Snowbirds Must Pay The Price For Their Selfishness

 

Like the majority of Canadians, my wife and I have taken all the precautions we can during this long season of Covid-19. We have not seen our son and daughter-in-law, who live out West, for over a year. Our daughter and her husband we have only seen outside the house, observing physical distancing. We shop for groceries once every two weeks in a large store, double-masking the whole time. 

None of these measures are pleasant, but they are wholly necessary if we are ever to come to grips with this pernicious virus.

Others feel differently, gathering willy-nilly as the spirit moves them, be it through gatherings of extended families, parties, or the other myriad circumstances in which close contact inevitably occurs. 

As a senior, for me the most egregious violation of the spirit of the precautions come from the snowbirds who have willfully chosen to ignore safety and gone on their annual hegiras to Florida, Arizona, etc., their compelling reasons including how hard the Canadian winter can be, their joints need the respite warm weather offers, etc. ad nauseam. For them I feel no sympathy; indeed, contempt might be a better description of my sentiment.

And their plaints, when something goes wrong, ring hollow in my ears. There is, for example, the recent case of a Nova Scotia couple who sojourned to Florida, where things quickly turned horrible awry:

A Kings County couple are facing hefty medical bills after they both became ill with COVID-19 while in Florida. Debbie Mailman of Aylesford says she and her husband, Wayne, travel annually to Florida for six months of the year because their arthritis, muscular issues, fibromyalgia and other existing conditions would leave them in in pain if they stayed in the cold Canadian winter. “If we stayed home we'd be in agony all the time,” she said. “We just come here for the warm weather.”

Their quest for respite didn't go exactly as planned, They quickly fell ill from Covid, resulting in hospitalization that will cost more than $300,000 for her husband's treatment and an unknown amount for hers. 

Clearly, I am not the only one who feels ill-disposed toward selfish indulgences. The following letters from Star readers, reproduced from both the online and print edition, reflect this fact: (I had some formatting problems here, so please forgive the inconsistencies.)

I do not feel one ounce of pity for Canadians who left Canada and have returned, or will be returning, and face a substantial cost to quarantine.

We have been advised for months not to travel. These people are just self-centred and selfish to think only about what they want. The COVID-19 virus and its variants got to this country by travellers, no other way.

Susan Magill, Gravenhurst, Ont.

 

Snowbirds must face consequences of selfishness

• Toronto Star
• 8 Feb 2021

Re Peeved Canadian snowbirds devising plans to avoid hotel-quarantine ‘jail’, Feb. 4

 

Snowbirds and other Canadians who travelled abroad deserve no sympathy.

 

One traveller mentions being punished for wanting to see the sun. Well, there are many Canadians who would also like to see the sun and close family they haven’t seen for a year and thankfully most of them are respecting the travel advisory and staying home. So no sympathy for those who confuse wants with needs.

Another traveller mentions that New Zealand made an exception to their strict quarantine rules for those who travelled before the new rules came into effect. Well, Canada has had a travel advisory since last spring and those who travelled chose to ignore the rules so, again, no sympathy here.

          A snowbird mentions that the quarantine hotels will be a financial hardship. Well, I’m sure that              Canadians who are struggling financially will be very understanding of those “poor” Canadians              stuck in their second home in the sunny U.S. Snowbirds are rightly facing the consequence of                having ignored the travel advisory that has been around since last spring.

          Claude Gannon, Markham

Re Peeved Canadian snowbirds devising plans to avoid hotel-quarantine ‘jail’, Feb. 4

As snowbirds with a Florida home, we chose to stay in Canada this winter.

          I have no sympathy for those who decided to travel during this worldwide pandemic and now                  may have to pay for a hotel stay on their return to Canada. I know teenagers with more common            sense than some of the seniors interviewed for this article.

 Giving up a winter in the sun is not the worst thing that could happen to a person. We have seen a lot of changes in travel restrictions during the pandemic and should be aware, after having seen what happened in the early months with people on cruises who became ill and had difficulty returning home, that nothing is guaranteed. Also, even though seniors are able to get travel insurance, they are in a group that is often hospitalized with age-related illness. Again, with hospitals full of people suffering from COVID-19 in the U.S., getting the needed health care could be a major problem.

