Gov. Whitmer has exhibited a pretty stunning lack of leadership to my mind. Her initial “stay home” order had an exemption for churches which irritated liberals. Then she rescinded it which irritated conservatives. Accordingly she has the entire state mad at her and lost most of her credibility. I don’t intend a political statement - this is an observation of bad management.
Americans are generally poor at compliance. It takes real leadership to get people all headed in the same direction.
WE Americans are indeed a herd of cats and our leadership are like the seagulls from Finding Nemo. “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
In the UK, a number of faith groups had already closed their doors before the regulations requiring them to do so came into effect. Closure appears to have universally seen as a “good thing” - although the UK is not a religious society and participation in organised religion is very much a minority interest. FWIW, only about 800k people regularly attend Anglican services and the second largest faith group, Muslims, it’s about 700k attending weekly services.
Gave a “like” to all three of you. I can’t / won’t reply directly because any reply I made would drag this further into the political realm. Don’t want to go there. Would rather hear from the community about what we all are doing to overcome the stale sameness of being cooped up at home.
Agreed. It was just something that struck me this morning.
As for coping, I think we are both doing OK. We’re both retired so are used to spending significant amounts of time at home. As such, it’s pretty much life as usual. Although, of course, it’s not. But we are just getting on with things that we’d normally get on with, generally speaking.
However, ask me again in few months - as I’m sure vulnerable health groups, such as we’re in, will still be in lockdown even if others are not.
Understood. Not trying to get political. It’s difficult not to dip one’s toe close to the edge.
I don’t find being home qualifying as either stale or cooped up. I like it here. Revenue is off a good bit and I’m working on new sources which does keep me busy. My wife is still working–from home–full time. She bridles a bit more and would agree with you about being “cooped up.” The cat and I try to keep her entertained. Her volunteer boards, her church, and her yoga classes have all gone online. She still is driven to get out of the house. Walks in the neighborhood help. Dropping off outbound shipping/mail helps also. I do grocery shopping as she has underlying conditions that make her more vulnerable. She isn’t happy about that either. grin Usually I do the big shops and she does the fill-in trips.
Clearly the Internet is straining at the seams. Traffic is way up. It isn’t kids online learning. Reporting in the US is kids aren’t logging in.
Interesting. I observe that it depends on where you live. A niece and nephew of ours who live in a district in NJ are required to log in for online instruction at 8:30 on school days. So they do.
Other places, not so. For example where I live, the district currently provides curriculum resources though not a structured distance learning day.
I have particular empathy for parents who may be doing full-time jobs from home, keeping everybody fed, facilitating online learning for their kids, and on top of that keeping their older kids from slipping out to hang with their friends. That’s a day in this life for them.
I am working remote and my colleagues, clients, and vendors are all juggling the parent, employee, and teacher roles. Some days it goes well, some days not so much.
Happily people are very understanding and deadlines arent what they used to be.
I teach 6th grade math in NJ. My students are about 50-50 split as far as logging in. The administration has reduced the work we give to about 30 mins twice a week and it doesn’t matter. I have no idea how many of those who don’t log in actually have wifi, but the district makes sure every kid has a working chromebook.
Props to you. This is a huge pivot for teachers, of course.
A former and highly tech savvy colleague of mine shared how he’s helping his wife, a teacher, produce video-format lessons for her students. That wasn’t something she had to do before. It’s a lot, fast.
After the first two weeks, emails were sent out to all parents in my grandkid’s school district. If the two weeks work wasn’t done a school security officer would visit the home. Parents/students were supplied with everything possible including daily breakfast and lunch if needed. I haven’t heard anything else about it since so I guess that did the trick. Small town Texas.
I question whether half a generation will be six months behind, a year behind, or never recover.
I’ve volunteered for online coaching and tutoring on STEM subjects. I’ve reached the parents of at least two hundred kids. Take up is zero. Meanwhile Internet performance continues to decline even as Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu commit to lower res streaming.
Bah!
I’m about as far from being of the Libertarian persuasion as anyone could be. But this type of over reach scares me!
My kids LOVED that movie!
As a non-retired single person who lives alone, I’m feeling much the same way. I had a big consulting contract last year so I’m not freaking out about not having income right now, but I do keep thinking this must be some of what retirement feels like. That said, I’m less thrown by this whole quarantine than friends who were used to going to NYC to work/commute long hours. I just wonder if I’ll ever have a F/T job again in my life!
The Philadelphia School District gave Chromebooks to every student. Turns out about 50% of the students in this poorest large city in America don’t have internet access. (Kudos to the mayor of Trenton who worked with Comcast to ensure all students have access.)
And then there’s the matter of broad swaths of rural Pennsylvania. Legislators have been battling for years to get access to these areas to no avail. So there are large areas that not only don’t have wifi, they don’t even have cell phone coverage. And I’m sure PA is not the only state with this issue. A few years back I was on vacation in North Carolina and there were areas where my Nav system just cut out with a “no signal received” message.
Right. GPS works everywhere you can see the sky. The problem you had was getting map data. Google Maps for some years starts caching map data for nearby areas anytime you have a signal. This works really well. Further, when you have WiFi you can tell Google Maps where you want to cache data and solve the problem entirely. You’ll need to set up your route before you lose signal/WiFi also.
Which leads to another thing to do during the quarantine. Update all the apps on your phone. Make sure your Windows/MacOS updates are done. Update your virus scan data. Update data in your apps (like cached map data).
Doesn’t Comcast call Philadelphia home?
I have had what I think of as a cooking epiphany today. It doesn’t merit a thread of its own so where better to share it?
It occurred to me that Tibetan/Nepalese momos, pierogi, and potstickers are fundamentally the same thing. They are unleavened wrappers around some sort of stuffing–a dumpling–either steamed, boiled, or sauteed. The mind reels with possibilities.
Potstickers stuffed with ground chicken, onions, peppers, and a homemade burrito spice thingy I’ve been working on for dinner tonight.
This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdeiDSM_CmQ should give y’all something to do for a few days with just a little flour and water.
