22
Mar
2020

Look how passive-aggressive this district is…

categories: personal, RPGs; word count: 324 words

The state governor issued an executive order commanding all schools in the state to close until April 3rd, and… wait for this… you can tell that although the local school district is adhering to that and has put out notice to everyone who needs to be made aware of this, they do not like it. Imagine being so annoyed during a global pandemic that you can not keep your doors open for increased federal funding that you blatantly come off as passive-aggressive to anyone and everyone who can see through your thin veneer, because you prioritize access to that federal funding over the lives of at-risk individuals in your community for whom keeping these school doors open (even on the technicality of “we won’t count absences or pursue truancy charges”, which was your first gambit) will endanger. This is literally why so many folks have problems with this school district and why they have had problems with this school district. And yet they honestly wonder.

In the midst of a global pandemic, it would be great if the schools just closed for the entire school year…

…but whatever. I’ll continue to do the advocacy I’ve been doing, what’s been labeled “my Scottish advocacy”.

Meanwhile, I switched what was our physical pre-order of Animal Crossing over to a digital pre-order (thanks, Amazon!) and downloaded it onto the Switch the day before release so that it would be available for play on release day given the nature of the pandemic and wanting to make that game available to Bub. If I can at some point due that with our pre-order of Final Fantasy VII: the Remake (how do you write that out?), I will do so as well since we’ve had it on pre-order with Amazon for months and there is not yet an option to digitally pre-order it there and I put the money that I used to pre-order it into the gift card “stash”.

21
Mar
2020

Never mind, everyone! I have been proven wrong.

categories: personal; word count: 346 words

When this school district got enough pressure put on it by people who kept pointing out that they were flying in the face of CDC recommendations, they made the “difficult decision” to close schools for another week. Yeah, I know. It must have been incredibly difficult to turn away all of the federal funding that you would have gotten from opening schools back up even though it would have come at the cost, and on the backs of, those who are at increased risk from the potential community spread of COVID-19 (you know, coronavirus), those that this could very easily incapacitate if not outright kill. Spare me your melodrama and how this was allegedly actually a “difficult decision” for you. This just lines your pockets a little bit less. You don’t have to deal with the harsh realities that come with the actual panic (not the “alleged panic”) of possibly catching this, getting hospitalized with this, winding up on a ventilator, possibly dying and leaving loved ones behind because someone’s pocket book was more important than keeping fragile members of the community safe. Spare me your manufactured melodrama about how this was actually a “difficult decision” for you. Shut up.

Our county is now at age three on the “action plan”. This means…

· stay home if you are sick
· avoid contact with individuals who are sick
· avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unclean hands
· cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue away
· clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces with a disinfectant
· don’t travel to areas with active community spread
· wash your hands with soap and water regularly
· use hand sanitizers with at least 60% of alcohol content when soap and water are not available

· Actively practice “social distancing”
· whenever possible maintain 6 feet distance from other persons
· avoid physical contact with other persons in social and workplace settings
· postpone or cancel all gatherings of 50 or more people if possible

But most recently…

· the county may issue orders prohibiting and/or restricting mass gatherings and/or movement of people

20
Mar
2020

Don’t imagine it, because it actually happened.

categories: personal; word count: 397 words

But imagine advocating so hard for the local school district to commit to an extended closure of schools, which other school districts in the area have done, that their response to you doing so over the course of several comments left on their social networking pages is to actually block you because they are that desperate to open doors and resume school for access to those federal dollars that they are willing to risk the health and lives of the at-risk students and members of their community as a direct result of this… and that they don’t even care, because the superintendent himself is literally willing to chalk it up as “panic” because he is literally all about that money. But as I’ve mentioned in here, I’ve attended this school district myself. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about this school district at all, and I mean every single word of this sentence. This school district has not improved at all, and their response to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic absolutely shows that in their recent actions. They are willing to endanger their at-risk students, the at-risk parents of those students who may be in attendance, other household members or people that they routinely come in contact with, and other members of the community by being in such a rush to open the doors to these schools back up (so much for “social distancing”, eh?) that they make it blatantly obvious that they continue to be all about that federal funding that it absolutely sickens me. This district is just trash.

At this point, I think that this district will always be trash and that it will never, ever redeem itself. Ever.

If anything changes between now and the time that school doors are supposed to re-open, of course I will make another post in here reflecting that, but this school district has always put money above the health and lives of the populace at large because… let’s face it, when has it not? “Panic” takes on a whole new meaning when you yourself are a member of that at-risk population. When this is something that could incapacitate or kill you, it’s not something that you’re “panicking” over, it’s a real-life scenario that you have to try to avoid. Anyone who claims it’s “panic” who is not in the at-risk group is trying to flex on privilege.

19
Mar
2020

What the Catholic church really needs to knock off.

categories: personal; word count: 417 words

Complaints of mine that I’ve managed to come up with during Quarantine and Chill:
· actually “deciding” which religion’s baptisms are valid and which are not
(they seem to have this peculiar thing against Mormon baptisms… like, who died and made you arbiter?)
· deciding whose marriages are “valid”, “that you can only have one”, and their stupid annulments
(how about you stay out of the marriages, or private lives, of people who are not Catholics, for one thing?)
· expecting that non-Catholics, especially non-Christians, adhere to these “marriage rules” to make it valid
(for instance, not going into a marriage “completely open to life” or placing limits… makes it invalid)
· making you go through nearly an entire school year’s worth of preparation if you “really want to get baptized” or come into the church as an adult (or anyone older than the age of… like, seven), which I’ve read the curriculum of and… the personal accounts of from a lot of people who have personally gone through this to completion, found that a lot of the actual classes are superfluous at best and that there could really be improvement for a lot of this, and that there is almost no flexibility in any of it adjusting for life circumstances
· that individuals with Celiac disease or liver problems get the short end of the stick
(the cracker has to have wheat, and the “blood of Christ” has to have alcohol in it, folks, or it’s “not valid”)
· that even in a mixed marriage, the kids have to be baptized Catholic, because Catholicism “has to win out”
(hey, remember how well that went in 2010 when Bub was never baptized Catholic? try that shit again, y’all)

This is just my short list of things that really bother me about the Catholic church, going along with the major problems that I have with it that make me all the more glad that I chose to… out myself in the manner that I did, resulting in me being dropped from the RCIA class roster at the end of the very first class that I took, the first, the last, and the only one. To this day, I still have absolutely no regrets about any of that, and to this day, I still do not want to convert to Catholicism, nor do I want either one of my children to have anything to do with the church such that I will not consent for them to have any involvement with it where it is needed.

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