Try to shed a small-ish tear for Rob Anderson.
He's the uranist proprietor of a restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts who has been impacted by the government shutdown. Writing a ridiculous article in The Atlantic he tries to tiptoe around the ludicrous Viro Fascists who cheer on government shutdowns.
My partner, Loic, and I are the owners of the Canteen, a casual sandwich-and-lobster-roll restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a vacation destination at the very tip of Cape Cod. We are grateful for our customers—flattered, even, that a diner might want our food badly enough to scale furniture for it. But now that our first summer with the coronavirus is at hand, I’m terrified.Open up with talk about "my partner Loic", that's good...that's some good work there. Put their soothing minds at ease. You don't have to explicitly note that both of you are evil poofters, just let them put two and two together.
Known for its open-hearted embrace of outsiders and outcasts, especially the LGBTQ community, Provincetown isn’t the average beach destination.And there's the second two for you to put together. See, we're just like you, we support disgusting lifestyle choices more than those other places you might be seeing on the news!
Cooped up in large towns and cities, many people heading into their third month of quarantine have been trying to decide whether they should visit their favorite summer destinations this year. My answer is an unsatisfying maybe. Instinctively, we want them to come; in fact, our livelihoods depend on them coming. Businesses like mine are the backbone of the cities and towns where we operate. As we prepare for the summer rush, we are struggling to find the line between helping and hurting our community, and we wonder how we’ll know if we cross it. And we are basing decisions on our own hunches—with little official guidance from authorities from which we could use a lot more help."Oh why oh why isn't the government helping us more by giving us guidelines?" Does this sound like the actions of a person who is at all "with it" mentally?
Three schools of thoughts have emerged. First is the salvage-our-summer crowd, who are worried most about the economic viability of our town. They aren’t a monolithic group, nor are they MAGA-flag-waving protesters insisting that they have a right to a salon dye job or 18 holes of golf.So people who want to go to a salon or a golf course, by sly extension, aren't worried about the "economic viability of their towns"? This is the sort of irregular verbs The Atlantic is so famous for: when I want the economy reopened I'm talking about the economic viability of our town. When they want the economy reopened they "insist they have a right to a dye job".
Red hats are rare in Provincetown, where Hillary Clinton won 88 percent of the vote in 2016. The people pushing our town to reopen believe in science and know the virus is real.Forgetting for a moment that it's 1000% true that people do have a right to visit a salon or a golf course, isn't it funny that right after talking about "oh our people aren't monolithic" this ass pirate turns around to imply that "the MAGA-flag-waving" folks he just finished besmirching are a monolithic group (that it's okay for you to sneer at).
The people pushing our town to reopen believe in science and know the virus is real. They include business owners who cannot survive without a year’s income and service workers who, in the best of times, live paycheck to paycheck.Like, say, a salon owner? Also, as for your regular reminder: all those MAGA hat wearers also believe in science...that's why they support Conversion Therapy to cure your disease.
In summer towns, residents count on the income they make during the summer to pay their rent or mortgage for the entire year. Some of them are undocumented workers who can’t collect unemployment and aren’t receiving health-care benefits at all.There you go Rob, back on point: bring up those poor undocumented workers. Wait, isn't it illegal to hire undocumented workers? I sure hope that social media is banning your article from the platforms on the basis that advocating for an illegal activity is harmful misinformation?
Second, there’s the shut-it-all-down contingent—those who have been calling for a complete ban on summer visitors this year. Many people in this camp are older or living with illnesses. Literally scared for their lives, they argue that making money this July and August will come at the cost of our community's health. And how many deaths are we willing to inflict to save our economy? Two? Twenty? Two hundred?According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the GDP of Barnstable County (where this seaside town is located) had a GDP in 2018 of $14,344,348,000. That's $14B, and presuming that we stick to the (incorrect) $10M/life figure the EPA uses then you should be willing to inflict 1,434 deaths to save your town economy. I can't help notice that you capped it out at a much lower 200. Or even two. Well if you say two than why not one? I only ask because about a week ago a missing kayaker's dead body was found near your town. In 2017 there were 21 car accident deaths in your county as well: were you willing to inflect those deaths to save your precious little town? You apparently are concerned about 20, why not 21?
A third group—which includes me—hopes that, through the right set of rules and regulations, we can limit the spread of the virus while keeping our economy hobbling along.Spoiler Alert: you can't.
The next day, Loic and I arose after a sleepless night to plot the future of our restaurant, determined never to repeat what had just happened.Like the sodomy?
We would remove menu items, such as lobster rolls, geared mostly to the weekend crowds and instead push the grilled-cheese sandwiches and vegan grain bowls more popular with townies.Nice work again nodding to ridiculous belief system of the typical The Atlantic reader: no more of that boo! wicked! innocent lobsters being murdered for (quelle horrors!) visitors), instead some nice vegan bowls for local food only folks!
Later that week, we set up a grocery store in what used to be our dining room, and allowed people to order those items online for delivery or curbside pickup. And we started offering free fruits and vegetables, cleaning supplies, and pantry staples to members of our community in need.And yet, surprisingly, you're in financial troubles now.
Still, the limits of our power are all too obvious.If there's anything a Viro Fascist hates, it's limits to their power.
After ordering food and eating it off premise, people have been leaving used cups, forks, and spoons on our grounds rather than throwing them away at home—forcing us to handle items that have been in people’s mouths.For somebody who takes another man's cock up his ass, Rob Anderson sure got squeamish on us quickly didn't he? Dude, you're in the food services industry: your entire survival is predicated on the theory that you can wash germs off before touching things that ultimately make it into strangers' mouths. Try to put 19 seconds thought into how to make it work the other way.
Hire a bouncer, someone on Facebook chided me later. But margins in our industry are thin, especially now. And when a casual restaurant can’t sell sandwiches without protection from hired muscle, the real problem lies elsewhere.Low margins, eh? Like you can't be just giving produce away, eh? I'm not in general sympathetic but despite stronger than average profitability, hair salons don't have great margins either. Golf courses have negative margins, so when this tinkerbell complains about people wanting to exercise their human rights bear in mind he's also calling for businesses on either end of his margins going under. Remember the small-ish tear I advised earlier? That's why. This sperm-bumper is quick to dismiss other people wanting to frequent businesses.
Often, when things have been at their worst here, our town’s police officers have walked by, seen what’s happening, and said and done nothing. On paper, of course, this doesn’t make any sense. How can we expect to run a business while also being the sole enforcers of measures meant to keep society safe?Oh good, more cries for the state to get involved. Part of you wants to remind this useless piece of trash that nobody asked him to be "enforcers" to "keep society safe" in the first place. Try to make sure your staff doesn't get infected. Try to make sure your staff doesn't infect your customers. Understand that in the long run (ie longer than probably 8-12 months) you and every other person and business will ultimately fail at this. You didn't "fail" in any sort of grand mission to save the galaxy.
I run a restaurant in a seaside town. I’m not an epidemiologist or a fortune-teller. But as I’m forced to make what could be life-and-death decisions—with little official support or guidance—I’m left no choice but to pretend I am.Almost like you're some sort of independent citizen in a functioning western civilized society who doesn't need to have any of these specialized skills in order to decide for himself (and his fellow ass pirate, I supposes) what to enact in his own personal sphere, and similarly what public policies to advocate for.
That's too much to expect from him though. Just another failed life choice. On second thought, I'll have a lobster roll elsewhere: extra lettuce. Hold the small-ish tear.
