I live in rural New England. I’m pretty sure the millennial landlord who lives next door has never worn a mask since the pandemic began. (His parents gave him a house to rent out.) As far as I can tell, no one in that family has gotten sick.

Around town, about four old people have either died or vanished within the last few months, not necessarily because of covid, although it’s definitely a possibility.

Another guy I know who lives a few streets over and who has considered coronavirus an overblown joke since the very beginning now finally has it. I’m pretty sure he’s a “moderate” Mormon. His wife is pretty cool though and has taken the pandemic almost as seriously as me. For awhile she would also complain about him every time we ran into each other. I would say hello and she would respond with something like: “I hate my husband.” That was how she said hello. They have two elementary-aged children.

Another neighbor, a white woman whose husband is a boomer lobsterman who can barely put a sentence together, has been coughing very loudly for weeks, like loudly enough for me to hear it from my house. A month or so ago I ran into her when she was unmasked at the post office along with several other unmasked neighbors.

At yesterday’s trip to the grocery store, a bunch of people were coughing. One white millennial worker was coughing and looked quite sick. None of these people were masked, of course.

  • duderium [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    (long story) A few days ago during a trip to the beach my kids and I randomly ran into a birthday party held by one of the neighborhood kids. We had not been invited, why I don’t know. We ran into a kid there we haven’t seen in years. His parents were anti-vaxxers before the pandemic even began. They pulled this kid out of school because our state made vaccination a requirement for attending public school (again, before the pandemic, and pretty sure this law doesn’t apply to coronavirus vaccines now). His dad honestly is not a bad guy (I know, I know), I just think he’s been driven insane by his wife, who is a Gen X blue-haired Californian white woman with like an alternative “medicine” business, basically a walking cliche. I checked out her website once—among other things, she sells water that’s been left in like the sun-shadows of rock crystals for a few hours. The dad also has who knows how many kids from several different ex-wives. His kids though are wonderful and it sucks that they’re stuck with such shitty parents.

    We were happy to see this kid, but he wanted to high-five my kids, and my kids immediately hesitated to return his high-five (I’ve brainwashed them into little commies). I said we couldn’t do that because we’d get killed. (We were the only ones masked at the beach—I know this might seem extreme to lib hexbears but plenty of countries (like Cuba) have outdoor mask mandates and for good reason.) My spouse is also a nurse and none of us are happy about these fucking pieces of shit prolonging the pandemic for everyone. All of us have gotten covid at least once because nurses were having meals together indoors unmasked and also going to social gatherings unmasked. This is also because the government and the media decided last summer that covid was over.

    Anyway, after the high-five incident my kids played with this kid (as well as a bunch of hogs’ kids) at the beach without incident. The hogs, by the way, were sitting under a small tent in very close proximity and none of them were masked. I kept pretty far away because I just can’t get into covid arguments with these nuts while my kids are around.

    The next day I checked FB messenger and I saw that the anti-vaxx dad had messaged me, saying something like “how dare you talk to my kid like this, we’re going to have a talk the next time we run into each other.” This guy has gotten in trouble for threatening violence or being violent with people before so I chose to just ignore him. I actually left FB months ago but messenger still works for some reason.

    Before the pandemic began this guy and I used to argue so much about vaccines—I actually managed to get through to him once when I asked if the Cuban government was also in on the big pharma conspiracy. Ideologically I have no idea where he’s at right now. AFAIK he is not into QAnon, although he’s mentioned the Rothschilds (to me, a Jew), has called people who get vaccinated sheep, also thinks that criticizing Israel is anti-semitic, etc., etc., just a mental grab-bag of horse shit. He used to live nearby but a few months ago they moved out. I thought they were headed to some kind of anti-vaxx colony in Mexico or something but my kids learned from the high-five kid at the beach that they had just moved to a different town elsewhere in the state. I’m pretty sure the dad’s family owns the house they used to live in nearby. His family tends to be a bit more chill than he is, so they may have actually thrown him out because he was arguing with them too much about vaccines. I really wouldn’t be surprised.

      • duderium [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I lived in Asia for awhile, pre-pandemic it was normal to wear a medical mask if you got sick.

      • Wertheimer [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Oh, hey, I watched that recently, too. Did you read about the life story of the female lead? Wild stuff. She was born in Manchuria to Japanese parents and starred in propaganda films during the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_Yamaguchi

        At the end of World War II, Li was arrested in Shanghai by the Kuomintang and sentenced to death by firing squad for treason and collaboration with the Japanese. As tensions subsequently arose between the Kuomintang and the Communists, she was scheduled to be executed at a Shanghai horse track on December 8, 1945. However, before she could be executed, her parents (at the time both under arrest in Beijing) managed to produce a copy of her birth certificate that proved she was not a Chinese national after all, and have her childhood Russian friend Lyuba Monosova Gurinets smuggle it into Shanghai inside the head of a geisha doll, and Li was cleared of all charges (and possibly from the death penalty).

        Edited to add ( from the NYT obit ):

        Ms. Yamaguchi, who settled in Japan in 1946, openly apologized for what she said had been her unwitting role as a propaganda tool during the war. And she was one of the first prominent Japanese citizens to acknowledge the history of Japanese brutality during the occupation, an episode for which many Japanese nationalists still refuse to apologize.

          • Wertheimer [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I mostly know him from Airplane!. Hard to take anyone seriously after that. His debut film (I think?), though, is an all-time great - Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be. He plays a 19-year-old airman in love with Carole Lombard.

            Which widescreen shots especially impressed you? My favorite shot in House of Bamboo was probably Robert Ryan's entrance. Or rather Robert Stack falling into Robert Ryan's room after he's been knocked out, and Ryan calmly surveying the situation. If you watched this on the Criterion Channel, they have another feature with Robert Ryan as a villain, also in a film that makes a stance against anti-Asian racism, Bad Day at Black Rock. Fuller's a more interesting filmmaker but Bad Day is a better film, I'd say.

            You seen any other Fuller films? Definitely check out Shock Corridor if you haven't.

              • Wertheimer [any]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Oh yeah, Pickup on South Street is great. Widmark's sneer of "Are you wavin' the flag at me?" Love him as an antihero. I haven't seen Act of Violence; will put it on my list.

    • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      “how dare you talk to my kid like this, we’re going to have a talk the next time we run into each other.” This guy has gotten in trouble for threatening violence or being violent with people before so I chose to just ignore him.

      what an absolute freakshow! i think you did the right/wise/correct thing ignoring him.

      i hate people like this. too bad magic light rock water doesn't cure being aggressive and stupid.