Thanks for telling your story. What an interesting life! I am currently in San Diego as a music and English teacher, although more on the literature side than ESL.
I was horrified to learn about the misuse of respirators during Covid, and heard some (seemingly) legitimate accusations that many people died from intubation. I'm sure you would have a lot to contribute to this aspect of the covid craziness over the last 2.5 years.
Andy, thanks for your comment. Before anything else, I must state that I am new to substack as a publishers and am experiencing problems. Please let me know if you can see this reply and how many posts. I currently have 3 unique posts and one that I somehow double posted.
Yes, I too was and remain shocked by the misuse of ventilators. Medical professionals around the world through out their protocols for their use.
However, my certification is in respirators, a term often used for ventilators and visa a versa. Gas masks are one category of respirators and the particle filtrating respirators often look similar to gas masks. The N95 is a respirator, not a mask, and even it comes with instructions stating it is not to be used against aerosols, which is how SARS-Cov2 spreads.
Surgical masks have no positive affects when used outside clinical applications. They are microbe incubators and before covid, were treated as medical waste. I have no idea how hospitals are treating them now, but my medical students certainly are not treating them with care they require, adjusting them often during zoom lessons. They swear by them though, and the shots and all the rest even though 1/3 of their small class have been sick with Covid despite all the precautions they are forced to take.
San Diego is a place I have enjoyed greatly during my time in the navy. Ah, it was while my ship was in the yards there that I got qualled in respirators. An unusual qualification for my rate, but as we were in the yards, I had to get it.
Yes, Substack still seems a bit buggy. For example, when I click the "heart" to "like" something, nothing happens until I refresh the screen. You might try refreshing after you make a change or add a post to see if anything happened (I do a lot of copy/ paste, because there's nothing worse than writing a great post and then it's lost in the æther).
That's great what you said about the N95s. I follow Ryan Cristian at https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/ and he does some deep diving into N95-related subjects. He might want to interview you at some point.
The whole mask craziness actually startled me more than the vax . It seemed like (and still does) a Twilight Zone scenario where nobody cared about science or common sense. CJ Hopkins called them "medical-looking" masks that served the purpose of reminding us that we are in a "medical emergency." He said they were akin to theater props. And of course, there's Mark Crispin Miller, the tenured professor at NYU who taught a class on propaganda...he was nearly fired for suggesting his students research masking as a propaganda drive. He's no longer allowed to teach any propaganda course at NYU.
Anyway, thanks for your service and for starting a Substack. I'm strapped for cash currently because I turned down several jobs that required the vax, but once things are up and running again I will make a donation :) I'll let other friends/ family know about your posts as well.
Thanks for the encouragement. I was greatly discouraged by the issues I am having with my attempts to get my own Substack publishing up and running. Will be working on more posts as I have much to post.
Yes, cutting and pasting posts written in my Notes app has saved me much frustration. It saved two of my posts here.
While I can easily walk anyone through the hows and whys masks do not stop viral spread and the dangers associated with incorrect or prolonged use, there are many who are more authoritative than I. I have posted their writings in my comments on others’ Substacks and elsewhere. I can easily do so here too.
Thank you for your offer of donating. I have lost 80% of my prepanic income due to covid restrictions. Until this time, when underemployed I am busy finding more work. As everywhere is requiring masks as a condition of employment, I am not even looking; a first and extremely discomforting experience for me. While I surely could use the money, DO NOT donate, please. As a US citizen living abroad, my banks (all financial institutions, actually.) are required by the US FATCA law to report all financial transactions to the US government. You do not want your donation to me reported to the feds and the headache it would cause me is greater than the benefits it would bring. However, I welcome your offer to let others know of my Substack.
I had much the same reaction to masks. I remember thinking that "Crap, we're all going to have to wear masks." Keep in mind, I was the same person who thought we would do the smart thing and not lock down the country for a virus that through all observation was not nearly as bad as they made it out to be. I was wrong about that, and I hoped I was also wrong about masks...
But we did mask. The first place that hit home for me was the Grocery store when they had masking rules associated with it. Then there was an almost virtue-signalling email barrage to see which company could outdo the other in terms of restrictions and masking. Uber rides: masking/your local gym: masking. Food delivery: masking, Fast food restaurants: closed down dining rooms and masking.
There was a small bit of hope as originally the movie theaters were going to open without masking. After all, a great part of the revenue is dependent upon concessions and it's hard to eat popcorn while masking. But then the head of AMC theaters reversed its decision of making masking voluntary, and it was then I decided my days of enjoying movies in a theater were over for an indefinite amount of time. I come to a movie theater to escape and enjoy fiction, not to further immerse myself in bad dystopian fiction.
