Why in-class learning will be over by October

From what I can tell, the back-to-school protocols being developed all come with a caveat; if/when your child develops possible Covid symptoms, you're expected to keep them home.

There's the problem. Damned near anything can be a Covid symptom.

Feeling achy? Could be Covid.

Tummy ache? Could be Covid.

Feeling lethargic? Could be covid.

Cough? Sneezes? Sniffles? Could be Covid.

On any given day in my 25 year teaching career, at least half the class could have had Covid.

Government has only themselves to blame. They've spent the last eight months scaring the bejeezus out of everybody about how deadly this virus is.

OH MY GAWD A DEADLY VIRUS NEVER SEEN BEFORE!!!

LOCK DOWN OR DIE!!!

Now they're screwed because a good chunk of the populace actually believed them.

So my prediction is that we'll be back to "e-learning" sooner rather than never.

I suspect that may be the long-term agenda, to make e-learning the new normal. Wouldn't that be a great way to castrate those pesky teachers' unions!

Gonna be a hard winter

Seems to me the geese have begun their flight training a few weeks early this year. You don't usually see these ragged formations till mid September or later.

The formations are ragged because the tribe has to train up the new geese on the protocols of the annual migration. Nailing that perfect "V" formation takes practice. Anyway, they seem keen on hitting the golf courses and beaches of Florida and the Carolinas early this year.

Gonna be a hard winter. Especially if the pending eviction tsunami hits. Gonna be a lot of folks with no place to go in this upcoming hard winter.


Wonder what's in the "global reset" for them?

LeBron's gamble

I see where LeBron has promised to use his massive name recognition for a good cause; to get out the vote.

That's a refreshing change from the days when top celebrity athletes could play out their entire careers without contributing anything to the social betterment of the masses.

Like Tiger, for example. Or MJ.

On the downside, it seems a shame to get out the vote only to have the voters face a choice between two old white guys sponsored by the same billionaire overlord class.

So much for the betterment of the masses.

Retirement 101: How to do nothing all day

Day dawned gray and gloomy. It had rained overnight. With a bit of luck, the grass will be too wet to cut today.

That's the only thing on my to-do list that's time-sensitive, cutting the grass. When it gets too shaggy it bungs up the mower, so it's best not to leave it too long.

But, if the grass is too wet, the grass is too wet. What can you do?

There are any number of things I could do, I suppose. The garage presents ample opportunities for busy work. I'm trying to figure out how to drag a 100% functional treadmill out to the road and put a "free" sign on it. Maybe I should put a "for sale" sign on instead. It was only ever lightly used and cost well over a thousand new.

These are the conundrums that occupy my day.

I deferred an immediate decision about which chore to tackle next, and drove into town to get a Globe and Mail instead. And to fill up the gas can for the mower, just in case.

How they get away with charging $4.20 for the Globe I don't know. Seems like brazen exploitation of the few souls out there still addicted to turning pages over their morning coffee. As is often the case, I struggled to find my money's worth in the reading.

Cathal Kelly had an interesting take on the NBA player's strike over the last cop shooting of a black dude. What Kelly obviously can't say from his pulpit of privilege, is that, well intentioned as this may have been, if these guys are going on strike every time there's a case of police brutality, we might as well wave good-bye to pro sports now.

Other than that, not much for my $4.20.

I did manage to get my 5k in. Then I went on the internet, and you know how that goes.

At some point the Farm Manager needed to go to the farm store around the corner. The woman who runs the joint bakes the most awesome meat pies.

On my return I resumed my internet research. Apparently Trump just hit an all-time approval rating high. How messed up is that? 180,000 lost to the plague, economy in the tank, cities on fire, and Trump's approval rating goes... up? How absolutely lame are the Democrats to let that happen?

I can get drawn into that stuff, and you always have to remind yourself that the entire 2020 election is just theatre. As such, it can be quite entertaining!


That's how to do nothing all day.

5G is critical infrastructure for the techno-fascist police state

Which is the state that is fast descending upon us.

