Looking out for the innocents during COVID-19 - May 2021


Since this is an interesting time in history (which is a curse), I've been paying special attention to how the people around me have been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it recently occurred to me that I hadn't mentioned people that I call "the innocents". And maybe it's because I've always looked out for these people that I just take doing that for granted. Most people do, but not all.

The main categories that I've determined lately are the vaccinated (that's me), the disbelievers (people who are convinced that there is no such thing as a global pandemic), and the divines (people who believe in the pandemic but are protected by their faith, needing no medical intervention), and of course the innocents.

The innocents include, of course, children. But they also include anyone who simply doesn't have the capacity to understand what's going on. Now calm down there if you think that I'm accusing these people of being stupid, they're just innocent, and there's a difference.

I've always been a big believer of looking out for the innocents, which has often included me. I don't have the chemical expertise to determine if the food that I buy has been tainted, or if the water that I drink is pure. And even if I did, I doubt whether I'd walk around with a chemistry set checking everything. I just trust that my innocence will not be taken advantage of, and it's usually a law, or a regulation, that protects me.

Doing this sort of thing is just what civilized people do. Fortunately, it's something that's just naturally built into most people, helping the innocent, by stopping your car when you see a ball bounce out into the street, or stepping aside when you see someone walking out of a door who didn't see you, whether from age or disability. There are so many wonderful people out there that whenever I feel a sense of discouragement, I look for them, and they're wonderful.

The people who don't know what to do to protect the innocent are controlled by laws. These people range from "just not caring" to actively hurting people by doing what they know is wrong, but doing it anyway. This is a small percentage of people, but it's enough to make things miserable for the rest of us. These people tend to look around and wonder if there's a law? They have to be told, very precisely, what to do.

Speaking for myself, I don't need to be told to look out for the innocent. My heart goes out to these people, and if I could, I'd find a way to explain things to them in a way that they understand. But often it's just impossible, so I just lead by example.

If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more