To borrow from Ben Jonson's accolade about Shakespeare, George Carlin was "not of an age, but for all time." A man not afraid to shake the tree of complacency, he saw things that so many of us either don't see or are afraid to acknowledge.
Yesterday, he was trending on Twitter. Here are but a few of his cogent and acerbic observations.
And perhaps most pointedly relevant for the times we are currently living in:
One of the things that riles me more than most is the absolute zeal with which the anti-vaxxers embrace their cause. Call it truculence, call it misplaced zeal, call it whatever you will, their willfully ignorant stance ignores the facts of Covid-19 and its very effective Kryptonite, the vaccines themselves. Unfortunately, the collateral damage caused by their desperate and pitiable effort to define themselves by their defiance is the rest of us.
Public health and any sense of community beyond their own benighted cadre seems non-existent.
Now added to the fray are restaurants and other businesses that are openly advertising that they do not 'discriminate' and will not be asking for proof of status as a condition of entry.
Propelled by a mixture of vaccine skepticism, business decisions and fear of government overreach, these proprietors — ranging from burger joints in Toronto to a Brazilian jiu-jitsu class in Thornhill — have formed an extensive and well-documented network of restaurants, gyms, cafes and more where clientele can enter regardless of jab status.
In a Facebook group called “Ontario Businesses Against Health Pass,” which boasts more than 139,000 members, small business owners and entrepreneurs across the province have been promoting their products and decrying the Reopening Ontario Act.
“At King Jiu Jitsu, we do NOT discriminate,” wrote Gregg King, operator of a martial arts class in Thornhill, in the Facebook group. “Vaxxed or not vaxxed you are all welcome to train in a safe and friendly environment ... No BS. No politics. No Drama!”
The posts receive scores of supportive messages from like-minded people. The businesses are added to an online directory, called Ontario BAD (Businesses Against Discrimination), where they can advertise their work and submit job postings to fill vacancies.
Apparently there are close to 700 enterprises listed on the site. If you are curious, you can check out some of them on this Google Maps compilation.
Arguments for their stance are disingenuous at best. Jenna Barnes, owner of a very small restaurant in Hamilton called The Harbour Diner,
thinks the province is disadvantaging small businesses by implementing rules that don’t apply to big corporations.
“You can walk into a Canadian Tire, or a Walmart, or a Costco and nobody will ask you a damn question about your medical history. Why is it all on us?”
The obvious answer, of course, is that those enterprises require masks at all times, something that is impossible when one is eating.
The Star's Emma Teitel has a solution to the problems posed by these scofflaws.
What if, you, a fully vaccinated person, dine at a restaurant you assumed to be safe, only to discover later on that not only did you contract COVID-19 from an outbreak at the restaurant, but its owner failed to check diners’ vaccination statuses and boasted about this failure online?
According to Alex Colangelo, a lawyer and professor of paralegal studies at Humber College, you might have recourse to sue the restaurant for negligence.
Consider this passage from Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act, the “occupier” for our purposes being a business owner: “An occupier of premises owes a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that persons entering on the premises, and the property brought on the premises by those persons are reasonably safe while on the premises.”
Consider this passage from Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act, the “occupier” for our purposes being a business owner: “An occupier of premises owes a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that persons entering on the premises, and the property brought on the premises by those persons are reasonably safe while on the premises.”
It is time that those who proudly trumpet their truculence accept responsibility for their irresponsibility. Lawsuits, fines for non-compliance and even closure of businesses seem a good place to start imparting a much-needed lesson.
If you have grown weary of my regular posts about the willful ignorance and stupidity of the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, please skip the following.
A Texas bar and grill does not hold with those timid citizens who insist on wearing masks. Apparently, the patronage of Hang Time is limited to those who are made of sterner stuff, like all red-blooded citizens of the Lonestar State, I guess.
And if that doesn't convince you that there is something deeply wrong with people, take a look at this, an invasion of a Staten Island food court by an anti-vaccine mandate horde:
Given their passionate intensity, anti-vaxxers must be finding this week's ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Commission deeply galling. The long and short of it: they are not so special.
