When you go through old school picture day photos, memories return, even if you can’t for the life of you remember who half those people were–or even sometimes have trouble finding yourself.

What tales they tell.

In the fall, on his way home from practice on a rainy day, my high school junior Zachary skidded out on his bike. His face was the first thing to hit the asphalt.

One of our town angels gathered him and the bike up–thank you, James!–and brought him home. He was all banged up. I can at times embrace the aw-rub-some-dirt-in-it mentality, but when we got him into the upstairs bathroom and looked over the damage, we realized this thing might not heal properly. A scar isn’t the worst of things, but it’s different if it’s a result of parental negligence.

Taking him to Urgent Care was the right call, because he ended up getting eight stitches.

He was fine, though, playing in the soccer season opener two days later and even taking a ball right in the face–he had to convince the ref he was doubled over not because he was concussed but because he just had his face sewn together.

But the week of the accident was also the week of school picture time. The heck with it, we said: We sent him. And we got this:

Uh… yah. 950, 951, 952–some story. So what is the tale being told here?:

• “They told me I could fight my way to the front of the picture line… so I listened. Oh, I was the last kid photographed.”
• “A face only a mother could love–and even then only that one side of it.”
• “I told you to shoot my good side!”
• “I’m literally the poster child for bike helmets!'”
• “Nothing to see here.”
• “When you have a school photo like this, the message is clear: My parents don’t love me.”
• “Hasn’t anyone ever heard of Photoshop?”
• “Didn’t the pandemic prevent stuff like this?”
• “So this kid walks into a bar… face first.”
• “Dang it, I am smiling! You try smiling with this contusion on your countenance!”
• “Once upon a time… I learned that the street is way harder than my face.”
• “Sure I have a girlfriend! She just lives kind of far away–uh, in Canada, in, uh western Canada. That’s why you never see her.”
• And, of course, “You should see the other guy.”

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // Add Comment »

I watched the two-day snowstorm this week, and I also watched my high school junior sit diligently at the kitchen table, learning remotely. I thought how I can still remember the school closing numbers for not only Eastern High School but Berlin Community School: 579 and 578.

In a much different time, marked by different media, on snowy days we would get up and turn on the radio and listen as an announcer, over a grainy AM signal, would rattle through the list of schools that had closed because of the snow.

The anticipation built as he went into the 500s. We had looked outside and seen the flakes, thick and white, with no reasonable chance of stopping. We knew school had to be closed.

On those days, often it was. Our expectations would meet up with the meteorological predictions of the previous night, and the announcer would call it for us.

Other days, tragedy. The announcer would run the corner of 570 like a horse on the home stretch: “570, 571, 572, 573, 574, 575, 576, 577…” and then, cruelly, he would skip ahead to “…582, 583.” How could our schools be the only schools that were open?! Woe! Woe!

Some days there was the “tie,” the unsatisfying conclusion. Slush. “577 two hours late,” the voice would utter. Two hours? What could we do with two hours? We were already awake and riled, so we couldn’t sleep in. No point in getting cold and soaked for a mere two-hour snowball fight. None of the adventures of the day could be pursued. Nothing made sense.

Was it worse when we never made it to the numbers? I remember going to bed several times after the news had predicted a big storm–I would be almost as giddy and restless as on Christmas Eve.

I would awaken early. It would always be dark. Something felt wrong–it was too dark. I would creep to the window, draw in a breath, and pull aside the shades. I still recall the scarring sight: The slick, black streets, only damp from some light mist, cast in the wan yellowy lights of the streetlamps. No snow could be seen. There would be school.

Now that we are going through a pandemic, almost everyone has gone through the experience of online learning. Many educators have been predicting that the snow day will be a quaint remembrance, so 20th-century, perhaps.

My teenager certainly didn’t miss a step. He has been fully remote anyway, and on Monday he strode into the kitchen and made himself some toaster strudels and was greeted online, as always, by his enthusiastic teachers and classmates. I do believe in the power and effectiveness of online learning–it’s my career!–and during this wintry week, even those students who chose hybrid learning were working only remotely.

