Contents Under Pressure

"We all go a little mad sometimes." So spake Norman Bates. Not everyone goes to the extremes that young Norman did, but at this time of heightened uncertainty, I can relate. Not to the whole hacking up people in a shower degree, but "a little mad" for sure.
Which may explain all these folks having meltdowns in public. Four solid months of being told what to do and where to do it has begun to affect the nervous systems of a lot of Americans. This may help to explain the outbursts of people being reminded that they need to wear a mask in public. Not a day goes by that there isn't a new viral video of someone throwing a fit in the aisles of Costco or some other retailer. No one puts baby in a corner, and no one tells Karen or Chris to cover their faces during a global pandemic. What about the land of brave and home of the free? Nobody is gonna make me wear a mask!
I am sure, given the apologies posted by clearer heads the day after, that we are not seeing the best and brightest of what our country has to offer. The tipping point for most Americans is closer than ever these days. I wonder, at times, how I might react if I was caught being rude or arrogant by someone holding a camera. I like to think that I would try and flatten the curve by including my apology right at the end of the video that would be posted everywhere in a matter of moments. Except that it wouldn't have much of a chance to go viral if I ended up admitting to my human frailties. "I have been under so much stress lately with COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter and everything our 'president' continues to burble, I am so sorry that I lost control there. How can I make it up to you?"
Views: Nine.
Speaking of our "president," I suppose I could offer up the same kind of empathy to Don Cheeto Trumpleone. I am sure that when he got it into his head to run for office he never expected all the wheels to pop off the wagon at the same time. At the same time, I should point out that the wheels might still be firmly in place if the country had been carefully managed over the past four years, but really. And then no one came to his big rally in Oklahoma. And his boys on the Supreme Court couldn't keep him from having to surrender his tax returns. And he has that sneaking suspicion that everyone is after him, he's just about right. Including members of his own party.
So, if it helps to imagine the "president" sitting down in the middle of Wal-Mart and declaring that he doesn't have to wear a mask because he is, after all, "president," please go right ahead. Just don't expect the belated apology from that guy. That's not happening.

Cost Benefit Analysis

Remember a couple of days ago when I was talking about my ambivalence regarding returning to school? And all the voices that I heard echoing my concerns for the safety of students and staff? Well, you'll never guess who comes down hard on the other side of that fence.
"I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!"
Okay. The three exclamation points were probably a giveaway. At least the "president" refrained from his usual presentation of all capital letters. Subtle, but it does convey his major worries. "Tough and expensive guidelines." The Center for Disease Control, which is responsible for our nation's response to things like a global plague, said they are “prepared to work with every school district” to create a safe reopening this fall for students amid the coronavirus pandemic. Their recommendations include such items as increased cleaning, protective gear, and regular testing for all those involved. Social distancing and masks will be the cornerstone of any in-person instruction. 
As someone who regularly ties the shoes of my young charges or is on the receiving end of hugs from kids whose joy bucket is full and overflowing, I wonder just how we will all adjust to six feet of defensible space. I wonder how six year olds will cope with a mask covering their mouths and noses, where so much goes in an out every day. 
To be clear: I am nervous about schools opening too soon, but I am not afraid. I believe that I have the support of my community and will do whatever I can to get our children back to school. It is where they belong. It is where I belong. But the lesson I return to over and over again was the one they taught us the first day in teacher school: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. That's the one where we need to make sure that kids have a safe place to learn first, before we ever start with the reading, writing and jumping jacks. I should also note here that there is a strong argument made by many psychologists about the pain and stress kids are experiencing as a result of all the isolation. Couple that with questions about how parents will cope with a new reality that may continue to ask them to be part of their child's daily school routine. A potentially very big part. 
Confusing, tough, and almost certainly expensive, but this still doesn't answer the question raised by the "president's" disagreement: What is the correct cost to put on the future of our children? The "president" has even suggested that he would withhold federal funds for schools that don't open as he says. Of course, it is quite possible that Trump's Hierarchy of Needs looks just a little different from Maslow's. His is a lot more like Yertle the Turtle. Of course, it might be interesting to note that Melania's son attends Saint Andrew's Episcopal School, where plans are still being solidified for the upcoming year, including concerns for the health and safety for all who attend. No mention about the price tag on those plans. That doesn't seem to be an issue. 