We don't seem to have much debate about 5G, other than Huawei needs to be kept out of it because they're gonna spy on us.

Isn't the whole point of 5G to spy on us? So how does it matter whether the technology comes from China or Sweden?

From a business perspective Huawei has the advantage. After all, they have vast experience spying on millions of Chinese citizens 24/7.

But we gotta remember China is the enemy. We can't be buying our police state tech from the enemy...

That just wouldn't look right.

How many masks should my child take to school?

How about none?

That title has been a top story at CBC News all day. Notice the subtle insinuation that only a criminally negligent parent would send their child to school without a mask.

The mask thing is a bit of a head-scratcher to me. Back in April, when covid mayhem was at its peak, you could go to Walmart without one.

A few months later, when the virus has more or less run its course, you need a mask to enter Walmart?

Makes no sense to me.

And another thing I don't get; some of the experts telling us we didn't need masks are now telling us we do. How did the science change 180 degrees in a natter of months?

The local health unit hasn't recorded any covid deaths yet, not even in our plentiful retirement homes. Any child returning to school has a statistically non-existent chance of dying from this virus.

This reality is distorted by our betters at the CBC. Instead, parents are brow-beaten with guilt-mongering headlines.

Million dollar teacher

Not that I'm worth a million bucks. Not by a long shot. I spent the last twelve years of my career teaching grade 3 math to high school students. For high school credits! Yup, there's plenty of kids walking around with high school diplomas who struggle with grade 3 math.

That was worth something, but not a million dollars. Here's where that kicks in.

I was a late bloomer in terms of realizing I had a passion for education. In fact, I'd hated high school when I was a hostage there. To be honest, I was mostly passionate about steady day shift and summers off. I turned 40 the year I started teaching.

To my surprise, I enjoyed the job. From the get-go kids liked me.

"Cool tattoo sir..."

Holy shit, these idiots think a bit of ink makes you cool? Anyway, I ran with it. I was quite popular amongst the student population.

From the beginning, I was also very much unpopular amongst a certain sort of administrator; the dimwitted careerists who love their power and hate students. Along comes this goofball VP, a man clearly destined for a senior leadership position at the board office, who decides he's gonna make a name for himself by getting rid of me.

He spent six months following me around, taking notes every time I violated some petty bullshit rule. The education system is chock full of folks who thrive on making up petty bullshit rules. I once saw a "Protocol for toileting student X" that ran an unbelievable 52 bullet points. Yup, 52 steps in helping a...
well, I can't say disabled... ability challenged (?) kid take a crap.

I can reduce this to two steps right smartly. Step one - position the kid over the toilet. Step two, have him bend over in front of the 2000psi pressure washer down in the auto shop.

Mission accomplished, and you just saved 50 steps!

After six months job-shadowing me, the VP who mistook me for his ticket to the board office had a stack of notes about a foot and a half high. I know this because he'd stay late in the photocopier room, sometimes till after five o'clock. Apparently a lot of different people needed copies of his evidence. Then he wrote a pithy letter to the College of Teachers making the case that my presence in the school was a threat to the very lives of my students.

Cue the lawyers!

My legal team was provided by the Teacher's Federation. The school board also had lawyers on hand. The College of Teachers had their own legal team. The adjudicators were provided an independent legal team because the actual people judging this case were political appointees with no legal expertise. One of them was there because her husband owned a marina where some politicians kept their boats.

The first flaw in VP Dickhead's master plan was exposed when it was revealed that the board had not done an evaluation of my teaching prowess (or lack thereof) in over ten years. They're required to be done every three. The obvious first question would be, how do you allow this allegedly incompetent and dangerous teacher to keep endangering the lives of the children, neglect to do at least three scheduled and legally mandated evaluations, and then suddenly discover he's a threat to the lives of the students? 

That pretty much stalemated them from the get-go.

A couple of years into this imbroglio, I enquired of my main legal person what they had billed on my file.

"We just passed $100,000" came the reply. The case was to run almost eight years. If one legal team milked this for 100 thou in two years, how much did four legal teams bill in eight years?

