Usually it just comes to me, a topic or an idea and I am off and running and before I know it the word count is over a thousand and off the thing goes to Chris, my Computer Guru in the UK. But very recently find myself getting a bit self conscious about the process. I am aware that I have readers from all over the world, therefore, I should not be insular, writing only about matters close to home. By the way, what is insular? Insular is a great word which means
ignorant of or uninterested in cultures, ideas, or peoples outside one’s own experience and/or lacking contact with other people. There are many delicious synonyms: narrow-minded; limited, blinkered, restricted, inward-looking, conventional, parochial, provincial, small-town, localist, small-minded, petty-minded, petty, close-minded, short-sighted, myopic, hidebound, dyed-in-the-wool, diehard, set, set in one’s ways, inflexible, dogmatic, rigid, entrenched, illiberal, intolerant, prejudiced, bigoted, biased, partisan, sectarian, xenophobic, discriminatory. Xenophobic has to be my favorite but dyed-in-the wool, and myopic are rather fun as well.
I occasionally write to please, at other times to inform about a topic that needs to be discussed in an intelligent and scientific manner. A portion of this blog was intended to be a discussion of the science of wearing a face mask but unfortunately could not find the article which discussed the matter. It is the latest word – it was a waste of time according to Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University but you will have to take my word for it. The regulation is soon to lift in Marin as 96.4% of those eligible have had at least one jab. It is a rather amazing statistic.
I am true to my word of a prior blog. I have the acquaintance of a man who was not vaccinated, got Covid, placing many at risk. Saw him this morning, after physical therapy – the following conversation took place.
Me: I am not going to speak to you ever again unless and until you are vaccinated. You put people at risk According to an article the September 8, 2021 Marin Independant Journal there are 71 virus cases in Marin Schools. People like you are a danger. There is nothing I can do except avoid you, which I am. I will not die if exposed to Covid but why should I risk getting sick just for you?
He: (speechless as we were, in the past quite close). He called me a kind soul.
I have become rather entrenched, xenophobic, and myopic of late. I subscribe to the Marin Independant Journal and so know, first hadn’t, what is going on around here, the country in which I live. Dick Spotswood writes a column on local issues on Sundays and Wednesdays. His Wednesday column Stay unvaccinated if you must, but know consequences. He urged: Marin should start by requiring all public employees including teachers and public safety personnel be vaccinated by October 1, as a condition of employment. He points out that mandatory vaccinations can be refused for religious reasons but that is not as easy as it looks quoting Pope Francis: “Vaccination is a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the vulnerable.” Spotswood also cited Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son: “My father (Billy Graham) was a firm believer in medicine. He believed in it, so he would have been a (vaccine) supporter – no question.”
Muslims are also clearly pro vaccinators. Just look at the Dubai rates of vaccination – they excel those in Marin. It is astounding!
A social worker in a hospital emergency room wrote a letter to the IJ editor entitled View from the ER is one of Exhaustion and Frustration. This paragraph is particularly poignant: I am angry that my colleagues must risk exposure and treat people who are more than happy to accept all the shots, pills, IVs and airway tubes that modern medicine has to offer after they get the disease. They endure this because they refused to take a simple, quick and preventative vaccine shor. She ends: Please urge your friends to get the safe and effective vaccine. I don’t want to mingle in a group of unvaccinated people. I could unwittingly carry the delta variant with its 1,000 fold higher viral load to an unvaccinated person. The unvaccinated are highly susceptible. If you are not vaccinated, it is your responsibility to let those around you know. Please get vaccinated. “
I am, and so should you be grateful for this letter, for this information. She is on the front lines and sees the needless suffering of her colleagues. It seems that many who who refuse vaccines are Macho Men, proving their virility by not getting a vaccine and not allowing their wives and children the safety it brings. That somehow those Macho Men can protect them but just being Macho. The definition of a macho man is a man who is virile and sexually active. synonyms: he-man, stud. type of: adult male, man. an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman). Google tells us that these are some of their traits: 1) Posturing; assume a certain, often unusual or exaggerated body posture or attitude. 2) Bravado; outrageous boasting, overconfidence.3) Social dominance; as a socio-culturally defined dominance; macho swagger.4) Sexual prowess, being sexually assertive. 5) Protecting one’s honor.
