I remember being in a store in May with my daughter. She wore a mask and I didn't. She asked if I worried about what people thought. I told her and anyone else who would listen-When we accommodate fear, we reinforce it. For the record, I don't give damn what people think about me.
Both my sons were upset that I would not put the mask on. I would invariably tell them, “If I don’t fight back, who will”. My youngest eventually got it. When he graduated, he was one of the two students among 400 that were graduating high school that day who walked in the arena sans mask. I almost fainted with pride.
Our fourth and youngest was born in late 2019 with Down's syndrome. When she was born her doctors told us that she was particularly vulnerable to respiratory viruses. We asked what this meant for church, socializing, hospitality, etc. They said to try to be careful, but that it would be terribly harmful both to her and to us if we isolated her and ourselves from others. She was hospitalized (and in the ICU) with RSV (+Covid?) for a week from Christmas to New Year's, because someone from church got our family sick. We would have NEVER asked anyone in our family or society to stop their lives in order to possibly keep her out of the hospital; they would have thought we were insane if we did.
We've spent much of the last year and a half arguing with her physical and speech therapy agency (through a county program for low-income families) to get them to move sessions to in-person, since for most of her life she's been doing "therapy" on Zoom. Even the Texas state health department has told us "too bad," since they're (technically) a private company who can do what they want.
Today our daughter had an appointment with her eye specialist (one of a handful of specialists she sees every few months). This doctor's office called earlier saying that because she's just turned two, we need to mask her. My wife refused. They said, "It's OK if she doesn't keep it on, but you must agree to at least try to make her wear it." My wife adamantly refused, and filed a complaint. At the end of the appointment today (at which multiple staff and a nurse told my wife how ridiculous they think all this is), my wife told the doctor that parents should be free to decide whether or not to force a mask on their 25-month-old disabled children. The doctor exploded at her and viciously argued with her about how this is the "national policy," how it's for everyone's safety, how her own toddler does fine wearing a mask all day at preschool, and how we should find a different doctor. We are so angry and disturbed.
covidian md's on twitter exhibit a strong affinity to logic flaws that suggest not trusting them in any medical decision where any risk or uncertainty (old ops research term) is involved.
Yep after their insistence a couple days ago that we come prepared to at least try smothering her, we agreed that we wanted to find another one. (Last time we saw this doctor I asked her to remove her mask since our daughter is clearly scared and baffled by masked people; she rolled her eyes at me and condescendingly, "OK Dad...but I'm sure she isn't scared by masks.") Today's horrific experience confirmed it.
There was a medical student in the room observing as the doctor ripped into my wife. I hope it was a red pill for him.
I'm so sorry you are going through this. It makes a lot of sense for your daughter to be scared of masked people. Robbers wear masks to hide their faces and intimidate. It's the people who think masks are normal, healthy, and not scary who have something wrong with them.
I would give her face to face therapy...for no cost if I lived near you. I am retired, and this makes my heart hurt to see how we are delaying services to kids. I am ashamed for my profession. My daughter, I might add, has been working with the "throw away" kids in person all through this. They don't have homes to go to, nor foster families (due to covid scares) and guess what? They are all fine.
The only positive to all of this is that you'll find the best doctor for your daughter because now you'll know how to weed out the unfit. I think we've all learned this lesson. Post-Covid medical profession is going to be interesting and hopefully much less chaff.
I went to the Wegman's in King of Prussia (NW of Philadelphia) yesterday. It's in a blue county in a generally blue area, but we have been spared most of the arbitrary corona craziness. As I was walking through the store (it's huge), I was surprised and appalled by all the mask wearers. I expected the employees to be masked, but there were people of all ages, races, sizes, obvious levels of fitness, genders...wearing masks. After I was in the store for about twenty minutes, I heard this singsong female voice over the intercom asking everyone to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the virus. It was like a bad sci-fi movie. My unmasked face became an act of defiance.
Refuse to comply. Engage in peaceful civil disobedience.
btw at least at Wegmans they have been told they MUST wear masks (the employees) at all times recently and it has become VERY strict. they are really unhappy with this. a few weeks ago most of the employees were not wearing them and things were a lot better. I don't care about the idiot shoppers wearing them, but I feel terrible for workers around here having to wear a mask their entire shift. it stinks.
