Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends

Extended

“Imagine a mask strapped to a human face. Forever.”

Berlingske reports today that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was asked at a party leader debate on Tuesday if she really couldn’t guarantee that all restrictions would be lifted once all Danes had been vaccinated:

No one can. Because we don’t know what kind of world we’re looking at even in a scenario where all Danes manage to get vaccinated. I have no wish for restrictions, I never have at any time. I cannot—nor can anyone else, not even the politicians of parliament—say with absolute certainty how things will look after this summer.

She was then asked whether Danes were therefore wrong to assume that once we’re all vaccinated there’ll no longer be a problem and the restrictions can be dropped.

Her response:

Danes’ assumptions are rarely wrong, and I don’t want to pass judgment on that. But it’s not the case that as soon as we’re vaccinated in Denmark, everyone in the world is vaccinated.

So we’re going to have to do what we’ve been doing for 13 months, namely getting our country through the crisis while we keep adapting our efforts to suit the actual conditions.

She’s correct that there’s no correlation between a fully vaccinated Denmark and a fully vaccinated world, but no one had ever suggested otherwise.

If everyone in Denmark is vaccinated—the scenario suggested by the questioner—why can’t we lift all the restrictions?

To protect us from the virus, or to protect the world from us?

If the virus protects us, why are we worried about the world? Frederiksen mentioned the risk of mutations, but there are always risks of new infectious diseases being brought in by tourists and we haven’t shut ourselves down for any of them in the past. Ever.

Postponing normal Danish life until the whole world is free of all serious infectious disease is obviously not an option: if we’re all vaccinated against the major strains of the Wuhan virus in circulation, then we can do no more and it’s time to get back to life, regardless of whether everyone in Monaco, Mexico, Malaysia, and Mozambique has been vaccinated.

“Adapting our efforts to the actual conditions” has always been predicated on the prevention of our hospitals being overwhelmed. Period. If the vaccinations are effective, as they appear to be, then it’s reasonable to suppose that once all Danes are vaccinated—all Danes, I should emphasize, who choose to be vaccinated—our hospitals will no longer be at any risk of being overwhelmed by the Wuhan virus and its multinational variants.

At that point, what would be the justification for any restrictions?

One Man’s Junk…
Denmark stops vaccinating with AstraZeneca
DR.dk, April 14, 12;48

Czechia and Latvia Want to Buy Denmark’s AstraZeneca Vaccines
DR.dk, April 14, 18:18

Soylent Green Is Street Food
Copenhagen’s big meal markets will be opening soon. And it’s with Lola and former Relæ people on the menu
Politiken.dk, April 14

If She Hadn’t Wasted All That Time Stabbing Her Ex, Maybe She Would Have Been on Time
Woman charged with stabbing ex-boyfriend in the back: Reportedly late for dinner
BT.dk, April 14

What Did Global AI Leadership Do to Provoke Us?
Denmark gunning for global AI leadership
CPHPost.dk, April 13

Sweden Was Tweeting in the 1940s?
‘It would have been a fight’: Former Swedish PM enrages Denmark and Norway with WW2 tweet
TheLocal.dk, April 10

That’s Okay, They’re Just Gator Bait
In Donald Trump’s palm-fringed island paradise, there are many snakes
Jyllands Posten, April 14

Thank You, Come Again
DR ran an article on April 13 about Hank Azaria stepping down from playing the voice of Apu on The Simpsons.

Their reporting relies heavily on an article in Deadline and notes that Azaria “apologized for participating in ‘structural racism’ via his longtime portrayal of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.”

According to Deadline:

In the course of his conversation with Armchair Experts hosts Dax Shephard and Monica Padman, Azaria said that he wished he’d committed to exiting the Apu role many years before he actually did. “I’ve had a date with destiny with this thing for about 31 years,” he said. “Part of me feels like I need to go around to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize, and sometimes I do when it comes up.”

DR concludes their own article by noting:

Here in Denmark the animation company Pixar was criticized earlier in the year for casting Nikolaj Lie Kaas as the voice of the black jazz musician Joe in the animated film Soul.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas rejected the subsequent criticism on Facebook and said that it should be about who was best for the job, not skin color.

I love seeing Danes stand up to the woke mob. But let’s get back to Azaria’s claim that he participated in structural racism by voicing the Indian character Apu.

According to DR:

Criticism directed toward the convenience store owner Apu began in earnest in 2017, when a documentary by the Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu focused on the character.

The documentary “The Problem with Apu” was about the Simpsons character, whom the comedian insists was created on the basis of racist stereotypes.

Among other things, it has to do with Apu’s job as a convenience shop owner, that he has many children, and that he lives in an arranged marriage.

DR doesn’t seem to realize these stereotypes aren’t “structural racism,” but simple gaffes, as the current American president would, I’m sure, be happy to explain.

In 2006, Joe Biden said on C-SPAN that in Delaware “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

He meant that in a good way, as his beleaguered staff quickly clarified:

Biden’s office said the senator admires, supports and respects the Indian-American community – and also sought to explain his gaffe.

“The point Senator Biden was making is that there has been a vibrant Indian-American community in Delaware for decades. It has primarily been made up of engineers, scientists and physicians, but more recently, middle-class families are moving into Delaware and purchasing family-run small businesses,” said Margaret Aitken, a Biden spokeswoman.

“These families have greatly contributed to the vibrancy of the Indian-American community in Delaware and are making a significant contribution to the national economy as well,” she said.

Lighten up, Hank: it wasn’t 31 years of structural racism.

It was just a long-running gaffe.