Tag: The Age of The Virus

TBT: Back to the Grind 2020

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This past Monday, teachers at my small private school resumed work, sitting through our annual OSHA blood-borne pathogens training and another sales pitch from the AFLAC representative (start offering long-term disability insurance, AFLAC, and I’ll buy a policy).  Registration for new and returning students is now in full swing.

Last year was a unique school year, with its own challenges and opportunities.  As I detailed in this post, we had a host of new sanitation procedures, as well as the odious masks.  This year, the masks are optional, but we’re still sanitizing desks and checking temperatures at the door.

Unlike last year, we’ll have all the fun stuff again:  pep rallies, chapel, etc.  I know the students will be excited for some fun events to return to campus.

Of course, that means yours portly will be back to hustling to satisfy the bottomless appetite for audio-visual production values the students (and my administration) crave.  One silver lining of last school year was the vast reduction in constant events and activities, which allowed me the time to focus on teaching and grading.

Oh, well—here’s to another year!  And here’s 10 August 2020’s “Back to the Grind 2020“:

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TBT: Albino Giraffes Poached

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I’ve had animals on the brain lately, especially dogs.  Perhaps it’s my girlfriend’s sweet German shepherd puppy, or my parents’ photogenic rat terrier; regardless, I realize I am becoming a softy for critters.

Not just the furry, charismatic ones, either:  I’m considering adding a small frog garden to my existing flower beds, as I have a number of toads and frogs that take up residence in my beds and planters already.  Giving them a murky little pond to splash about in would be fun, and might help cut down on some bugs in the yard.

So it is that I’m looking back to this horrible story from March 2020, about the poaching of two rare albino giraffes in Kenya.  In the original piece, I make quite a few wild speculations about the nature of the poachers, even implicating the 50,000 Chinese immigrants to the country.

Given that The Virus originated, most likely, in a Wuhan virology lab—suggesting the Chinese were working on some kind of horrible biological weapon—I’d say mistrust in China’s motives is justified.  It’s also a very weird culture, as the wet markets proved.  The Chinese long believed rhinoceros horn to be an aphrodisiac; how far-fetched would it be to think they would believe something similar about the flesh of an albino giraffe?

For that matter, Africa is still a land filled with many folk beliefs and superstitions.  Albino humans in Tanzania, for example, are the targets of witch doctors, who harvest albinos’ body parts for use in their dark magic.  Gavin McInnes frequently mentions the belief among some African tribes that bald men’s heads are filled with gold.  And there is the horrific practice of AIDS sufferers raping virgins—especially very young children—in the belief that doing so will cure their affliction.

These are terrible things—far more wicked and evil than the murder of two albino giraffes.  But how we treat God’s Creation, even in its lower orders, is a reflection of how we treat one another.  Animal mutilation and murder is a key sign of a future serial killer or sociopath.

With that depressing preamble, here is 24 March 2020’s “Albino Giraffes Poached“:

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Decency Prevails: Make-A-Wish Foundation Rescinds Mask Requirement for Children

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Well, this morning’s post aged poorly, but thankfully so:  The Make-A-Wish Foundation has reversed their decision to require terminally ill children and their families to be fully vaccinated in order to received their wishes.

You can read the full statement and a three-point summary here.  Here is the second bullet point from the summary:

We understand that there are many families whose children aren’t eligible for the vaccine yet, and we also know that there are families who are choosing not to get the vaccine. We respect everyone’s freedom of choice. Make-A-Wish will not require anyone to get vaccinated to get a wish.

The line about respecting “everyone’s freedom of choice” is key:  the organization received enough blowback that they’ve reversed their rhetoric from that of the “vaccinate-or-be-a-second-class-citizen” COVID Cult crowd to “you can make your own decisions about your healthcare.”  That’s a big shift, and demonstrates the power of speaking out against further Virus-related insanity.

Kudos to The Make-A-Wish Foundation for doing the right thing.

—TPP

Make-A-Death-Wish

The Portly Politico5 Comments

UPDATE:  In case anyone missed it, The Make-A-Wish Foundation REVERSED their decision to require terminally ill children and their families to be fully vaccinated in order to receive their wishes: https://theportlypolitico.com/2021/06/29/decency-prevails-make-a-wish-foundation-rescinds-mask-requirement-for-children/

Read The Foundation’s statement here: https://wish.org/news-releases/reemergence

* * *

The Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants children with terminal medical conditions a “wish,” has announced it will require all wish recipients and their family members to be fully vaccinated against The Virus.