Write A Better Ending

I blame the writers. Everything would be so much better now if they hadn't gone out on strike back in 2007. The Writers Guild of America walkout back then brought TV and film production to a standstill. For one hundred days, writers did not write. Comedies, dramas, soap operas and so forth could no longer get fresh words for characters to say. There were no characters.
Well, at least no scripted characters.
The powers that be in New York and Hollywood came up with a way to keep audiences in front of their TV sets where they belonged. Or their computers. Or their phones. Bypass that traditional oracle of entertainment and find ways to put shows out that were called "new media." Wouldn't you need writers to create this "new media?" Not if the powers that be just turned on cameras and pointed them at real people doing real things. If you wanted to be a millionaire, and who doesn't, you could have a show. If you wanted to try to survive on a desert island in competition with a bunch of other contestants who were not clever enough to simply sit in a chair and call your friends for answers to win your million dollars, you could have a show. If you wanted to be the next top model or design clothes for that next top model to make your million, you could have a show. At this point, you didn't really need to have much more than a potential humiliation and a million dollars prize money to have a show. And you didn't have to pay writers. Blame Idols from America and Stars with whom you might have Danced. Watching celebrities babble and fail without the aid of a script was quite the bonanza back in those wild times.
It was in 2008 that a little show called Celebrity Apprentice showed up. After four years of hollering "You're fired" at civilians, game show host Donald Trump started shouting at stars. Or what passed for stars at that time. Who needs writers when you've got a guy who bankrupted his own casinos belittling "celebrities" like Jose Canseco and Omorosa. Must-see TV indeed.
If those same powers that be had just gone ahead and paid a higher percentage to their creatives for DVDs and YouTubery, we probably wouldn't have the "president" we have right now. Certainly he would not have had the exposure given to him once a week the National Broadcasting Company ended up lavishing on him. Next time the WGA and those studio heads start fussing with one another, I hope cooler heads will prevail.
And we probably wouldn't have to worry about keeping up with the Kardashians either.

Until The Twelfth Of Never

When you're a kid, everything feels like forever. Waiting for your mom to finish talking to the neighbor so you can ask her about the popsicles you are pretty sure you saw her put int he freezer. Forever. Standing in line for Space Mountain. Forever. All the way back last summer. Forever. And this doesn't just apply to little kids. The time it takes for your date to be ready while you wait downstairs with her mother. Forever. The interval between phone calls from your best friend. Forever.
While I was out for a run the other day, I realized that my feelings about forever have changed since we went into quarantine. Back in March. So much continues to happen out there, and so very little occurs inside our little bubble. The hour or so that I spend exercising each day is a finite period, but some days it feels like it could go on and on. Finding activities to break up the day is a challenge most often represented by trying to figure out what we will have for dinner.
I wondered how teenage romance was faring through all of this. I can remember celebrating week and month anniversaries. Precious and few are the moments we two can share, indeed. That yearning for another person when they aren't there. The heartache and the thoughts that fill your head: What are they doing now? I wonder if they're thinking about me? I wonder when I will see them again? I wonder if they will forget about me? The voices of insecurity.
Go ahead and toss the burning tractor tire of the coronavirs on top of that and I imagine you've got some idea of how things might be going down. Sure, you could Facetime or Zoom the object of your affections, but long distance remains only the next best thing to being there. Are there boys and girls sneaking out of their shelter in place to canoodle with one another? Or just to gaze at one another adoringly without the box around them?
I consider myself very fortunate to have a happy marriage within the limits of normal as we plunge headlong through this voyage to forever. In sickness and health, and all that. We continue to find ways to connect and give each other space, as necessary. We have that sort of freedom. Having a wife in my social bubble turns out to be a pretty good thing. Sure, we fuss at one another from time to time about what we are going to watch on Netflix, or what the proper number of nights to have frozen pizza might be, but we are not negotiating those first shaky steps of a baby relationship. I know that online dating is now more than ever a thing, but it won't alleviate the inner turmoil brought on by the navigation of those initial months.
Besides, I'm a grownup now. If I want popsicles, I'll put on my mask, wait in line, buy them, bring them home and disinfect them and then put them back in the freezer to wait until they are frozen again. Tom Petty was right. It's the waiting.

Given The Alternative

So, first of all, be content in the knowledge that you did not have to listen to me prattle on and on about having jury duty last week. I went into the experience with much the same anxiety and ambivalence that I have in the past, but with an eye toward just how unlikely it would be to herd hundreds of us into that room and sit us down to wait for our names to be called. Instead, I sat by the phone and checked in each day to see if my smaller group would be called. When Friday came and I was excused, I was relieved of that bit of angst for the year.
And all the while I was attending Zoom meetings in anticipation of the opening of a new school year. What will it be like? Everyone back? Half in, half out? Everybody looking in from their computers? How would we protect the kids? How would we protect the staff? Would there be enough room to do any of the suggested alternatives? Jury duty seemed like a much more certain process. Someone was telling me where to go and when to be there, even if it was simply, "Stay put." There was none of that kind of clarity available from the Oakland Unified School District.
It would be easy at this point to complain about how my school district struggles with making decisions. This may or may not be the case, but the current situation requires careful planning. Education is suddenly a life or death situation. A month ago, when curves were beginning to flatten and cases were dropping, some of the more creative ideas seemed possible. Children were seemingly invulnerable and they just needed some properly covered adults to herd them and teach them to read. Then spikes began to appear. Medical science has continued to be tested by a disease that no one seems to understand. The clearest path continues to be masks and isolation. Imagining a room with just ten five year olds in it seems an unlikely place to carry out this kind of experiment.
I attended a meeting of one thousand plus stakeholders, primarily parents, who were hoping for answers to the sixty-four thousand dollar question: What is going to happen on August tenth? While the district set out a series of different scenarios, they continued to insist that there would be no "final plan" until July tenth. That gives us all a month to scramble around in hopes of creating lesson plans and finding daycare and arranging for increased custodial service once that final plan drops.
The virus may have other ideas. Thus far each attempt at returning to whatever normal is has been met with a surge in cases. Parents at the meeting filled the chat with their fears and worry. One in particular stuck with me: "I don't care if my child does fall behind academically. At least he'll be alive." Hard to argue with that kind of fierce reality.
The clock continues to tick. School districts around the country are under pressure to give kids a place to go, not just to learn, but to allow their parents a moment's rest. Those two months of distance learning turned out to be as much a learning experience for teaches as it was for any of their students. Now we're potentially going to toss another level of difficulty by doing in-person social distancing mask wearing education.
Jury duty seems to have a certain appeal by contrast.
Stay tuned.

