I believe that we have finally reached the other side of this thing…
23 minute read
May 25, 2021, 9:37 PM
On Friday, May 14, 2021, a number of state governments rescinded emergency orders requiring the wearing of face masks in public for people who have had all of their shots for COVID-19, i.e. “fully vaccinated”, on the heels of earlier announcements providing dates for when nearly all COVID restrictions would be removed. And with that, I think that it is safe to say that we’re finally on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that life will return to normal. Ever since the middle of March 2020, when the response to a novel coronavirus started becoming out of proportion to the actual threat, and fear began driving the narrative, I’ve been looking forward to this time, when the world finally started returning to normal.
Truth be told, I took a dim view of the official response to this thing from the beginning. From the outset, my stance has been that almost all of these various “precautions” were unnecessary, and that the best advice for the public was (A) wash your hands at frequent intervals, and (B) be careful about how much you touch your face. This is the same advice that we give about nearly every communicable disease, and it’s served us quite well. I didn’t see any reason why this one should have been any different. Lockdowns, social distancing, masks, limits on gathering sizes, closed restaurants, closed drinking fountains, plexiglass shields, one-way aisles, contactless everything, the constant cleaning and “sanitizing”, temperature checks, and all of the rest of it is all just security theater, i.e. “the practice of taking security measures that are intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to achieve it.” In other words, these measures were there primarily to placate a certain vocal subset of people who were afraid, and their fear was then projected onto the rest of us. In the end, though, as long as there was no vaccine for it, there was nothing that most of us could reasonably do to prevent its transmission. It was a problem that was beyond most of our capabilities to solve. With that in mind, I wasn’t worried about it, and trusted that the scientists whose job it was to solve it would come through. For the rest of us, there was only one single action that was “doing our part”. That action was getting vaccinated against COVID-19 when it became available. Nothing else made a bit of difference. But until that time came when a vaccine was available, we just had to wait.
Unfortunately, though, we all know how much people hate to be told that they have to wait for something to be solved, and can’t do anything about it in the meantime – especially when they’re scared. And for a mass hysteria event, we apparently just can’t have that. Unfortunately, telling people to wait doesn’t look good for politicians, whose constituents will demand that something be done about it after the media has whipped them up into a frenzy – especially during an election year when many of them were trying to keep their jobs. You know that people would practically crucify any elected official who got up and said, “I’m sorry, but there is really nothing in my power that I can do to solve this at this time. Until a vaccine becomes available, we just have to wait.” So, instead, they pander to the masses, going out and doing things that make it look like they’re doing something, i.e. security theater. When they make it look like they’re doing something, the masses eat it right up. They stepped in and shut down businesses (and destroyed many people’s livelihoods in the process – see my Gordmans entry), enforced social distancing rules on everyone, and required masks. Everyone was impacted in some way, and it sure looked like something was being done while we waited. Especially with the use of mask mandates, they put the pandemic in your face – and on your face – all the bloody time. As far as the politicians were concerned, mission accomplished.
Continue reading…Categories: COVID-19, National politics, News, Social media, State and local politics
A flight over JMU…
4 minute read
May 15, 2021, 2:12 PM
On May 10, while Elyse and I were on a weekend trip down to the Shenandoah Valley to see the parents and such, we stopped at JMU, and I took the drone for a flight over the far side of campus across Interstate 81. That is a part of campus that has definitely changed since I was a student, as it’s a lot more built up than it used to be. There are lots of buildings over there that weren’t there when I attended. There’s also a new indoor arena over there called the Atlantic Union Bank Center, or, as the folks on Reddit have taken to calling it, the “Algerdome”, after JMU’s current president, Jonathan Alger. I flew from a facility that was new since I was there, on the roof of a massive parking garage next to the Algerdome, built on the former site of Blue Ridge Hall. That higher vantage point was helpful because it gave me a better line of sight to my aircraft and a better signal for my remote, as there were fewer buildings getting in my way up there.
And here are the photos:
Categories: Harrisonburg, JMU, Photography
Gordmans, we hardly knew ye…
10 minute read
May 7, 2021, 10:03 AM
Recently, while working through my very large backlog of photos, I processed the various photos that I took of the Gordmans store in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. For those not familiar, Gordmans, in the form that I experienced it, was an off-price retailer owned by Stage Stores. Stage was in the process of implementing a major strategic move, repositioning itself away from department stores and going all-in on the off-price model (like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or Ross). With that, the company had begun to convert all of its department store nameplates, i.e. Stage, Bealls, Goody’s, Palais Royal, and Peebles, to Gordmans. The goal was to have all of its 738 stores in 42 states converted to the off-price format under the Gordmans name by the end of 2020. The Waynesboro store was originally a Peebles, and was an early conversion to Gordmans.
As you probably guessed based on my wording, world events caused a change in Stage’s plans. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the various “lockdown” orders issued meant that all of Stage’s stores, considered “non-essential” businesses, were shuttered for several months. With the stores closed and the resulting lack of sales for an extended period, this pushed Stage off of a cliff, financially speaking, which lead to their filing for bankruptcy. It was ultimately determined that the best course of action was to wind-up operations, and as such, when the stores reopened, they immediately began going-out-of-business sales.
My first experience with Gordmans was on June 1, 2020. Elyse and I were out doing some photography in the Hagerstown and Waynesboro areas, and happened upon the Gordmans store in the Wayne Heights Mall shopping center, at an hour when it should have been in operation, if not for government orders requiring that it be closed.
Categories: Companies, COVID-19, Waynesboro (PA)