No vaccination, no wish fulfillment.

Naturally, this requirement is absurd, and represents a new low in the race to virtue-signal in The Age of The Virus.  At this risk of sounding macabre and insensitive, The Make-A-Wish Foundation is requiring children who are already dying to take a vaccine against an illness with a 99.5%+ survivability rate.

It’s a purely symbolic action that achieves nothing beyond making it more difficult for dying children to enjoy one last bit of whimsy before they cross over into the arms of Jesus.

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When Does it End?

The Portly Politico3 Comments

At my second Town of Lamar Council Meeting, my colleagues outvoted me 4-1 to renew Lamar’s mask ordinance for another sixty days.  They also shot down my proposal that we reopen council meetings to the public, who can currently only attend online via Facebook Live and Zoom.

That’s precisely what I expected to happen, and I appreciate their reasons:  concerns about safety, etc.  The big, lingering question—one I can’t get out of my mind—is “when does it end?”  At what point are we safe “enough” to remove our masks?

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The Virus Kabuki

The Portly Politico9 Comments

A big hat-tip (H/T in blogger parlance) to Mogadishu Matt for reblogging this New York Times piece about masks and The Virus.  I tend to view mask mandates as a form of petty tyranny—a way of signalling virtue on the cheap while inconveniencing otherwise law-abiding citizens who don’t want to muzzle themselves every time they want to buy cereal.

As such, I was surprised to see the dubious wisdom of mask mandates questioned in the pages of the progressive Left’s favorite “mainstream” rag, The New York Times.

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Mask Mandates Come for Lamar

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I know, I know—everyone wants to read and talk about the storming of our metaphorical Bastille.  I’m going to cover that in-depth in this weekend’s SubscribeStar Saturday post, not because I know it is the event of the decade—and will therefore crassly milk it for subscribers—but because my own observations are so tantalizingly spicy, I have to hide them behind a paywall.  Believe it or not, $1 is apparently a major hurdle.

Instead, I’m going to focus on a bit local draconianism that I will hopefully soon be able to address head-on:  my small town of Lamar has adopted a mask ordinance.  Given our current Town Council, I’m surprised it took this long.

The ordinance, dated 14 December 2020 and effective 4 January 2021—but only received in water bills on 7 January 2021—is entitled “REQUIRING INDIVIDUALS TO WEAR FACE COVERINGS IN RETAIL AND FOODSERVICE ESTABLISHMENTS, AND MATTERS RELATED THERETO.”  It features a number of “WHEREAS” justifications, mostly the “recommendations of public health experts.”  It then lists the “Use of Face Coverings” in Section 1, detailing that face coverings must be worn indoors at stores and restaurants, etc., with plenty of opportunities to not wear a mask listed in Section 2, “Exemptions”—religious reasons, dental cleanings, etc.

The penalties for infractions—detailed in Sections 3 and 4—are $25 for individuals and $100 for businesses that fail to require employees to wear masks.  Section 3 seems laughably unenforceable in a town that has maybe three police officers—and just a recipe for another unpleasant interaction between otherwise law-abiding citizens and police.  Section 4 is particularly onerous, though, as it forces private companies to force their employees to wear masks, or face daily $100 fines.

Granted, most business establishments have already bent the knee and have bought into the mask hysteria.  In my mind, though, that makes the mask mandate even more unnecessary:  if Dollar General is making me wear a mask to buy a $1.26 loaf of bread-based loaf product anyway, why does the Town Council need to ladle an extra dollop of self-righteous scolding?

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The Virus and Live Music: The Story of The Roasting Room Lounge

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Christmastime always puts me in a musical mood, as blog posts this week suggest.  Christmas is the perfect season to illustrate the power of music, as so much wonderful music has been written about Christ’s Birth.

In The Before Times, in the Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus, it was also a lucrative season for musicians.  Other than wedding gigs (a market I haven’t managed to crack into yet), nothing pays better than a Christmas party.  They’re fun, full of free food, and they pay well.  The spirit of free-flowing generosity (and the generosity of free-flowing spirits) results in some warm winter paydays.

Of course, this year has been particularly tough for musicians, as I’ve detailed many, many times before.  Revenues from private lessons and gigs seem to be bouncing back (at least for me), and the struggles of The Virus brought forth a burst of generosity.  Bandcamp Fridays really helped inject some much-needed cash into the coffers of independent musicians (myself included).

