I know the K-12 system has had problems reacting to the COVID - 19 outbreak. Think higher education is any better?
Last Sunday, I was told that the school was closed on Monday and Tuesday, but that I needed to report to work all day Monday and Tuesday in order to prepare top get my classes ready to go online and my labs to operate remotely. It didn't matter that my classes and labs had been operating remotely for some years. It didn't matter that the K-12 system was shut. It didn't matter that the governor had closed all the bars and restaurants and told people to stay home if they could. We needed to come in to be prepared to face the daunting task ahead of us. We were also told that if we wanted to remote in from home, we needed permission. Otherwise we were expected to maintain all office hours and to be on campus. The best part was when I was emailed that the faculty meeting on Friday was going on as planned. We would be given a SKYPE number for it, but we needed to come to campus, so we could SKYPE from our offices. Things were seriously amusing by this time.
On Monday night I got permission to telecommute, so I spent Tuesday setting up cameras, prepping my workspace, and checking my bandwidth to be sure I was prepared for Wednesday. I might have experience in remote teaching, but I've never run anything more advanced than one on one tutoring from home before and I wanted to appear somewhat professional. Of course, if "leadership" had decided this before the weekend, I wouldn't have had to do a rush job at the last minute. But, I digress....
On Wednesday, I woke up ready to start my remote teaching from home to find that all classes had been moved to a totally online format, including the labs. An hours notice to change the class modality for all courses and labs was a challenge. It was even fun.
By Wednesday night, I was told that all labs were closed, the school was shut for the next week and a half, and no one would be allowed on campus. Of course, not all labs were closed. The remote and online ones are going on as planned, but "leadership" used the word all. It was up to the faculty to resolve any confusion, and our students are easily confused.
To make matters worse, we've also been told to make sure students know that the school's Facebook page does not contain official information and that only official announcements are to be followed. Who's posting the announcements on the school's Facebook page then, and why? Does leadership actually have no control as to what goes on their official Facebook page? WTF?
I might enjoy such confusion, but we have students who are dealing with child care (day cares have been ordered closed as well), and lack of essentials in the stores (there is plenty of food, but no toilet paper, and baby supplies are running low). They really need an answer to what is happening long term so that they don't have to choose between school and family.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
They Are That Stupid, part 3
The governor of Kentucky has closed all the schools K-12 to prevent the spread of COVID - 19. That means everything below college and university level for the non-Americans. He has recently sent another message to the schools to let their teachers work from home. That's right. The schools have been forcing the teachers to come in and sit in empty classrooms. After all, you can't have them getting paid without them being there and they surely can't be trusted to answer emails at home.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
They Are That Stupid COVID - 19 part 2
I went to a local store the other day. Bear in mind that the governor of Kentucky has told people to avoid large crowds. So, what do the people do? Congregate in large groups in stores.
Why were they all congregated there? Toilet paper and had sanitizer. The store was full of food. It was full of medicine. It was full of baby food and diapers. What it did not have was hand sanitizer and cheap toilet paper. 1/3 of the toilet paper was still there, but they were the more expensive brands. By more expensive, I mean $3 more per 16 roll pack.
So why were all of these people there? They were waiting on the delivery truck to bring in new toilet paper. I understand if you have no toilet paper. I understand if the item in question is a necessity, like food of medicine. But to congregate in the store to save $3 a pack on toilet paper? It just seems stupid.
Why were they all congregated there? Toilet paper and had sanitizer. The store was full of food. It was full of medicine. It was full of baby food and diapers. What it did not have was hand sanitizer and cheap toilet paper. 1/3 of the toilet paper was still there, but they were the more expensive brands. By more expensive, I mean $3 more per 16 roll pack.
So why were all of these people there? They were waiting on the delivery truck to bring in new toilet paper. I understand if you have no toilet paper. I understand if the item in question is a necessity, like food of medicine. But to congregate in the store to save $3 a pack on toilet paper? It just seems stupid.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Yes. They Are That Stupid - COVID 19
The governor of Kentucky has closed the primary and secondary schools for 2 weeks due to the Corona virus. A laudable effort to avoid the spread of this disease. Kentucky may only have 11 cases to date, but we are taking speedy action to do what the governor calls, "social distancing". It basically means, let's stop the large crowds until we sort this thing out.
