Too Late? Regrets?

I was reminded this week that we often wait too long to do the right things. Finally, Orestes "Minnie" Minoso was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown by the Veterans' Committee. By most accounts, his inclusion was long overdue. It wasn't just his playing ability. After all, how many players can you name who held on to a fly ball with a fan spilling a beer on his head????? No, seriously, Minoso was a gifted all-round player. He could hit, run the bases like few others could ("The Cuban Comet"), and was a demon on defense. On top of that, he overcame or at least had to deal with the prejudice and discrimination of being a black player (from Cuba). The only issue I have with Minoso's induction is what took so long? He died six or seven years ago. Why couldn't the powers that be in Cooperstown give this man his just reward while he was alive and could enjoy/relish it? Better late than never? I don't know. The same was done at one of the colleges where I teach. Founded in 1921, it was called Flint Jr. College or Flint Community College or some variant of the two for more than forty years. Over the decades, Charles Stewart Mott (at his death, the largest single owner of General Motors stock, said to be worth $800 million at the time) donated tens of millions of dollars and land to the school. He even gave the college $5 million to erect a building to celebrate his parents'50th anniversary. Finally, in the late '60s, the college changed its name--to Genessee Community College. Mott died in 1973. Several months after his death, after!, the school became C.S. Mott Community College. Why the wait? What would have been wrong with naming it Mott CC while he was alive, to honor him, to show the appreciation he deserved? Better late tha never? I don't know. I can't be too critical of such instances, I guess. How many people died without me adequately expressing my gratitude for the importance they played in my life? There's no excuse, not really. For a while I tried, "Life just got in the way." I suppose that worked for a while, but now find it pretty lame. About 20 years ago, I began to reconnect with some of my college professors, three or four who were were still alive. We still correspond several times a year with e-mails. (Yes, I benefit, too, always getting excited to receive an e-mail from one of "the gods.") The same for my college coach. For 30 years or so, there was little contact between us. At his retirement celebration we also reconnected. He gave me his e-mail address, but he's not very good with e-mails so, again, mostly silence. Finally, at the urgings of some of my teammates, I reached out with phone call some time back. Now, I make a point to call every three months or so. I hope and assume they know why I've made the effort. I try not to be sappy and maudlin, falling all over myself to show my appreciation. Just keeping in contact, I hope, is enough. It's a long, too long, list of people now gone who I'm not sure I adequately thanked. Now it's too late. Shame on me. I suppose I can come up with reasons, but none are really legitimate. Better late than never doesn't work with them--they are gone. While I'm at it, let me touch upon a related issue. Why don't we name more things--parks, schools, etc.--after more people deserving of being honored? I suppose an argument can be made for some place names stemming from plants/trees (Oak Valley to name a local school), geographical features (Spring Mills, another local), and even directions (Southwestern, several in the state). But why not ditch those and replace them with the names of people who made significant contributions to our lives, our society, our country? (OK, in this age of wokeness and its opaque sense of history, this might be problematic.) I've always been stunned thea there are only two high schools in the state of Michigan named after Abraham Lincoln, two out of almost 2,000! As far as I know, only one each is named after George Washington, Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson, and the like. (Yes, I'm ignoring that historical opaqueness of the wokesters.) Again, there are dozens that are named after directions! Names don't have to be national, but surely state and even more local would be fitting. Doing such would accomplish several things. It would express appreciation for the significant contributions people have made. It shows we value important contributions and the people who made them. It also demonstrates to those living heroes that we are grateful for what they have done. And, if done properly, that is, we identify those whose names grace our buildings and other places, it can tie people with the history of a city, state , or other region. (One local school district did just that, naming its three junior highs Mason, Pierce, and Crary. But then it dropped the ball. In my history classes, I often ask students where they attended high school. If from this school district, I ask them if they know who Mason, Pierce, and Crary were or, for that matter, who Kettering and Mott were, after whom the district's high schools are named. They almost always have no idea.) Perhaps I ask too much.

Tuesday Thoughts

Isn't it amazing that Joe Biden can tell people/employers to ignore the 5th US Court of Appeals ruling which stayed his vax mandate?  He told businesses "to proceed" with forcing employees to get vaccinated. Why isn't this a headline in the newspapers or on the nightly news?  I thought, apparently incorrectly, that we had a Constitutional system of separation of powers, of checks and balances (as opposed to Czechs and Norwegians).  For the President to issue such a statement is dangerous.  Now, I ask, who is endangering Constitutional government? Here's a hint. It's not Viking Helmet Man. BTW, every time Don Trump lied there was some "meter," a media-type there to count, to point out the lie.  Oh, there were hundreds of them, thousands even. Where is a similar "lie meter" for Joe Biden?  Why aren't the media doing the same with this President?  As a NY Post columnist wrote, "He can't tell the truth two times in a row." Vulgar?  Is "Let's Go Brandon" vulgar?  Is it disrespectful to the President?  I have heard such claims and they reveal a lot--especially about the people who think so.  First, is "Let's Go Brandon" vulgar?  No more so, I'd think, than someone saying, "I was screwed" after getting a raw deal.  "Screwed" takes the place of the f-bomb, right?  Second, conceding that it is vulgar, and I don't think it is, where were all these upset people, so concerned about respecting the President, when all the f-bombs were directed at Trump?  Was there any entertainment awards show, for instance, that didn't include the obligatory "F Trump?"  And wasn't that met with wild applause from the attendees?  So, once again, we have a double standard.  What is it some pundits say?  "If liberals didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards at all."  Third, "Let's Go Brandon" is a great slap at the media.  It was very clear at the raceway where the winning driver was interviewed that the crowd was not at all chanting, "Let's Go Brandon."  Yet, many in the media ran with that, at least for a while, ignoring the obvious. Of course, I know the response to all this. "But that's different."

Is the past, history, prologue to the future? Are those who don't remember the past, per Georges Santayana, condemned to repeat it? I don't know if I completely subscribe to such thoughts, but they do give me pause to think. I just finished Throes of Democracy by Walter McDougall, a roller coaster ride of the years 1821 to 1877 in the US. History--political, military, religious, social, intellectual, economic--they're all in there. McDougall, like the good student of his professors he must have been, sometimes challenges the conventional views and wisdom. Of particular interest to me as both McDougall and I finished the book, was Orestes Augustus Johnson. Certainly a lesser player on the American historical scene, I was barely aware of his name before now. [He has a couple of Detroit connections. One was that he died here, of gluttony!) That much of the final 20 pages of Throes of Democracy focuses on Browning or, rather, his insightful and often prescient thoughts, was brilliant on McDougall's part. Several of Browning's ideas are relevant to today. I smiled, more sardonically than humorously, as I considered his 170-year old thoughts relative to the woke cancel culture trying to now overwhelm us. Browning condemned the greed and corruption he saw in government and business as threats to democracy, particularly to the liberty on which democracy is founded. He also proscribes socialism as an extinguishing force on freedom. Most intriguing to me was his take on reform. Writing in the Ante-Bellum Period, he cited the urge for improvement, a quest for perfection in Americans. We might easily translate Browning's ideas to our own time. Like the mid-19th Century reformers, today's wokesters are bent on making society better. But many questions arise. What, for instance, are the woke standards of "better" or, ultimately, "best?" Are their thoughts, like those of the Transcendalists described by McDougall, that each individual determines "perfection," how things should be? Isn't that an invitation to chaos, not democracy and the freedom it brings? I am reminded of the French Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre, who sent thousands of his countrymen/women to the guillotine to lose their heads. Of him it was said, "He loves mankind, but cares not a whit for a man." As McDougall notes of Browning's thought, such zealots often eventually echo something similar, "Love me as your brother or I will cut your throat." Today the woke activists push for a "sentimental huamanitarianism," one based as the name suggests, based on feelings not thoughts. Their activism frequently degenerates into violence and coercion. In their zeal, the wokesters have forgotten or choose to ignore an "empirical fact of humanity," the proclivity to sin. Again, they base their activist goals on feelings, what they feel should be right, not on reasoned thought. McDougall also introduces perhaps a better known historical figure, Thomas Huxley. The noted British scientist, like so many foreign visitors in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, commented on American democracy, culture, etc. Huxley also seems prescient in light of today. He, too, was bothered by the perniciousness of corruption, especially the link between government and business. But he thought greater peril lay elsewhere, in the centralization of government. Would Big Government end up as a sort of disguised despotism? Of course he was talking about politicians. But he also saw great danger in the growing number of bureaucrats. Today there are hundreds of federal government agencies alone. How many federal rules and regulations are there--hundreds of thousands of pages, millions? I don't know, but the federal tax code no matter how it is sliced has more words than the King James Version of the Bible and the entire series of Harry Potter novels! Those regulations are not legislation passed by Congress, but rules created by the IRS, etc. The states? California alone has about 400,000 regulations. Is that entrenched bureaucracy (Big Government run amok, not acccountable to voters/citizens) a greater threat to our liberties than corruption or even incompetence?

