October 3, 2023
"There is some stomach-turning stuff on the soles of your shoes, to be sure, likely including an array of fecal matter."
"But the grossness we track into our homes is not necessarily a health hazard for most of us.... 'Children need to be exposed to a variety of organisms.... The bulk of organisms we know are not pathogenic, and they go to help our immune response… You don’t want to live in a bubble."
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46 comments:
Send your kids outside to play, make them take off their shoes in the house.
Remember that old thing about the world is covered in a thin layer of shit? Well I have to usr a microscope a lot and...it's a mixed bag. I do know some of you fuckers have a lot of shit stashed in the lugs of your watch...
I knew a man who came to this country at age 17 from Iran, where he'd grown up literally dirt poor, exposed to anything and everything.
Through cunning and hard work he founded a company almost everyone has now heard of and is now a multibillionaire. For business and pleasure, he has traveled the world with his three (now grown) children, who grew up in Beverly Hills. Every exotic place the kids go, they've always gotten some stomach bug that lays them low, while this man can eat and drink anything without repercussions.
Worrying, and over-thinking at it's best.
Paywall blocked me. Why should I allow my ignorance to interfere with my commenting?
The microcosm is ubiquitous. The shoe removal thing seems more ritualistic than substantive. If there's a meaningful health advantage to walking around one's house in socks instead of shoes, someone ought to perform and publish a scientific study quantifying the benefit.
There's a range of biotic leakage from the outside world that we tolerate, and our tolerances vary. Would shoe removal partisans be cheerful if I imposed a requirement that entry to my home depended on disinfectant hand washing and mask wearing? They'd probably put me in the zone of hygiene obsessives.
I don't live in or visit Democrat cities, so not much for fecal matter. I'll keep my shoes on, thank you.
In Japan last century, working for months at TEL semiconductor research lab in Nirasaki, the earthquake-safe sewers were an education to my Western sensibilities. The sewers ran partly through concrete channels, not pipes, covered by removable sidewalk slabs. The channels were readily accessible for repair or unblockage, and not easily destroyed by earthquake. But they were a bit nasty smelling in summer and when we had heavy rain there may have been a bit of overflow from them, into the gutters. When Japanese take their shoes off inside, they know why.
Experts offer strong opinions for both sides, but according to WaPo journalists/headline writers, there is only "one" verdict? Modern journalism at its finest.
You don’t want to live in a bubble
It's in the Washington Post, missing the irony.
I don't wear shoes in the house for comfort reasons, not cleanliness.
Who doesn't like padding around in slippers?
I have been in hundreds of Asian homes. Germs aside, their 20 year old carpets look like new.
Current thing among home repair and installation workers is wearing booties that cover shoes.
Amusing to see them wearing same booties while outside at their truck retrieving parts or tools
Why only one verdict? I don’t need to give WaPo a click to know that’s BS.
Lectures. Lectures. Lectures. Thank you big mommy Media-Government.
Well, there's also just the general cleanliness aspect. If you don't take your shoes off, you will track dirt all over the house, and SOMEONE will have to clean it up (Insert feminism here). Especially if you have carpets, and an actual yard.
Ah, a George Carlin Routine comes floating back!
I thought that taking shoes off before entering the house was to minimize the effort it takes to keep the house clean? Who wants to live in a house full of dirt and dust?
Granted, we have dogs and they drag all kinds of stuff back in the house on their feet, but why add to the effort by draggins stuff in ourselves?
I have house slippers...well sometimes house slippers and sometimes house flip flops, being the south and all...
Covid19 and fecal transmission.
I'm thinking that it's only a matter of time (and not much time at that) that government (starting with the Feds) mandates the removal of shoes upon entering any building including your house. After all, if that action can save the life of one child or bureaucrat (thinking of you Jamaal Bowman!) it's worth the further discounting of personal liberty!
There’s another option, the one I go with—I go barefoot everywhere I possibly can. I started going barefoot after I developed some knee problems—barefoot is supposed to help your gate, which has all sorts of knock-on benefits. I gets me nostalgic for my South Florida childhood, when I went barefoot everywhere. And it’s funny to see people’s reaction. People who understand body mechanics think it’s great, most others are scandalized that I would so much as stand in my driveway or water my garden without shoes on.
I developed the habit of taking my shows off at home when I moved to Norway. It's a good habit. Not for the hygiene but to clean and vacum less often.
