by Sean C. Capparuccia
Oct. 10, 2021
Remember “Cooties”? Well…. the’re baaaaaack!
I was sitting at my sixth-grade desk during homeroom. The class still had a few minutes before the bell rang, and the noise was annoying, though tolerable. Sitting several rows over from me was Josh Reese [name probably changed to protect his dignity] who was diligently picking his nose. Josh was a regular nosepicker; I was a regular observer. And I remember quite vividly that he seemed to always have a bit of green snot around his nostrils. Now, in retrospect, this may have simply happened one time in the whole school year, and I just happen to remember that particularly vivid scene. But, I know he regularly picked his nose… I do have more than several memories of that!
And he was a bit chubby.
And he wore white T-shirts to school.
And his hair was messy.
He was just “that kid” – the kid that nobody wanted to sit next to or stand near or (and this was the worst) be paired with for in-class assignments. But I don’t particularly remember that the other kids picked on him much; they just ignored him and were grossed out by his proximity. Some kids were “popular” for being picked on [that was me]; some kids were just “in the shadows.” But the truth of the matter is, the kid had Cooties. Everyone knew it, and nobody wanted it. I don’t know how he did in high school, or beyond, but I hope he turned out to be some wonderful and compassionate doctor or lawyer or preacher; a great dad who taught his kids not to pick their noses in public.
You think back on incidents like this and realize that kids can be quite mean. But, I think, while some kids tend toward meanness, most are just ignorant, or naïve. They simply follow the mean kids lest they themselves suffer the wrath. This is human nature, albeit a sinful human nature, that too often goes unchecked and uncorrected.
Now we’ve all grown up and Cooties are a thing of the past. Or are they? Reading over Lara’s entry, “Defilement,” also on this blog, my mind has returned to the Cooties phenomenon. Isn’t that just exactly what we’re facing right now with the Covid crisis? It isn’t Covid itself which is analogous to the Cooties. Covid itself is a viral infection, a true sickness like a cold (also a Covid virus), the annual flu, gastroenteritis (yucky!), etc. No, people with Covid don’t have Cooties, they are just sick. It’s the people who don’t wear masks who have Cooties. It’s the people who have a personal/religious/logical/medical rationale for refusing the government shot. These are the new Cootie-laden losers in our society.
The analogy is almost perfectly parallel. Think about it: I mean, did Josh Reese really have Cooties? Did he actually possess some kind of contagion that could jump off of him and onto other people? Of course not. But he was an easy target for scapegoating because he picked his nose. His behavior was, in a sense, anti-establishment; and if there’s one thing that the Establishment cannot tolerate, it’s anti-establishment people [i.e., President Donald Trump.] The last thing anyone wanted in that sixth-grade class was for Josh to be successful because it would make no sense for someone like that to be successful. It would disrupt the accepted “order” of things. But I digress.
As Joe Biden continues to bully the public with executive orders pertaining to the covid shot and his continual “moving of the goalposts,” the people of America are finding themselves back in the proverbial sixth-grade classroom noisily looking around and determining who has Cooties. And who does have Cooties? Anyone who appears to be anti-establishment; anyone bucking the system; all those going against the flow – that’s who!
Just as in sixth grade where the reality was that no one had Cooties, it was all a sham, there is no one with Cooties now! It’s all just a game that everyone seems to be playing. The masks are nothing more than psychological Polo shirts that the “cool kids” wear. The shot – for most1 – is just a Member’s Only jacket that gets one into the Club.
I say this because the evidence is overwhelming. While there may be a few – and I say a very few – who actually believe that wearing a mask does something useful, I would argue that the vast majority of people, and “science,” does not. This is seen over and over when people wear the mask under their nose; when people stand around in a group of friends without a mask, then don one as soon as someone else walks up. I have been in numerous situations where I meet someone out and about and they are wearing a mask until they decide I’m an OK guy and then they remove their mask. Or I run into an old acquaintance and greet me with a “fist bump” only to shake my hand goodbye after we’ve caught up on old times. I mean, really! I’m carrying the exact same germs after our conversation as I was before our conversation, except that now I’ve probably got some of your germs on me now. But, you, see, now I’m OK, I’m in your club; I’ve been checked out. Essentially, and almost always, it’s because we agreed on some political point. Or how about when you walk into a fast-food joint and the cashier puts on his/her mask even though the rest of the crew further away isn’t wearing one. Or when people at church (in churches that still ask you to wear a mask) diligently keep their masks on then take it off and huddle in close groups talking outside. Or at restaurants when people wear their masks in, then take it off for the duration of the meal as if Covid may spread while your mouth is shut (walking in) but miraculously disappears when you start talking and eating. And they’re right, there is no threat while eating. Nor is there a threat while walking, standing, or talking – at least no more threat than doing any of those things with a mask on. That’s what the data from around the world are showing us. And the rest of the world is taking notice of the sham. But America, for some reason, wants to keep it going. Political psychological tyranny is the only answer.
The fact, is, we all know that the only answer to ending the crisis is to let it run its course like every other disease in the history of mankind unless a true vaccine in discovered, which to date has not. Mask wearing and “vaccine” bullying are nothing more than methods of control over a naïve and ignorant public – a public that has been seduced into reliving the “glory days” of middle school; of being part of the “cool kids club;” of labeling the others as having Cooties, and bullying their way into the “inner circle.” As St. Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (I Corinthians 13:11). It’s time to come back to reality and quit reasoning like children.
Maybe Josh Reese was making a point. He was showing the rest of us how superficial we could all be and maybe we missed really knowing someone who was better than cool (even if he did pick his nose). He, at least, had no intention of trying to impress his superficial and ignorant classmates.
Face it: Covid will quit mutating and disappear when people quit getting shots and stop wearing masks. And quite frankly, the ones wearing masks all the time look a whole lot dumber than those that don’t. There, I said it.
1I believe wholeheartedly that the shot may, in fact, be useful to those who were most vulnerable to the Covid virus, i.e., the elderly and maybe some of the morbidly obese and other adults with certain co-morbidities. But the shot is not a vaccine against the virus; it does not prevent anyone from getting it or transmitting it; at best it may lessen the worst symptoms of it. Additionally, the shot has proven to be somewhat dangerous as already over 15,000 deaths have been attributed to it. For a virus with a 1.5% or so mortality rate, a shot with a .8% or so mortality rate is not much help.
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