Right Angle: Backstage (01-04-2022)

I’m truly amazed that people still think that this vaccine was a good idea. I’m currently about to go through my 5th out of 6 chemotherapy treatment and I feel better than I have felt in 10 years. There’s no way on God’s green earth that vaccine will come anywhere near me. I’ve been in and out of hospitals, clinics, you name it and I’ve never had covid and everyone that I know that was vaccinated has had it and was really sick for a couple of weeks if not hospitalized. Not one unvaccinated person that I know has gotten sick so if they had it, they didn’t know. So, no Scott, there are many who would completely disagree that this vaccine does anything good.

What mrmusic? You don’t even have threshold of a dream? Gaads!!!

Lots of laughs in this episode .

Scott, the Covid-19 vaccines aren’t vaccines (vaccines prevent you from getting the disease, a la polio or measles); Covid-19 shots are therapeutics–they mitigate the severity of the symptoms. The vaccinated can contract and transmit Covid just as the unvaccinated.
Because of that, there is NO reason to discriminate between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Weighing the risks of disease severity versus possible shot side-effects should be a personal choice.

Scott, you don’t call a microwave oven a campfire, and we shouldn’t call a woman a man. We shouldn’t be changing the language because the government says so. This shot isn’t a vaccine.

Steve, I don’t disagree. I just don’t care what they call it. I care what it does. If I want hot coffee, it matters little to me whether you heat it over a campfire, or in a microwave. Mmmm…coffee. Gotta go!

I’m sure Chris Cuomo’s available. lol

cannot seem to find this specific info anywhere: for the Antarctic station with COVID… did those folks only test positive, or are they actually exhibiting symptoms?

Scott, I bet what you don’t like is soy sauce, which they put in everything–except the vanilla pudding…

True. I don’t like it. But when I’ve been to Chinese restaurants, I douse everything with it (except the pudding), because I like better than most other items on the buffet.

My brother-in-law is Chinese and a fairly decent Asian cook. He makes some pretty good stuff, to my tastes anyway. I grew up in a Scandinavian enclave in Minnesota with good and plenteous but very bland farm food. I didn’t know it was bland. So when I got out into the larger world and discovered all those exotic flavors it was a real eye-opener for me.

I love Thai restaurants and always order the hottest thing they have. In the spiciest way they will prepare it.

That said, I will not eat boiled white rice voluntarily. It has no flavor, not even as much as a bare baked potato. I’ll eat pretty much anything and have done so but I won’t eat rice unless that’s all there is. Not even soaked in soy sauce.

You should never lie to kids, any kids, especially your kids. However, when Scott said you should never threaten anything you’re not willing to do, that’s just a hair off the mark and I’m going to quibble a bit.

I would phrase that as “you should never make a threat that you’re not going to back up” and yes, there’s a difference.

I recently posted an anecdote here where my eldest grandson, who at the time was 20 years old, really ticked me off in a big way. He was visiting and talking about my sanctum sanctorum, my really cool high tech mancave full of things that would fascinate any young man, to a friend on the phone. I overheard him say that he would post pictures to his facebook page so his buddy could see it too. This was a total, incontrovertible, unignorable affront to my personal privacy and I said …

“Like hell you will. Try that and I’ll have a large chunk of your ass nailed to the back wall drying in the sun.” Or something to that effect. If you knew me you’d know this is not out of character and is not an idle threat but …

Of course my grandson was aware that I was not going to actually knock him down, slice off a piece of his gluteus muscle and nail it to the barn wall where it would dry like jerky in the sun.

What he was also very aware of is that if he didn’t respect my privacy, something very, very bad would happen to him in punishment and retribution. He knew I wasn’t going to carve up his body but he knew that the threat was dead serious too. What I was saying is “I’ll mess you up good if you do that.” and he knew that’s what I meant and that I absolutely would do that.

Because I don’t lie to my kids so that’s the way my son, his dad, raised him too.

When it comes to my kids, and then my grandkids … If I say you’re going to be in deep manure into the manure you will go. If I say I’m taking you fishing, fishing we will go. If I say “Pick out a watch for graduation between X & Y dollars.” That’s what you’ll get for graduation.

