My main point was about the benefits of vaccination in general, and not the benefits of specific vaccines. I only mentioned influenza in passing, as it is one of the diseases for which we have pretty good vaccines (most of the time), and it is a disease which can be quite dangerous (even in healthy people---there is some evidence to suggest that cytokine storms caused by influenze may be more dangerous to those with healthy immune systems in the event of a pandemic flu). That said, most physicians (and the CDC) will tell you that you don't really need a flu shot if you are healthy and don't hang around with vulnerable populations (again, the very young, the very old, the immunocompromsied, and so on). I considered mentioning this, but since I felt it diluted the overall message of "Please get vaccinated," I omitted it---a competent physician should be able to help a person decide which vaccines they need or don't need.
Again, the point is that one should get vaccinated. It benefits society at large. The specific schedule of vaccination for any particular person is something that should be discussed with a competent physician.
You seem very proud of the fact that you do not get an annual flu shot or other vaccinations. You have already received at least one hostile comment because of this fact, and I must admit that my first impulse was to say something similarly vague, cryptic, and hostile. However, I realized that you might not be an asshole, but simply ignorant. On the off chance that you are actually concerned with people beyond yourself: vaccinations are important, even for people who feel that they never get sick.
Vaccination does two things: first, it keeps the individuals who have been vaccinated from getting sick; and second, it reduces the number of viable hosts, thus preventing diseases from spreading through society. Now, you might be willing to risk getting sick yourself, so the first may not matter to you, but the second should. Society benefits when people are not sickened and killed by preventable diseases. And make no mistake: influenza, pertussis, measles, chicken pox, and many of the other diseases for which we have vaccines can cause permanent damage or death.
There are people who cannot be vaccinated (the very young, people who are immunocompromised, and so on) and vaccines are not 100% effective, so some number of those that have been vaccinated are still vulnerable. The way to keep these people healthy is to ensure that the possible exposure to disease is limited as much as possible, which means relying on herd immunity. Herd immunity comes from vaccinating as many people as possible.
So please, if not for you, for the sake of the people around you, get vaccinated.
Adjuncts are also handy for keeping your payroll costs down.
No kidding. I made more as a graduate student last semester teaching two classes than I will as an adjunct this semester teaching three classes.
For all of recorded history up to about 1990, marriage has always, in every society, meant a contract of union between a man and a woman.
Actually, for most of human history, marriage has consisted of a non-contractual union (contracts are a fairly modern invention, which reply on a state level society with rule of law) between (generally speaking) a man and as many women as he can afford to marry. There are a few societies where marriage has consisted of a similar non-contractual union between a woman and as many men as she can afford to marry. There are also a fair number of societies where same-sex marriages occur, though they are not the norm (generally, they occur in societies where a man's brother is expected to marry his sister-in-law in the event of the man's death---if the man has no brothers, but has sisters, the sister's might be expected to take over the husbandly duties).
Of course, this is utterly irrelevant, anyway. For the vast majority of Western history, women were treated like property, and marriage was an exchange of property which happened to include a woman. Is that really the institution that you want legally enforced? Since we all like fancy Latin: argumentum ad antiquitatem.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion