Month: August 2021

Just like with many things, if we look at examples of success in certain areas of the country and in certain situations, perhaps we could then generalize and come up with a more inclusive plan, or perhaps even a solution. Here I am specifically speaking about the spread of Covid. These days the delta variant is the rage just about everywhere, and it is spreading like wildfire in some places. Perhaps we should study those situations in which there doesn’t seem to have been in the past, or in which there is now no appreciable worry about the spread of the virus. Certainly, by assimilating  data from these situations, we all can learn something.

A possible solution? Follow me … as I think I have it

For instance in the past there was apparently no Covid spread at BLM “rallies.” Why was this? Has it been looked into?

Last weekend Chicago’s downtown was a sea of mostly unmasked humanity as hundreds of thousands crowded together for the outdoor music festival Lollapalooza.

A chorus of public health experts sounded the alarm about the fast spread of the contagious coronavirus delta variant – even by the fully vaccinated – and the city called for masking indoors, yet more than 385,000 people packed the four-day event. 

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended the decision to hold the festival. She certainly must have known something the rest of the country didn’t. Why wasn’t the source of her “inside info” queried? Certainly, we could have all learned something from her and Lollapalooza.

In Washington, D.C. Dave Chappelle had a indoor concert on July 30. Some 3,500 attended his show at the concert venue The Anthem. Coincidentally Mayor Muriel Bowser of D.C. instituted a citywide mask mandate for the following day. I guess there was something special about  that concert that made the spread of Covid next to impossible. If the spread of Covid was not going to be a problem at that concert, Mayor Bowser should let the rest of us know why not, so that the rest of us could learn.

The Mexican border especially around the area of McCallum, Texas also needs to be studied. Thousands and thousands of illegals are coming into this border city. Many of these have tested positive for Covid, yet they are not quarantined or stopped. Obviously, there must be something special about the Covid in this area, otherwise these positive individuals would be treated like everyone else. Why won’t President Biden let us in on the secret?

And finally on 8/7 President Obama threw a huge birthday celebration for his sixtieth. Supposedly about four hundred of his closest friends were in attendance. Obviously, he and Michelle must know the secret to not spreading Covid. Hopefully at some point, they will fill in the rest of the country as to what the secret is.

I think I have it … a solution. 

Perhaps if BLM, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Mayor Muriel Bowser, President Biden, and ex-President Obama would pool all of their inside info, the country could get the upper hand on this delta variant.

8/11/21

This morning I was reminded of the beginning of that Don McLean song American Pie:

“A long, long time ago

I can still remember how …”

What brought this to mind was what a Navy Captain told me many many years ago concerning leadership. He said, “Those that can … do, and those that can’t, concentrate on haircuts and shoeshines.” In other words an effective leader concentrates on those things that are important, while an ineffective leader focuses on those things which are of much lesser importance. The poor leader will tell someone to get a haircut despite the fact that there are multiple more important issues on which he/she should be focusing his/her attention.

And this leads me to Lori Lightfoot who continues to pretend to be the Mayor of Chicago. For those unaware, this past weekend was another horrific weekend in terms of mayhem in the city with at least 66 victims shot and eight killed. Worse however, one police officer is dead and another is in critical condition after they were shot in the line of duty during a Saturday evening traffic stop. The dead officer is 29 year old Ella French. A second officer, her partner, is in critical condition after being shot during that same encounter.

The mayor did declare a public day of mourning in the city, but because she is a Democrat could not resist blaming guns for the city’s out of control violence, as she tweeted, “we have a common enemy: it’s guns & the violence they bring.” Isn’t this just another example of placing the blame on some nefarious others … those nasty gunrunners? Perhaps Ms. Lightfoot is not aware that Chicago has one of the most strict gun control laws in the country.

It should be apparent to anyone who really knows that the main problem here is related to gangs. Gangs were a problem in Chicago way back when I lived there and this gang problem has since gotten logarithmically worse under incessant liberal Democrat control. I did not hear the Mayor of Chicago mention “gangs,” or family disintegration as baseline causes of the violence.

Amazingly she added in a follow up tweet, “Some say we don’t do enough for the police. Others say we do too much. All of this must stop.” Hmmm! As I recall it was Mayor Lori and her liberal cronies who were recently beating the drums proclaiming that the police were the problem.

To me it is obvious that Ms. Lightfoot is indeed a lightweight. Under her leadership violent crime has skyrocketed … in 2020, the murder rate in Chicago spiked 50%.

