This week I got involved in another project perfect for CoVid time. Volunteering to help translate a whaling journal from the original cursive manuscript to text so it can be put online. I was transported away from this world to a time when men sailed from New Bedford to Hawaii to hunt whales. Some days they would lower the boats threes times and return with nothing. Other days they would not even see a whale, and on other days they may see as many as 30 ships all “cutting & boiling”. I can’t imagine the smells and gore, and certainly pityed the whales. It’s a reminder of how prolific so many resources were, and how carelessly we have plundered many of fthem into extinction or near extinction. I wonder now if even the very oceans that sustained this adventurous crew are too far gone. I hope not, but the debate between lives versus livelihoods has not been resolved and we don’t necessarily learn certain lessons quickly.
February 12, 2021
I've written about it before, but I am still very worried about my parents, who are older and have health conditions but refuse to get vaccinated. They have refused all of my efforts to convince them that it is safe to get the shot, as well as all my attempts to make a moral or emotional plea for them to reconsider. While I respect the fact that people have a right to make their own decisions, this is an issue that affects not just the unvaccinated individual but the global population in general, so I feel there is a moral obligation to "do your part" by helping to stop the virus from spreading or mutating. I have also tried to point out the fact that we can't spend time with them as much as we would want, and that they've been missing out on my son's life and I would hope they'd value the time with their grandchild as stronger than their concerns about the vaccine. The reasons they give me usually have mostly to do with the safety, the speed of development and lack of testing, and other more average concerns over the vaccine. But the fact that I also hear them repeating misinformation from people and the internet leads me to believe that something more concerning is really driving their resistance. I fear not just for their health, but for the way they've come to listen to and often believe conspiracy theories and misinformation. This is something that I fear with last beyond the pandemic and affect their decision-making and thinking for the rest of their lives. It's really disturbing some of the things that they say they've heard and believe. And it's becoming more prevalent in general in society, this spreading of rumors and misinformation and conspiracy theories that are skewing how people see the world. It's disconcerting, if not downright scary!
June 22, 2021