CardinalBacker

Is anybody claiming that an hour or two of online instruction is a suitable replacement for in-classroom instruction?

Nobody else is still sitting home drawing full pay and demanding that their employer stay shut down indefinitely. Bars are begging for the chance to reopen. A couple of months ago it was beauticians, barbers, gyms, and tattoo parlors. But not teachers. Teachers aren’t special. If you don’t want to go back to work, I’m good with that. You just can’t expect to keep cashing our checks.

Just read where the head of the TSTA (Texas State Teachers Association) is saying “We demand that the governor issue a statewide order that all school buildings must remain closed and all instruction be provided remotely until the pandemic has clearly begun to subside and it is safe to reopen school buildings under strict safety standards. The state and school districts must work with educators to decide when that time is here. In the meantime, school districts must continue to receive full state funding. So basically schools need to stay close (but continue to pay teachers) until the teachers decide it’s safe to go back to class. I had an employee crying in my office this morning. She was able to “work from home” during the initial quarantine, but she was largely ineffective with two little ones underfoot. She returned to work as soon as daycares reopened in May. She has two kids in daycare... one is young and the other is elementary aged. She’s going to have to quit her job if they push the online thing. There’s no way that she can work for us, pick the kids up from daycare, and then try to teach her own in the evening. The daycare COULD try to help with instruction, but who knows how that would work. And if it’s safe enough for daycares to be open, why not schools? Let teach pay end on 7/31 and the whole problem will fix itself.

Do you blame them? Biden just needs to keep saying “good morning” and he’ll get there. There’s doing a good job, doing a decent job, and doing a bad job.... In regards to leadership during this time of crisis, well..... I never expected the media to praise him. I’m just disappointed that I can’t point to anything positive that he’s done recently, either.

Are you offended by the flags of African countries, or even seeing the shape of Africa posted with all of the violence and genocide that occurred there and is still ongoing today? It blows my mind that someone who prefers to be called "African-American" would even examine other peoples' history... I mean I really, really don't get it. I'm not talking about you specifically... but think about it. You have people who proudly claim African heritage in spite of all of the atrocities committed there.... but they are offended by people who claim Southern Heritage. Why would anybody who is so soundly opposed to any references to slavery still identify themselves as "african american," the birthplace of the African slave trade and one of the few continents where slavery still exists today? I'm not knocking your heritage, your choice of labels, or anything like that.... you need to do what makes you happy and proud.... as you should be. My opinion isn't needed. But.... that's kinda how I feel when people who aren't like me start talking about who I am and where I come from. It's really not their concern.

I don't care what affiliation that you are, when George W Bush stood in the rubble and said that "they were going to hear from ALL of us soon," he had near unanimous support. Freaking Trump is out here fighting with Joe Scarborough on Twitter while most of us are worried about our Country with all of the social unrest and Covid going on. That's why he's gonna get smoked in November, IMO. Three and a half months out and they haven't even planned a debate. Trump is running against Trump and losing.

I get it, and I ain't mad. All jokes aside, if he picked a moderate VP candidate, I'd be tempted. Or at least stay home. I wasn't excited about Trump, and I'm sorely disappointed in his performance under fire this year. But you have to admit that pro-business policies work for all of us, even when someone as inexperienced as him is the one running the show. I just can't bring myself to vote for somebody who's pretty much pledging to sink the ship economically. I got skin in the game, lol.

Until they cut PNG's federal funding over it. Which will happen by the later half of 2021, in my estimation. The Department of Education under the new Biden/"black woman" ticket will move to strike funding for all schools with offensive mascots. Also gonna steer funding from "privileged" areas to "minority areas" in the name of "social justice." You get to do that when you scream racism and nobody challenges you. The fact that you went unchallenged makes it accepted as truth. And don't be offended by the "Biden/black woman" tag... he said it first.

Oh, that wasn't my great-great grandfather... mine was probably a wine-headed woman fighter. It's not that simple. I realize that from the safety that comes from living in 2020, it's easy to look at grand motives, etc... you don't have to worry about what would happen if you chose not to stand with your neighbors. People who refused to side with the colonists in the 1770s didn't have it easy. Same thing happened in the Civil War. Let's just pretend that you were a Southerner who was opposed to slavery and refused to support the new government. Would you abandon all that you'd worked for and move north? Would you fight against your friends and family? Do you think Sherman spared abolitionists' places during his march to the sea? Why should I be ashamed if my ancestor picked up arms to defend his home from an invading army? Or held off the Yankee warships with three cannons at Sabine Pass? Or ran out of ammunition at Lookout Mountain and pushed boulders down on the Yankees until they were overrun and killed? Or fought bravely and then died against immeasurable odds at the Alamo? Or lost a boxing match? There's a reason we still cheer for the fighter who gave his all and came up short.... Or at least we used to.

Everyone's favorite 69 Charger, the General Lee, as one teeny, tiny example. If I say "yeah, my great-great grandfather was a Godly man, a timber man, the third Sheriff of Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, and a Major in the Confederate Army," guess what?....he was a white supremacist.

