The Skeptics Guide #838 - July 31 2021 (Ad Free)

Hi. I'm Kevin Jenkins, and it sucks to share a name with a 'leader' in anti-vax misinformation. The head of the "Urban Global Health Alliance" has a different middle initial, and is African American while I'm a good bit more pale and a lot more pro-vaccine. His messages are targeted at communities of color, which is sad because those communities already suffer disproportionately more from Covid-19. On some level, I understand the suspicion of 'white' medicine because of shameful and unjust things like the Tuskegee experiment, but I think medical ethics have gotten significantly better since then, and the Pfizer doses I got came out of the same container as those given to black folks in line with me around four months ago. It's also a little annoying to share a surname with the World of Warcraft character Leeroy Jenkins, but I do have a bit of trivia about where his name came from. There was a real-world Leroy Jenkins who was a televangelist that mostly operated in South Carolina. One of his swindles was faith healing by 'laying on of hands'. The WoW character Leeroy was a paladin, and one of their abilities is to heal others with 'lay on hands'. In the opening discussion, one of the guildmates asks why they aren't just bypassing the dragon egg room, and another says that Leeroy wants an item found there which will "help him heal better". Healing isn't a main role of a paladin, so it's meant to be ironic that the player who is the only reason the group is there wants to improve some minor ability that doesn't have a significant impact on his class. He's AFK and not paying attention during planning, and then causes a complete group wipeout with his berserk charge. As far as I'm aware, I'm not closely related to the televangelist, but of course we're all cousins to some degree or another, and I did grow up in GA & SC.

The Illuminaughty