Where a Hispanic Catholic, and a Computer Geek write about Gun Rights, Self Defense and whatever else we can think about.
Do you feel any different?
Are things fixed in your city? In your State? In our Country?
No, right? What a surprise!
Just because the year changed a digit, does not mean anything at all has changed. We are still stuck with the same crap of 5 days ago.
Now, get back to reality and do what needs to be done.
This is about only those who want to get the vaccine. If you are against, please spare us the 10 million reasons why you are not getting yours.
The milestone comes as the US struggles with a slow rollout of its two coronavirus vaccines, with just 1 percent of the country given the first dose. In New York, once the epicenter of the pandemic, just 32 percent of doses delivered have wound up in residents’ arms.
Israel delivers 1M COVID-19 vaccines to 10 percent of population
And Florida is not doing any better either. We need to get this system going and going faster.
My guess is that we no longer have people who have done mass vaccinations in our health system. We no longer have vaccination events for stuff like polio and measles certainly nothing nothing for other more “exotic” tropical diseases like the ones I grew up with.
An I may be an old fart, but having to get shots via a reservation website seems to me to be a waste of time and a way high tech approach to drive a simple nail.
We have amazing amounts of data at our disposal, specially where the biggest concentration of the elderly live. Announce via the media that there will be mass vaccinations for the elderly at locations to be announced in those neighborhoods and let people come to you. Once you are satisfied you had enough seniors, then repeat the same type of visits by neighborhood for the other people. Do that for both doses and once you feel you had a sizeable group already treated, then use the vast network of pharmacies to get everybody else. There are some 23,000 plus Walmart pharmacies, Walgreens and CVS in the United States or 23,000 locations that could be used to deliver the vaccine. I am pretty sure we could get this done efficiently and comfortably for as long as it takes.
And please, dear Media: Stop wasting airtime doing the derangement/gotcha political crap and focus on informing people where and when to get the shots. In Florida, the elections are still 2 years away so you can safely invest a month or two assisting the people you purportedly want to help rather than throw propaganda as per your political masters.
Two stories from as many days in NYC.
Bat-wielding man injures multiple people in NYC during crazy crime spree
A crazed man left 10 people injured and a wild trail of destruction behind him during a Manhattan rampage Saturday night that involved subway assaults, street beat-downs and two carjackings, according to cops and police sources.
Suspect Bryan Thompson, 43, of Atlantic City, NJ, was wielding what his victims said was everything from a bat to tree branch to wooden clubs — or all of the above at various times — as he raged from Tribeca to Chelsea for less than an hour, police and sources said.
“He was a one-man crime spree,” a police source said.
Thompson allegedly started his attacks in a subway platform in Tribeca at around 6:35 p.m.
He was in the station at Varick and Canal streets when he battered at least three people — a 39-year-old woman, 18-year-old Manhattan man and 57-year-old guy — over the head “with a wooden weapon” in “unprovoked” attacks on the uptown No. 2 train platform, the NYPD said.
He then carjacked two different cars before getting arrested.
Man suspected of randomly slugging women at NYC subway stop back on the street days later
A man suspected of randomly punching four women at a Brooklyn subway station over the holiday season was busted in connection with the terrifying nighttime attacks last week — but was released from custody only days later, The Post has learned.
The incidents happened between Nov. 17 and Dec. 28, as the women, aged 24 to 32, walked on stairs or ramps of the Morgan Avenue L train stop in East Williamsburg, according to police, who never publicized the disturbing spate of assaults.
One holiday weekend and two subway related crime sprees.
The second perpetrator was released the next day following his arrest.
Self-defense is banned in the Big Apple. Cops are quitting left and right. Prosecutors are letting dangerous people out of jail.
Spree violence is only going to go up. The Subways are going back to the bad old days of being underground deathtraps.
New York City has been utterly ruined.
This should be a lesson for everyone who doesn’t want madmen terrorizing their cities at night: don’t let Progressives into your government.
