If your mind and feet are burned out during a week of EAA AirVenture, one idea is to take a day off in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is 45 minutes northeast. The Green Bay Packers have an interesting museum and do tours of their stadium:
Right next door is Titletown, a paradise for kids with a steep hill covered in real grass, live music, epic playgrounds, etc. All free. There is a great 5th floor restaurant with an outdoor terrace overlooking the stadium. Taverne in the Sky, part of the LodgeKohler hotel.
The National Railroad Museum is a few minutes away by car and has roughly 80 locomotives and cars to look at, plus a diesel-powered train to ride.
The Great Trek to Oshkosh begins on Sunday. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a natural stopping point. This is America’s most-visited national park so I’m hopeful that readers have some brilliant ideas for activities in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. To refresh your memory:
First, if coronapanic ever does end, the government invites you to think about all of the other bad things that could happen and “Make an Emergency Plan”:
Here’s an establishment serving healthful beer, wine, and mixed drinks in an environment that is perfect for spreading SARS-CoV-2 variants. They explain that they enjoyed checking vaccine papers so much that they’re going to continue doing it (“Gotta give the Freedom Fighting Anti Vaxxers Something to Whine About”) even though it is no longer required by mayoral order.
Folks in DC and suburban Maryland have so many masks that they had trouble keeping track of them. Masks were some of the most common street litter in various locales.
What about in Northwest D.C.? Here are some photos from the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood (houses: $1-3 million). First, a street dining venue that is technically “outdoors” but also reminded customers that masks are required (between bites?):
The typical shop front door had signs in both English and Spanish, often referring to a government order from July 31, 2021. Here a worker cleaning the front door wears a mask in the outdoor heat (over 80 degrees):
Some miscellaneous images from the same neighborhood.
Despite the love of mask-wearing, COVID-19 seems to be raging among the Followers of Science right now. A cousin who is a clinical psychologist in D.C. restricted her practice to Zoom more than two years ago and has barely left her house. She explained that she couldn’t meet us because… she has COVID-19 right now. Her symptoms are similar in nature and severity to what unvaccinated friends suffered in 2020, but she attributes her survival to having been vaccinated. She would share the mystification of the following tweet:
My mom (nearly 88) and I attended what was supposed to be a 100-person Bat Mitzvah celebration. The hostesses put “vaccination required” prominently on the invitation. Nonetheless, multiple D.C.-area people guests failed to show up at the last minute because they were sick with COVID. Masks were not required at the gathering, but roughly half of the invulnerable teenagers attending wore masks (for four hours straight, while dancing, etc.) while only one or two of the older people, all enthusiastic Democrats (and therefore voters for politicians who order mask-wearing), wore masks. For privacy’s sake, I don’t want to show the kids, but here’s an adult with a rainbow mask:
My favorite photo from the trip is this Toyota Sienna with a “MINIVAN” vanity plate:
Related:
now that everyone in D.C. has COVID-19, the public health experts who live there are willing to think the unthinkable: “What Sweden Got Right About COVID” (Washington Monthly, 4/19/2022)
from the same date, “Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe”: Surprisingly, weak positive correlations were observed when mask compliance was plotted against morbidity (cases/million) or mortality (deaths/million) in each country (Figure 3). … While no cause-effect conclusions could be inferred from this observational analysis, the lack of negative correlations between mask usage and COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest that the widespread use of masks at a time when an effective intervention was most needed, i.e., during the strong 2020-2021 autumn-winter peak, was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Moreover, the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.
D.C.’s most powerful politician says “everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time”:
This is a report on a trip from PBI-DCA-PBI, April 21-24. Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle struck down the Biden Administration’s mask order on April 18. (Friends on Facebook have been continuously posting reminders that Judge Mizelle is “not qualified.” In other words, a confused 80-year-old is well qualified to be President of the U.S., but a sharp-minded 35-year-old cannot be a judge.)
The PBI airport still had a few “masks required signs”:
Most of the advertising at PBI was geared toward selling real estate to those fleeing the Lands of Lockdown:
I estimate that 15 percent of the waiting passengers were masked here in majority-Democrat Palm Beach County. Contrast to a friend who was simultaneously flying SFO to EWR (he’s been a righteous supporter of masks, Biden, lockdowns, etc., but somehow is still participating in COVID-19-spreading activities such as travel) who reported 85-90 percent voluntary mask compliance at SFO and only 10 percent masked in Newark. Being in the airport was, despite the lack of audio announcements and signs regarding masks, not as relaxing as it might have been. The PA system was freed up for frequent reminders regarding unattended baggage and TSA liquid policies.