Musicians have also had to get creative.  That’s why I hosted my annual Spooktacular from my front porch.  Venues are constrained by various local and State laws (and sometimes dictatorial edicts) limiting their capacities, and many eateries have been slow to resume live shows.  That’s created real limitations on venues and artists, but it’s also opened up opportunities.  My Spooktacular was mildly profitable, but it also brought people together for desperately-needed fun and camaraderie (and put a few bucks into the pockets of the musicians involved).  I don’t know if that model will endure once The Virus is defeated, but it’s something for musicians to consider in this strange new world.

But for all I’ve written about the damage The Virus has caused to musicians’ finances, I haven’t looked at the impact on venues at all.  That’s an unfortunate oversight on my part, because a venues’ success or failure can directly impact that of an artist.  Many musically-inclined venues are coffee shops or small restaurants, so they largely cut live music as they went to take-out-only and delivery formats.

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Lazy Sunday LXXXI: Education, Part II

The Portly Politico5 Comments

The school year is roaring on, and we’re already coming up on the end of our first quarter (an unusually truncated first quarter, as we’ll only have been in school seven weeks by this Friday, plus two days).  I’ve been writing a bit more about education lately, as is common during the school year.  In The Age of The Virus, it makes for slightly more interesting writing than the usual complaints about overstuffed classrooms and understuffed paychecks.

I also haven’t featured education since “Lazy Sunday XXIV: Education,” so it seemed like a good time to revisit the topic that consumes most of my daily life.  Here are some recent posts on that all-consuming topic:

  • “Progress Report: Teaching in The Age of The Virus” – I wrote this post just a few weeks ago, when interim/progress reports were coming out at my school.  It was a good opportunity, after nearly a month of teaching, to reflect on the additional challenges and burdens of teaching live to students face-to-face and online simultaneously, and of recording (often with buggy apps) for international students to watch later.  The workload has since taken on a more familiar pattern and rhythm, but those first few weeks consumed huge amounts of time and energy.
  • “Teaching in The Age of The Virus: Live Remote Learning Rehearsal Day” – I wrote this post just two days ago, and it was a bit of an update on my “Progress Report.”  This post reviewed our “Live Remote Learning Rehearsal Day,” in which all students stayed home and livestreamed classes via Google Meet, while teachers taught from their respective classrooms.  I was surprised by how challenging it was to maintain the rapport of a classroom setting while having students sitting at home.  Very odd.
  • “SubscribeStar Saturday: Making Music, Part II” – When I wrote this post yesterday, I had forgotten I’d written another SubscribeStar Saturday post of the same name in May!  That was bound to happen eventually, so I hastily added the “Part II” to this one.  Yesterday’s post was a bit of a counterpoint to the frustration and pessimism of Friday’s review of the live remote rehearsal day:  it was a celebration of music education, and the joy of watching student-musicians forming bands, writing lyrics, singing songs, and all that.  Indeed, it’s a reminder why teachers teach—and why music teachers have it the best, even if they work hard.

That’s it for another Lazy Sunday.  Here’s hoping you enjoyed a restful weekend.  It’s finally October, and the weather in South Carolina has been sublime:  warm enough to enjoy a walk in the afternoon, but cold enough to kill most of the bugs.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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Teaching in The Age of The Virus: Live Remote Learning Rehearsal Day

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Periodically I’ve written updates and progress reports about teaching in The Age of The Virus.  My September “Progress Report” detailed the difficulties of teaching in-person and online simultaneously (with most students in class, and a few streaming the class online via Google Meet), while also recording live classes for international students to view at a later time.  Technical issues and glitches aside, it creates a number of additional tasks that eat up class and prep time, and overall increase our workloads by at least 20-30%—and often more.

My school’s approach has been to soldier on as long as possible, following stringent health and safety guidelines to keep the school clean.  Students are required to wear masks pretty much all day now, which is starting to irk some of them.  It really is a struggle to keep them on all day.  Students have the option to switch to the live remote platform if they’re ill or have been in contact with someone with The Virus.

So far, that system has worked remarkably well; since the start of classes, we’ve only had (to my knowledge) one student and one staff member test positive for The Virus, and that was after the fourth week of classes.  If that incredibly slow spread remains as such, we are far more likely to keep school going with some degree of normality for the duration of the academic year.

However, yesterday we ran a live remote platform rehearsal day to prepare ourselves in the event we need to transition speedily to remote learning only.  Students stayed home and logged in via Google Meet to their classes, while teachers reported to school and taught from their respective classrooms.  Students attended classes at their scheduled class times, and we continued to follow the usual bell schedule.

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