Just One

All I did was drive to the middle school, wait for Lizzy to get her school pix taken and get back to the car, and drive home. Masked w/filter, closed car with recirculated air. Total of 22 minutes. And now I need a hit off my inhaler and my headache is back.

Our nearest sensor is about half a mile away as the smoke flies and it has us at AQI 250 (Very Unhealthy for Everyone). This is north and a bit east of Seattle.

And that's about half of what folks in Portland OR and Central & Eastern WA are experiencing. In some places, they are actually OFF THE CHART. Even places where the (existing) fires themselves are not a danger (like here) can have AQIs of over 500 right now.

This is exhausting, and in my opinion, it's all down to the entitled "just one" philosophy.

"Oh, come on, it's just one gender reveal party; what could it hurt?" (leaving aside the huge fallacies involved in that statement; genital reveal is more accurate... but that's another post).

"Oh, come on, it's just one kid going to school sick, how much harm could they do?"

Some times it's "just a few" instead - when people try to justify their thinking as encompassing more than themselves.

"Oh, come on, it's just a few fireworks to celebrate a victory."

"Oh, come on, it's just a few bad cops..."

Here's the thing. It may be just one. Or just a few. 

But that doesn't matter.

Because they're causing damage. Serious damage. 

To all of us.

And they don't care. 

"All lives matter" my ass. These people don't believe that. To them, their lives matter, and apparently the potential lives of fetuses matter. But no-one else's lives do, not really.

That much is evident from their continued actions.