Sounds like a math problem I'd assign my students... which I did!

It's obvious why something that could have been dealt with in an afternoon dragged on for that long.

Lawyers.

Everybody involved was billing hours to deep pocket organizations. Nobody has any incentive to invoke common sense and get things wrapped. The College of Teachers HQ is on the "Mink Mile" on Bloor Street. When our occasional get-togethers were in recess, you could slip out and buy a $50,000 Philippe Patek next door, if you were so inclined. Lunches were catered by the finest eateries in downtown Toronto. Nobody in their right mind is gonna rush this gravy train!


So it was that almost eight years after VP Shitwad posted his pithy letter, and seven years after the shmuck had taken early retirement (never made it to board office), it was agreed all round that nobody had intended any harm, and I promised never to endanger the lives of the children again.


And remember, every single person in this sorry saga was being paid by you-know-who. Cut out the school boards and do away with the College of Teachers, and you'd free up billions to invest in actual education.

Canada; a banana republic without the bananas

Who says nothing ever happens in Canadian politics?

Looks like PM Fluffy has pushed "pause" on parliamentary democracy. Where is the outrage?

There isn't any. Who cares? Should this not indicate something about the alienation most people feel from the political system?

Meanwhile, Chrystia Freeland, Fluffy's brain, is the new finance minister. She's still the deputy PM as well. That's an interesting appointment. Read her book. She loves billionaires.

She'll be prime minister sooner rather than later.

Somebody's beach house just took a million dollar price reduction

Which would reduce its value to somewhere around zero.



This is from the Owen Sound Sun Times today. Maybe the latest round of flooding will wake up the people who are supposed to do something about this.

But what are they going to do? Municipal governments are taking a beating as never before. Tax revenues will be leaner than before. Therefore spending will be curtailed.

It's not complicated to reduce water levels in the Great Lakes. You let more water out. The spigots are in place. We just need to convince the politicians to open them up a little more.

Those are not local politicians, however.

White House 2020 puppet show off and running!

Everything before now was just warm-up laps. Now that Kamala is aboard, it's showtime!

In the Blue corner, Lunchpail Joe, man of the people! Champion of American Exceptionalism! Staunch friend and ally of big money, the military, and Israel.

In the Red corner, actor, author, and serial bankrupt Donny J, man of the people! Champion of American Exceptionalism! Staunch friend and ally of big money, the military, and Israel.

On the face of things, there's not much to choose. But that's why the US election cycle has become a multi-billion dollar industry; to convince the rubes that it makes a difference who they vote for. Thousands of hacks and flacks and carny barkers of all stripes are billing PACs and pols on both sides top scale to foster the illusion that your vote matters.


That's what democracy has become in America.

Might as well face it; you'll be home-schooling for another year

At least.

The media fear-mongering that's been going full tilt since January is still going full tilt. There are more and more cases of children coming down with the virus, don't you know! Just as we're heading back to school...

Who is forcing those invasive tests on children with no symptoms and at no risk from the virus? I suspect it's the folks who have turned covid hysteria into a political weapon. If Trump wants the kids back in classrooms, the Dems and their media wing must work hard to ensure it doesn't happen. What's best for the students and their families is quite beside the point.

Here's a bold prediction; if Trump loses in November, the virus will quickly be brought under control. So quickly that the schools should be safe by January. However, if Trump wins... by golly, you'd best gird yourself for four more years of home-schooling.

Kamala; the Black VP most Blacks won't vote for

Kamala, back in the day, was a "tough on crime" kinda gal. As in three strikes you're out... which is how Black kids in California used to get a life sentence the third time they got busted for... anything?

Tough on crime does however appeal to a certain segment of the Dem party base these days. The folks who were all aboard for the Clinton-Biden reforms of the nineties. Generally speaking, those are not the same people as those Black voters who still see the Dems as the go-to party because their grandpa voted for them in the hippy-dippy sixties.

Peace and love and equality, man!

Times have changed, and so has the Democratic Party.

They're no worse than the Republicans, but they're not any better, either. In fact, they're pretty much the same.


