Yesterday, @Variety reported that @AMCTheatres plan to reopen will not require facemasks of all patrons. CEO Adam Aron was quoted: "We did not want to be drawn into political controversy." The quote made news - and ignited the very controversy that Aron hoped to avoid 1/n

If you click through to the @Variety story, you'll read about a theater company struggling to be a good corporate citizen in the face of existential challenge: reducing seating, masking employees. CEO Aron said that he himself would always mask in an AMC theater. 2/n

But @AMCTheatres operates in an environment not of its making. Within that environment are millions of Americans whose trusted political and cultural leaders have branded mask-wearing an act of political disloyalty.

3/n

We'd be a better and safer country if everyone in a position of authority and trust urged mask-wearing - just as we'd be a better and safer country if Americans did NOT carry firearms into bars and churches. But that's not the country we are.

4/n (updated)

So please redirect your social media outrage from @AMCTheatres , struggling to survive in a hostile environment. It's not theater companies that are spreading anti-science for their own selfish purposes: it's leaders of the country and a foremost TV network. 5/n

I have no connection of any kind to @AMCTheatres, not financial, not personal.

We're all trying to make the best of tougher times. Put any indignation to public use, by directing it against the people truly at fault - not those who have to earn a living despite that fault

END

I committed a typo in point 4, deleted and reposted 4,5,6 to correct.

Sorry if I wiped away interesting comments in the process, but it was important to clarify I was not endorsing carrying firearms into bars and churches!