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Covid Madness on Our Road Trip
We just returned from a two-week road trip, which took us through the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. In none of those states did we encounter a mask mandate. In every state we stopped in, we found some people wearing masks in public (higher percentage in WA than any other state); and few people wearing masks indoors at the Hillsdale College function in Colorado (they were mostly elderly).
But I did come across a piece of genuine Covid madness at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado, and it felt like a sucker-punch. I came across a defaced photograph from the 19th Century. And Defaced is the proper word for this photograph of a woman who died over 100 years ago. I never would have seen it, if I had not been waiting in the lobby of the visitor center for Ray to get back. They had a slide-show on an overhead monitor, and I really couldn’t believe my eyes when this one came up in the rotation.
I don’t even have to ask who approved this defacement of an old photograph, since this is a federal site (National Park Service). What possible purpose could there be for defacing this photograph of an early homesteader in Colorado? No response is sufficient for this pure madness.
Published in Culture
Stupidity. I hate seeing masks in comic strips . . .
This was a sign I saw yesterday in Yorktown, Va. Government misinformation leads to COVID madness.
Does the store require patrons to show proof of vaccination if they are not wearing a mask?
Plastic bags with zip ties around the neck are so much more effective than masks.
The outgoing government here in Korea has finally lifted the OUTDOOR masking requirement, and guess who’s criticizing them? The incoming “conservative” government.
I didn’t check. I’ve never been asked. Was amazed by the misinformation about the unvaccinated not knowing if they have COVID.
I’ve seen a similar sign locally, but being as I’m not yet “elderly” I just ignore it.
And to imply that an entire state’s “health” is in one person’s hands is absurd. But this “protecting others” is a very common reason people give for wearing masks when no mandate is in place. That is equally absurd.
And if wearing one works, then They should wear one and not be concerned about Those that don’t.
I travelled on Amtrak from Boston to NYC last Thursday for a long-anticipated several days of wandering, exploring, and photographing NYC – my first time back since mid-February 2020. No masks required at the Amtrak stations at either end nor on the 4-plus hour train ride itself.
But then I walked 2 blocks east to hope onto the R train to get to my hotel downtown, and signs compelled me to mask up in the subway stations and the subway cars.
Even worse, the next morning, after photographing the skyline from Long Island City, my friend and I entered Grand Central, tired and hungry for breakfast. Not only were masks required, but **every single chair or bench** in the Dining Concourse was fenced of. There were restaurants in the middle of the concourse with lots of chairs; you could buy something to eat, but you couldn’t sit down… anywhere!
What genious is responsible for this madness! The subway is Metropolitan Transit Authority and Grand Central is managed by Metro North Railway, also part of MTA – so these are both NY State agencies, so maybe it’s Governor Hochul?
There must be a straightforward explanation that no one has considered, which should be perfectly obvious to anyone who takes a moment to think about it. One hundred years ago when that portrait was created or picture taken, that woman’s face was considered too ugly to be seen in public. Hence, for the protection of the public, her face had to be masked. This non-pharmaceutical intervention is considered a form of point ugliness protection.
Good catch. Unvaccinated people in general would develop symptoms around the time they are infectious, so they actually would have some idea whether they are sick. Their tactic to prevent infecting other people — if they are considerate — would be to avoid going out in public. If you’re not vaccinated and you’re not symptomatic, you’re generally speaking not contagious (even though some of the early cases in China showed evidence of transmission between people before a person tested positive), so there would be very little rationale for an unsymptomatic unvaccinated person to put on a mask. On the other hand, multiple scientific papers have demonstrated that the viral load in a vaccinated person, even without symptoms, can be as high as an unvaccinated person with symptoms, and therefore, these people should be considered infectious to persons who have not recovered from Covid as well as to other persons who have been vaccinated but haven’t recovered from Covid. There is an additive in the mRNA drugs that depresses the immune response so that the body doesn’t overreact to the medicine. The problem is that the effect of this additive is long term. It’s put in to reduce side effects but has long term side effects of its own because it doesn’t leave the body. So the advice they give for masking is exactly the opposite of what I would recommend — that is, if I actually believed masks were effective point source control to prevent transmission. Unsymptomatic unvaccinated healthy people would go without masks, while vaccinated people with or without symptoms ought to be masked forever, because they will remain contagious forever. But on the other hand, if you agree with me that masks are very ineffective at preventing transmission, then I would eliminate all masking except for people performing medical procedures in medical settings.
This is quite bizarre. Are we supposed to believe that ‘masking up’ is a long and well-known part of Wild West tradition and history, and that those propounding it today are just carrying on with a well-established part of American life? I wouldn’t be surprised if we are (supposed to believe that).
A few years ago, before the knitting world went officially woke and fell into the abyss, I had a go-round or two with a little outfit that produces knitting patterns for–among other things–what they used to call “mukluks.” (The traditional name for boots, generally made out of hide, that are worn by the indigenous people of Arctic regions.) The slippers in the knitting pattern resembled the style, and had some faux-traditional patterns knitted into them. I had bought the pattern years previously and had knitted a couple of pairs.
