We’ve reached a very particular stage in the game. There’s a certain big hospital, okay, in a certain big city, and that hospital requires visitors to either be “vaccinated” against Covid — so you can’t infect anyone, see? — or to present a negative Covid test completed within the last twenty-four hours. Lots of people are
is LA really a city or is LA just a very large county w 100 different neighborhoods pressed together? are we citizens in any coherent or communal way or just people who sit next to each other in traffic? or is the problem that both the city and state are one-party operations and have been for quite awhile (and will be for the foreseeable future) so there's no credible opposition to fight the covid permanent emergency? there just seems to be a very odd and heavy apathy here, maybe because so many of us are from elsewhere, and politics is just a choice bw 31 flavors of NPR.
there's nothing ive seen so far that leads me to believe that just about everyone won't passively go along with just about anything. we are a lazy hazy people here, and hey, what's another shot or 2 as long as we have weed and wifi?
is sad because under all those masks is a lot of expensive plastic surgery.
There are even more levels of grift. The test itself is essentially a coin flip. I saw a panicked, symptomatic family of five. I told them “We don’t need the test, you probably have covid”. They insisted. . . . results -> 3 positive, 2 negative. The problem . . . They didn’t want to all ride back home in the same car, because the “negative” ones didn’t want to “catch it”. I reiterated, “YOU ALL HAVE COVID, and it’s going to be okay”. Their solution, the “negatives” took an Uber. Just a small slice of life in fear pornlandia.
A "vaccine" that you're required to take several times a year, that only lessens symptoms (and that's debatable) but does not prevent infection or transmission, isn't a "vaccine", It's a Ponzi Scheme. This whole charade is now a Ponzi Scheme.
Lest we forget, waay back in2020, the only honest politician in the history of the world, the late,great Tanzanian President 'Magufuli instructed security forces to blindly test coronavirus PCR test kits for quality on goats, papaya, sheep, and motor oil. All of them, he said, had been found to be positive for COVID-19.'..'Magufuli earned his Bachelor of Science in education degree, majoring in Chemistry and Mathematics as teaching subjects from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1988. He also earned his masters, and doctorate degrees in chemistry' en.wikipedia.org /wiki/John_Magufuli
Great article Chris. One of the things I find I've really changed my mind on in the last 2 years is the whole concept of 'corruption'. As a Canadian, I used to somewhat look down on countries where bribes, tax avoidance and black markets were common; seeing the corruption as some sort of moral failing. Increasingly though I see these things as simply a response to overbearing or irrational government behaviour. If the government is going to show contempt to the people via unjust or discriminatory laws, why shouldn't they expect the people to take creative measures to deal with it ?
Gavin Newsom’s California, everyone. Nancy Pelosi’s bastard and abused step-child. I watched my own California family (San Diego area) go from sane and practical and questioning to just “do it so I can live and not be a pariah” to just accepting this is how it is. And my sister-in-law most definitely has a vaccine injury and I can’t tell her that. She doesn’t think that’s a thing. But mysterious onset of numbness in her arm? That doctors can’t figure out? A VERY specific amount of time ago? But at least she can go places easily. She just may lose use of her arm. You know. The lies we tell ourselves to protect ourselves.
Kind of like my home country used to be in the years I was growing up there. We falsified everything and bought documents on the black market; it was a theatre of absurd. You could also walk into any government office, slide an envelope (with cash) towards the clerk and walk out with whatever document you needed .
Like when you are 16 and the bartender accepts your fake ID that says your a 55 years old...the hospital KNOWS the testing requirement is a sham and is thankful that "capitalism" has stepped in to to "supply real world solutions" to the "testing bottleneck."
This is one of the situations that reveals: "this is not a real emergency." If this was a real emergency, then fake testing would lead to the hospital being full of people spreading covid and there would be repercussions from that (death? street vendors shut down?) AND the hospital would institute REAL testing (if it's so damn important.)
“ What kind of society has this kind of sidewalk grift, street hustlers who sell you your official-looking documents so you can pretend to comply with the meaningless rules that institutions pretend to enforce?”
Jerusalem, 2,000 or so years ago had exactly this, in the main temple. It, and some events relating to it on a particular day, are described in the New Testament. The people cheered when the temple was cleared, but the kleptocracy was incensed.
The similarities are surprising, and an illustration of how little moral advancement has been made.
Jul 16, 2022·edited Jul 16, 2022Liked by Chris Bray
My friend/colleague in China says, "test, test, test, Every day, test".
The Chinese authorities don't care about their vaccine too much anymore. Everybody has to test. Then your phone updates: "green" is good. Green means go. If your phone is yellow, you gotta test, because you can't go in anywhere. The virus doorkeepers keep you out. If you are an ancient grandmother and have no phone? No problem, go home. You can't be out without a smartphone. If the phone is red? Stay in your apartment until they come and test you there. If your phone is red, you are famous. Your building is famous. Everyone knows that you are the virus.
"In China, if you get the virus, you don't tell anyone"
"ever"
There are testing sites on every block, every street. Testers enveloped head to toe in white tyvek.
Sadly, Toronto hospitals are also nuts. Lots of plastic screens still in emergency waiting rooms -- as if the droplet theory was still in play after being debunked two years ago. If these temples of science can't get it right -- or just prefer keeping the government happy -- we are all doomed. This is a game I can not play.
