The regular promotions for NPR’s science and medicine podcast series coyly christened Petrie Dish, as hosted by one Bonnie Petrie has so consistently annoyed me in her dribble of promos for the podcast carried on the classical station that is my normal audio wallpaper, that I’ve never been in the least bit temped to listen to the series. In fact, I generally began to grind my teeth up on hearing her voice, reflecting as it does a chipper attitude of smug certitude peculiar to the ruling class and the media flacks of NPR who do their bidding, slavishly licking their boots and exclaiming on how they enjoy the taste. I regularly noted the careful editing-in of that enticing soundbite intended to publicize her podcast of the week. Yes, I used to work in providing regular news content (as an in-house flack for AFRTS) so I know very well how the sausage is made, stuffed, trimmed, sautéed, and presented for the audience to consume. I knew how to subtly color your announcer-voice to reflect your own attitude and opinion on the story o’the moment, and how to expertly select the soundbite to tickle the audience’s fancy. Or scare them out of their ever-loving minds.
Health Care
Folkways
Not much to do with the title of this post, save that when I began writing it, the local classical station is playing Bela Bartok’s version of three Romanian folk dances. I was reflecting on how much fun it was, two weekends ago, to be with my books at the Folkfest in New Braunfels to sit under the trees by the white building that houses the museum of hand-crafted furniture, listening to the music from the pavilion across the way … everything from traditional German songs, to country-western, and covers of rock music by a local teenage band. There were animals on display a whole farmyard of them, and a pair of camels, as well. Reenactors came and went, demonstrating their craft, and their mastery of black-powder gun and cannon-fire, as well as simply astounding displays of bladed weaponry. It was all very reassuring, watching the families, the parade of children in costumes on Sunday afternoon, led by an accordion player in lederhosen and an honor guard of Scouts with flags. The children’s masquerade march was a custom first established by the schoolmaster of New Braunfels’ public school more than a hundred and sixty years ago. Life goes on in the Shire, from day to day; much has it always has done.
My Experience with Covid and Paxlovid
I recently made a trip to California with my wife and for a souvenir I returned with a case of the Chinese Commie Crud (tm Sgt. Mom). My SO has been fortunate not to have received the same luck so far. What follows is my experience with the virus and the drug that I was given, along with a slight side trip down the messy insides of the American health care system.
Covid and Credibility
So it is fairly certain that Damar Hamlin took a hit to his chest at just the right time, angle and force to inflict sudden cardiac arrest. The correct term for this relatively rare occurrence is “commotio cordis”, although a fair number of comments to various news stories comments from the public at large and experienced professionals alike initially wondered if it was the result of a vaccination for Covid, since there seem to have been many incidents in the last few years of fit young athlete-types suddenly dropping from heart attacks during practice, games, or just going about daily life. Neo at Neo-Neocon attributes this to a wide-spread misunderstanding or misreading of statistics, arguing that sudden cardiac arrests in young and relatively young healthy athletes are happening about as frequently as they have pre-Covid it’s just that we are paying attention and noticing such anomalies.
Perhaps; perhaps not. Perception, reality, anecdote, or data. The unsettling thing about this is that our trust in the accuracy of news and social media reports, of the studies of so-called medical experts and our elected officials and bureaucrats has been so degraded of late that it’s honestly hard to be certain of much, other than what was once considered to disinformation, or a conspiracy theory is now turning out to have been true after all. After so many exaggerations, reversals and outright fraud over the Covid epidemic it would be almost impossible for most people to accept any authoritative conclusions about the dangers posed by the Covid vaccines and boosters. What to credit in a climate of doubt and distrust, save that which we have either directly experienced first-hand, or those whom we trust have experienced and reported?
The trouble is that we never had or were permitted to have had a free and fair public discussion about Covid, and those methods and means of effectively countering the epidemic, starting from the jump. Was Covid really that dangerous? The example of the Diamond Princess seemed to indicate that no not that dangerous to healthy young adults or even older adults without pre-existing health issues. But the national and international news media, well aware that panic, disaster, and potentially massive casualties draw eyeballs and interest went all-out in scaring the general public out of their ever-loving minds. And then it was off to the races the most threatening pandemic in living memory! OMG, they were dropping dead in the streets of Chinese cities! Shades of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic! Mass graves! Overwhelmed hospitals! Packed morgues, full of the dead! We must do something our phoney-baloney jobs are at stake! Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph!
The Lightning Rod
I am thinking that Professor Emily “Litella” Oster (hat tip to NeoNeocon) did not expect so furious a reaction as she has gotten, by writing this particular article in The Atlantic Magazine. After having done her stalwart best for the Covid Crusade for more than two years demonizing those who refused to get the vaccination or wear masks everywhere, or see our children locked out of school, or who suggested that ivermectin or chloroquine might alleviate the symptoms Professor Oster now is suggesting that … really, it was all just a silly misunderstanding, she and her pals just got carried away but they meant well and didn’t know anything for certain, and why can’t we all just all forgive and forget?
To which the instantaneous and outraged reply is not just no, but hell no. Hell no, with a napalm-degree flaming side order of very personal reasons why not.