However, all is not lost? One of my inside sources tells me that tomorrow she will be making an announcement concerning haircuts and shoeshines.

8/10/21

Granted Einstein was not an M.D., but as most will recall, he had a very prophetic statement on the definition of “insanity,” and this statement is becoming more and more apropos during this ongoing slugathon-marathon with Covid.

Einstein purportedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”  … this is how we have dealt with and are continuing to deal with Covid! Lockdowns, mandatory masking, and forced social distancing did not prevent any of the various waves of Covid, so naturally with the delta variant, what is now being recommended by those that know best? You guessed it … lockdowns, mandatory masking, and forced social distancing. To paraphrase Einstein, “Insanity.”

Now we are entering into a new phase of possible renewed insanity regarding the vaccines. Let’s think about this for a bit. As I recently detailed, reports out of Israel are discovering waning immunity to vaccines as the vaccine recipients get further out from their jabs. As Israel was well ahead on their vaccine program compared to the U.S., is it not reasonable to anticipate this same phenomena will likewise occur here in the U.S? In fact health officials are already talking about potential decreased vaccine effectiveness as time goes on. So what would be the solution to this problem? … of course, vaccine boosters, and then when these boosters start to lose their effectiveness, will it be more boosters? 

Could a prior-vaccinated individual now getting Covid (probably the delta variant with its lowered risk of serious infection), turn out to be a good thing?  Well before you laugh too hard, note that at this point natural immunity is proving to be potentially better than vaccine induced immunity in that it is not waning. As some of you may remember, SARS 1 occurred back in 2003, and those individuals who had a SARS 1 infection back then are still showing evidence of immunity. Their immunity is not waning. Granted SARS 1 and SARS 2 are not exactly the same viruses, but they are very close.

Similarly, is giving vaccines to younger and younger individuals, when we are now learning that vaccine induced immunity is a waning phenomenon, a good thing? This is an especially apropos issue with children and schools, because Covid is an extremely benign viral infection in children. By forcibly vaccinating these younger children are we as a society becoming more and more a billboard for Einstein’s definition of insanity? Would not everybody be better off if we sent all school-aged children back to school without the masks, without the social distancing of desks, etc. and thus allowed them to get Covid and thus develop their own natural immunity the way nature intended? 

Similarly should the forced vaccinations for college students fall into this same category? Why are schools forcing their young students to be vaccinated before they can start college this year when we are becoming cognizant that this vaccine induced immunity is likely to be a waning phenomenon? One would think that colleges would be more aware of what Einstein has said.

(I may have mentioned how in my book, The Keneally Chronicles, a small town used non-Einstein like tactics to attack Covid head on.) 

8/9/21

Many many years ago my teenage daughters were on a swim team. It was not like the teams of today with hundreds of members, but rather a small neighborhood team with perhaps fifty kids. My wife and I had them involved in swimming, not because they were potential college caliber swimmers, but rather because we felt that swimming would keep them tired … and thus less likely to get in trouble. BTW, it worked.

I was reminded of this swim team because today I read something which referenced George Orwell who said something about the further people get from the truth, the more people will hate those who say it (say the truth). 

On this low-key swim team there was one boy who decided that he no longer wished to be called by his given name, ‘Zane,’ but rather he wished to be called ‘Murphy Patterson.’ I can remember my daughters telling us about Zane, visa vi Murphy Patterson, and laughing because it was so nonsensical. Whether anyone actually referred to him by his new pseudonym is irrelevant, as his new fabricated view of reality was likewise also irrelevant.

Fast forward to today. Now if someone says A is really B, it seems that the rest of us must buy into that new fabricated view of reality. If anyone dares to say that, in fact, A is still A, and not B, he/she has violated some rule, at least so says Twitter. When Allie Beth Stuckey referred to weightlifter Laurel Hubbard as a man, she was banned from Twitter for twelve hours because she violated its “hurtful conduct” policy. Hmmm!

As much as logical thinking is frowned upon in today’s world, does anyone, besides me, feel that common sense may in fact be necessary here?

Olympian weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s chromosomes are XY, but he insists that he is XX. Therefore, if society does not buy into Laurel Hubbard’s alternate view of reality, society is in the wrong. As best I can recall, an alternate view of reality is otherwise known as a psychosis. Therefore, if anyone does not buy into someone else’s psychosis, he/she is in the wrong. Furthermore, it’s hard to get further from the truth than by saying XY is really XX, and like Orwell implied this will get those who speak the truth lambasted and censured by yo-yos like Twitter.

