Wealthy county can't quite accept its success

I suppose I could get into teacher bashing almost every day in this blog, and there is some benefit in being consistently reminded about the low status that educators "enjoy" in America overall. I take some comfort in the fact that despite so many years of being undervalued and over-criticized, great people somehow still manage to enter the profession.

The latest bashing in these parts begins with -- and this will not shock anyone -- Republican radical politicians who have floated the idea on a local talk radio station of the Douglas County School Board publishing the names of all nearly 1,500 district employees who called out sick yesterday. 

Radio host and attorney Dan Caplis said this: "I think the names of every one of those teachers who abandon the kids tomorrow, they should be considered public record, and nobody should be threatened or abused or anything like that... None of that garbage. That's weak and silly and awful."

Beyond helping you decide to never hire his law firm in the future -- a decision unlikely to hurt the firm, which has plenty of rich people to service -- you might be wondering about the quality of his thinking and how that might seep into his law practice.

The inherent logical contradiction in his position is clear: He wants those names made public and he played the "teachers aren't in it for the money but for the children" card -- "they abandoned our little girl."

But he immediately tries to soften his call for public shaming and for the public to know exactly who they should criticize by saying that, really, nothing bad should come of that public shaming. No one should be threatened. Ha! 

Rabid politicians providing red meat to their most ardent followers often try to play this game of whipping up emotions with one hand while urging everyone to "keep it clean." Which hand gets the most attention?

I have heard a number of people talk about "elections do have consequences," claiming that the turnout for the November election was very small. That sounds right, doesn't it? After all, the common wisdom is that school board elections don't gather much interest since most voters don't have kids in the schools. Board elections are held during "off years," depressing voter turnout and (so goes the hope) reducing the impact of politics. Again, ha!

I looked up the stats. Roughly 119,000 people voted in the last board election out of a total number of registered voters of 282,334. That's 42 percent, which is disappointing but not unusually small. You can find all sorts of examples of board elections across the country drawing 10-15 percent of the potential voters.

So I would guess that it wasn't so much microscopic numbers of voters in the November election as much as the "cause and effect" relationship between modest turnout and increasing power for each individual vote. The power of getting extra voters to the polls and the fact that each "new" or changed vote carries power has led to some swings in board membership, and it would not be surprising to see another swing in the 2025 board election.

But a lot of bad (or good) can happen in four years. After all, for current freshmen that span covers their entire high school career.

School board elections are officially nonpartisan though that is true in much the same way as Supreme Court judge nominations are officially nonpartisan. 

Douglas County voters break down like this: approximately 100,000 registered Republicans, 54,000 registered Democrats, and 123,000 Undeclared. 

It's not easy to track down board members' voter registration status, but the four new members were quite open about their Republican Party affiliations, while the three holdovers include two Democrats and one Undeclared. So, the current political party splits seem to accurately mirror the county breakdown other than in the Undeclared category. 

The schools regularly score well by almost any measure, from standardized test results to college admission to graduation rates. At a glance, you might think that the board members must be child-centered, thoughtful policy makers, supportive of educators and parents... all striving to give every student and staff member a chance to excel.

As is often the case, the better things are, the worse they feel. Many Coloradans must shake their heads at the idea of all this strife in one of the nation's wealthiest counties with a long tradition of academic excellence.

Poor Douglas County.

In our little corner of the country, the chaos is scheduled

Bashing teachers is hardly a new phenomenon in America. After all, we ALL spent years in some form of schooling and when we spend enough time around something we develop opinions. In a way, most of us just assume we are somewhat "expert" when it comes to education.

Most educators, however, would point out that being a student does not equal understanding how classrooms and curricula work, and certainly does not demonstrate that being a teacher is like or how difficult it is. 

I noted a comment from a legislator recommending that it would be a great idea for some harried businesspeople to step away from the "rat race" and enjoy far less stress by teaching for a while. 

I actually laughed out loud when I read that. 

Don't get me wrong. There are many positives about education as a profession, despite the criticisms and misunderstandings and low pay (compared to many positions requiring similar levels of training and education). But lack of shared experience can lead to confrontation and anger and, sometimes, chaos. 