We were welcomed onto the plane by an unmasked flight attendant. The Followers of Science row was directly behind me, but even though were going from mostly-Democrat Palm Beach County to all-Democrat Washington, D.C., only a small minority of passengers chose to wear masks. (In other words, they voted for politicians promising to impose mask orders, but when given the choice won’t wear a mask themselves.)
The flight was on time and passengers, except maybe for the two behind me and their brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Science, cheered when the flight attendant announced that masks were optional. I witnessed no air rage.
I don’t remember any real estate ads in the D.C. airport. Here’s one for the central planners, though. All that they have to do to beat inflation is picture themselves winning:
The percentage of masked passengers and workers at DCA was no higher than at PBI, despite DCA being located right next to the twin hearts of Science (Anthony Fauci’s office at NIH and Dr. Jill Biden’s office).
On the return trip, I noticed a legacy “face coverings required” sign at DCA as well as a depressing Chick-fil-A (closed due to it being a Sunday):
Once again, JetBlue was on time and everyone was in a good mood. The lady sitting next to me had moved from Bethesda to Florida two months ago “for the freedom”. She and her husband (in “wealth management”) had returned for a wedding. They were not wearing masks.
We’re still left with a big question regarding each masked traveler. If he/she/ze/they is concerned enough about COVID-19 to wear a mask voluntarily, why isn’t he/she/ze/they concerned enough to stay home? Nobody held a gun to his/her/zir/their head and forced him/her/zir/them to travel by commercial airline or, indeed, to travel at all. The answer can’t be “an N95 mask protects against all viral attacks” because (1) not all of the masked travelers are wearing N95 masks, and (2) countries that imposed forced N95 masking, e.g., Germany, still had exponential plagues (i.e., two-way N95 masking failed to stop COVID-19 so what hope is there for one-way masking?).
One of my favorite stops on a central Florida trip earlier this month was the Basilica of Mary, Queen of the Universe (see also Wikipedia). It is tough to conceive of a more dramatic contrast with the theme parks. For starters, it’s free and you don’t have to wait in line,
For folks who love astronomy, this is the ultimate chapel:
The approach from the parking lot….
Once inside,
The stained glass covers the good old days when everyone got along:
Life was simpler before the Covidocracy. Moses stopped at 10 rules and didn’t revise them every week. And, although these rules were downloaded from the cloud, Moses did not claim that they were determined by Science.
Reviewing these windows makes me wonder if churches in the Northeast, California, and Illinois should be updated with stained glass panels depicting the lives of the modern saints, i.e., public health officials and governors who kept people safe via lockdown, mask, and school closure orders.
When you’re done with the cathedral, there is another church next door devoted to the god that most Americans worship, i.e., an outlet mall.
On our return from Denver, we stopped overnight in Buckhead, the rich area of Atlanta that was annexed by the city in 1952 and that soon hopes to vote on seceding into “Buckhead City.” Our local host explained that the secession wouldn’t starve Atlanta of significant tax revenue, e.g., for schools. The big difference would be that Buckhead could fund and run its own police force (see “In Atlanta’s Buckhead Neighborhood, Rising Crime Fuels Move to Secede” (WSJ): “Potential loss of the city’s wealthiest and whitest area spurs debate as officials move to address homicides and property crime”).
From what I observed, Buckhead already essentially does fund and run its own police force. The restaurant where we dined and the hotel where I stayed both had hired off-duty police officers, clad in bulletproof vests and wearing guns, to make sure that roving thugs didn’t rob all of the customers. Immigrants from Caracas, Venezuela will feel right at home.
Here’s one from the only part of Umi, our inland sushi destination, that wasn’t too dark to photograph:
Faith in cloth masks is alive and well in Atlanta. Here are a couple of signs encountered on 1/29/2022:
Atlanta adheres to the proven-by-Science principle that if restaurant customers are wearing masks when walking in the door, it doesn’t matter how close together unrelated parties sit once unmasked and talking, drinking, or eating (we saw some counter-serve places with long communal tables that were completely jammed). The FBO where we parked had the obligatory signs reminding pilots and passengers that Uncle Joe’s 1/21/2021 order regarding masks at airports applied even to the world of private planes. Nobody inside was wearing a mask, however.
