Hot Stove

Expert Chef: Now, don’t touch the stove. I just turned off the burner so it’s still hot. If you want to touch it, you have to wait until the heat dies down and the red light turns off.

American 1: OK, I’ll wait. (Five seconds pass.) Can I touch it now?

Expert Chef: No, the light is still on.

American 1: But I want to touch it!

American 2: I’m just so over not touching the stove.

American 1: That’s long enough. I’m touching it.

The Expert Chef grabs American 1’s hand before he can burn himself.

Expert Chef: No! It’s still hot! You’ll get burned!

American 2: But is it still hot? I’m just asking questions.

Expert Chef: Yes. All empirical evidence, including the heat emanating from the burner, and the red light, indicate that the stove is indeed still hot.

American 1 touches the stove and burns his hand.

American 1: Ow! That burns!

Expert Chef: Well, what did you think would happen? I warned you.

American 1: You can’t tell me not to touch a hot stove! I have freedom!

American 2: I have a right to touch that stove! It’s right in the Constitution!

Expert Chef (flabbergasted): But … that’s not … You have your freedom, yes, but you have to balance that with responsibility. In this case, the responsibility not to hurt yourself or others.

American 1 (staring directly at red light): How about now? Still hot?

Expert Chef (through gritted teeth): You can feel. The heat. From here.

American 2: But my gut tells me it’s not hot.

American 1: Oh, always go with your gut. I mean, what do so-called (does air quotes) “experts” know?

American 2 touches the still-hot burner.

Expert Chef: No! No!

American 2: Oww! That smarts!

American 1: Oh, how hot can it— (touches stove) Ow!

American 2: Nobody warned us!

The Expert Chef bangs his head on the counter.

American 1: Why are you hurting yourself? Don’t you know any better?

Repeat scene ad infinitum.

Back to School or Home or Wherever

I haven’t had too much to write about lately. It seems like a contradiction since there’s so much going on, but it seems like the whole country is boiling down to COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and the election. I have plenty to say about all three but I don’t want to be a broken record. Yet, when there are so many serious things going on, I feel silly writing about something more trivial. So it’s a conundrum.

One thing that is prominent in my mind now is going back to school, or back to the laptop or wherever the school year is happening. The Delaware Department of Education just released guidelines for a few scenarios and in August, the governor will announce his decision on whether schools will reopen full time, reopen part time, or remain closed with distance learning.

It's funny because the idea that they will decide on school reopening in August is at once obvious and useless. It’s halfway through July. The school year starts Aug. 31 so when else would they decide—November?

I’m a little torn about the next school year. It would be good for kids to be back in a classroom, but any return should happen safely so no kid, teacher or staff member gets COVID-19. Our son’s distance learning experience was OK, given that nobody had time to plan anything, but could have been better. I hope this time he’ll have some more work to do. We don’t want him to fall behind but this disease scares me. For now, they are saying it looks like Delaware schools will be open with many precautions.

I don’t mean to complain because we were lucky that we could work from home the last few months while our son was on his laptop. It was a challenge to supervise him while working and having our own Zoom meetings, but we didn’t have to juggle toddlers or something like that. I don’t know what the hell parents do if they have to go to work or face greater challenges.

I’m just some shlub so I don’t know the solution to this problem. But it infuriates me that Betsy DeVos doesn’t either. A look at the Department of Education’s website shows no plans or guidance for reopening during COVID-19—you wouldn’t even know the pandemic is happening. She disgraced herself with her ignorance last weekend during an interview. Get a load of this exchange:

REPORTER: So, yes or no, can you assure students, teachers, parents, that they will not get coronavirus because they're going back to school?

DEVOS: Well, the key is that kids have to get back to school.

DeVos offered no plans, guidance or reassurance for parents, kids or teachers in the face of a pandemic that has killed well over 100,000 people. In several interviews, she just kept repeating that “Kids need to go back to school.” This is no more than any parent could say. DeVos talks like she’s just a casual observer of current events, someone who sees a problem on the news and says “Someone should do something,” and then forgets about it a minute later.

You’re the fucking Secretary of Education! You should be doing something, rather than just issuing a mandate that kids should return and not offering any guidance! I agree that not every school is facing COVID-19 to the same extent, so there’s no plan that fits all, but she should at least work to offer a standard for schools to meet before they can reopen. Would it be so difficult for DeVos to offer the bare minimum of calling for masks, testing and social distancing in schools?

The Trump Cabinet has been such a clown car of incompetence, corruption and malignance, and DeVos has been one of, if not the, worst of them. But at least a lot of these awful people have been fired. It figures that Betsy DeVos is the one who continues to stick around in a time of national crisis, like a dimwitted appendix.

Do your goddamn job!