Not surprisingly, teachers want assurances, like everyone else. They want an answer to the question, “How do we reopen safely”? Currently, I don’t see this answer being available. The best we seem able to do is take a shot at it, hoping it’ll work out.

Taking a step further back, the reason it seems to be working in other countries is because Donald Trump isn’t in charge, and other countries didn’t have their heads up their asses and act like hubris-infused ignoramuses. There was top down policy, a path and a plan, and most people abided by it. Such conformity probably makes the average red-blooded American shudder. Still, this governmental guidance was largely followed and looks like it is working!

We, of course, are Americans and we don’t do what works for other people. We do what seems patriotic according to Fox News and OANN, and also what preserves this crippling notion of personal freedom at all costs and in all circumstances.  Well, when I say “we,” I mean enough people to keep from making any consistent progress in checking the spread of the virus.

Why is it difficult to shake the feeling that the attempts at reopening schools, by and large, are destined for failure?

Forget about normal! That ship has sailed. There is no normal to return to. This mindless insistence that we get back there is hurting us and greatly inhibiting any potential progress. We need to fight with every fiber of our being this tug toward all things familiar.

Just because you or someone you know hasn’t been affected or infected by covid doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. How would you explain being infected by a hoax?

The sign at the Presbyterian church proudly proclaims that it has never closed since Covid emerged. Wow, I guess a medal is in order? God must be impressed?

The earth is gonna win, one way or another. I guess there’s still time for a win-win scenario, but we’d have to get our act together. And what are the chances of that?

The plans, such as they are, for a return to school are getting plenty of attention right now. As usual, it is difficult to separate the Trump administration’s insistence on returning to “normal” from this head-long tumble into a situation that has “disaster” written all over it.

What are the motivations here? Is it truly about the kids who will benefit from being back in the classroom and not stuck at home? Or is it more about appearances and economics and the optics in the run-up to the election, like most everything else in Trumpland? Is there some expectation that this is a sacrifice teachers and other staff just have to make- putting themselves at risk of infection? Or is it yet another mandate and act of desperation from an administration that couldn’t care less about other peoples’ sacrifices?

What are the motivations?

There is no doubt about the difficulty of finding a solution to this. The infuriating reality is that we could be having less fretful conversations at this point if EVERYTHING had been handled differently from the start, if people had masks to wear, sucked it up and just wore them and kept their distance. If everyone, or most everyone, had taken this seriously from the get-go, we could probably be talking about opening our schools safely.

As it is, it’s a herding of cats. A crap shoot. There again is no plan that is going to work in every (any?) situation, there are no guarantees of safety. There are a million moving parts and variables. There are some teachers retiring instead of having to go back to a dangerous environment. There are many others who are having trouble viewing this as a duty, as a hill worth potentially dying on. And most are at least yearning for money for cleaning supplies and PPE, and assurance that there is a workable and safe way through this.

A failure to communicate, disastrous wishful thinking, willful ignorance, a nation in disarray, a pathetic, appalling disregard for the warnings from scientists along the way– it’s all coming home to roost now, and it’s rendering a wise decision about our schools next to impossible. Futility looms, and this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

And let’s not forget about the virus itself. Sooner or later, it may get the respect it deserves.

Sports stories don’t really seem like important news to me at the moment, except for the one about the coronavirus running rampant through the Miami Marlins. Wow, no one could see that coming.

“Futility” seems to be a word made for these efforts at finding “normal,” though MLS and European soccer seem to be handling it pretty well so far, minus actual crowds.

Bob Costas made the distinction I was glad to hear last night when he said we want sports, we don’t need sports. Yes. Exactly! Enough of the crying and whining about needing sports. If you need sports, then it’s probably time you expanded your horizons or made peace with watching rebroadcasts.

What is going to happen if the NFL doesn’t hold its season? Cue the vapors. It’ll be the end of the world.

It’s past time to take “normal” out of the lexicon. Just do it. Put it on a shelf until at least the second quarter of 2021. And even then, there will be something unrecognizable about post-Covid-19 life, if there’s a chance there will be such a time. Sounds like we might have to add it to the list of things we deal with every year.

Beware the one who doesn’t drink and has no sense of humor.

The fears are real. Based on past and current performance. If Trump gets re-elected, we can kiss our collective ass goodbye. There’s so much to dread with another four years of this monster. So, it can’t happen.

This nation has been hijacked and taken hostage. There’s literally nothing to smile about when it comes to Trump. He’s a repository for all that is dark and ugly. I’ve never seen anything like it- someone who’s so willing to create chaos if it serves his ends. He truly appears to be an authoritarian wannabe. We should have seen this coming when he descended that damned escalator.

