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HSB, the day after
I didn't mention the music last night, did I. Well, I was tired. Where Mary Chapin Carpenter performed all her hits, just like on my iPod, Tracy Nelson, early morning on the Arrow stage, sang great but didn't perform her best song (Down So Low) from back in the day -- a song I don't have but may have to look for. It's from a vinyl album I wore out but wish I still had.I was so involved with work that I almost forgot Jerry Douglas was going to play, until I heard his dobro. He was far from the only dobro player on the Banjo stage on Sunday, but no one else sounds like that. So, time for a quick station sweep at the back edge of the Banjo crowd.
Finally there was Emmylou, of course. I was down at Arrow when she started but worked my way from Arrow to Banjo sorting the stations in between as I went. This time I stayed on the field for the whole set -- the vendors had been fine a half an hour before and I knew all hell was about to break loose back there when they started breaking down, so I would just be in the way.
Normally it is too crowded near banjo stage to move around easily, but the crowd yesterday was so sparse I was able to sort about four large stations much deeper in to the crowd than I usually can get during the event (just to give myself something to do while listening to the music and watching the sun set. This is when I took the last three photos I posted yesterday).
I didn't think it was one of her better sets. (Maybe they should let me produce the music as well as sort the trash.) But there is just something about her voice in that setting. Every year I swear I will try to get out to the park early Sunday morning for her sound check -- which is even better than the concert -- but I'm barely ambulatory the morning after and there's no way I'm getting out there that early.
Flu shots and ethics
I'll start with Kant's Categorical Imperative ("Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law,") and maybe you will be able to guess where I'm going with this.For the past two years the American Flu Shot has been a poor match for the varieties of flu people actually got. The first year I didn't get the shot, though my doctor really pressed me, because it was already late in the season and I knew it was a poor match (he didn't know that). Last year I got it just so he knew I wasn't being completely unreasonable.
We are months away from knowing if this year's shot will be a good match, but I usually don't get it unless there's a particularly good reason I should -- when I was spending time in my mother's Independent Living complex, or the year when there was a strain that was killing people in my age cohort. But I know my doctor will press me on this again, and I understand why. The Flu Shot business is dependent on people consuming the product. If the public stops consuming, the producers will stop producing and there will be no supply when a nasty virus comes along.
From Kant's perspective, getting your flu shot is the right thing to do even if it isn't going to do you any good. However, without wanting to sound like a vaxxer, there is a certain amount of risk in injecting anything into your body. So not only is a flu shot not doing you any good, it is a small risk to your personal health. So how do you balance your personal interest with your social responsibility?
I'm thinking about taking an every other year approach, unless I think of something better.
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