If I say I’m going to land on you with both feet and no parachute, or hang a piece of your butt on the barn, etc. — That’s an open ended vague threat that is often more terrifying as an unknown than the actual punishment. Because you know I’m going to come up with something appropriate and (to you) diabolical, you just don’t know what. Yet. But you know it’s going to happen, of that there is no doubt in your mind.

That’s the important part, the follow through. The “hang a chunk of your butt on the barn wall” part is just the attention getter. Doing it this way allows me time to consider an appropriately severe but just punishment and the planning it takes to implement it. I don’t make idle threats, ever, and my family knows that.

Where we lived when my kids were growing up was a beautiful old turn-of-the-century farm house appropriately modernized. There were big, ornate brass door knobs and lock plates everywhere. There was a couple hundred yards of copper pipe in the basement easily accessible. One punishment I had in mind after making that “attention getting threat” was how many door knobs and how many yards of copper pipe were going to be brought up to a Marine Corps bright gleam having been polished diligently by the child miscreant. I had several other punishments equally devious.

As with anything, it’s not so much what you say as what you do that really counts.

My brother reminded me of a great story about my dad. When he was a typical 16 year old, my dad’s general threat was something semantically like – do that again and I’ll put you through a wall. At his college graduation, the topic of ornery kids came up (likely due to yours truly being about 13 and acting it) and my dad asked my brother why his threats never seemed to have the desired impact.
My brother’s response was priceless – “Because you never actually put me through a wall”
My dad waited a beat or two – looked at me and said “Duly noted”
I understood subtext very well after that.

My Dad used the same system I did, only I like to think I was more inventive about it but it’s basically the same.

While “put you through a wall” is something that might happen, as I’ll explain shortly, the idea of the hyperbolic graphic threat isn’t the same thing.

I was 13 or so, feeling puberty and impending adulthood big time but not there yet. I was what many people would call a “problem child”. One day my Mom and I got into a really bad argument. Now my Mom was a farm girl and could take care of herself but we never had actual combat between family members in my house.

I lost my temper during that argument and made a fist, cocked back and ready to strike. I honestly did not intent to actually punch my Mom, I was just so angry that was the stance I took. As the fist reached the point where it would begin the strike if I were going to hit … *discontinuity*

Awareness returned and I found myself laying on the floor with the worst headache I ever had in my life to that time.

I was standing up against a kitchen wall during the argument and my Dad had come around the corner to see what the hell all the fuss was about at the exact moment where I stopped being aware of my surroundings. There was a big dent in the sheetrock in the kitchen wall where my head and the wall had intersected energetically in space and time.

As I lay there on the floor I could see my Dad standing over me. When he could see that I was no longer insensate he said …

“Don’t you EVER raise your hand to your mother again.”

… and then he walked away.

… and I never ever raised a hand to my Mom again.

Because of that and other instances less kinetic I never doubted that if my Dad told me he was going to so something to me in the way of punishment it was going to be bad. Really, really bad. That’s the only time I recall that he ever actually punched me but I got my share of belt and willow switch welts on my posterior. Dad wasn’t brutal, it wasn’t child abuse, but whether corporal or other punishment it was always unpleasant enough to convey an indelible lesson too.

The disciplinary motto in my house when I was growing up was “I can’t make you do something, but I can and will make you wish you had.”

Of this there was never any doubt.

Back to the sheetrock dent …

The next day my Dad came home with a piece of sheetrock big enough to repair the hole he made putting my head through the wall. He pulled up a chair, arranged the repair materials and sat there giving me instructions as I quietly and humbly repaired the wall. The repair wasn’t done until it was perfect. Then he made me paint the whole kitchen to match the new paint on the damaged wall.

I loved my Dad and Mom and they were actually great parents. To this day I’m absolutely certain that every welt, grounding or hour spent in various chores assigned in punishment, I had earned every bit of them. I’m sorry I behaved in a manner that forced them to treat me like that, they neither wanted to nor enjoyed any of it.

While I’m sorry I did that to them, I shudder to think what I might have become had they not loved me enough to do what they did.

