The gub’nah had to both tighten and clarify The Clampdown 2.0 just days after it debuted because (a) people are stupid, and (2) see (a).
This is going to be one of our biggest problems as we endure Bug Breath, In The Year of the Plague: Democracy and dummies don’t mix.
Lord, am I ever glad I managed to surf the free-range-rumormongery wave smack dab onto Social Security Beach. People just don’t read anymore, probably because too many of them can’t, and thus my services are mostly no longer required.
If the educational system and the Fourth Estate were spared the machinations of the political-industrial complex, we might not be where we are at the moment, which is crouched in the valley under our tiny parasols, awaiting the shit monsoon, while our betters in the mountaintop trophy homes trade us like junk bonds.
Still, you don’t need to be a pro copy jock to take a casual glance at the gub’nah’s public health order and see that, hmm, yes, you can still buy a jug of Skeeter’s Sidewalk Softener in person from The Beernut’s Booze ’n’ Bullets Boutique, but no, sorry, you’re gonna have to depend upon the Christian charity of the Internets and the Brown Truck Dude to acquire that plastic Jeebus for your dashboard.
Now, I know, retail represents a big chunk of the economy, both in terms of GDP and total employment. And it’s nice to get out of the house for an hour, wander the aisles of FreeDumb Hardware & Nail Salon, touching this and that with an ooh and an ahh, maybe buy a Chinese belt sander to tackle those irksome calluses on our tootsies.
But for the sake of public health, maybe it’s time we started thinking about what we want versus what we need.
Do we need a Starbucks, a Mickey D’s, a Shell station, and a Walgreens holding down every corner of every intersection? I don’t see that one in the Constitution. I checked. Because I can read.
Mad Blog Media 
November 19, 2020 at 7:17 am |
Yeah. Know what pissed me off? Just a few days after Clampdown 1.1, I spazzed and broke the Chemex carafe and had to order one online as all the local vendors were clamped down. I prefer buying locally, but that was not gonna happen.
But I bet the air up here will be cleaner again without all the gratuitous driving. And people can enjoy the new section of trail.
http://labikes.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-new-entrance-to-la-tierra-trails-but.html
November 19, 2020 at 7:41 am |
Hoo, new trail access, nice.
I suspect “Miss Manners” at The Cycling Independent is associated with The Bike Coop down by UNM. I haven’t been down there in forever, since the ART project turned the Nob Hill-UNM area into a combo of “Mad Max” and a parking lot. The Coop dudes are good people and deserve all the sensible support they can get.
November 19, 2020 at 8:04 am |
She does indeed work there. I took a chance, from the picture on the CI and called them and talked to her on the phone yesterday. Didn’t ask her name as she seems to want to keep her online life at arm’s length, but cool lady.
November 19, 2020 at 6:47 pm |
Good decision by her IMHO.
November 19, 2020 at 10:06 am |
When I moved to ABQ in 1994 from the SF Bay Area I was amazed at the number of drive throughs (banks, food, cleaners, liquor stores–this was pre-Starbucks if you can believe that). But was really funny was a guy (from Texas) in one of my classes at UNM saying the thing he didn’t like about ABQ was the LACK of drive throughs. It is all about what you are used to.
November 19, 2020 at 10:21 am |
The drive-thru liquor stores were the shit. I’d get off work at The New Mexican at stupid-thirty and drive home to Española via the Kokoman drive-thru window in Pojoaque. Right after that was the DUI checkpoint.
“Mr. O’Grady, have you been drinking?”
“Not yet. But soon.”
November 19, 2020 at 10:49 am |
Didn’t grow up anywhere, but I finished high school in the DC/Baltimore/NOVA area. DC was it’s own city-state, and I believe the last to change their liquor laws, so it was 18 there when it was 21 everywhere else. I lived in MD, but was 30 minutes from the PA and WV borders, and 45 minutes from VA. And it always cracked me up how folks navigated 5 different sets of rules, yet always found themselves forgetting what the rules were in different states.
