You get pushed enough, eventually you push back. Wear a seatbelt. Wear a helmet. Wear a mask.
No.
It is enough.
A Solzhenitsyn Moment descends when people finally realize they have nothing left to lose – except their chains.
And much to regain.
The Mask Mandate – gradually congealing here, already imposed there – is a mandate too far. Bad enough to be denied the freedom to do as you like inside your own damn car, when the doing harms no other person. And the same when on your bike, when he doing harms the person on the bike – who is denied the freedom to feel the sun on his face and the wind in his hair as well as forced to have his visual range diminished and his auditory range all-but-eliminated by an edict that he must wear a got-damned helmet or else because some control freaks are “concerned” that if he wrecks, he might get hurt.
It doesn’t matter that he is arguably more likely to wreck – because of the vision-limiting helmet, which makes it harder to see things coming at the rider from the side without turning his head to look – at which point, his eyes are no longer on the road ahead.
But the point isn’t even that.
It does not matter whether wearing a helmet is “safer.” It may be wildly unsafe. So?
What matters – all you Karens and Kevins reading these words – is that it is not your business to impose your “concerns” about saaaaaaaaafety on other people.
You have no more right to demand that people wear a helmet, or a seatbelt – or a Fear Mask – than you have to demand that people stay out of the sun or stay home or do – or not do – anything else you don’t happen to like.
You despicable busybodies – you worms – need to relearn the concept of minding your own business. And it is going to be a lesson imposed by the fists (and more) of people who have, at last, reached the limit of their willingness to put up with your kind.
You have gone too far with Fear Masking.
You have lit a fuse that is going to result in an explosion the likes of which your atrophied humanity cannot conceive because you have no humanity and do not understand what happens when bullied human beings reach their limit.
You are about to find out.
I rode my motorcycle yesterday sans the got-damned helmet – the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. I rode around like this for an hour, the feelings I haven’t felt in more than 25 years – the last time it was “legal” to ride a motorcycle in my state sans helmet – flooding back and rebooting my tired – but rejuvenating – soul.
I am feeling free again – because I am behaving like a free man again.
I have decided to insist on my freedom – and not just to decide for myself whether to wear a helmet or “buckle up” or wear a Fear Mask and perform Sickness Kabuki, which I refuse to do.
It is enough!
I cannot express how good it feels to ignore the Mask Mandate and march right in to a store and shop like a human being. To walk where I feel like walking, paying no more attention to taped lines on the ground than I do to “buckle up” signs on the road. To ride without the got-damned helmet.
I had forgotten how diminished life is because of Karens and Kevins. How each year, it gets a little worse, a bit more insufferable. More rules, more fines. And now taped lines – Cattle Chuting and Fear Masking
.
No.
It is enough!
I rode with a smile, laughing into the breeze – almost wanting to be confronted by one of your attack dogs – the armed government workers you poltroons rely upon to enforce your “concerns.” If confronted, there would have been no contrition. I might not even have stopped.
Why in the world should I, as a moral matter? Who are these thugs – just the right word – to swing in behind me, order me to halt and accost me with a gun and and extortion notes demanding the payment of money?
For what?
Because some Karen or Kevin is “concerned” I might scuff my own got-damned noggin?
Piss off, you costumed cretin. Your legitimacy isn’t showing. People – good people, just wanting to live their lives – weary of being treated like criminals by criminals.
These AGWs are soon going to understand the fear they have been imposing on the population, which rounds upon them even now. It is medicine much needed to restore the health of this society.
And when they have been schooled, the Karens and Kevins will be alone. Their “concerns” – if they dare to express them again – will have consequences.
It has been a long time coming.
And it is about got-damned time.
. . .
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Did mean to ask, tho, remember when “No Fear” decals graced the bumpers, tailgates, & rear windows of just about every other car on the road? And then those “Baby on Board” ones – were those before, or after, all that fearlessness?
But what brung me back to this bit of the needlework was a pair o’ Tor o’ posts my morning inbox indicated were here, but ain’t. For shame! They was so good I wrote into the then unbeknownst vacuum:
+1. So good I can’t add a thing, or two, that wouldn’t be wasted gild o’ tor roy’s not decaffeinated l\illy bean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePV3G51Jqlg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v55GWP30F4E
The most depressing revelations of the Wuhan pandemic have been the willingness of “law enforcement” to follow unconstitutional, unlawful orders and the willing of “citizens” to comply with them. Unfortunately the terms “armed government workers” and “sheeple” have proven true. Resistance may be futile, but it has become necessary.
Hey Griff….
You said “The most depressing revelations of the Wuhan pandemic have been the willingness of “law enforcement” to follow unconstitutional, unlawful orders and the willing of “citizens” to comply with them.”
The interesting thing to me is that anybody with much in the way of observational power would ever depend on the USC for a principled protection of natural rights. I’m not ragging on you specifically, but that piece of paper has been a dead letter for over 200 years. Lysander Spooner summed it up
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
― Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
Actually, I am loathe to depend on quoting others to justify my position but Spooner was an interesting character. Bottom line, there is nothing especially unique about the path to tyranny taken in the American experiment. The history of the colonization of what is now the U.S. is particularly sordid….Murray Rothbard in the first couple of volumes of Conceived in Liberty details how fucked up the colonial era tyrants were. I contend that the people who fomented the revolution, especially the Hamiltonian folks, really wanted the tyranny to be locally controlled rather than from afar. But, I could be wrong….BTW, Eric at al, I went to Whole Foods the other day in Chattanooga. They had a sign mandating masks and gloves, which I totally ignored of course. What was encouraging though was that I’d estimate that around 50% of the people shopping there were in my camp…hooray.
