Well, I wanted to skewer something or other from the Telegraph about how men should give their wives a cheat pass this “holiday season” but I would have to pay to see it, having used up my free articles, and I’m not going to do that, so instead, here is something fun about the ‘rona. Pennsylvania is requiring that you wear masks inside your house if you are with people unrelated to you, even if you’re social distancing. But that’s not really what I find so clever and fun. It’s the person who is the Secretary of Health. You probably need to click the article and watch part of the video and then come back….
I mean, unless you have a poor internet connection, which I know all about and feel you deeply. Not having good internet is almost as bad as anything right now. So anyway, the Secretary of Health in Pennsylvania is someone named Dr. Rachel Levine–a person with rather a low voice and rather heavy, how shall I say it, mannish features? This person is filmed reading from a computer screen about all the new regulations–testing 72 hours before you go into the state, masking “all the time,” and so forth–and at the end says this:
You know, we all are blessed to have freedoms in our country, but with freedom comes responsibility, that’s not a new concept, that’s been articulated from the beginning of our country, and we all have a responsibility to work toward the common good, and right now that means following these orders and guidance in terms of stopping the spread of covid-19 in Pennsylvania.
Watching the video, I was sort of flabbergasted, actually, although I know I shouldn’t be. I know there is, as they say, “nothing to see here.” Nothing could be more usual than a person who had, from a babe been, well, biologically of the male persuasion, deciding somewhere along the way that deep down somewhere that person felt more “female” (because men, as you know, can know what it’s like to feel like a woman and always have been able to, from the dawn of time) and then taking some kind of medically induced steps to effect a change. This person has the freedom to do that. It’s interesting, though, that a lot of other people around this person–the medical establishment for instance–probably doesn’t feel invested with the same kind of freedom and has, as a result, divested itself of any kind of responsibility it might actually have to speak in a either a “scientific” or a “truthful” way around that person. I’m sure (though this is just a very educated guess) that not everyone in that person’s sphere has the freedom to say that it is not possible for a biological man to be turned into a biological woman. I guess I will say it–down to the very DNA, we are each born a certain kind of person, and though you can make certain kinds of external changes, they don’t go down very deep, indeed, listening to the Secretary of Health, no one would be the least confused, thinking that this person was actually a woman, no more than you would be confused, looking at me, that I might be a unicorn or a super-model.
And this person gets to make the announcement about freedom, responsibility, and the fact that everyone has to wear masks all the time, even at home, even socially distanced with anyone who comes in or out of one’s home. I know we are not meant to notice, but we do. We notice all these kinds of things. We notice Gavin Newsom’s fancy evening out, and we notice Andrew Cuomo’s testy, biting exchanges that make him so beloved in my state. We see it all, though we try not to freak out and run crying through the streets, valiantly balancing between covid-denial and total retreat into total fear about all the covid. How much covid is there? Can we believe the people who tell us when those people force us to accept certain kinds of biological “facts” that are not true? When those people don’t wear masks whenever they happen not to feel like it? When those people won’t answer plain questions about whether schools will open or not?
I don’t want to get the ‘Rona. And I especially don’t want some people around me to get it who are not in the most robust health. The thing upwards in my mind right now is a person in a nursing home who is in a slow decline and the anxiety that we can’t go see her, but the hope that maybe Matt will be able to beat his way in one last time before a probable state shut down. I mean, it’s “ok,” she hasn’t recognized us in a long while, and I know that Jesus is with her, and that when she crosses over the threshold of life into life all her tears will be wiped away–though mine won’t–and that everything will eventually be well, all manner of things will be well.
But in the meantime, the decadence of the Secretary of Health in Pennsylvania condescendingly lecturing anyone about “freedom” and “responsibility” is a bit much. Have a nice day, if you can. I’m going to go do my state homeschooling reports because I am determined to follow all the laws I reasonably can. Tinkerty Tonk…and I mean for it to sting.
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