Here in Douglas County, one of the richest counties in America and a firm bastion of the Republican Party, the latest bit of chaos is happening tomorrow -- yes, we actually schedule our chaos around here.

Due to several decisions made by a rabid, reactionary school board majority (installed in December after a board election that drew only a small percentage of voters), many teachers are frustrated and angry. 

The last straw appears to grow from those four radical board members demanding that the superintendent resign or be fired (and today was the deadline he was given to decide). The reason for this is quite clear: he chose to join the side of the mask argument in continuing them in DCSD schools after the county ended any mask mandates. One of his stated reasons was to protect the most vulnerable students and teachers in the district -- those who are immunocompromised, for instance -- and slightly inconvenience the vast majority of students and teachers who are either fully vaccinated or not at much risk of serious illness. 

In brief, the superintendent chose the general position of "whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me." That may be too religious a take, so how about "a nation should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens"? 

Everything being a political decision or position these days, the fact that most young students seem to be at least OK with masking to protect their classmates and teachers -- so long as they can actually be in school -- is overwhelmed by a percentage of adults who come down on the side of personal freedom getting more weight than "loving thy neighbor." 

None of the radicals on the DCSD school board would agree with my somewhat simplistic comparison, but that doesn't mean it is not true. It is simply uncomfortable.

And NOT loving thy neighbor is not an automatically unethical decision. Taking care of ourselves first is defensible (as in putting on OUR mask when the oxygen drops down on a plane before putting the mask on our child). But even the most fanatic defender of personal choice has lines.

The disagreement nearly always comes down to finding the line. 

At last report, at least 1,300 teachers have called in "sick" for tomorrow, with the aim of protesting at the school board offices against the board and asking for more support. It is key to know that there are about 3,400 teachers TOTAL in the district, and that means that today's snow day is likely to lead to another snow day on Thursday. There is no way school can be held when nearly half of its teachers don't show up at work.

So the chaos has been scheduled. Strikes by teachers are illegal in Colorado, so this is NOT a strike or even a work stoppage. This is a fiction that is allowed by law and practice, with so many teachers all being sick on the same day. 

The temperatures on Thursday begin below zero. There will be lots of snow and ice. 

But the sight of over a thousand teachers braving the elements to protest has to be impressive, whatever the observer's view on the protest itself.

We don't need no stinkin' facts

The most recent stats available from the CDC show that boosted adults are about as protected as people can be from Covid-related deaths. Get this, as of November (it's frustrating how long it takes to compile this data, I know) the chances of death for an American who is boosted is ONE in a million. 

The chances of death in a car accident are 2.4 in a million. The average death rate from the flu is 3 in a million. 

For rational humans, this is great news (about the benefits of a booster shot) and we should be in the midst of a national celebration.

BUT. Here's a chart produced by Kaiser:

Think about this. Nearly two-thirds of Republican voters are not boosted and the rate for Independents is not a lot better.

Um, wow! If this is not evidence of our partisan wackiness, I don't know what is. 

At this point, I have figuratively thrown up my hands about finding some way past this bizarre approach to statistics and vaccines and common sense. Hundreds of thousands of our neighbors have died and more will die, and a FREE and easily available vaccine could have prevented so much pain and heartbreak.

I would like to think that these stats would be the lead story on every news broadcast and in every print newspaper and on social media... and no commentary or interpretation of the facts should be needed. Just put the raw data out there and let people draw conclusions.

But the battle lines have been drawn and reason is NOT winning.

For students and for writers of all ages attempting to make sense of the world, this is depressing news.

A last observation from the data: Democrats -- particularly under age 40 -- are still way overestimating their chances of death from the virus, and that brings its own poor choices.

So our long winter of discontent marches on.

Thanks for the memories

It's a new year -- though at times it feels like a tired repeat of the past two -- but retirements are in the air. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has officially announced that he is stepping down, bowing to the pressure to leave when Democrats can choose his successor.

Of more interest to many is Pittsburgh Steelers Ben Roethlisberger today announcing his own retirement after 18 years at QB. That is just seven years fewer than Justice Breyer has been on the court.