Hi Giuseppe!
In re this:
” I went to Whole Foods the other day in Chattanooga. They had a sign mandating masks and gloves, which I totally ignored of course. What was encouraging though was that I’d estimate that around 50% of the people shopping there were in my camp…hooray.”
Yes, hooray! I cannot stress how critical it is to ignore and oppose Fear Masking; to ridicule it and anathematize the insanity of it. We have a small window of opportunity to “stop the spread.”
And we’d damned well better use it.
You could be wrong. About something else. But not about that.
The versa viced down too tight for thought afflicts them who build on the sandy proposition that the selectmen from the selectime were an extraordinary one-off, rather than the typical goof-offs that take the shortcut to fat slices that is every state (people) & nation (people) & government (people) there ever was or will be.
“Power” doesn’t corrupt – it attracts the already corrupt.
Spooner & Rothbard were good, but nobody functional needs those boys to know what they knew. Then wasn’t special. Neither is now. Recurrence is eternal & chopping that wave up, “linearizing,” it is just more psych “defense” mech stuff, which is to say offense against self. And self-offense feeds forward & back: projection.
The wave rolls on, in place.
Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign ~ Five Man Electrical Band
What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly saying, “hooray for our side” ~ Buffalo Springfield
Most of what’s “known” – “taught” – is just billboards along the roads.
But that’s not the important part: all that bill o’ goods billboardwalk empire shite is just magnified projections of the sandwich board “wearing” people shuffling along those roads.
“Living” words – constitutions — & walking dead.
Symbols animating symbol “makers.”
Its snafu, & there’s nuthin’ for it.
Hi Ozy,
I know most of Der Horst Wessel Lied by heart; I am going to begin singing it out loud amongst the Fear Masked. Maybe they will get it…
Since I didn’t get it, don’t know the tune named, I looked it up. Guy who wrote it was a nazi that the commies called fascist – and they shot him. Iatrogenics, blood poisoning, finished him off. Goebbels mythomartyrized him. Do you get it?
No Jekyll Island Hydes to be found in any street fight. Not ever. Those contact patch-points was only made for burning, fuel for entropy’s engine. And the front lines burning themselves down don’t do anything about plate-spinners tectonic’ing from the rear.
Hmmm. All the talk about representation. In these sorts of burn off the natgas fights, the other guy, ostensibly his plate-spinner’s representative, is actually your representative, & you are his. Any who survive get all the PTSD & free veterans hospital coverage they can stand.
Evade the flying monkeys. Stay fresh for Oz & the witch.
Or at least recognize the projection & displacement going on in the papa’l enpsychlical.
The monkeys elevate Oz & the witch. Fightin’ the monkeys elevates Ozwitch even more. Maybe seems counterintuitive. But its marblecountersolid.
Your mission, jim, should the decision to take it be already wired in, is to let Ozwitch do what it does – take itself down – without volunteering to go down with it.
Pawno a Pawno is part of chess, but sub 1D from the pawned’s perspective.
“Little Walter,” Chess Records
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmxTbcnW6bY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXpyDTrbu3k
Excellent article Eric glad you had a good ride (I got a ride in yesterday myself). I also will NEVER wear a mask no matter what and most of the people around my area seem to have the same feelings.
You are right about the trend needing confrontation Eric. I finally threw away the one messed up Shoei that saved my noggin from a 90 year old blind Buick driver. So I got religion over that one. But my religion does not force you into the same church. I though the founding fathers spelled that out pretty clearly in 1791. But that was before the Karl Marx and Greta Thunberg corrupt welfare state, and their sheep that need some politician daddy and mommie to do their thinking and dirty work. They would never do their own. That is what the 1-800 “taxpayer supported” Stasi snitch line is for.
Hi Torino,
Indeed! Too many people focus on something they happen not to agree with, consider “unsafe” or “risky” – such as riding without a helmet or not wearing a seatbelt – and have no problem imposing a mandate enforceable using threats of violent repercussions (it’s the law!) without understand that by doing so, they have endorsed a principle that can and will be used against them, over some thing that other people don’t like about what they like to do.
I may take on some additional risk by not riding with a helmet but I take on much lower risk with regard to how I care for myself. I am very fit; I run several miles every other day and lift weights regularly. I can easily do 100 push ups and have a size 32 waist. Being fit reduces the risk of things like heart attack, diabetes and so on – things that might impose costs on society. By the same busybody logic used to force me to wear a helmet/seatbelt, I could just as logically demand that everyone be required to exercise regularly and be fined for failing to do so.
Just one example.
I think each of us being free to live our lives as we see fit is a much better way to go as it means not being pestered (and worse) by busybodies over things that are none of their business!
I might not have a bike and helmet, but I also refuse to wear a mask in public
I went to NY yesterday for work and went into a supermarket, no one said shit to me as I walked around getting food. Had to do blood work for my dr today, no one at Labcorp said anything.
Only time someone said something was an AGW, but I was leaving Wegman’s anyway, so didn’t matter that I ignored him. What are they gonna do, kick me out of the store?
Ahh Wegmans. I went to my local Wegmans today and left in disgust. They were limiting the number of people in the store, and there was a line waiting to get in. Fuck that. If they wanted me as a customer, they would welcome me instead of telling me to wait for God knows how long in the rain just to get in. I’ll shop elsewhere, thank you very much.
Hi Mike,
Can you believe it? Not only lines to get in stores- as in the old Soviet Union – but Fear Masks, too. Which even the old Soviet Union didn’t require. But it canonly cement if the people acceded to it.
