This piece from Wonkette is just stuck in my head:
There are a lot of contradictions involved in the anti-vaccine movement. People who would rather watch their children die from measles than have autism. People who would rather die themselves than get a vaccine, because they think the vaccine will harm their health in some capacity.
That’s the category Ken Long of Eaton, Ohio, falls into, because the 54-year-old veteran is literally choosing to die rather than get a vaccine so he can get a heart transplant … because he thinks the vaccine will give him heart problems. Also because of his “personal religious beliefs.”
“When I decide something, I mean it, and if it takes dying, it’s what it is,” Long told KOMO TV. “They don’t know enough about it, and plus it’s already done a lot of damage. People have said blood clots. There are known cardiac issues.”
“And our personal religious beliefs!” his wife Christina added, without explaining what on earth those religious beliefs are. Given that even Christian Scientists are not opposed to vaccines and the couple doesn’t appear to be either Hasidic or Amish, it’s unclear what those would even be.
Religious beliefs are shorthand for “anything stupid we dream up”. There’s more:
Long is far from the first to pull this. Just last week, 12-year-old Adaline Deal, a distant family member of JD Vance, was denied a heart transplant because her parents claimed it was against their religion as “non-denominational Christians.” There is not, to anyone’s knowledge, a single thing in the Bible about vaccines.
I guaran-fucking-tee you that JD’s kids are vaxxed.
These are the people that will never be reached by any kind of message from Democrats because we’re demonized to a degree that they’d literally rather die than do something that an educated person tells them to do.
Old School
Congratulations to the vaccinated person receiving that heart!
The Red Pen
The heart will go to someone smarter.
Baud
I don’t have a problem with people not taking a vaccine to save their own life. Their body, their choice.
I oppose them creating a risk for others, especially children.
And I have no difficulty expressing my view that their personal choices are unadmirable and should not be emulated.
Belafon
Anytime a person says they have religious reasons for not doing something medically related, just tell them they can go to their priest to get cured, as it says in the Bible.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Cleek’s Law TO THE GRAVE!
And yes, much joy to the next-in-line person for the heart.
That’s a very low bar to clear in this instance.
Also too:
Religious beliefs are shorthand for “anything stupid we dream up”.
Is now in the clip file.
Old School
And they also refuse to switch hospitals:
hells littlest angel
Bye.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Old School: You go, Mr Long! You do you. RIP
hells littlest angel
That’s universally true.
MomSense
A good half of the population is not equipped to handle the modern world. They also don’t know enough to fear the dangers of going back.
AM in NC
Except for the children, let them die.
no, I’m not proud I have been driven to this place, but better them than the decent people trying to protect their communities by getting vaccinated.
I’m full-on FAFO at this point.
Ohio Mom
About CincInnati Children’s Hospital, that is denying the heart transplant to the unvaccinated Vance relative: they wouldn’t let me volunteer in a disability advocacy program, that had minimal patient contact, without an updated MMR. That was about 17 years ago.
Another time, I remember taking Ohio Son to one fall appointment or another and they had a flu shot booth set up in the lobby. They reminded me of when department stores used to have sales clerks running after you, spitzing you with perfume.
They were offering shots to everyone, children and adults alike. If you were a delivery man passing through, they’d vaxxed you if you wanted. (We’d already had our shots.)
Children’s is a very by-the-book place.
Colette South
@Old School: sounds like he’s afraid.
gene108
Too many people would rather die than admit being wrong.
Captain C
As long as they don’t harm children or for that matter adults who didn’t sign up for it, I am all for such people pursuing their Darwin Awards with vigor.
Ohio Mom
I wonder if that non-denominational church the girl’s family belongs to is the storefront church Vance’s half-brother recently started in the Cincinnati downtown neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine. Half-brother says he’s running for Mayor of Cincinnati.
Troublemakers, the lot of them.
dmsilev
@Old School: “He made his point” will, I guess, be carved into his tombstone.
Belafon
Measles plus the bird flu is about to teach these people some things.
