"A 412? What's a 412???"
If you don't get the reference, just ignore it. Here's this morning's most interesting news item…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased its guidelines Tuesday on the wearing of masks outdoors, saying fully vaccinated Americans don't need to cover their faces anymore unless they are in a big crowd of strangers. And those who are unvaccinated can go outside without masks in some cases, too.
That's nice in some ways but it's a special boon to those who think mask-wearing has always been unnecessary for them and maybe for everybody. It means people won't yell at them on the street for going around without one…and the rest of us will wonder if that person not wearing a mask really is fully-vaccinated. A high percentage of Americans are not.
It was announced this morning that the prolific TV-movie producer Charles "Chuck" Fries died last Thursday at the age of 92. I awoke this morning to a message from a reader of this site saying, "After reading an obit in today's Los Angeles Times, I thought I'd go over to newsfromme to search for articles about him. Except for a TeeVee Talk, the others were about potatoes…"
This reminded me that I need to seem to periodically remind folks that this blog is not devoted to writing about everyone in show business or comics, nor is it about posting obituaries for all of them. I post about people in those arenas whose deaths do not seem to me to be getting enough respectful attention and I also have to think that I have something worth saying about them — a special observation, a personal encounter, etc.
The fact that I don't write about someone doesn't mean I hold a grudge against them or think they weren't important or anything of the sort. I just had nothing to say. I occasionally get an angry e-mail that says "Why didn't you write about So-and-so? Did you hate them or something?" No. I hate no one. I just had nothing to add…and sometimes, I just never heard of them.
I dunno if the guy who wrote to me this morning knew I'd worked briefly for Chuck Fries' company. He might have but not known that even though I was paid by his firm, I never met Mr. Fries. I know nothing about him you can't find out by reading obits like this one or this one. I simply have nothing to contribute.