There are now no disruptions to education. No frustrating administrative re-configuring. No family spring break plans changed or school years extended. The school day happens inexorably, and then the kids can go outside at 3:00 o’clock for their fun.

It’s a pity, really.

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // 2 Comments »

I started writing this a few weeks ago, right after the last weekend of the NFL regular season. A few things have happened since, but I’ll stay the course.

2020 saw many a hope and dream crushed, including those who had thought their kids were fast-tracking to sports glory. The pandemic ended youth seasons, froze recruiting, and in some colleges led to an extended year of eligibility, causing many frosh to face a peculiar roster glut, as they tried to join teams that didn’t graduate anyone.

Of course, many of these athletes had already reached their peak. I thought about this a lot in the final weekend of the NFL and the playoffs, which I watched, as always, with much interest. This year, I was noticing the chasm between starting quarterbacks and most of the rest, especially because many backups got a shot, even with playoff spots on the line at the end of the season.

Often, these games made for tough watching. Aside from a couple outliers, the backup-led offenses were mostly inept, and the drop-off in talent was stark, almost painful.

I listened to announcers (in between the incessant blather) discuss just how good these players were at previous levels. In college, they were nothing short of amazing–I mean, that’s the word: They put up these amazing numbers and won everything. Some of them played in other pro leagues, where they were nothing short of amazing. You can imagine how good they were in high school–yep, there’s that word again: amazing.

Hearing this while watching the bumbling on-field play, I wondered how difficult it must be for players who had been dominant their entire lives suddenly to drop off the cliff when they took another step forward.

It must be a tough reality to face after years and years of being amazing that you have little place at the next level. In fact, there was even a secondary narrative I noticed: Stud quarterbacks at previous levels who had been moved out of that position in the NFL.

Hell, I’m not criticizing these athletics warriors. They still have reached the pinnacle, and, hey, they’re making a ton of cash. I love the hard-work quest for excellence in sports–or anything–and believe the journey is its own reward.

But watching them, thinking about the hours they spent, made me wonder about the quixotic quest of many parents of young athletes, rushing breathlessly forward without considering that for the vast majority, it will end much earlier than they think. The higher, more unrealistic, and more external expectations are, the more painful the thud must be for the kid.

It was a stark reminder that in my experience with sports, there are big jumps in levels. Young athletes often bump against the ceiling of their current level rather abruptly, in nearly all cases not only before the pros, but before college. In tough cases, kids peak before high school: You know, the sixth-grade playground god who sits the bench in high school.

In these NFL games, it must be surreal for the old hometown fans to gather ’round when they hear that the local boy is going to finally play and then watch a game that’s too fast, too much for him. They’ll remember the high school state title, the pride of the town, like it was a million years ago.

For me, it’s enjoyable to work with kids who are giving their all to be the best they can. It’s less enjoyable to talk to some parents who, often with a maniacal gleam in their eyes, see their kids as destined for high-level greatness and have, all by themselves, set the expectation mark at those heights: scholarships and all the rest.

If the kids themselves, yes, encouraged by the supportive structure around them, want this glory, they should go for it! Most will recognize their limits, and that will be part of the experience.

But as I watched those games, thinking of these players, I realized that we toss around the word “best” a lot, often forgetting what it means and just how few people can occupy the space it fundamentally describes.

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock // Add Comment »

In our house the movie A Christmas Story is, as in many other households, a holiday staple.

In this perfect little movie, Ralphie has several loss-of-youthful-innocence moments. One of the most poignant (mild spoiler alert follows if for some reason you’ve never seen this movie!) is his effort to decode a message to save radio show heroine Little Orphan Annie.

Ralphie has eagerly awaited a special decoder pin’s arrival in the mail. He’ll tune into his favorite radio program, receive Annie’s coded message, and then use the decoder. This is important stuff!

He finally receives the decoder package (making him forget immediately about a narrow escape from bullies), hears the message, and rushes off to the bathroom, “the only room in the house where a boy of nine can sit in privacy and decode.”