A Ghost to Most
You can’t educate the willfully ignorant.
hitchhiker
Lately I’ve been trying to imagine what it’s like today to be a casual thug-voter. You know — one of those women who shrugs and says something mild about inflation, or groceries, as to why she lent her support to the bad guys.
And this story reminded me of stories we were seeing all last summer and fall about women who could not get normal care when their pregnancies went wrong. Remember?
So how does the Earth Two version of me hear the story of this fool with his willingness to end his damn life to make a point. (For the record, Earth One me is sure he has issues he’s trying to resolve with this suicide move, unrelated to vaccines, religion, or anything mentioned in the story.)
But Earth Two me says, “Hmmm, that’s sad when people take things to extremes, kind of like those doctors who wouldn’t help a woman get a D&C after she miscarried. I just wish everybody wasn’t so extreme.”
And then Earth Two me has another cookie and wonders if she really has to work all the way to 5 o’clock today.
My point is that while all of us jackals snarl appropriately at this kind of thing, it probably ain’t moving anybody anywhere. What are the stories that will?
Also … where have the stories of pregnancies gone wrong gone?
Dan Almont
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Remarkable that these knobs won’t get a shot because they don’t trust doctors or scientists, yet they’ll take a fucking heart transplant. I guess the doctors and scientists behind heart transplants are more trustworthy or something. Jesús Marimba…
Kent
I have Amish relatives.
They don’t have any religious objections to vaccines and many are vaccinated. They just don’t engage much with the modern health care system unless forced to because of some medical crisis. But if say they have a child with leukemia they will most certainly engage with modern medicine.
Mai Naem mobil
Darwin’s Law in practice.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@AM in NC: Come sit by me.
Leto
Fuck’em. He should know from his time in why vaccines are needed, if not for himself but the population at large. He’s made his choice, honor it. That heart can go to someone else who’s less of a fucking moron.
He perfectly encapsulates a large segment of people I served with, and a very large reason why I’m not involved with post military orgs (VFA, Foreign Legion, etc…).
Fuck’em.
Ryan
There is something, I suspect the pandemic, that has inflamed Oppositional Defiance Disorder in our society.
frosty
@hitchhiker: Those stories unfortunately are yesterday’s news and have been submerged in a shit tsunami.
Honestly I don’t know why we’re not seeing them.
Dan Almont
258,000 Confederate soldiers died during the Civil War to keep black people enslaved, ensuring their own wages would be depressed.
Belafon
@frosty: The states are actively working to suppress them for one thing. But, also, King Trump.
TBone
@Dan Almont: good eye, it’s still Black History Month.
coin operated
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Along those lines…they’re probably “OMG Big Pharma!!1!1!” types who have no idea how many new drugs they’ll be on for the rest of their lives. Our neighbor got a double lung transplant a few years back…32 pills covering 20 different meds each day.
TBone
@hitchhiker: Abortion. Every. Day. by Jessica Valenti
https://jessica.substack.com/
satby
I’m surprised the hospital hasn’t gone to court to try to get a guardian named to allow the kid the vaccine and then the heart transplant. That used to be routine for Jehovah’s Witnesses’ children who needed blood transfusions.
The older guy can just FOAD
Jay
People with a LVAD or a RVAD can live a long time, but a greatly diminished life.
sentient ai from the future
Well that sounds promising.
https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/114032071455437981
TBone
@sentient ai from the future: she’s a Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation too. Holee shit balls.
Chief Oshkosh
Die faster, shitbird, and spare us the piety and drama.
bluefoot
Others here have referenced the book Dying of Whiteness before. This vaccine refusal is in a similar vein.
The book was pretty enlightening for me. I have things, principles, that I am willing to die for, but I’d like to think I have some perspective on my convictions. And I am willing to change my kind when presented with data.
I don’t know how we combat the sort of mentality/conviction these anti-vax people exhibit. I don’t even know how we reach them so they’ll listen. I did a lot of talking to people when the COVID vaccines first came out, trying to explain in lay terms and analogies how they work, how they are tested. But I’m not sure I got any real traction.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: but how do you really feel? I’m smirking.
Belafon
@sentient ai from the future: I can’t click on it here at work. What’s it say?