The schools have responded by claiming that school is the only time that many of their children get meals. If you ask what happened to the food stamps their parents get for them, the schools will quickly respond that the parents sold those for drugs long ago and the schools are the children's only hope to eat, but that is a topic for another post.
Bearing in mind that the schools now consider themselves to be combination food pantry/day care/education establishments, and education came last for a reason, the schools have responded by finding ways to keep the children fed.
The Mason county school district is opening their schools for breakfast and lunch. No classes of course, that would risk spreading the disease, but breakfast and lunch are, for some reason, not a time that someone can get infected with COVID -19. Of course, there is also the fact that if the school thinks the parents are going to pick up the children between breakfast and lunch, then they have been smoking something.
The Clinton county schools have decided to avoid this by having the teachers come in and go door to door delivering food to the students. This avoids the problems of large crowds, because everyone knows that viruses do not spread person to person, but wait until a certain number of people are present in order to strike.
I haven't seen what other school districts are doing, but I'm sure it is equally intelligent.
The schools have responded by claiming that school is the only time that many of their children get meals. If you ask what happened to the food stamps their parents get for them, the schools will quickly respond that the parents sold those for drugs long ago and the schools are the children's only hope to eat, but that is a topic for another post.
Bearing in mind that the schools now consider themselves to be combination food pantry/day care/education establishments, and education came last for a reason, the schools have responded by finding ways to keep the children fed.
The Mason county school district is opening their schools for breakfast and lunch. No classes of course, that would risk spreading the disease, but breakfast and lunch are, for some reason, not a time that someone can get infected with COVID -19. Of course, there is also the fact that if the school thinks the parents are going to pick up the children between breakfast and lunch, then they have been smoking something.
The Clinton county schools have decided to avoid this by having the teachers come in and go door to door delivering food to the students. This avoids the problems of large crowds, because everyone knows that viruses do not spread person to person, but wait until a certain number of people are present in order to strike.
I haven't seen what other school districts are doing, but I'm sure it is equally intelligent.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Yet Another Reason To Hate The Wild Meat Crowd
I have previously mentioned my dislike for the "wild meat" crowd in an earlier post about Ohio. If you are not up on current American fads, the wild meat crowd consists of people who don't like factory farming and insist that their meat is hunted in the wild so that they can get "back to nature". They usually live in a city and have enough spare cash to have a second home in flyover country. The cool kids just don't seem to have any sense of cause and effect. In this case, what happens when you take away all the small patch farmers and replace them with vacationers and hunters.
In this case the story involves coyotes. You wouldn't know it from reading the news. The news ended with the below.
http://www.k105.com/2020/02/20/13-year-old-eastern-ky-boy-killed-in-animal-attack/
For the rest of the story, you had to have local sources. The real story is that a 13 year old boy was killed by a pack of coyotes, injuring his grandfather in the process.
What does this have to do with the wild meat and vacation house crowd?
Well, back in the day of the small patch farmers, coyotes were killed on sight. They were a nuisance animal. They killed livestock. Add to this the fact that there were fewer people, fewer hunters, and a lot of deer. A small number of coyotes and a large amount of food. This leads to a fairly peaceful situation.
Now, consider the current situation. The small patch farmers have decreased in number. There's just not that many people shooting coyotes anymore. A lot of the land has gone from agricultural to vacation and hunting land. This gives the coyotes more land to roam on. Then comes the wild meat crowd. They only hunt game animals, after all, they have morals. So, the deer population decreases. Suddenly, we have a large coyote population, without a lot of fear of humans, not having been hunted recently, without food. The outcome is fairly obvious.
I would say that the local Kentuckians would soon fix the imbalance, but the local I got the coyote story from didn't know that coyotes could be hunted at all, let alone all year long.
