vaccinating teachers

Axios - Teachers want the vaccine, but they'll have to wait
WBEZ Chicago - Chicago Teachers Say They Won’t Put Their Families At Risk By Returning To The Classroom

this is so ridiculous. of COURSE we should vaccinate teachers before REQUIRING them to go back to work in classrooms!! people under 16 aren't even approved for vaccination yet they for sure can get sick and/or pass it along.

wtf would even be the point of not vaccinating teachers anyway? they'll start to get sick right away, need to take time off, we'll hire subs, who will also get sick, and eventually we'll be out of teachers. how is this a necessary process? 

honestly, i'm so annoyed that most countries are vaccinating the elderly and at risk before the actual essential workers, or even the rest of the working population. in america all we hear about is opening up the economy, but how can we do that if we can't go back to work or do regular things because we're afraid of getting sick? yes, vaccinating the elderly will prevent more deaths, but that's not actually useful in the long run. more useful would be vaccinating teachers, postal workers, bus drivers, people who are forced to come into contact with many people. this will slow the spread of the disease sooner than it would if we were to vaccinate older or more at-risk populations first. high on our priority list would also be essential workers like grocery store people, delivery people, agricultural workers, people who cannot work from home. they keep the world running, not retired people who can choose to stay home or go out. 

i'm not against the elderly getting vaccinated, but it doesn't make much sense to base their priority sorely on age. a more reasonable criteria would be job sector. i do understand that it's much easier to do this by age though since you can "prove" that much more easily. 

related article from Reuters: Why Indonesia is vaccinating its working population first, not elderly

an excerpt: "Younger working adults are generally more active, more social and travel more so this strategy should decrease community transmission faster than vaccinating older individuals,” he said."

I think that it may seem more moral to vaccinate the elderly first because it will prevent more immediate deaths. however, I do think that in the long term, vaccinating more "essential" and "active" people first would prevent more total deaths and long term negative effects in the world, including, yes, the global economy. 

also, this article about Age groups' contribution to COVID-19 transmission in the U.S.!!!

spoiled

why are american kids so spoiled?

i definitely think we coddle our kids. i've tutored a few kids over the years and have seen what some parents let their kids get away with... sheesh! also, since i do the steering stuff at long beach i'm constantly emailing teams. a lot of these are high school or college teams, and they are generally pretty SHIT at responding to emails. it's not like they're not online, they just don't respond to emails because they don't think it's important. that's a ridiculous attitude!

i definitely think it's "our" fault tho. i remember back in the day when we were a high school or college team, we were on top of things! we were self-taught. we coached ourselves, set up our own practices, figured out our own finances, got to practices / races on our own, turned in paperwork without needing reminders... all of the high school teams now all have an adult coach / team manager. why is that? we did it ourselves, why can't they?

"...my husband and I gave them a new job: unloading the grocery bags from the car. One evening when I came home from the store, it was raining. Carrying two or three bags, the youngest, Aaron, who is thirteen, tried to jump over a puddle. There was a loud crash. After I’d retrieved what food could be salvaged from a Molotov cocktail of broken glass and mango juice, I decided that Aaron needed another, more vigorous lesson in responsibility. Now, in addition to unloading groceries, he would also have the task of taking out the garbage. On one of his first forays, he neglected to close the lid on the pail tightly enough, and it attracted a bear. The next morning, as I was gathering up the used tissues, ant-filled raisin boxes, and slimy Saran Wrap scattered across the yard, I decided that I didn’t have time to let my kids help out around the house."

...did you notice anything wrong with this? she cleaned up after he messed up. your kid is 13; he can pick up broken glass without bleeding to death. and if he does get hurt, it probably won't be badly, so it's not a big deal. (it's good though that they didn't take away the unloading task) aaron wasn't careful when doing his chores, but if he doesn't have to deal with the consequences, he'll never learn to be more careful. why should he care if bears get into the garbage? mom will clean it up anyway.

i'm not saying that you should make your kids grow up as fast as possible (tho it seems they can handle it), but you shouldn't coddle them. teach them to be independent. supervise, but don't do it yourself. let them figure it out first before telling them what to do. your kid is smarter and more capable than you think.

under age

how can we sometimes try an under 18 year-old as an adult? i don't even understand how this is legal.