While little brother Randy whines at the door about needing to use the bathroom, the narrator recounts Ralphie’s decoding. The tension builds as he deciphers Annie’s message, letter by letter, imagining he might be saving the world!

That’s until the whole message is clear: B-E-S-U-R-E-T-O-D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E.

A stunned Ralphie realizes he’s been duped: The message was merely “a crummy commercial” for the program sponsor. Ralphie throws down the pencil and decoder and leaves the bathroom, going “out to face the world again, wiser.”

It’s another bittersweet moment where he is yanked into the sphere of mature knowledge.

For some chunk of Americans, their Ralphie-Ovaltine moment is coming. I don’t think it’s funny. I’m not gloating about it. I don’t envy them it.

At some point, these Ralphies will be engaged, perhaps feverishly, with recollecting a lingering aspect of the chaos of the past four years of this president, and it’ll hit them.

Perhaps it will be when one of the many inside stories of a presidency driven by selfishness and greed and antagonism comes to light. They will hear about just who walked and tarnished the halls of their White House the past few years. They will see clearly the pardoning of those who abused their trust.

Perhaps, my god, they sent money the past few months to “fight” the bizarre claims of election conspiracy. They will see how a purported-drainer-of-the-swamp created the deepest fen in modern political history with their money.

Perhaps they’ll read a book about autocratic or fascist propaganda. Or they’ll read–or re-read–1984. They’ll realize that the person who hugs the flag tightest may be the least patriotic, the least American. They will see that a long and unfortunately reliable way to fool people is with what many call “The Big Lie,” which is that if you tell a monster lie, a preposterous untruth, and repeat it enough, some group of people will come to believe it.

Perhaps they will not have their moment for many years. Perhaps it will come when their kids or even grandkids will read about this era, read about how a purveyor of more than 20,000 lies set up a sloppy, stupid lie about the integrity of the U.S. election and how many enablers went along with it to get votes, and a young face will look up to them asking, “You certainly didn’t believe that, did you?”

Faced with that question, what will our Ralphies do when they think back on the unpatriotic and undemocratic actions of the past four years? Will they admit their culpability?

Or, even with so much time having passed, will they follow dutifully from the wreckage of integrity of the past four years and simply lie themselves?

Regardless, I feel for these future Ralphies, as many will have a moment when their belief in a movement will be abruptly shattered, splintered by the searing shock of knowledge that the past four years had been largely a sham: a bloated, “crummy” commercial.

Tags: politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

In the spring, as we were whiling away pandemic time, I decided to attempt to rekindle my short-lived TikTok fame by making a video about badminton.

Yeah, let that sentence sink in.

Unfortunately, in trying to please my small and ever-dwindling fan base, I stumbled in a rut and tore the meniscus in my knee.

Some fun.

I hobbled around for five months before determining that I had to address it. The surgery is tomorrow.

With that decision, I entered the insurance maze. Realize, no one was a malicious player–in fact, everyone I worked with was friendly and helpful–but the process was like a part-time job.

Once upon a time, I went to my primary care because that’s where the process all starts for these things. That makes sense. Got it. From there, I needed an MRI. Check. Then I was off to see the knee specialist.

I have good, maybe great, insurance. I work for an employer that has a preferred network. I searched the nearly 24,000-line tier 1 provider spreadsheet for a knee doc, and I found one.

I went to the office, got some x-rays and had an eval. He sent me to the surgeon. I went to see the surgeon and the NP he works with, had a more detailed eval (like I said, the individual players were great), and set up the surgery.

During the course of all this bills and paper copy EoB (explanation of benefits) forms were arriving. Sometimes I was billed. Sometimes I wasn’t. Sometimes I paid on the spot. Sometimes I didn’t. I tried to keep up, matching EoBs (they can be a bit confusing) with bills. I was also trying to leverage the waning dollars in my health care spending account–see, I’m a smart consumer!

The big day crept closer.

I of course needed a CoVID preop test. I also needed to set up postop rehab. I looked through my big spreadsheet and found a tier 1 rehab provider. When I called, though, I was told they are not “capitated” to my primary care, so, as a super helpful person there helped me sort that out–including by making a phone call to my insurance for me–I can’t go there.

