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.  

Darwin In Action

 Take a glance at this extraordinarily interesting article by James Marriot in the London Times, “Conspiracists are about to get a dose of reality: Antivaxers, cranks and fantasists thrive in safe, stable societies but the days of consequence-free idiocy may be ending.” In it, Marriot makes the fascinating argument that anti-science and anti-democracy activists have been able to survive in the modern world because they are protected by the very technologies and social behaviors that they pretend to despise. They can reject vaccinations, for instance, because most people get them…and so antivaxers don’t get the highly infectious diseases that might otherwise kill them. 

But, says Marriot, that’s changing. In a world where people like RJK Jr. call the shots, you are far more likely to get exposed to something that could actually kill you. As a result, antivax ideologies become truly deadly.

All of which is to suggest that, in future, we may see a good many people reaping what they sow, and regretting it. 

Marriott, James. "Conspiracists Are About to Get a Dose of Reality." The Times, https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/conspiracists-are-about-to-get-a-dose-of-reality-c2fltx0xd.

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