When all this nonsense was going on I kept ripping down the caution tape to take my kids to the park. If I saw a fucking padlock on the swings I would have brought my bolt cutters.
My 18 yo, who was a senior in high school, parked his car under the basketball hoops, climbed on top of it and started removing the duct tape. Security from school came to tell him to come down, he said calmly, “wait, let me finish this”. Eventually the security guy told the boys that he is only there till 4 pm and therefore hinting they can play after 4. The week after that the school removed the basketball hoops altogether.
As for the mask, high school girls play volleyball indoors with the mask on. When one of my friends posted a picture of her daughter playing, I almost exploded.
We start by not complying. If everyone refused to comply, they couldn't enforce this madness. But it takes just one person to make a stand, and then another, and another, and another....
Parents are going to look back on those big moments in their children's lives and not be able to see their children's faces because of the masks. I can only imagine the regret they will feel.
we won't take ANY photos with masks on. not ever. because exactly that - I never want to look back and see either myself or my kids wearing the stupid things.
"...never give in, never give in, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." Winston Churchill, Oct. 29, 1941
“I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it any more” Howard Beale, Network
What a tragic collage of ignorant abuses.Terrorizing our children, masking, isolating and locking them inside is as horrible a nightmare and torture plan ever conceived.
I was incensed on seeing the local basketball hoops covered and the tennis courts locked at the beginning of the scamdemic. I scoured what state laws I could find, until: Aha! I called the Mayor's office, and the pleasant lady on the phone seemed interested in the problem. I said, "I think locking these recreational facilities is in violation of Arizona Revised Statutes 36-788." She assured me that the mayor would hear about it that day, and that somebody would call me back same day.
That afternoon a man called from the Mayor's Office, and said, "I just want you to know that all the locks have been taken off the city tennis courts, and the recreational facilities are now all free to use."
Without fail, every single week before and after that day, my family uses those recreational facilities several times per week. We are out there in triple digit temps as well as all of the rest of each year. In fact, that outdoor recreation is my number one health insurance. As a naturopathic physician, I know it to be the most effective one, with the best return on investment.
Gato - A great call to arms but I must ask, has something changed since you wrote this on Sept 10 after Biden gave his mandate speech?:
"they don’t have the will, the votes, or the backing and they just showed us so. there’s nothing left in their hand. they have realized the people are not with them and they dared not do anything bold. this speech was not the beginning of the new tyranny, it was the end of this one."
I confess. At each turn towards more crazy I have said to myself "surely the masses will wake up to this nonsense" and at each turn I have been depressingly wrong. It certainly seems as if the fever is not only not breaking, it is getting cranked up every higher with no absurdity too radical for the screaming Karens to swallow. I fear my employer is about to mandate the vax that I do not want nor need (covid recovered) and with the very real prospect of being blackballed from any company with 100+ workers, I have never been so distressed. I have gone through what many would consider the most harrowing things imaginable yet this is stressing my mental state of mind to unreal levels.
Thank you for what you are doing and for offering your keen insights. It has helped more than I can possibly thank you (and many others, mostly on twitter ironically). But I am curious if something has changed in your thinking from when you wrote that on Sept 10.
I am totally with you, @gianmi. Looking to the Gato for reassurance, but I fear there is none. NOTHING is too absurd for people to swallow. My own mom (passive sheep) just said that maybe if 75-90% of the population gets immunized, we can take off our masks? And anecdotally, she's noticed most of our family has gotten the jab and hasn't had COVID?
