Rant #2,628: Which Way Is Up?

“My further thoughts about the coronavirus, now that I have been fully inoculated ...
I just did what I felt was right, even though I do still have some lingering doubts in my head about this entire business.
 
My son and I have been directly impacted by the existence of this thing even though we haven't contracted the disease. He lost his job, I lost my job prior to all of this mess and wasn't able to get another one partly because of what was going on, and our jobs will never return.
 
I was forced to retire, take a remote job that came out of the blue to me, my son sat here for seven months being prepared to think he would be told to come back to work, a call that never came. He has a job now, but he works only a few days each week as opposed to five days a week.
 
And again, neither one of us contracted the disease.
 
I just got the shots literally for myself, and I am comfortable with that decision.
 
I continue to have my doubts about what we have all gone through, even though my extended family has had to deal with this disease personally, one succumbing to it.
 
Is it really another type of flu, or is it Memorex? As I said, I still have my doubts.”
 
A long, long time ago, in what seems a galaxy so far away from today, I was told by a journalism instructor that I had to never, ever use a quote to open a story, but if I had to use a quote, it had better be a darn good one, because it generally is frowned upon to do so.
 
I have stuck with that advice for decades, and in my professional writing, I have started off a story with a quote maybe just once or twice in the many years since I was told this.
 
But today, I am starting off my Rant with a quote, because I happen to think that it is a powerful one.
 
I got the vaccine. I am happy I was vaccinated. But I am still torn by the presence of the coronavirus, and its true impact on our world.
 
I think quite a bit of this has to do with the fact that the coronavirus has been politicized since early on, with our elected legislators using the presence of this scourge as a pawn to do their bidding and push their agendas.
 
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in New York, where the state governor and the mayor of New York City have made this virus into a political football for their own personal gains.
 
And I am still wondering if this is simply another form of the flu, or if this is something brand new, as we have been told for a year now, and we were simply blindsided by it.
 
However, you really have to wonder about this, based on the fact that people who should know about this—or who you would think should know about this—don’t seem to know anything about what they are talking about.
 
Did this come at just the right time, so we could practice a mind and body control experiment on our civilization?
 
Sometimes it seems that way, doesn’t it?
 
We are being told what not and what to do, yet often times the same people giving us our orders skirt the issue themselves … “do what I say, but I will do what I do.”
 
We have struggled to get vaccine appointments, yet others have jumped the line.
 
For every Steve Martin—who sat and called persistently like everyone else even though he is a celebrity—we have people like the late Hank Aaron, Christie Brinkley, Dolly Parton, numerous legislators, sports teams and others who, because of their celebrity status, have gone to the front of the line to insist that if they can get vaccinated, we can too … but not telling us that they didn’t have to go through the horror we did to get those appointments.
 
And then we have the nonsense about communities lacking the resources to get the shots, often neighborhoods of color, but funny, I don’t have a clinic right on my corner either, and the people in these communities can do what I did, get on the computer or the phone and call and click and call and click like I did to get my mother an appointment, so where is the disparity?
 
It is all politics, everything is political, we all know that, and funny, these communities in question, even though we as a society have gone out of our way to bring vaccinations to them, still lag far behind in getting their shots, so this just adds to the nonsense of “disparity.”
 
The only community where the disparity exists is among our elderly, who have been treated like collateral damage since the scourge has come to our shores, first with the nursing home fiasco here in New York and later with the dispersion of vaccines.
 
I mean, who was the genius who thought that making the chase to the vaccine a mostly Internet based relay race, and actually thought that our older citizens of every stripe could play this game?
 
But back to the virus itself … I still don’t know what to make of it, and I don’t think anyone really does.
 
You can have 90 year olds who don’t get it, and you can have 25 year olds who get it and get it bad … and everything in between.
 
My family has been hit with the virus big time. My father in law, in the Veterans Home in Stony Brook, lived through the greater part of the infestation in his quarters, yet right before vaccinations were going to be given out, he succumbed, probably as much to do with neglect as anything else.
 
My sister had it at the peak of the virus in the early days, and she got it really, really bad. She still suffers in the aftermath, still has symptoms every so often, and she also had double pneumonia at the time, yet was never hospitalized. Go figure … .
 
Other extended family members have had it, and are just getting over it as best as they can. One I know of still feels great fatigue from the virus, which he kicked but is still kicking him.
 
Happily, my immediate family hasn’t gotten it, although we have had several scares over the past year where we were checked out and came out OK, a miracle in itself.
 
