Animated By Animus

I will freely admit that I have an animus towards those people who are eligible but have refused to be vaccinated against Covid. Maybe an animus and a half. For all the right reasons, of course, because almost by definition, my reasons are the correct ones to have.

I think they are being fools in allowing their behavior to be influenced by politicians in this regard.* Double fools for going along with all of the rest of the sack of rubbish being handed out by a malevolent squad of public personages who have no one’s interests in mind but their own.

On the bright side, the Red Squad is doing us all a real service. They are showing us what happens when good men do nothing. I believe that there are good men and women among the Republicans, but they have silenced themselves for expedient reasons, thinking they might wait out the aberrancy that is cluckism. Instead they have found themselves with chicken poo all over their nice suits and reputations.

******

BTW, I learned this morning that although Edmund Burke is often credited with the aphorism “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” he never said it.

The closest attribution might be from an address by John Stuart Mill, in 1867. Still just as true as ever more than 250 years later.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

John Stuart Mill

Johnny Mill hit the old nail there, didn’t he? “Allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply … .” Kind of makes me squirm just a tish. When might I have done just that, is my question to myself?

******

******

Robin and I are planning a three-day getaway this coming week, starting Tuesday. We’re traveling to Fort Collins CO to revisit old stomping grounds. Amy, Ally, and Neil lived and worked in Fort Collins for a time, and we have a tote-ful of good memories associated with our visits to them. Since it has been well over a decade since our last time in F.C., we anticipate some of the stuff that we liked won’t be there any longer, change being inevitable and all that. Will let you know what we find.

It’s a college town, so there are some givens. There will be pizza, there will be taco joints and buffalo wing palaces, and there will be many places where a young man or woman can slake their thirst. The more generous-minded of these emporia may also allow senior citizens to come in as long as they behave themselves and sit over there in the corner where passersby don’t notice them. Get too many of the ancient ones in a place and they can be a bit of a drag on the revelry.

For instance, you will probably never hear someone in a group of hardbodies saying: “Let’s go down to the Sunset Home and get wasted.”

I just don’t see that happening.

******

The weather app on my phone had a hissie fit this afternoon. Out of my pocket arose the sound ordinarily reserved for announcing that Armageddon is upon us (It is an app put out by the Gideons, who had noticed that last year’s restricted travel had cut down severely on the need for New Testaments in motel rooms. Ergo, the app. Wouldn’t want anyone to miss the end-times because they hadn’t been notified). A severe weather warning had been issued, and damage to life and property was to be expected. I had barely adjusted to that disturbing intelligence when the second notice came along which basically said “Oops, never mind.”

I rushed outside to see for myself, and found nothing but a skyful of grey clouds drifting along in a perfectly peaceful manner. No different from yesterday or the day before. No threats to be seen in any direction.

Well, we’ll let this one go since it is their first app, but the Gideons better sharpen things up or it will never be the hit those New Testaments have been.

[My apologies to the Gideon Society. They’ve never done me harm and here I am poking fun at them while making awfully free with the truth at the same time. It’s almost as if I had no scruples at all. Heh, heh, heh.]

******

From The New Yorker

******

There is a habit that develops in some older citizens where they start to say things like “This is the last car I will ever buy.” I humbly suggest that this is not a good habit to acquire. It may be that the statement turns out to be true, but if you think about it, that could also have been true of the very first car you ever bought, had things gone differently in your life.

We have never known at any point in our lives when and what our final act would be like, and we don’t become any wiser in this regard just because we’ve added a few decades. At some point each of us will take our leave and that’s the only surety in this ride we’re all on. But thinking about that “last car” seems to me to be closing doors that don’t need closing. What fun is there in reading about a seductive new automobile if you only end up saying to yourself “Whatever I’m looking at is not for me. I won’t be around that long.” Bumming yourself out unnecessarily? I think so!

I had a forceful reminder of mortality’s possibilities last October when a blood clot not much large than a grain of rice took the powers of clear thinking and of speech away from me for an hour. Only an hour, thanks to Robin and her gang of helpers.(The speech came back for certain, but I suspect that you may not accept the clear thinking part, and who could blame you?). But even that short time was instructive.

However, I am still reading auto reviews in Car and Driver magazine, still buying shirts that will last a very long time even though they may be slightly more expensive, and still think that anything offering a “lifetime supply” is a good deal. Call me a loon … you won’t be the first to do so. And I have no idea if you will be the last.

******