Great story! Thanks for sharing. I have one that I pondered for awhile to share or not to share. But since we as a family always laughed at the memory and my mom is gone 2 years this Sunday, why not.
When my brother was 16 or 17 (I would have been 11 or 12) he said something to set mom off. Now mom was NY Italian all the way through, so she could handle herself, too. But she was also right smack in the middle of menopause, and her mood swings were brutal.
At this particular moment, she was already running hot (literally and figuratively).So when my brother said something disrespectful (nobody recalls exactly what) she snapped quickly. We were in the kitchen so she reached out for the ceramic pitcher in which she kept the wooden spoons, this being the type of response that could typically be expected to be meted out.
However, the first handle she grabbed was not a spoon, it was a handle on a decent length, high quality knife that could be used for veggie chopping or turkey carving. She pulled it off the magnetic holder and . . .my brother bolted out the door.
Mom was PO’d and chased him. I yelled for my dad and my sister and I went after them. Around the front of the house he stopped in front of the closed garage doors. I got there next and as her arm was pulled back looking like she was ready to go full Norman Bates, my dad grabbed her wrist and shouted her name.
She dropped the knife and forever swore that she thought she had a wooden spoon and her heightened anger was at him for being a chicken and not taking the smack or two.
However. . . think about how you would hold a spoon to deliver a num-like smack and how you would how you would hold a carving knife to stab someone. Not really the same position of ones hand, wrist and arm over one’s head, is it?
I truly think my dad stopped something really bad from happening. I KNOW all of our smart-alec mouths got MUCH better after that.
And I had a very healthy respect for the hormonal changes my wife went through when she hit that time.
Fine

I literally laughed out loud at that one. Not “LOL” indicating amusement, I laughed hard enough to bring a tear to my eye.

You made my day and I can easily see where having a hot-blooded Italian Mom could be hazardous to life and limb.

In my family things were considerably more subdued. Danes tend towards succinct understatement and you have to read between the lines a bit. Italians just put it all out there. I lived in Italy for a while and have genuine experience with Italians though there were none where I grew up.

When I got in the military I had no problem with the concept of reviewing an action for the purpose of “lessons learned”. I’m sure you would have gotten that point equally well.

Literally and sorry for the pun.

GASP!!! I can’t believe Steven Green, a man of culture and refinement, has no Moody Blues music.

But I semi-forgive him because he used the word “presidentish” again.

My thoughts as well. Wildest Dreams is amongst my all-time favorites. Always provides a good trip down a memory hole.
There are several others of theirs that rank pretty highly on my personal rolodex.
Well, Steve is but young. (pretty sure you’ll get that reference)

I used to live in Lancaster, PA in Amish country. It used to crack me up that busloads of Chinese tourists would go to the local Chinese buffet for lunch.

While I miss Bill and am praying for him and Natasha to come out of this in fine fettle, I also think that it is fun to have Zo on the Backstage and doing episodes too. It would be great to have a “Square” with four points of guys on it–an enlargement of “Right Angle” with three points of guys. Miss you, Bill!

Never go to a Chinese Buffet – find a real Asian cuisine restaurant and try something different. You will love it. Great flavors, lots of veggies.

One of the guys I worked with noticed there were few stray cats near the Chinese Buffet we often went to for lunch.

Yecch!

Always happy to see Zoe on right angle!

Egg rolls soured you on Chinese Food? Hmmm ….
This reminds me of a tale that my wife tells about her college days’ experience working on a fish processing plant “slime line”. As she tells it, the “slime line” is where the culling of rotten, bottom-feeding white fish (I think they’re called hake) is performed. The hake(?) are prone to being infested with parasites that blacken (rot?) the meat — it’s supposedly a nasty thing to see, smell, touch, etc. Anyway, she says that hake is used in the creation of that artificial crab meat garbage sold by many grocers, and she will not touch that stuff as a result of her fish cannery experience.

Its always interesting to see how a job in a certain industry changes someone’s perspective on the products that industry produces. As a personal example I used to love tons of internet/software things until I started working as a software engineer (also called a programmer when we are not trying to sound important). Because of that experience I have seen my opinion of that kind of technology dropping rapidly.

As a nuclear engineer morphed into an on-the-job-trained “software engineer”, I hear you (no proclamations of self importance intended). There is just too much garbage technology available that, in my opinion, is nothing but a distraction from what is good in life — like that neglected young woman of which Scott spoke.