Our local host was in favor of secession. In his opinion, the city government was incompetent and plagued by nepotism.
(I am not sure how Georgia can compete with neighbors Florida and Tennessee in the long run. The state income tax rate is 5.75 percent (compare to 0% in FL and TN).)
Related:
“TIMELINE: Atlanta City Hall Investigation” (May 2021): “The ongoing investigation into corruption at Atlanta City Hall has taken many twists and turns since the first charges were filed.”
The Cirrus Vision Jet is a great machine, but one thing that it can’t do is go non-stop from South Florida to Denver against a winter headwind. We decided to stop at Flightline KNEW for fuel, muffulettas, and beignets in “The City That Care Forgot”.
After a 15-minute drive over falling-apart roads, we hit Cochon Butcher for the muffulettas and they were everything we dreamed they would be. It is counter service like Panera, but the staff check up on tables periodically, e.g., to make sure that water glasses are full and to see who wants more booze (not us!). This seems like a good system for a country where labor is scarce/expensive.
How about the vaccine papers check that resulted in a family trip cancellation? (see Karen orders two dozen beignets and a three-gallon Hurricane and “Children as Young as 5 Now Under New Orleans Vaccine Mandate” (U.S. News, 12/17/2021) and “New Orleans residents prepare for school vaccine mandate for kids as young as 5” (NBC, 1/22/2022)) It was done with a similar degree of precision as refugee screening during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. My friend was ordering while I was parking the crew car. Prior to ordering, he was asked to show a photo of a vaccine card, but not a photo ID. So the restaurant had no way to know whether the card had any relationship to the customer. I walked in from the street directly to the table and never went to the counter, so my vaccine status was never investigated.
We proceeded to the French Quarter to walk off the sandwiches and build up our beignet appetite. “Most of these people look like they’re on meth and haven’t bathed,” said my companion. The buildings and infrastructure in general seemed to be in rough shape. It was a Monday, admittedly, but the streets did not seem busy enough to sustain the shops and restaurants. Café du Monde is operating in a degraded COVID-19-safe fashion. There are no waiters. You order and pick up beignets and coffee from some ladies working behind a counter, then carry them to a table.
Nearly every shop had a significant amount of signage regarding masks. Following CDC guidance, virtually any piece of fabric qualifies as PPE. An official city poster for businesses, downloaded 1/27/2022:
A saliva-soaked bandana not only qualifies as PPE, but is officially recommended. Alternatively, if you’re visiting from New England, pack a scarf to block aerosol Omicron.
Here’s an example of some disrepair and, if you click to enlarge then zoom in, you’ll see that all of the people walking on the sidewalk are wearing masks of various types:
Voodoo is powerful enough to heal or kill people, but its magic isn’t effective against SARS-CoV-2 without cloth masks:
Hot sauce was powerful enough to propel Hillary Clinton to the forefront of American politics (BBC), but it is also insufficient in the fight against Omicron:
How well have these orders from Covidcrats worked? From the NYT, 1/27/2022:
Cases have decreased recently but are still extremely high. The numbers of hospitalized Covid patients and deaths in the Orleans Parish area have risen. The test positivity rate in Orleans Parish is very high, suggesting that cases are being significantly undercounted.
How does this compare to our home of Palm Beach County, Florida, which is not under any vaccine or mask orders?
#CurveFlattened? Our impression was that “The City that All Recent Economic Booms Forgot” would be a better sobriquet for New Orleans than its trademark “Care Forgot.” Yet median household income does not seem to explain the mournful condition of the city:
(Is the Broken Windows Fallacy actually a fallacy? Katrina (2005) seems to have resulted in an income boost.)
Income in the New Orleans metro area is lower than in the U.S. overall, but higher than in Louisiana overall and it should still be sufficient to keep public infrastructure, such as roads, in decent condition.
Our take-away from the visit: “Covid is the least of this city’s problems.”
See also, OpenTable data from 1/26/2022 back to 1/6/2022:
The tourism-dependent cities of Miami Beach, Naples, and Orlando are much more active, relative to 2019, than New Orleans.