I called a “capitated” rehab center. I can go there, even though it’s more expensive than the other place. Another nice person gave me a mystery number I had to provide to my primary care, which I did. I called back the primary care to give them that number for a referral.

I was feeling I was almost over the finish line, but near the end of my call about the rehab referral it was mentioned that I might need a “clearance” or “referral” for the surgery. I went from befuddled to panicked, because I thought we did that from the get-go, and then I realized I didn’t know what “that” meant! What were these terms?!

I scrambled to connect my fine primary care folks and the helpful surgeon’s assistant. There was a moment of concern, but they took care of it.

Apparently I am ready, although during the course of those conversations and the conversation with the rehab place I was also told I need a “script,” and I was initially befuddled again until I was assured the “script” would be sent out with me following surgery.

I’m an organized guy. I have a folder for all this stuff. Nice notes. A filing system powerfully behind it all.

How do other people deal with all of this, I thought? Or, wait… am I other people? Pride, indeed, cometh before the fall.

Anyway, I’m ready for the big day–I think.

But this is more complicated now. CoVID. I have to think about the implications of going to the hospital. I also have to think about the implications of asking health care providers to do this job when they might be doing other jobs.

I’m at the eve of the event (who knew this would be the biggest “eve” of the month for me?). If something prevents the procedure, I’ll realize there are more important things in the world. I’ll wait, and then re-open up my little file system and figure out where we left off.

Tags: health & medical, virtual children by Scott Warnock // Add Comment »

I have again wrenched myself into the 21st century. Last year I did it through TikTok. This year, Venmo.

This Venmo thing took a big leap of technofaith, since I had only recently started depositing checks electronically. I was driving to the bank with paper checks in my leather wallet–I know, I know: it was, as the kids say, ridiculous. It was time to get modern.

I signed up for Venmo. Not long after, someone wanted to give me money. I told them my Venmo userid. And they did! Look at me, exchanging money online–whee!

Now if you are a late teen or 20-something, the rest of this will no doubt strike you in a “Wow that dude’s old” kind of way. You’ve been warned. But that’s where the story is.

So one day I open my Venmo (is “open my” the proper phrasing?) and look around, and I notice that I can see that Jimmy gave Jenny “$20 for drinkies.” Jeffy paid Jilly and there’s a French fries emoji. Somebody paid somebody for “Sticky Buns.” Serena paid Virgil accompanied by a GIF of a fingernail getting painted.

On and on. I was stupefied: What was I seeing? I’ll tell you, uh, whipper-snappers what I thought I was seeing: The intimate financial transactions of people, many of them strangers.

My befuddlement led me to what I thought was a good question: Why would people want other people to know how they spend their money?

I posed this very question to many of these people and others like them. The general response I believe can be summarized succinctly: “Who cares?” Not only did they not care, but few could even understand why it mattered.

If I thought this was weird, people said (sometimes stifling a yawn), I could simply make my own transactions private (ah–I had already done that!). But what was the difference?

This behavior was outside my sphere of understanding. In my world paradigm, financial transactions are private. They shouldn’t be social. They shouldn’t be media. Especially when it is easy for them not to be.

However, as I scrolled through the endless transaction list of pizzas and drinks and articles of clothing and drinks and tickets and drinks, money eagerly exchanging hands, I wondered if my perception was what needed changing.

Doubt crept in. Why should these things be private? In real life (IRL), wouldn’t I have seen these people in public with their drinkies and pizzas and other stuff, handing money to another person?

What’s the difference if I’m seeing it all secret-like on my phone? Who does care, and, in our digital world, what does it ultimately matter?

Tags: ends & odd, virtual children by Scott Warnock // Add Comment »

We all knew a Donnie Dodgeball. He’d get pegged during a playground game of dodgeball The ball would carom off his back. But he wouldn’t admit it.

The kid on the other team would cry out, “Got ya!” But he would claim he wasn’t hit. Of course, these things happened sometimes. At that point, the rest of the other team would urge, “You’re out!” The fibber, caught, would give in.

