While this is a good example of satire…
…it also effectively reduces my interest in ever visiting a restaurant ever again, even in the absence of a pandemic. I don’t think that’s what was intended.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Print source: http://www.ledger.news/news/letters-to-the-editor/article_c3918670-cd72-11ea-b001-db719c38a7f0.html
Original Source: https://twitter.com/libbyjones715/status/1277245399795982337
Looking them up
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathony-jerauld-07552b126/
Former Public Health Administrator at California Department of Public Health
I hope they’re not ‘Former’ because of the letter!
The sad, scary thing that I’ve encountered people, Libertarians mostly, who’d agree with all of this, even knowing it’s satire.
They don’t care what the science says. They want to do what they want and since they see life as one big gambling casino, they think the risk is justified. As for the rest of us? Just because we don’t think life should bbe like the Vegas Strip sdoesn’t exclude us from the almighty rule gods of risk eithe. Some people win, others lose. So if you get sick and die, then that’s the way the game of life played out.
Sociopaths. Fucking capitalist-pig sociopaths…
I think the post might be a Poe, especially the last paragraph, which I read as sarcastic.
My mother once had to take a food safety training course. (She was running a camp for Girl Guides, which involved food preparation.) She said it made her not want to touch food ever again for a while, just because it spelled out all the things that could go wrong.
I’m pretty sure it’s a Poe.
While I like to support local businesses, I’m also on a frugal path towards early retirement. Long before the pandemic, I had reduced the times I eat out, merely to reduce my spending. Then I started going whole food plant based diet for my health, and it turns out very very few restaurants have dishes that meet my criteria.
Top it all off with the quarantines, and I’m pretty much done with eating out. No offense to restaurants, I’ve been to plenty of really good ones, and for them I’ll make an exception, but that’s like a once a year fine dining multi-course meal sort of thing. For 99% of restaurants I can cook food that’s cheaper, healthier, and tastes better.
It’s the same with movie theaters. I had cut back on movie theaters for cost. My home “theater” has no one talking on their cellphone, “showtimes” are whenever I want, “shows” are whatever I want, the floor isn’t sticky with spilled soda. Pandemic rules say “no theaters” and I’m like “wait, people still go to movie theaters?”
a lot of that stuff is against regulations and would get the restaurant closed down wouldn’t it?
uncle frogy
My wife and I both have multiple co-morbidities, and have not eaten anything cooked by anyone else since February. We have worked in resturants in the past, and are painfully aware of the blithe ignorance of the people who work there, and how ownership refuses to pay enough to get people who care about the health of their customers. She once had a head chef lie to her about ingredients in his food because, “I don’t believe in food allergies!”
If you read Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London”, you’ll see that fancy restaurants are far worse than fast-food, even back when “fast”-food wasn’t so fast.
Just stand well clear of the robotic sushi chef, for maximum safety.
Well, I have a friend who is a cook by trade and a hotel /restaurant manager by job.
He once had to fire a cleaning lady. He watched her clean the restrooms. She started to wipe the toilet bowls. She then proceeded to wipe the sinks and mirrors with the same cloth. Then she cleaned the toilet brushes in the sinks.
He then stopped her, told her he’d count that day as full hours, but she needn’t come back the next day…
+++
I miss eating out, but I like breathing better. We occasionally order pizza. We regularly meet our friends in our gardens and have taken to have food mottos. Started with Asian, then Spain, then France.
Giliell@10: ” We regularly meet our friends in our gardens and have taken to have food mottos. Started with Asian, then Spain, then France.” I don’t understand, and would like to. I assume you omitted some words, or misspelled something, or are using an idiom I’m unfamiliar with? In any case, could you say it again, please?
Leerudolph
Sorry for not being more clear. We all bring food and share. Making it match gives us a bit of a restaurant feeling. Like roasted bread with garlic and aioli and gazpacho for starters, paella for main course and manchego cheese for dessert.
The American idiom for that sort of thing (usually hot or cold personally prepared food, although those unable or unwilling to cook might bring chips and/or drinks, and/or store-bought prepared food) is called a pot-luck or potluck.