People who choose not to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to personal preferences or “singular beliefs” do not have a right to accommodations under Ontario’s human rights law, the province’s rights watchdog says.
While human rights law prohibits discrimination based on creed — someone’s religion, or a non-religious belief system that shapes their identity, world view and way of life — personal preferences or singular beliefs do not amount to a creed, the commission said, adding it “is not aware of any tribunal or court decision that found a singular belief against vaccinations or masks amounted to a creed within the meaning of the Code.”
Furthermore, even if someone can show they have been denied service or employment over their creed, “the duty to accommodate does not necessarily require they be exempted from vaccine mandates, certification or COVID testing requirements,” the commission said. “The duty to accommodate can be limited if it would significantly compromise health and safety amounting to undue hardship — such as during a pandemic.”
It is a setback for the truly fervid, those who have made it quite clear that they don't give a damn about anyone but themselves in this pandemic. But I have no doubt that they will continue their senseless crusade, even if it requires finding doctors with no integrity or falsifying vaccine certificates.
Consider this miscreant, Dr. Christopher Hassell:
Ministry of Health spokesperson David Jensen said Health Minister Christine Elliott is aware of the incident and ministry officials alerted the registrar of the province’s college of physicians. Jensen said if the allegations are true, it is a “serious offence and we expect the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) to conduct a full review.”
Medical exemptions must align with definitions and parameters outlined in the ministry’s guidance, he said, adding it is an act of professional misconduct to sign or issue documents that are false or misleading. Potential sanctions range from fines to the revocation of a physician’s certification of registration, he said.
Investigations, as they say, are ongoing.
Then there is the avenue of fake vaccination certificates.
"There are no security features present on these documents. These documents are basically PDF documents," said Dr. Shabnam Preet Kaur, a forensic document examiner with Docufraud Canada, a Toronto-based company.
Kaur said different kinds of software can be used to manipulate PDFs. "It only take five minutes to make changes," she added.
There is no doubt that the most fanatical of the anti-vaxxers will resort to any ruse available to thwart the existing system. All the more reason that this profoundly selfish and willfully ignorant cadre of miscreants has my deep, abiding contempt.
In his column today, Bruce Arthur offers the opinion that Ontario's vaccine passport is a half-hearted effort by Doug Ford that seems almost designed to fail.
...as the Star’s award-winning Rosa Saba reported in one of several essential pieces this week, existing vaccination PDFs can be altered after downloading using a rare hacking program known as … Microsoft Word.
What about the QR code system slated to come into effect next month?
…software industry experts estimate it would take approximately four months to build an adequately secure and stable system, which is what happened in Quebec. Ontario got three weeks. And while there is a paper/PDF option in Quebec, that province built both a QR reader and a business-side system to connect data to the database, so QR codes are secure and difficult to forge. Ontario is skipping that.
Oh, and Ontario’s QR app will be, uh, voluntary.
So after watching Manitoba create a plastic immunization card that fits in your wallet, and watching Quebec take four months to build an app that could be secure, Ontario decided on one month of easily faked documentation, followed by an option for more of the same. It’s not that this is the kind of system you would design if you knew and sympathized with people who didn’t want to be vaccinated, but it does seem like that kind of system, doesn’t it?
Hmm, is there a pattern emerging here? Well, the Premier has left little doubt where he stands.
…let me be very clear, this is a temporary and exceptional measure. We will only use these certificates for as long as they are needed and not one day longer.”
Many appear to be putting the clues together.
...some businesses are already signalling they won’t enforce the passport. At a sad, pitiable hospital protest in Toronto last week, one anti-vaxxer told me they anticipated businesses would signal to the community on the channels that anti-vaxxers use, like Telegram. And some hardcore anti-vaxxers are so feral that some restaurants closed their dining areas in anticipation of trouble.
Premier Ford likely has his eye on next year's provincial election which, in so many ways, will be referendum on his handling of the pandemic. Given the poorly designed nature of the vaccine certificate, he is clearly hoping that his base, much of which includes the crank crowd of anti-vaxxers, will turn out in force, understanding that he has done the minimum possible to try to placate those who place a high value on public health, at the same time offering a big wink and a nudge to his 'people'.
