On bigotry against Asians

 Asia is the largest and most populated continent. It stretch from the Suez Canal to the Bering Strait and from the Ural mountains to Indonesia. Most human beings on Earth live in Asia. If you hate all Asians, you hate over 4.5 billion people. Since six countries with nuclear weapons have most of their territory in Asia, if Asians hate you back then you have a big problem. Most religions have originated in Asia, and yes, this includes Christianity. Every US foreign war since Reconstruction has involved Asia. Ironically, most of these wars were to protect Asian countries from European countries or other Asian countries.

Most Americans' understanding of world history revolves around the US and Europe, but history literally started in Asia.

Bigotry against Asians is somewhat different than bigotry against other races. White supremacists think they are superior to  black people but they can't help but feel inferior to Japanese. Of course if your first instinct is violence, then you actually are inferior to everyone else. Address the fact that you are an absolute loser, and go from there.

Just get vaccinated

The word "vaccine" comes from the Latin word "vaccae" which means "cattle". I'm sure some anti-vaxxer will find a way to use that etymology compare people to livestock for wanting a COVID-19 shot. But during the 18th century Dr Edward Jenner noticed that people who worked with cows on dairy farms tended to not get smallpox. Instead, these folks were getting cowpox. Cowpox is a somewhat minor illness that is still around, but smallpox used to have fatality rates of 30%. So Dr Jenner intentionally injected pus from a cowpox patient into a young boy. The boy developed a mild fever but quickly recovered. A few weeks later, Dr Jenner injected the boy with pus from someone with smallpox. When the boy didn't get infected with smallpox, Dr Jenner concluded that cowpox could be used to protect people from smallpox. Today Dr Edward Jenner is praised as the inventor of the first vaccine.

Most modern vaccines do not rely on live viruses. A vaccinated person might experience an immune response or other symptoms. But that is a small trade-off compared to being vulnerable to a possibly lethal infection

Now here's some interesting facts:

1. Smallpox is now extinct, thanks in part to Dr Jenner's efforts. The last smallpox case happened during the 70's, so most people are too young to remember how deadly this disease was.

2. Medical ethics have improved greatly over the past couple centuries  so you don't have to worry about new vaccines being tested on your kids. Only after a vaccine has been proven safe for adults will children be allowed to participate in trials with their parents' consent.

3. Dr Jenner did not even know what a virus was. He simply made an observation (cowpox patients don't get smallpox) and formed a hypothesis (infecting people with cowpox can prevent smallpox).

I believe that the 3 COVID-19 vaccines that are being distributed in the US are safe and effective. They have passed months of rigorous and redundant testing. If these vaccines were dangerous, we would be hearing about what the vaccines are doing to the millions of healthcare workers and military personnel who have already received them. I am going to get the vaccine as soon as it is available to me. Should you get the shot? Since I'm not a doctor, you might have reason to be skeptical of any medical advice that I give out. You should also be skeptical of any medical advice that you get from YouTube videos. By all means, make an appointment with your doctor and ask directly if a COVID-19 shot is right for you in particular. Or you can do what actual doctors and nurses are doing and just get the shot.

Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head.

 One perk of not having kids is that I don't have to care about children's products. Yet suddenly a lot of people who don't post pictures of kids are suddenly posting memes about Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head. So even I now have the urge to rant about things I don't really have a stake in.

Let's start off with Mr Potato Head. Hasbro is dropped the "Mr" from the packaging. This suits me just fine, vegetables shouldn't have prefixes before their names. Moving on.

Six Dr Seuss books are going out of print. Normally it doesn't make the news when a book goes out of print because this happens all the time. This is usually the result of very basic and boring business decisions. If a publisher can't make money selling a book, then it will stop spending money on printing that book. The book isn't cancelled or censored: if you bought a copy already then you still get to keep it forever. You might even find it in a used book store, or you can hunt down a copy online.

Sometimes there is demand for a book, but the author or publisher doesn't want to sell it anymore. Using his nom de plume Richard Bachman, Stephen King wrote a book called Rage about a student who shoots a couple teachers and takes his class hostage. After a couple of actual school shooters turned out to be fans of the book, King decided to let the book go out of print. He won't let anyone else make new copies. A used paperback copy can cost $28 or more. 

Stephen King made the choice to discontinue one book. Dr Seuss' estate made the choice to discontinue 6 books that weren't selling well.

"Hurr durr, why are Dr Seuss books being taken off the market but Wet Ass Pussy is perfectly fine?" Because Dr Seuss books are a product for children. WAP is a song for adults. Young parents don't want to raise racist kids, and they are the ones who decide what small children are allowed to read.

Ultimately, Hasbro and the Dr Seuss estate figured out a way to get free advertising for their products by making idiots mad. The sales of Dr Seuss books are way up. And it's about time that I found a way to cash in on this shit too. Buy my novel, A Long Way From Tipperary. It's got sex and violence in it too, and it's definitely not for kids. It's on sale until I get my COVID-19 shot. Then I will raise the ebook price to that of a gallon of gas. That way, any time I need to fill the tank, I can just go out and sell 13 copies.