BethanyAnne
That is exactly how my brother died to Covid. I lost him to fundamentalism years and years ago. We finally had an icebreaker brunch one Saturday. He had cut the rest of the family off for about 20 years. He and his wife met us near their at a restaurant near their house. All of us tried our damnedest to discuss nothing controversial, but the topics of vaccines did come up, and he said he wasn’t going to be any goddamn government guinea pig.
’bout a month later, he caught the rona. Felt the symptoms, swallows a full fucking bottle of Nyquil to suppress any coughing, and *gets on a plane* to see his grandkids on the East Coast (we were all in Texas at the time). Wife talks him into going to ER. Coronavirus. A week later in an induced coma on ECMO. Dead 3 months later.
He was a grown ass adult who signed off his fucking decision making to the worst people on Earth. I miss him all the time, like I did for 20 years. I’ll never fucking forgive these people.
sentient ai from the future
I’ve heard of “suicide by cop” before
this is “suicide by dipshit”
Odie Hugh Manatee
The old fuck can pray to Jeebus for a new heart. Maybe he can get Jeebus to toss in a new brain while he’s at it.
Since that’s not happening I hope his unnecessary suffering is over with quickly.
sentient ai from the future
@Belafon: “Today I encountered my first AI-generated news article that included a manufactured quote from me on a topic I did not speak or post about, just in case you’re wondering how AI is going.”
Geminid
@Leto: Some miltary news from Clash Report:
Clash Report is an Ankara-based news aggregator. I usually follow them for Middle Eastern news, but they’ve been closely following events in Washington.
Jay
@Belafon:
Pauline
@MomSense: This. I wish these folks could go talk to my maternal and paternal grandmothers and find out what it was like to lose a child to childhood illnesses in the 1920s/1930s. I have a maternal uncle and a paternal aunt that I never knew because they died as young children from scarlet fever and whooping cough respectively. And my uncle who did survive the measles? He was left deaf as a result.
Belafon
@sentient ai from the future:
Thanks.
sentient ai from the future
@Pauline: I think we need more grandparents talking about the bad old days tiktoks. Maybe jazz it up with some challenges or funny dances. A few broken hips is a small price to pay.
Old School
@sentient ai from the future:
How typical. Looking down at non-sentient AI. Tsk tsk.
Steve LaBonne
@Kent: You see them at the Cleveland Clinic main campus all the time.
Melancholy Jaques
I just have to ask, do the Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom support a woman’s right to an abortion?
Steve LaBonne
@BethanyAnne: I’m so sorry. What completely unnecessary pain for you and his other family members.
Miki
@Baud: I respect their right to decide.
I don’t respect their decision.
BethanyAnne
@Steve LaBonne: He was a decade older than me. I worshipped him growing up. He tolerated that far better than anyone had any right to expect.
He used to carve the yard up with the lawnmower into “jigsaw pieces” for me to solve by mowing them, lol.
Nukular Biskits
And this goes right to the heart of the discussion of how to bring disenchanted Trump supporters over to our side … and telling the “true believers” to fuck off and die.
As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, ignorance is something that can be remedied with education. Stupidity is nothing short of belligerent, self-reinforced ignorance and I have absolutely no sympathy for someone who wants to die to own the libs.
trnc
“I’m not gonna take the vaccine. I don’t know what’s in it,” said the McDonald’s customer as he set his french fries in the Walmart shopping bag between the processed ham and Count Chocula.
Jay
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/02/19/Watch-Out-Plague-Years-Start-Now/
I used to get vaccinated to protect others, now I get vaccinated to protect me and mine. I no longer care if others get sick and die from “doing their own research”.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
You made me look. It’s buried but here’s their statement:
So of course they don’t. Medical FREEEEDUMB! has its limits yunno.
VeniceRiley
Still hoping SpouseRiley doesn’t bring home anything from work. Lots of coworkers showing up sick (ugh) or calling in (a bit less ugh) And I am 13 months out from qualifying for a COVID booster. It’s been years. I get out a few times a year and try to stay in the open air as much as possible when I do.