In this case the story involves coyotes. You wouldn't know it from reading the news. The news ended with the below.
http://www.k105.com/2020/02/20/13-year-old-eastern-ky-boy-killed-in-animal-attack/
For the rest of the story, you had to have local sources. The real story is that a 13 year old boy was killed by a pack of coyotes, injuring his grandfather in the process.
What does this have to do with the wild meat and vacation house crowd?
Well, back in the day of the small patch farmers, coyotes were killed on sight. They were a nuisance animal. They killed livestock. Add to this the fact that there were fewer people, fewer hunters, and a lot of deer. A small number of coyotes and a large amount of food. This leads to a fairly peaceful situation.
Now, consider the current situation. The small patch farmers have decreased in number. There's just not that many people shooting coyotes anymore. A lot of the land has gone from agricultural to vacation and hunting land. This gives the coyotes more land to roam on. Then comes the wild meat crowd. They only hunt game animals, after all, they have morals. So, the deer population decreases. Suddenly, we have a large coyote population, without a lot of fear of humans, not having been hunted recently, without food. The outcome is fairly obvious.
I would say that the local Kentuckians would soon fix the imbalance, but the local I got the coyote story from didn't know that coyotes could be hunted at all, let alone all year long.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Nothing to See Here or a Tangled Web
In my previous posts, I have raised questions about law and rural Kentucky. In this post, I revisit the issue.
People tend to think that drug dealing is the provenance of the trailer park crowd. Often, but not always. In the following diatribe, you can read about the high and mighty falling to the temptation of quick money.
You can read the official version by clicking on the link below.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdky/pr/clinton-county-doctor-sentenced-30-months-prison-illegally-prescribing-opioids
Let's see what the news isn't talking about. The doctor in question came from an old and respected family. He was also the deacon at a local church. He had a prosperous practice. He was a local landowner and church bigwig. Why would he become a drug dealer? It's pretty obvious that he did, but look at the numbers of drug sales involved. Why would someone in his position, with his income, risk everything for what amounted to penny ante, street dealer levels of profit? Greed? Maybe. He has lost his practice and his farm over this. Either way, it was a stupid move on his part.
The government also put the owner of the pharmacy who filled the prescriptions away. He was also from an old and wealthy family. There are two main drug stores in town and he owned and ran one of them.
As you can see, wealth and position are no guarantee.
You might be saying, don't deal drugs and you won't have a problem. Again, maybe.
Let's look at how this bust went down. The good doctor was reported by the county coroner for a suspicious number of opioid deaths among his patients. On the surface fair enough, but this coroner let's a lot of suspicious deaths occur without question. Are they just stupid? Can they not really notice anything unless it's on the government checklist, like opioids are now? Well, these are the hills, so that's a definite possibility.
After the report, the feds came in and cracked down. Again, fair enough. Except, that you would have expected them to extend the net a bit and see what else they could find. After all, they were already in the neighborhood. There are plenty of drugs around. Almost anyone they stopped on the street could have given them a good lead. Did they even ask or did they just arrest the people who were complained about? That's just curious.
Did the amount of drug trafficking decrease? No, it appears to have gone up. Did the feds not notice this?
Sorry, but this does not appear to have been an operation to clean up the hills. It appears to be the feds operating on behalf of the locals taking out unwanted competition. I could be wrong, but that would imply that the good doctor was the main problem in the county, which I find hard to believe.
People tend to think that drug dealing is the provenance of the trailer park crowd. Often, but not always. In the following diatribe, you can read about the high and mighty falling to the temptation of quick money.
You can read the official version by clicking on the link below.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdky/pr/clinton-county-doctor-sentenced-30-months-prison-illegally-prescribing-opioids
Let's see what the news isn't talking about. The doctor in question came from an old and respected family. He was also the deacon at a local church. He had a prosperous practice. He was a local landowner and church bigwig. Why would he become a drug dealer? It's pretty obvious that he did, but look at the numbers of drug sales involved. Why would someone in his position, with his income, risk everything for what amounted to penny ante, street dealer levels of profit? Greed? Maybe. He has lost his practice and his farm over this. Either way, it was a stupid move on his part.
