Ok, time out for some good news. While the remaining 25%, the so-called “vaccine hostile” raid veterinary supplies for the cow and horse de-wormer Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity are telling them is a good option for fighting off COVID-19, actual fully functioning adults are putting their money where their mouth is and doing something to avoid another winter of masked shut-ins.
Patagonia. The upscale outdoor clothing/equipment company took a look at a $2000/plate fund-raiser headlined by Republicans Jim “Gym” Jordan, Mark Meadows and Marjorie Taylor Greene, noticed it was hosted by a three-store outfitting chain run by Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming and essentially said, “Take a [bleeping] hike.” As it pulled the plug — i.e. cut off a revenue stream — Patagonia said it believed in, ” … our really strong commitment to using both our business and our brand to advocate for our strong priorities. When there’s a misalignment on that, then we take action.”
This is the kind of episode Patagonia could have easily ignored, and that many … many … other companies invariably prefer to let slide without comment. But Patagonia didn’t. Worth noting is that the company isn’t publicly traded, meaning its executives didn’t have to worry about angry calls from shareholders convinced “getting involved in politics” (that aren’t, you know, supportive of the status quo) is “bad for business.”
It’s much too early to discern any impact on Patagonia’s sales, but my bet is that like Nike with Colin Kaepernick, taking a public stand against sedition and unvarnished stupidity will work toward enhancing, not diminishing, its brand.
Jason Isbell. In the modern country music world, (often referred to as “radio country” to distinguish it from the likes of Hank Williams, etc., musicians who actually had soul rather than just a keen ear for product endorsements), you’re taking a big time career risk going up against anything that Trump Nation is believing at a given moment. But Isbell, a guy with a devout following, has stepped up and said he will not perform at any venue that doesn’t require either proof of vaccination or a recent negative test. And this includes Minneapolis’ own Basilica Block Party — which piggy-backed on Isbell and announced that its grounds will be off-limits to the un-vaxxed.
Isbell — who I still think did some of his best work with the Drive By Truckers — is a bit too brainy to be influential with the usual WeFest crowd. But among promoters, critics and your more thoughtful country fans, his is seen as a bona fide act of conscience and courage.
New York City and San Francisco. Leave it to a couple of the most notorious liberal hell holes to lead the rest of the nation in requiring … proof of vaccination … for admission to restaurants, bars, gyms and the like. I like to think they were inspired by my people, the French, who moved in this direction close to a month ago. A move there that set off an uproar from the usual dead-enders but had over 75% popular support among every other Frenchman.
With today’s full FDA approval for the Pfizer vaccine we are truly at the point of hard division, between the morally responsible 75% and the sociopathic 25% who will forever believe they have the “rights” and “freedoms” to spread deadly disease wherever they choose.
There’s no more reason to pander to them. Close the door in their faces. Thank you, Liberal Hell Holes. I hope to visit you soon.
Education Minnesota and 150 other vendors. In stark contrast to all of the above, State Fair administrators did not have the guts to do what needed to be done for The Great Minnesota Get Together. Instead of following the lead of Isbell, the Basilica Block Party, New York and San Francisco, the folks in charge of “the Fair” choked. Clearly they could not stomach the thought of refusing entrance to anti-vaxxers. (Many if not most are likely to be rural or non-metro residents.)
Said a Fair spokeswoman, “We just don’t have the capacity to enforce a mask mandate.”
Dear, allow me to mansplain this for you. You don’t have to enforce a mask mandate … if you enforce a vaccine mandate. If the anti-vaxxers are not allowed on to the fairgrounds you have 95% less problem.
But lacking courage, Fair administrators now have a Minnesota version of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on their hands; a roiling, sweating, heavy-breathing sub-culture tolerable in the best of circumstances, but a bona fide deal breaker for 75%-ers amid a fourth wave of COVID. We won’t be making the scene.
As it bowed out, Education Minnesota said, “We decided that we could not in good conscience ask more than 150 educator-volunteers to work at the 2021 fair under the current conditions and then go back into their classrooms a few days later. The risks to educators and their students were just too high.”
And that was before we get a judicial decision on whether the anti-mask/anti-vaxxers can also tote their revolvers and rifles around the place … for their safety and peace of mind, you understand.