Democracy in the USA... what a concept!

Biden still close to choosing running mate

This headline at the CBC has been up for a week and a half now; Biden close to choosing running mate...

A week and a half?

Is he getting any closer?

Why is it so problematic to find a suitable running mate? After all, the odds are good that this running mate will, sooner or later, become POTUS. Probably  sooner, given what we've seen of Joe recently.

So what's the hold-up?

I guess Joe did winnow the field when he tipped it had to be a person with a cervix, or whatever we call women these days.

And if you're heading up Tokenism Trail anyway, you might as well pull out the stops and go for a Black person with a cervix.

Remember, this Black person with a cervix has to be "presidential" material.

How can that possibly be a problem? Take a look at what passes for "presidential" these days.

It's not like we've set the bar particularly high.

The smart money seems to be tilting towards Susan Rice. Nobody ever mentions the other Black person with a cervix named Rice, Condi. I don't understand how she can be overlooked.

After all, how many Black people with a cervix have ever had an oil tanker named after them?

That's gotta count for something.

More evidence of racism found in Canada

Looks like the Ontario Human Rights Commission has found more evidence of racism in Canada. The OHRC has been zealously rooting out racism since 1961.

Ponder that for a moment. 1961!

If you've been rooting out racism since 1961, and there's more of it than ever in 2020, I would suggest that the efficacy of our approach to racism is somewhat wanting.

Then again, I'm not sure to what extent this is about racism. The existential imperative of any bureaucracy, whether in government or the "private" sector, is to preserve itself. Indeed, a well functioning bureaucracy will not only preserve itself, it will grow and prosper! It will send out shoots that will grow into new bureaucracies!

That's how the USA ended up with 29 "intelligence agencies." All of which are sending out shoots as I type these words...

So obviously, the OHRC has absolutely no incentive to end racism. Instead, they'll still be discovering yet more racism fifty years from now.

That's how bureaucracies work.

Where would people get the idea that school boards are run by morons?

I taught a kid who had very exceptional skateboarding skills. His skateboarding skills were so exceptional that he had signed a sponsorship agreement with a major board brand and was preparing to embark on an all-expenses-paid tour of Australia.

So he and his parents made arrangements with all his teachers to do his grade 11 credits from afar. Things were going OK till the matter went up the chain of command for Board approval.

The pointy heads at the Board determined that it would be feasible to grant credits in his academic courses, but, and how bizarre is this, not his PhysEd credit.

Why?

Because even though he's a professional grade athlete, he would miss the theoretical component of the grade 11 PhysEd curriculum, which is primarily concerned with theories about how to avoid STDs.

So a 16 year old kid who has enough skater cred to be offered a tour gets shut down by educrats who think he might be missing some crucial high school health class curriculum?


Morons!

100 mph on a motorcycle down a country road in the dark

No, it wasn't me, although in years gone by I might have been a viable suspect.

When you're doing 100 mph down a country road in the dark, and a raccoon walks out in front of you, what's gonna happen?

100 mph in the dark on a country road is a nice recipe for an obit.

Nevermind a coyote or a deer or a bear, all of which routinely wander across the country road in front of Falling Downs.


So it was a relief that after a couple of morons came screaming through the S-bends at well over 100mph, in the dark, I heard them accelerate away from the Wolsley corner a minute later.

Unfortunately for them, there's lots more bears and raccoons job-shadowing them all the way back to town.


And we wonder why bike insurance is so pricey...

Karma or Justice?

Fair warning: teacher story to follow.

One morning, well before show time, a student came to my room half hysterical.

"Mr Neumann, I don't know what to do. I think I'm gonna go to jail." She was convulsed in sobs. At times like this, all you can do is listen to them.

"Me and my friend were down at the liquor store, and we got this guy to get a bottle for us..."

Okee-dokee. I think I'm getting the picture. Doesn't look too promising.

"And  then he walked us home.... and then he wanted to come up to our place..."

Yup, of course he did, you idiot.