From The Top

Okay, maybe it's time to check our priorities.
There is currently a laundry list of catastrophes awaiting our review.
Let's begin with the global pandemic. It's a global thing, so it seems like maybe it could be the top of the charts. Still, it's primarily a human thing and if there wasn't climate change on the menu then there might be a way to bring all our focus to bear on that. The sad irony of these two items is that they are connected. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been a reduction in global CO2 emissions. With everybody stuck inside, fewer trips to Burger King and Disneyland, the damage we were doing daily to our planet slowed down. It never stopped, but it was slowed. Humans were dying by the thousands, but the world breathed a sigh of relief.
Metaphorically anyway.
A couple of months into the shutdown created by COVID-19, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. It is possible that if we all hadn't been locked away with our twenty-four hour news cycle which fed us the horrifying video and the tensions that boiled over, we might have simply stuck it on a list of racist tragedies that we would get to later. But once again, the virus gave us an opening. We could organize. We could assemble our thoughts. We could hold ourselves and others accountable. With just a little time to reflect, it became apparent that there really was no viable counterargument to Black Lives Matter. We even had a chance to consider other items like defunding the police. Election Reform. Restorative Justice.
Okay, not everyone spent their time focusing on some of these big picture bits. Some of us looked inward. Not necessarily in reflection, but more of a chance to imagine how all of this could be our fault. It couldn't possibly be our fault.
Could it?
Because that would be a much bigger problem. Personal responsibility for what happens to our world is starting to sound like a really big problem. Turns out learning to be human is going to take a lot more work. So, let's start by wearing masks. Treating everyone with respect. Limiting our CO2 emissions. Opening Disneyland.
Okay. Maybe it's time to start over again.
From the top.

A Bigger Boat

I watched Jaws with my son on Father's Day. Perhaps not the most peculiar choice, especially when you consider the fact that poor parenting decisions allowed him to miss seeing the godfather of all summer blockbusters. I aimed to make this better for him.
And if, for some obscure reason all your own, you have managed to avoid seeing this quintessential Steven Spielberg feature, it could be that some of what I am about to relate might sail right past you. Like a shark on its way to bigger prey. Or perhaps now would be an excellent time to click on over to the streaming service of your choice and spend the necessary two hours and four minutes it takes to digest this bit of Americana.
Maybe you'll just want to take my word for this: Mayor Vaughn of Amity, played by Murray Hamilton, is the anticipation of what would become our current "president." A stuffed shirt with a predilection for ugly blazers decorated with naval anchors, this is a chief executive who shines primarily as a beacon on his community's economy. He is made aware that there is a killer shark prowling the shores of his town but he insists that the beaches stay open. The Fourth of July is coming, and no "boating accident" is going to shut down all that business coming from the mainland. After a few citizens are consumed as a matter of course, an ichthyologist arrives on the scene and lets the local authorities that what they have on their hands is a Great White. A twenty foot eating machine. On the Fourth of July, even with a whole bunch of deputies and lifeguards on hand, the shark makes a meal out of a young boy and his rubber raft in front of all those now less-than-enthusiastic tourists. And a guy in a rowboat. And probably Pippin the dog. It's a pretty gory mess. Not the type of thing that makes for a promotion for seaside fun. At the hospital, as the police chief's son is being cared for after witnessing the slaughter up close and personal, the mother of the raft sandwich shows up and slaps the chief. That's when he decides to do whatever it takes to get rid of the beast that has been plaguing their coast.
In this model, the shark is the virus. The ichthyologist is Doctor Fauci or any one of a number of experts who have tried to reason with the capitalists who are willing to put their neighbors on the buffet table to save their T-shirt shops. I'm going to cast the chief of police as California's governor, Gavin Newsom, because I think he's got a Roy Scheider kind of vibe. The mayor? That one's easy. The guy who continues to insist that the virus will "just go away." The guy who keeps pointing to the stock market and jobs report while thousands of Americans continue to die every single day. Who is going to be the shark hunter for hire? It would be nice to have some sort of happy ending, but since we all know that they made three sequels, things don't look so great. And what's perhaps most telling: Mayor Vaughn is still the mayor in Jaws 2. 
So, I guess what I'm saying here is vote. Like your life depended on it.