More generally, as of the third quarter of 2021, 50.3 percent of U.S. adults 55 and older said they were out of the labor force due to retirement, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recent official labor force data. That is an increase of 2.2 percent from pre-pandemic estimates. Much of that may be temporary (due to Covid) but I don't see how we can be too surprised to find that as Baby Boomers age, the percentage of retired people rises.

Using that same logic, it is difficult to pretend to be surprised that employment is very tight. When we combine more and more older Americans leaving the workforce while birth rates have fallen and immigration has cratered, there has to come a point when there just aren't enough workers to go around.

People make choices and those choices have consequences. I read today that the world has missed any chance of erasing the pandemic and that one reason is that the virus just doesn't kill enough people to burn itself out. Think about that. Over 850,000 are dead (probably lots more) due to the virus, but that's just not enough.

I have seen some odd posts about Republicans being in trouble because more R's are dying than D's (though that was not the case in 2020). The problem with that view, statistically, is that not enough are dying, to be blunt. More to the point, though, is that as the country splits geographically in political choices, a pandemic that decreases voting turnout for one party by a fraction of a percent just reduces the margin of victory from 20 percent to 19.8 percent (I made up the numbers, but you get the idea).

Media pundits and media in general constantly seem surprised (shocked!) at things that were inevitable.

Once again, journalists have a tough time with statistics and math in general. America is a big place, with over 330 million citizens. Things can change, of course, and relatively quickly (as in gay marriage acceptance), but most analysts are skeptical about how fast our current political divides can evolve away from "I'm a R, so I must make fun of... (fill in your choice here)" or "I'm a D, so I need to make fun of... (fill in your choice here)." 

Just as most Americans have grown tired of the pandemic (I would guess that my grandparents grew tired of WWII), and most appear to be open to simply declaring victory (or accepting some sort of truce) over the pandemic and simply moving on, they also wish for some sort of rapid change in how we all treat each other. Our impatience produces some progress, but it is never enough.

Back to retirement, someone leaving a job or position after many years can bring some excitement to many, with interesting potential "new" people in those jobs. There will be a new justice on the Supreme Court, and there will be a new quarterback for the Steelers. "New" is exciting... until the new wears off.

Some "retirements" are more involuntary, like the Broncos firing Vic Fangio as head coach and today announcing a new guy. Lots of shuffling, in lots of areas of life, and that is hardly new.

I hated to see David Letterman "retire" from his late night gig, but Colbert is doing fine and it won't take long until the only time we think much about Dave will be during a CNN documentary on late night hosts. Who thinks about Jack Parr, or even remembers that name? 

Everyone gets replaced eventually. 

The challenge is in doing something positive prior to replacement.

Just say 'no' to companies that fail us

It's New Year's Eve Eve and many publications and websites are taking a look back at 2021 while making predictions about 2022. Just as with new year's resolutions, most of the predictions will never happen or certainly never become trends that last. 

But readers love them, partially because of the opportunity to argue with conclusions. Predictions are the extended logic of "cause and effect." If we can correctly predict the effect of whatever cause/event has recently occurred, we can make money or look smart or be prepared. 

Mostly we just foul things up, however, since there are rarely straight lines that connect simple causes and simple effects. 

You might have thought that Jan. 6 would produce some clear effect, perhaps with Americans coming together to set some boundaries to political action and speech -- stopping just before the "violence line," for instance -- but that didn't happen for a giant percentage (though still a minority) of the population.

You might have thought that the availability of vaccines and masks and experience might decrease the reach of the pandemic. You would have been wrong, and not by just a bit. 

Due to the large number of unvaccinated people across the globe, the pandemic will be entering its third year with a roar. I have friends who have been fully vaccinated (i.e. including a booster shot) and who mask up in public come down with uncomfortable Covid cases. None of those friends have been hospitalized, which is one of the predicted effects of being properly vaccinated. 

"Cause and effect" essays are quite common forms of argument since they promise some sort of progress or change. A problem is that it is much easier to work backwards from an effect and find causes that might have been obscured in the past.