Defining Our Era?

Wokeism. Cancel culture. The dangers are all around us--and seem to be growing. Is this how history will remember us, as people who treasured freedom of speech, well as long as it doesn't offend anyone? No micro-aggressions allowed. Freedom of speech (and all of expression) is easy to embrace if we agree with the speech. It becomes far more troublesome when it involves ideas we hate. But that's when freedme of speech is most necessary. Voltaire purportedly said more than 200 years ago, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." But today is different. People from all walks of life are getting penalized, even fired from jobs, for what they say and have said in the past, as long as decades ago in some instances. Some, for voicing views others find disagreeable, have had their home and business addresses posted on social media (Yet another reason to despise social media.), opening them up to the woke, cancel culture mobs. I read a recent poll where a significant majority of Americans highly regard the freedoms of the First Amendment. At the same time, a majority indicated they have refrained from expressing an opinion because of fear of the consequences from the mob. All this in the United States of America! No US citizen should fear to express him/herself. Not to mention years and years ago; who didn't say or do something stupid when a kid? This was carried to an extreme (which seems to be becoming more the norm as weak, cowardly, and ignorant leaders cave to the mobs) earlier this year. A journalism professor at a state university was suspended and then fired (There was a separation agreement with the help of a rights organization.) from his position because a student, just one, posted on social media that he, the professor, was a racist. Over the years, this professor has taught several thousand students, but only one, just this one of them, has made such a disparaging remark. To this student (I have no idea if a he or a she, black or white, or whatever.), the professor is "racist" because he used the "N" word in class. Making it worse, he used it more than once. In fact, he has uttered it many times in the course of teaching this class over the years. Aha! But wait a minute! What this professor did, many times, was quote directly, verbatim, from a US Federal Court of Appeals opinion, one written by Judge Damon Keith. In case you don't know, the late Judge Keith possessed one of the greatest legal minds this country has ever seen. He was a decades-old civil rights activist, going back to the '50s and '60s. Oh, Damon Keith was a black man. I know the word "icon" is tossed around far too casually these days, but Judge Keith was a legitmate icon. Yes, in his opinion, Judge Keith wrote the "N" word several times, citing the plaintiff and knowing it was central to the case--one concerning free speech! The instructor merely read from the Appeals Court's ruling, nothing more and nothing less. When this student's social media (Don't you just detest that term!) post was brought to the attention of the university's administration, the professor was suspended upon review. He was given no opportunity to explain, that he was quoting from Judge Keith's opinion, using the judge's own words. Several months later the professor was given the ziggy, still not allowed to defend himself. This is merely one example of cancel culture run amok, with just plain rotten consequences. So many things are wrong here, spelling out the dangers Americans and freedom of speech now face from the woke crowd. First, the professor should have been invited in to explain the episode. The issue should have been dead as soon as he did. But he wasn't. Second, this student should have been questioned by university officials. The line of questioning should have focused on the student him/herself. Did he/she not know what the professor was doing? If not, if still offended, the officials might have suggested the student find another school to attend. (Long ago, in a far different context, after one of my very sub-par papers, one of my professors suggested just that. "If that's the best work you can do, I suggest you transfer to another school." Gulp!) After all, if this is how limited this student's thinking skills are..... Third, a return to the college administration. Talk about ignorance to the point of stupidity! What college official, presumably with one or more college degrees, would take such action--to suspend and then dismiss this professor for this? Was there any any examination of the situation? My guess is there wasn't. The college administration didn't know about the legal giant Damon Keith, he from their own state! Could the officials be such dolts they didn't recognize this professor's attempts to get students to think? Are they really that ignorant? Their actions lead me to believe they are. Instead of the professor losing his job, the university officials responsible for that should have been canned! Their incompetence is an embarrassment to the school. Perhaps both this student and the college officials operate under the premise of "No thinking allowed." Apparently we have reached the point where people must be careful, extremely cautious, about what they say about their beliefs and views. Does the fate of thinking people now lie in the hands of people, including bosses, who are either unable to think rationally or too cowardly to stand up to ignorance and stupidity or both? Are the mobs coming after us next? After all, in their ignorance, they have torn down monuments to even Abraham Lincoln.

