Ruined economy—again? Home-schooling? Maybe! Can’t get a coffee without strapping a mask (or two!) on your sweet little face! Thanks, Trump!

Just when you (dear society) think we can begin to return to Normal (you know, talking to people in…person)…along comes the Delta variant, and a sea of new, confusing masking rules!

So let’s play dear Donald’s favorite game: who do we blame?

Because only a shame-less sociopath would fail to take any responsibility for anything.

How do you know if someone is an anti-vaxxer?

They know little in the way of facts. What facts they do know, they sublimate beneath a sea of rationalization; ie, what are facts? What is science? Could a hypothetical world-wide conspiracy of evil people be targeting me, with only a fellow sea of Instagram and Facebook and Twitter enthusiasts at my side? 

Well, folks, what we were saying many months ago has come to pass. The longer folks are unvaccinated, the more kindling Covid has to burn through, with the potential to create variants all along the yellow brick road of “I don’t like needles.” And here we are: hot girl summer has turned into heatwaves, floods, toxic air and toxic covid and climate-denialism.

The cure? Tough conversations with folks, family, friends. Tease them, inform them, needle them (not literally, unless you’re so empowered).

The cure? Get vaxxed. Whether it’s the carrot of winning a lottery or tickets to a concert, or the stick of “you want to travel, you want to work, you want to enjoy community? Get stuck,” we can’t fully put this thing behind us until 85% are vaxxed (and that’s assuming new variants won’t wreak further havoc).

The cure? Return science (which is not a solid thing, but a thing of care and open-mindedness coupled with allegiance to reality) and journalism to a place of honor over social media comments and reshares and rumors and Trumpism/Nationalism/Denialism/Selfish-ism.

The question is not whether we can smother covid, and save 100,000s more lives, while so many millions—millions, for chrissake!—of dear precious individual lives have already been lost. The question is if you will get the vaccine, and save a life, and 8 others (every sick Covider, on average, passes it along to 8 others).

And yes: if you, like me, got the shot, you may get Covid-lite. And if you have serious health issues, you could die. You could pass along a weakened version of it, too. But the chances are 1 in 1,000,000, instead of, you know, living in fear.

And yeah: it’s those afraid of truth, afraid of democracy, afraid of changing their climate-spewing habits (including voting Red), afraid of the shot, who are living in fear.

For the rest of us—see you at Rayback (our local food truck biergarten).