I would hope common sense could make a comeback in our senior population.

 

Edith Ross, Thornhill

          

 

Randy Rainbow Strikes Again

Although her words indict her, a feckless Republican Party won't hold her to account. Her crazed stream-of-consciousness utterances go unchecked. To whom do I refer? Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, the face of all that is wrong with the GOP. An ardent subscriber to QAnon conspiracy 'theories', a denier of tragic school shootings (not to mention her harassment of their survivors), and a believer in strange Jewish lasers from space, this mad woman seems to have instilled fear in much of her Republican colleagues to the point that their silence gives consent.

One person not cowed by her insane proclamations is the redoubtable Randy Rainbow, as you will see in the following:

No Mask? No Problem

What is wrong with people? That is really little more than a rhetorical question; nonetheless, let me offer but a small observation.

We all live within our own reality, reality that is framed by our upbringing, our education, our life experiences, our intellectual capabilities, etc. Those factors can make for healthy, dynamic debate. Yet they can also lead to the conclusion that some members of our species exist in a universe completely unrecognizable to the rational.

If you advance to the seven-minute mark in the following video, you will see what I mean.

I Rather Like This

 And I have nothing to add to it.

An Alternative To Impeachment

 

The chance of Donald Trump being convicted in his upcoming Senate trial is remote. There are far too many Republicans happy to forgive and forget (read that as fear of losing support of the Trump hordes). 

There is, however, a quite valid alternative to Senate conviction, as Jennifer Rubin writes:

A criminal trial, both on the former president’s attempt to strong-arm Georgia election officials to change the state’s vote totals and his incitement before the Jan. 6 violent insurrection (coupled with his refusal to immediately and definitively call a halt to the uprising), would serve multiple purposes. If the Senate will not ban him from holding office, a criminal conviction — should Trump be found guilty — would almost certainly do the trick (or at least, we should hope it would in the era of right-wing conspiracy theories).

A criminal conviction would guarantee that Trump cannot run for future office, but it would serve perhaps an even more important function:

[A] criminal trial could provide a severe deterrent for future presidents who attempt to retain power through violence. It is not enough to mouth the empty platitude that the ex-president’s behavior was “unacceptable” if there are no adverse consequences. Without punishment, his failed coup would remain an open invitation to future presidents to try the same sort of power grab. Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe observes, “Impeachment is about getting rid of officeholders who endanger the republic by abusing their powers, not about punishing them for their crimes. Punishment still must be meted out if the rule of law is to be respected and wrongdoers are to be held accountable.”

Moreover, as long as the hardcore MAGA crowd keeps repeating the Big Lie that the election was stolen, the need for a full factual airing of the white supremacist plot and the ex-president’s own attempt to induce Georgia to commit voter fraud remains. “If Trump is still maintaining the big lie after January 6, knowing his words have the power to incite violence, then it seems to me it’s potentially indicative of both his intent on the 6th and continued intent to engage in sedition,” says former prosecutor Joyce White Vance. “It’s certainly an interesting piece of evidence for prosecutors to have.” 

Donald Trump has made a life and career out of evading consequences for his behaviour and actions. A criminal trial and conviction would go a long way toward rectifying that longstanding injustice.

 

Thought For The Day

 In light of a damning report, this speaks much truth, eh?

H/t Toronto Star

Berated, Belittled And ..... Brutalized?

 It is beginning to look like our erstwhile and volatile Governor General, Julie Payette, did not limit herself to verbal abuse of staff. CBC reports the following:

Complainants who took part in an independent probe into claims of a toxic workplace culture at Rideau Hall claim former governor general Julie Payette's verbal harassment of staff crossed over into instances of physical contact, CBC News has learned.

The claims of physical contact were reported in testimony given to Quintet Consulting during interviews and will be included in the final report, multiple sources said.

Several sources with direct knowledge of the final report say Payette's workplace behaviour went beyond screaming at, belittling and publicly humiliating employees — and included unwelcome physical contact that caused some participants in the review to feel threatened.

As has been noted by others, the appointment of Payette calls into question both the judgement of Prime Minister Trudeau and the integrity of the vetting process. Let's hope due deliberation is given before choosing Canada's next representative of the Queen.