From the NY Post:
NYC DOE school ordered abuse probe, issued report cards for boy who wasn’t a student there
The city Department of Education turned John Tomasi into a phantom student — and not only gave him fake report cards, but wrongly put his family under investigation for child abuse.
The 14-year-old never enrolled in Cobble Hill School of American Studies in Brooklyn. He never attended a single class, in person or remotely.
Yet this fall, the public school created two report cards for John, both including teacher comments.
His physical-education teacher twice gave John the highest grade: “ME” for “exceeds standards.”
His algebra teacher cited “progress toward … understanding the connection between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations,” among other skills.
Then the school called the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and altered them for “suspected child abuse or maltreatment.”
After a short but invasive investigation, ACS was alerted to the fact that John was a student at a private Catholic school, Xaverian HS.
Then it got worse.
Margaret was ready to forget the whole fiasco until the family received not one but two Cobble Hill report cards for John.
A report card for the first marking period, which arrived in mid-November, gave John grades of “NX,” which means “incomplete,” or “NL,” which means “recent admit,” in listed classes: English, Algebra, Principals (sic) of Biomed, Living Environment, Mindfulness and Global Studies.
The algebra teacher cited progress in three areas: “using properties of rational and irrational numbers,” “understanding solving equations as a process of reasoning and explaining the reasoning,” and “solving systems of equations.”
Cobble Hill gym teacher George Kaliampos gave John the highest mark: “ME,” for “exceeds standards.”
A report card for the second marking period arrived Dec. 19. The same grades — including “exceeds standards” in phys-ed — were repeated, but with more teacher comments.
His Mindfulness teacher noted, “Frequently does not submit course work.”
The Algebra teacher cited two additional areas of “progress” by John: “understanding the connection between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations,” and “representing and solving equations and inequalities graphically.”
But she added: “Insufficient work is available to determine the student’s grades despite multiple attempts to contact the student and family.”
Those are very specific notes for a teacher to make about a student who wasn’t there.
A Cobble Hill teacher blamed the school’s “general incompetence and inability to function properly,” saying administrators gave the faculty a bad contact list: “There were countless students with wrong phone numbers.” Administrators also refused to make home visits to look for kids who could not be reached, the teacher told The Post, asking to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation.
As for the report cards, administrators instructed teachers to choose from a list of canned comments. Citing “progress” is a gentle way to indicate failure, the teacher said.
So NYC public school teachers are creating report cards like Mad Libs for students they never met to look like they are doing their job, and when they get caught, blame the administration for bad record-keeping.
If they are just making up report cards for kids who aren’t there, you know they are making up report cards for the kids who are there too.
The entire NYC public school system is just one failed house of cards, with entrenched bureaucrats and unionized teachers bullshitting everyone rather than doing their jobs.
The COVID lockdowns and the response of parents have proven that.
I’m getting the distinct impression that 99.99% of other school districts in America are about the same.
Democrat Congressman from Missouri, Emanual Cleaver, was selected to open the 117th Congress with a prayer.
He closed his prayer with “Amen and a-woman.”
A prayer opening the 117th Congress concluded, "Amen and a woman."
"Amen" translates to "so be it." pic.twitter.com/SIGBtgLk5v
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 4, 2021
I was taught that “amen” was Hebrew for “truth” or “truly.” An affirmation that was was said during the prayer was true.
Regardless, Emanuel Cleaver was awarded a Master of Divinity from St. Paul School of Theology and is an ordained minister.
He should know what Amen means and where it came from.
He decided to end the prayer with some extraneous and meaningless bullshit to Progressive, gender-inclusive, virtue signaling.
In the strictest sense, he is a charlatan and a blasphemer. He wasn’t serious about his prayer. He was serious in using his prayer to show off what sort of Progressive he is.
The only religion that Leftists believe in is Progressivism. Everything else is a charade used to take advantage of others.
“Apocalypse Dad” was trending on Twitter. I had to see why.
It was because of this epic thread (unrolled for easy reading).