If they do, then god damn them.
Home Depot is doing the same thing. I showed up to my local store on Saturday a couple weeks ago, saw the mile-long line backed up into the parking lot, and turned right around and headed back to my car. Nofaking way was I going to be treated like a head of cattle by any business.
Hey they just mandated hookers and their customers in Greece to wear face masks and gloves !! The world is a safer place….
What a timely article. If we don’t start pushing back hard, these restrictions will be with us forever. I see these people positioning mask wearing as the caring thing to do, because “you might be sick and you could infect someone else”. That statement is 100% true 100% of the time. Do you think this goes away after this particular scare? These controlling bastards will never let go of this voluntarily.
Hi Mrbear,
Thanks for the kind words; also – you’re right – “you might be sick and you could infect someone else” – applies universally and not just to sickness. It is the recipe for limitless authoritarian management (and punishment) in the name of “might” and “what if.”
I dunno Eric. I always wore my 60s Bell helmet with Spain made goggles. The brainbox has several gouges and scrape marks on it but my brain is semi-OK.
One time I was in the local hospital with my gunshot wound. I got out of traction after about three weeks of nothing uplifting save for Benny Hill. I met two vegetatives that didn’t wear a simple helmet and had nasty scars from where their globe was cut open to save what was left of their brains. It didn’t seem to work, but they did get the same care as indigents as I did as a paying customer.
You can ride around all that you care to do just as long as I do not have to pay for your care when you get a huge splat from hitting a bumblebee, or even a dove o the face.
I just hope that all here are not among the 2,200,000 forecast to be dead. And do stay under two miles per minute for your safety.
post script, I am really annoyed that the Spanish goggles are not made anymore. The curved optics were flawless and sweatless for that matter. The Italian ones are not nearly as good as they are plastic lenses and tend to ride up at speed.
Aren’t you sorry that I donated to your site?
Hi Erie,
Well, it’s also arguable – just as much – that fat fucks who eat shit food all day “impose costs on society” and – therefore – every fat fuck who eats shit food should be fined and forced to work out… eh?
I am so sick and got-damned tired of the “costs on society” argument. Especially when I have cost no one a got-damned cent.
How about, instead, we leave each other be – free to decide for ourselves how to live our lives – and to enjoy the rewards and assume the risks for ourselves?
I know you mean well – but I’m cranky. Because I am done with being hassled over “might” when I haven’t by people who are doing “imposing” of their own.
Golly Eric, I didn’t type anything other that “YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN”.
Three bucks for an XP keyboard and it goes into caps lock.
I got your point except I am a sissy who wears a five point harness when stupid, but with no mask or helmet.
I am a bit of a prick on insisting on nominal protections for the employees. I got religion when seeing the results of failed street rod incidents. They were in hardtops and I was in ragtop. It is ugly when a guy and gal gets their heads ground off on the pavement. No helmet could have saved them. Nevertheless, I choose to wear a seatbelt and choose to wear a helmet and leathers and steel shank boots if I am going fast. At least the getup will contain the mess and make for an easier cleanup.
Hi Erie,
The stridency of my reply is a function of being fed up with “might” and “what if” – and the endless busybodyism at gunpoint this has generated.It has got to stop. Risk is part of life; we each have a different threshold for risk (vs. reward) and part of being a grown up human being and not a child is to have one’s right to make such calculations for oneself, irrespective of what others worry might happen. If something dopes happen, then the individual must deal with the consequences. But not before. This simple line in the san separates a free society from one that esteems “safety” (and “health”) as defined by others, usually vaguely more than the specific freedom to be left free until and only if a harm is caused to some other person.
“…now!” has me flashing on this brit AGW, & those “good old days” when mace really stung:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-lElNoudg
Gents, the beauty of the USA is freedom. Period. If you want to wear maxed out safety gear, helmets/leathers/boots/spine brace/kevlar/whatever else, you are welcome to do it. If you want to ride with no helmet/shoes/shirt/in bikini shorts, you are free to do just that. The dilemma is when “the Man” says you gotta wear this, that, and the other thing to do such n’such for any activity. And we are way passed that slippery slope. Buck up and Buckle Up (or dont), we are on a bumpy ride and its getting worse….
That’s the damndest thing about herds: all are on their own “together” ♫wishin, & hopin’, & prayin’♫ & mostly truly believin’ its one of the herdmates that’s gonna’ buy it, & neverever themselves. That’s “social” animalia in action, right there.
Ha. More of that grater good shred. Microplane, box, or Cuisinart, sir?
It’s sewin’ circle “society” that imposes unrefusable offer-costs. The greater fill in the blank is an angry & vengeful god…& big-bigger-biggest gods is good, all size queens agree.
Being conceived-born “doesn’t” -*shouldn’t* (but does)- indenture to whatever flag just happens to be flying at that placetime, “nor does it” -*should not* (but does)- community property’ize the conception.
But tell that to the tribe. Any tribe. Incl the family guise.
Think globally, act locally? That’s not how it’s done. It’s act, reflexively, locally – very locally – think up narratives to explain the knee jerk…& let the global metastasis take care of interlocking itself.
Some say the universe & everything “in it” is a hologram. Dunno. But comes to people, it’s emulation. Which is close enough to simulation. And what’s emulated most is whatever that greater god does, is doing. It’s how the emulates worship the one true tried on for size – the bigger the size the better, but always local scale. Monkey see monkey do’s how that big brain’s small’ly used.
Among t/issues of lies big & little from them loins is boundary issues, as in, they got no issues with having no boundaries…& got nuthin’ but issues with them who seek to preserve boundaries.
