I got my COVID-19 relief money! I’m careful to not call it stimulus, that’s not its purpose. It’s to give people money to live on to help make up for losing earnings opportunity because of the pandemic. The other proper term would be rescue money. Everyone calls it stimulus, so it’s not wrong, but it gives people the wrong idea of what it’s about and feeds fears that it will lead to inflation. Even under Trump the IRS did a good job of distributing the money. I suspect it’s because they already have the infrastructure needed.
I went to Folk Music Notebook at 10:30 last night so I could share a link to it to promote Gord’s Gold at 11:00. Imagine my surprise when I found that the song being played was one I was playing an hour late. Imagine my further surprise was that the next song played was the song I was playing next. There was a software glitch, and the show went out an hour early. I know that My Gentler Listeners plan their Tuesday nights around my show, so I quickly published the archive of the show on Mixcloud. You can listen there right now, just click on where it says Gord’s Gold. You can also do it right from here.
I listened to the last third of the show and you know what? I loved it. I can even put up with hearing my voice. That’s what happens when the music is programmed by someone that gets you. I should tell my therapist; “I’m in touch with my feelings!” Now for the believe it or not part. I have programmed next week’s show! I’ll wait a few days before recording in case something happens that needs to be addressed on the show.
I’m picking this up the next day. I have no idea what interrupted me. There’s a new lede, I got my second COVID-19 vaccination today. My plan was to once again to walk to the vaccination site. That plan flew out the window when I saw it was raining, so I took the bus. The route goes through Van Cortland Park, which is great as there is no cross traffic to slow things down. On the walk from the bus to the hospital I passed a MetroNorth stop. I wondered if the timing were right would that be faster than the bus.
Things went even faster and smoother than the first time I was there. I showed them my card, filled out a form that said that I didn’t die from the first one, went into another room and was immediately vaccinated. They put a little sticker with the time I could leave, 11:16 on my card. I walked in at 11:05. In and out in 11 minutes. It is no longer difficult to get vaccinated, The TurboVax lists 3,788 appointments available and more come online all the time I hit refresh a couple of minutes after the first time and found a load of new appointments available in the next week. That’s people canceling their appointments. There is no excuse now. If you are eligible, get your vaccination, it’s easy and for me painless. We’ll see if I show some symptoms tomorrow. So far nothing. I have to go out again at least for eggs but I’d like to go to Stop & Shop and get matzoh. I look forward to buying 5 lbs of matzoh for $5 and then getting to eat matzoh brei for months.
Can we cancel the term “cancel culture?” It’s a manifestation of something that is both a cause and a symptom of societal problems. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I need to applaud the powers of self-delusion on the right who think that what they call cancelation is peculiar to the right. I know someone who has stopped following football and baseball, sports he loves, because teams and leagues have expressed sympathy towards Black Lives Matter. Isn’t that a perfect example of what they call canceling? We don’t even have to get into the more hateful cancelations of people that are gay, atheists, against various wars, and the old favorites, blacks, women, and immigrants. That doesn’t make it OK for the left to do it. Whenever I hear boycotts of people because of something they said or tweeted my mind goes back to the cancelation of Jane Fonda, that’s my touchstone. I thought that was wrong and I feel uncomfortable doing anything similar to those that offend me. Going back to my youth I think of John Wayne, whose politics I despised. It took time but I watched his films and despite the fact that he wasn’t a great actor, he made many great films. Not watching The Searchers or Stagecoach, would punish me more than John Wayne. People are not their politics, and people are not all one thing. Someone tweeting something offensive once or even several times doesn’t mean they are beyond the pale.
Then there is the flip side, saying things because you know it will trigger the other side. We think of it as “Owning the Libs.” But there are things the left phrases in ways designed to inflame the right. Nobody really wants to get rid of all police, at least not many, but that’s exactly what “Defund the police” and “Abolish the police” sound like. If that’s not what you mean, why put it that way? This is counterproductive. People are driven so much by negative partisanship, why throw fuel on the fire? The way you sell an idea to people is to make it sound inviting, not threatening. It’s like “Build the wall!” and “Lock her up!” The more you make something litmus paper you the harder it is to get it enacted. When you correct people language about everything, you make it more difficult to change truly offensive language. You object to “The Chinese Virus” and they just throw it in with all the little detail that some people insist you get exactly right. The story of the name of the Cleveland Baseball Team is instructive. They have been as the Indians since Napoleon Lajoie retired, before that they were the Naps. They were also the Indians for a while before Lajoie join the team. The name was chosen to honor Louis Sockalexis, a popular 19th century player and member of the Penobscot Tribe. For a long time, the caricature of Chief Wahoo used as the logo was offensive, so they dropped that. Then the movement took root to change the name of the team. But here’s the thing, when indigenous Americans were asked what word they most associate with the team’s name, the most popular response was proud. The majority liked the name. But the cause was taken up to change it and in the end it was changed. In the process, many Cleveland fans were annoyed. Many on the right could use it as the outrage de jour. I find it unlikely that the net result helped anyone but the people that get the contract to create all the new logos and branding. Is this a huge thing? No. Am I incensed? Not in the least. I just regret all the energy that was put into something with good intentions but not much real value. If anyone ever tries to use it as an example of left wing cancel culture feel free to bring up that the Cincinnati Reds changed their name in the 50s to the Redlegs, because of anticommunist hysteria. “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance with the idea that it was a shibboleth and communists wouldn’t say it. Fight the important battles and ease off on the smaller things.
Wise Madness 