Here's what I think happens.... Biden picks a VP candidate who would never be elected in the General Election just to please the extreme left wing of the Dem party. He doesn't serve out his full term and we see an extremely liberal president who will help bring us: 1. Stagnant growth... Nobody on the left understands that when you push an anti-business agenda, we all suffer. 2. Gun Control... and instant assault on the 2nd Amendment (keep in mind, it's not about gun violence.. it's about disarming gun owners who are typically conservative). 3. Higher Taxes.... an instant repeal of the tax cuts that were behind the roaring economy of the last three years, plus a flood of new taxes that will hit the middle class hard as well. 4. Attacks on the fossil fuel industry.... SETX will be hit hard. 5. More divisive policies of "social justice" (aka "reparations") which are laughably named because they are anything but "just" to anyone who isn't a minority. 6. An endless parade of investigation into Trump and his associates. 7. Government funded "green energy" hoaxes, aka Solyndra. 8. Student loan forgiveness... we'll all be on the hook for the liberal brainwashing that all of those students borrowed big money to "earn." 9. $3.95/gallon gasoline 10. Government takeover of 401ks I hope I'm wrong, but It'll be interesting to revisit these ideas in a couple of years. I'm guessing that 7-8 of the ten will occur within a year.

Well, we've been unable to separate people who are proud of their Southern Heritage from White Supremacists, so......

None of it matters until the teachers get back into class.

Jeez... I'm trying to find more 5.56 rounds. I'm telling you, there's a freaking run on ammo, and it's not because of Covid.

Fake news.... disregard. It drives me nuts when people make stuff like this up. There's no need for that. Lying about the other side does nothing to bolster legitimate arguments.

I read the article... the city promised the hotels that FEMA would step in. The contracted rate is $200/night per room. I don't know if they still have 5000 rooms rented.... but 5000 rooms at $200/night is a smooth milly per day for four months now.

When they started this program, I wondered who was going to pick up the tab for repairs when they finally get tossed out. My guess is that anyplace that has been housing homeless for four months will need a remodel, if not demolished. Typically the room's occupant would be responsible for damages, but they're broke. Would it fall back to the city, or would the hotel/motel insurance be on the hook?

I get grumpy every time somebody points out that same-race murder rates are pretty similar. It's not wrong, it's just not relevant. But you're right. I'll edit that out.

13% of the US population is black, but 50% of all murder victims are black.... And you're literally arguing that it's okay because other black people are killing them. (insult removed)

I liked him a long better before he became the unofficial ambassador to the Ukraine.

Thanks for all that you're accomplishing, BLM. [Hidden Content]

Sleeping in. Fishing. Golfing. Hanging at the beach. Mowing the yard. Washing the truck. Going to the lake. Flirting with the volleyball coach. Telling stories about how they'd be playing the bigs if their high school coach hadn't screwed 'em. Same as every other summer.

Endless Summer, baby.... Nobody thinks online is an acceptable replacement for in-classroom instruction. We'll just kick the whole thing back off when the teachers feel it's completely safe and THEY are ready to get back to work. The major push to avoid returning to schools is coming from the schools themselves. I think that those objections clear right up when you shut off their paychecks. Don't take my word for it... we all have teacher friends on Facebook. Go check 'em out. It's not too dangerous to go to Austin, Fredricksburg, the lake, the beach, Colorado, etc.... it's just not safe to go back to class.

He has a point. If I want to start looking at my genealogy, I can hit up ancestry.com or familysearch.org and go as far back as I care to go. There’s a history and an accountability associated with that. Those chains of succession were smashed for so many black families during the time of slavery. Instead of birth and death records, the slaves would be cataloged like the livestock instead of included in census records. It’s hard to complain that there’s not a great big sense of ancestry if slavery was part of the reason that sense doesn’t exist like it does in white families. If you believe that the criminal justice system is racist, the the fact that so many young black fathers are racially incarcerated and keeping them from being the fathers that they could be. Lastly, the black guys here posting ARE family guys. Most of them are here because they’ve been actively working with their own kids... but we’re griping at them about the problem of single parenting in their community. How do you explain to a young man w/o a dad in his life that the best day of your own life was when your kids were born? There aren’t any easy answers.

From my perspective, it seems like we (white people) carry a lot of blame from the black community. To me, it seems like too much blame. But I use the word "seem" because all I have to base it on is the opinions that I'm presented with. I don't see how we get things figured out if person "A" believes that most of those problems are self-inflicted, and person "B" believes that most are the result of racism. You have person "B" trying to push ideas forward involving privilege, systemic racism, oppression, etc.... basically assigning blame to others and person "A" saying... "wait....here's an instance where that's just not correct." My biggest gripe is that (in my opinion), all of this unrest is over the 5-6 percent that I believe is caused by racism, while we ignore the 94-95 percent that would be self-inflicted. It's really hard to convince someone like me that sees things as "black and white" to ignore the obvious and try to understand and focus on what I don't see.