This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Okay, at the start of this blog, let me underline this point:  I don’t usually read “advice columns” in today’s newspapers.  Instead, I focus on politics and sports.

But, my wife pointed out the following example to me and it says volumes about one of the overriding issues today – getting Covid 19 vaccines.

Advice writer Carolyn Hax wrote her recent column under this headline:

She refuses to mask or get vaccinated. Can their friendship survive?

Here’s the story:

“Hello, Carolyn!  My close friend of many years and I live about an hour away from each other, but we might as well be on distant planets when it comes to covid.

“Lockdown was extremely stressful for both of us.  Since lockdown ended, I have been living carefully:  Masking up indoors and getting vaccinated ASAP.  She has been living confidently, maskless, and refuses to get vaccinated.  I think covid safety is a big deal, she thinks it’s not necessary.  Her friend got covid-19 while battling breast cancer and died.  My friend is convinced her death wasn’t related to covid (how would anyone know?).

“I don’t respect her decisions, her logic or her behavior.  She doesn’t respect mine — she thinks I’m overreacting and overly cautious.  When we talk about it, we both dig our heels in.  So now we aren’t talking.  It’s been over a month now.

“Now that the delta variant is here, I’m even more worried, angry and frustrated with her.  I’m practically obsessed with her lack of safety.  How can a friendship overcome these differences?”

Hax had a good answer:

“If you’re wrong about covid (you’re not), then here’s what happens:  You feel minor discomfort in your mask and no one else is harmed.

“If she’s wrong about covid (she is), then here’s what happens:  She puts herself at risk of sickness and death; she puts other people at risk of sickness and death; she does her small part to help extend the life and reach of a virus that has brought sickness and death to millions, along with massive emotional, experiential, educational and economic losses to the entire world; and in doing all of these she gives the virus one more living opportunity to mutate into even more dangerous forms.”

Point made!

I encounter this issue with several of my friends who refuse to get vaccinated, plus refuse to wear masks.  

One of the reasons, I guess, is that they get mad when someone else – a governor, a president, or even a doctor – tell them what to do.  They refuse, saying that they are in charge of themselves.

Or, they refuse to believe solid science these days, which, if you look at it in details, falls down squarely on the side of getting vaccinated.

My wish is that friends, before they become former friends, would rely on science, not stupid, alleged science, or politics.  That would allow them to protect not only themselves, but others – including me.

Selfishness is rampant in our society and nowhere does it express itself more forcefully as in anti-vaccine conduct.

So, get vaccinated!