So in conclusion, I still ask “Which way is up?”
 
I got my vaccination for myself.
 
Maybe I am simply chicken, a coward, just getting it because I felt that I wanted to protect myself.
 
I am not going to tell anyone else to get vaccinated, whether it be friend or family member or foe; that is for them to decided on a personal level.
 
I got mine, you get yours at your own convenience … or at your own peril.
 
I did what I did, and I am happy with what I did, but you have to make your own choices, and since our choices have been taken away from us during the past year, this is one of the few choices we still have left.
 
Do what you feel is right for you … that is my advice, and the only advice I am going to give on this subject. 

Rant #2,627: The End

Riddle me this:
 
Why does Canada celebrate “Easter Monday” and in America, we don’t?
 
I truly have no answer to that question, but if you know, then please let me know, too.
 
Anyway, my Good Friday was a good Friday for me, as I got my second—and hopefully final—coronavirus shot, and it went as swimmingly as I guess it could have under the circumstances.
 
Traffic was much lighter getting to Belmont Raceway than it was the last time I went, so I was able to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
 
There were a lot more people at the vaccination site, as I noticed that the impossible parking there had become even more impossible, but I was able to follow someone to their car and after a few minutes, I had a space and walked to the entrance on a really cold day.
 
Again, I was met by lines, but this time it was even more convoluted at first—there was a line for the Pfizer vaccine as well as a line for the Moderna vaccine, both wrapping around the inside rotunda of the raceway.
 
You really had to make sure that you were on the correct line for your shot, as each line was parallel to each other.
 
Yes, it was messy, but I got on the line and the line did move, creeping toward to entryway where you had to sign in.
 
I got to the first checkpoint, passed through with flying colors, and waited on another line to check in.
 
That line weaved its way through various rows, and finally, I checked in, and again, I could see that the person checking me in was having a tough time finding my name.
 
I was just ready to say, “Check my name with my last name as my first name and my first name as my last name,” but as I opened my mouth to say that, the woman found my name, gave me the OK, and I proceeded to another line to wait to get vaccinated.
 
All of this took more than an hour, so I was ready for anything once I got on the line to get vaccinated.
 
But a miracle happened.
 
Once I got on that final line, that line moved quite well, and I finally was dispatched to where I would get the shot—and I met up with another absolutely stunning nurse, once again, this one with brownish blond hair, who also had the gift of gab, and I got my shot after once again telling her that I had had many shots in my life and would not bleed.
 
She said to me, “You didn’t even flinch!” and she put away the Band Aid she was going to use in the process.
 
I was then pointed to the area where I would have to sit and wait 15 minutes, and remembering the last time I went, I sat way up front, because again, the woman reading off the names was not given a microphone to do so, so she had to shout out each name when your 15 minutes was up.
 
The problem was, she shouted out my name when I was in the first row of the waiters, and it wasn’t even 15 minutes yet—it was more like five minutes at most.
 
I questioned her, and she said I could go, and I didn’t even have to check out to go, I could just go.
 
So go I did, feeling fine and feeling that I had just bit a bullet by getting out relatively quickly from there.
 
I went to my car, and got the heck out of there.
 
So the entire process took about 90 minutes, if even that long, and at least an hour of it was waiting on the lines.
 
Done.
 
And I have had absolutely no after effects to this point, either, so I guess I am home free.
 
Now, I can think about everything with a clearer mind, and this is what I think about this whole business.
 
The coronavirus does exist. There is no doubt in my mind that it does exist, does get to some people, and does get to some people in a really bad way.
 
My sister, for one, had it bad, and I mean really bad. She has recovered, but still has symptoms now and again.
 
My father in law had it, and he died from it.
 
I know other people who have had it, and while not hospitalized from it, they did get quite sick from it, and some still have symptoms.
 
Have we gone overboard in protecting ourselves from this scourge?
 
Perhaps we have. We have had other pandemics, and never gone to the measures we have gone to like we have this time around, and somehow, we have survived them all.
 
Most people who have gotten the coronavirus have little or no symptoms and are back on their feet in due time.
 
Maybe less than 1 percent of people who get it get it so bad that they need to be hospitalized, and yes, some die from it.
 
Taking that all into perspective, once I got my then 89-year-old mother her vaccinations, I decided that I would do the same when my time came.
 
It was just a personal thing. Maybe I simply did it for myself.
 
But I did it, and while I do think we have gone overboard, a bit, in how we have handled this thing, I got my shots anyway.
 
