National Gallery of Art , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper—operating under the proviso that dealing with desperate vexations may require desperate means, is suggesting a return to public branding as a means of encouraging vaccinations. Common in 17 and 18th century colonial America, public branding of adulterers, drunks, and thieves with appropriate letters–“A, D and T,” burned onto their foreheads, lasted until 1860.
(Think of that, the keeper says! More history to be sanitized by the idiot time illusionists!)
Since vaccinations leave something of a physical scar, the keeper contends that it is a small step to include those who refuse to get vaccinated in the bodily evidence of participation or nonparticipation: From a small mark on the bicep to the letter “S” on the forehead is simply a procedural adjustment easily made within the health providing community.
Rather than strictly defining what the brand “S” would designate for the nonvaccinated–“Stupid and Shafted” come to mind–the keeper favors leaving it open to personal interpretation for those choosing other descriptive terms beginning with the letter “S.”
Depending on how forehead branding works out, the keeper would see it possibly expanded to include the letter “R” for Republican, except that even such barbaric activities as branding must have humane limitations.
