People Like Us are Not Exactly Like Us

They're not ALL like this, but enough are

I spent several hours the last few days arguing about vaccines and masks and the whole COVID thing online, and before you say, “Well, Jeebus…what a waste of time and energy,” let me say a couple of things.

First, you’re right.  I knew well in advance that I would change exactly ZERO hearts and minds.  Nothing was altered, no one was moved, no animals were harmed in the making of my posts.  But it’s like potato chips; you can’t just stop at one, and once I’m engaged with a poster, the gloves are off.

Secondly, despite the accusations that I am a bully and I want to FORCE people to mask up and get vaccinated, the truth is that I don’t.  Sure, I think that any rational and sane individual should get vaccinated, if at all possible, the sooner the better.  Yes, everyone, vaccinated or not, should wear a mask as recommended by the CDC and in some cases mandated by either local government and/or private businesses.  But FORCE someone to do that?  I’m actually kinda libertarian in that respect (don’t tell my friends).

Of course, if you suffer the consequences for your foolish actions, don’t look to me or the government to bail your silly ass out.

But the real reason I spent so much time online arguing was that I cannot stand people who LIE about what’s happening with this virus.  Check that; I can’t stand people who LIE about anything.  But it’s particularly galling to see the flow coming from an eruption from Bullshit Mountain regarding mask effectiveness, vaccine effectiveness, etc., etc.  I try to counter with facts, truth, links, and what do I get for my efforts?

More bullshit.

I can tell you confidently that NO, Bill Gates has NOT been arrested (yet), and NO, the majority of doctors and nurses HAVE been vaccinated (the last thing I read reported doctors at 97%, and that was a while back).  But I was equally confident in thinking another claim was bogus, though I had nothing but my own experience to explain why, so I didn’t respond.  But that’s the subject of today’s post.

Amid all the BS and nonsense (and the responses who tried, like me, to inject some reality into the discussion), one poster bragged that “No one I know has contracted the disease, and no one I know has been vaxxed, and no one wears a mask, either.”  I merely responded “Well, in that case, good luck,” and let it go, but let me explain why I think she was in error.

I learned long ago (before marketing research), that everyone is different, but we tend to think that people like us are like us about damn near everything.  We tend to hang around with people who think like us, dress like us, eat the types of food we do, believe what we believe, and so on.  Up to a point.  We may agree about a lot of things, but…except for identical twins, no two people are exactly alike.  Everyone has some idiosyncrasy that makes them just a wee bit distinct from everyone else.

Now, it’s certainly possible that the poster does not know anyone who has had COVID.  We’re a small county, population 53,000 and change, with a total as of today of 2,182 cases – just 4% of the population.  If everyone they know lives around here, then yeah, chances are slight they know anyone with COVID.  Truth is, I only know of four who have had the disease, and none of them live in this county, or in Oregon for that matter.  Of those four, two are dead, so those percentages aren’t so good.

As far as no one she knows being vaccinated, that’s also possible – as a county, we’re still batting under .500 despite the total percentage in Oregon being just under 70%.  Possible, but…I know for a fact that not everyone “brags about it” either online or in-person for that matter.  I only found out about a neighbor being vaccinated by luck.  He’s conservative, so I assumed he’d be resistant to getting the poke, and he’s not one to talk much about anything, let alone anything personal, but I happened to run into him at the grocery store as he was coming out of the pharmacy, and he admitted he was there to get his second shot.  So, she could have friends like that, too.

And as for everyone not wearing a mask…many businesses have been following the CDC guidelines, saying that vaccinated shoppers are welcome to come in without a mask, but non-vaxxed folks should mask up.  So not sure where her friends are shopping, and now many of those businesses are revising their mask policies to require everyone, vaccinated or not, to wear a mask, so…

Yeah, it’s probably bullshit.

But that’s not why I think she’s probably wrong.  Like I said earlier, it’s because we always assume that everyone’s just like us.  Exactly like us.  And that’s a fallacy that I love to expose by telling this story…

It was damn near 30 years ago when I was general manager of a brand-new public radio station in Monroe, LA, an area that was (back then) one of the largest parts of the country without such a station.  We set up the “standard three-legged stool” of programming – NPR news in drive-time, classical during the day, and jazz and eclectic programming on nights and weekends.  Folks were happy to have us on the air, but of course, newshounds wanted more news, jazz fiends wanted more jazz programs, and of course, the classical crowd wanted more classical music, especially at night.  Still, most everyone was glad we finally made it on-air after a lengthy fundraising campaign and construction on the university’s campus (and on their dime, too).

