I take another picture, the world is waiting

[sovay]

Massachusetts is reopening and I have gone back to the glassy feeling of not quite being in the same reality as the people who are saying the words. "Tough times never last, tough people do." Well, good for the tough people. Shame about the rest of us. I don't expect a second spike of infections in the fall, I expect one by July at the latest. But I'm glad houses of worship are considered essential businesses in Massachusetts. I'm sure that ancestor of mine from the Puritan migration would be thrilled.

Comments

[a_reasonable_man]

The provision regarding places of worship reminded me of a story John Kenneth Galbraith liked to tell, about his work in the Office of Price Administration during the Second World War. When the OPA first issued regulations mandating gas rationing, it exempted "essential personnel": doctors, police, and mailmen. A couple of days later, they got a memo from President Roosevelt himself: "What blithering idiot decided clergy aren't essential personnel?" So they exempted clergy.

[sovay]

A couple of days later, they got a memo from President Roosevelt himself: "What blithering idiot decided clergy aren't essential personnel?" So they exempted clergy.

I never heard that story. Thank you!

(I feel like I am most familiar with the OPA in their fictionalized form of the BPR in Rex Stout's The Silent Speaker (1946), which is probably unfair. I mean, they do come off as the good guys, especially against the National Association of Manufacturers.)