It’s 96:4. Emulator monopoly : reservation fugitives.
& that’s why fish heads, accompanied by that ironical tune Born Free, gotta’ should oughta’ wanta’ count, be the best possible job done, cuz horseheads in yer bed’s what’s almost certainly going to be the return favor.
A possible perspective shift key: if you were middle nowhere, no “society” to pick up the pieces of your helmetless head, if you more or less lay where you fell, would you comport yourself in the same flirtatious manner? Backcountry conductivity ain’t the same as frontcountry, is it?
Stepping outside of it might also lube perspective of it, “society,” & it’s 96/100 Milgram•pilgrims zapping whoever they are supposed to zap in the prescribed prescriptive proscriptive way.
96% of 1st world is 3rd graders waiting for the next bell to be rung. And that very definitely includes them Rockefellar-official’d Humpty re-assemblers down at the ER.
Then, maybe, realize that you are middle nowhere whatever the country. You are on your own. Emulation’s illusion & so’s leaning on it…& so’s “fighting it” – fighting to de-emulate the illusionati.
So beware: a weekend at bernie’s can turn into a lifelong Weus!
In a country that respected the constitution, you would NOT have to pay for Eric’s care if he wipes out on his scoot and is messed up. HE would be the expenses, or any private insurer that he has a policy with. And insurance companies, experts at NOT paying claims, have many means to mitigate costs and keep premiums at a marketable cost. Exclusions, deductibles, and simply not writing high-risk policies are the methods; these, BTW, are what “single-payer” or other socialist bullshit ideas try to bypass, by having those whom, usually by CHOICE, are much better insurance risks. The end result is EVERYONE pays MORE, by having to take on undue risk, also, with the market incentives removed, everyone involved, including doctors, hospital, and insurance companies, have no incentive to compete. What’s known as a “lose-lose” proposition.
Citizen journalist in NYC has been showing how crisis actors are working out of the phony outdoor hospitals in the city. He follows ambulances that drive all around the city taking their sweet time instead of going directly to the hospital. He also documented that two very large hotels are open and very busy with people coming and going and even standing outside chatting, etc. He also saw people carrying Target store bags and then shows people and soldiers coming out of an open Target store with those same bags. He asked three girls if they were nurses to which they replied, “Yes” but then said that they weren’t’ working in the hospitals and “..couldn’t tell him what they were doing.” He also goes around to funeral homes and hospitals showing that not much is happening. He also randomly interviews people dressed in medical garb and gets very honest responses.
Heres an interesting thing looking at the stats for corona virus deaths in the UK. 5 days – they are at a certain level… on the weekend however, both days the deaths drop to about half the previous Friday!! ? Was speaking to an uncle the other day who’s into property management – One of his contractors (who has a lot of hospital contracts) told him. the hospitals are busy somehow during the week during working hours- but empty on weekends! So what the virus only turns up on weekends during working hours!!
Pre virus – hospitals / A&E here were always busier on weekends because people had more time and were more likely to be checked on the weekend, so one could argue virus deaths would be higher on the weekends.
Hi Nasir,
The boiled down essence of Corona is this: It’s a bug that spreads easily but manifests symptoms in only about 20 percent of those infected; of these, the risk of death if the person is under 70 and doesn’t have any serious underlying health problems is less than one-half of one percent.
The impositions imposed on the 99.5 percent of people who aren’t going to die from Corona are pathological – evidence of mass hysteria teetering on the edge of insanity.
Further evidence IMO that this is an exercise.
Life is a terminal disease. Regardless how much care one lives their life with, there is eventually going to be a fatal event. What one risks in their path through life is a personal choice, since no one else has a higher claim over the value of your life, or the value you place on how you choose to risk it. You may slip and fall in the shower this morning and die. Or, you may live to be 90 while smoking two packs a day.
Hi JWK,
Yes, exactly. The imposition of control and punishment on account of “risk” is hugely arbitrary, hence infuriating. The invariably overweight AGWs who accost me (same BMI I had when I was 19) for not wearing a seatbelt are at much higher “risk” – statistically – of diabetes, heart disease, etc. than I am of being harmed by not wearing a seatbelt.
There’s lots of worse things than fatal. Even some jarheads born on the fourth of july figure that out…too late.
Learning the hard way has got some definite plusses. It’s also got plenty of minuses that erase every bit of plus.
Glenwood Springs and Aspen have mandatory mask laws in effect. Rifle and western Garfield County “recommend” masks but they aren’t mandatory. I won’t be shopping or otherwise spending time in Glenwood Springs and will only go to Aspen if work takes me there. For now having the ability to vote with my feet seems to be the best course of action.
Took a 50 mile bicycle ride yesterday through Glenwood Springs toward Aspen. About half the people on the bike trail were masked. The restrooms were closed “due to COVID-19.” My guess is that the government employees are using the Wuhan Flu as an excuse to avoid work and the managers aren’t going to make them do their jobs. Easier to pretend to be scared and put up police lines.
I’m sure that those poor government employees are nevertheless receiving their “just compensation” for NOT doing there jobs. Funny how the least “essential” among us are those most protected from any consequences of their insanity.
So do folks just stop and pee along the trail ??? LOL
The only silver lining to all this?
It must be playing hell with The System’s got-damned surveillance, facial recognition and identification grid.
