Thursday, July 23, 2020

he ain't heavy, he's my outlaw's brother


As the caption reads on the original photograph, this picture is from World War II of a soldier carrying a donkey through a grassy field, with other soldiers walking some distance away.
It is not that the soldier loves donkeys or has some sort of perversion.
What's happening is that the field is mined.
Therefore, if the donkey was free to wander as it pleased, it would likely detonate a charge and kill everyone.
The moral of the story is that during difficult times, the first ones you have to keep under control are the jackasses who don't understand the danger and do as they please.

I think of this photo every time my outlaw's younger brother leaves a comment on one of my fb posts.
His comments are never on point, meant only as a distraction to spew some falsehood he has seen elsewhere and taken for truth.
I don't know why he bothers.
He is so anti-science and anti-data that it's scary.
Still, I respond to his rants, to his repostings of misquoted rhetoric, providing him links to genuine data sites, to reputable news sources, to cold hard numbers that make my case.
All is to no avail.
I had though he was over such shenanigans, but he seems to have stepped up his game of late.
It had been several weeks since he last added any comments to one of my posts, so I thought he had given up on fighting science with me, a scientist.
No, that was not the case.
The disappointing thing was how sloppy his rant was, pieced together hodge-podge from posts that I have seen on others' fb pages, desperate attempts to turn the pandemic into a political quagmire.
Sigh.

I think I'm going to have to put him into a time-out box for a while.
Not just him, either, sadly.
My stepbrother's children and their spouses need a time-out, too.
So does my bfM from Okinawa.
Sigh.

I will certainly be glad when the November election is over.


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