Furthermore, if Laurel Hubbard now wanted everyone to call him, “Murphy Patterson,” would we all just acquiesce, or would society finally say something similar to what the swim coach said forty years ago, “Laurel, grow up! The rest of us are not buying into your Murphy Patterson nonsense.”

8/8/21

As I am sure many of you are already aware, Israel was far out ahead of every other nation when it came to the vaccination of its citizens, and as a consequence has a much longer follow up on its vaccine recipients.  The following is from a transcript of an interview with Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel’s director of Public Health Services, that aired on Sunday, August 1, 2021, on “Face the Nation.”

(This piece is already long and so because of space constraints, I have not reproduced her entire interview, but it would be easy find the entire interview, if you suspected that I was selectively reproducing only parts of what she said.)

Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis: 

“We are seeing about 50% of the people who are infected right now are vaccinated, fully vaccinated individuals. And so that is obviously of concern. Previously, we thought that vaccinated, fully vaccinated individuals are protected. We’re now see- we now see that the vaccine effectiveness against disease is roughly 40%. It still remains high for severe disease. But we are seeing diminished protection, especially for people who have been vaccinated earlier.

“And what we have been seeing in the past several weeks is actually an evidence that there is waning immunity. If we compare people both over the age of 60, but also between 16 to 59 who were immunized early on, so were fully vaccinated by the end of January, we see infection rate among them that is 90 per 100,000 which is double that of those who were fully vaccinated in March. So we see a drop in- in the vaccine effectiveness against disease for those who have been vaccinated early on. And we see it for both elderly people over the age of 60, but also for younger.

“I will- I have to explain that the decision to make a booster shot available is a combination of two. First is really the evidence of what we think is waning immunity and the difference between the infection rate between those who were vaccinated early on and those who were vaccinated later, but also the evidence that we have increased severe and critical condition in hospitalization with severe and critical conditions among the 60 and above population who are fully immunized. And that’s together with the fact that we are seeing lack of- lack of response to the vaccine over time has led us to suggest to people or actually allow them to be vaccinated a third time. So it’s- it’s not just the fact that we’re seeing more disease, but they’re getting to severe and critical conditions.

“We needed to check if vaccinated individuals can infect others. We know that they can be infected. We see them. They’re 50% of the confirmed cases on a daily basis now. But the question is whether they can infect others. And we actually saw that 80% of vaccinated individuals who have become confirmed cases themselves, 80% of them have zero contacts that have been confirmed and another 10% have- have only one contact that- that was confirmed to be a case because of their connection with this individual. So their ability to- to infect others is 50% lower than those who are not vaccinated.

JOHN DICKERSON: So just so I make it abundantly clear, those- you found that there is some very small amount of those who have been vaccinated who can spread, but it’s quite small. The majority of those have been vaccinated–

DR. ALROY-PREIS: Yeah.

JOHN DICKERSON:–you found are not spreading?

DR. ALROY-PREIS: Exactly, exactly. There is a spread among household contacts, but if we take household contacts out of the equation, the- the- the risk of a confirmed case who is vaccinated to infect others is about 10% for- to infect one other individual and lower than 10% to infect more than one.

From this interview I have two comments:

First; In my opinion, Dr. Alroy-Preis has just easily surpassed Dr. Fauci in terms of credibility.

Second; Is this waning effectiveness of the vaccine in Israel a  predilection of things come here in the U.S? 

If in fact this turns out to be the case, could it be that those at low risk for Covid-infection hospitalization or death, would be much better off in the long run, if they eschewed vaccination and took their chances, albeit very low, with getting the infection itself.

In my mind this should be a serious consideration.

8/7/21

When President Trump got “defeated,” I thought that perhaps I would have nothing to write about. How wrong I was. In fact since then I have i have doubled my writing frequency from about three/four per week to six/seven per week. With Sleepy Joe, Laughing Kamala, and the insipid wokeness that has invaded just about all aspects of American life, I now have a “waiting to be published” list of already written articles … and according to an ‘unbiased’ opinion … these are good interesting articles that are just wishin’ and a hopin’ to get picked next.

Ergo, today after reading a bunch of potential stuff to opine about, I decided that quality was more important than quantity, and so the following will be placed in their own circular round file, aptly labeled “who cares.”