There is a cultural and cleanliness aspect to it. It is considered very rude in some countries to not take off your shoes. We take off our shoes for any carpeted areas, which really reduces the necessity for cleaning, whereas we don't care about tile and wood flooring as it is easily cleanable. Your carpet really does last longer without shoes as the heavier trafficked areas near the door will sustain less wear and staining.
As for germs, it isn't a factor, for the reasons stated in the article.
I’m guessing more Democrats remove their shoes indoors than Republicans. Democrats can’t exist without worrying every minute of every day about something that is about to kill them.
I'm a former cattleman [beef], who also raised hogs. For the really messy work I had rubber barn boots, which I removed in the mud room -- and yes, we had plenty of mud -- swapping them out for house moccasins. Not because we were concerned about microbes, but rather to cut way down on cleaning effort. All us except the had regular exposure, and the first summer he could walk around outside, so did he.
I got slapped in the mouth with wet, shitty tails on a regular basis, so much so that my gut flora almost certainly includes a number of bovine species. One benefit is that I can eat gobs and gobs of beans without farting (more than usual) because many of the bovine microbes can digest oligo-saccharides, whilst the normal human bacteria can only turn them into methane and CO2.
From the article:
"Charles Gerba, a professor of virology at the University of Arizona, discovered a grab bag of fecal matter when he conducted a study that entailed swabbing the bottom of 26 shoes. He found E. coli on more than a quarter of them and some kind of fecal bacteria on almost all. That bacteria transferred from the shoes to otherwise uncontaminated floor tiles more than nine out of 10 times, the study subsequently found.
While the study was not peer reviewed and was financed by a company that sells machine-washable shoes..."
Tying into the earlier post about trust in science, one wonders what would have happened to the results of this study if they turned out to not be beneficial to the company funding it.
Whoever wrote this probably isn't responsible for cleaning the floors regularly.
In my childhood home we never removed our shoes but our home was always clean. Always felt immaculate. I certainly don't remember ever seeing either of my parents sitting on the floor though. The Japanese to sit on the floor so maybe that's why they developed the shoe etiquette. Never thought about it before. A NYC friend who always wore flip flops in his apartment explained this shit situation of NY sidewalks to me many years ago. I have followed this advice, wearing certain shoes inside and other shoes outside. Not always adhering to the system strictly as sometimes I have to go back and get something while wearing the outside shoes. Also I don't always insist that workers remove their shoes. It depends. Also I don't go barefoot at home as I don't want whatever is on the floor in my bed. I do go barefoot on the beach and only God knows what that exposes me to, but at least I am giving my immune system a break when I'm at home. Maybe it's a good idea to have exposure to some bad stuff and then time to recover, rather than be either too dirty or try to be too clean.
" ... ultimately there can only be one verdict "
God forbid that some people decide differently than other people.
Jeder und alles muss sich an die soziale Ordnung anpassen! Befolgen Sie die Anweisungen der Experten!
Why must their only be one verdict? The unspoken advantage of millions of people living in single family homes is that we can all come to our own conclusion to enforce within the walls of our own castles. Hell, even people renting cupboards in New York City can decide whether feet must be shod or unshod within their demesne.
Why is WaPo so knee jerk antidemocratic?
'Children need to be exposed to a variety of organisms.... The bulk of organisms we know are not pathogenic, and they go to help our immune response… You don’t want to live in a bubble."
That's one of the arguments of Bobby Kennedy Jr. (I think), that we over-vaccinate kids now. We give babies and small children way too many vaccines for way too many possible illnesses. And for many people, it has weakened their natural immune system.
And he has a more specific complaint. Almost 20 years ago, Kennedy suggested that thimerosal, a preservative used in several vaccines, might be responsible for the spike in autism.
Here's a doctor trying to explain why babies need so many vaccines.
I've had zero medical training. But the "logic" of this doctor strikes me as baffling. He says vaccines are a "drop in the ocean" compared to all the bacteria that newborns are exposed to.
It's a number game? Because that seems to me to be really irrational. So what if there are trillions of bacterias hitting newborns? God gave us an immune system to deal with this stuff. And that "drop in the ocean" rhetoric suggests that he's ready to hit babies with 100 vaccines or 1000 vaccines. Over-medicate much?
There’s a tradeoff between what’s on the bottom of shoes and what’s on the bottom of socks or feet. If your houseguests are teenage boys with sweaty feet, it’s a losing trade.
I have the perfect solution to this dilemma (as I always do).