Google lists seventeen idiomatic expressions, and related words for macho, like: manlike, virile, masculine, manly, butch, stereotypically, chauvinistic, manful, machismo, male and mannish. I would add idiotic. An antonym is obviously intelligent. .
I recall a first lunch with a man in July 2017, We had been emailing constantly for over a month. There was an occasional sighting because he lived, most probably, in an adjacent building.
He: What do you find most attractive in a man?
Me: Their brains. I find a man’s brain is his chief erogenous zone for me.
He: I am not very smart.
Me: Of course you are!
It was one of those experiences, we were oblivious to everyone else in the entire crowded restaurant. He told me all of his secrets. His hatred of his mother, her coldness, her drive for money – although she had five children she played no maternal role whatsoever. He, his one brother and three sisters were raised by nannies.
Me: What attracts you in woman?
He: I want to be in a crowded room and she is always the prettiest, the most attractive and well dressed woman there.
But later did say that he wanted his wife to be warm, engaging and to have the qualities of a good mother. He had been on the market for a wife, making a public pronouncement that he was looking for one. He had been looking for a wife for about ten years – he was then 37. But it was difficult:
He: I do not want to marry a Chinese woman, although that is my culture. But I have lived and gone to school in the West for so long that their secluded life style does not match mine. (He, born in Malaysia, attended Oral Roberts University and then graduate school in Australia). But Western woman seem only to be interested in my money, not me as a person.
Me: That is a dilemma. And you are under pressure to marry, because of the inherited fortune and being the eldest boy.
He: Yes! My younger brother is rather useless. To make up for her maternal neglect she showered attention on her youngest. It crippled him.
What happened to him? He married a not terribly attractive Chinese woman in Malaysia in November of 2019. He was a multibillionaire, however, the Canadian company Holburn, declared bankruptcy in 2020. TA Global, the parent Malaysian company, also had financial woes, the extent of which Is unknown as it was privatized by his father. Does this affect me in any way? Well, yes! Alix Residences, clearly named for me, is under construction to be completed 2023 but it has been stalled and may never, as they say, get off the ground. I asked a young man (18) of considerable wealth to purchase it from bankruptcy and see to its construction.
He: Granny, why are you crying?
Me: I just found out that the developers of Alix Residences in Malaysia have gone bankrupt and the magnificent building will not be completed.
He: Granny, I love you, I am so sorry you are unhappy!
Later I texted him with the request. He is worth at least 36.4 billion dollars, he could readily afford it. But that was in April and this is September and no sign of the purchase. Oh well. Not sure how I would find out anyway.
It has been revealed that the man was not intelligent. First the bankruptcy and then learned that the only mark he made in Vancouver is 2020 was to oppose the vacancy tax. It is a tax imposed by the City upon properties owned by foreign investors but remain unoccupied despite a rather desperate housing shortage in Vancouver. Holburn owns Little Mountain, a former public housing site – no construction taking place despite contractural mandates. What happened in our ‘relationship’. It was October of 2017, he was in Malaysia listening to lies about me, yet again.Believing them instead of me, yet again. I emailed in utter despair and frustration.
Me: F**k you and the horse you rode in on.
He: I will never speak to you again. All of your emails will go to junk.
I later googled “the horse you rode in on” expression. It was actually one of the first ‘dirty’ jokes. I shall explain its derivation in a subsequent blog. I was devastated at the time, even though it was me that caused the break up. But I got over it – and this is the rather hilarious twist. Subsequently attracted two other multibillionaires – they had horses, stables full of horse. He had no horses at all. He must be miserable as he hated living in Malaysia, he is bankrupt and he was ambitious. He was a fundamentalist Christian who kept trying to convert me to the Christian faith
He: You will be so happy when Jesus comes into you life.
Do wonder what he thinks of my conversion to the Islamic faith. Jesus is in my life as he is a prophet. Mohammed is the last prophet and has much greater recognition.
The photograph is of the pin I received at the Marin Veteran’s Auditorium on the occasion of my booster shot. I shall constantly wear it publicly. Also a page from The Little Book of Journeys. It is an upbeat message as you shall see.
