Why should you care about the unvaccinated?
According to a recent Associated Press story, COVID-19 deaths have climbed to an average of more than 1,900 a day for the first time since early March and the vast majority of people dying are unvaccinated.
So if the people who are currently peeing in our gene pool voluntarily eliminate themselves, why should you care?
Several reasons immediately come to mind:
A friend who needed medical care was turned away because the hospital he visited was swamped with COVID-19 patients.
In some cases, people who need surgery are having those surgeries put off because hospitals are too busy dealing with unvaccinated COVID-19 victims.
If you need a ventilator for some medical emergency unrelated to COVID, a ventilator might not be available because all the unvaccinated people are using them.
And worst of all I can’t go to Australia.
(And as we should all know by now, what happens to you is a comedy; what happens to me is a tragedy.)
Despite an invitation to come (and/or go) Down Under to cover Australian baseball (a trip which sounds like a blast) I can’t do it because seeing what a great job the rest of the world is doing to end the pandemic, Australia has closed its borders to non-Australians.
So when the people who refuse to get vaccinated or wear a mask whine about someone limiting their freedom, they’re definitely talking about their freedom, not yours. My freedom is limited by the government’s unreasonable request that I stop for red lights, obey the speed limit and don’t drive East to St. Louis in I-70’s Westbound lanes, but I accept those limits on my freedom in order to get along with others and arrive in St. Louis alive.
People who are exercising their freedom to be knuckleheads, are limiting your freedom.
And now a word about the word “knuckleheads.”
The New York Times was famous (at least in my profession) for not having a political cartoonist and when some NYT editor was asked why, he said:
“Because a cartoonist can’t equivocate.”
Written editorials can be filled with “howevers” and “on the other hands,” but generally speaking political cartoons don’t have that much room or time for alternate opinions.
I once read a study that said people spend about 3 or 4 seconds looking at political cartoons, which is one of the reasons people like them (they fit our short attention spans), but the same study said the majority of cartoon viewers completely missed the point the cartoonist was trying to make. So in my opinion (hey, look…I’m equivocating!) if a cartoonist wants to get their point across, their cartoons need to be quick and clear.
Generally speaking, comedians write one-liners, not four-liners.
As you might have already heard, brevity is the soul of wit and going on-and-on is the province of the witless or a soft rock hit by Stephen Bishop. (I’d say more about that, but there’s all that “brevity being the soul of wit” shit hanging over my head, so let’s move on.)
No matter how complicated the issue (abortion, handgun control and freedom of speech immediately come to mind), a successful cartoon needs to go directly to the bottom line:
Abortions will be allowed or they won’t.
We will allow people to own handguns or we won’t.
Freedom of speech is unlimited or it isn’t.
A cartoonist friend of mine (Mike Keefe, formerly of the Denver Post) once said when a cartoonist is making up his or her mind about an issue the vote might be 51-49, but when he or she draws a cartoon the vote has to be 100 to nuthin’.
So do I think unvaccinated people are knuckleheads?
I’ve got some friends who I love like brothers (which, if you’ve ever met my brothers isn’t all that high a bar to clear) who remain unvaccinated and yeah, I think they’re knuckleheads…on this issue.
It doesn’t mean they’re knuckleheads on every issue, it just means I think they’re wrong on this issue and when I draw a cartoon I’ll say that as clearly as possible.
As I’ve pointed out before and probably will again; in order to attend school kids have to get a variety of vaccinations, a requirement that parents didn’t think about all that much before Donald Trump, social media misinformation and the World Going Batshit Crazy.
And according to a recent Washington Post story, the CDC has now announced that schools which require masks have had lower spikes in pediatric coronavirus cases and fewer outbreaks of the disease. (Just getting kids together is going to cause a rise in cases, but the spikes aren’t as bad if kids wear masks.)
BTW: To draw this cartoon I looked up Google Images for school protesters and one of the signs I saw protesting masks said “I can’t breathe” and my first, second and third thoughts were:
“How well do you think you’re going to breathe if you have COVID?”
And these people who just can’t handle the incredible burden of having a piece of cloth over their mouths are the same people who like to call liberals “snowflakes.”
OK, that’s it for today because the Royals are playing at noon and even though their current record is 71-84 and they’re in second-to-last place I’m one of those fans who goes down with the ship and it kinda pisses me off that some fans booed the Chiefs yesterday because if you only like a team when it’s doing well that means you’re not actually a fan of that team, you’re just a frontrunner and a fan of winning.
Talk to you soon and if you haven’t already done so, go get vaccinated so you’re still alive next time I write something.
Well said (as usual), especially the last part about front running fans. I've worn my Royals gear through thick and thin and hope the thick is coming again with the continued development of our young pitchers.
Wonderful piece.