Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler for February 28, 2022

We drove over to the Netherlands yesterday. We live close to the border in Germany. No more masks required in the Netherlands. It was heaven. Most people in Germany and the Netherlands are vaccinated and boostered.

Although it was wonderful to experience pre-covid normal for a day, in the back of my mind there is a residue of worry that hopefully it was not too early.

Covid restrictions will be dropped in Germany soon as well. Will be watching what happens in the Netherlands and taking it day by day.

Sadly, as life start getting back to normal, we now have to worry about madman Putin’s war and possible escalation. I am hoping the Russian people finally say enough is enough and put an end to Putin’s regime. The same for Belarus. It would be wonderful if Belarus and Russia could finally join the world of democratic nations like mos of the rest of the former Iron Curtain counties have done.

Plagues, famine and war are pretty standard for the world. Peace, plenty and prosperity are unprecedented.

Next pandemic, let’s go for blindfolds too!

About the only places requiring masks where I live, and I believe in much of the rest of the US are places controlled by the feds. Airports, mass transit, museums, etc.

I move to de-mask-us.

I still wear my masks (I double up because I can). It is still a matter of cost / benefit.

The cost is the same as it always has been – a minor inconvenience. My lungs are powerful to breathe through the mask without suffocating and it is not as traumatic as getting beat up at Walmart or sent to the gas chamber at a Nazi death camp. Maybe, I underestimate the threat.

The benefits are diminishing. At one point it was probably a matter of life and death. Now it’s a matter of whether I will get sick or not and, since I am vaccinated, not very sick at all.

When I deem that the inconvenience exceeds the risk and cost of getting sick, I’ll stop wearing my mask. We are getting there.

Better than the Presidented times we’re getting! (Of whatever flavor it is!)

“There is a curse. They say: May you live in interesting times.” ― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

There is a precedent for these (new) times. It was called the 1970’s and 1980’s, waiting and hoping nobody dropped a bomb.