WTFGhost
Help me out here: are the denying heart transplants to people who aren’t fully vaccinated, to protect the precious donor heart from stupidity?
That’s not uncommon; unless you have a perfect genetic match, you’ll have to take immune-system reducing anti-rejection drugs, and you don’t want to waste a donor heart on someone stupid enough to risk Covid-19 with suppressed immune function and no vaccination. To a medical ethicist, letting them die of their own stupidity is *fine*, but not if they’ve got an ever-so-precious donor heart inside them!
Jay
@VeniceRiley:
It has been a record year in the US for flu.
Glory b
News flash, Trump has ended legal representation for undocumented children.
There is an agency that provided legal services, they were told to stop work immediately, citing some issue with the contracting procedure.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-02-19/children-lose-counsel
Nukular Biskits
@sentient ai from the future:
Nominated.
Jay
@WTFGhost:
Yes, and not just heart transplants, every reputable Hospital does this, and it’s not “just” the Covid Vaccine.
Glory b
@Nukular Biskits: Once again, everyone should read this book: “Dying of Whiteness; How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland,” by Jonathan Metzl. https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com/
Nukular Biskits
@Jay:
The first two weeks of my business trip to San Diego, coworkers were dropping like flies all around me from the flu.
I had my shot back in October. The only thing I ever had was a runny nose for a couple of days
People don’t/won’t take this shit seriously.
Eolirin
@MomSense: And those two things will probably get the rest of us killed.
But we can’t do anything to fix it, so we have to make peace with it.
Steve LaBonne
@Glory b: Seconded. Depressing but very important book.
BlueGuitarist
Why do these anti-vaxxers hate America and George Washington? (not because of slave owning.)Gen. George Washington to Dr. William Shippen, HQ, Morristown, NJ, February 6, 1777“Finding the Small pox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our Army, I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated. This Expedient may be attended with some inconveniences and some disadvantages, but yet I trust in its consequences will have the most happy effects. Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence we should have more to dread from it than from the Sword of the Enemy.”
Also re Trump’s hatred of America, George Washington, and the Constitution:
When a Colonel wrote to Washington about making Washington king,up spoke George:“I must view with abhorrence, and reprehend with severity…. the greatest mischief that can befall my Country….if you have any regard for your Country, concern for your self, or posterity, or respect for me, banish these thoughts from your Mind, & never communicate…a sentiment of the like nature”
the old fashioned STFU
down with kings
Leto
@Geminid: Just one step closer to “his generals.” I say this only half jokingly, but I wonder how long it’ll be before we’ve changed our Oaths of Enlistment to reflect a personal pledge to Hair Fuhrer.
I think about the institutions/principles that I gave most of my adult life to, and I guess it equates out to a partial discount at a shitty restaurant, 1-2 times a year.
Jay
@Nukular Biskits:
When I was younger, I did not take the flu seriously, flu shots were hit and miss, until one year, the “projectile flu” hit the Lower Rainland. The first symptom was a sudden onset of projectile vomiting. You could see cars rapidly pulling over and doors being flung open.
Steve LaBonne
@Jay: Just like they’re not going to give you a liver transplant if you won’t deal with your alcoholism. Waste of a precious organ.
kindness
I grew up in the era where if one of the neighborhood kids had measles, every other Mom on the street would send their kid over to ‘play’ with their sick neighbor. I did get measles as a kid but not that way. I had no long term effects and have gotten the shingles vaccine. Probably should update my MMR as that has been 50 years.
NaijaGal
Andrew Lester has died after pleading guilty to 2nd degree felony assault. He’s the elderly man who shot sixteen year old Ralph Yarl twice, when Yarl went to the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers from a play date. Yarl’s parents are Liberian immigrants.
Elizabelle
Taking themselves out of the voting pool, if these weasels even bother to vote.
Cry me a river.
We should require vaccinations for minors/schoolkids, though. Dropping below herd immunity (need 95% vaccination??) in Texas with their measles outbreak.
I guess these folks did not learn history, so they get to live it again. There is a reason people were so delighted when vaccines rolled out in the 1950s and 60s, etc.