Standing Up for Principles

Donating blood yesterday, I sat on the guerney (?) and thought that an Amherst graduate made all that possible. Dr. Charles Drew was the one responsible for blood donations, blood drives, and blood mobiles. I wonder why Drew didn't win a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. If I recall correctly, Drew was an undergraduate with William Hastie, the first black man appointed to a federal district court and, later, a federal appellate court. I'm not sure they were in the same class, but crossed paths certainly. Drew played football and ran track and was the class valedictorian. After graduation, to earn money for medical school, he spent time as the football coach at Morgan State University, a historically black college. With nothing to do while my blood dripped into the bag, I continued to think. Drew was not just brilliant, but very courageous, a man of principle. During the Second World War, among other positions, he was the director of the first American Red Cross blood bank which supplied blood for American and British soldiers in the war. He protested the Red Cross policy of segregating blood from blacks. Not only was "black blood" not transfused to whites, it was even stored in different places! His protests went nowhere and he resigned his position. This reminded me of the recent "sick out" by pilots of Southwest Airlines, in protest of coming company mandates for employee CoVid vaccinations. I know many people were upset by the pilots' actions. Surely they inconvenienced a lot of people, some far more so than others. To a different and, I think, lesser degree the pilots were doing what Charles Drew did--standing up for themselves, for principles, for their rights/liberties. Some might argue that lives were lost when Drew resigned, just as some people were inconvenienced by the pilots' "sick out." I do not argue either. But I would say the onus for both the lost lives and any inconvenience, no matter the seriousness, lies far more with the American Red Cross and Southwest Airlines. Each could have done the right thing. The resignation and sick-out would not have been necessary. During the American Revolution, a minority of colonists stood for independence, an even smaller number for war. Yet, as Abraham Lincoln later noted in a different scenario, "And the war came." How many people, who didn't want war, were "inconvenienced," ruined by the War for Independence? The number was considerable. Some died. Some were financially bankrupted. Their lives were turned topsy-turvy. Are we then to vilify the likes of Washington, the Adams boys, Hamilton, Frankline, etc. for "inconveniencing" or worse so many people? Standing up for principles is not easy. It often requires great sacrifice and with that comes the knowledge that other people might also face serious consequences not of their doing. I've always found this pithy saying to be trite, "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." Maybe this is fitting here.

Sometimes I Sits and Thinks and Sometimes...

