They've Lost Contact with Hundreds of Students
They've Lost Contact with Hundreds of Students
Coronavirus is going to change our society forever.
The pro-coronavirus morons descended on Michigan’s Statehouse yesterday and blocked a hospital’s emergency entrance while chanting and waving MAGA and Confederate flags which are interchangeable ways for virtue signaling your fear of minorities enslaving white people.
We live on the darkest timeline so of course these morons were astroturfed by the “Michigan Freedom Fund” which has direct ties to Betsy DeVoss, the oligarch currently serving as our Secretary of Education.
What are their grievances? That they can’t buy fertilizer or get their hair did.
This is what happens when you have no personality besides buying products from brands. It’s a disease that consumes the minds of millions of Americans thanks to living on the Capitalist Wheel of Misfortune which links the value of human life to the economic productivity as defined by the bosses profiting upon our misery.
Apologies for bringing the odious Frank Luntz into your life this early in the morning. I must do it to remind you that while the idiots will no doubt get louder with time, they are in a minority so small it’s rarely seen in the United States on any question other than “What color is the sky?”
The sacrifices we are making are saving an untold number of lives. I’d be filled with more optimism if President Business Deals weren’t choking under the pressure to the point Illinois’ governor had to keep PPE shipments from China a secret so the federal government wouldn’t poach them.
Anyway if you want to social distance from coins in one month hence and you enjoy The Rooster, subscribe today for four weeks of five-days-a-week service directly from my cratered mind to your email inbox for the free.99:
Today’s big agenda item is alphabetizing my book shelves. God help me. Let’s move on before I fall back into my natural state of chronic depression.
Schools were one of the first things to be shuttered in Ohio over coronavirus. I have no doubt that I, as a wise high school senior who already knew everything my teachers were tryin to pound into my thick Irish head, would have welcomed an early release from my school shackles.
However, I’m old enough now to lament not taking my formal education seriously. It sucks to watch others throw away that chance due to circumstances that were out of their control to begin with.
From Max Londberg of cincinnati.com [brackets mine]:
[Mount Healthy South Elementary fourth grade math teacher Judi] Nortman's students are about on par with the school as a whole. As of last week, only about one in four of the school's approximately 900 students had completed work, according to figures shared by Superintendent Reva Cosby. This week, Cosby said the participation rose after many students received devices. Now slightly less than half of students have attended at least one virtual class.
Educators have entirely lost contact with some students. At Mount Healthy's second elementary school, North Elementary, 15% of the roughly 900 students haven't responded to various communication attempts, Cosby said.
About 45% of North students have completed work.
Cosby said about 100 total students at the junior high and high schools haven't been reached since the closure, out of roughly 1,250.
This sucks. As someone who knows a few teachers, you don’t have to listen to them long to realize that a large plurality of parents do not actively care about their children’s education. I don’t have kids, and I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around parents who don’t give a damn. Couldn’t be me.
Mike DeWine has already said students won’t have to repeat grades. I don’t know what the solution would be if theoretically we re-opened schools next year. There’s no way kids who blew off a third of the school year would be academically prepared for the next level. It’s setting them up for failure.
COLUMBUS ISSUES THE DAWG CHECK TO ILLEGAL HOUSE PARTIES
I’m no fan of draconian prison sentences or prisons in general. However, I re-examine that philosophy every time I read about dipshits, who are too dumb to understand basic science, throwing house parties as if a global pandemic isn’t melting the world economy right now.
Warnings aren’t enough for these people as Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein has discovered.
From Debbie Holmes of wosu.org:
Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein is cracking down on house parties, saying too many people are ignoring gathering restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.
Klein says he wants Columbus Police officers to issue citations to anyone defying the state’s order prohibiting gatherings of 10 or more people.
Police have received complaints about the Ohio State University District, short-term rentals and other areas of the city. Klein says warnings are no longer enough.
"To address this community-wide health emergency, we need community-wide compliance," Klein wrote in a press release.
Tell you what — if the Franklin County Jail refuses to release non-violent offenders and wants to leave bodies to the mercy of the coronavirus, I would propose we send the organizers of house parties to the hellhole that is “the Workhouse” in their steed.
I’ve cut people out of my life over Instagram Stories of them playing beer pong in a crowded apartment like it’s 2007 and we’re back in college. I already lost interest in hanging out with “I’m not really into politics” motherfuckers, so I’m going to have exactly four friends who aren’t cats when this pandemic ends.
Oh well. At least I didn’t kill somebody’s nana by acting like an idiot.