(The letter from Roald Dahl in Anne’s morning Covid post; his 7 year old daughter Olivia died of measles complications very shortly before the vaccine became available to the public.)
Learn up, morons.
Lobo
@Glory b:
Was that book about Confederate Soldiers during the Civil War(Gallows Humor tag)?
Leto
Current chain of command in the US government.
Jay
@Elizabelle:
Here, vaccinations are required to go to a Public School or Charter School. The Health Ministries keep the records of who got what vaxx and when.
If you don’t want your kid to be vaxxed, enjoy home schooling.
kindness
No. The reason transplant boards restrict organs to members of the public who have been vaccinated is those organs are in short supply. The boards want to do as much as possible that that organ goes to someone who will live a long time with it. It’s the same reason they won’t give a liver transplant to someone who refuses to stop drinking.
Elizabelle
@Jay: Yeah. Used to be more like that here, but states started giving parents “religious” and other exceptions.
*cough* *cough* *whoops
Nukular Biskits
@Jay:
When my oldest was, I think, only about 6 weeks old, I left work sick, came home and announced to his mother, “Y’all stay away from me, I think I have the flu.”
To which she replied, “I think I do too!”
She was breast-feeding him at the time so the OB-GYN strongly recommended she stop and we switch the baby to formula until she recovered (and that way she could distance herself from him). I called Momma to come take care of the baby but, until she got there, I had to run to the store, sick as a dog, and pick up stuff to get us through until Momma got there the next day.
Even now, I remember standing in line at the Winn Dixie checkout, feeling so bad I wished I could die.
It took me weeks to get over that. Fortunately, my son never caught it and his mother recovered rather quickly.
WTFGhost
@Belafon: Bird flu scares me, because I hear-tell they’ve got work on an mRNA vaccine, but the working vaccine is grown in… eggs. Well, we can replenish our strategic egg reserve if needed. But think how much damage could occur, if a bunch of these morons don’t trust mRNA vaccines, won’t obey shutdown orders, and we had widespread death while waiting for the “normal” vaccine.
Forget whether you should or shouldn’t feel compassion – every person in the workforce who dies leaves a gap, and the economic horrors of a bird flu outbreak could be devastating, especially now, while the US is carrying such a high debt-load.
(A high debt-load isn’t necessarily *bad*, but it may mean you have less flexibility in how to get out from under it. People won’t lend as much, and will need more interest for what they do lend.)
Plus, forget economics – those people were doing jobs that other people depended on, so, those people are also hurting, not just from the economic impact, but, hey, they have to finish the construction project with 3/4ths of the proper crew!
Next to Trump launching a nuke, bird flu is my worst fear, and I say “worst” only because I don’t think Trump has any reason to launch a nuke, yet.
Elizabelle
Watching “Downfall” on Amazon Prime, about the last days in Hitler’s bunker. Bruno Ganz and all the cast are so excellent in it.
Reminds me that evil is unbeatable. Until it is not. But what a cost.
Trump will get his desserts, one day. Question is how much damage he and his criminal associates cause in the meantime. President Musk. All of them.
Trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Saw innumerable Downfall parodies before ever watching the original. Legit sorry I did, the last 15 minutes are simply too much.
TBone
@BethanyAnne: broken heart emoji
Elizabelle
@Trollhattan: Saw it in theatre when it was released; have never seen the whole film since.
Bruno Ganz was so good in anything he was ever in. Also Thomas Kretschmann, whose name I just learned today; he plays Feigelen. Reminds me a lot of Chris Cooper, another favorite actor.
TBone
@Glory b: “we ride at dawn” is what I wanna say and do. CHILDREN.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle:
Downfall is one of my favorite movies, legit. I may need to watch it again just so I can revel in the spectacle of all those evil bastids biting it in the bunker.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Exactly.
Easier to deal with dead Nazis.
WTFGhost
@Ohio Mom: when I hear “nondenominational” church, I remember some Unitarians I’ve known, none of whom would refuse their child a vaccination.
