Hallelujah! The Grands got their first jab of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid 19. Sounds like I could write a country song about this day!
“Their daddy piled them in the car, drove for miles to a Walgreens store
Rolled up their sleeves with a great big smile, no tears, all style
They got the Pfizer Vaccine
Gonna help them fight off Covid 19″
Maybe I’ve been living in Nashville too long? But I swear I got all teary when I saw their little red band-aids on their arms. To celebrate, I cooked a big pot of goulash and offered free delivery since the Bride was working all weekend and the Groom was on dad duty. She had made plans for tacos, so we combined our Mexican/Hungarian menu to the delight of all.
Then I read this article about a different kind of immunity. It’s something for your brain that won’t let you end up at the other end of a rabbit hole.
“Here’s the idea: false, baseless, and destructive ideas are mind-parasites. Some are infectious and harm the minds that host them. But minds have defenses — “mental immune systems” — that offer some protection. These are natural systems, and we can study them like we do other natural systems. We can learn how they work and why they sometimes fail. Then, we can apply what we learn to prevent mental immune system breakdowns.
Cognitive immunologists are making strides. We’ve identified the mind’s antibodies. We know the basics of how mental immune systems work. (A healthy mind deploys questions and doubts to ward off problematic ideas; in unhealthy minds, this “mental immune function” is suppressed, misdirected, or hyperactive.)”
https://medium.com/@andynorman/why-arent-we-all-conspiracy-theorists-d14c7ac2b123
My Daddy Jim used to tell me on a drive in the country, that a large field of telephone poles is where they grow telephone poles. And I actually believed him, that phone poles shoot straight up out of the ground in their perfectly round-hewn condition. Because kids believe what their parents say for awhile, like ducking your head in the car when your dad drives under a bridge.
But eventually kids grow up and begin to doubt that a bridge could actually hit your head encased inside a car. They begin to separate their ideas from their parents, along with their music. But not everybody grows up in the same order, some take longer and some never quite get there. If a child grows up in a very strict, ‘my way or the highway’ house, they may never be allowed to wonder or ask questions.
This child may decide that he doesn’t eat Chinese food because he’s not Chinese because that’s what he’s heard in his house. And when another culture is feared or derided all the time, it multiplies xenophobia and hatred.
What if you grow up in a house that learns to make sushi, and doesn’t mind if your nana brings over pizza dogs for a birthday party even though your family has decided to be vegetarian. With some fish. In hindsight, I could have tried to make pizza fish sticks.
Our generation was the last to suffer with polio and measles. I studied deaf children in college, babies who were born deaf because their mothers contracted German measles during their pregnancies. Infants today are automatically vaccinated for Measles, Mumps and Rubella. But technology has helped spread some pretty medieval thinking around vaccine drives and public health with divisive ideologies; many being steeped in Anti-Semitism as I learned on CNN Lisa Ling’s “The Conspiracy Effect.” https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-10-06/lisa-ling-cnn-this-is-life-connects-hate-racism-in-american-history
Never, did I EVER expect to wake up this morning to see Big Bird getting cancelled by a Republican who looks like Uncle Fester. That sweet big yellow bird was telling parents and children to get vaccinated, you would think he was Big Brother telling us how to think. When the problem is too many people refuse to think, to analyze, to engage their brain. Too many have done “their own research” on Facebook. A place that will only amplify conspiracy thinking and science denial if it makes them more money.
We are not fighting a culture war with the Republicans. They would like us to define this gap in rational thinking as simply a cultural divide. But it’s not. There is no alternative view of the Holocaust. There are no chips being implanted in arms. Spreading false and misleading information and insisting we debate with them is insane. Our country must recover from a presidency that fed on conspiracy theories like it was manna from heaven.
We are better than that. Instead of spreading lies about children being trafficked, we can spread the word that vaccinations actually save lives. We can take back the conversation, and we must.
MountainMornings 