-The USA Woman’s soccer team lost in Tokyo, and finally limped in with a bronze.  I was not sad.. When you have the starters disrespecting the flag, and three of the subs giving the flag it’s due respect, it was clear to me that the coach had lost control. The tea was obviously divide and the Purple Haze was in charge. They got what they deserved. Who cares?

-New York A.G. said that “Gov. Andrew Cuomo violated federal and state law by sexually harassing multiple women and threatening retaliation against a former employee who made a public complaint about his behavior.” All of these ‘he said, she said’ stories are always just going to remain just that. Probably guilty, but who cares? Has anyone but me noticed that all the similar Sleepy Joe stories have ”vanished” from the face of the MSM?

-New Mexico House Majority Leader Sheryl Williams Stapleton, a Democrat, announced her resignation from her office over a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery and money laundering. At first it was a picture of a slightly thinner Stacey Abrams, but no, … it was Sheryl Williams Stapleton. Just another woman with a triple last name from New … where? Oh yeah, New Mexico! Probably guilty, but who cares?

-Both Lori Lightfoot, mayor of Chicago, and Muriel Bowser, mayor of D.C apparently thought that it was okay to break their own mask and social gathering mandates, and then deny it, despite pictures to the contrary. Are all of these big city Democrats the same, or is it only those who are Stacey-esque? Again, who cares?

-According to a new announcement, even as Biden talks another nationwide lockdown, former President Obama is planning a big birthday bash for himself with 700 of his closest friends, which he apparently cut back to 425 because of Covid. Four hundred twenty five of his “closest” friends … and the libs say that Trump has an ego problem! BTW, The former president is hosting the party at his $12 million mansion in Martha’s Vineyard. Who will calculate the excess global warming that will be caused by all of the private jets flown to this shindig? To me this is just another example of hypocritical politicians doing as they please. Who cares?

8/6/21

Today, for fun, I scanned my local liberal “newspaper” to see what the progress of Pelosi’s 1/6 commission was. Nada … Nothing … Zero on this obviously anti-Trump sojourn into nothing. I could not find anything, but not a surprise because very few care. At this point I am going to resist the temptation to blast Pelosi for her puerile immature behavior, because I have a more important topic to discuss. … the latest Rasmussen poll. And no, not surprisingly, I did not find a summary of this poll in my local “newspaper,” either, but for a different reason, which will become obvious.

This Rasmussen poll had to do with the BLM riots last summer.

The results are summarized below:

Most voters believe Congress should also investigate the Black Lives Matter protests that sparked violence in major cities last year.

A new national telephone and online survey by the National Police Association and Rasmussen Reports finds that 66% of Likely U.S. Voters think Congress should investigate last year’s violent protests, in which more than 2,000 police officers suffered injuries in the line of duty. Twenty-one percent (21%) don’t think Congress should investigate last year’s protests, and 13% were not sure.

Wow! Pretty impressive … over 3:1 in favor of investigations these BLM riots … an investigation which, of course, will not happen as long as the Democrats control Congress.

According to a study of 68 cities by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, in the summer of 2020, there were at least 574 protests that involved acts of violence, including assaults on police officers, looting and arson. The number of voters who want Congress to investigate last year’s violent protests is higher than the 49% who say they support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s select committee investigation of the January 6 Capitol riot. FYI: Forty-two percent (42%) say they don’t support the January 6 investigation.

Other interesting facets of this same Rasmussen survey:

Majorities of every racial group and political affiliation support a congressional investigation of last year’s violent protests. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of whites, 64% of black voters, 66% of Hispanics and 62% of other minorities think Congress should investigate the 2020 riots in U.S. cities. Seventy-five percent (75%) of Republicans, 60% of Democrats and 63% of voters not affiliated with either major party say Congress should investigate last year’s violent protests.

There are a lot of interesting opinions on display here, but in general there is overwhelming support for the police, and overwhelming distaste for the actions of BLM.

I have cherry-picked a few other findings:

— Sixty-five percent (65%) believe President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should meet with the family of St. Louis Police Capt. David Dorn, who was murdered in 2020 when he was protecting his friend’s business from looters, just as they did with the family of George Floyd.

— Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters think participants in the nationwide 2020 rioting and looting should be criminally charged, as were those who took part in the January 6 Capitol riot.