At least here in Georgia it was workers who were forced to mask..but they should have removed those protocols sooner as well. Businesses were worried no doubt their livelihoods would be further ruined by not "going along to get along." And maybe they would have. There were some customers that would complain at different businesses that certain protocols were not being followed. Those sad early days after the reopening.
Unfortunately, it is like that here. I used to always get by by just ignoring the masking rules. But it is hit or miss at best recently. Was not asked to mask at our cat’s funeral, but both the wife and kids wore theirs, sadly.
I too was hopeful at first. As the rest of the world went nuts with lock downs and testing everything that walk and most things that did not, Japan just pretty much ignored it. Then suddenly, for whatever reason/s, Japan too decided they had to take covid seriously and went bat shit crazy as did the rest of the world. Until then, I was quite happy to be in Japan.
The hell of it for me is my kids. I am old enough that while not optimal, I can enjoy the rest of my life in isolation away from the mad maskers and pokers with the memories I have of a somewhat adventurous life. But my kids need to get out in the sunshine and socialize. They need to ga places and see and do things. But I am not wanting to take them when we have to wear these idiotic compliance signifiers across our faces. They want to go to Okinawa this winter. I will not sit in airplane wearing a mask. Airplanes have the cleanest air most of us will ever breath, it being replaced every few minutes with fresh air. Madness.
The weird thing of it is, if you tell the truth, you appear like William Shatner/John Lithgow in the Twilight Zone and everyone thinks your crazy. You're being sedated and dragged out of the plane while simply saying "The masks don't work, you know how you know? Because you can breathe through them. The virus is in the air...the virus is in the air!"
The idea of a mask and the practice of one are two different things.
That is the thing, talk to anyone with any long term experiences with masks in real world settings like in paint shops, doing sand blnd blasting, or working in a mine and they will all tell you, from people in the low 100's to those smart as a whip, that masks can't keep out small particulates, so what do they think the chances are that it will work with particles so small as to be effectively invisible?
I imagine a question would be to ask holding up a vial "This contains ebola, how confident are you at believing your mask would stop it?"
Thanks for telling your story. What an interesting life! I am currently in San Diego as a music and English teacher, although more on the literature side than ESL.
I was horrified to learn about the misuse of respirators during Covid, and heard some (seemingly) legitimate accusations that many people died from intubation. I'm sure you would have a lot to contribute to this aspect of the covid craziness over the last 2.5 years.
Andy, thanks for your comment. Before anything else, I must state that I am new to substack as a publishers and am experiencing problems. Please let me know if you can see this reply and how many posts. I currently have 3 unique posts and one that I somehow double posted.
Yes, I too was and remain shocked by the misuse of ventilators. Medical professionals around the world through out their protocols for their use.
However, my certification is in respirators, a term often used for ventilators and visa a versa. Gas masks are one category of respirators and the particle filtrating respirators often look similar to gas masks. The N95 is a respirator, not a mask, and even it comes with instructions stating it is not to be used against aerosols, which is how SARS-Cov2 spreads.
Surgical masks have no positive affects when used outside clinical applications. They are microbe incubators and before covid, were treated as medical waste. I have no idea how hospitals are treating them now, but my medical students certainly are not treating them with care they require, adjusting them often during zoom lessons. They swear by them though, and the shots and all the rest even though 1/3 of their small class have been sick with Covid despite all the precautions they are forced to take.
San Diego is a place I have enjoyed greatly during my time in the navy. Ah, it was while my ship was in the yards there that I got qualled in respirators. An unusual qualification for my rate, but as we were in the yards, I had to get it.
Yes, Substack still seems a bit buggy. For example, when I click the "heart" to "like" something, nothing happens until I refresh the screen. You might try refreshing after you make a change or add a post to see if anything happened (I do a lot of copy/ paste, because there's nothing worse than writing a great post and then it's lost in the æther).
That's great what you said about the N95s. I follow Ryan Cristian at https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/ and he does some deep diving into N95-related subjects. He might want to interview you at some point.
The whole mask craziness actually startled me more than the vax . It seemed like (and still does) a Twilight Zone scenario where nobody cared about science or common sense. CJ Hopkins called them "medical-looking" masks that served the purpose of reminding us that we are in a "medical emergency." He said they were akin to theater props. And of course, there's Mark Crispin Miller, the tenured professor at NYU who taught a class on propaganda...he was nearly fired for suggesting his students research masking as a propaganda drive. He's no longer allowed to teach any propaganda course at NYU.
