Adventures in Mouth Breathing

The last post is as much a commentary on the people arguing against masks as it is me (and my cartoon-like imagination of the average Trump supporter), a way too busy market manager, staking a claim one way or the other.

Although my point all along has been that if it’s the law, obey the law. What does it hurt to alter “God’s wonderful breathing system” for a half hour a day for the sake of others? Please, don’t tell me about germs and microbes. That’s bullshit.

Truth be told COVID-19 has increased my anxiety and altered my life personally exactly hardly at all.


My business is fine and I am not a socialite. I understand what the hysteria has done to the country and the world, but for me personally it’s been business as usual. It’s actually been better because upset, emotional markets work better for me than a robo-trending bull.

An intelligent, thoughtful and conservative long time reader who often emails me when I’ve miss-stepped sends the feedback below. My response precedes it.

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Last night I had a bunch of mouth breathers from northern CA in my house (extended family) and it was a COVID swap if there ever was gonna be one. We said fuck the masks.”

I actually just said fuck it, the cat’s out of the bag because my family had already been in close contact with their aunt/cousins/grandma/grandpa the day before. I hereby join you… the proud, the maskless, the mouth breathers!

Not your strongest piece.    Whenever someone singles out Florida, it’s an argument from politics, not from medical facts.   

Note:   Florida is full of old people, cruise ships, big cities.   But the dead people are in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan. 


What about Arizona?     ” . . . mortalities are concentrated on Indian reservations and to a lesser extent around the Mexican border.”

Georgia?   “In May, Georgia was the main target of expert contempt for its allegedly premature reopening. Since then, the media have gone silent, due to the state’s truly discouraging downward daily death toll from a high of 119 on April 7, long before the reopenings, to 10 on June 24.”

Quotes from Heather MacDonald, “Where are the deaths”?, in Friday’s Spectator.   Overall, the states that did not lock down have had far better results than the states with the strict rules.