Not gonna throw out my Cream stuff either, but at the same time, right now I no longer enjoy it.
1 Like
I have a few Clapton albums but none from Cream. I know it’s old hat to beat up on him but I was never all that into him to start with. I’m more into Van Morrison but have lost any interest in listening to him as of late. Same for anything Ryan Adams related since the revelations of 2019. That is not to say that won’t change for either in the future, I’m just not there yet.
When they gave us the vaccines last year, they told us they’d prevent us from getting or transmitting COVID, like how our childhood vaccines prevented us from getting polio, measles, etc. But then, we started getting and transmitting COVID anyway, within fully vaccinated households. I can see why some people have lost confidence in these vaccines, especially with Big Pharma’s track record of lies and massive fines.
It doesn’t dismiss whatever kooky stuff Arthur must have said, but I can understand Clapton’s frustration after getting the vaccine.
The guy who recorded the Cream stuff more than 50 years ago was a different person than the cranky old man Clapton is today. I’m not as old as he is, but I’m certainly a different person, in many ways, than I was when I was 21. We all are. I might not want to check out Clapton’s latest album, but how his thoughts on vaccines today ought to somehow ruin my love for White Room and Tales of Brave Ulysses escapes me.
That was a messaging failure more than a vaccine failure. The actual test data never supported “prevent from getting”. No vaccine is 100%, even smallpox and polio.
They are only 100% because of how many are vaccinated it essentially starves the virus out. But polio is still out there, just can’t travel far.
5 Likes
I grieve for Arthur’s career. The first time I ever heard of him was when Michael Stipe released that nice little recording of “In the sun”, and then again with Arthur Buck, a really enjoyable album with fine moments. He seems to be a good guy, and a good, quite competent musician and composer that I don’t know much about.
And I find myself relapsing into that old dichotomy of “author vs work”, thinking, in the most literal and absolute ways possible, that no bookwriter, philosopher, musician or scientist was EVER close to perfect to begin with. If we take them under a microscope (hell, it doesn’t even take a microscope), we’re gonna find bad, deplorable aspects of their lives – all of them. So the only possible and reasonable thing we can do is to always separate the two. We can enjoy the work even if we don’t enjoy every aspect of the person’s private life. I mean, are you perfect? And are you, at the same time, a great, enjoyable person yourself? I know my answers are “no” and “trying hard every day”.
4 Likes
Messaging failure? They said it would prevent infection, but even with a majority of adults vaccinated up here in the northeast, cases were blowing away previous records set before the vaccine.
I know a few anti-vax people who got COVID, but now most of the vaccinated (and in many cases boosted) people I know have gotten it at this point too. Fortunately we survived when we got it.
The vaccines we had as kids were traditional vaccines and they worked, and they still work all these years later. These new Big Pharma creations, developed in record time, seem to fade in a matter of months. How many more times can we get boosted?
Contrary to popular assumption, no shortcuts were taken with regard to the research and development of the mRNA vaccine.
There will be boosters for newly evolving strains, just as there are different flu vaccines every year.
8 Likes
I recently left Walmart in Missouri. When I was counting people during 2021, people would just shrug you off or call you an asshole. I, at one point, didn’t even want to offer them anymore. So our A.P. (asset protection) not only protects the product, he also has to deal with healthy employees and customers too. We’re talking one day and he mentions how if a business makes you wear a mask, he won’t go to it.
1 Like
The vaccine manufacturers never did say that, the government did. That was a messaging failure. Vaccines aren’t a binary “on or off” switch, none of them are. They depend on many layers to be effective, including mitigation, prior immunity, the viral signature itself, its virulence and type of infection spread, public health measures and herd immunity.
There are 7 coronaviruses that infect humans. Four of them result in what we call the “common cold” (which is actually over 200 viruses). The three remaining are MERS, SARS-COV1 and SARS-COV2 (COVID-19).
One of them has a vaccine.
I’d say we did well scientifically.
8 Likes
(post deleted by author)
3 Likes
As we’ve probably answered the “what happened to Joseph Arthur” question it may be time to close this thread.
Good idea. I am however happy we managed to all talk about a rather thorny subject without it devolving into chaos. Progress!
6 Likes