I was thinking of the ongoing airline crisis of cancellations and delays and what the causes might be. Finding the causes is important if society hopes to avoid future flying chaos. Lack of transparency and the nation's fragmented health systems mean we may not know for some time just how important airline employee illness and absences have been, as opposed to weather issues (ice in Seattle, as an example). 

Digging a bit deeper leads us to the early days of the pandemic, when most airlines quickly encouraged employees to retire or simply move to another occupation. Airlines were able to get more efficiencies from their employees, with larger planes, fewer (but fuller) flights, and reductions in standby crews in case of emergencies. Executives bragged about how they were fattening profits while reducing staff by 10 percent or more. The federal government propped the airlines up with many millions of dollars in support.

So the true cause of the most recent spate of cancellations might really be simple human greed, and that is certainly one cause that never changes much.

Greed will likely also prompt whatever the fix might be for the problem, since no business enjoys the very bad publicity of not being able to deliver on whatever customers pay for. Customers eventually stop paying.

My family's experience with Alaska Airlines this past week (and continuing through Sunday at least) leads me to vow to never fly that airline in the future. I made a similar vow regarding Frontier some years ago after some similar let downs and disappointments (and horrible customer service). 

I have not noticed any negatives in my traveling life stemming from that decision. 

At some point, I may run out of airlines to boycott, but there's a little satisfaction in the simple act of saying "no" to a company or product. 

Nature reminds us that it always wins in the end

One week ago our Seattle family was scheduled to fly to Denver to celebrate Christmas with us, the first time in two years.

Little did anyone know that the five day, four night visit would double in length, at least. Yep, they got caught in the omicron/weather foul up that has affected thousands of travelers. Their initial Alaska Airlines flight was cancelled last Wednesday but they were able to get on a late flight that arrived in Denver about midnight.

Alaska Air claimed the cancellation was due to weather, but we all suspect that crew shortages were the real culprit at that points. That late flight was a hassle but other than not getting to bed until 2 a.m. last Thursday, crisis averted. Well, delayed.

Last Saturday came Seattle snow and cold, quite unusual and quite paralyzing for the Puget Sound area. Sara, Barry and the boys spent about seven hours in limbo on Monday in DIA, hoping their 1 p.m. flight would take off... though it was eventually delayed until 5:45. After all that teasing, the airline ended up cancelling the flight altogether, sending me back to the airport to pick them up and bring them back to Highlands Ranch.

The good news is that they have our house to stay in and we have space and food, etc. Plus there are no weather problems around here (though it might snow a bit on Friday), so we can get around.

The grandsons are 11 and 9 and need to get out and run and generally NOT hang around their grandparents' house. So there's that. The omicron/delta crisis means that some indoor activities that could be fun for them are not good options. Maybe some swimming (after going to Target for suits). Maybe a movie, if the theater is not crowded.

The good news: Barry's construction/home repair business is on autopilot, so to speak, since most customers can't leave home in Seattle -- few plows, steep, slippery hills, holidays, etc. -- and they have a renter who can watch the house and the dog they are dog-sitting (another concern). Sara loaded up her Seattle Times work to a server, worried that they might end up quarantined due to Covid while here. That turned out to work well for the worse-than-expected Seattle storm, as she is just finishing her section for the Sunday paper online.

Right now they are booked on a Sunday flight on the last four seats available -- all first class. That is not in the budget but what can they do? On the other hand, no one would be surprised to see THAT flight cancelled.

Alaska Airlines is clearly not covering itself with glory here, and their entire customer service system has melted down. No one knows anything. No one shares anything. No one is going to help customers who might be stuck away from home for a number of extra days. "Act of God" is the excuse, but we know that human incompetence is also at work here.

So their quick visit now extends into the new year. I have a couple bottles of sparkling wine in the frig and our only weather event coming is a chance of light snow Friday. 

Our guests are understandably anxious (not to mention hopeful that their vehicle battery will turn over after being parked at SEATAC for 10 days or more in record breaking cold).

Kathleen and I weren't going anywhere so we are now in the acceptance stage of the situation. Maybe this whole debacle will eventually become family lore, complete with heroes and villains and fun moments.

