A blue dot in a sea of red

Why has the health & safety of our society become a partisan issue? What happened to believing in science?

Around here there is a large percentage of people who think the virus is gone now. After all, their dear leader says so. Normally I can go about my world and not have to interact with that type, but this past week has had a few interactions.

Today, I go into the local market to get chicken for dinner from their hot foods. I push in a buggy from outside, about 12 people in the store that I could see, one with a mask. I get to hot foods. The woman behind the deli? Oh, she had a mask, it was protecting her chin. Mouth and nose? Breathing all over things, unfettered. Then she reached into the pan of chicken, no gloves, & dug her fingers into the piece she pulled out to rip it in half to fit it in the bag she was packing for a customer. That’s the point where I “noped the fuck out of there” & drove to KFC where their corporate asses all had on masks & gloves.

It isn’t necessarily due to the virus, that would have disgusted me pre-covid… Aren’t there health department standards?

Every day at work I hear at least one thing that disgusts me. I was told last week by a co-worker that they thought there should be a question on the company’s application for political party. I said that was fine, as I was going to judge companies based on the tv station playing in their lobby.

I’m really getting to the point in my life where I am just fed up with being silent and silenced. I’m trying to find my voice.

What’s next? Locusts?

The world is spinning out of control.  The US is spinning out of control.  Honestly, I’m scared – for so many crazy different reasons.

When I was in middle school, I had a not-quite-right teacher.  His name was Mr. Domen as best I can recall.  Being 14, he seemed ancient – who knows how old he really was.  He was a football coach and taught social studies.  You’d learn quickly to be really careful how you passed by his room between classes.  He wore his whistle around his neck and stood at the doorway, bellowing and blowing his whistle for the least little thing.

One day, I don’t remember the reason, but he grabbed a kid walking by, slammed him by his neck into the lockers, screamed in his face, and then let him go on his way.  It was 1986 and that was just barely considered unacceptable.

Anyway, I remember we were discussing the history of countries and governments and he told us that the US would probably dissolve in the next few decades, that it wouldn’t make it to 250.  I remember everyone basically laughing and not taking it serious.  Now, I’m not so sure that he wasn’t really perceptive.

Speaking of perceptive, in a weird sort of pivot…  I am not a religious person, at all.  I’m not 100% atheist but damn close.  M, the husband, is 110% atheist without a doubt.  I also love to read, it used to be books but nowadays it’s pretty much only audio books.  I read a lot of different genres and a while back, over 10+ years at this point I’m sure, I got hooked on the “Left Behind” series.  The first one was captivating and I kept reading them until I reached the point where the book club I got my CDs from didn’t carry the next book and there I stopped.  They got rather whacked out & unbelievable – even more batshit nuts then when, in the first one, half the world disappears – Poof!

Back to the point.  I would not be shocked at all to discover that the current leader here in the US is, in fact, the Anti-Christ.  And this from a near total atheist.

Next related pivot.  My current job is smack in the middle of the most backwoods & racist areas of Pennsylvania.  With Covid, the department of 8 had six working at home, with the supervisor and me the only ones in the department coming in.   Visitors to the department, coming in to talk to the supervisor, speak in such a way as their political and religious views aren’t hard to guess.

These are the people that think it’s a hoax.  Somehow, the entire world conspired together to assemble a giant conspiracy, whose purpose was to hurt their dear leader’s campaign for re-election.  My husband has been yelled at while pumping gas, for wearing a mask.

Now another has come back, the one that I’m training so that I can leave this place.  I’m a contracted employee, but not a temp… though they don’t understand the difference.  I’m supposed to be done on July 3, but there’s discussion of extending me… I hope not.  He and the supervisor are on the same side of the fence.  I try to speak up against the constant flow of conspiracy theories and xenophobic, racist statements but it’s a struggle.

It is so disgusting, that in 2020 there is still so much racism, both blatant and subtle. What makes people think that your skin color determines your worth? How do we fix this?  The world is boiling oil, one little pop of oil into the fire and it could blow.  Every country has a group of people that get treated like shit and it’s not okay anymore.