A Parochial Take on Mask Wearing (take this shit seriously)

COVID-19

I don’t know why Americans are so hell-bent on destroying themselves. We’re not asking you to jump into a fireball or go fight in a war somewhere (unless you’re a fireman or a soldier). Comparatively speaking, staying inside or wearing a mask when you go out is pretty small potatoes. It’s just wearing a mask—as a courtesy to others, as a way to stop the spread. You can cry “fake news” all you want, but the consensus has become that if more of us were wearing masks (and had been doing it since the beginning) we could have stopped this spread. (South Korea, and New Zealand have stopped Covid-19 and if you can’t be bothered to research things then I can’t be bothered either, but I know there are more.). But we don’t. The “President” doesn’t want to lead so he leaves it to the Governors. The Governors don’t want to lead so they leave it to the local authorities. And more people get sick. And more people are going to die. People hate when I say we are going to lose 300 thousand Americans (we’re at 120 thousand now). I want to be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.

“But the economy,” or the assholes that cry “herd immunity” (this article is a few months old, but it gets the point across about why herd immunity is not the answer for this https://www.sciencealert.com/why-herd-immunity-will-not-save-us-from-the-covid-19-pandemic ) or “that mask won’t protect you.”

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Don’t believe me.

I’m just wearing my mask and trying to get through this whole thing alive without unknowingly transmitting the disease to anyone else. I wish other people felt the same.

I am the Parochialist.

Imagine...my take on the Shake Shack Incident...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/nyregion/shake-shack-police-nypd.html

Imagine…

Imagine being so hated that your mind jumps to “I’ve been poisoned!” anytime you get sick at a restaurant. Yeah, I’m talking about Shake Shack. I worked in food service for over 16 years, mostly in 2 small, family-owned facilities. Maybe my perspective is narrow, maybe it’s unique…but I think it’s a decent representation of the experience. And I worked with many people who’d worked in bigger, more professional places who talked about their past experience. I have reason to believe that the following observations apply to this situation.

In 16 years, I never fucked with anyone’s food. Not once. Never even crossed my mind.

I couldn’t.

Number one: it’s illegal.

A super quick Google search…

In California at least (where I don’t live), it is illegal. It most likely is illegal elsewhere, as well.

Under the food tampering law, it is illegal to willfully add poison or other harmful substance to a food, drink or medical product that will result in injury to another person. ... While spitting on someone's food may not seem like a serious crime, it could result in incarceration. Jan 13, 2017 (from https://vistacriminallaw.com/)

Number two: Karma. If I was doing it, I’d have to assume that somewhere, somehow, it was happening to me.

Number Three: if you are working around any responsible people and they see you doing something bad to someone’s food, they will not stand for it-restaurant owners, head chefs, supervisors, people who take the job wayyyyyyy too seriously…no one wants to see that.

At any rate, a person who came into the kitchen with that kind of attitude would find themselves out of a job quick.

Number four: Professionalism. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I knew I was that kind of person. I’d have to hope that other people feel the same way. But in my experience, many people I worked with took pride in their jobs: their job was part of their identity. They wouldn’t think of tampering with a customer’s food. Most wouldn’t, simply for the “karma” reason I listed above.

Number five: I have never, ever hated anyone enough to do that.

Number six: Oh, the humanity! Ethics? Morality? Belief in a higher power? All that stuff. We know it’s wrong.

I’m not saying it never happens (if it didn’t, why would there be a law?) but these are my immediate thoughts upon hearing about the Shake Shack incident.

Now. With that particular incident…. where cops got sick after drinking Shake Shack Milkshakes…

If you are such a retched human being that you just assume that your food making you sick is the result of a deliberate action, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your life choices…

I am The Parochialist, and you are not.

The Rise of the Parochialist.

June 1, 2020 Baltimore, The Confounder. Violent Protests in other major cities but somehow Baltimore protests remained (for the most part) non-violent. Yet the murder rate just keeps on chugging. We’re at 125 on the year (124 at the same point last year.). This is such a strange place.

On the one hand, there aren’t mass shootings, not in the city. No one going postal at schools, church, or…at the post office. But we have shootings and murders every day, or every other day, or sometimes we double and triple or quadruple up on a day to make up for the few days where nothing happens. A little bit, every day, and pretty soon, more people die here in the daily shootings than in the mass shootings that get all the publicity.

It is so gradual and it doesn’t get the press (except for local press--The Baltimore Sun is good about logging every one of these killings) but it is more of a steady grind that just becomes part of the background noise of the city, along with jury duty, trash, and parking tickets…. Yet…sometimes we keep it together. Our team wins the Super Bowl and 200,000 people hit the streets and there is only one murder and it’s a “good day.” We have a protest that doesn’t turn deadly while other cities burn, and suddenly we feel a little better about ourselves…

But then we balance it all out with a violent weekend outside of the protests and then everything is back to normal. Hell, even Covid-19 doesn’t slow this down.

Hell, years ago the late City Paper did a piece about how a guy got murdered in a blizzard when the whole city was locked down. That took a commitment that I can’t fathom.

I don’t get it.

Baltimore. Sometimes I hate it with every fiber of my being, sometimes I can’t imagine being anywhere else…

I am the Parochialist. I took a break but now I’m back.