Descent, alright. It was writing on the wall, metaphor for much of what has happened since.

Nancy Pelosi is 80 years old. How can her heart still be in what she’s doing? She seems feisty and engaged, and I’m glad she seems unafraid to square off against the Donald. But still. She’s 80. I know this sounds awful, but she’s 80.

Our country is run by career politicians who keep getting re-elected and staying until they die. While she’s not under appointment like a SC justice, it ends up being like that. She and Mitch McConnell and others serve either until they expire or they decide they can’t do it anymore. Or they get defeated in an election, eventually, maybe. Are their hearts still in their work, or are they just in love with the lifestyle and benefits? Are “stability” or “continuity” or “familiarity with the workings of Congress” good enough arguments for someone to stick around for 30 years or more?

How about no more than two consecutive terms, 8 years max for Senators and Representatives? That should be enough time to effect positive change, or take up space without doing irreparable damage to one institution or another.

It seems fishy to me that Trump restarts the Covid press conferences shortly after the redirection of statistics from CDC to HHS.

Seems like the door is now opened to manipulated data that he or others can hand pick to paint whatever picture they feel needs painting.

Or is this just unwarranted cynicism and suspicion?

How is it remotely possible for anyone to still support Donald Trump? The only answer I can come up with is that people are gullible and desperate. Stubborn, too.

Take a closer look, people. Dare to take a closer look. Look into his scowling countenance, his empty eyes, his empty soul. Listen to the words that ooze from him like sewage bubbling up in your back yard. Look at the people with whom he surrounds himself. Then decide if you still think he’s the person for the job.

This pandemic disaster is in no small part his doing (and yours, too, since you believe the virus is a hoax and masks are for suckers and wimps). Our new standing in the world as laughingstock and object of scorn and pity is in no small part because of him. He’s not a leader. He’s not even fully human. He is dead inside, a thousand times worse than the Grinch. Yet you seem to love him. This can only be because you don’t want to admit your mistake, your miscalculation. You can’t concede anything to us pansy socialist libtards who saw the writing on the wall, but who obviously hate America and want to turn it into a nanny state.

Wow, you really will believe anything.

In your own estimation, you may be patriots and you may love America. But your patriotic fervor comes with strings attached, blind spots and caveats. You may think it’s love, but it’s really something less.

I realize now that the America I used to believe in was in some ways a figment of my imagination. This is what can happen as you get older and are given occasional peeks behind the curtain. Still, there was something upright and pure about my once-upon-a-time America. I was proud of it, thought it could do no wrong. Heck, fifty-one years ago today Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. Then walked on it! That was a heady time, something to celebrate after a rough 1968.

Back then, I pledged allegiance without reservation. I viewed the flag as a powerful symbol of freedom. But equality had never been something I gave much thought to. I didn’t spend a lot of time pondering the reality that other Americans didn’t really feel like they were Americans, didn’t feel welcomed or that they belonged here. They saw the flag differently. They saw the moon landing effort differently. They saw, and see, many things differently.

Nation building, it turns out, is more complicated and less virtuous than the version we we’ve been fed in our history books. It is a ruthless, dirty business. Someone is always getting caught in the bulldozer treads.

The flag means less to me now than it once did. I’m not proud of this “exceptional” country the way I once was. I’m angry with it, sad for it, wondering if it will survive much longer. Wondering if it can emerge from the current darkness and confusion.

In the back of my mind, words like “resilience” and “hopefulness” still rattle around. And these are what we need now, in the throes of a pandemic, in the midst of unrest and increasingly acute economic hardship, and with the likes of Donald Trump running the show and poisoning everything.

If we get the opportunity to look back on these days, I hope we can see them as catharsis, as revelation, as the moment when we as a nation looked in the mirror and finally didn’t like what we saw.  

If governors do their job and lead with a level head, mindful of data, and they stick to their guns, they get hit with opposition for being too dictatorial, not business-friendly enough. They get attacked for doing their job and making decisions and trying to protect the public. But the infection rates and hospitalizations drop.

If they decide to kiss Trump’s ass and disregard precautions and open early, they end up with a short-lived period of pseudo-normalcy followed by sky-rocketing sickness, maxed-out ERs, exhausted doctors and nurses, a drain on precious PPE, and businesses that have to close again anyway.

What bothers me is that the former course of action hasn’t been adopted by every state. There are no longer adequate words to capture the futility of trying to understand the vast differences of opinion and adopted strategies.

Andrew Cuomo adopted a rational and sane strategy and stuck to it. Ron DeSantis and his kindred idiot in Georgia just decided “No one will tell us how to handle things, except the Almighty Donald. We’re still fighting the Civil War and this time we’re gonna win. We have rights.”

Maybe they also have blood on their hands.