Maybe it was a selfish thing. The jury is still out on that.
 
But I did it, and I am happy that I did.
 
Only 33 percent of eligible New Yorkers have gotten their shots, and that isn’t even half of what herd immunity requires to protect everyone—that is at least 75 percent, but ideally, it is in the 80s percentile.
 
I respect those who don’t get the shot, I respect most of their reasoning for not getting the shot, but the fact of the matter is that right or wrong, you are not going to be able to do certain things without the vaccine in your arm.
 
Already, several colleges are not allowing back students to on-site learning without the shot, and you will definitely not be able to cruise without the shot in your arms.
 
Attending venues for various events will also be regulated, and you are going to have to have a shot in your arm to get into places, including some sports and entertainment sites.
 
Is all of this correct? Is this the second coming of the Nazis, where you had to “show your papers” to be able to move about?
 
I honestly don’t know, but I got my shots, and I am comfortable with my stance, even if I did it selfishly.
 
I won’t tell anyone to get their vaccination, but I got mine and as I said, I am happy that I did.
 
End of discussion. 

Rant #2,626: (Good) Friday On My Mind

Good Friday.
 
Yes, I do mean "Good Friday."
 
I also mean "good Friday" too.
 
Today is a solemn day on the Christian calendar, and it is also a major Friday in my life, so when I say “Good Friday,” it has a double meaning today.
 
Today is the day that I get my second, and hopefully final, coronavirus shot, and I am both looking forward to getting it over with and dreading what I have to do to get it over with.
 
I keep on telling myself that this time has to be better than the last time, but a little voice in the back of my head tells me that it won’t be any better, other than the fact that I don’t have to sign up for another vaccine appointment … this is it.
 
Compound all of this with the fact that my allergies are completely haywire again—right now I can barely see out of both of my eyes to type this Rant—and that once again forced me to oversleep.
 
I am really suffering today; not sick but my allergies are really bothering me.
 
But beyond my own foibles, this is a big day on the calendar for my Christian brothers and sisters, part of perhaps the holiest week of the year leading up to Easter Sunday.
 
And once again, because of the pandemic, this Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday will be different—as Passover has been—this year, simply because even with the vaccine like I am going to take today, we still have a coronavirus to deal with.
 
In Rant #931, dated March 29, 2013, I wrote about what Easter means to me, pretty much as an outsider looking in. Here is what I said in edited form:
 
"Happy Good Friday and Happy Easter.
 
As a Jew, these are among the holidays where I am an outsider looking in.
 
I don't have recollections of these holidays, per se, because I never celebrated them.
 
I know they are wonderful holidays, days where people can reflect, look back, and look ahead.
  
I know that Easter is a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion at Calvary, as described in the New Testament.
 
But as an outsider looking in, I have my own views of the holiday, just about all non-religious in nature.
 
I remember that at one time, nothing was open on Easter, and I mean nothing. No department stores, no movies, no restaurants, no nothing.
 
As you know, that has changed greatly in recent times. Many restaurants are open, and certainly the movies are open on Easter Sunday.
 
I remember painting Easter eggs as a child. I never knew the significance of this act, but I can remember that my sister and I made colorful Easter eggs using a product called Pas.
 
It was messy as all heck, and a lot of fun, as I recall.
 
I also never understood the significance of the Easter Bunny, but I guess that is almost equal to Santa Claus on Christmas.
 
I remember watching lots of TV on Easter Sunday, because nothing much else was doing.
 
I recall watching “Easter Parade,” “King of Kings,” and “The Ten Commandments,” sometimes back to back to back.
 
And I remember the actual Easter Parade in New York City, where so many people wore so many strange hats on their heads.
 
And I also remember that Easter Sunday was right near, or sometimes on, Passover, my holiday, and the significance of the two holidays being together is very strong.
 
The Last Supper, anybody?”
 
And this is what I wrote just a year ago, in Rant #2,384, dated April 19, 2020:
 
“And I also know that to some, this is the holiest time and day of the year.
 
To them, and to everyone else celebrating these holidays, I wish you great holidays, time to reflect, time to recharge your batteries.
 
So this year, in the most ironic of ironies, we are going back to the old fashioned Easter Sunday, where nothing is open, but it is not our of religious respect, but out of duty. We have to fight this thing with whatever we have, and we have to be diligent about it.
 
The only thing that I can say about this situation is that maybe we are, in a strange way, being forced to go back to a societal value that we thought we left in the dust long ago.
 