As several in the family have said, "It could be worse."

That may become America's new motto as we trudge, weary, into 2022.

Feeling a little blue after Christmas

The Monday after Christmas is bound to be a bit sad. A trip to the airport to drop off family at least keeps your mind off missing everyone, but Covid and weather and who the heck knows what else has caused two of the three Alaska Air flights to be cancelled. Our daughter's family is still at the airport, hoping that the flight they are on, the one still scheduled, takes off.

About five hours late.

As with a certain percentage of life's challenges, there is nothing to be done. The systems are too complex and the decisions of large corporations are too opaque. I am home cleaning a bit and putting some decorations away and feeling a bit guilty that I am home while family members are stuck in America's purgatory: a large, impersonal airport.

New Year's celebrations are on the horizon but you would need to be quite fatalistic about the virus to seriously contemplate some sort of crowded party, filled with wine and dance and laughter and germs.

Yet millions likely will put themselves and others at risk this weekend, though not us. No going out to a restaurant, though we may order a nice takeout meal. No going to the theater to see "West Side Story" or any other intriguing film, though there are plenty of great options from our many streaming services. 

The new year is likely going to begin just like the old year in terms of the country and the world finding some sort of  "normal," which is depressing. But perhaps this omicron variant will burn through the population quite quickly and February could see some respite. 

One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel albums includes the song, "Old Friends." It contains this memorable line: "How terribly strange to be seventy."

Seventy-one is just as strange.

Kathleen and I don't need to go to work and we happen to live in a sane corner of a rather insane county, so we are as confident as we can be that we will be OK.

At this point in history, that is as much as we can ask.

Omicron is at the wheel of a nation without clear defenses

In the chaos of family at our house I missed posting yesterday, but I am giving myself absolution. Everyone needs some grace from time to time.

There was some angst a couple days ago when our Seattle daughter found out that their scheduled flight on Wednesday had been cancelled. She toyed with cancelling the whole thing, but eventually got a night flight to Denver and they arrived about midnight. 

Her worries now are split between Covid and cancelled flights (they are scheduled to fly back to SEATAC on Monday, one of the busiest travel days of the year). And today I see that airlines have cancelled at least 3,000 flights today and tomorrow (Christmas). I am avoiding bringing this up in conversation but assume she knows.

I think I overheard her this morning asking her husband if he could rearrange his schedule in case of a cancelled or delayed flight, so she is already planning her options.

She and family got stuck last time they were here for Christmas, in 2019, due to a snowstorm, and they ended up staying an extra day. This year we are expecting highs in the 50s for Christmas and we haven't had much precipitation around here since September (and none in sight). 

This year's uncertainty stems from lots of airline employees being sick or quarantined due to the rapidly spreading virus and the newish omicron strain. The good news is that this newest variation doesn't seem as nasty as some earlier variations, with the tradeoff being that it spreads WAY faster.

The new year promises to bring more chaos in staffing and hospital overcrowding and general worry and despair... though we may be on to the next crisis by later January (if the experience of South Africa is any indicator). The faster the virus spreads, the faster it burns out (or moves on to a new mutation).

As far as airline disruption is concerned, there are some weather challenges this week but the key factor appears to be staffing. We certainly don't want people who are not feeling well to be welcoming us onto crowded flights or (maybe more crucial) piloting complex planes.

Hospitals and nursing homes are experiencing the same phenomenon, leaving patients with non-Covid needs to hold off procedures and away from normal testing and preventive care. Is there any doubt that we will see all sorts of teachers come down with (I hope) at least mild cases of Covid once kids return to classrooms in another week or so? 

It's one thing to have a few students miss some class (and perhaps get some online help). It's another thing to have the teachers unable to function normally.

And still the country argues about, well, everything. 

"Elf" is loved by most Americans, right? Let's hope such small shared agreements can expand in 2022.

The four grandchildren and their parents will join Kathleen and me in watching that movie this afternoon. It should be fun.

And it is Christmas Eve, after all. Maybe this weekend will be a short truce in the ongoing culture wars.