Meanwhile, I'm fighting my ASS off in the bluest city in a super-blue state. I can't leave here for reasons I can't get into, so I stand my ground every day. I shriek at school committee meetings. I'm suing the dept. of ed. about masks. I write letters. I take off my mask in stores or else bedeck my chin with one that says GOVERNMENT MANDATED MUZZLE.
the gato says to keep going, take every inch you can, but it feels like screaming into the wind. I do wonder if it's completely hopeless to try to gain ground in blue zones, and whether we should just balkanize in the red zones.
this is what becomes of a white, woke, western society whose intelligentsia hates itself: that hatred is used to sell clicks and drive up Google AdSense rates at Forbes and CNN, while the real powers use it to sew division, so the white, woke, western society and the quiet, docile, go along to get along majority, fight amongst themselves, rather than turn their sites at those who gain the most from this "take the money and run" bullshit. Covid and its response in most of the West, not China, is the WMD of public health. Write it down. We will all come to see it that way. In 2001-02, the vast majority of Americans supported Freedom Fries and believed the Battle for Jessica Lynch, and believed Hussein was a day away from nukes or, at the very least, was funding Osama the boogie man and Al Qaeda while our media reported "evidence" that of who the pilots were because they found their unburned passports at the twin towers wreckage. This is that. Remember what I said.
I feel like a complete failure after reading this post. I live in Seattle and we are no where near back to normal and I feel like we will never be. My kids go to school daily in masks, my son does outdoor PE in a mask, my daughter takes ballet class in a mask, my son practices ultimate frisbee outdoors in a mask. It is madness. I do not know what to do to make it stop. I have not been able to protect my kids, everyone here wants masks and some are clamoring for schools to close again like they were for a year. Masks are required everywhere indoors and in a few weeks restaurants, bars, gyms will check vaccine status for you to enter.
Same here. PE outside with masks is just insane. California here. I revolt where I can. The people here are completely off the rocker scared of covid or the other group is just so smug that they’re better and smarter and just thrive in their smartness. I want to throw up listen to some parents at school. Luckily I have quite a group of friends who’s thinking like us…. Normal people do exist even in the Bay Area.
I went to a Travelers' Welcome Center last month and used the bathroom while there. Both the paper towel holder and electric hand dryer were wrapped in garbage bags taped to the wall. I felt really safe knowing that the staff was protecting my ability to dry my hands without fear of cooties.
Been reading your posts for a while and they are very informative - when taking my daughter for a walk I saw QR codes on playground, and it was just insane. This virus behaves very politically. Yes this is in Australia, speaking of which I wrote on the insanity of Australia recently, and it's bad in many ways -
Dr's can't offer contradictory advice, or make comments that go against the "immunisation campaign" - AS well as still offering Remdesivir as a treatment, any case I have it documented here: https://blog.reyes.id.au/the-straya-factor/
To track you, if you go to any place where potentially people gather you are required to scan the code. It is the same deal with going to shops, scan the code.
Now admittedly it is meant for notification of exposure sites, I have got notifications regarding to potential exposures. However they never went full-retard on places that are outside, where the virus doesn't thrive.
I remember being in a store in May with my daughter. She wore a mask and I didn't. She asked if I worried about what people thought. I told her and anyone else who would listen-When we accommodate fear, we reinforce it. For the record, I don't give damn what people think about me.
Both my sons were upset that I would not put the mask on. I would invariably tell them, “If I don’t fight back, who will”. My youngest eventually got it. When he graduated, he was one of the two students among 400 that were graduating high school that day who walked in the arena sans mask. I almost fainted with pride.
Bravo to your son! It speaks well of him.
Well said.
Our fourth and youngest was born in late 2019 with Down's syndrome. When she was born her doctors told us that she was particularly vulnerable to respiratory viruses. We asked what this meant for church, socializing, hospitality, etc. They said to try to be careful, but that it would be terribly harmful both to her and to us if we isolated her and ourselves from others. She was hospitalized (and in the ICU) with RSV (+Covid?) for a week from Christmas to New Year's, because someone from church got our family sick. We would have NEVER asked anyone in our family or society to stop their lives in order to possibly keep her out of the hospital; they would have thought we were insane if we did.
We've spent much of the last year and a half arguing with her physical and speech therapy agency (through a county program for low-income families) to get them to move sessions to in-person, since for most of her life she's been doing "therapy" on Zoom. Even the Texas state health department has told us "too bad," since they're (technically) a private company who can do what they want.