i know that turning 18 doesn't mean anything in the mental / psychological sense. some 12yo are more mature than many 25yo. but the law says that at 18 you are legally an adult. this means that you are mature enough to make decisions for yourself, like smoking, enlisting, gambling, anything sex related, quitting school, a tattoo... before 18 you're not allowed to make these decisions yourself, no matter how actually mature you are. it's kind of silly, but the law has to pick a age (since reviewing every single person for every single decision would take forever), and for whatever reason, they've picked 18.

i understand that with some gruesome crimes you want to try a 17yo as an adult. because mentally, 17 isn't too much different from 18. but you see the problem, don't you? it just keeps getting younger and younger. we've even tried 14yo as adults. 14!! that's too young to do anything! you can't drive, get a job, get married in most states (even with parental consent). and some states "have passed laws allowing a person who commits an extremely heinous crime such as murder to be tried as an adult, regardless of age." (source)

it's so strange. at 14 you're not allowed to get a tattoo (something that only affects yourself) but you are apparently mentally developed enough to decide to commit a crime and understand all the repercussions. oh, and btw, up until only 2005 was it still permissible for the govt to punish under 18yo by death.

what's your #?

"what's your number?" is a movie that "...follows Ally (Anna Faris) who after reading a magazine article states 'In America 97% of women who have had 20 or more lovers can’t find a husband.' This inevitably leads the character (who of course is at number 19) to believe she’s going to be forever alone. Thus beginning a wild search for the best 'ex' of her life." [source]

20 does sound like kind of a lot. but is it really? let's say you started having sex at 18yo and you're now 30yo. that means you had over 10 years to sleep with 20 people, that's less than 2 people a year. that's not much at all! i think when you put it into those terms, average in a year, it sounds like waaaay less. i think a total number can definitely be misleading, so we should maybe start thinking about averages. ...to a point.

i think your average number should get smaller as you get older. if you've been having sex for 70 years and your number is 70, that's still pretty gross; i don't care that it averages out to only one person a year! i think anyone's cap should be under 50, which i admit is a completely arbitrary number. i'd probably be able to give a better "defined" number if i knew when people stopped having sex. do most 85yo still have sex? i have no idea! (and there seems to be no consensus online, tho you might be interested to learn that the average age of americans to start having sex is 17)

btw, i don't think it matters if you're male or female. i'm going to judge you equally if you've slept with 40 people (tho why you'd even bother counting past, like, single digits is beyond me [single digits only because they're much easier to remember])

60 is the new 18

highlights from susan cheever's article "The Princess and the Terminator" in newsweek last month. (this article, btw, was published before it was revealed why she was leaving him. at the time people just thought they had grown apart)

"Once upon a time men and women in their 50s and 60s didn’t have serious marital problems—this was primarily because they were dead. Even the most irritating behavior is somehow more bearable in blessed memory. With nearly 30 years added to our life expectancy since 1900—it was around 50 and is now over 80—we can make choices and have emotional crises that wouldn’t have seemed worth it when there were only a few more years of unhappiness to soldier through.

"This 30-year bonus has dramatically shifted the marital center of gravity in our lives—at least for the healthy, prosperous citizens of the industrialized world. If 50 is the new 30, 60-ish is in many ways a new kind of 18... This extra time on earth is oddly liberating especially for those of us still energetic and vibrant... If we are not going to speak out and act out at 60, when will we?"

there was another article in newsweek about why will and kate took so long to get married. it said that if their marriage ended, so likely would the british monarchy since most people already don't see the point. another failed royal marriage would put the nail in the coffin, so will and kate had to take marriage seriously. ...well shit, shouldn't everyone?

elderly

watched a bit of show on pbs tonight about people taking care of their elderly parents. besides the usual, it esp made me sad because i was thinking that when my parents are that old, their english will probably be really really bad (even if they don't get some disease that causes dementia, i'm sure some of their language skills will deteriorate). and who knows how bad my chinese will be by then? i'm lucky that we're here in so cal where so many mandarin speaking people live. if it came down to it, i should be able to find a pretty nice senior citizen home that has chinese speaking staff. but that's not good enough. i still won't be able to talk to my rents. :(

death cab for cutie - what sarah said
'in a place where we only say goodbye' / '‘cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room' / 'as each descending peak on the lcd took you a little farther away from me' / 'but i’m thinking of what sarah said: that love is watching someone die'