Coming to a business near you soon…
https://97zokonline.com/an-illinois-police-department-is-asking-you-to-tip-your-mask/
C’mon up to pa. Gettysburg. Some awesome rides up thru the mountains, no helmet, not so many cager problems, we can hop a 1820s humpbacked bridge or two. My sportster doesnt mind if i dont get on the throttle too hard… it comes back down like a big brick…
The thing is, I consider myself an expert risk assessment agent on my own behalf. The empirical evidence is in… I’m still here, and thriving. To the Karens and Kevins of the world, of which there seems to be no shortage, even in my southern semi rural area, I’d like to extend a very warm and sincere “Fuck Off”.
Had a company meeting today. It seems to me that soon, wearing a fear mask in the office will be mandatory. What a decision I will be facing! My dignity and sanity vs. my job (which I really enjoy). I have considered that as people in the office stop working remotely and start coming in to the office with masks a blazing, I may then decide it’s time to START working remotely until the psychosis wears off.
The radical leftist HR manager made a speech describing the “evil” of those who ridicule and bully mask wearers. “He (it)” seemed completely oblivious to the fact that MANDATING the wearing of masks IS BULLYING those who do not wish to wear masks. These people are insane and I’m almost at my wits end. I choose to look on as an observer of comedic circumstances in order not to take detrimental (to my job) drastic actions.
I walked by a couple of ladies in the office who were discussing the fabulous homemade masks they each had on (such fashion!), made from loosely woven bandanas. I told them that I was contemplating putting up a chain link fence around my property to keep the mosquitoes out.
Start looking for a new job. You see, you’ve become that most “evil” of persons, a “DENIER”.
Yeah, never mind that the porosity of most cloth masks, in fact, are far worse than your analogy of keeping out mosquitoes with a chain link fence. At best, they catch some condensate from your breath, and should you cough or sneeze, a “loogie” from your mouth or a “booger” from your nose. And then the darned thing is FILTHY, from a biological sense, so yes, you MIGHT reduce the likelihood of infecting others, but your own respiratory system will be working that much harder.
Else, ask yourself why a high-performance engine doesn’t have a 0.2 micron filter…answer it simple…it’d STALL, since it would STARVE for air! Maybe a sedentary 45 y.o. overweight woman, whom couldn’t carry a 10 lb. sack of groceries up three flights of stairs without nearly passing out and being out of breath for 15 minutes, can sit in her cubicle all day with a cloth mask over her pie-hole. One up-side though…may’be she’ll shut the fuck up.
If you pronounce it den•yeer, it means the weight in grams of 9000 meters of thread. Wonder what denier it takes to hold ol’ Gulliver down?
Had to go into the PO yesterday. And thought it likely, before I got there, I’d not be allowed to enter (the gov has all-powerful oz’d that masks are mandatory).
Went twice, because the first time the 6-foot safespace line of maskies was out the door, so I went on to other errands & came back at the end, & the line was shorter.
About half the latter line was masked. Neither of the two govdrones were masked. Plexi shields had been mocked up on the counter (2×4’s taped to the counter & the plex slid between.
The female drone ripped out a huge sneeze & – no kidding – 2 or 3 of the maskies all said in virtual unison, “god bless you.”
OK, so I went to the doctor today…for poison ivy.
When I made the appointment they told me to bring a mask if i had one, which I did. I was the only person in about a 300sq ft waiting areaand was sans mask. When they called me back I asked the nurse if she wanted me to put on the mask. She asked if I was sick. I said, “no”. she said, “nah, don’t worry about it.” The practitioner I saw said, “Yeah, they make us wear them.” they sure didn’t seem like they were overly concerned.
You’ve nailed it, Mark. They’re for SHOW…the latest form of virtue-signaling.
This is why I can’t get enough of Denis Leary’s, “I’m an ASSHOLE…”!
Hi Doug,
Yup; weaponized virtu signaling. The equivalent of forcing everyone to drive an electric car.
I’d rather drive a 1973 Cadillac El Dorado…a TANK with hubcaps.
Hi Doug,
Oh, the pain!
About eight years ago, I had a chance to buy – and almost did buy – a ’74 Fleetwood Brougham d’Elegance. Original owner; in solid #2 shape. The old man’s wife was asking $3,500.
I almost bought it but held back on account of lack of garage space.
It makes mw weep when I think about it…
Keep looking, deals like that, they are still out there. Real beauty is now you only have to worry about your own, and maybe the banks, approval in order to buy it!! No wife headaches!!
Have you no regard for the Stock Market? Attitudes such as yours could ruin the trillions poured upon the financial markets.
I just heard on the wireless that pet animals are possible carriers of the plague. I suppose that means that my bird dog will have to sleep on the floor. Now she who was apolitical, now hates goomint as much as I do. Unlike my wife, she is attentive when I talk to her about political theory, and now finally gets it.
Here in Alaska it’s kind of an interesting situation. Just about everyone knows it’s BS, “social distancing” and one-way shopping aisles are ignored with impunity (and with no apparent ill effect, judging by the last time I saw Coronacircus statistics for the state), and store employees who are required to wear masks often find creative ways to subvert the requirements. Some “cross-loop” the masks to create big holes at the sides and let in actual oxygen, others, tired of being unintelligible from 3 feet away, carelessly pull the masks down to talk, and some especially brave souls just wear them scrunched-up on their chins so they can say they have one and can pull it up if an annoying boss catches them.
All this is despite the big corporations doing everything they can to reinforce the fear circus.
One positive effect is that car dealerships no longer want to put a salesman in the car with you on a test drive – so you can whip the car as hard as you want as long as you don’t crash it or leave obvious signs of abuse. My Escort finally rusted itself to death, so I’ve been doing this a lot lately. If I can get a loan, I’ve got my eye on a 2015 Mitsubishi Lancer GT, if I can’t, I really don’t know what I’m going to do because every private-seller car I’ve driven so far has been both overpriced and completely trashed.