There are arguments in UU churches; I knew one where a member spoke out against physician assisted suicide, while another member was wholly in favor of it. Still, the member who spoke against did so, so well, that the “in favor” guy said “the important thing to me was, you cared about the patient, and their choices.”
Now, me, I’m in constant pain, and I may never get better. Life sucks; people die. Okay, but: the “opposed” woman, she would fight hard to find a way to make me not want to die, until whatever “the proper time” is. The “in favor” guy might have supported giving me a fatal dose of comfortable poisons.
We don’t know who would be right, not unless/until I die in my “proper time”. (Look: you “life at any price” people would have me live another 20 years in agony, for no reason. The “let the physician kill you” guy would have been right in that case. But even if I lived 18 years in agony, two more years of joy might be worth it. Who can tell, until after they’ve lived both lives, which we can never do?)
That is the kind of argument I love to hear, in a “nondenominational” church. But vaccine vs. no vaccine? That’s just stupid. The mRNA vaccines are some of the safest available. That the Covid-19 shot might cause heart inflammation just helps us understand why Covid-19 itself causes *far worse* heart inflammation – it’s the *proteins*. (The mRNA vaccines create “just proteins,” not the whole virus. Your body learns to kill the proteins, then, when Covid comes in, your body says “oooh, I know how to kill these guys!”)
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Is that Rest In Purgatory?
Health care is not available to all in this country and those that have their heads located in their exit chute, thereby refusing life saving health care, deserve to exit life and the airspace, because they are wasting all that oxygen on gross stupidity.
Elizabelle
There’s that new Superman movie (with Superdog!) coming out this summer.
Have to wonder if half the theatre will be rooting for Lex Luthor.
Steve LaBonne
@WTFGhost: Unitarian Universalism is very much a denomination. Just not a Christian one.
Ken B
@VeniceRiley: Call your pharmacy or doctor. Some of them are flexible on giving extra shots.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
This deserves repeating.
A good half of the population is not equipped to handle the modern world. They also don’t know enough to fear the dangers of going back.
Also, some of us (like me) are old enough to have been born before a lot of the diseases that have been eradicated, or at least in most countries, such as polio. I currently have a friend my age and grew up with a couple others that got polio before the vaccine came out. The current one is my neighbor and lives in a wheelchair. Another I went to school with through kindergarten to HS graduation and she walked into our 50th reunion without any crutches which she used all the way through12 yrs of elementary school and HS .
And I believe that it might be well over half of the population. A lot of people barely exist as living beings. They have their minds closed off to new things/ways or significant decisions. They coast through life as if it requires no effort whatsoever. But it often does and take it from me, as one gets up in the decades some of them become even more important. And yes some things fall away as well.
WTFGhost
@Jay: Oh, I know that (as I think I mentioned in my reply). They’ll let you kill *you* with stupidity, but not a precious donor organ. And you’ll be on immunosuppressants – of course you need vaccines!
@kindness: I think I alluded to that in my response. Stings a bit that you didn’t notice, unless I wasn’t clear.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kent: Because the Amish are a pretty insular population, they have a whole bunch of interesting genetic disorders.
BruceJ
That’s a really stupid hill to die on, but at least you’re dead!
WTFGhost
@Steve LaBonne: I’d never deny your experience – but it wasn’t the “feels” I got from the few UUs I know. And even if I’d deny another’s experience (which I wouldn’t), I know that you can get good “feels” from a church, regardless of how good/upright/moral/whatever it is. So: “I knew of some UUs that seemed pretty nondenominational, other than agreeing, in general, with UU principles.” Any better? If not, I’ll shake hands and move on.
Lily
I recommend watching his short, inspiring protest statement:
Ohio Mom
@WTFGhost: I don’t consider UU a nondenominational church. It’s true, I don’t know the textbook definition of a what a denomination is but UU has a long history that doesn’t revolve around one individual, it has a national organization, congregations hire and fire their clergy while in storefront churches, it’s more like the pastor hires and hires the congregation. How many nondenominational churches survive their founder?
