Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

DemocraticPatriot

DemocraticPatriot's Journal
DemocraticPatriot's Journal
June 28, 2021

Fully vaccinated, and keeping my mask on

when I go into stores and such. I think it is still too soon for them to be coming off, and thought so before the W.H.O. said so. I am sorry that my own governor in Michigan seems to have worn out under all the anti-mask pressure, and let that requirement lapse.

"Only the un-vaccinated need to wear masks?" Those were all the people who have resisted it from the beginning. Do I now expect they will be honest about it? No, I do not.

Anyway, I'm used to wearing it, and there seems to have been a side benefit. I usually gets colds or flu a couple times a year... and I have not caught anything since this whole thing started. Sometimes when I got sick, I was befuddled as to how I had been exposed, as I had hardly been around anyone... My conclusion was that I caught it at the grocery store, perhaps from germs left on a shopping cart. Now of course I have been sanitizing hands and cart handles... I may be vaccinated for COVID, but I have not had a flu vaccine in years...

So, will the anti-maskers support my "freedom" to keep wearing my mask?

They may think I am making some "political statement" by keeping it on. If so, they are partly right.

The other part is to protect myself from them-- as the vaccine is not a 100-percent solution.

June 27, 2021

It was the most awesome thing I've ever seen...

(Inspired by the tornado warnings today, changing a comment to an OP)

I'm on Lansing's northside. Spent the afternoon in the basement, due to the tornado warnings-- which was really no change as I made my main living space down here after moving in last fall, until remodeling upstairs is completed. I am a mostly lifelong resident of Lansing, except for some brief periods living in Phoenix and Tempe, Arizona. (The rainless lightning-storms out there are an interesting phenom, but I digress..)

When I was a child, I remember well being herded to the basement, whenever the tornado sirens (as I thought of them) would go off and there was a "tornado warning" , except for every first Saturday of the month at 1pm when they are tested...

(Little did I understand at the time that the sirens were initially intended for use in case of nuclear war.... Once I had learned the facts about that and the possibilities for nuclear war, and the fact that Lansing was designated as a "tertiary target" because of being the state capitol , the civil defense sirens often gave me a little shiver when they would go off. I remember one time I was driving by Sparrow hospital where one of the horns was located, at the time of the monthly test, and it nearly blew me out of the car, lol. They were not terribly loud at my current location today.)

Anyway, my family was quite religious about taking cover when hearing the sirens, or radio alerts of a tornado warning...and staying there until the 'all clear' was issued. In those days, our AM radio played all day long. This only changed in one instance...

It was sometime around 1970, when a tornado struck which did damage to the Lansing airport on the city's northwest edge, which was about 5 miles away from our family home on the south side. (I tried to google this event, but as it long predated the internet, I could not find anything. Perhaps more skilled searchers could find something.) We must have been in the basement initially... but my parents, who clearly must have been informed about the tornado's actual location, said 'come on upstairs, and we will take a look'

We went upstairs and on out onto the front porch... There was no rain in this instance, at least not where we were. The air was deathly still.

To the north and slightly to the west, we could see the tornado coming down from the sky. In those days, the trees were very small and did not block the view, as that residential section was only about 10 years old at the time...

It was huge.... and it did not appear to be moving. It stretched from the clouds down to the lower limit of the horizon. The perspective made it seem as if it were only a quarter-mile away or less, but it was 5 miles. Unlike all the real or "computer generated" tornados I have since seen on film, it was an amazing shade of blue, maybe a dark aqua, almost like a waterspout.

We stayed out there looking at it, for about 5 minutes or more. Other neighbors were out on their front porches doing the same thing. We just stood and stared, in awe.

It was the most beautiful thing that I ever saw.

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Member since: Thu Jan 7, 2021, 04:31 AM
Number of posts: 4,346
Latest Discussions»DemocraticPatriot's Journal