"The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them." - Elena Gorokhova in her novel "A Mountain of Crumbs."
is LA really a city or is LA just a very large county w 100 different neighborhoods pressed together? are we citizens in any coherent or communal way or just people who sit next to each other in traffic? or is the problem that both the city and state are one-party operations and have been for quite awhile (and will be for the foreseeable future) so there's no credible opposition to fight the covid permanent emergency? there just seems to be a very odd and heavy apathy here, maybe because so many of us are from elsewhere, and politics is just a choice bw 31 flavors of NPR.
there's nothing ive seen so far that leads me to believe that just about everyone won't passively go along with just about anything. we are a lazy hazy people here, and hey, what's another shot or 2 as long as we have weed and wifi?
is sad because under all those masks is a lot of expensive plastic surgery.
There are even more levels of grift. The test itself is essentially a coin flip. I saw a panicked, symptomatic family of five. I told them “We don’t need the test, you probably have covid”. They insisted. . . . results -> 3 positive, 2 negative. The problem . . . They didn’t want to all ride back home in the same car, because the “negative” ones didn’t want to “catch it”. I reiterated, “YOU ALL HAVE COVID, and it’s going to be okay”. Their solution, the “negatives” took an Uber. Just a small slice of life in fear pornlandia.
A "vaccine" that you're required to take several times a year, that only lessens symptoms (and that's debatable) but does not prevent infection or transmission, isn't a "vaccine", It's a Ponzi Scheme. This whole charade is now a Ponzi Scheme.
“Lookin to score some neggies?”
😂👏🏽🙌🏽
All of this pisses me off and weighs me down but the laughter from that line helped lighten the load. Thank you 😊
Lest we forget, waay back in2020, the only honest politician in the history of the world, the late,great Tanzanian President 'Magufuli instructed security forces to blindly test coronavirus PCR test kits for quality on goats, papaya, sheep, and motor oil. All of them, he said, had been found to be positive for COVID-19.'..'Magufuli earned his Bachelor of Science in education degree, majoring in Chemistry and Mathematics as teaching subjects from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1988. He also earned his masters, and doctorate degrees in chemistry' en.wikipedia.org /wiki/John_Magufuli
Great article Chris. One of the things I find I've really changed my mind on in the last 2 years is the whole concept of 'corruption'. As a Canadian, I used to somewhat look down on countries where bribes, tax avoidance and black markets were common; seeing the corruption as some sort of moral failing. Increasingly though I see these things as simply a response to overbearing or irrational government behaviour. If the government is going to show contempt to the people via unjust or discriminatory laws, why shouldn't they expect the people to take creative measures to deal with it ?
Gavin Newsom’s California, everyone. Nancy Pelosi’s bastard and abused step-child. I watched my own California family (San Diego area) go from sane and practical and questioning to just “do it so I can live and not be a pariah” to just accepting this is how it is. And my sister-in-law most definitely has a vaccine injury and I can’t tell her that. She doesn’t think that’s a thing. But mysterious onset of numbness in her arm? That doctors can’t figure out? A VERY specific amount of time ago? But at least she can go places easily. She just may lose use of her arm. You know. The lies we tell ourselves to protect ourselves.
Kind of like my home country used to be in the years I was growing up there. We falsified everything and bought documents on the black market; it was a theatre of absurd. You could also walk into any government office, slide an envelope (with cash) towards the clerk and walk out with whatever document you needed .
I grew up in communist Poland.
Like when you are 16 and the bartender accepts your fake ID that says your a 55 years old...the hospital KNOWS the testing requirement is a sham and is thankful that "capitalism" has stepped in to to "supply real world solutions" to the "testing bottleneck."
This is one of the situations that reveals: "this is not a real emergency." If this was a real emergency, then fake testing would lead to the hospital being full of people spreading covid and there would be repercussions from that (death? street vendors shut down?) AND the hospital would institute REAL testing (if it's so damn important.)
I'm given to understand that this is basically what the final decade or so of the Soviet Union was like but with even more state murder.
“ What kind of society has this kind of sidewalk grift, street hustlers who sell you your official-looking documents so you can pretend to comply with the meaningless rules that institutions pretend to enforce?”
Jerusalem, 2,000 or so years ago had exactly this, in the main temple. It, and some events relating to it on a particular day, are described in the New Testament. The people cheered when the temple was cleared, but the kleptocracy was incensed.
The similarities are surprising, and an illustration of how little moral advancement has been made.
Covid industrial complex. Making too many people rich, they'll never give it up
My friend/colleague in China says, "test, test, test, Every day, test".
The Chinese authorities don't care about their vaccine too much anymore. Everybody has to test. Then your phone updates: "green" is good. Green means go. If your phone is yellow, you gotta test, because you can't go in anywhere. The virus doorkeepers keep you out. If you are an ancient grandmother and have no phone? No problem, go home. You can't be out without a smartphone. If the phone is red? Stay in your apartment until they come and test you there. If your phone is red, you are famous. Your building is famous. Everyone knows that you are the virus.
"In China, if you get the virus, you don't tell anyone"
"ever"
There are testing sites on every block, every street. Testers enveloped head to toe in white tyvek.
Sadly, Toronto hospitals are also nuts. Lots of plastic screens still in emergency waiting rooms -- as if the droplet theory was still in play after being debunked two years ago. If these temples of science can't get it right -- or just prefer keeping the government happy -- we are all doomed. This is a game I can not play.
God bless the white market (cue the sound of a million wails of “Racist!”).
"The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them." - Elena Gorokhova in her novel "A Mountain of Crumbs."