Today our daughter had an appointment with her eye specialist (one of a handful of specialists she sees every few months). This doctor's office called earlier saying that because she's just turned two, we need to mask her. My wife refused. They said, "It's OK if she doesn't keep it on, but you must agree to at least try to make her wear it." My wife adamantly refused, and filed a complaint. At the end of the appointment today (at which multiple staff and a nurse told my wife how ridiculous they think all this is), my wife told the doctor that parents should be free to decide whether or not to force a mask on their 25-month-old disabled children. The doctor exploded at her and viciously argued with her about how this is the "national policy," how it's for everyone's safety, how her own toddler does fine wearing a mask all day at preschool, and how we should find a different doctor. We are so angry and disturbed.
the medical profession is destroying itself
i certainly regard md's as suspect,
covidian md's on twitter exhibit a strong affinity to logic flaws that suggest not trusting them in any medical decision where any risk or uncertainty (old ops research term) is involved.
which is all of them!
It seems more like an industry than a profession.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/npr-neodemocrats-newark-fear-animal
And us.
Yes.
At least she was right on the you should find a different doctor point. So sorry that happened to y’all
Yep after their insistence a couple days ago that we come prepared to at least try smothering her, we agreed that we wanted to find another one. (Last time we saw this doctor I asked her to remove her mask since our daughter is clearly scared and baffled by masked people; she rolled her eyes at me and condescendingly, "OK Dad...but I'm sure she isn't scared by masks.") Today's horrific experience confirmed it.
There was a medical student in the room observing as the doctor ripped into my wife. I hope it was a red pill for him.
I'm so sorry you are going through this. It makes a lot of sense for your daughter to be scared of masked people. Robbers wear masks to hide their faces and intimidate. It's the people who think masks are normal, healthy, and not scary who have something wrong with them.
I'm sorry this happened to your child, your wife, and you.
I encourage you to file a complaint against the physician with the state licensing board.
Wouldn't bother. The state licensing board is the epitome of state employees.
I hope you are able to find a new caring physician. I would use age as criteria, as the older the better.
You're fighting the good fight, but it's exhausting. And not enough people join in. I'm so sorry.
I would give her face to face therapy...for no cost if I lived near you. I am retired, and this makes my heart hurt to see how we are delaying services to kids. I am ashamed for my profession. My daughter, I might add, has been working with the "throw away" kids in person all through this. They don't have homes to go to, nor foster families (due to covid scares) and guess what? They are all fine.
That is so kind of you. Grateful for people like you and your daughter. We’re in the People’s Republic of Austin btw.
I am in Az. Hugs to your daughter!
the nazis killed humans and took freedom bc it's 'for your safety'
in 1858 the supreme court held that a slave is property all over the states bound to the us constitution. stand up to government edict! you are
the object of zero covid is total control of the people aka tyranny.
The only positive to all of this is that you'll find the best doctor for your daughter because now you'll know how to weed out the unfit. I think we've all learned this lesson. Post-Covid medical profession is going to be interesting and hopefully much less chaff.
I went to the Wegman's in King of Prussia (NW of Philadelphia) yesterday. It's in a blue county in a generally blue area, but we have been spared most of the arbitrary corona craziness. As I was walking through the store (it's huge), I was surprised and appalled by all the mask wearers. I expected the employees to be masked, but there were people of all ages, races, sizes, obvious levels of fitness, genders...wearing masks. After I was in the store for about twenty minutes, I heard this singsong female voice over the intercom asking everyone to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the virus. It was like a bad sci-fi movie. My unmasked face became an act of defiance.
Refuse to comply. Engage in peaceful civil disobedience.
btw at least at Wegmans they have been told they MUST wear masks (the employees) at all times recently and it has become VERY strict. they are really unhappy with this. a few weeks ago most of the employees were not wearing them and things were a lot better. I don't care about the idiot shoppers wearing them, but I feel terrible for workers around here having to wear a mask their entire shift. it stinks.
Agreed. It's pointless viral theater, and I feel very badly for the employees.
Yep! People are like 'it's only 20 minutes while you shop, put it on!'
I'm like...who do you think puts the stuff on the shelf to begin with? How long are they slinging freight?
