Wednesday Stuff

The photo in this post is of students from a high school in North Paulding High School in Dallas, GA which recently reopened as you can see. As you can also see, you can count the number of masked students on one hand and probably have fingers left over (with no social distancing either).

Am I blaming the kids? No, particularly when the cases of COVID-19 will likely tick up and they’ll have to close the school all over again.

Am I blaming the adults for opening the school? I sure as hell am.

Like many of you I’m sure, my parents grew up during the Great Depression and World War II. I know people like Tom Brokaw (who my dad always thought was a fake) have made an industry out of mythologizing those of that era as “The Greatest Generation.” And yeah, I think there’s something to that, though I know there are others of that era who thought they were just doing what they were called on to do and shouldn’t be put on a pedestal (my folks definitely leaned towards the latter category).

I’m mentioning this because I always wondered what would happen if and when MY generation was called upon to face some calamitous event affecting the entire country. Would WE pull together out of a sense of national purpose and make the needed sacrifices? Would WE act in the best interests of future generations (a question already answered when it comes to climate change, unfortunately) as well as other world nations, a community to which we most definitely belong by default?

I think our response to the COVID-19 pandemic gives us the answer, sadly (and the end of this video is a punch in the gut, as it should be...yeah, blame the Gropenfuhrer too, but if President Hillary Clinton had told the whole country to mask up, do you honestly believe people wouldn't have still flipped out at Walmart anyway?)…



Update: Ugh...

Update 8/6/20: And apparently the kid who took this picture was suspended (noted near the end here, though it hasn't been confirmed yet) - God, adults can be stoo-pid sometimes!

Update 8/7/20: OK, I guess this is confirmation.

Update 8/8/20: It's about time - suspension never should have happened anyway.

Update 8/9/20: Color me shocked - not (here).

…and oh yeah, speaking of future generations, Our Orange Pestilence continues to wage war against the environment, as noted in this clip…



…and Chris Hayes tells us here that Nevada is automatically sending mail-in ballots to registered voters, and guess how Mango Mussolini reacted (not hard to figure out)…



…and Sam and Jamie of “The Majority Report” continue discussing that topic…I wish the show would mention not just the name of the bill that created this ridiculous unfunded liability for the post office, but also the fact that the current Democratic U.S. House passed H.R. 2382 to fix this mess, which of course is sitting on the desk of The Grim Reaper and not going anywhere as long as Repugs are in charge of either body of Congress – more here…and yeah, let’s not get all gushy about Chris Wallace temporarily pushing back against yet another Trumpian liar, this Jason Miller clown, about how supposedly unreliable the post office is…



…and like you also I’m sure, I’m hearing that Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao may tell the U.S. Senate (including many on this list) to go home later this week with no action on the HEROES Act, so I’m replaying this homemade video – I also saw a poll that has Sen. Grim Reaper leading Amy McGrath by 17 points…if I were McGrath, I would initiate a series of meetings with Charles Booker and find out how to leverage his support with particular policies related to the economy and criminal justice affecting African Americans, and then I would fire everyone on her campaign staff and let Booker’s people run the show…she outspent Booker 2-1 in the primary and still barely won, while his campaign came out of nowhere to challenge her – sounds like one political camp knows what they’re doing and the other doesn’t (and yeah, I’m sure “good ol’ boy” racism/sexism is in play here, but there’s racism and sexism ALL OVER THIS COUNTRY)…



...and I always associate this song with summer - hope it works for you too.