I ride a bicycle from time to time. Most always without a helmet. I balance the risk of a head trauma versus the ability to avoid a collision in the first place on my decision on whether or not to gear up. When I lived in Florida, I almost always wore a helmet because I was afraid that drivers would hit me. When I moved to Texas, I quit wearing it because the driving climate was less hostile to cyclists than the part of FL I was living in. When I moved to the other side of Houston, TX, I quit riding altogether. I don’t believe that a helmet would save me from injury, but tolerating risk is up to the individual in any case. I detest seat belt laws, speed limits, and all sorts of traffic regulation. It’s none of their got damned business. All I would tell Eric is be alert to the dangers. Riding a motorcycle is something that I personally would never do, but I respect people who can.
Swamprat,
I had a few bicycle crashes as a kid, and only ONE of the impacted my head. That was on the chin though, something that a helmet wouldn’t have prevented. The rest were skinned legs, knees, and elbows; again, a helmet wouldn’t have done a damn thing to prevent them. I don’t see why a regular rider would need a helmet. It seems more apropos for the pro riders capable of higher speeds, guys who’d be going fast enough to flip and land on their heads…
As for riding a motorcycle, I’ve climbed out of the saddle-at least for now. I wasn’t worried about my scooters, nor was I worried about my capabilities as a rider. I was always careful to make sure I was 100% good to go; if I wasn’t, I didn’t ride. What worried me was getting HIT by a cager. If I had a dollar for every bone headed, life threatening move a cager made, I’d be a rich man!
With the laws of physics being what they are, when two objects collide, the smaller one (i.e. the bike), will always come out worse. Plus, you’re unprotected; you don’t have steel, glass, and airbags to cushion any impact. Also, I don’t want to have to go to the hospital, possibly endure surgery, let alone recover. Surgery is the easy part; it’s the post op physical therapy that’s a PITA! Even if you don’t have to undergo surgery, you’ll pick up some bumps and bruises; I know, because I’ve gotten them from a minor crash. Those minor will require recovery too. I don’t want to bother with all that. Besides, I need to be there for my two cats; they need me, and I need to be there for them. Taking less risks ensures my ability to do that… 🙂
I’ll keep my “M” endorsement though. I may even rent out bikes now and then. That’s what my brother does. He has three kids, so he sold his bike. He still takes a trip or two each year though, and he does so on a rented bike. I may get another bike; I don’t know. As of right now, I don’t want to take the risk anymore. At 58, it’s easier to get hurt, and it’s a lot harder to recover vs. when I was 18 or 28. When it comes to motorcycles, I won’t say never again, but definitely not for now…
Bicycle helmets protect your head from one angle, basically doing an end-o if you send your front wheel into a ditch or otherwise stop forward momentum of the bike without stopping yourself. I’ve never had that happen myself but I ride road bikes mostly. A friend of mine loves to tell stories about wrecking on his mountain bike and that he’s replaced quite a few helmets over the years.
The point being, its a choice, that you made, after your own risk/reward assessment, and no one else has any legitimate authority to make that assessment for you. if the pleasure of riding without a helmet exceeds your fear of injury, then that’s what you should do. If not, then you should wear one. If you are too stupid to make such assessment accurately, then that’s a personal problem, not someone else’s.
“if the pleasure of riding without a helmet exceeds your fear of injury…” & exceeds also your probably all too limited apprehension of the regret you’ll need to “new normalize” after your smashing pumpkin experience…”then that’s what you should do.”
Irony. Pristine, well-maintained cars, bikes, tools in the garage space.
Probably contempt for people who mistreat, do not maintain tools…good tools are expensive, worthy of respect & care.
But in the headspace, the ultimate, most expensive & irreplaceable tool, the tool-wielder hisownself, who ain’t even as tough as a deer, a doe, a female deer (link), some seriously rusted nuts & bolts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty6JPyr2XZ0&t=69s
on the plus side i’ve just returned from a four hour bike ride (with a helmet unfortunately) and the roads are empty. I’ve been winging around the country roads down and farm tracks and through woods etc and had a brilliant time. Stopped for a cigarette and had a chat with a couple of other bikers out for a bit of fun down by a place called Vicars Bridge. The sun was shinning the birds singing and the river shimmering for all its worth. Roll on tomorrow when i’ll be out again.
Amen, Biker!
I got the two-up seat installed on the ’83 GL650 – so now I can take a passenger out, also not Fear-Masked!
Got Beaucoup parts for that 650 if you ever need them… Sold mine to buy the HD.
You need about twice the displacement for good 2-up riding, dude. Even on my 1100 it’s a lot more WORK horsing that thing around with a passenger. Solo, the bike feels like an extension of myself…
Hi X,
Not at all! I’ve owned the ’83 GL650 for a long time and it has plenty of power for two. Is it a crotch rocket? No, of course not. But it doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with traffic or maintaining highway speeds, with ample margin for passing.
The Honda twisted twin is almost a 700 – and that was considered a large cc bike when it was new!
Eric, I respect your right to wear a helmet or not.
But, not wearing a helmet is one of the stupidest things you can do. Injury is always about the sudden stop. Body parts against an immovable object is a sudden stop. Try walking into a wall, sudden stop hurts even at 1 mph. It’s just physics. Ever notice the boards at an NHL game now move? Head against anything is life threatening. All you could hope for is death over brain damage on a motorcycle at any speed over 1 mph.