When all this nonsense was going on I kept ripping down the caution tape to take my kids to the park. If I saw a fucking padlock on the swings I would have brought my bolt cutters.
My 18 yo, who was a senior in high school, parked his car under the basketball hoops, climbed on top of it and started removing the duct tape. Security from school came to tell him to come down, he said calmly, “wait, let me finish this”. Eventually the security guy told the boys that he is only there till 4 pm and therefore hinting they can play after 4. The week after that the school removed the basketball hoops altogether.
As for the mask, high school girls play volleyball indoors with the mask on. When one of my friends posted a picture of her daughter playing, I almost exploded.
So yeah, where do we start?
We start by not complying. If everyone refused to comply, they couldn't enforce this madness. But it takes just one person to make a stand, and then another, and another, and another....
This is a good idea.
But so many crazy people have bought the scam.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/npr-neodemocrats-newark-fear-animal
Parents are going to look back on those big moments in their children's lives and not be able to see their children's faces because of the masks. I can only imagine the regret they will feel.
we won't take ANY photos with masks on. not ever. because exactly that - I never want to look back and see either myself or my kids wearing the stupid things.
I threw away all Christmas/Holiday cards last year that made any reference to Covid or showed masked faces on them.
Me, too. I shun these disturbed individuals.
I don't even want to imagine the lasting emotional and psychological damage this is causing the children.
I suspect, unfortunately, that some will think it was worth it. All for the greater good.
We live among many mentally ill individuals.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/npr-neodemocrats-newark-fear-animal
Excellent article. Everyone...read this 👆🏻
Thanks, Gail. I want people to know that others see the insanity.
Hang in. Seek some new friends. That's what I'm doing.
Guess you have to bring your own hoop now. Who knew?
"...never give in, never give in, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." Winston Churchill, Oct. 29, 1941
“I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it any more” Howard Beale, Network
What a tragic collage of ignorant abuses.Terrorizing our children, masking, isolating and locking them inside is as horrible a nightmare and torture plan ever conceived.
I was incensed on seeing the local basketball hoops covered and the tennis courts locked at the beginning of the scamdemic. I scoured what state laws I could find, until: Aha! I called the Mayor's office, and the pleasant lady on the phone seemed interested in the problem. I said, "I think locking these recreational facilities is in violation of Arizona Revised Statutes 36-788." She assured me that the mayor would hear about it that day, and that somebody would call me back same day.
That afternoon a man called from the Mayor's Office, and said, "I just want you to know that all the locks have been taken off the city tennis courts, and the recreational facilities are now all free to use."
Without fail, every single week before and after that day, my family uses those recreational facilities several times per week. We are out there in triple digit temps as well as all of the rest of each year. In fact, that outdoor recreation is my number one health insurance. As a naturopathic physician, I know it to be the most effective one, with the best return on investment.
Amen.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/npr-neodemocrats-newark-fear-animal
Great article. I live in Nutley so this hit home in a more empathetic way.
Gato - A great call to arms but I must ask, has something changed since you wrote this on Sept 10 after Biden gave his mandate speech?:
"they don’t have the will, the votes, or the backing and they just showed us so. there’s nothing left in their hand. they have realized the people are not with them and they dared not do anything bold. this speech was not the beginning of the new tyranny, it was the end of this one."
I confess. At each turn towards more crazy I have said to myself "surely the masses will wake up to this nonsense" and at each turn I have been depressingly wrong. It certainly seems as if the fever is not only not breaking, it is getting cranked up every higher with no absurdity too radical for the screaming Karens to swallow. I fear my employer is about to mandate the vax that I do not want nor need (covid recovered) and with the very real prospect of being blackballed from any company with 100+ workers, I have never been so distressed. I have gone through what many would consider the most harrowing things imaginable yet this is stressing my mental state of mind to unreal levels.
Thank you for what you are doing and for offering your keen insights. It has helped more than I can possibly thank you (and many others, mostly on twitter ironically). But I am curious if something has changed in your thinking from when you wrote that on Sept 10.