Not Donnie Dodgeball. He’d stay put. He’d insist the ball missed.

There were unwritten playground rules to deal with these situations. After a bit, a stubborn player’s own team would declare the player out. That would almost always do the trick.

Not Donnie Dodgeball. He would angrily maintain that he wasn’t hit. His teammates would urge, “C’mon Donnie Dodgeball, what are you doing? You’re out. Get going!”

Donnie Dodgeball would sit down and refuse to leave the court.

You almost had to admire his brazenness. Even though everyone else knew what had happened, everyone saw it, he would dig in. He would get flush, his voice would crack, and his eyes would moisten.

The pressure would build, and eventually the whole force of the fifth grade playground would have to rise against such a player before he would finally get up, unsuccessfully fighting back tears, and tromp off to the side.

Donnie Dodgeball, though, wouldn’t care that he ruined the game for everyone. He would stay on the court all the way through recess or until an aide who had seen the whole thing would have to tell him he was out and to remove himself from the court.

As time passed and you thought it over, there would be other incidents like this throughout Donnie Dodgeball’s life. Cheating in school. Shortcuts. Pettiness. He wasn’t hated–in fact some people like him–but most knew he was a cheater and he couldn’t be trusted.

Sometimes you would run into Donnie Dodgeball later in life, maybe in a bar, maybe at a class reunion.

He’d get going and he would voice all of the transgressions the world had committed against him, tell you about all the stupid people he hates. You would see the color rise in his face again.

He’d badmouth his wife, complain about his job. It was all same day, different shit.

You’d sit and listen and watch, and you would think back to Donnie Dodgeball sitting defiantly on the playground, bathed in hot tears, and realize you knew who he was all along.

Tags: politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

You’ve heard this everywhere, but I’ll still do my little part here: Get out and vote. I believe if enough people do, we’ll move on from this embarrassing chapter in U.S. history, and we’ll reduce the chance of hemming and hawing and resisting and bs’ing.

Get out there and vote so the swell of numbers means we don’t have to listen to lies about fraud or tampering. Make all of that not matter by virtue of decisiveness.

Tampering? I admit I’ve been mystified since 2016, when everyone was crying foul because Russian bots were running amok on social media and ruining our democracy.

I kept thinking, wait, not Russian tanks or paper-shredder-wielding soldiers or poison-toting spies. Bots. Carrying little pieces of stupid information. My frustration would well up that these bots were an excuse, that our elections’ integrity were being questioned because people weren’t smart enough to do some research on a stupid little fake news story they read on Facebook.

We’ve got to do better. We cannot allow phony ads to influence our vote for the President of the United States.

We’re not living in mud huts cowering and shivering every time it thunders. Shame on us for this nonsense even being a factor in our election. I know digital deceptions–deep fakes, etc.–are getting more complex, but everything can be double-, triple-checked.

It only takes rudimentary critical thinking skills to see through slick editing to a lack of substance, especially when you factor in motive: If a message you receive is being propagated to better someone’s chances at election, at any cost… c’mon, connect the dots!

If you see, for instance, a photo of a bunch of bikers with a caption saying they are praying for the president’s recovery outside Walter Reed hospital, you just need to look around a little to see this isn’t true.

Facebook and its kin, for all the money they make, should police content better, but if your decisions are being primarily governed by material that you’re reading on social media…

… well, here we are.

Smarten up, and get out and vote. Inform yourself, even a little, and then vote. Think of it, as Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum wrote in “Citizens Guide to Defending the Election,” as something proactive you must do: “To put it differently: Instead of treating democracy like tap water, Americans must start fetching it from the well, carrying it home, and boiling it before drinking.”

I’m no prognosticator, and perhaps I’m naive, but if the vast numbers of people who think what’s happening now is a disgrace show up and vote, there’ll be no conversation come early November about the transfer of power. It’ll be too overwhelming to be a conversation.

Who knows, maybe the incumbent will even surprise us with a show of decency in conceding in the face of massive polling numbers.