— Sixty-eight percent (68%) think that refusing to prosecute trespassing, shoplifting, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, receiving stolen property, breaking and entering, resisting arrest and other “quality of life” crimes is likely to increase the commission of those crimes. 

For those of you who suspect my cherry-picking is biased, I invite you to Google, “Rasmussen report of 7/21/21.”

8/5/21

From the beginning of this Wuhan virus pandemic, I have had a simple basic question … “Does having a documented Covid infection protect that individual from getting Covid a second time?” My suspicion has been, “yes, but not 100%, as nothing is 100%. For many months during the Spring of 2020, I was only able to read about a single documented reinfection in an individual with an initial Covid infection, documented by testing. That particular individual was a bike racer somewhere in the Middle East, possibly Dubai. Anyway he had a test-documented case of Covid. When felt better, he was subsequently retested and was negative, and he then began to get back into bike racing circuit. Before each subsequent bike race over a period of many months as per protocol, he was tested multiple times – all negative. Then out of the blue before a race, he tested positive, and retested … still positive. At that point he had mild respiratory symptoms which resolved in a day or two. 

To me, this sounded like a documented Covid reinfection, but I have not read about the likelihood of a Covid reinfection until I just read this piece by Dr. Marty Makary in the WSJ:

“More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.

“Only around 10% of Americans have had confirmed positive Covid tests, but four to six times as many have likely had the infection. A February study in Nature used antibody screenings in late summer 2020 to estimate there had been seven times as many actual cases as confirmed cases.

“Natural immunity is durable. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported last month that 11 months after a mild infection immune cells were still capable of producing protective antibodies. The authors concluded that prior Covid infection induces a “robust” and “long-lived humoral immune response,” leading some scientists to suggest that natural immunity is probably lifelong.

A study found only three confirmed re-infections in the entire state, 

of Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, whose population exceeds four million. Other studies have confirmed that re-infections are rare and usually asymptomatic or mild.

“Some health officials warn of possible variants resistant to natural immunity. But none of the hundreds of variants observed so far have evaded either natural or vaccinated immunity with the three vaccines authorized in the U.S.

So my basic question appears to have been answered. 

Just one more basic question:

“Should the previously infected be vaccinated?”

Dr. Makary’s answer, 

“My clinical advice to healthy patients with natural immunity is that one shot is sufficient, and maybe not even necessary, although it could increase the long-term durability of immunity.” (emphasis is mine)

From now on I am going to pay much less attention to Dr. Fauci and much more attention to Dr. Makary as he is actually seeing patients, something the Dr. Fauci has not done in a very very long time!

To me this brings up the topic of schools, masks, etc. It is known that children typically get only mild, if any, symptoms with Covid, so why not “encourage” young children to get that mild form of this disease by doing away with masks, spatial distancing, etc in schools. According to what we know about natural immunity, perhaps this could be an easier way for our country to achieve herd immunity.

[FYI in my book, “The Keneally Chronicles,” (available on Amazon), this is exactly what a small town in the Southwest did.]

8/4/21

I am going to assume that most of you do not remember Betsy DeVos. To refresh your memory, she was the education secretary in the last administration. Assuredly those of you who lean to the left have probably ignored just about anything that she said in the past, because of who appointed her to be education secretary. That’s politics and I get it. 

(I am trying my best to make this essay totally non-political, because this subject should be totally non-political.) 

Actually I do not recall much about Betsy DeVos, but I just came across something that she had said. Something she felt strongly about … namely that parents — not politicians or government bureaucrats — know what their children need to succeed academically. 

Now I ask you to attempt to blind yourself politically. Can anybody disagree with that? Is there anybody reading this that thinks otherwise?

President Obama, whose own daughters attended Sidwell Friends for $40,000 per year, was able to choose the school which he felt was best for his children. Now, not everyone has forty grand a year to spend on el-hi school, but he was the President and could afford it. Moreover, as a parent, he knew what his children needed to succeed academically.

With this background, let me introduce the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which was created by Congress in 2004 after local parents organized an effort to provide education options for low-income parents. 

Now the Biden administration plans to phase the program out in 2023. That would allow current students to finish at their current schools and prevent new students from enrolling in the voucher program.

This decision would prevent some parents’ younger children from participating in the same program that rescued their older children from failing schools. Those choices matter in a city where less than 30% of black students are reading and doing math at grade level. … Let that sink in -<30%!