Went to college in NY, and that was the same thing except on steroids. I think it was NJ that had 3 or more different sets of rules depending on what time it was and whether it was a Friday or Saturday. After 6:00 or after 8:00, all of the liquor stores closed and you had to go into an actual bar to get beer, and you could only buy it by the case.
Drive-thrus are still rare here. Legal, but rare. Solely a function of what the building used to be in a former life.
November 19, 2020 at 10:29 am |
Meanwhile, I the People’s Republic of Colorado, when the going gets tough, the tough just add more phases and DEFCON alert numbers to our charts. We blew through the flashing yellow warning like a soccer mom in a Honda Odyssey late for pilates, ignored the red light despite cops sitting at all four corners, so our response was? Add more colors!
I’m picturing Maurice Minifield in War Games saying, I’m taking us … to DEFCON 87.
November 19, 2020 at 6:56 pm |
SAO: My experience in several “eras” and theaters of war was the indicators that had been used several years before for “It’s about to happen” had been breached (and nothing had happened); but the current level of sensitivity had been amended to place them in the “watch, but no worry” category.
Could that lesson be relevant to today’s “It Can’t Happen Here” mentality?
November 19, 2020 at 10:41 am |
This roller coaster COVID-19 ride will continue until a vaccine is approved and widely distributed and used. Americans, mostly trumpinistas, are simply too stupid and selfish to do what is necessary to stop community spread. So buckle up, it’s going to be a long winter, and if you are over 65 or have health issues at any age, you are on your own.
November 19, 2020 at 11:01 am |
https://www.aldacenter.org/goals/writing
November 19, 2020 at 11:23 am |
That Alda Center is a great addition to The Brook, which has very strong science and medical programs. Stony Brook was very, very good to me. (Ph.D., Geosciences, 1987)
November 19, 2020 at 12:41 pm |
I meant to put that comment on the previous post, but you folks know when I get in a hurry my brain cell (yes I only have one) turns off. Forget about multi-tasking with a one bit processor! I didn’t know that was your alma mater.
November 19, 2020 at 1:00 pm |
For graduate school, not undergrad. All I remember about my undergrad days in Rochester were those brief periods when I was not passed out drunk.
November 19, 2020 at 1:27 pm |
Turns out, fat dumb and stupid are totally viable ways to approach adulthood! I’m living proof!!
November 19, 2020 at 6:59 pm
Pick two out of three and you have our electorate, eh?! 🙂
November 20, 2020 at 9:08 am |
What we all need is a good shillelagh. Blackthorn is nice, but hickory will also get the job done.
https://apnews.com/article/illinois-man-81-stick-to-beat-thieves-e67671bfe9e0313fe0e7f8d42e4a05d2
November 21, 2020 at 6:59 pm |
Apropos of nothing, just want to lay it out there that while I was in the car waiting in line at a Starbucks off Copper, I saw a guy walk out of Starbucks with a 9mm gun strapped to his thigh and no he wasn’t a cop.
November 22, 2020 at 6:48 am |
Yeah, I think we can expect to see a lot more of that sort of thing. I don’t necessarily object to seeing it out in the open like that; the ones who worry me are the dudes with a cheap plastic .380 stuffed down their jeans who shoot themselves in the dick at the checkout line in the grocery with me behind them pushing a cart full of perishable items. Or the pendejo with a .45 under the seat of his Civic who decides it’s the perfect solution to an argument about a signal-less lane change and was that light really red?
I guess that after a lifetime of living in the West I hardly notice anyone packing a sidearm anymore. When I moved to the northeast side of Tucson in 1980 I saw a whole line of cowboy types sitting at the counter in some ham-and-egg joint, every man-jack of them with a hogleg dangling off one hip. It was also in Tucson that I saw an outlaw motorcyclist booming along down the highway with a semiautomatic rifle slung over one shoulder.
I do get tired of the gun-fondlers, though. They often seem a little more about the tyranny than the freedom.