I am totally with you, @gianmi. Looking to the Gato for reassurance, but I fear there is none. NOTHING is too absurd for people to swallow. My own mom (passive sheep) just said that maybe if 75-90% of the population gets immunized, we can take off our masks? And anecdotally, she's noticed most of our family has gotten the jab and hasn't had COVID?
Meanwhile, I'm fighting my ASS off in the bluest city in a super-blue state. I can't leave here for reasons I can't get into, so I stand my ground every day. I shriek at school committee meetings. I'm suing the dept. of ed. about masks. I write letters. I take off my mask in stores or else bedeck my chin with one that says GOVERNMENT MANDATED MUZZLE.
the gato says to keep going, take every inch you can, but it feels like screaming into the wind. I do wonder if it's completely hopeless to try to gain ground in blue zones, and whether we should just balkanize in the red zones.
I'm also fighting.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/npr-neodemocrats-newark-fear-animal
In my vainer moments, I take pride in having cut open a locked playground last year. But I know it's much too little.
That is pretty badass, my friend.
I am proud of you for doing so. I would have been right there with you on the playground if my daughter were still of "playground age"!
No it’s not. Acts like these will add up. Good on you!
this is what becomes of a white, woke, western society whose intelligentsia hates itself: that hatred is used to sell clicks and drive up Google AdSense rates at Forbes and CNN, while the real powers use it to sew division, so the white, woke, western society and the quiet, docile, go along to get along majority, fight amongst themselves, rather than turn their sites at those who gain the most from this "take the money and run" bullshit. Covid and its response in most of the West, not China, is the WMD of public health. Write it down. We will all come to see it that way. In 2001-02, the vast majority of Americans supported Freedom Fries and believed the Battle for Jessica Lynch, and believed Hussein was a day away from nukes or, at the very least, was funding Osama the boogie man and Al Qaeda while our media reported "evidence" that of who the pilots were because they found their unburned passports at the twin towers wreckage. This is that. Remember what I said.
Acredito que el gato tambien pensa assim.
I feel like a complete failure after reading this post. I live in Seattle and we are no where near back to normal and I feel like we will never be. My kids go to school daily in masks, my son does outdoor PE in a mask, my daughter takes ballet class in a mask, my son practices ultimate frisbee outdoors in a mask. It is madness. I do not know what to do to make it stop. I have not been able to protect my kids, everyone here wants masks and some are clamoring for schools to close again like they were for a year. Masks are required everywhere indoors and in a few weeks restaurants, bars, gyms will check vaccine status for you to enter.
Same here. PE outside with masks is just insane. California here. I revolt where I can. The people here are completely off the rocker scared of covid or the other group is just so smug that they’re better and smarter and just thrive in their smartness. I want to throw up listen to some parents at school. Luckily I have quite a group of friends who’s thinking like us…. Normal people do exist even in the Bay Area.
I went to a Travelers' Welcome Center last month and used the bathroom while there. Both the paper towel holder and electric hand dryer were wrapped in garbage bags taped to the wall. I felt really safe knowing that the staff was protecting my ability to dry my hands without fear of cooties.
Unfortunately the country is filled with "Karens" and there's no reasoning with them.
Sad but true.
https://markoshinskie8de.substack.com/p/npr-neodemocrats-newark-fear-animal
Been reading your posts for a while and they are very informative - when taking my daughter for a walk I saw QR codes on playground, and it was just insane. This virus behaves very politically. Yes this is in Australia, speaking of which I wrote on the insanity of Australia recently, and it's bad in many ways -
Dr's can't offer contradictory advice, or make comments that go against the "immunisation campaign" - AS well as still offering Remdesivir as a treatment, any case I have it documented here: https://blog.reyes.id.au/the-straya-factor/
I'm afraid to ask but I must: what are the QR codes for?
To track you, if you go to any place where potentially people gather you are required to scan the code. It is the same deal with going to shops, scan the code.
Now admittedly it is meant for notification of exposure sites, I have got notifications regarding to potential exposures. However they never went full-retard on places that are outside, where the virus doesn't thrive.
Well said. Start begging the kiddos for forgiveness for what we as a society have done to them