Belief in a supernatural being is besides the point to me. Reform Judaism calls itself a branch of American Judaism, which for all intents and purposes, is a denomination (maybe “denomination” sounds too Christian?). Anyway, the joke about Reform Judaism is that we are a religion full of atheists.
I did not know your life story before your comment, did not know you live in constant pain. Words fail me, to say I’m sorry is not enough. Whatever choices you make are the right ones; when there are no good choices, every choice is equally good.
Starfish (she/her)
There are some incredibly annoying people who claim to be non-denominational. They are super into their zealotry even if their flavor of zealotry has no real historical roots. They just want to praise Jesus incredibly loudly and judge others, and their family gets tired and tells them to get out.
Ohio Mom
@Starfish (she/her): I’ve always assumed most storefront churches are a way for the founder to avoid taxes. Yeah, I got a cynical streak.
Dave
@Leto: I got therapy appointments at the local Vet Center.
Very happy with my therapist and the staff but there are always a group of 3-5 yahoo loud mouths in the waiting room who they had to ask to keep it down a few notches after the election.
They will be of course shocked and appalled when they come in one day and the Center is closed but the odds that they will learn anything from that is minimal at best.
Freemark
I am curious. Are they also demanding that the heart they receive only come from an unvaccinated person. I mean if the vaccine causes heart issues then you wouldn’t want that heart. Am I right
Dave
@Ryan: It wouldn’t have done so tons significant degree if there weren’t oceans of propaganda dedicated to doing so for them to swim in.
Jay
@Freemark:
People have demanded blood transfusions only from the unvaxxed, other organs, etc.
They have not gotten what they demanded.
frosty
@Lily: Huntington Beach – one of my favorite places I ever lived in … WTF happened to you? The rest of OC seems to have come to its senses.
Starfish (she/her)
@Ohio Mom: Over the winter break, I fell down the YouTube rabbit hole where this older teen is describing being homeless with her family that includes a mom and several siblings (four?). I think it was her twin, a younger set of triplets, and they may have had an older sibling who preferred to not be so deep into religious zealotry as to be kicked out by her relations.
As she told the story of various relatives kicking them out, it was not clear if the relatives couldn’t afford to support that many people or the religiosity annoyed them.
I mean, the girl herself seemed fairly charming, but I could see not wanting to be in a house with a bunch of folks who are not attempting to find work and are annoying you with watching sermons on the internet.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
that is exactly where my mind stalled in bemusement.
A heart transplant without science is simply a euphemism for murder.
TBone
Here’s a good one in the Dept. of What Could Go Wrong? (Oh please oh please oh please)!
(from Atrios link to the FTFNYT to which I will not link):
Steve LaBonne
@WTFGhost: I think you’re simply confusing non-creedal with non-denominational. Here is our denominational organization: https://www.uua.org/
Gvg
@BlueGuitarist: if you do believe in American special luck, we got very lucky in our first hero leader. Almost every other revolution got screwed up at first by the first leader becoming a tyrant.
Washington set the example of only 2 terms of office, and his successors followed that until FDR and the crisis of WWII. Trump is such a little pissant compared to the real greats, and was talking about running for more than 2 terms before he had won the first time. He should have been disqualified in everyone’s mind then, for those comments. Shows how low our voters have fallen.
Kristine
Apparently so many elderly died of Covid that Social Security will pay out $205 billion less in the future.
Helluva way to build the trust fund.
Fortune magazine headline only—I don’t have a subscription, so Idk if there are any qualifiers/clarifications. Does anyone here subscribe?
MobiusKlein
I’m hearing that the IRS is having big layoffs too, just in time for tax season.
Another Scott
IANAMD, but isn’t it more likely that these people, rather than being religious, are just ODD?
“You can’t tell me what to do” seems to be a universal feature at the bottom of these things.
Could it be the evil lead again? Kevin Drum says, maybe!.
Thomas Midgely, Jr has an awful lot to answer for, doesn’t he??
(sigh)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Ryan got there first.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@MobiusKlein: Good thing I expect to owe a little. Refunds will be slooooow.
dr. luba
@Jay: AI, but still…..