Maybe that will help us to not only reflect on our current situation, but also to reflect on what Easter--and Passover--really mean, and to form a new level of respect for these scared holidays.”
 
Honestly, things are not as bad this year as they were last year, but things still have changed.
 
Whether you are talking about Passover or Easter, the pandemic has changed everything.
 
Perhaps a year from now, in 2022, during this holiest of seasons, we will reflect even more on what was and what is, and we will be more comfortable and be able to go back to our old way of doing things.
 
But somehow, I am not counting on that right now.
 
Let’s not put the cart before the horse, and the horse is still out there … whether we are following the science or not.
 
To all those who celebrated Easter, have a wonderful Easter Sunday, and to everyone, have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday. 

Rant #2,625: April Fools

Today is April 1, April Fools’ Day, when we are supposed to do mild pranks on each other to celebrate the day.
 
Well, my April Fools’ Day trick on myself was that I overslept again, and what’s more, my allergies are once again going haywire, so “April Fools,” isn’t that just so funny.
 
Today is also the beginning of the 2021 Major League Baseball season, and supposedly, we are going to get a full season this year, not the Strat-O-Matic season of baseball we got last year due to the pandemic.
 
But even baseball plays into April Fools’ Day.
 
First off, the New York Yankees play the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium … or do they?
 
The weather is terrible right now—in the 30s and raining pretty hard—and even the 10,000 or so fans who have tickets for the game will have to wonder if the contest will even be played under these weather conditions.
 
And then on the other side of town, the New York Mets are supposed to play the Washington Nationals in Washington today, but not only is the weather crummy, but there has been an infestation of the coronavirus in the Nationals’ clubhouse, several personnel have been quarantined, and the question is this: is it safe to play for not only both sides, but for anyone else in attendance at the game?
 
And continuing on with the Mets, there is another April Fools’ Day joke here: during a pandemic, where thousands if not millions of people don’t know where their next meal is coming from, can one justify the contract that Francisco Lindor signed with the team just yesterday?
 
It is for $341 million over the next 10 years, and the two sides were even inexplicably at an impasse before the contract was signed.
 
Whether you are a Mets fan or not, whether you are a baseball fan or not, with so many people out of work and so many people not knowing where their next meal is coming from … I mean, they couldn’t even agree on the terms for such a mega-deal.
 
And during a pandemic yet?
 
That is an April Fools’ joke on all of us, isn’t it?
 
My own personal April Fools’ Say joke may come a day late, as I have to get my second vaccine shot tomorrow.
 
Based on my first experience, the cure is almost worse than the disease, and I am not hyperventilating about the shot as much as everything surrounding it.
 
Four hours last time—two hours of which were in transit—and it was just so unnecessary and poorly handled at the vaccination site … but I have been assured by Northwell Health that my experience will be better this time around.
 
Let’s see what happens, but again, the April Fools’ Day joke might just be on me, but a day later than the actual occasion.
 
I remember several years ago, I tried to pull an April Fools’ Day joke on all of you, stating that I was closing down this blog for good.
 
I had nothing more to write about, everything I had to say had been said, and that was that for the blog.
 
But again, it was April Fools’ Day, and I had absolutely no intention of shutting down this blog in any way, shape or form.
 
Some people took me for my word, others kind of got it.
 
But here I am, still here, and still writing this blog without missing a beat.
 
And to me, that is no April Fools’ Day joke—I have plenty to say, and I say it.
 
Last year, in my April Fools’ Day entry, No, 2,377, my April Fools’ Day joke was that I announced that the coronavirus was “gone, movin’ on” … oh, how I wish that was true.
 
But it isn’t gone just yet, even though we have that vaccine just waiting to go into peoples’ arms.
 
Maybe the pandemic is the world’s April Fools’ Day joke on itself, but whatever it is, it is here, it is still here, and even with the vaccine, it isn’t going away anytime soon.
 
Two hundred and forty six Rants later, we still have this scourge to deal with, and it has proven itself to be anything but an April Fools’ Day joke.
 
Beyond sickness, the collateral damage of all of this is that our collective sense of humor has been lost during the pandemic, we have completely forgotten how to laugh at ourselves, and at life’s human foibles.
 
My April Fools’ Day wish is that somehow, we return to the way we were, and that we look at life as just a steep hill to climb, but one that we can do collectively without venom and without hate … and one we can do while taking breaks to feel good about ourselves once again.
 
That goal is attainable, if we all take a break and learn to breathe again.
 
And that is no April Fools’ Day joke by any stretch of the imagination.