Posts Tagged ‘life’

Several things mentioned in one post.

As of Sunday evening, we hit double digits in terms of confirmed cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) in my county, and confirmed community spread. Given the size of my county, this does not surprise me. To be completely honest, I want to see public schools shut down for the remainder of the school year in an attempt to contain this before it gets completely out of hand, but I do not have faith in this local school district, and my faith in this state wavers. But this school district is making it abundantly clear that they want to open doors back up as soon as possible, even if… like I’ve mentioned before, it is literally on the backs of the at-risk population. They are literally blocking people on social media that do not agree with them who are not willing to shower them in praise and it would be hilarious to mention if it were not depressing because of the whole “we are in the midst of a global pandemic and this district has a history of making poor decisions”.

I’ve gone to the mat over this and I will keep going to the mat over this. If anyone does not want to follow the CDC’s recommendations during a global pandemic, I will work to call them out on it… like GameStop, who had the nerve to attempt to call themselves “essential employees” and “an essential retailer” in a desperate bid to try and keep their doors open because they did not want to lose money. That went swimmingly well for them, because in at least two states they were forced to close their doors, and I anticipate it being more as time passes assuming that they do not take the hint and close their doors in the rest of them until this pandemic eases. Although I haven’t shopped in GameStop for awhile, for a number of reasons (one of which being the fact that I am actually friends with “GameStop girl”, and she is a positively wonderful human being), this absolutely takes the cake and I am going to make it a conscious point never to shop there again.

In gaming news: Bub and I have been playing the new Animal Crossing together and have gone to some friends’ islands! I am slowly but surely learning how to play this actual game for him, and it’s adorable, too!

Look how passive-aggressive this district is…

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”.

Never mind, everyone! I have been proven wrong.

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

Don’t imagine it, because it actually happened.

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.

1 145 146 147 148 149 150