Steve Kelley for February 18, 2021

There’s a guy at our farmers market who has what seems to be a pretty effective mask that has a window in front to help lip readers. And, alas, a lot of us are old enough that our ears need a little lip-reading assistance.

PS: as a mask wearer, you CAN do a much better job of communication than most of us do: Speak slowly and use that extra time to enunciate CLEARLY. And learn to use a few gestures and visible expressions: Raised eyebrows with questions, point to the thing you’re speaking of, shrug when you don’t know…

Odd, we wear masks over here all the time and we don’t have the hearing impairment people the likes of Skelley seem to have. Then again it isn’t from Q or another RW crazy source so it sounds like gibberish to them anyway.

I really don’t understand these “problems” people are having with wearing a mask. Is it inconvenient? Yes, But not so inconvenient I would whine about it and refuse to wear one. Is it uncomfortable? Again, yes. But not all that uncomfortable. And in the past year I really can’t think of one time I couldn’t understand someone because they were wearing a mask. There are plenty of things that people have to do every day that are mildly annoying and inconvenient. They are the price of living in a society. And unlike most of the inconveniences we deal with in daily life this one is temporary. When I was teaching high school I had an answer I frequently used when a student was complaining about some annoyance they had to deal with. “If that is the worst thing that happens to you today, it was pretty good day.” Most of the time when I said that to a student they admitted I was correct. Well, if the worst thing that happens to you today is that you need to wear a mask, it was a pretty good day.

If the ancient Greek orator, Demosthenes, could learn to enunciate effectively with pebbles in his mouth, and to project his voice against the roar of ocean waves — maybe people wearing two masks can make the extra effort, too.

Members of the House and Senate, who seem so proud of their oratory, could also make that effort in order to keep their darned masks on while speaking.

ennunciate and pronunciate clearly. think you can do thar Kelly ??

SKelley, doing his best to prove that there really are people too stupid to live.

OTOH it does cut down on the line stopping because the cashier and customer start chatting.

If republicans had not spread covid far and wide we would not be going through this.

I think Steve was trying to make the connection between double masking making it even harder to converse. Personally I have found the accent to be more of an impediment.. especially when on a support phone call.

Appears that Kelley found an excuse to display his stupidity!

This is funny. Love it!

To be honest, I haven’t had any issues with understanding cashiers wearing a mask and speaking through a shield. I’ve even been on many a zoom meeting where people were in the office and therefore wearing a mask while talking on zoom. Heard them perfectly well. I don’t have hearing problems though (yet).

Gee, we might be much closer to the end of needed restrictions (as well as fewer deaths) if the Republicans had taken the pandemic seriously…

I’ve not found a problem understanding folks wearing a mask, but I might suggest doing as I do – speak distinctly, learn a bit of sign language, use gestures, and keep a finger free for driving and talking with Trump supporters.

I have yet to meet a person wearing a mask I could not understand. Perhaps one needs to listen a little harder?

Idiot anti science republicans politicized mask wearing and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Glad Skelley doesn’t work in an operating room.