Wouldn't THAT be a miracle?

Hey, where did everybody go?

I wrote a post a few days ago asking about where all the workers have gone in the U.S. There have been lots of theories, particularly from the left, that workers have simply had it and are refusing to continue their dangerous, boring, and underpaid work (often all three).

Another theory, mostly from the right, is that the government has given out so much support that people can actually afford to quit their jobs and live on "relief" plus a few part-time gigs.

Both are likely not even close to the truth, which is that all the scare talk about what happens when the Baby Boomers retire -- too many retirees and too few workers, with social security and medicare facing insolvency -- was accurate. The unanticipated added factor is that lots of Americans have chosen to take some form of early retirement. 

There are estimates that 90 percent of the "missing" are actually older workers, from 55 on up. Anyone who is predicting that those workers are coming back are deluded. 

Teachers are a great example of how retirement really works. Very few teachers who opt for retirement, and many are still in their 50s, seriously consider coming back to the grind. Yes, they were incredibly dedicated and they were incredibly under-compensated during their work lives, but their pensions and assorted options for all sorts of part-time and volunteer work dampen any romantic notions about returning to the classroom.

The pandemic makes it far worse, of course, with the associated political battles and continuing "thank you for your service" tributes to educators always revealed to be insincere and fleeting. 

America has thrived for many years on young parents paying exorbitant child care expenses and on women being willing to take less pay and take on more responsibility in K-8 education particularly. 

And as long as the rich could maintain a large pool of uneducated, poor workers, there were always takers for even the worst gigs.

But various trends have now come together to upend the formula for the rich. Reduce the number of new immigrants. Drop the birth rate. Increase robotics and AI in factories and stories. Add in very large numbers of over-55 retirees from the "prime labor pool." 

I know I sound quite cynical when I repeat this, but the world sorts into the very rich and everyone else. Political parties are dominated by the very rich. 

The very rich will always be fine, in case you were worried about those souls. And they will be fine whoever is in the White House in a few years and whichever party is in power in state and national legislatures.

I'm not suggesting that the 99 percent give up or ignore politics or stop caring about the future.

But I might be suggesting that everything is local.

Does the water in this beaker feel warm to you?

How could a rational person not be a bit worried about our nation's politics and our nation's direction when one man from West Virginia seems to have become the most important voice in the country.

Joe Manchin must be one of the most reviled people in America, particularly among progressives, as he continues to hold up multiple major bills and initiatives, all in the service of... ??? We aren't quite certain and he is not very transparent about his concerns. 

Perhaps he is more forthcoming with President Biden or with Senate colleagues, but mostly we just see daily headlines about his inflation worries or his agonizing over child credits or his immense wealth, which mostly comes from oil and gas.

In any "normal" period of time, Manchin probably would switch parties. After all, West Virginia has become overwhelming red and most voters just vote for the party affiliation. He is an anomaly.

There is an old saying that people get the government they deserve. Americans have split so wildly and (maybe) fatalistically that our evenly divided Senate and nearly even House, and an approval rating for Biden at low levels, and a general feeling of "we are pissed and we want to toss whoever is in charge" are where we are stuck.

I read a story today where various political scientists discussed whether we had reached a tipping point in the nation, where we may have passed some threshold to the new reality of autocratic, minority rule. Some thought we were sort of like the frog in the beaker, with the temperature slowly rising until the frog is boiled alive.

There was probably a point where the frog could hop out and save itself but it is difficult to discern exactly where that point is.

I wonder how close we are to that tipping point right now.

Theater of the absurd is all around us

Missed yesterday's post due to an extended shopping trip and mental exhaustion following our contributions to keeping the economy humming. 

Kathleen and I roused ourselves enough to attend granddaughter Grace's JV basketball home opener at Arapahoe HS, where we saw one of the silliest examples of "mask theater" I have come across.

By mask theater, I mean the idea (or at least suspicion) that the act of wearing or not wearing a mask has much more to do with state of mind than physical protection from the virus. It is similar to the theater we have come to see when we fly: shoes must come off to be carefully scanned... all tracing back to one hapless terrorist-wanna-be attempting to damage a plane with a shoe bomb.

