Posted on 03/10/2021 3:06:35 PM PST by volunbeer
Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. There are the brown highway signs alerting travelers to historical markers tucked away in the nearby scrub. There are the frequent memorials of another sort, to the victims of vehicle accidents. And there are the astonishingly deluxe high school football stadiums. This is, after all, the region that produced “Friday Night Lights.”
The city of Hobbs, population just under 40,000, sits on the New Mexico side, as tight to the border as a wide receiver’s toes on a sideline catch. From the city’s eastern edge to the Texas line is barely more than two miles. From Hobbs to the Texas towns of Seminole and Denver City is a half-hour drive — next door, by the standards of the vast Southwestern plains.
In the pandemic year of 2020, though, the two sides of the state line might as well have been in different hemispheres.
(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...
The "one sized fits all" approach to Covid has been a huge failure and perhaps nobody has paid the price more than our children.
its cost everyone a lot, some a lot more than others
we have lost freedom
and too many people here are fine with it
“Obey the science” has become a mantra that means “do what we tell you and stfu”
and way to many fearpers have embraced this totalitarian attitude
just remember, the people pushing this orwellian control and demanding our obedience,
have for their entire lives, bucked authority, said rules are for tyrants, screw the law, screw you, I’m doing what I want, i want ‘freedom’
now that they have control they are bigger dictators and demanders of submission
you wanna be lumped in with em?
maybe that’s the person you really are then. maybe you’ve done us all a favor letting us know who you really are.
“victims of vehicle accidents”
I lived in Texas. I remember there being vehicle accidents. Not sure what you are saying. Maybe you chopped off the blog excerpt too soon.
My 16 year old son banked over 15k telling people to put on a mask. So there’s that.
I doubt we will never know the true cost of this virus given the hidden costs on mental health, but it has revealed a lot about our nation and its leaders.
There are few bright spots from where I sit.
I am not seeing anything about vehicle accidents in the excerpt?
The so-called “pandemic” didn’t cause these problems.
Out of control government did.
Some NM families have been sending their kids to Texas schools. A number of folks I know have driven to Amarillo to get Covid shots because NM is so unorganized.
It filled me with a boiling, seething anger to read that piece.
The people at all levels of the government who pushed this will never, ever be called to account for what they have done to our country.
And that makes me see red.
Third line down.
“There are the frequent memorials of another sort, to the victims of vehicle accidents.”
Is the blog about something else?
The article is a hard one to read...I got madder and madder as I read it.
Anyone with a brain can imagine what this does to kids, unnecessarily in this case (as the kids a few miles across the border in Texas knew, since THEY were allowed to go to school and play sports)
Sigh. There are things nowadays I can’t bring myself to read, but that was one that I did.
I think government did cause a lot of this, but it would not have happened without the media creating a narrative of fear and many, if not most, people buying into it.
The media, for reasons of politics and ratings, fanned the flames of this “pandemic” with few expressing any skepticism.
We KNEW back in April of last year who was at risk and who had very little risk from this virus, but that knowledge changed nothing about the response.
The contrast of two towns only minutes away from one another and the “results” is starkly tragic.
I am also resentful that barely anyone mentions the role of China in this mess.
It is a long article, you should read it, if your blood pressure can handle it.
I feel the same way. I had no problem with being careful in February and March, but when April rolled around, it was clear to me the virus was understood pretty well.
Perhaps not enough to develop a vaccine, but clinically, how it spread and how it affected people.
In early April, it did dawn on me that this whole reaction was, if not totally contrived, unnecessarily overblown.
Since then, I have absolutely discarded the “unnecessarily overblown”. It was a malignant, active intervention at many governmental levels up to the Presidency.
When Trump began calling for things to open up and was uniformly attacked, that was when I knew.
Will do, my FRiend.
Ah, I am sorry. I completely missed that and probably should have excerpted something with more punch than the color set-up for the piece.
In rural areas such memorials are commonplace. I don’t think the author really tied that in that I remember other than I have not seen any memorials to kids in my area who took their own lives.
I do not agree with the piece in all things. The author seems to blame national leadership, but by the constitution it is the Governor of each state along with local leaders who are supposed to frame a response.
Perhaps that speaks more to the state of our nation and the expectations people have on Uncle Sugar to address every problem.
I thank God that our children have basically no risk from this virus, but it has greatly impacted most of them and there is little justification that I can see for it.
You bet. I got 3/4 of the way through and stopped. Argh. So many things now I just have to pass on reading, because I am normally a darned happy person, and these things fill me with very negative feelings.
At least when the weather improves, I’ll go out to my hammock with my pipe and a beer to look at the stars. Right now, I just don’t even want to see people.
The sight of so many sheep bothers me.
I knew this country was doomed a year ago when I witnessed the idiocy of FREEPERS (of all people) not only buying into the authoritarian bullsh!t being peddled by government and media ... but even getting on this website and scolding their fellow conservatives for refusing to shut down our lives and businesses.
Yep. I was railing against the lockdown strategy in April because the risks of the virus were pretty much based on your age and health condition.
It’s a real thing. I lost a couple of friends to it and was (and remain) worried about my parents and in-laws. However, the one size fits all approach was a complete failure.
There is no data that I have seen (and I have looked) that justifies the draconian lockdown approach.
Thanks. Don’t mean to be a pain. Going to read the rest as Rlmorel suggested.
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