Anyway, thanks for your service and for starting a Substack. I'm strapped for cash currently because I turned down several jobs that required the vax, but once things are up and running again I will make a donation :) I'll let other friends/ family know about your posts as well.
Thanks for the encouragement. I was greatly discouraged by the issues I am having with my attempts to get my own Substack publishing up and running. Will be working on more posts as I have much to post.
Yes, cutting and pasting posts written in my Notes app has saved me much frustration. It saved two of my posts here.
While I can easily walk anyone through the hows and whys masks do not stop viral spread and the dangers associated with incorrect or prolonged use, there are many who are more authoritative than I. I have posted their writings in my comments on others’ Substacks and elsewhere. I can easily do so here too.
Thank you for your offer of donating. I have lost 80% of my prepanic income due to covid restrictions. Until this time, when underemployed I am busy finding more work. As everywhere is requiring masks as a condition of employment, I am not even looking; a first and extremely discomforting experience for me. While I surely could use the money, DO NOT donate, please. As a US citizen living abroad, my banks (all financial institutions, actually.) are required by the US FATCA law to report all financial transactions to the US government. You do not want your donation to me reported to the feds and the headache it would cause me is greater than the benefits it would bring. However, I welcome your offer to let others know of my Substack.
I had much the same reaction to masks. I remember thinking that "Crap, we're all going to have to wear masks." Keep in mind, I was the same person who thought we would do the smart thing and not lock down the country for a virus that through all observation was not nearly as bad as they made it out to be. I was wrong about that, and I hoped I was also wrong about masks...
But we did mask. The first place that hit home for me was the Grocery store when they had masking rules associated with it. Then there was an almost virtue-signalling email barrage to see which company could outdo the other in terms of restrictions and masking. Uber rides: masking/your local gym: masking. Food delivery: masking, Fast food restaurants: closed down dining rooms and masking.
There was a small bit of hope as originally the movie theaters were going to open without masking. After all, a great part of the revenue is dependent upon concessions and it's hard to eat popcorn while masking. But then the head of AMC theaters reversed its decision of making masking voluntary, and it was then I decided my days of enjoying movies in a theater were over for an indefinite amount of time. I come to a movie theater to escape and enjoy fiction, not to further immerse myself in bad dystopian fiction.
At least here in Georgia it was workers who were forced to mask..but they should have removed those protocols sooner as well. Businesses were worried no doubt their livelihoods would be further ruined by not "going along to get along." And maybe they would have. There were some customers that would complain at different businesses that certain protocols were not being followed. Those sad early days after the reopening.
Unfortunately, it is like that here. I used to always get by by just ignoring the masking rules. But it is hit or miss at best recently. Was not asked to mask at our cat’s funeral, but both the wife and kids wore theirs, sadly.
I too was hopeful at first. As the rest of the world went nuts with lock downs and testing everything that walk and most things that did not, Japan just pretty much ignored it. Then suddenly, for whatever reason/s, Japan too decided they had to take covid seriously and went bat shit crazy as did the rest of the world. Until then, I was quite happy to be in Japan.
The hell of it for me is my kids. I am old enough that while not optimal, I can enjoy the rest of my life in isolation away from the mad maskers and pokers with the memories I have of a somewhat adventurous life. But my kids need to get out in the sunshine and socialize. They need to ga places and see and do things. But I am not wanting to take them when we have to wear these idiotic compliance signifiers across our faces. They want to go to Okinawa this winter. I will not sit in airplane wearing a mask. Airplanes have the cleanest air most of us will ever breath, it being replaced every few minutes with fresh air. Madness.
The weird thing of it is, if you tell the truth, you appear like William Shatner/John Lithgow in the Twilight Zone and everyone thinks your crazy. You're being sedated and dragged out of the plane while simply saying "The masks don't work, you know how you know? Because you can breathe through them. The virus is in the air...the virus is in the air!"
The idea of a mask and the practice of one are two different things.
That is the thing, talk to anyone with any long term experiences with masks in real world settings like in paint shops, doing sand blnd blasting, or working in a mine and they will all tell you, from people in the low 100's to those smart as a whip, that masks can't keep out small particulates, so what do they think the chances are that it will work with particles so small as to be effectively invisible?
I imagine a question would be to ask holding up a vial "This contains ebola, how confident are you at believing your mask would stop it?"