Maybe I have not paid close enough attention, but I have never read or heard of any similar attempt in 15 years plus, but the ritual continues. 

We know it's mostly theater when we experience, as we did during Thanksgiving week travel, TSA agents treating everyone as if they were TSA Pre-approved. During Thanksgiving week, Denver TSA agents waved everyone through without having them remove their shoes or place electronics in a separate bin, etc. There had been too much bad publicity for the airport over the preceding months about incredibly long lines to get through security. So rules were bent.

Sorry about the short detour there, but all the athletes who played last night wore masks, but they were tucked under their chins. This included the referees. Many in the stands didn't even go that far, simply dispensing with masks altogether.

Evidently the players and coaches were ordered to wear masks, but were also informed that HOW they wore them was their choice. The masks ended up being weird additions to their uniforms and (I guess?) met the letter of the law, or recommendation, or policy, or... something. Maybe next game they will wear them as armbands?

The effect was clear. Rules and 'best practices' are flexible at Arapahoe (maybe throughout the state?) and those who (as we did) wore their masks correctly could be forgiven for wondering just how far behind the zeitgeist we were. 

The zeitgeist -- or defining spirit or mood of the times -- appears to be that everyone has had enough of the pandemic and that we simply need to figure out a way to live with yet another danger (like brain damage from motorcycle riding or fellow drivers clearly texting at stop lights). We're Americans, damn it, and our freedom cannot be abridged in any way (well, beyond seat belt laws and required immunizations for our children to attend school and speed limits and payroll taxes and... the list is quite long).

When we got home, we watched the Iowa-Iowa State basketball game (a debacle for the Hawks). Perhaps it's just Iowa, now dominated by rabid reactionaries and conspiracy theorists, but there wasn't a mask in sight in that crowded, sweaty arena of screaming fans.

Honestly, I prefer the blatant and public to the game playing and lip service. Live your truth, I guess.

Maybe everyone in Hilton had been fully vaccinated, so why bother with masks?

Ha! Ha! Ha!

A holiday image that sticks with you

This post required an image, something I have tried not to do with this little blog since it began. My goal was to focus on the written word, purposely avoiding using many of the tools that online publishing has available. But this Christmas card photo from a Kentucky congressman has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

The photo was posted on Twitter by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) last Saturday, along with the caption: “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.”

I am impressed by the sheer size of the congressman's weapon. Now there's a man's man. I assume his sons hope to some day be able to handle such a killing machine, but their current firearms look quite efficient (I suppose their users' skills determine some of that). Until then, dad still possesses the "big one."

The females clutch their own somewhat smaller guns, which launches an additional line of thinking. The younger daughter (middle) looks almost of pleased as did with her weapon (which she may not be old enough to own?).

This photo has produced a lot of criticism in Michigan in the past couple days. The Oxford HS massacre is quite recent and raw for those softies up north. The good news? Everyone will wring their hands and offer their prayers and soon move on to other, more important concerns. Like limiting the opportunity for some to vote... or policing the wombs of America.

Of course, the far right radicals praised the image, with Colorado's own online terrorist Lauren Boebert tweeting, "That’s my kind of Christmas card!”

Honestly, does that woman do anything in D.C. beyond avidly watching social media and responding with the most incendiary words she can muster? Her district will benefit greatly from both the recently passed infrastructure bill and the coming second part of Build Back Better, and she has zero input or interest in either of those. 

But are her constituents not entertained?!

As far as more progressive folks calling the card disgraceful so soon after the Michigan shootings, that seems like a stretch. I doubt that the Massie family rushed to gather for this portrait after last week's latest school shooting. It's Christmas, and images for cards are best taken long in advance. And no matter the time of year, this sort of image might remind us of frequent school shootings -- there have been at least 144 this calendar year, with 28 deaths and 86 injuries.

The timing is unfortunate, maybe, but the truly frightening thing is that many, many American families would love to share a similar image during this season of peace.

And if the family truly is in need of ammo, they can look forward to some nice after-Christmas sales.