So, yesterday my daughter (9) was hungry and I was doing a jigsaw puzzle so I said over my shoulder “make some baked beans.” She said, “How?” like all kids do when they want YOU to do it, so I said, “Open a can and put it in pot.” She brought me the can and said “Open it how?”
“With a can opener!” I said, incredulous. She brought me the can opener and we both stared at it. I realized I’d never taught her to use it. Most cans now have pull-tops. I felt like a dope. What kind of apocalypse father doesn’t teach his kid how to use a manual can opener?!?
So I said, “How do you think this works?” She studied it and applied it to the top of the can, sideways. She struggled for a while and with a big, dramatic sigh said, “Will you please just open the can?” Apocalypse Dad was overjoyed: a Teaching Moment just dropped in my lap!
I said, “The little device is designed to do one thing: open cans. Study the parts, study the can, figure out what the can-opener inventor was thinking when they tried to solve this problem.” (The can opener is also a bottle opener, but I explained that part wasn’t relevant.)
I went back to my jigsaw puzzle. She was next to me grunting and groaning trying to get the thing. I should say that spatial orientation, process visualization and order of operation are not things she… intuits. I knew this would be a challenge. But it was a rainy weekend.
Eventually she collapsed in a frustrated heap. I said, “Explain the parts.” She said, “This little wheel is meant to cut, these gears turn the wheel when you spin the handle. This other wheel looks like a gear but isn’t.” She couldn’t figure out the clamping step, a key element!
I said, “The tool is made to be pleasing but it doesn’t have any superfluous qualities. Everything that moves does so for a reason.” She said, “I hate you.” I’m sure she believes that she does. I said, “You understand everything except how the tool addresses the can.” She sighed.
At this point she said, “I don’t want baked beans” and marched off. Apocalypse Dad went into full ‘The Road’ Mode! “Sweetheart, neither of us will eat another bite today until we get into this can of beans.” She screamed “AUGH!” like Lucy Van Pelt. She read a book for awhile.
Soon she was back at the can. The top was all dented now, the lip of the can practically serrated from failed attempts. We studied the tool some more. She really wanted it to be oriented up and down or across the top of the can. The sideways orientation is very counterintuitive.
She was fixated on orienting the tool in a few configurations and couldn’t imagine other possibilities. I compared the can opener to other tools. By now we were working on anger-management and perseverance too. She suggested she open the can with a hammer. There were tears.
I told her stories of some of the great cans I’d opened over the years. She rolled her eyes. We talked about industrial design and what a funny little device the opener is. I showed how I open cans with a Buck knife. I rhapsodized about cold Spaghetti-Os straight from the can!
Eventually she had it all figured out. She had the placement of the tool, she could turn the handle and the can would spin (we were down on the floor by this point), but the “kachunk” of puncturing the lid still eluded us. We’d been at it for SIX HOURS on and off. We were hungry.
I’d been tempted many times along the way to guide her hand. I wanted her to experience the magnificence of the can opener SO MUCH I couldn’t stand the suspense. Neither of us likes baked beans that much—the cupboards are bare—so it seemed like a paltry reward for this work.
I’d forgotten how finicky the tool really is, particularly when it comes to the puncture. She had it all lined up! But the cutting wheel is a little wobbly (by design) and you have to really get on top of it to clamp it down. You know the feeling? You can misfire the damn thing!
Finally she squeezed down on it and, although it was a misfire, a light went off in her head. Many times throughout the day she’d yelled at me, “My brain is fuzzy! I can’t think of anything else to try!!!” and I’d say, “When your brain doesn’t work, trust your hands.”
She felt the tool click over the lip of the can. I saw it in her hands. By this point she’d developed a little ritual of addressing the tool to the can: starting with it on a vertical axis and rotating it to the horizontal while clamping down in a single motion. A choreography.
She looked at me expectantly, excitedly. After six hours of trying you don’t want to express too much hope. Was this another blind alley? The can had been through hell, label ripped off, dented, sharpened and burred, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars. She knew, though.
She set up again, carefully, and brought the Swing-a-Way to bear on the can of S&W baked beans with the meticulousness of Roger Moore extracting a detonator from an ICBM in The Spy Who Loved Me. A soft pop resounded in the room, so different from all the other sounds we’d made.