Everybody doffs his footwear in the foyer like a perfect Japanese but every evening the youngins must lick all the soles to get a taste of reality, as it were. Leather-soled oxfords get a cursory tonguing in respect for their social significance. Daddy can't make those motions in court wearing slobber-coated patten. Sneakers get a thorough mastication to release all that unhoused goodness trapped in the treads. Kids and carpet saved. (Those WaPo fools can't think their way through anything.)
I've lived in Japan. Cleanest people on the planet and there's not a close second.
I never wear my shoes for very long in the house, but I am too lazy to take them off in the garage.
Maybe I will start...
"Why must their only be one verdict?
Why is WaPo so knee jerk antidemocratic?"
Progressives. It's got to be either required or prohibited for everybody. Can't have people getting the idea there might be legitimate reasons that people might choose differently. It's so unorganized, all those people out there just making their own decisions without any supervision. Somebody should do something.
"That's one of the arguments of Bobby Kennedy Jr. (I think), that we over-vaccinate kids now. We give babies and small children way too many vaccines for way too many possible illnesses. And for many people, it has weakened their natural immune system."
Don't know if it's this or something else, but things sure seem different from when I was a kid. Back then, I don't remember knowing anyone who had allergies or asthma or autism. Eating a peanut butter sandwich at school didn't result in a call to the hazmat squad. We played in the dirt, climbed trees and drank out of garden hoses, nobody got sick from it. I've talked to other people my age about this when the topic happened to come up, and everybody else remembers the same things I do.
Something's changed. You'd think there'd be some interest in actually figuring out what that might be.
I remember reading quite a few years ago that there was a study examining why farm kids seemed to be healthier than city kids. I typed a search using "Are farm kids healthier than city kids" and got quite a few hits in the positive. I grew up on a working dairy farm. I remember having quite a few colds and a few other childhood ailments when I was young but when I grew into adulthood they were few and far between. (And still are.)
I have yard shoes - old sneakers for cutting grass, etc. - and don't where them through the house. Grass, leaves, and I have a lot of deer through the yard.
There can be only one verdict if you feel everyone must do everything the same way.
Would you do us a favor, Ann?
I don't want to hear from the Washington Post's alleged experts. On any topic. See your last post. If I do hear from them, then I'm safe in the knowledge that I should do 180 degrees from anything they say.
If they say I should wear shoes in my house, then the best move for me is to become Japanese. If they say the sky is blue, I'm looking up and leaving my options open.
We really don't give a fat f*ck what the narrative generators at the CIA's Washington Post is trying to sell us today. It's Amazon.com acting like it's really a free press. Stop quoting them. Stop linking to them. And stop reading them.
I beg of you. Stop being an idiot.
Would you do us a favor, Ann?
I don't want to hear from the Washington Post's alleged experts. On any topic. See your last post. If I do hear from them, then I'm safe in the knowledge that I should do 180 degrees from anything they say.
If they say I should wear shoes in my house, then the best move for me is to become Japanese. If they say the sky is blue, I'm looking up and leaving my options open.
We really don't give a fat f*ck what the narrative generators at the CIA's Washington Post is trying to sell us today. It's Amazon.com acting like it's really a free press. Stop quoting them. Stop linking to them. And stop reading them.
I beg of you. Stop being an idiot.
I’m more curious about the blood/brain barrier in a baby . It’s my understanding that it seals at the age of two. Didn’t “we” use to wait until school she before we got vaccinated?
Saint Croix said...
It's a number game? Because that seems to me to be really irrational. So what if there are trillions of bacterias hitting newborns? God gave us an immune system to deal with this stuff. And that "drop in the ocean" rhetoric suggests that he's ready to hit babies with 100 vaccines or 1000 vaccines. Over-medicate much?
It also seems to presuppose that all or most bacteria are harmful. The opposite is true.
***
Left Bank of the Charles said...
If your houseguests are teenage boys with sweaty feet, it’s a losing trade.
Hand to heart, you gave me an olfactory flashback. One of the young guys in my stunt group was sitting in my front room chatting with me. He popped off his sneakers and after enough time for diffusion to work the absolutely most foul smell hit me. I made him put them back on under threat of force.
That of course led me to another time when my dog cleared the entire first floor of my house.
Ah…a dog. Famous for SBD. (Silent But Deadly.) When we heard a soft “poof” from our half Rottie, we didn’t wait. It was a race to get out of the room ASAP.
Somebody needs to notify the TSA of this.
I never took my shoes off before going inside until I bought my first home. Then it just seemed like everything was cleaner, whether it really was or not. Plus I really like the feel of walking barefoot in my home, especially on the carpet, but also the wood floors, even in winter.
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