Sunday, August 23, 2020

Life in the Pandemic

 My university has been in session for a week; the kid's university starts on Monday. All of his classes are what we're calling "remote delivery," which basically means online. So his chances of catching Covid-19 are lessened.

Dr. Skull also goes back to work on Monday. This, I am less sanguine about. Our public schools are all meeting f2f. We've had over 200 teachers* resign in our school district rather than risk catching the virus, so there's lots of work for substitute teachers. And he plans to wear his mask. And we desperately need the money.

AND YET.

I'm resting my hopes on him having caught Covid-19 when I had it, back in May (if I did have it, which was never confirmed), and thus being immune now.

Capitalism. 

You have to open the schools, even if it's going to put lives at risk, because how else can parents go to work, and you can't pay people to stay home, because if you did that, people wouldn't take shit jobs just to stay alive, and of course they don't have enough money saved to stay home on their own, because they've been paid shit wages all their lives.

So people are going to get sick, and then of course you can't pay for their medical care, because how else would health care executives be able to afford six vacations a year and three houses? Not to mention that private plane! So people are going to be saddled with immense medical debt, which means they'll have to take the shitty jobs at the shitty pay being offered. What a system!


When will America reopen? 10 cartoons on the latest phase of the ...


*Obviously resigning is not an option for most teachers. No unemployment if you quit, so you can't quit unless you have someone who can support you. For teachers with wealthy partners, or those old enough to start drawing retirement, it's an option. Not for most people.


2 comments:

Foscavista said...

I am not sure how the public school district works in your state, but in mine, if you resign, you are blacklisted for a period of time from teaching again.

delagar said...


Yikes! I have no idea if that's true here. Though I wouldn't be surprised.