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which_chickI know that sounds like the lead up to some sort of "... walked into a bar" joke but it's not.
I hold a position of nominal pubic office in a tiny municipal division of one of the reddest counties east of the Mississippi river and I will talk on the phone to strangers. So, that's how I wound up being interviewed by one Gakushi Fujiwara of the Asahi Shimbun on Monday night after work. (Google says that this is one of the fairly major newspapers of Japan.) The guy works out of New York and I expect as how he drew the short straw for having to Go To Fulton County, PA to talk to rednecks about why they ain't getting no vaccine. Anyway, if I was working in the New York office, I'd definitely send an underling out to the hinterlands instead of hauling my own damn ass out back of beyond where there are no hotels and the coffee is sketchy.
I explained on the phone to the contact person quite politely that I was not a particularly typical county resident and that I did, in fact, get the vaccine and even (whispered) voted democrat on occasion. But, the contact person said as how the reporter was still interested in talking to me, so... ok.
Right out front, I should mention that I totally failed to disclose to the kindly reporter that I, as a middle-aged American redneck-y woman, owned enough Japanese to at least manage 初めまして because then I'd have to discuss why I watched cartoons for children and so I just skipped right on over all that and we went straight to the covid questions.
Once we got past the basics (did your parents, did you, did your friends, do you know people who are not getting vaccinated), we got to...
"So if you know people who are not getting vaccinated, are you going to try to convince them to do so?"
Within reason. I can present facts. I can argue the case for vaccines. But, at the end of the day, it is their personal choice for what to do. I can only try to persuade. I can't MAKE people do things.
"But if all these people don't vaccinate, you cannot achieve herd immunity."
True.
"And then people will die." (Said with some frustration, near as I could tell.)
Yes. That's the price of freedom. If you have the freedom to choose, you also have the freedom to make wrong choices. If people are only allowed to make "right" choices then it's not really freedom.
"..." (He seemed very confused by this. No doubt there will be an article in aforesaid newspaper discussing how insane these rural Americans are, even the allegedly liberal ones.)
That was the most interesting part of the interview, at least for me.
We did the interview outside because (a) I houseclean about as well as a bear and (b) my house is tiny and it is difficult to social distance inside of it. I sat on the bed of my pickup truck, he sat mostly in the front seat of his car with the door open. We wore masks. There were photographs of me, the horror.
Anyway, we shall see what comes of it, if anything.
I hold a position of nominal pubic office in a tiny municipal division of one of the reddest counties east of the Mississippi river and I will talk on the phone to strangers. So, that's how I wound up being interviewed by one Gakushi Fujiwara of the Asahi Shimbun on Monday night after work. (Google says that this is one of the fairly major newspapers of Japan.) The guy works out of New York and I expect as how he drew the short straw for having to Go To Fulton County, PA to talk to rednecks about why they ain't getting no vaccine. Anyway, if I was working in the New York office, I'd definitely send an underling out to the hinterlands instead of hauling my own damn ass out back of beyond where there are no hotels and the coffee is sketchy.
I explained on the phone to the contact person quite politely that I was not a particularly typical county resident and that I did, in fact, get the vaccine and even (whispered) voted democrat on occasion. But, the contact person said as how the reporter was still interested in talking to me, so... ok.
Right out front, I should mention that I totally failed to disclose to the kindly reporter that I, as a middle-aged American redneck-y woman, owned enough Japanese to at least manage 初めまして because then I'd have to discuss why I watched cartoons for children and so I just skipped right on over all that and we went straight to the covid questions.
Once we got past the basics (did your parents, did you, did your friends, do you know people who are not getting vaccinated), we got to...
"So if you know people who are not getting vaccinated, are you going to try to convince them to do so?"
Within reason. I can present facts. I can argue the case for vaccines. But, at the end of the day, it is their personal choice for what to do. I can only try to persuade. I can't MAKE people do things.
"But if all these people don't vaccinate, you cannot achieve herd immunity."
True.
"And then people will die." (Said with some frustration, near as I could tell.)
Yes. That's the price of freedom. If you have the freedom to choose, you also have the freedom to make wrong choices. If people are only allowed to make "right" choices then it's not really freedom.
"..." (He seemed very confused by this. No doubt there will be an article in aforesaid newspaper discussing how insane these rural Americans are, even the allegedly liberal ones.)
That was the most interesting part of the interview, at least for me.
We did the interview outside because (a) I houseclean about as well as a bear and (b) my house is tiny and it is difficult to social distance inside of it. I sat on the bed of my pickup truck, he sat mostly in the front seat of his car with the door open. We wore masks. There were photographs of me, the horror.
Anyway, we shall see what comes of it, if anything.