I think the last was the part that confused. After thinking about it for a bit, it occurred to me that “mottos” was a typo for motifs. And “have” should be “having”. “taken to having food motifs”.
Also think about Greece — cold tzatziki soup of yogurt, cucumber, dill, garlic, and I think maybe walnuts is good in hot weather.
Owlmirror
I think a potluck is usually more people and less coordination.
Your freedom stops where your cough reaches my nose. These people are sociopaths.
The article very clearly juxtaposes the “mask debate” with the context of health regulations in restaurants. Yeah, lets throw health concerns to the wind cause freedum is sooooo much more important dontcha’ know.
Its not subtle. Not even close to Poe. Maybe ‘murcans have so many folks at that level of stupid it seems genuine?
Definitely satire. Here’s the twitter feed of the original author, as noted by @paulhutch above.
@4 It’s satire.
@6, I’m in similar boat (path to early retirement and all that).
I did end up eating out a fair amount (once a week or so, though a lot of my friends and family seemed impressed that I went out “so little”) before the pandemic. The wife and I have been vegan for a little over 4 years now, but we live in Seattle so we have a fair amount of options.
Plus, I’m in the privileged (and also surreal and absurd) world of tech, so I got tons of free food at work. When pandemic started I anticipated my costs to go up even without going out to eat. But it about broke even. And I lost 30 pounds in the last 6 months, and my resting heart rate went from 55 (already solid) to 46 (and still falling, maybe). Free food isn’t worth the cost to my health, I think. When we come out of the pandemic, if I still go to an office, I’m bringing home-cooked food.
Going out to eat will be a special, once-or-twice-a-year occasion.
What’s your early-retirement plan? I got some selfish ideas, and some philanthropic ones. The latter basically boils down to making sure I help 2 others achieve early-retirement before I get to say I’m done. Plus also do some volunteering full-time. Selfish stuff includes going and teaching English in Japan.
Might reach early-retirement around 35 at current rate (just recently turned 30). Recently hit the “poverty line” FI number. If I can find a solid way to really reduce expenses, I may try living properly frugal and get to work on activism sooner. Got to figure a path around healthcare, though, as my and my wife’s costs are quite high ($15K expenses last year). I have dual-citizenship to Canada, so that might be the path. Gots to figure out what I need to do so that my wife can come along and is covered and stuff, though.
@14
I haven’t thought about potluck in years. My memory goes back to events at the town hall or family reunions, none of which I really cared about.
I’m not particularly sociable.
The food does stick in my memory. Yum.
@19 “What’s your early-retirement plan?”
My plan is to get to my FI number and just quit; beyond that I haven’t focused too much, been too busy trying to figure out how to get there. Health insurance is a big stumbling block, even for healthy me – I won’t be healthy forever. I’m already a member of a volunteer mountain rescue team, which costs time and money, but I enjoy it. I figure I’ll keep doing that until I can’t.
Despite a relatively lean lifestyle, I got started actually investing a bit late, and still need to reign in the spending. Still, I was happily maxxing out retirement vehicles, but they are age restricted for withdrawals. Then the quarantine came along and changed everything, although not how it did for most people.
I write software, have done for over 20 years. Used to work from home, and had forgotten how much more productive and happier I am. But work is insisting I go back to the office, so now I’m trying to figure out ways to generate enough income to quit my day job and work on projects from home.
I would absolutely love to be FI where I could choose projects based not on which will pay the bills, but rather my passion for them. I’ve already done quite a bit of IT/software dev for the search and rescue stuff, I would probably continue to do that in between hiking and rock climbing in the Summer and backcountry alpine touring and ice climbing in the Winter.
I also wouldn’t be opposed to working on open source projects – I used to hack on the Linux kernel and have contributed small bits (when I had the time) to other Free software. One dream is to make software that enables the revolutions we talk about in progressive circles. I have a hankering for automating software processes like build and automation, but pretty much no substantive experience with more real world applications like manufacturing.
I know the pandemic has been incredibly disruptive (to put it mildly), but I see opportunity, both in the economic and political spheres.