Woe the poor high school senior living in the U.S. who, looking forward to graduation in May or June, already accepted to the college of her choice, is now told that the schools are closed for the rest of the year and her plans will have to be scrapped. She will likely have to repeat her entire senior year next year, or perhaps even the year after, since the U.S. seems intent on scrapping life in general for the rest of this calendar year.
First, let me assure you that I’m not necessarily arguing against the closing of the schools. We must protect our young people as best we can. What I’m arguing is that there appears to be absolutely zero amount of planning for the education of our youth … it seems that nobody is considering alternate means for these young people to complete the school year that they have already spent 6 months of their lives on. Where is the common sense??? Must we keep throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Does nobody in our government think any more? Just because we have a fool in the White House shouldn’t preclude other elected officials from using their brains for something other than holding their skulls in place.
Once again, state governors have shown their immense capacity for willful ignorance by closing schools through the end of the school year, despite the fact that it is only March, and with callous disregard for both students and parents.
“The governor told California parents the SAT and other standardized testing would be canceled and the state would help with supplies to homeschool.”
Say WHAT??? The entire SAT is cancelled? Whose brilliant idea was that? So, even students who technically completed their course work at mid-term will not be able to take the SAT in order to enter college in the fall? What would you do if you were a student in that situation? I think many will say, “Screw this, I’ll just go work for the sanitation department,” else “I’ll just kill myself now.” I don’t suppose it occurred to the dolts in the Department of Education that the SAT could, with appropriate safeguards, be administered online???
And “the state would help with supplies to homeschool”? So what? Most parents whose children are beyond about 5th or 6th grade are not going to be able to homeschool their children in many subjects. Only those with advanced degrees plus the time and patience will be able to do so … likely about 10% of the population.
Common sense is seriously lacking in the United States today. Now, if the states thought shuttering the schools for the next 6 months was such a brilliant move, then they could have had teachers teach their classes online, from the comfort of their own homes, in their jammies if they wished. Students without access to a computer, modem or WiFi, could have been provided one at no cost by the Department of Education. Without the distractions, perhaps they would have learned even better, but noooooo … it would have required thought processes that no government official today seems capable of.
The quality of education in the United States had hit an all-time low, even before this. We no longer teach young people that wonderful art of thinking, but rather teach them technical skills. We teach little about history, literature, and how governments function, but rather how to program in C++, or how to build furniture. And now … we teach … nothing. For at least the foreseeable future, we teach nothing. Way. To. Go.
To reiterate, just so nobody misunderstands my point as happened in a post last week: I am not arguing against the schools being closed if that is what the medical community believe is the best way to save lives. The medical community, not public officials who are sans common sense in the midst of this pandemic. My point, however, is you don’t just shutter the schools for the next six months without a backup plan to ensure these young people are able to complete this school year. I, who am not even an educator, can think of a number of ways this could be done, but nobody … not a single person … in our federal or state governments has even bothered to try. I want our Department of Education employees to get off their arses and earn the money We the People are paying them! Yo … Betsy DeVos … are you listening? It’s your turn to earn your keep!
Tide pods … y’know, laundry detergent? What — are people going to actually try eating them to disinfect their bodies? Two small packs of Tide pods were left on the shelves of my local Kroger on Friday. Amazon just sent me an email to inform me that my monthly subscribe & save order for Clorox wipes would be delayed because … because people bought them all up. Never mind that I have a standing monthly order because I clean 3 bathrooms 3 times a week, plus have 5 kitties to clean up after.
Those who would profit at the expense of others from this global pandemic deserve whatever punishment they get. Who’s to blame? All of us. Yes, you. Yes, me. We allow panic to take precedence over common sense. To be sure, we have had help from the federal government, the ‘president’ who we should be able to trust, but cannot, and from the media with their voices of gloom and doom. But, at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own actions. We are adults, capable of thinking, reasoning, and capable … when we so choose … of being humans, of thinking of others. Instead, some 90% of the population, it would seem, are thinking only of themselves, how to keep themselves safe and to hell with the rest of the world, how to have a few laughs at our expense, or how to profit from our misfortune. It is times like this that I despise the human race. Times like this that I am more determined than ever that if someday I must return to earth, it will be as something other than a human.
I am human, and thus yes, I am concerned about the coronavirus. My daughter is a nurse who works with sick people every day, so naturally I am concerned for her. I am 68 years old and have health issues, so I am in that “highest risk” group. But you know what? There’s a difference between being concerned and panicking. I’m not stockpiling anything, and while I am taking reasonable precautions, such as washing my hands when in public, I am not locking myself in my home. I will go out to dinner with the girls this evening, and mid-week I will go to the grocery in hopes that there is still a chicken and a bag of rice left. I will be responsible for my own fate and help others to the extent that I can. I will be able to live with my own conscience. We cannot live in a bubble, friends.
In addition to the people’s voice, there are numerous legal challenges still pending in the courts that have held up the implementation of the act. But now, all of a sudden, the Department of Interior has announced that plans have been finalized to open up roughly two million acres of formerly protected land in southern Utah to the fossil fuel industry for mining and drilling. Mining and drilling for the very things that are decimating our planet, killing wildlife, and ensuring the extinction of the human species. Without permission from the owners of that land. Without approval by environmental groups or the courts.
This is yet another example of Trump & Co putting more money into the pockets of the already-wealthy, at the expense of the other 99% of people in this country. Fossil fuels are on the way out the back door, globally. Trump brags that the U.S. is now the biggest producer of oil. Guess what? That’s nothing to brag about. It would deserve far more kudos if we could say we were the largest producer of wind or solar energy, that we had decreased our dependence on fossil fuels. Whether Trump, Bernhardt or their cronies at Exxon-Mobil like it or not, coal and oil are rapidly becoming dinosaurs in the energy market.
If Donald Trump and his cronies have their way, the entire nation will be covered in buildings, mines, drilling rigs, and waste dumps. No more beautiful national parks, mountains, hiking trails, clean beaches, green valleys …
“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest. And mostly, you’re right. Your election is in the public interest. And if a president does something, which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. . . .
“My gap year ends in August, but it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1,5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up. So either you tell us how to achieve this mitigation or explain to future generations and those already affected by the climate emergency why we should abandon our climate commitments.” 