Many experiences, many serious brain injuries or death saved by helmets+. And good helmets, Snell stuff costs a lot for a reason. My brain has smashed into trees at 15mph, and walls at raceways at 100mph (glancing blows luckily). And yet I still function. My daughter was not so lucky falling from a cheerleader pyramid against frozen ground. She was lucky it didn’t break her neck, but she did damage the lower left rear of her brain and she got epilepsy from it and has battled this for 5 years. Not fun, but it looks like her brain is on it’s way to fixing itself (takes a long time if you do everything right).
IMO, wear a helmet, and gloves and good boots at a min. When we ride off-road today, our peer group has a pact that we all wear all the gear or we don’t ride.
One race day it was cold, and I couldn’t fit my jacket over my chest protector, so I didn’t wear the chest protector. My buds said no way or we don’t ride, and they may have saved my life. I felt like a stay-puffed marshmallow man, but that one crash against a 2″ thick spear sticking up out of the ground, a thousand to one, took the wind out of me and I blanked out for a minute with the sudden stop of the spear against my chest protector. Put a hole in my thick chest protector and the spear got 1/2″ deep past the plastic. My ribs hurt for a week. It was a close call.
Lots of other examples, but please wear as much gear as you can.
Again, I respect your right to do what you want, but if you were one of my friends we’d be having a talk.
Chris,
Holy missing the point, Batman!
The issue is not the saaaaaaaaaafety merits of helmets or seatbelts. It is being forced to wear them by tyrants who believe they have the right to parent other adults.
I have had enough of being parented.
Haven’t you?
Helmet wearing – and the “safety” thereof – is not the issue.
To be clear: I willingly wear a helmet when on the track. But that is different – and regardless, it’s my choice – just as I respect your right to make choices I may not agree with. “Stupid” or not.
Please respect my choice to enjoy the wind and the sun – just as I respect your right to gear up, if that’s what you feel the need to do.
I have misread your intent, sorry. I absolutely respect your choice to do whatever you wish. But please wear a helmet, eye protection, gloves and good boots, minimum, every time on two wheels. I have 10’s of thousands of dirt and road race miles behind me, with a 1000+/- crashes to speak from experience.
Hi Chris,
Not me. I am willing to take the slight risk in exchange for the certainty of feeling free. I routinely ride wearing shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers; I have full armored leathers/boots – but I only wear them when I’m on the track or intend to ride like I’m on the track. Just knocking around on one of my antique bikes? Why ruin the experience?
PS: I also have 10s of thousands of miles of experience on bikes as well.
i have a lot of miles under my belt including 30 years dirt bike racing and i’ve not fallen off over 1000 times. If i were chris i’d cover myself in bubble wrap as well as a helmet if i was crashing that much
Well, if you don’t ever crash in a 50 mile enduro/harescramble race through the woods then your not competing.
20+/- races a year x 2-3 crashes per event x 20 years = approx. 1000.
To each his own.
i was having a laugh bro, a wee jest at your expense. I’ve fallen off my dirt bike quite a few times over the years myself.
Thx Biker, I was thinking your comments might be in jest, but it’s hard to tell on forums. Unfortunately, I have an engineering mind, so not a lot of wiggle room, and I feel like I have to explain things, which can turn into trouble sometimes, especially on forums.
Totally agree Eric. Its your life, and your choice. But remember the wise words of a master of battles; Never fight the enemy on their own ground, with their own rules. In a war of attrition, they will always win.
As I mentioned to Eight, pick your hill wisely…
Hi BJ,
I’m belligerent about helmet and seat belt edicts because of what they stand for – the principle at issue. It is not an exaggeration to state that we live in a police state because we – enough of us – tolerated (and amen’d) seatbelt and helmet laws. For saaaaaaaaaaaafety! That gave license for what followed. Made what followed – including Fear Masking – inevitable.
We either own ourselves or we don’t. Black- or white. It really is that simple.
PPE selection depends on risk factor versus not only decreasing the enjoyment of life, but also the risks OF the PPE itself.
Sure, my #1 son and I, when doing certain kinds of work that pose a risk to the eyes/face, do wear ANSI Z87.1-compliant gear (usually an impact-resistant flip-down clear face hood). But at times, it gets warm in the shop, and even with the fans going, we need a “cold one”. So it becomes a trade-off of work quality, especially when WELDING, versus staying “hydrated”.
I do my BEST quality welding when I’m just a wee bit “happy”.
Speaking of “happiness”, my Dad, whom did THREE tours in the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command, relates a story of what the commander of his B-47, back when he was at the old Lakes Charles AFB said (this was about when yours truly was born), re: a bottle of “Jack” that he kept in the “alert” room with his kit that he’d take aboard the aircraft once they had to “go”. His answer to my Dad? “Lee, when we get the order to ‘go in’, that’s when this fine bottle gets opened. And by the time we get over the target, I’m gonna be the ‘happiest sonofabitch’ still alive on the planet!”.
Like Molly Bloom’s pine bough spear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0-saRH8p34
While I wouldn’t do something contrary *just because* a prerogative-blind 3rd party intoned “thou shalt not” – my nose knows no spite to the face its attached to — the risks are real, & can be significant.
I often rode sans helmet in sunnily indifferent – no color of law against it — AZ. The night before a planned ski trip, coming home from work, I was helmeted against the cold. Drunk turned left right in front of me. No ski trip the next day – broke several bones — but I still have that very expensive, all scratched up, Bell. & an intact head.
…And enough miles, track time, to eschew two wheels, let alone two mixed in with four. The roads are congested with worse drivers, more distracted drivers, than was so in my ute. I’m a lot less bounce-backable. Reward no longer – if it ever did* — compensates the risk.
Risky propositions are a compulsion, not a choice after all, for certain types of certain utes. Some of my pals from those days got crippled, various ways. Some got dead. Live long enough, hormonal, other drivers, tend to downshift. Riders of the Purple Sage gets wiser, possibly, on its way to tumblin’ tumbleweeds, tho meetin’ Charlie Bronson & getting’ to tumblin’ tumbleweeds sooner, rather than later, is wished for by some, too.
Ozy, there is an old Klingon saying; Live and learn, or you will not live long. Among the fly boys there is another; There are old pilots and bold pilots, but damn few old bold pilots.
I totally understand Erics position, and its his choice. But I just don’t heal up nearly as fast as I used to. So I take precautions, and/or out right avoid situations/activities that I once enjoyed. To each their own.
As long as the decision whether to “live bold” or “grow old” is YOURS.
Truth is peeps are passengers, not deciders.
I’m a resistance training passenger, among other ride aspects, for example.
Sure. Everybody understands Eric’s position. But not everybody understands the larger position. Correct doesn’t become incorrect just because some overweening asshole says “thou shalt/thou shalt not.”
I’ve never seen anyone go racing without gear, heard anyone insist incorrect suddenly somehow trumps correct just because some sanctioning body also just so happens to have jotted down that correct is also a rule.
Highways & byways are more dangerous than tracks, in my experience, from my perspective. I didn’t realize that, or think that, when I was a young immortal. For one thing, the excitement of competition made it seem like the track was more dangerous. But there is little to no competition on the highways & byways…& maybe just maybe some counterintuitive clarity swims into view.
Competition, even within rule set boundaries, opens systems (or relatively so – which is enough); it breathes, its alive, it synthesizes & it grows.
Streaking naked down the highway may be exhibitionism, but it isn’t competition.
Monopolists create governments, in their image, to constrain, if not do away with completely, competition. This begets entropy. Carnage. Lots of power & money to be mulcted from crisis.
Until the music stops.
But then the gdamn phonograph that h. “sapiens” is just lifts the stylus back to the beginning of the same groove, & the tune replays all over again. (“But it’s not the same: the lyrics” – fooking words – “are different!”)
Contrarianism? I wrote the book. A multi-volume set. But there are thresholds beyond which “Opposite George” is a disorder that’ll very likely disorder ya’ – & yeah & again, screw the DSM’s oppositional-defiance disorder dx, which has nada to do with what I’m saying.
I should have mentioned, too, that getting busted up may be the least of it. The shit that goes down in ER’s & hospitals…If I’d known at 20 what I know now, I might have told the paramedics to just drag me out of the roadway, to the sidewalk, & just let me lie there, maybe call me a cab.
Hi Ozy,
The issue here – as you know – isn’t whether X is “safe” but who gets to decide whether X is “safe.” Does the individual have that right? Or is it right for other people to forcibly impose their assessment on him?
I’m one of those kooks who believes that – absent tangible harm done to another person by the action in question – no one has the right to contravene individual’s right to make those decisions for himself – and to bear all the consequences, if any, as well as enjoy all the rewards, whatever they may be.
Yes. I know. That is one issue. And I do agree. Nobody’s biz, either way.
But.
The larger issue – me taking good care of my biz – has no connection or interface to the Venn’s who would diagram me. All that jazz is non sequitur.
Even just concussions are serious, deleterious things. And that kind of damage accumulates. I’ve had two. And a lot of lesser hits small change contributions to my salvation army kettle.
Footballers. Boxers (a fair bit of that in my family), let alone bare knuckles. One smack on asphalt – even with a helmet — is all it takes to get a whole career’s worth of NFL & WBA & barroom/streets hits.
Instrumental musicians often, if not always, protect their hands. Vocalists don’t take their throats for granted. (Yeah, self-destructive artists are definitely a thing, too…self-destructive being more the point, their personal point, than the art that don’t quite exorcise the demons.)
But even people who don’t especially make livings, derive sustenance, with their wits oughta’ be protective of their brains. Tool number one.
And the rest, too.
(After all, in the context of all this virus hoo-ha, the missed on purpose point is that germ theory loses out to terroir: germs mostly ain’t much, if anything at all, if your personal terrain is in good shape….)
Out of context, but I don’t care how good Hawking’s brain was, for example…I’d be outta’ here.
Ron Kovic thought it was all his idea. Until he didn’t. His compensatory move seems to have been to exemplarize grok’ing sooner, rather than later.
Learn from others’ experience. May be easier said than done, but I think it is done only if it is already done, the right stuff is already there, for that process to take place. I think if you look around, look back, it’s obvious that “the stuff” the oreos came with is determinative.
Is how there are also Kovic types who continue to wave the flag, etc. Learning’s disabled by psychological self-defense mechanisms (which shouldn’t that make them psych self-offense mechanisms? “I can’t afford to look at it.”)
Maybe the park ranger being tossed in the river here in Texas is the start. Point made, authority should be laughed at and ignored. Just because you put a costume on to go to work doesn’t give you power over others or a pass on morality.
What Daws Butler, voicing the smart-assed Bear, SHOULD have said, had the Hanna-Barbera cartoon not been intended for children:
Yogi (stirring, still sleepy, on a glorious “Jellystone” Park morning)..”Heyyyy, Boo-boo, let’s go get us a pic-a-nic basket!”.
Boo-Boo (Don Mesick): But Mister Ranger isn’t gonna like it, Yogi!
Yogi: Hey, Boob! FUCK THE RANGER…I’m hungry.