OMG! Help me understand how this makes any sense. OSP does not need to have an infrastructure set up … it has already been functioning for almost twenty years. It has been hugely successful. So why phase out this program? 

Does Biden’s decision have anything to do with the teacher’s unions. Duh!!

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, signaled what it wanted the president to do about school choice prior to last year’s election. It recommended opposing the expansion of charter schools and eliminating D.C.’s voucher program in its policy playbook for the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

The irony is that nationally, public schoolteachers send their own children to private schools at a rate twice as high as the national average.

What does the public think when it comes to school choice?

A RealClear Opinion Research poll found majorities of both Republican and Democrat voters support school choice.

74% of voters support school choice, including 83% of Republicans, 70% of Democrats, and 69% of independents, according to the poll, which was conducted in June.

A majority (66%) of both Republican and Democrat poll respondents also supported giving public education funding directly to parents, rather than the education system, “to use for home, virtual, or private education expenses.”

“These results represent a marked increase in support for school choice since similar polling was conducted in April 2020,” a statement from the American Federation for Children (AFC) pointed out. “Overall support has increased from 64% to 74%; public school parent support has increased from 68% to 80%; Democrat support has increased from 59% to 70%.”

“Public support for school choice is at an all-time high. And, as the nation recovers from unprecedented, nationwide school closures, a new story is unfolding,” said AFC CEO Tommy Schultz. “Parents are rising up and demanding the freedom to choose the best educational environment for their children,” he said.

Biden’s recent action on OSP seems counterintuitive to public opinion.

So basically the hell with the kids. Hey Joe! … politics as usual?

OMG … OSP gone with a mere wisp of Biden’s pen!

I would have the inclination to call J.B. a ‘gigolo’ … except that he is far far from young!

8/3/21

Eric Clapton hit the headlines late last year for recording and releasing an anti-lockdown song “Stand and Deliver” — penned by fellow lockdown sceptic, the iconic vocalist Van Morrison. Stand and Deliver was just one of many songs Morrison recorded about the UK government’s approach to curbing the spread of COVID-19.

Both Clapton and Van Morrison were the victims of significant backlash because of their views that were made public in the lyrics of 

Stand and Deliver. 

 Back then Clapton wrote:

“I continue to tread the path of passive rebellion and try to tow [sic] the line in order to be able to actively love my family, but it’s hard to bite my tongue with what I now know.

“Then I was directed to Van [Morrison]; that’s when I found my voice, and even though I was singing his words, they echoed in my heart… I recorded ‘Stand and Deliver’ in 2020, and was immediately regaled with contempt and scorn.”

FYI: Stand and Deliver includes lyrics that explicitly warn against giving the government that much power.

“Do you wanna be a free man
Or do you wanna be a slave …
Do you wanna wear these chains
Until you’re lying in the grave?”

Because he is a senior citizen, Eric Clapton did get the vaccine, and unfortunately had severe side effects from the vaccine. He did receive both doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine.

Clapton described his experience in a letter as follows:

“I took the first jab of AZ and straight away had severe reactions which lasted ten days. I recovered eventually and was told it would be twelve weeks before the second one…,”

“About six weeks later I was offered and took the second AZ shot, but with a little more knowledge of the dangers. Needless to say the reactions were disastrous, my hands and feet were either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless for two weeks, I feared I would never play again.”

For Clapton possibly never playing guitar again was a huge deal, as he is the man Rolling Stone dubbed the world’s second-best guitarist (after Jimi Hendrix).

Now Clapton is again on the receiving end of criticism because of what he said about vaccine passports and the diktat that proof of vaccination would be needed to attend concerts. Eric Clapton wants nothing to do with vaccine passports — and that includes at his own concerts.

“Following the PM’s announcement on Monday the 19th of July 2021, I feel honour bound to make an announcement of my own: I wish to say that I will not perform on any stage where there is a discriminated audience present,” Clapton said, adding, “Unless there is provision made for all people to attend, I reserve the right to cancel the show.”

Conservatives applauded Clapton’s stance, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeting, “Artists should defend individual Liberty. I very much support vaccines, but it should be your choice—not forced upon you.”

I agree with both Eric Clapton and Ted Cruz.

Long , long before I knew anything of Clapton’s political views, I loved his music. If Eric Clapton were to perform locally, I would be first in line to buy a ticket. BTW, yes I have been vaccinated, but would not care if my fellow concert attendees were vaccinated or not.

8/2/21