We’d been on the air for about six months, so the honeymoon was about to be over.  Still, on this night I was basking in some leftover triumphs as I attended the first concert of the Monroe Symphony Orchestra’s 1991-2 season.  After the performance, I met many of the symphony supporters at the reception where in no uncertain terms everyone told me that everyone wanted more classical music, and all their friends and neighbors and everyone else they knew felt that way, too.  At one point, several surrounded me, voices rising as one…

“And we want more classical music, especially at night!”

“YEAH!”

“And get rid of that jazz and new age crap.”

“YEAH!”

“And play more opera!”

“Yeah…maybe….”

“And get rid of that darn Car Talk program!”

“HEY – I LIKE CLICK & CLACK.  They’re a hoot!”

And just that like, a donnybrook ensued.  The circle suddenly opened like the Dead Sea for Moses, although I didn’t escape right away.  I moved to the side to watch, amused, as bosom buddies and best mates suddenly pointed fingers not at me but at each other over Mountain Stage and Fresh Air and “maybe we’ve got enough opera in the Metropolitan Opera and we could use more from the baroque period…” and “I don’t see why we have to turn down our noses at 20^th Century composers; after all…” and so on.  After a few minutes, no one noticed I had quietly left the building.

 

OK, it wasn’t all that quiet.  I laughed loud and long.

 

 

Radio Daze, Part 1

Was it this bad?  No, not initially.

This past week some friends let me join a new group – The WQBR Old Folks Home.  It’s a Facebook group, apropos for this bunch, as it’s a mötley (crüe) collection of former Eastern Michigan University students who used to “…work (or at least hang out) at WQBR Radio…” 

That’s me in spades, as I spent more time there than most.  I was there three times – from 1971 to 1973 (when I dropped out of college entirely), then 78-9 (when I finished my degree…finally), and then again from 1982-4 (when it seemed I just couldn’t get enough of dear old EMU).  Each time I enjoyed my time there, learning (of course) but perhaps more importantly, smoking dope the camaraderie that existed among all the staff.  And of course, all that camaraderie means I have stories to tell.  Here’s the first, and it involves “the couch.”

No, not what happened on it.  We all know that.  Even first semester students got wind of the couch’s “unique characteristics.”  You’d know they knew when you invited them into the office area and asked them to sit, pointing at the couch, and they’d look at you and say, “No thanks, I’m good.”  No, this is about how we got the couch in the first place.  In fact, it’s how we got ALL the initial batch of furniture.

When I came back in 1978, WEMU has just left 129 Quirk for King Hall, leaving the former studios for the newly-christened WQBR (it was WHUR initially).  Some of the offices were taken by broadcasting faculty, leaving the 3 studios for WQBR.  The main studio (with a board as old as Marconi’s mother) remained, the production studio was empty (we wouldn’t get a real production area until 1983 when a new board replaced Marconi’s mom, which moved to production), and the large open “live” studio was to be our office area.

Except we had no furniture at all, except for a very large (awkward) table.  That was it.

Buying furniture was out of the question (we had zero budget).  I asked Admin about getting some desks and chairs from Surplus, and was told that requisitions would take “a while.”  No offer to help (or to speed up the process) was forthcoming, so I called the EMU Physical Plant myself, and found that without a faculty advisor’s signature, there was nothing they could do.  I asked them what type of furniture was available, and they told me that all sorts of things would be on hand, usually.  “In fact, we’re starting to collect a whole bunch of items right now from Downing Hall.”

Oh, really?

There’s an old saying that, as long as you LOOK like you know what you’re doing, no one will question you.  It seemed simple to me – if we followed the standard routine, the Physical Plant would take furniture out of Downing Hall, drag it to the Warehouse, wait for our requisition, then drag it back to Quirk Hall.  Or, we could take a shortcut and eliminate the middle.

So we took a few burly DJs over to Downing (did you laugh there?  I certainly did) and we started picking out furniture.  We found chairs, desks, and the infamous couch out in the halls, properly tagged for surplus…and all for the taking.  Best of all, we were there only about a half-hour, and no one said a word.  Well, that’s not true.  One RA saw what we were doing and said, “Hey, what’s going on?”  I quickly grabbed some papers from my back pocket and replied, “It’s OK, I’ve got paperwork.” He waved us on (couch and all).

By the way, I have NO idea whose inspired creative thinking caused us to grab the couch.  I should tell you that it’s a tradition I continued when I started up KEDM in Monroe, LA (and yes, it was a used couch – tradition!). 

Once we got all of the furniture back to Quirk and set up, it made for a very nice office area.  Certainly the students were pleased, but Admin…well, only once did someone ask me about it, wondering out loud if they really wanted to know how we got it and/or where it came from. 

Probably not.  Especially the couch.