I’m in a particularly purple county that’s only 52% vaccinated, in a 71% total population at least partially vaccinated state.) What frosts me is that overflowing hospitals are looking north to send their Covid patients. Puhleeze! Send us your vaccinated heart attacks and kidney stones but keep Covid to yourselves.
19Abbott not alone in this madness to commit children genocide
20Tony Mignone
@tony121034
I feeling of hopelessness, the way I feel about Floridians subject to the #DeSantisGenocide decision to ignore mask and vaccine #CDC recommendations. I suffer from the same hopelessness as two of my Great Granddaughters going to school next week. Why isn’t there something 1/3.
that can be done to stop the madness? These children lives are being placed in jeopardy. No Mask mandate and no vaccine mandate is crazy as the #Deltavarient easily passes from child to child. WE have many laws that protect us from people who ignore these regulations Why 2/3
can’t we do something about #Desantis? He is actually going to allow children to be exposed to Covid and maybe a horrible death. Can he be impeached? Can we sue in court to stop him? I won’t survive anything happening to my Great Grandchildren. 3/3 #DesantisFailed #DeSantisGenocide
Carry on Señor Carraway and don’t sweat the slings. I remember Safire’s readers getting on his case. He took heat from the Gotcha Gang, the Lexicological Irregulars and my favorite, the Squad Squad.
21I cannot understand killing children. Then again, I’m not a Republican.
22Repugnanticans play to the fanatical base until the bitter end.
23And many sick people are being turned away because hospitals are maxed out. They don’t care about that either. Bastards
@ Tony Mignone @20,
If I were a parent in Florida, I would practice peaceful civil disobedience by keeping my precious children safe and well at home, rather than sending them to in-person classes. Masks may not give enough protection in a classroom environment to protect children or teaching staff from the Delta variant. I hope there is a vaccine for school age kids soon.
As for De Santass, perhaps a huge class action law suit from parents might get his attention. Or maybe Lady Karma will send a lightning bolt with his name on it.
24I refer to the stance of the anti-vaxers as “the thinning of the herd!”
25Has anyone actually done the statistics on relative deaths of like Dems and Rethugs? Especially in purple counties?
26