Monday, August 23, 2021

Wasps, or how to see what’s right there

A wasp.

     Did you miss the warning about this summer being especially bad for wasps? Yeah, me too. Even though our 115-year-old farmhouse has all sorts of eaves and hollows, places where wasps gather.
     Though you believe it, right? Of course you do. If you’re like me, the one-damn-thing-after-another quality of the past year has led to dull acceptance of almost any horror.
     If I ran into a neighbor carrying a bucket of water and a ladle, and he explained, “It’s for the burning frogs falling from the sky. They scorch the lawn, but a quick ladle of water fixes that,” I’d shrug and think, “Oh right, the burning frogs. Better get a bucket ...”
Photo by Tony Galati
     
     Then that’s me. I look at people simply denying one obvious situation or another — COVID, global warming, systemic racism — with blinking incomprehension. It’s ... right ... there. Just ... open your eyes and ... look.
     No? Can’t do that? Not into the whole perceiving-what’s-in-front-of-you game? I guess that’s your way of coping with the stress of bad stuff: ”If I don’t see it, it’s not there.” But c’mon buddy, graduate kindergarten, put on your big-boy pants and join the adults.
     Yes, grasping trouble can be a process. The tendency is to ignore or minimize problems. Most summers, the wasps spout from a chink in the brick foundation in front of our house. Out of harm’s way.
     This summer, naturally, the wasps took up residence under the window box jutting onto the porch, inches from our front door. As we came and went, we’d see wasps coming and going, a wasp parody of our routine. Still, a situation I can handle, or so I thought. I’m not immune to underestimating perils.

To continue reading, click here.

22 comments:

  1. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And intended for people who are brainwashed, brainwashed, brainwashed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, but I need to correct a misperception. Though it's directed at people who ignore the truth of perilous situations, it really isn't written for them. I don't expect them to change. That would be expecting too much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, you've got to give credit to those few who on their death bed due to Covid, have indeed changed their minds. And even more credit to those, who even on their death bed, refuse to change -- that's the genuine rock-ribbed, stony headed, Know Nothing American Way.

      john

      Delete
  3. For a better comparison you could have taken it a step further by not only failing to appreciate and address the threat, but actively lying about it in order to reduce your fear. You could have turned on music to cover the sound of the wasps. “What honey? I don’t hear any wasps. I just hear La Bamba!” And if a neighbor calls an exterminator be sure to call him a cowardly commie pussy. This is what makes those idiots not just dumb, but stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whether I listened to the window box, or not, I think it's quite likely that after the *second* time I got stung, I'd have gone the exterminator route. Probably before that! ; )

    The deniers are so far gone that they're beyond the reach of their Supreme Leader now. The Biggest Loser wanted credit (and deserves a little) for the rapid development of the vaccines -- back when he thought they might help him get reelected. He got Covid himself -- uh, that was pretty well publicized, and might have helped demonstrate that it's not a hoax. He got vaccinated pretty early in the rollout. Why does that not matter to them?

    Regardless, at his latest "rally" he was booed for encouraging them to get vaccinated. Too little, too late, but he did specifically remind them that he'd gotten the vaccine and that they should. If that's not going to sway them, I really don't know what possibly could.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The immortal Chico Marx had the great line "Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes". Seems appropriate here.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wasps...and yellowjackets...are no joke. There was an underground nest at the base of a dead shrub. I tried to flood it, and make them drown. But the ones out on errands came back home, saw their cuzzins floating, and started stinging my bare legs. Felt like being tortured with lit cigarettes.

    My wife came out with the wasp killer and I drowned them in that. Then I beat the survivors to death with a spade. I was in pain and I was royally pissed. But my genocidal pogrom was a success, although I learned a hard lesson...death from a hose doesn't faze wasps.

    Maybe things will change when the kids of the anti-vaxxers, and the maskholes' kids, start getting sick in school and dying like flies...THEIR kids...not just the little Commie-pinko-kumbayah drones. That might end the long snooze of the Plague deniers.

    There's a famous scene in "The Ten Commandments"--in which Yul Brynner...the almighty, godlike Pharaoh of Egypt...stands helpless, with a horror-stricken look on his face, holding the limp body of his dead son in his arms. "Gee, honey...maybe that crazy Jew was right all along. Maybe we really should have smeared that lamb's blood on the front gate of the palace...ya think?"

    That's what it'll take to wake these clowns up...seeing their own offspring wheezing to death, when a simple vaccination...for FREE...would have saved them. To these covidiots, it's fine when other people die...especially all the wimps. And their grandmothers and grandfathers and moms and dads, and even their kids. Who cares? Just dead Democrat Party sheeple...liberal pukes.

    But when the CHILDREN of real Jaysus-lovin' Amurricans start dropping? It's whole new ballgame. "Hey, Li'l Jethro Junior...this is some serious shit! Let's go get the needle! Get in the truck!"