...I just sits. I had a long talk on the phone yesterday with a former student. It was a nice chat and we agreed that we seem, more and more, to be living in The Twilight Zone. I was reminded of this this AM as I pored through the news. I received a pamphlet the other day that explained the January 6th "Insurrection Hoax." I've written about the folly of that, that Viking Helmet Man was leading the overthrow of the American democracy. Seriously? It played nicely into the hands of something I read this AM. Two federal office buildings were attacked by climate change protesters this week. These housed the Departments of Interior and Commerce. At Commerce, spray paint was used to deface the building. At Interior, police and guards were assaulted and injured, some being hospitalized, by the violent intruders who entered the building. Where are the reports, not to mention condemnations, of these violent protests? Even the official statement from the federal government seemed to be muted, even apologetic. Several dozen violent protesters were arrested. I looked completely through my newspapers Wed, Thur, and Fri; nary a word about this "insurrection." Apparently, it's only violent, an "insurrection," and "a threat to our democracy" when the other side does it. I saw a video that was hilarious. A woman pulled up to the drive-through window at a fast-food restaurant. The worker wouldn't give the woman her drink because she didn't have a mask. So, he handed her, through his window and hers, a mask. Why was it more dangerous to have handed her the drink than to hand her the mask? I see an NBA player is done for his season, if not career, over blood clots he is sure came from getting the vax. I don't know if the vax was the cause, although he seems to be certain. But that underscores the initial problem with the vax. It was fast-tracked, without real testing. Oh, I know people will claim the RNA technology has been in development for a decade or more. So says the CDC, which of course has never been wrong; just ask it or St. Anthony. But there were no long-term tests of the technology with the CoVid vax; that's because there was and still isn't any long-term. Are we likely in the next years to discover issues with blood clots, enlarged hearts, reproduction, even cancers? I don't know and that is the issue. Neither does the medical community. Although, as with all the critics of the CoVid strategies (masks, shutdown, distancing), there are some pretty noteworthy medical folks questioning the vax. But they are shunted to never-never land, never to be seen and never to be heard. I'm not an anti-vaxxer. All I want is to be told the truth, that the medical community doesn't really know, that's it's making guesses and that some of the guesses have been dreadfully wrong. Be honest. Give me all of the facts before I am bullied into making "an informed decision." But I forget, yet again. Being honest reflects good character and, I am repeatedly told, character doesn't matter. Related, a federal court ruled that Michigan State University could require employees to get the vax. Among other things, he wrote, "...bodily autonomy has not been deemed a fundamental right." If Americans don't have control over their own bodies (including I would submit, their minds) in the face of government mandates, then they can't be free. He wrote, "There is no fundamental right to decline a vaccination." Huh? What's next? The possible list of things for which "There is not fundamental right to decline" is practically endless. Our Constitutional system was devised around several very basic, but fundamental principles. Two of them are limited government and popular sovereignty, that the people not Big Government decide. Coercion by the state, either at the federal or state level, of individuals violates both of these principles. This judge was appointed by W. Bush. Yet another reason to rank him among the worst Presidents. "Worst Presidents?" It used to be only a handful were included in this list; but the list is growing and growing quickly. One nationally-respected immunologist stated of this opinion/ruling, "I was disappointed to see our judiciary's weakness on display." He cited the federal government's "draconian behavior on vaccination mandates [for] the recently infected and naturally immune is unscientific and, likely, unconstitutional." (Not if the federal courts say it isn't! Whimps/Wimps!) He added, "In national emergencies, reason, science, and ethics fail us and fear prevails." Amen. I still chuckle at "Let's Go, Brandon" every time I see it or hear it. I think it would be hilarious if, at the football stadiums this weekend, "F*ck You, Biden" was replaced with "Let's Go, Brandon." The chanters could make fun of and protest more than one target. Here's another one I just discovered this AM, "Empty-shelves, Joe." As the main grocery shopper for our household, I know that one and will chuckle tomorrow AM as I can't find what I want--honey, toilet bowl cleaner, dog food, peanut butter..... Last but not least, several thoughts emerged from one this week. I noted to my class that one Alexander Macomb was said to have owned a couple of dozen slaves in the early 19th Century. That, of course, was and is abhorrent and presumably banned by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 ("Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist....."). In Michigan, Macomb County is named after him. I wonder how long before there is a movement afoot to change the name of Macomb County. A couple of weeks ago, another Robert E. Lee statue/memorial was taken down. I know many people think this is wrong, a product of wokeism or some such. But I still can't figure out why Americans would want to honor someone who committed treason against the US, whose treason was responsible (because of his military brilliance) for the deaths of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Union soldiers. And to wrap up, Monday was Columbus Day, the national holiday. I still have some trouble with the idea of so honoring Christopher Columbus. I will grant he was a great sailor and even a great salesman. But many will see my reticence as some sort of revisionist history. No, it's exactly the opposite. I know my histor, that is, the history of Columbus and he wasn't "St. Christopher." Besides, why does Columbus get his day, but Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Dwight Eisenhower and other worthy Presidets must share a day with the likes of James Buchanan, both Johnsons, W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, John Tyler, Warren Harding, et al?

Arrgghh!!!!!