As of February 1, 2025, 45.7% of children in the U.S. had received a flu shot, which is lower than the same time last season. Flu vaccination coverage has been declining since the COVID-19 pandemic and has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Flu vaccination coverage by age group
Old School
@MobiusKlein:
But how can Trump send the IRS after his enemies if they cut staff?
Citizen Alan
@Jay: it angers me that such expensive and remarkable equipment is wasted on this feeble minded chud.
Gretchen
@NaijaGal: That was a crazy story. Kid knocked on his door. If he was scared, he didn’t have to open his door. Why did opening the door and shooting him seem like a better option than leaving the door locked and waiting for the kid to go away?
Sure Lurkalot
@Kristine: Here’s an archive link but you got the gist of it:
http://archive.today/2025.02.19-201043/https://fortune.com/2025/02/19/americans-died-covid-social-security/
Gretchen
@Nukular Biskits: That’s surprising that they didn’t recommend continuing breast feeding to give the kid the advantage of mom’s antibodies. I nursed all through pneumonia, twins never got sick.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, my box of popcorn (ordered on February 4 and shipped by USPS) has left Indianapolis!
Woohoo!
So exciting!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
WTFGhost
@Steve LaBonne: That may well be what I’m confusing… I’m *really* bad on religion-language. For me, it’s always been about “me me me,” i.e., how do I behave toward others, how do my beliefs shape me, so, understanding what a lot of things *mean* has never been high on my list.
I certainly meant no disrespect to UUs – I respect them highly. But sometimes, I talk about stuff I love (if I belonged to a church, it would probably be UU sooner than Christian), without being fully informed, and I don’t even know I’m not fully informed, so… well, you get the picture.
Citizen Alan
@Starfish (she/her): i think a lot of right-wingers call themselves non-denominational in the same way that a lot of liberals call themselves “spiritual.” It’s a way for people who have no meaningful religious tenets of any short to avoid having to admit that they’re atheists because they are afraid of accepting that there’s nothing waiting for the mid the afterlife.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Jay: donor organs are scarce, also they have to be a tissue and blood type match. being a recipient of a donor organ comes with life long responsibilities. If a person is not going to follow all the rules and prerequisites it’s a waste of an organ that can go to a person who will value the sacrifice of the donor and not waste it.
Gretchen
@MobiusKlein: I hear that they’ve laid off 1000 workers from the IRS office in Kansas City. The federal government is the largest employer in Kansas City, so all these layoffs are going to hurt the local economy. Unfortunately, we’re the blue dot in KS/MO, so the people who did this won’t be the ones who are hurt here. But those MO/KS farmers FAFO.
Sister Golden Bear
@frosty: Huntington Beach has been the Nazi armpit of Orange County for years.
Ohio Mom
@Gretchen: I am guessing this story is at least 20 years old. Doctors were not big on breastfeeding then.
TONYG
@Kent: I don’t know any Amish people personally — but I had some amusing interactions with them about ten years ago. At the time I was working for a couple of years in Reading, Pennsylvania — real blue collar city. A few miles outside of the city, however, was Amish country, and I would often go out there to buy some of their great produce. The women in the bonnets, the whole nine yards. But they all used cell phones and credit card processing devices. I guess for business transactions they get a special dispensation.
Parfigliano
@Steve LaBonne: Unless your Mickey Mantle.
Old School
@Another Scott: Hopefully it’s coming toward you!
Kayla Rudbek
@Ken B:
@VeniceRiley: I’ve managed to get a Covid vaccine about every six months or so (breast cancer and diabetes being considered higher risk factors). I would read being immunocompromised very, very broadly and try your best to get into a pharmacy (Walgreens doesn’t seem to gatekeep much, CVS is trying to get my business from vaccinations as well, but since I started with Walgreens I am sticking with them in order to keep all the vaccination records in one place when I don’t go to my doctor for them)
Kayla Rudbek
@Another Scott: damned straight Midgley has a lot to answer for. If I had a time machine he’d be the second person I would go and knock off (first place reserved for Hitler of course)
Paul in KY
@Old School: That I’m one stupid and soon-to-be-dead muthafucker.