    In the end, everything is always about the children. The loudest cry throughout human history has always been: SAVE THE CHILDREN!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your comment brings to mind the anti-vaccine stooges who protest school mask requirements by holding signs boldly announcing that Children Need To Breathe! You disagree? Why do you hate children so much that you don’t want them to breathe?
      I can’t even think of an insult that fits such derangement.

      Delete
    2. SAVE THE CHILDREN, huh? Pretty to think so.
      Hmm, Sandy Hook. Didn't move the needle one iota toward gun control.

      Delete
    3. "A city is made of brick, Pharaoh. The strong make many. The weak make few. The dead make none."

      Sure, that's a non sequitur. But it's my favorite scene...

      Delete
  7. "Vaccinated" people are getting coevid and dying too. Some countries with higher vaccination rates than the US are having a horrible 4th wave of this disease. Who do they blame?

    Listening to the constant hectoring from lefties and the seeming glee that trump supporters are getting this is and they somehow deserve it has shaken my faith in humanity and Neil's commenters.

    Please everyone , stop! It's just too much.

    This is an insidious disease . The defences against it aren't tremendously effective. We are all in this together and before it's over a million Americans likely will have died.

    I just can't take the bashing from both sides on top of the illness, death and long coevid.

    There is just nothing fucking funny about any of this . Just please stop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please. You know very well the vaccinated are surviving much better when affected. The vaccine makes a huge difference. It's a black and white issue.

      Delete
    2. Thanks Kant for picking up on that. COVID defenses are tremendously effective, though not perfect. I guess I'm just so used to FME's remarks being half baked that I've stopped reacting to them. Breakthru COVID cases indict vaccines the way that people still dying in car wrecks even though they're wearing seatbelts undercut seatbelts. They don't. We do need to be more cautious.

      Delete
    3. My point is both sides are assholes. I necessarily mean and self righteous. Go ahead justify your bad behavior. It's still awful. If you can't see it that's a shame. I understand it's America's pastime to attack people you disagree with. Have fun I'm not playing your game.

      Delete
    4. Yes, fine people on both sides. We know the drill. How can we miss you if you don't go away?

      Delete
    5. Look man I've been masked up since day one. I'm double vaccinated and don't go to events even outdoor dining. My behavior does not contradict your opinion. I just know it doesn't convince other to behave the same way. I just haven't chosen to denigrate them and find joy in their pain. If your cool with that it's sad.

      Delete
    6. Nobody is finding joy in anybody's pain. That's just the Right's habit of pretend mind-reading, projecting ill motives onto people who point out the folly of their ways. They're so sensitive to being called stupid, and not at all sensitive to doing and believing stupid stuff. It seems an inversion.

      Delete
    7. You confuse a plea with an argument I'm not trying to argue with you you could be right I don't care but your point of view and your opinion doesn't change anything.
      The anger the belittlement the need to argue about this as though if you win the argument things will get better.
      150,000 people a day are getting this again and a thousand are dying .

      People I respect are vicious to one another it's a plea stop I don't care what you think why are you so ready to argue against people who agree with you?
      And refuse to just be nice?

      Delete
    8. At the risk of horning in on this back-and-forth, I'm gonna -- uh -- horn in.

      Seems to me that FME contains multitudes. I thought the last several exchanges y'all had prior to today were pleasant. Plus, he's a very broadly experienced gent, offering informed opinions on many topics. Of course, like all of us, sometimes he may go off the rails. Like here.

      "Both sidesing" many things may occasionally be fair. The response to Covid is not one of the things, however. The deniers, led by their hero Il Douche, have quite literally cost tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives. We'll never know what the alternate universe in which masks and vaccines did not become political issues would have looked like in the U.S.A. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it could have been a hell of a lot better. "Lefties" are justified in being pissed off about that, FME.

      That being said, I believe our host is incorrect in saying that "Nobody is finding joy in anybody's pain." You don't have to look very far on Twitter to see people essentially reveling in the latest obnoxious anti-vaxxer getting his or her comeuppance. That is unseemly. It's also kinda understandable after 5 years of Trumpers doing their best to fuck up the country.

      Delete
    9. Horn in anytime Jakash. I'm sorry if it's off the rails to be sick of the hectoring of people for what purpose I don't know other than not knowing what else to do about a situation where your frustrated and angry.

      Undoubtedly some portion of the millions of people who gotten infected in the US with the virus are because of the makless or unvaccinated. That's appalling. Ok I'm done. Not going to viciously attack people for their behaviors. It just makes the overall circumstance worse. Adding blame and hatred to a catastrophe.

      Neil's writing is so compelling and his readers points of you thought provoking I can't stay away. It seriously dozens of time the blah blah blah antivaxer time is exhausting. You can get that anywhere.

      Delete
  8. But the anti vaxxers are putting others in danger, FME!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes unvaccinated people increase the spread of the virus . How many of them will change their behavior if they are badgered or shamed?

      Delete

Comments are vetted and posted at the discretion of the proprietor.