If that image cheers you, however unbelievable it seems, then get out and vote.

Tags: ends & odd, politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

People across the world are dismayed, disturbed, and appalled by the U.S. Presidential debate Tuesday.

CNN simply called it a “shit-show.”

Following from these responses are cries to change the format in any future debates to control the verbal combatants, particularly the incumbent, who acted, unsurprisingly, in an egregious manner.

I’ve been seeing these perspectives through the lens of many younger people, including my own kids, who haven’t experienced many debates. Many asked: Is this the way it is supposed to be? Is it always this bad?

Trying to see what they had seen got me thinking, and those thoughts lead me to say firmly to all those who want to change the format: No way! Keep it as it is!

I’ve always wondered about the purpose of presidential debates. A debate is an artificial communication and interaction scenario that enables us to see the debaters in a narrow, particular way: On a stage, answering complicated questions against a tight clock.

In this environment, verbal dexterity, humor, and partisanship take precedent over traits like team-building, contemplativeness, and open-mindedness. Traits that might make you an excellent president may not show up in a debate venue, not to mention the value of silly attributes like good looks and even height.

While I enjoy debates, I never saw them as a tremendous predictor of who would be a good president/leader. In fact, as you saw Tuesday, they may not even show who’s a good debater.

How can a candidate articulate how to address climate change or health care reform in a two-minute comment? At one time, debates were perhaps a way for people to see candidates and to put those candidates’ ideas put under pressure, but now candidates are visible in many other ways. Maybe there was a time, oh, say, back when Lincoln debated Douglas, that you had a mono-media view of your candidates. That time is past. If you want to see Biden’s plans, for instance, just go to his website.

Oh, and forget all that stuff about looking presidential. When you step off Air Force 1, you look presidential, despite massive contradictions otherwise.

So why change the format? Tuesday night was not a shit-show–it was perfect. If, for some reason you didn’t already know about the behavior of the incumbent, you got to see that behavior in front of a world-wide stage.

You got to see the level of listening and truth telling and respect. Of course, if there was any doubt about that person’s stance on white supremacy–well, it’s now more difficult to defend that platform plank.

He laid it all out for the world to see because the debate format provided the platform. You saw how he is. If you vote for him, then you are saying that is how you want to be represented.

By the way, younger viewers I spoke with were frustrated in general with the candidates. But I noticed the debate let them see behavior for what it was. I’m just telling them that despite the bluster about voter fraud that their vote will decide how much they accept what they saw on that stage.

Tags: politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // Add Comment »

There is this guy I know. One day he turned into Captain America. It was a quick and thorough transformation.

I’m not sure how it happened, but all of a sudden he’s the biggest patriot around. It’s all red-white-and-blue and U.S. of A. The flag means everything to him, and if you get in front of a camera and hug the flag, no matter how obviously insincerely, he’s all for you. Any questions? If so, he’s mad as hell about your lack of commitment.

The little problem here is that I ain’t seen Captain America do a damn patriotic thing yet.

He’s bent out of shape if you “disrespect” “his” flag. To him, that means you’re disrespecting “his” country. But he spends 95% of his national anthems in the beer line or bathroom hunched over a urinal or on a couch,

On Memorial Day I saw him tossing some horseshoes for a few hours before he puked in the bushes after guzzling a 12-pack of patriotic beer. He did have on a red, white, and blue tank top.

I was thinking he’d be all over Flag Day–I mean, he had the tank top–but he missed that one completely.

Fourth of July, the big daddy, Independence Day, I saw him eat 8 hot dogs and up the 12er to dang near a case (hell, it was a really patriotic year this year because Fourth of July fell on a Saturday) before repeating the bush incident.

Constitution Day has always been a tough one because he still gets that document confused with the Declaration of Independence. The transformation to Captain America did unfortunately no good in that regard.

He doesn’t do nothing for Veterans Day.

He didn’t do nothing special to commemorate 9/11 either.

Not a drop of service or a dash of remembrance.