CORONAVIRUS OVERWHELMING ALREADY OVERWHELMED FOSTER SYSTEM
I didn’t have the perfect childhood. But at least I had two parents who loved me unconditionally despite my love of self-destruction and disdain for authority figures.
I can’t imagine having to navigate childhood bouncing around the foster care system during a pandemic.
But this is is the reality for thousands of Ohioan youths. Our already overburdened foster care is seeing a surge in clients.
From Mark Taylor of nbc4i.com:
COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Ohio’s foster care system was already under stress with the opioid crisis. Now, the coronavirus is adding even more stress, according to some child welfare agencies.
Local non-profit The Buckeye Ranch is reporting a 60 percent increase in children’s cases.
“Really every part of the ranch has been impacted by the pandemic,” Ann Woodford with the Buckeye Ranch said.
The non-profit child welfare agency has made drastic safety changes including switching to telehealth services all while the number of kids coming in continues to climb.
“On an average month, we would see 22 kids enter our foster care program,” Woodford said. “But through the end of March, we had 37 children enter our care.”
It’s going to be wild to watch Mike DeWine morph into Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yes that would be the antithesis of his entire career, it’s true. But it’s what he’s going to have to do in order to save Ohio from the hex that coronavirus has only begun to put on us.
DAVE YOST HAS A FIGHT ON HIS HANDS
Attorney General Dave Yost sued a Chagrin Falls man earlier this week, accusing him of selling N-95 masks on e-Bay at 18 times the going market rate. At first this would seem like an open-and-shut case of disaster profiteering. But the man might not be a scumbag after all!
From Cory Shaffner of cleveland.com:
Mario Salwan said when his business suffered amid Ohio’s stay-at-home orders, he took to eBay to sell unused masks.
“I did not purchase a single N-95 mask at all during this pandemic,” Salwan said in an emailed statement through his attorney. “I want to set the record straight.”
Salwan’s attorney, Jordan Berns of the Beachwood-based Berns, Ockner and Greenberger law firm, did not respond to a voicemail seeking further comment.
This is an interesting ethical question. I don’t consider it disaster profiteering if a man is simply selling masks at the going market rate on eBay as a means for survival.
Disaster profiteering is what that asshole in Tennessee did when he and his brother traveled like 2,000 miles purchasing 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer with the intent of disaster profiteering.
Looks like we got a case on our hands, folks!
WISE MAN RYAN DAY: SOME FOOTBALL BETTER THAN NO FOOTBALL
Football fans has a conservative bent. The message boards, which were already the equivalent of rats clattering in a sewer, haven’t been handling the coronavirus quarantine with grace. Instead they’re turning to conspiracies, and it hasn’t be going well for them.
ESPN’s Chris Fowler reported yesterday there’s basically no chance college football unfolds “normally” in 2020. College commissioners made it clear to Vice President Mike Pence yesterday that games would not resume until students returned to campus.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day is preparing for whatever scenario comes to pass.
From Dan Hope of elevenwarriors.com:
As uncertainty looms over the 2020 college football season due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Day understands the reality. The likelihood of college football season being impacted to at least some extent is increasing, and as Ohio State’s head coach, he needs to be prepared to adapt to whatever changes might come.
He says he will be prepared for that challenge, and he expects his staff and players to be ready, too.
“We’ll do whatever we need to do, and we’ll make it work, whatever they tell us the parameters are. And we’ll adapt and we’ll play,” Day said. “We’re OK with adapting. We’d obviously love to play the whole season, and expecting to play the whole season, but if that’s what happens, then we’ll figure it out.”
As of now, it’s still too early to know what will happen this fall. The full season could possibly be played as scheduled, with or without fans in the stands. The season could feasibly be shortened – conference games only is one possibility – or pushed back to start at a later date. The worst-case scenario, which Day and everyone involved in college football wants to avoid, would be no season at all.
It’s all fun and games until Ohio State misses a football season. I’m not sure we could survive as a state without the Buckeyes battering our foes every Saturday.
Donald Trump said this week that “we need our sports back.” His animal cunning has alerted him to the fact that Americans will go insane without football in the fall — right before the nation heads to the polls to decide which octogenarian rapist gets to run our country for the next four years.
The best case we have for the 2020 season is it kicking off sometime in early 2021. That might be optimistic at this point considering large crowds can’t return until we lock down contacting tracing, which we aren’t even close to being able to do on the needed scale.
We are going to be gambling on simulated games broadcast on Twitch come September, and we’re going to be thankful. You heard it here first folks, which is a change of pace for these parts where you usually hear it second.
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