It’s interesting how quickly time passes when we allow ourselves to be distracted. I’m not sure exactly what caused me to come back here at this particular time, but I was a bit surprised to discover it has been two years since I was.
During my hiatus I completed a year long philosophy study, several home improvement projects, and like everyone else… the ever consistently inconsistent Covid shuffle… everyone lock-down, ok… open back up, no wait… lock back down.
I suspect many of you share my thoughts when I say I’m really looking forward to this year being over. The Covid tag line “We’re all in this together.” has become hypocritical at best. The past several months have been absolutely devastating to the service industry sectors. Seeing the various public service announcement TV commercials with Hollywood entertainers, musical artists, and professional athletes telling us how important it is for everyone to stay home and that “We’re all in this together.” makes me want to give the commercials they’re in the middle finger. I seriously doubt the people in those commercials are struggling and worrying how they will pay their bills. I suspect their biggest struggle is not being able to dine at their favorite 5-star restaurant or attending some “look at me” gala. Then there are politicians who repeatedly preach to us from their elected position about how it’s our “duty” and “moral responsibility” for businesses to remain closed, to stay isolated from others and follow the mandates; yet some of them have no problem at all ignoring every aspect of what they demand of everyone else as they go to get their hair done or dine inside a restaurant that is otherwise closed to the general public.
Then there’s the whole back to school nightmare. One thing that will be interesting to see going forward is if school districts adopt a virtual option permanently. Doing so could potentially have a significant impact on how schools are funded. One component of school funding involves student populations at the school; another is with respect to how the school boundaries are defined and the income demographics within those boundaries and the taxes they generate. If schools were to adopt permanent virtual options it raises the question of how school funding might be impacted. Before virtual learning was incorporated in the K-12 grades, class sizes had limitations and when those limits were pushed excessively, a demand for more schools resulted. This causes either increases in taxes, bonds being proposed, or a combination of both in order to build additional schools. In a virtual learning environment this almost becomes a non-issue. Regarding school funding, if part of a schools’ funds are based on student populations, how is that factored given a virtual environment where students aren’t physically at school? Less demand for physical space, less demand for equipment, less demand for educational supplies, less demand for school lunches, less demand for school transportation, etc. It becomes an interesting conversation.
Finally, the election season is in full swing and how disappointing have things become. Every election cycle the professionalism among the candidates seems to deteriorate a little more. I think Southpark summed it up fairly accurate when they did an episode during the previous election cycle and said elections are always between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.
Regardless of which side you are on politically just remember, if we can’t have civil discussions about differing points of view we will never make progress.