The government also put the owner of the pharmacy who filled the prescriptions away. He was also from an old and wealthy family. There are two main drug stores in town and he owned and ran one of them.
As you can see, wealth and position are no guarantee.
You might be saying, don't deal drugs and you won't have a problem. Again, maybe.
Let's look at how this bust went down. The good doctor was reported by the county coroner for a suspicious number of opioid deaths among his patients. On the surface fair enough, but this coroner let's a lot of suspicious deaths occur without question. Are they just stupid? Can they not really notice anything unless it's on the government checklist, like opioids are now? Well, these are the hills, so that's a definite possibility.
After the report, the feds came in and cracked down. Again, fair enough. Except, that you would have expected them to extend the net a bit and see what else they could find. After all, they were already in the neighborhood. There are plenty of drugs around. Almost anyone they stopped on the street could have given them a good lead. Did they even ask or did they just arrest the people who were complained about? That's just curious.
Did the amount of drug trafficking decrease? No, it appears to have gone up. Did the feds not notice this?
Sorry, but this does not appear to have been an operation to clean up the hills. It appears to be the feds operating on behalf of the locals taking out unwanted competition. I could be wrong, but that would imply that the good doctor was the main problem in the county, which I find hard to believe.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
I Told You So
Apparently, I am not the only one to think that law enforcement around here is problematic. The Federal government seems to have reached a similar conclusion and tried to arrest a Pulaski county constable for corruption.
https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/fbi-agent-shot-ky-constable-arrested-in-ongoing-corruption-probe-8SM7rRL6rwNi2EmT/
In true hillbilly fashion, the arrest did not go peacefully, with a minion of Pulaski county trading shots with an FBI agent. The fact that there were shots fired brings the question of what was the Pulaski county constable thinking? After all, one of his neighbors has already stated that the FBI identified themselves before the shooting started. Of course pre-dawn FBI raids aren't really appreciated in the hills, but still, what did he hope to gain? Being the hills, if he had managed to break contact with the FBI, he could easily have gone to ground. After all, the local law enforcers would probably have ignored his presence, just like they ignore all the drug manufacturers and smugglers. Was this his plan? After all, most sane people wouldn't shoot first after being told that the people outside were with the FBI. Did he not hear them and just respond to armed men outside? This implies that he was worried about more than being arrested, which makes you wonder just what he was into that made him so paranoid. Did he think he was being arrested on more serious charges and shooting was the best option? I can see someone letting something like that slip. The people here love nothing more than creating drama.
Of course, we will never know the truth. The only thing we will know is that the FBI tried to arrest a Pulaski county constable and he responded with gunfire, only stopping when he was hit. Such are the law enforcers in the hills.
https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/fbi-agent-shot-ky-constable-arrested-in-ongoing-corruption-probe-8SM7rRL6rwNi2EmT/
In true hillbilly fashion, the arrest did not go peacefully, with a minion of Pulaski county trading shots with an FBI agent. The fact that there were shots fired brings the question of what was the Pulaski county constable thinking? After all, one of his neighbors has already stated that the FBI identified themselves before the shooting started. Of course pre-dawn FBI raids aren't really appreciated in the hills, but still, what did he hope to gain? Being the hills, if he had managed to break contact with the FBI, he could easily have gone to ground. After all, the local law enforcers would probably have ignored his presence, just like they ignore all the drug manufacturers and smugglers. Was this his plan? After all, most sane people wouldn't shoot first after being told that the people outside were with the FBI. Did he not hear them and just respond to armed men outside? This implies that he was worried about more than being arrested, which makes you wonder just what he was into that made him so paranoid. Did he think he was being arrested on more serious charges and shooting was the best option? I can see someone letting something like that slip. The people here love nothing more than creating drama.
Of course, we will never know the truth. The only thing we will know is that the FBI tried to arrest a Pulaski county constable and he responded with gunfire, only stopping when he was hit. Such are the law enforcers in the hills.
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