Whatever, in his heart he’s all about the USA, even if in his head he couldn’t pass the citizenship test they give to aspiring new Americans, but he don’t need to–this is his country and his kind’ll be administering the tests, thank you very much.

Being Captain America means he doesn’t have to make any sacrifices like learning stuff.

In fact, he’s so unwilling to sacrifice, he won’t even wear a face mask lately. He’s not giving up his personal freedom.

I wonder if George Washington had come a knockin’ on Captain America’s door back in the 1700s. Is he the kind of guy who would have answered the call, who would have slept in the snow with no shoes? It’s tough to imagine. I feel like he would have said, “It’s too cold out there, general! I don’t have the time to sacrifice for your stupid war!”

But now he thinks he’s the natural inheritor of that legacy of personal sacrifice.

So he stomps around all mad, gets good and drunk on some of the big days and says stuff like, “If they don’t like it, they can live somewhere else!”

They.

Them other folks.

Not him.

Not Captain America.

Defender of the red, the white, and the blue.

Tags: politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

Now that the political conventions are over and we can get back to normal (hahahahaha–I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get that out with a straight face), I have a request: I want the bullying at White House press conferences to stop. You know what I’m talking about, and you know who I’m talking to: You question-askers better stop bullying!

Here’s a definition of bullying I found on the web: seek to harm, intimidate, or coerce (someone perceived as vulnerable).

There’s a lot packed in there, especially in the word “coerce” and in that parenthetical at the end.

What else can you possibly call it when people wearing masks–who do they think they are protecting their own health?!–ask this poor schlub at the podium specific questions about a virus?! Talk about coercion? Talk about vulnerable! They are asking someone questions about a topic that this guy has clearly demonstrated he knows nothing about, yet, when prompted, will gladly make a fool of himself in front of the world audience by answering.

For shame!

This has been going on for months and I for one am tired of it. Think about the future, when our kids and grandkids will watch these videos (oh, and there will be videos). “But Grammy,” they’ll ask, perhaps through tears, “who kept letting these people bully a poor confused guy who can’t even speak in complete sentences by asking him questions about medicine, about science, about facts?!”

Yes, our ancestors will see clearly how question-askers relished the daily ineptitude, the what would appear to be almost scripted foolishness!

He’s a sitting duck. I mean, anyone who can say something like “I know more about drones than anybody” will clearly say anything if prompted (if there is a person in the world qualified to make that statement about drones, isn’t it unimaginable that the person would actually state it?!).

These questions need to stop now because Miss Manners would say it’s not nice and none of us are learning anything anyways. Geez, what do they achieve? We all know this person knows nothing about the coronavirus. Since this has gone on for so long, we also know, at this point, that he’s not going to spend time learning either.

So you know what, you mean bullies, remember that some day we’ll all look back and wonder how a person like this got into that podium position in the first place, how a person who was the least informed in the many rooms he ventured into got to call the shots. Until then, ask nice, kind questions that won’t cause any further embarrassment.

In fact, let’s stay in his wheelhouse. Maybe start here: “If you were the coronavirus, how would you successfully market yourself?”

Tags: politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

As the rate of COVID cases in the U.S. continues to rise, I’m struck by the number of people I speak with who say, honestly, that they don’t know or haven’t heard from anyone who has personally dealt with it.

Well, if you were one of those people, the moment you started reading this, that changed. My family has had to deal with COVID-19. My wife and 19-year-old son both got sick, both got tested, and both were positive.

My son, who hadn’t been feeling well, got tested at about 10:30 in the morning and received the bad news a few hours later. My wife then went to a different testing center with my younger son; it took several days for her results to be sent to her.

My son was sick for a few days but pulled a quick, full recovery. My wife, an otherwise perfectly healthy person [of indeterminate age], was increasingly slowed up as the days went by. She had the issue/complication of losing her sense of smell. She was lethargic. She spent nearly two weeks in the front room, doing puzzles and getting furious at the news, which couldn’t have helped.

Neither of them had a fever.

Because the other half of our household, my younger son and I, showed no signs, we had to divide up the place like post-WWII Europe.

