My Pitch For Time’s Cover Of the Year: The Mask
Below is a portion of the transcript from my podcast on Time Magazine’s Cover nominees! (https://www.spreaker.com/episode/42220499)
TRANSCRIPT:
Who had the most important influence in 2020? Time Magazine is all about influence. To me, that influence is none other than that little object, that little, two word object that has stricken this country with debate on either side, I’m talking about the surgical mask. I’m talking about the mask. If you wanted to pick out one of the most powerful things or people or objects of 2020, I would slap a mask on that cover and leave it at that.
By putting the mask on the cover, it would effectively say we still need to wear them. It would also acknowledge how much of an influence that little mask has had somewhere down the line. We started to politicize a surgical mask that our fine health workers use day in and day out in the COVID suites across the country. A surgical mask that really could allow you to do everything you wanted. We cannot deny that a healthy environment is one where we are currently masked up. I do not want it to be permanent, but I also do think those who choose not to wear it, especially in tight quarters are not too bright.
What this mask meant had the biggest influence in 2020. For instance, you were shamed if you didn’t wear a mask. You were called a Trump supporter, even though you may not have been. You were called defiant and everything like that. Of course, President Trump didn’t really wear that mask. He got COVID after making fun of Joe Biden for wearing the mask. It wasn’t just on that grander stage, we’d see videos of customers at Costco and other places yelling. They didn’t want to wear the, you know, stinking mask causing a ruckus. I saw a store take away a purchase from someone refusing the right, which they legally can because the store policy was to wear the mask.
I don’t agree with the idea that if we go along with it, we are sheep. I think we’re just being smart. If we wear the mask, I don’t agree that if we wear the mask, we’re letting them take over control. We’re being smart. It has nothing to do with control. I could see the other side too, about Liberty, about requiring. Why should we be required? Why should be we be mandated (in) America? America doesn’t mandate! (Wearing or not wearing the mask) is personal choice, that is personal freedom.
220,000 plus deaths later, and a pandemic still on the rise. There is more evidence by the day that wearing a mask, at least in crowded situations is worth it. It should be required.
Remember what the original premise of the mask was. The original premise of the mask was if you could not maintain six feet or more distance.
The question really does become how did it go from that original basis? That original executive order law, whatever you want to call it to, you must wear a mask all the time. Or if you don’t, you’re part of the problem. I don’t understand the correlation between telling us the original intent of the mask and moving the goalposts on it to shame people. I still don’t to this day on November 28th, understand that goal-posting. posting going on there Cause Varela wins. If are at least six feet away. You should be within your right not to wear the mask.
Time is such an influential magazine to this day. I mean, people literally are betting on the time person of the year. Physically. I hope they really do pick up a doctor, a first responder or a health worker. I think they deserve all the praise the world, as I said before, more so than the armchairs, if you will, deserve. I’m talking on the ground doctors that we need to recognize, right this very minute and time and place, if they were being acknowledged and honored, that would be amazing.
There was no good influential leader that we thought should deserve it. Put the mask on the cover as our year ender to bring awareness, to bring about the story of what the mask did to this country, the shaming it brought. The death it brought by not wearing it. It’s only sensible Time puts that on its cover To send a message and then send a powerful recap of how vital that mask is.
No leader. Let me say that again. No leader, not even president Trump, deserves to be on that Time Magazine cover. Save that space for the mask detailing why the mask is so influential in today’s world. We must function with it. And we must accept that we need it.