Some moronic grievance-monger with nothing better to do (but I repeat myself) made a stink about ‘cultural appropriation’ and the pattern-maker issued a cringing apology, changed the name of the pattern, and–along the way–apologized for stealing from the ‘knitting traditions’ of ‘First Nations.’ I pointed out that ‘First Nations’ had acquired their knitting traditions from the white settlers, especially the Catholic missionary sisters who’d settled the area, and claimed cultural appropriation on my own account.
I think the best thing to do here–since I view this as an exercise by TPTB to normalize facemasks as part of our historical and cultural landscape–is find some historical images of Native Americans wearing masks,** and then start the ball rolling on self-flagellation and the cultural appropriation gambit ourselves.
**It’s not all that hard to do. I particularly like the way the practice is described in this article:
This cannot but ring true for all those of us who feel we’ve been part of some performative art spectacle, stage-managed by “wanton boys” using us for sport, over the past couple of years.
Those of us who ply the armed-robbery trade have been masking up for years, virus or no virus, and I’ve been told thanks on several occasions, while ransacking high-end boutiques in blue states.
And yet a double-vaccinated and boosted person can get COVID (like neutral observer).
If you really want to be safe on a subway, you need a handgun, not a mask . . .
Maybe we should all wear masks (when required) that just say “Boo!” That way the fearful can be more scared and go away and leave the rest of us to live our lives.
You wait, RB. Inslee is taking us back to masks. Have you see the state dashboard?
https://doh.wa.gov/emergencies/covid-19/data-dashboard
But I’m not goin’ back. They can pound sand.
I think the added mask was simply to highlight the fact that it was promoting a virtual tour. No big deal.
It is in the realm of possibilities that this was an actual photo. I could not ascertain it was. For example, from the Spanish Flu pandemic, there are a whole bunch of pictures with people with masks on.
However, once you have ascertained that this is a retouched photo, I support you in complaining to TPTB about their political statement by defacing a historical photo. You can either start at the bottom by going to the Superintendent of this National Park and go up the ladder, or you could start at the top with the Secretary of the Interior. Go get em!
I was thinking the same thing.
I just flew back to Seattle from Atlanta on Delta and saw very few masks in either airport and saw none on the plane.
Did you study the photo? Did they have masks like that 150 years ago? Because it looks just like the mask they gave me at the imaging center last week.
Just wondering.
My 69 year old eyes ain’t what they used to be. It appears to not have the metal nose clasp which is common on the more expensive masks, but then again, I frankly can’t see it or not!
Ditto for me. Too small to tell. But when I first looked at the photo I thought it was maybe from the Spanish Flu days.
If you look at this photo…could be the same style mask:
And yes I know the Spanish Flu was later than the date, just could be similar style mask. I don’t know.
Here’s the photo of Adaline Hornbek from the National Parks Service site:
Bless her heart for wearing (what I suspect–given my age) is some sort of tortoiseshell comb-thingy in her hair, just as she is apparently doing in the photo in @rushbabe49’s post. I believe it’s the same photo. Slightly cropped in that instance, but not so much here:
which looks very much like the photo displayed in the same aspect ratio as that of the OP. If I had the means, perhaps I could do the thing that PowerLine did in 2004, or whenever it was, when it superimposed the pixels of the memo purportedly written by GWB’s National Guard CO over the same text written on a modern word processor in Microsoft’s Times New Roman font and declared them to be identical, but in this case, the evidence of your own eyes may have to be sufficient.
Please note that in neither of these photos is she wearing any sort of mask. So I think the question of–is the photo “real” or “photoshopped?”–sort of answers itself.
I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not. I don’t know if the message is supposed to be that “because of Covid, this is a virtual tour so masks aren’t required,” or if it’s supposed to be that “in an age of Covid, you’re supposed to wear a mask, even on a virtual tour,”** or if it’s supposed to be something else.
However, I do think that a question to the National Parks Service along the lines of: “What is the purpose of your ahistorical misrepresentation of a well-known, widely-distributed, and historically accurate photograph of this woman intended to accomplish?” would be entirely appropriate and justified.
If it ain’t broke, there’s no need to fix it.
What, exactly, are they trying to fix by defacing this woman’s portrait?
**I’ve seen enough reports over the past couple of years of hysterical nutjobs insisting on wearing masks on Zoom calls that I don’t quite know what to believe any more.
Ms. Hornbek died in 1905. Way too early for the big flu epidemic. The photo was altered to add the mask, probably some time in the past two years.
I had to do some running around today and one place I had to go was the local mayor’s office. Before I went in, I asked if I needed a mask, and a loud voice shouted out, No, no mask! As of 120:01 this morning no more masks! I know that most government buildings here still require the masks, but to be told so energetically that they weren’t doing so made me three times as happy today.
Mask Mania is slowly falling apart. Disgraceful how long it has dragged on. I work in a pharmacy so some of our older patients are still wearing two masks even when at home alone with an oxygen tank as their only companion, keeping family and friends at bay for safety of course.