"...and he just wouldn't go away, so me and my friend smashed a bottle on his head, and then we kicked him down the stairs..."

Alright. The picture ain't getting any brighter, but it's my job to keep listening.

"... and I'm already on probation and now I'm gonna get charged because he went to the hospital and they called the police... OH NO!!!  I'm going to JAIL!!!..." whereupon she dissolved into a heap of blubbering jello.

Hmm...

I offer her a tissue from my "got a issue have a tissue" Kleenex box. She grabs the whole box.

"Listen to me. Look at me. Calm down. I think you're OK. Stop blubbering.

Some older guy bought booze for a couple of under-age girls. When he was asked politely he refused to leave their place. You were scared.

Think about it, kid. Do you think this guy is gonna tell this story to the cops? He's in way deeper shit than you if this story comes out. You got nothing to worry about!"

And she didn't.


Just another example of how I helped kids figure out life.

Yellow Peril promoters at Globe upgrade China from "adversary" to "hostile state"

Today it fell to Robert Fife and Steven Chase to deliver the daily dose of anti-China booga-booga to readers of the Globe and Mail. They were gifted the top slot on the front page, because... this really is the most important story in Canada at the moment?

According to some top spooks at Canada's official spook agency, who get their marching orders from Washington, China's Thousand Talents Plan has been up to no good. To their credit, Fife and Chase looked up a few of the Canadians participating in the TTP initiative, all of whom denied being up to no good.

Which is entirely meaningless. They stand accused of spying for China. Of course they're going to deny it! What more proof do you want that they're guilty?

But what got my attention was the subtle shift in nomenclature. China is no longer an "adversary."

We all understand that concept. The Canadiens and the Leafs are adversaries. The Red Sox and the Yankees are adversaries. Canada (and our allies) and China used to be adversaries.

Used to be. In today's paper, China is labelled a "hostile state."

There's a difference between a hostile state and an adversary.

An adversary is a competitor.

A hostile state is your enemy...


But don't worry, Canada. We're gonna snuggle up tight with our allies... President Trump will protect us from the Yellow Peril, at least if we spend a few more billions on US war-making technology.

Putin pouts as Canada flexes muscles in Arctic

Bad Vlad is shaking in his boots if he's read this story at CBC news.

First thing he would have noticed, and it's right there in the title, is that Canada has allies!

Yessiree! Canada isn't just a lone empty suit spouting platitudes out there on the world stage. We're not alone; we're in tight with France and Denmark, and (at this point Vlad was starting to smirk, but wait for it...)  the BIG DOG!

Bet that smirk got wiped off his commie-fascist face right quick when he read about the presence of "the brand-new American guided missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner" up there in Canada's Arctic.

---------

I guess at some level this story might be "news," but why does Murray Brewster have to frame it in jingoistic clap-trap?  We're in the Arctic honing our "basic war-fighting skills" with our allies...

Oh are we? And the war we are preparing to fight will be against our "adversaries," Russia and China?

Full Stop.

This article is nothing but militaristic pro-war propaganda. Canada as a country has absolutely nothing to gain by allying with the Americans against Russia and China. The failing and flailing American Empire is collapsing before our eyes, but we want to support them as they foment war with Russia and China?

Complete idiocy. Canada needs to mind its own business, because there's more than enough to mind. We don't need to invest 20 billions in new fighter jets and 80 billions in new warships just so we can "stand with our allies."

Let's invest those billions in Canadians instead. One hundred billions would go a long way in addressing the problems that bedevil us as a country. Just imagine a Canada where everyone has a roof over their head, a roof they can't get kicked out of because their teenager got busted with a bag of weed.

Imagine your kid graduating university without $50 thousand in student debt.

Imagine a living wage for everyone. Imagine humane elder-care. Imagine a universal pension plan that would allow every elder to live in dignity.


Imagine all the things we can't do because our priority is to spend that money on US armaments, which we are obliged to do so we can "stand with our allies," as Ally-in-Chief Donald Trump provokes war with Russia and China.

In these tough times... we can't afford environmental monitoring of the oil sands anymore

Check out this story at CBC.