She didn’t look up. She knew the action. A little baked bean sauce appeared. She savored each twist until the lid, as I hoped it would, rewarded her by standing perfectly at attention, saluting her effort and ingenuity. She was elated and carried it to the kitchen in both hands.
She knew this was a commonplace task and a common tool but also that this was serious business. She knows her dad, and the stock I put in these things. A more mechanically inclined kid might have figured it out in minutes. She factored the scale, but was rightfully proud.
I’m proud of her too. I know I’m infuriating. I know this is parenting theater in some ways. I suffer from a lack of perseverance myself, and like all parents throughout history I’m trying to correct my own mistakes in the way I educate my child. She sees through this.
The Swing-a-Way can opener is a little voodoo doll for us now. It will reappear as an allegory many more times in her life, you can be sure. She knows this too. But this is an allegory of triumph. I wish I had more of those for myself. I wish I had more stories like this.
The only problem is now she wants to open every fucking can in the house!
That was fantastic.
The internet, however, hated it.
There is a time for the Socratic Method of teaching. That wasn’t it. I’m betting your daughter won’t remember this as a happy day like you seem to be. She’s going to remember being angry and crying and hungry and Dad caring more about a can opener.
— ? ? Carina Hilbert✌️ (@CarinaHilbert) January 3, 2021
I want to smack the shit out of him. Big man tormenting his hungry little kid.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) January 3, 2021
It’ll be one of those stories she tells her therapist one day, about how her terrible father thought it was cool to let a 9-year-old go hungry for 6 hours instead of tearing himself away from a jigsaw puzzle for 5 minutes and showing her how to use a can opener
— mr gabriel ❄️ tentacles (@trash_gabe) January 3, 2021
All I’m hearing is “that time I told my dad I was hungry and he wouldn’t let me eat for another six hours for no good reason.”
Like… did you ever go through that as a kid? You go too long hungry and you just feel sick and like you might pass out? No? Then don’t do it to the kid— Communist Siren ☭ (@a_queer_ius) January 3, 2021
And, of course, because the personal is political ad everything is social justice, this is evil, white man, misogyny.
That fact deeply depressed me. What is that? Why is that? I also strongly suspect her gender plays into how he handled this.
— Minipiccolominipiccolominipiccolominipiccolominipi (@MavetyStreet) January 3, 2021
“Yesterday a “teachable moment” fell into my lap, and I taught my daughter that I think it’s funny when I withhold information and food!” –you
Also maybe think about how, while people of all sorts are aghast at this, it’s only white men congratulating you.
— it’s Casey *space noises* (he/him) (@Ela_Hadrun) January 3, 2021
Here is someone who managed to tie this to Trump because TDS is a thing.
Having been raised by an asshole just like Apocalypse Dad, I’m here to tell you he’s an abusive, manipulative, jackass with a narcissism component that rivals Trump’s.
— Toots, Empress of Entropy ????? (@TootsTheRed) January 3, 2021
Then there is this Tweet.
Mum: look, this is how it works. Daughter: gee, thanks mum. Dinner is served. Time elapsed: 5 minutes. This is why women live so much longer.
— Steph Dyhrberg (@StephDyhrberg) January 3, 2021
And I wonder if the astronauts on Apollo 13 would have survived if they were women raised this way.
Teaching is important but so is “figure it out.”
There is no self-reliance like the self-reliance that comes from figuring something out.
One of my favorite books is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. In it, Brian Robeson, the main character is a 13-year-old boy who is stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash. He has to survive by figuring things out on his own.
The lesson in figuring out how a can opener works by studying it was far more useful than just being shown.
The daughter was in no danger, even six hours without food isn’t a danger.
As an adult, you won’t always have someone to show you how to do something, and sometimes you just have to forge ahead and figure it out.
The people complaining at him, I would venture a guess, are all soft people who don’t know what end of a hammer to hold and without an instructional video would starve and die.