SARS-CoV-2 has achieved much more mindshare in Colorado than in Florida. Boulder and Denver are the centers of concern regarding COVID-19. As you enter the store…
The #1-selling book is The 1619 Project, which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative.”
(Black Americans may be at the very center of the United States national narrative, but I did not see any employees or customers at the bookstore who appeared to identify as “Black”)
Another prominently displayed book reminds customers that there wouldn’t be any Black or white people here if the Native Americans had been more successful militarily.
Joe Biden might be able to find his next Supreme Court nominee in the children’s section:
Speaking of the Supreme Court, AOC stands next to RBG. Perhaps my dream that Joe Biden will nominate thought-leader AOC to the Supreme Court is shared by others?
We told neighbors here in the Florida Free State about our plans for a family trip to New Orleans over the Thanksgiving school break (a whole week for young scholars in Florida). “You know that they’re checking vaccine cards before you can get into restaurants,” was the response. We had some trouble believing that New Orleans would follow San Francisco and New York, but our neighbors’ information was confirmed by “Vaccine mandate: Which places will require them; how will it be enforced?” (August 12, 2021):
New Orleans residents and out-of-towners will now require proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, bars, music venues and many more places.
In New Orleans, you’ll need proof of vaccine or a negative COVID-19 test to go to bars, restaurants, performance venues, stadiums and large outdoor events.
Proof of vaccine should be checked before individuals are allowed to enter the building. Businesses can use the LA Wallet App’s “VerifyYou Pro” function to scan patron’s digital vaccine cards.
Do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, the entire state of Louisiana is currently under a mask mandate and even with your proof of vaccine, you will be required to wear a mask while indoors.
It is possible to do some sightseeing without showing papers. The art museum, for example, requires masks, but checks for vaccine status only if people want to get food. Nonetheless, the idea of showing papers several times per day turned out to be a deal-breaker for one member of our family: “Why don’t we just stay in our Florida bubble?”
Readers: What are your Thanksgiving plans?
(above photos: from LEGOLAND, Carlsbad, California, 2005)
Related:
“Florida Gov. DeSantis Signs Bills Limiting Vaccine Mandates Into Law” (NBC, 11/18): DeSantis signed the package of bills during a news conference at a car dealership in Brandon, Florida on Thursday. … “I think that Brandon, Florida is a great American city,” DeSantis said, as some in the crowd of about 250 supporters chanted “Let’s go Brandon.” … Additionally, it bars schools and governments in the state from having vaccine mandates and allows parents to sue schools with masking requirements. [See video below for the gal that Palm Beach County might not want to mess with.]
School board speech by Florida 2nd grader who was suspended 36 times for not wearing a mask: Legend 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/SjEAhuQuP8
I returned to Maskachusetts at the end of last month. My first impression of the city was surprise at how much trash was allowed to accumulate in the corners of Logan Airport parking lots and how many marijuana shop billboards are now lining the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90).
We flew up to Manchester, New Hampshire in a friend’s Cirrus. The FBO and a local camera shop (Hunt’s) devoted some signage to our current Vietnam War:
A college in the Boston suburbs tries to keep the infected barbarians outside the walls (“Campus Access Restricted”):
Wellesley College had similar signage. Speaking of Wellesley and signage, I visited a family at their $3.5 million house in Wellesley. Across the street:
Unrelated, a sign in their kitchen:
Speaking of $3.5 million houses, I visited a friend at his $3+ million place in Brookline. His kids lost more than a year of education, but the good news is that they no longer have to exhaust themselves to get to a marijuana store (“essential” according to the Covidcrats and, therefore, open throughout coronapanic). Right around the corner:
I visited the Museum of Fine Arts and determined that our apartment would look a lot better if IKEA would start making Ettore Sottsass‘s Carlton room divider (1981):
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The vaccinated white elite are forced to wear masks inside the museum by order of Boston’s mayor. They’re also required to wear masks while walking up the driveway, by the museum itself:
There are numerous reminders inside the museum regarding the mask requirement. Example:
How can the vaccinated white elite put together an exhibit on Blackness? Have local high school students do the curation (this exhibit opened in January 2020, shortly before the schools for those curators were shut down for 1.5 years). It is nice to see an art museum take a firm stand on the Debian vs. Ubuntu question:
Humans come in a rainbow of gender IDs, the museum would like to remind us, but only one gender is entitled to space on the top floor of the newest wing:
Since the MFA is in Massachusetts, of course there is a section curated by Elizabeth Warren:
What if you get tired or feel sick while you’re at the museum? Just step outside and there you will find all of the information that you need to have essential marijuana delivered into your hands:
The ad, direct mail copies of which had piled up in my Harvard Square mailbox, raises a deep question: As noted above, marijuana is officially “essential” according to the Maskachusetts governor and therefore marijuana stores had to remain open while schools were closed. In light of this status, when doesn’t life call for cannabis?