In this time of pestilence, we must make some sacrifices. We may not all agree with the decision to stop monitoring water quality of the Athabasca River, downstream from the oil sands mega-projects, but hey, it's for the greater good!

So stop being a loser and get on board! Besides, folks downstream will let us know soon enough if they get sick.

Meanwhile, Canada's Covid boss Dr Lam let it slip we could be looking at masks and social distancing for a few years.

By then our new 5G internet should be up and running, at least in the major urban centres. That will enable the government to do real-time monitoring of everyone all the time, like they do in China, the world leader in 5G.

Then we'll be able to roll out a "social credit" system just like they have in China.

That should sniff out the losers in no time!

The politicisation of water levels in the Great Lakes

You don't hear anything about it on your mainstream national media, but water levels in the Great Lakes are at crisis levels.

As in, if the water comes up another two feet, my local town of Wiarton will lose both its marina and its public boat launch, not to mention a good slice of houses in "the flats." My estimate is that water levels have come up about five feet over the past five years. If the trend continues, Wiarton and many other waterfront communities in Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota will be facing disaster.

Which is odd, considering that the Great Lakes water level is a matter of politics rather than a question of climate change. All the politicians have to do is open the spigots at Niagara Falls.

Problem solved!

But here's the rub.

The long term agenda on the US side has always been to divert Great Lakes water to the US southwest.

That's nothing but bad news to environmentalists everywhere.

But, when your downtown is eroding into Lake Huron, you'll soon enough beg the US Army Corps of Engineers to divert that excess Great Lakes water to the parched agribusiness plantations of California.

Only war can save us now

Just like the WWII saved capitalism seventy-five years ago.

This is not then, of course. Capitalism has become bolder. Every major institution has been suborned to the dictates of the oligarchs. Corporations are people too; they're the people who have risen to the top of the heap.

Anybody who is not a corporation knows that corporations are not people, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. They are owned and operated by actual real human beings. These are the people to whom we ascribe the "one-percenter" label.

These are the folks who have wrangled the so-called pandemic into an excuse to loot the public purse as never before in history.

The public purse has never been this deep underwater in history. Ever.

The bulk of hundreds of billions, nay, trillions, flowing out of the various "covid assistance" scams are going to the one percenters. The oligarchs are adding billions to their net worth while millions are threatened with eviction from their homes.

If you were to let this thread run its course, it could only end one way; revolution.


Unless, of course, the nation had to go to war. War changes everything.

Pompeo is hard at work on that file as I type these words.

The gay porn video

Now that I'm finally really retired once and for all, I'm feeling a little more empowered to dig into that big old sack 'o memories that I overfilled during my twenty-five years at the front of a classroom.

Brad, or "B-Rad" as he briefly styled himself, was keen on being one of the cool kids when he hit high-school.

The cool kids used to go to Domino's and get take-out for lunch. On the way to Domino's, they passed by the XXX ADULTS ONLY video store.

Cool kids being as cool as they always are, and B-Rad desperately wanting to ingratiate himself with the cool crowd, when it was suggested to B-Rad that it would be really cool to run into the XXX shop and filch a porn video, he went for the bait immediately.

He walked in the front door, grabbed the first video at hand, and dashed out.

The store manager dashed out right behind him, and as they were dashing up the street Brad jettisoned the purloined porn over somebody's garden wall, whereupon the store manager gave up the chase and went to retrieve his briefly-stolen goods.

Brad was the toast of the cool kids for the rest of the day.

Next morning he was summoned to the principal's office. Awaiting him were the principal and the XXX store manager. On the table in front of them was the video that had made him, ever so briefly, cool; "Gay Studs in Action Uncensored."

It's a small town and word gets around. By noon Brad's coolness factor had morphed into unmitigated catastrophe. He wasn't the bold dude who'd ripped off a porn video. He was the grade nine weirdo who stole a GAY porn video from the video store.


That's how Brad figured out making it into the "cool" crowd wasn't worth the effort, and that insight truly made him a better person.