THE KIDS ON MY LAWN

There were scenes of drunken revelry on Polk Street last night; the natives aren't handling the relaxation of precautionary measures well. Not with any dignity or common sense at all. Being the harsh healthminded Calvinist that I am, I think they should all be beaten savagely with sticks. It was disgraceful.

That is to say, I can understand the release of pent-up frustrations, but I wonder if the current celebratory devil-may-care behaviour is wise.

Yesterday while grocery shopping in Chinatown, I was cheered by the prevalence of masks. My own neighborhood, nearer Polk and filled with stupid white people, was marked by the almost complete absence of same.

It will be a while before I myself return to normal.

For me, and probably a great many who are on the spectrum, the past fifteen months plus of near-isolation and sneering at the great unmasked hordes have been fairly okay. There was a definiteness to masking and social distancing which was entirely absent from regular life, and the assurance that with proper care, things stood a greater chance of ending well than in the Red States, where unprotected daily life took people at random.

The combination of apathy, arrogance, and complacent ignorance there guaranteed crises and come-uppance. And Republican attempts to hide the horrific extents of their disasters for the most part failed.

California's re-opening seems like imitative hubris.

Society has in only a few days gone mad.


This is what the end of prohibition must have felt like.
Or the worst days of the summer of love.



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