French Laundry Restaurant by Navin75 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Previous post explained that while you and I are prohibited from having more than three households gather for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, and our gatherings must be in the backyard, and we must provide turkey, potatoes, and dressing in single serve containers, and we can only let guests use the bathroom if we sanitize the bathroom regularly, the governor of California attended a lavish private dinner party with at least 12 people present, meaning there were likely six or more households present. The governor, the lobbyist whose birthday was being celebrated, and the restaurant all say the meal was outdoors.
Well, turns out the “outdoor” dinner wasn’t quite so outdoor.
If your idea of outdoor dining consists of a room that’s enclosed on three sides with a ceiling and chandelier, along with sliding glass doors on the fourth side that can isolate your party from the rest of the dining room, then the meal was outdoors.
For us unwashed masses unable to rise above our lowly submissive serf status, that sounds like an indoor meal.
A more deadly issue than the hypocrisy
Before we explore the increasing depths of flaming hypocrisy in this story there is a severe side issue.
You and I are supposed to be cowering in fear at this deadly virus which will kill us dead by nightfall if we enter a grocery store without a mask. We are to fear the handles on doors and shopping carts and doctor offices and having a meal with our family. We dare not come within 6 feet of another human being lest we die.
Look at this story, the photo you are about to hear described, and other actions by senior level politicians and health officials.
Many of them are not taking this seriously.
Look at it apart from the “rules for thee, but not for me” angle – They have such low concern over the risk of getting sick that they personally don’t consider it necessary to follow the rules. They are not concerned. They don’t think it’s a big deal.
Their risk assessment is they don’t need to take any steps to protect themselves.
The message that senior politicians are sending is more damaging than merely flagrant hypocrisy. The message they’re sending is this pandemic is not serious enough to them that they need to take precautions. This could dangerously lead others to consider whether it’s serious for us.
That is a devastating message to send.
Back to the flaming hypocrisy
Fox 11 Los Angeles reports on 11/17/20: Fox 11 obtains exclusive photos of Gov. Newsom at French restaurant allegedly not following Covid-19 protocols.
Check out the photos for yourself.
What the photos clearly show is a mirrored wall on the far side of the separate room, wood ceiling with a fancy chandelier hanging from said ceiling. Angle of the photo only lets us see a few feet of each of the sidewalls. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are large windows on the two sidewalls not visible in the photo and perhaps those windows were open. Even if that is the case, according to state rules that does not count as an outdoor venue. Only one side of an outdoor venue can be blocked; three sides must be exposed to the air.
The near side of the room? That had sliding glass doors which were closed during the dinner because the group of people was so loud it was bothering other diners, who were inside the main dining room.
The eyewitness reported that the group became so loud that it was distracting. Thus the sliding glass doors were closed which certainly makes it look like a sealed, indoor room.
Why do I mention twice the group was so loud the glass doors had to be closed? Those of us in the serf caste have been told not be loud, laugh, exert ourselves, or play wind instruments during holiday gatherings because that will guarantee spread of the virus and presumably kill us all. Yet consider the level of exuberance of the dinner attendees that the doors had to be closed because they were so loud.
You’ll also notice from the photos that there appears to be a dozen people present, all of which appear to be couples, which means six households. State limit is three.
You’ll also notice that none of them were wearing masks between bites. Official advice in the state is you should put a mask back on between bites, yes between bites.
You also notice they were sitting elbow to elbow. No six-foot distance here.
Article says reporters for the station looked at the geolocation and timestamp data on the photo validating the date, time, and location of the photo matches the dinner.
Check out the Twitter stream and you’ll see there are thousands upon thousands of retweets and comments on the photos.
It is time for political leaders and public health officials to stop the foolish, corrosive, trust-undermining, laughter-creating hypocrisy that has become so common during the pandemic.
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