The mask rule has given me some extra exercise. Twice I have taken bike to a favorite restaurant in the morning, realized I forgot my mask, so decided to pedal home, get it and return. The governor supposedly requires this. Laws and regulations can be difficult to discern. To what extent and how should we expect enforcement?
What? You mean certain directives will simply not be enforced? Might there be a system whereby law enforcement issues "warnings?" They might make an exception to that if the violator is someone who they do not like.
We wondered at the start if the governor's announcement would result in police getting active all over. Enforcement surely does work, I mean when push comes to shove. I learned a while back about pickup-driving Trump supporters in the Fargo area parking their vehicles to block access to electric charging stations. It was a political statement. You know, anti-tree hugger or "woke" or however you wish to characterize such ignorance.
I learned of the charging station problem listening to WDAY radio. I gave our city manager a heads-up about this matter. One morning I brought up the subject with a restaurant counter acquaintance, a pretty wise person. (Such judgments are wholly subjective of course.) My friend said "just set a $500 fine for blocking. That'll take care of it." Indeed.
We saw the headlines about the governor's announcement and wondered how it would all play out. Previous to this, when restaurants were allowed to re-open for sit-down, we heard there were rules for social distancing or separation of customers, limited capacity in a place etc. Sounded logical in theory. One Morris restaurant re-opened with a potted plant on a table to ensure some distancing. A non-local restaurant made the news in an amusing way by having mannequins at some tables.
But soon after the re-opening, it became clear there'd be no enforcement, and not really any serious acknowledgment of recommendations. The nature of the business went back to the norm.
Are we considering accepting risk? Well, I suppose we do this every time we get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. We see articles in the press all the time about traffic accidents, injuries and fatalities. Are we literally courting death? I suppose. You can be a victim in an accident because of someone else's carelessness or negligence. A driver crosses the median because he's on meth, perhaps. Smash! Your life is extinguished.
What is the nature of our thoughts when we enter a hospitality establishment and pay no heed to recommended precautions? A place where no one else is, either? As if we're gravitating to some sort of home base of normal life. Are we that desperate for normal life? How will we know when government and law enforcement are really ready to crack down, to accost people, threaten citations or give citations. How are we supposed to know when government is serious?
"Warnings" are a gray area thing, by definition, because rules are supposed to be rules. Is a "warning" sufficient if it is judged you are endangering other people's lives? Confusion is most evident. Strong leadership from the federal level of government would have solved that. By kicking these matters further down, there's a crazy quilt of various efforts and means of overseeing/enforcing.
Enforcing? There's no enforcing. People at the lower levels of government, like down at the city level, are hesitant to take on the likes of certain "holdouts" - you know the type, nearly all male, nearly all proclaiming a macho sort of independence. Testosterone? They might block the electric charging stations too.
Trump in the early weeks of this, berated a reporter for "being politically correct" by wearing a mask. And, so many of the males I just cited take their lead from the president. I know guys around Stevens County who are offended if they merely overhear a skeptical thought about Trump.
Our radio station website reports that "two weeks ago, the Morris city council did not want to issue any mandate about wearing face masks."
Governor Walz laid down his rule. Odd, because one wonders that if this measure is so essential, why not have it from the get-go in this whole crisis? Getting people to obey would seem to be harder now. First the restaurants get the green light for sit-down customers, but then for the first time we hear of the state-level mask mandate. And what the heck kind of "mandate" is this?
Maybe there are places that have some teeth. There appears to be a pretty strong understanding that you should have a mask at Willie's Super Valu. But one of the carry-outs told me, as if somewhat defensive, "I'm not the mask police." Businesses are very concerned about not wanting to alienate customers.
Any social pressure at Willie's seems not to be duplicated elsewhere. Turns out, I didn't need to go home to retrieve my face mask this morning or yesterday. I was informed by an employee at the restaurant that "80 percent" of the clientele are oblivious. Is that good? Good question.
I have speculated on this site that we might see "secret shoppers" go around and then reprimand business owners that don't push for compliance.
This would be like the early days of seat belt enforcement as a primary offense. There was a plainclothes (sneaky) officer on main street identifying vehicles with drivers not belted in. A uniformed officer would then nail these poor souls. I guess warnings were common in those days but plenty of people got their "name in the paper" with a ticket too.
We see some B.S. from the city in the radio station web article about mask compliance. The city manager in knee-jerk fashion said he's been "seeing good compliance with the order by Morris residents." How do we define "good?" (That's actually a question for philosophy class in college.) The quote was delivered in obligatory fashion. What would you expect Mr. Hill to say? "Man, the compliance really sucks. Are people in this town stupid?"
Well, he wouldn't say that. The radio station website is the best local news source but it could be better. Way to go, Marshall. Remind us of your last name more often. Tucker?
Hill wasn't done spewing a sort of saccharine party line about it all: "Based on everything I'm hearing, I think everybody in Morris is doing a very good job of dealing with this because I haven't heard any problems yet." Oh, it's so important to monitor what you "hear" around town.
I hear little talk about it because people mostly don't respect it and aren't following it. Hill said the intent is "not to punish people." But with some laws, you actually are expected to follow them. Life can be strange.
Trump could have been assertive several weeks ago, would have moved mountains. We learn this morning from news reports that people around Trump were partly motivated by "wanting to punish the blue states." But then the virus, apparently without exercising any political inclination at all, plunged into some red states with a vengeance. I worry about UMM retiree Jim Carlson being down in Florida. Minnesota is generally considered a blue state.
Yet, even with the biases of Trump and the people around him, he has a legion of rock-ribbed support here. Makes it easier to understand how Hitler rose in Germany. If people can be so gullible, what's to say Jesus Christ didn't get by as a fraud and charlatan? P.T. Barnum would understand.
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I invite you to click on the permalink below to access today's (7/31) "Morris Mojo" podcast episode:
https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/Last-day-of-July-ehgbnh
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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