I guess some of us …

… know how to dress ourselves, and some of us don’t.

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Perspectives

We are home from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and, as always, I am now wondering how I can finagle a summer place up there and winters here in the mid-Atlantic.

Our son, John, and his wife-to-be, Nicole, accompanied Dawn and I for the first several days. They were good company and, I think, enjoyed the opportunity to see a part of the country they’d never visited. Nor had they ever visited such rugged, glacier-carved terrain.

I was educated at Michigan Tech, at the far western end of the Upper Peninsula; the school was founded to produce geologists and engineers to serve industry. When we are in the U.P. and Dawn et. al. are picking-up beach stones, I see building material and they see pretty stones and wonder what that strangely-colored, shiny-stuff is.

The most striking aspect of our visits (to me, at least) is how little things have changed since I left Tech; there’s been very little growth, and the place looks little different than it did when I was a student there. Many of the storefronts have the same name.

Some wise, farseeing legislators designated the southern shore of Lake Superior as a National Lakeshore, with the result that the drive along the shoreline looks little different than it did decades ago. This is a good thing, though doubtless annoying to landowners and merchants. No matter; it’s a beautiful part of the country, and if you’ve never visited you should.

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Headed to U.P.

Dawn and I are headed in a few days to one of the prettiest places in the United States — the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Regular posting will resume in about 2-weeks.

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Time for mandates


Though millions of Americans have rolled-up their sleeves and taken the vaccination against Covid-19, there appear to be roughly 100-million who haven’t — roughly 30% of the adult population.

That’s just enough for the virus to remain lively, enough for it to continue evolving and spreading — which means just enough for it to remain threatening to even those who have been vaccinated.

Clearly, appeals to personal well-being and good citizenship aren’t enough to move some people. In some cases the reason is that the person is already immunocompromised and the vaccine poses a danger. Far more often the matter is no more than juvenile cussedness — “Nobody is going to tell me what to do!” — or plain-vanilla stupidity — “It won’t get me” and “The Donald is right; it’s no big deal.”

It’s time for the public sector and privately-operated businesses to impose mandates, for public offices and the corner convenience store to demand proof of vaccination as the cost of admission. No card, no entry — period. I understand the reluctance to do that, especially by businesses, but it’s time to end this pandemic and it’s clear that some people just aren’t going to do their part unless they get thumped over the head.

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Tweet of the day

Darwinian natural selection at work, taking-out some morons.

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