[crazy scenario]

" I have worn a mask when various retailers & medical organizations asked me to. I have never been so arrogant as to cross other professionals, when nothing is to be gained by annoying and upsetting them. Parenthetically, I don’t even push limits with business folks nor small-time shopkeepers. I frequent their establishments only at their pleasure, and it’s their privilege to set the rules for their own premises. "

I knew it!!! YOU don't cross other professionals because YOU let others do your thinking for you!!!! If you used your inteligentce about viruses then, you would know a virus can pass thru those cloth masks like a golf ball thru a Chainlink fence.

"live in a largely rural state with a very conservative governor of wise disposition; she treats us as adults." Then, you live in South Dakota, right. Do you know where Eureka is?

[schurmann]

“...YOU don’t cross other professionals because YOU let others do your thinking for you!!!! If you used your inteligentce about viruses...

...Do you know where Eureka is?” [crazy scenario, post 92]

Clever of you to deduce my state of residence. Despite the media news coverage, I suspect few people outside the area know who Gov Kristi Noem is.

I confess that before reading your post I couldn’t have pinpointed Eureka on the map. I guessed it was in East River. I live south of Rochford in West River, about ten miles west of Hill City and 15 miles east of the Wyoming-South Dakota.

I have overflown Eureka dozens of times. Couldn’t see anything with my own eyeballs, because I was inside various aircraft then in USAF’s inventory. When I was a cadet, Wessington Springs was the far-end anchor for one of our navigation training routes. After I became an active duty aircrewmember, I crisscrossed the wide flat spaces of the High Plains many times.

Most of the territory from the US-Canada border north of Eureka due south to southern Texas is featureless. One small town looks like every other small town on mapping radar. I got lost sometimes.

I don’t have any “knowledge” of virus biology. Not the direct sort, anyway: I learned what I have learned via reading & listening to others.

About 40 years ago, I discovered that clashing with someone over a topic about which I had no direct knowledge would lead to nothing but trouble.

So I have refrained from crossing professionals outside my own area of expertise. Doing so rarely results in success. Making a big fuss destroys all hope of cooperation and typically ends in failure - unless one deems it worthwhile to “win” a contest of wills. Childish behavior, ultimately.

Knowledge outmatches & outlasts belief.