5-27-20

Harszewski
AC2622 C-Yard
P.O. Box 409060
Ione, CA 95640
Blog 1160

Comment Reply ID #n6e8
(New Normals)

“mtroy”, thanks for the transcription! I always appreciate it so much when someone takes the time to do that for me. I’m glad you liked my comments on “new normal” ... I guess all I was really trying to say is that I think we’ve become way too quick to adopt phrases like “new normal”, which we apply to conditions that clearly aren’t normal at all, yet. They’re just temporary adjustments. To me, a “new normal” is like what happened with air travel after 9-11, everyone getting permanently used to taking off their shoes and letting strangers feel them up in public in a somber search for excess shampoo volume to and key-chain bottle openers that looked a bit too “knifey”. A real “new normal” might be the almost overnight shift around 2008 in the average person’s attitude toward talking on a cellphone while driving (before most states had laws on it, nearly 100% of drivers would talk freely while driving and never gave it a second thought; after most states had laws, the people in the car next to you might flip you off for holding a phone to your ear). A ‘new normal” would be openly smoking marijuana in public; calls to CPS or 911 because a neighborhood 5th grader comes home to an empty house after school each day for 3 hours; animals on airplanes; and seeing our friendly local police officers sporting heavy body armor and cruising around in monstrous surplus military vehicles. I really don’t think it’s fair to equate those enduring new social realities with the wearing of masks or, especially, with not leaving our homes for a critical period while a particularly nasty disease is going around.

I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but I can’t see labeling something as “normal” until it’s safe to assume we’ll be seeing & doing it for a long, long, long, indefinite time to come. This one’s gonna pass, I’m pretty sure. Historically abnormally destructive wild fires, hurricanes, and droughts are probably with us to stay, on the other hand. =(
Just sayin’.