{"id":42647,"date":"2021-01-29T15:11:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T23:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=42647"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:11:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T23:11:02","slug":"friday-fun-feel-good-odds-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2021\/01\/29\/friday-fun-feel-good-odds-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Fun: Feel Good Odds & Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe it’s just me, but ever since Pres. Biden’s Inauguration, it seems like there’s definitely been a better vibe in America.\u00a0 Not that there’s been one huge paradigm shift to explain it, but a number of small “Feel Good”<\/em> ones.\u00a0 So I decided I would share a few of them.<\/p>\n

Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor …<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

The story of a “Snowstorm-Induced Impromptu COVID Vaccine Clinic”<\/em><\/strong> is what really got me thinking \u2013 things ARE getting better.<\/p>\n

Twenty Josephine County Public Health workers had finished a vaccine clinic in rural Cave Junction, OR and were on their way back to Grants Pass to finish administering the six doses they had left.\u00a0 But a jack-knifed semi-trailer truck closed the highway for hours.<\/p>\n

Realizing they wouldn’t make it back to home base to give the last six Moderna vaccines before they expired, they decided to create an ad hoc<\/em> impromptu vaccine clinic right there on the snowbound highway.<\/p>\n

Like the Pfizer version, Moderna’s COVID vaccine must be used within six hours after it comes to ambient temperature.<\/p>\n

Even though they were accompanied by an ambulance which could manage any untoward reaction, it was still difficult to find six willing recipients.\u00a0 Partly because that area of Oregon is not pro-vaccine.\u00a0 (Josephine County voted for Trump 62% to 36%.)\u00a0 And no doubt anyone would be a bit dubious about a knock on your car window while stuck in a snowstorm asking if you’d like to get a shot.<\/p>\n

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Going car-to-car, it took the team 45 minutes to get their six “yeses”.\u00a0 And fittingly, the last person to get the last leftover vaccine was a woman who hadn’t made it on time to her appointment earlier that day because of the snow.\u00a0 A perfect ending!<\/p>\n

So six lucky people got (as a six-y\/o calls them) their “Fauci Ouchie”<\/em> shots \u2026 al fresco!<\/em><\/p>\n

An Inclusive Pledge of Allegiance<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

While not receiving as much coverage as Amanda Norman’s well-deserved \u00a0rendition of her “The Hill We Climb”<\/em> poem, for a certain niche population (myself included) there was another special inclusive moment early in the Inaugural ceremonies.<\/p>\n

When Georgia fire captain Andrea Hall (first ever African American female fire captain in Fulton County, GA), it was very personal. \u00a0For the first time ever, the Pledge of Allegiance was both simultaneously spoken and signed.\u00a0 She did it as an homage to her late father, who was deaf.<\/p>\n

Describing her use of sign language as a very intimate experience \u2013 like being able to speak another language \u2013 she said she had decided shortly after being asked to do it in ASL sign language.<\/p>\n

“You’re between Lady Gaga and J. Lo. \u00a0I mean, come on, that’s it.\u00a0 And I have like my little 15 seconds of something.”\u00a0 Hall said, “Those are too hard to be sandwiched between, so I need to put some meat between there, you know?”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>At a time of such division \u2014 especially at a place like the Capitol, which is recovering from the January 6 insurrection \u2014 perhaps the words of the pledge say it all.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>“It was written for little children who were immigrants,” Hall said.\u00a0 “And in some way, we’re all immigrants.\u00a0 You know, we’re a mishmash of people from all over.\u00a0 And I think that’s the significance of it.\u00a0 It’s a way to unify all of us by speaking those thirty -one words.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/firefighters-sign-language-pledge-of-allegiance-was-homage-to-her-late-father\/<\/a><\/p>\n