My brother worked in a Deli for a while. A real NY Italian Deli. The number of things it put him off for a while was tragic.
I, on the other hand, worked at a Liquor and Wine shop from 19-21 years old. I learned a lot and got put off . . .of nothing! Except Grappa. I can’t stand it.
My liver likely looks much like Steve’s. But I rarely get ill!

Fauci is scientifically retarded. He and all of his acolytes just need to go to hell and leave the rest of us alone.

Do you know whether Bill and Natasha have Delta or Omicron? Steve make sure you catch Omicron. Delta, while chances are it won’t kill you, is nasty, nasty, nasty.

Ah, yes, the “they changed the definition of ‘vaccine'” … yeah, and we changed the definition of “oven”, too.

Dr Zubin Damania … I’ve been following him over a year … did a show the other day with a couple other physician friends of his and they were talking about the difference between science and policy. (the ZDogg episode is called “Science vs. Advocacy”. Interesting discussion.)

Policy makers want to maximize the number of vaccinated people, so they’re willing to sweep things under the rug and dumb down the full picture to minimize hesitancy, and they feel justified in that. So they want to paint the scariest picture possible as a motivation. Scientists, on the other hand, are all about “show me the data”.

Then you get someone like Fauci, who is a bona-fide scientist, and put him in a policy position. At first, I cut him lots of slack because we didn’t know much, and because he couched what he said like a scientist would. But eventually they feel justified in suppressing true things and attempting (successfully, often) to suppress people saying TRUE THINGS, because it is at odds with the policy goals. In our system of government, that is a step too far, and our policy makers have flirted more and more with that line.

It is encouraging to hear Biden a week or two ago (in the face of Omicron, I think it was an admission of defeat) … but he said something to the effect of there is no solution to COVID at the federal level.

Which was EXACTLY what the Trump administration was excoriated for following in the first place.

Incidentally, ALL COVID antibodies are going to be partially effective against all other variants (which is expected AND pretty awesome). And worry not. We’re probably all going to get Omicron. Most of us may never know it. So you’ll probably add natural immunity to your pantheon of immune system weapons eventually anyway.

I’m with you, Scott! (did you fill out the full application 😀 ) Nice deep dig there on 22,000 days!

Steve, my fellow Missourian, and NO Moody Blues???? Those first 4 or 5 albums (although they did have one before with a slightly different lineup, but I’m starting with Days of Future Past) … serious Prog Rock gold.

Scott doesn’t like Chinese food?!

See, I guess it just goes to show none of us are perfect.

It’s ALLLLL relative, Kid Zo. 😉

Get better Bill. Zo, I love ya man.

I knew that Moody Blues reference. Same album as Veteran Cosmic Rocker.

Scott, The main issue with these injections being called vaccines is not the mRNA technology, but that they don’t provide immunity. The definition of a vaccine was basically an injection that provides immunity. That made it very clear and differentiates from treatments like steroid injections. These Covid injections do not provide immunity and so they cannot be vaccines. Maybe they are effective at reducing symptoms, and maybe not, but that doesn’t make them vaccines. Even the origin of the word vaccine meant immunity (I forget where it came from but I saw something about it). Calling these vaccines does nothing but blur the lines between actual vaccines, and the many treatments/therapies that are injected. Should we be calling steroid injections vaccines now too? Is anti-venom a vaccine? There was always a reason for the clear definition of a vaccine in providing immunity. Calling these covid injections a vaccine is purely to make it more politically favorable. It had nothing to do with changing technology.

Cole, while I don’t doubt you, I also don’t care what they call it. I understood the purpose. I don’t think they kept that a secret. I’m grateful for the additional insurance against hospitalization and death that I procured when I received the shots and the booster. I don’t expect any guarantees in this life. Glad you’re here, my friend, and thanks for making this site more interesting.

Scott I love you man but you would have been no fun at all on shore leave in Shanghai at all. Betty White was actually quite a bawdy talker in real life but never really cussed on air but in private with friends it was a different matter. Just tell Bill we miss him.

Perhaps she wrote all of her own sketches, but I doubt it. Her monologue was excellent, and the rest was a one-trick pony. That said, I would have thoroughly enjoyed shore leave in Shanghai, assuming they had some excellent book stores and libraries.

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