So in today's Q&A, the Minister of Education was asked what does she think should be done now that schools have become a meat grinder chewing through teachers, relievers, aids and students and if sending sick kids to school would make it worse. (my paraphrase)
Her answer was that they recognise that and are working hard on making sure more meat is available to throw into the grinder. (my paraphrase again)
No actual solutions there. No ability to adapt to reality.
But when I was sick I didn't do much learning. Even as an adult, being sick means barely being productive.
I'd think sending sick kids to school doesn't help their learning at all.
It helps assistance stats.
It helps disease spread among other kids and teachers.
It also probably helps keep parents at work.
Not much else.
But we know this govt is allergic to evidence.
Reality is that you only really need to wear a mask and consider air quality if:
-you breathe air regularly.
-you care about your brain, heart, immune system, lungs, kidneys, bones, teeth, eyes, liver or other organs.
-you ever have other people around you.
The First Home grant was what allowed my whānau to finally be able to afford a modest townhouse in South Akl.
We love our little home. 🏘️
It is infuriating that a similar opportunity won't be available anymore to people like us.
(And I get that it was an inefficient subsidy on demand, but in a market as cooked as NZ's it was a helpful tool. One that should not be removed until the supply variables in the equation are solved. And currently they are only getting worse, thanks CoC)
Unfortunately, it's not what the current govt of Landlords is doing.
Nor is it what has been done in the last 40 years here.
But ppl need homes now and that grant was the way first home buyers could hope to compete in an investor's market.
If it was removed as social housing was built on mass, and profits were taxed, my opinion would be different. Right now it feels like ditching the lifesaver without rescuing the castaway from the raging ocean.
Hello toot friends, I bring #antiLawn memes.
I'm hoping to radicalise you all against the boring monoculture lawn and turn you into biodiversity defenders.
Not only is it an elitist ecological disaster of a massive manicured lawn every NIMBY loves, it is also so boring the winner is whoever manages to play the least of it.
Lots of attention given to absenteeism, threats to fine parents, online dashboards for real-time student tracking and all the BS non-solutions.
Instead we could clean the air in schools, normalise masking in risky environments, regularise testing, support adequate isolation. But for that it would be necessary to break out of the collective delusion and admit that #CovidIsNotOver.
You'd expect the teacher unions to be raising hell about this, but they also seem to be caught in the fantasy that covid (and all the other diseases) are fine to catch over and over again, and that workers' health is disposable.
Covid won't get better until there is collective action to materially change the conditions where it spreads.
We know what to do and it's cheaper, easier and better than this endless cycle of death and disability.
workmates talking about buying lotto because apparently today's odds are better than usual while refusing to mask when airborne sickness is already making us short-staffed really says something about humans and our limits in understanding risk and probability.
@dave 💯
The workmate who is currnetly infected and off is on his third covid ride. His partner is a cancer survivor.
One would think that would warrant some precaution, but he "won't live in fear".
@jeremy_pm@dave i mean yes... but also vaccines are increasingly ineffective to mutated strains. Kids under 5 are not allowed any. And the ones approved here in NZ are for XBB, a strain not detected in a few months now. We don't have access to a more effective updated novavax and keep acting ignorant when it comes to clean air and masks.
It's a strategy doomed to fail.
The Coalition of Cruelty currently governing NZ is attacking on so many fronts.
It's hard to even keep track, let alone fight back.
(We knew it was going to be this way, but regardless...)
So here's a thread of submission guides, petitions and the like.. so you can pick and choose the ones you care the most about, the spoons you have available, and hopefully together we can stop some of the shitfuckery they're throwing our way.