More and more I find myself wanting to scream! Mostly it's at people. I hesitate to ask, "Can they really be that stupid?" Do these people representing us in Congress ever stop to think? Do they realize what $3.5 trillion is? I recall not too many decades ago Sen Everett Dirksen of Illinois once admitting, "A million dollars here and a million there and pretty soon we're talking real money." Yes, he said, "million," not trillion or even billion. And this is on top of how many hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, spend on CoVid funding. Joe Biden has made the idiotic claim that this bill will "cost zero dollars." Maybe he uses the "different math" the school district where I used to work used. His explanation sounded like this to me. I can go to the grocery store and buy my goods, putting the cost on my credit card. But I have no intention of making any payments to the credit card company. Do I have that right? Senotor Joe Manchin has been hailed as a hero of sorts by standing up to the Democrat leadership, refusing to agree to a bill more than $1.5 trillion. Yeah, some compromise, huh? Yet I see he's changed his numbers. Now he might be agreeable to only $1.9 to $2.2 trillion. Yep, only. And for how long afer a few billion bucks are tossed his state's (West Virginia) way? I hope he holds the line, but I'm not convinced he will. Don't these Bozos in DC yet know that corporations don't pay taxes. No, they don't. They pass along the increased taxes in the form of higher prices. Like other costs of doing business, taxes determine consumer prices. So if companies pay higher taxes, in reality, it's you and I who are paying the taxes. Oh, but didn't Biden say he wouldn't raise taxes on those making less than $400K a year? Either he was just kidding or he has no clue about economics. Apparently it is true that the Attorney General has asked the FBI to crack down on "domestic terrorists." No No, not the ones you may be thinking of. These are worse. These domestic terrorists are parents who are starting to attend school board meetings to protest mask mandates and critical race theory creeping into their children's curriculum. Now, I haven't heard of any violence at any of these meetings. Nobody has been attacked, not even my Viking Helmet Man. No school buildings have been burned down. All I've noticed is a lot more parents attending meetings to express their anger at what adminstrators and their rubber stamp school boards are doing. Now, I would think having parents involved would be a good thing. But, having spend 51 years in education, I know having parents involved in school matters is only a good thing if they completely agree with administrators and school boards. Opposing views, regardless of how well-thought and factual, are not allowed. Oh no..... Hey, the current Secretary of Education has said that parents should not be "the primary stakeholders" in their children's education. This guy had already established himself as a loon in my book and now confirms it. Speaking of "domestic terrorism," I'm really glad the Justice Department cracked down on all those BLM and Anti-fa rioters, er, "peaceful protesters." Oh, they didn't? How many businesses and government office buildings were looted and set on fire? How many private citizens' homes were attacked and damaged? Where is the Attorney General on all this, which is still ongoing? The followers of Viking Helmet Man have been charged, with Justice Department investigations, criminal charges, etc. So, where are all the trials for the BLM and Anti-fa thugs who destroyed people's businesses, jobs, and income? I forget which DC loon said this, some woman last week. I don't remember if she is in Congress or the Administration. She noted the difference between the January 6 mob (although the overwhelming majority of the people where were not at all violent, didn't enter the Capitol, and did nothing illegal) and the violent/destructive BLM and Anti-Fa thugs. One (Viking Helmet Man's people) were trying to overthrow the government while the "peaceful protesters" were working to advance civil rights. And all this CoVid stuff!!!!! Our "15 days" of masks to "flatten the curve" has turned into about 20 months, with no sign of ending. Oh, there was a hiatus of sorts, but then the "experts," whose recommendations obviously didn't work, jumped back on the mask bandwagon. There are mandates out there, in cities and states and even some businesses. So, far I'd say a sizable majority are not complying, but for how long? I noted that many schools are mandating masks, in disregard of "the science" they hold so dear. Kids 18 and under are of extrememly low risk of contracting the virus. But to "save" them from this thing not at all likely to happen, schools and parents are damaging, in big ways, kids psychologically, socially, academically, physically, emotionally, and more. I read of one mother who drove her kids three hours in a car to attend a mask-mandated school. She was protecting her children, apparently not concerned what all that time in a car five days a week is doing to her kids. I know this will generate a lot of disagreement, but I'm still not sold on the vax. Initially, we were told by people who were wrong before about masks, distancing, shutdowns, etc. or even lied about them that the vax would offer "absolute immunity." Absolute, to me, means 100%. I wasn't foolish enough to believe the "absolute" part. Then the rate of effectiveness dipped to 95%, then 80%, and now 30% of the people who are hospitalized with CoVid have had the vax. I don't think Massachusetts is an outlier, but a recent study there showed that almost 3/4 of the Covid deaths occurred in people with underlying conditions/co-morbidities and that the median, yes, the median, age for Covid deaths in the state is 82! I have read analyses of the effectiveness of the vax that continue to show it's not what it was promoted to be. That is, the numbers presented to the public are skewed. Without going into specifics, we are presented with linear interpretations of the effectiveness of the vax. Yet the reality is not at all linear. Not all of us are the same. Those 45 and under are not at all likely to get sick, especially seriously so, or die. Healthy people who are fit, like me, are also extremely unlikely to get the virus. So, how much good is the vax really doing those who probably are not going to contract it anyway? Yet, those people skew the effectiveness upward. I'm not necessarily blaming the "experts" or the medical community they inform. CoVid was and is a new breed. There was and is a lot we don't yet know. But I wish they wouldn't issue opinions from on high, like there is no alternative except to die. That just isn't so. My beef with the medical community is they are people of science. The essence of science is to question, to challenge. They should know the science is never "settled." They seem to have forgotten that. I'm too busy and tired to proofread; forgive me.