JFK jr.’s small comforts

Okay, there are two posts today. The first one I wrote on Feb 26, 2025, just after I saw the referenced article about RFJ Jr.’s inactivity regarding the recent measles outbreak. I thought I was being witty and somewhat tongue in cheek. I was wrong. The second posting, which follows this one, reflects what has happened since then. 

Interesting and disturbing article in Vox the other day, “What RFK Jr. has said about the ongoing measles outbreak: The new Health and Human Services secretary is facing one of his first public health crises. Will he blow up the typical protocol?” by Dylan Scott. In it, Mr. Scott looks at what the administration’s favorite antivaxxer is doing in response to the measles outbreak currently raging in Western Texas and Eastern New Mexico.

The fear is that he will interfere in some fashion with vaccination programs, and thus make the situation much, much worse. However, so far, he hasn’t done much of anything, for good or bad. That means that he has left the problem in the skilled hands of local authorities – which is a very good thing, indeed.

There is, however, something terrifying in the knowledge that the best you can ask from the new Health and Human Services secretary is that he remain inert, and so not hurt anyone.

Thus we have a whole new meaning of the term “competence.” In the case of this administration, it means immobility, so that the individual involved does not actively and vigorously engage in genuine evil, but instead remains safely asleep at the switch, and is thus only passively harmful.

As I say, I then discovered I was oh so very wrong. For that, go to the next post.  

No Shingles, Thank You

Spent much of yesterday sick as the proverbial canine. The reason? Because on Tuesday I went and got not one but two vaccinations -- for the flu, and more importantly, for Shingles. I had been meaning to get the latter for some time. I’m a prime candidate for that ghastly disease because I had chickenpox as an adult. Apparently, that means there is a strong, strong likelihood that I would get shingles sometime after middle age.

And I wasn’t planning on getting shingles...not if I could help it, anyway. It’s incredibly painful, can be a bit disfiguring (at least in the short term), and there is no known cure. And that’s just if you get garden variety. A friend of mine, a writer I’ve worked with, got it in her eyes. Feel free to shudder at that thought. I certainly did.

So, I got the vaccine. The problem is that I’ve got a strong immune system (apparently) and whenever I get a vaccine the old body swings into overdrive. It interprets the serum (as it should) as an attack and responds accordingly--i.e., it generates the antibodies which will give you immunity later on. The trouble being that may make you may feel sick in the short run. You may feel fever, aches, queasy stomach, and all the other things that are designed to make life impossible for viruses...and, sort of by accident, miserable for you.

Ergo, I spent pretty much all day yesterday flat on my back and feeling, to quote the immortal P.G. Wodehouse, like something rejected by the pure food committee. 

It wasn’t fun to say the least...but I knew the alternative was to court something a whole lot worse. Better to suffer a little today than much more more next week.

In other words, I was doing something mature.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?