Not everyone agrees with being stoned 24/7 (airport souvenir shop):
After the museum, it was off to visit friends in Newton, a suburb dominated by rich white heterosexuals. Based on their signage, they’re most passionate about the BIPOC and the 2SLGBTQQIA+, but they apparently are happy to pay $1-2 million extra for a house in Newton (compared to house prices in neighborhoods that are diverse) so that they don’t have to live anywhere near those people.
Based on the sign, what is “the Faith”? Is it Christianity, to which the church nominally adheres? One might say “no” because there is no cross or other symbol of Jesus on the sign. But there is a rainbow flag. So perhaps “the Faith” at this church in Newton is faith in Rainbow Flagism.
On arriving at my friend’s house for a planned outdoor walk, his wife asked through the screen door “Are you vaccinated?” Her next question was “Did you get a booster yet?” Later she asked what has become today’s conventional test of faith: “Are you going to get your children [youngest: 6] vaccinated?” She then lamented that her 4-year-old was too young to qualify for the sacrament of vaccination against a disease that kills 82-year-olds.
I visited CVS and found that they were seeking to hire more workers while simultaneously promising those workers 8 hours of mask-wearing time:
If you take the job, you won’t be working with a lot of coins:
Because obesity is a minor problem in the U.S. compared to the horrors of COVID-19, the health-promoting pharmacy maintains its mask vigilance while simultaneously offering ginormous chocolate bars on a “buy 2, get 1 free” basis:
Even at 6 am on a Sunday, Logan Airport was mobbed and my JetBlue flight was full. Note in the pictures below that more than half of the gate agent’s computer screen is devoted to “Federal vaccine mandate” (deadline: January 4; why not January 6 to coincide with the one-year anniversary of The Insurrection?)
The flight was jammed. As on the flight up, almost everyone was simultaneously demasked after every cart-based beverage service. When people struck up conversations, I would see them pulling their masks away from their faces to be heard. A woman who was at least 40 lbs. overweight had purchased all three seats in the row next to mine so that she wouldn’t have to sit right next to someone infected with SARS-CoV-2. As usual, I wondered why someone who was that fearful of COVID-19 was (1) on the plane in the first place (travel is almost always optional and, certainly, Florida and Maskachusetts are connected by highway), (2) unable to lose weight during the 19 months or so that we’ve known about COVID-19’s tendency to kill the obese. Staying home and shedding pounds are the only proven methods for avoiding infection/death by COVID-19. Why don’t people who say that they’re afraid of COVID-19 take these steps?
The Nest of Billionaires (in Palm Beach, median condo/house price $1.5 million and up 23 percent over the last year (but that’s not “inflation”)), about to get a super sweet tax break from the Democrats when the SALT deduction comes roaring back and they can write off their staggering property tax bills (this house next to Mar-a-Lago is hit for $226,667 per year):
Confirming the assertions of Bostonians that Florida has been taken over by the Devil:
(This particular devil actually said, “I’m a rampie,” but the Devil is famous for deceiving.)
I asked the flight attendants in both directions if it bothered them to wear a mask all day at work. “I hate it,” one said. “And since I live in Florida I’m not used to it because I never have to wear it at home.” Had flight attendants quit because they were tired of 20 months of masks during 14 days to flatten the curve? “Not that many,” she replied, “but the vaccine requirement will cause more people to leave.” She was in her 20s and did not want to receive the sacrament of vaccination, citing her low risk of severe COVID-19 balanced against concerns regarding the unknown unknowns of the new medicine/religion (an entirely reasonable perspective, given her age, according to my medical school professor friends, though they’re mostly old and want the vaccine for themselves).