My younger son ended up being negative, but it took many days for his results to come back negative. I was going to get tested, but my quarantine status was self-isolation, and that was not going to change regardless. Plus, with the long waits they experienced at the testing center, I was reluctant to take up a testing slot for someone who might really need it, and when I did finally did call a center, the person I spoke to pleasantly discouraged me from coming in since I was asymptomatic.

I’ll get an antibody test at some point.

Many of you know our family personally. For some of you the relationship is purely digital. You should of course feel free to have your own macro views about this pandemic, about masks, about rates of infection, about data, about politics.

But if you’ve made it to the bottom of this short piece, you now can’t say, “I don’t even know anyone who’s had to deal with COVID.” If you want further reinforcement of the message, feel free to stop by. But I’ll ask you to keep your distance for just a few more days–and that’ll be for your own good.

Tags: health & medical, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

We’re all aware of some version of the problem: It’s not just that we can’t agree, it’s that we can’t even have the conversation.

You know what I’m talking about. In a way, it’s difficult to articulate–hard to find the right words to explain. You say something and I’m immediately sent spinning. I say something and you have a fact to refute it.

You’re suspicious. So am I. We’ve both heard things and have facts and sources. We both have premises. We both know a lot of stuff. Over and over, we keep having conversations that never get off the ground.

Even though we’re still connected, we know those who’ve separated from friends and family.

So let’s try something different, something kind of simple–if we’ll give it a chance..

Let’s watch the news together.

Yes, this is an invitation. In these COVID times, we don’t have to be in the same room. Let’s get on the old horn, settle down, and watch the news. Let’s flip the channels and land on one. You tell me what you see. I’ll tell you what I see. You tell me what you hear. I’ll tell you what I hear.

Then we’ll flip to another channel. You can pick the first channel. I’ll pick the second. Repeat.

Let’s present our experience to each other so we start to understand not so much what each other thinks–which all of us may be too eager to volunteer lately–but try to understand how each other sees the world.

I need to understand that if I’m asking this of you, I have to hold up my end. I can’t immediately swoop in if I hear something I don’t like. I can’t sit, ready to pounce on the perceived weakness (when you think about it, it’s amazing how many of the metaphors for these types of behaviors draw from images of hunting/attacking animals) of your argument.

Basically, I have to shut my mouth for a minute and hear what you have to say, but over the specific medium of watching the news together. So we’re freeing each other of bickering about data points and generalized conspiracies. We’re watching images on the screen and listening to the words that accompany them, and we say, “I see this. I hear this.”

We have come a long way, so we probably won’t end up agreeing. I don’t want us to argue, but we may start arguing a bit. Perhaps that’s okay, but let’s just not finish that way.

Because if we can’t even do this simple thing, take a few minutes and watch TV together, then all hope for discourse really is lost, isn’t it?

Part of me envisions a scenario in which we don’t even weigh in on each other’s comments. We listen, take our turn, and eventually turn the TV off and take conversation elsewhere, maybe to why we’ve been friends in the first place.

Then we can hang up for now.

Tags: politics & government, virtual children by Scott Warnock // 1 Comment »

As some of you know, I have served for the past two years as President of the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE). My term ended just yesterday (and had been preceded by a two-year term as Vice President).

GSOLE is a hard-working group of volunteer educators dedicated to online writing and literacy instruction. Underlying everything we do is a commitment to access and inclusivity in online learning.

In that spirit, I wanted to share here the Statement on Anti-Racist Online Literacy Pedagogy and Administration that our organization composed and posted recently. This collaboratively written statement uses what I believe is strong, clear language, and by following through on the action items at the end, I hope GSOLE can continue to do its part to support accessible, inclusive, anti-racist teaching and learning practices.

Tags: race & culture, virtual children by Scott Warnock // Add Comment »

I agree that it should be pretty simple: My house, my rules.

But quarantine has made everything complicated. The plan was to start his journey to independence in the fall, a college frosh. Step one in a journey not just academic and professional but personal.

It was through no fault of his that it didn’t work out.

It wasn’t as if the prodigal son returned. Or the indecisive college student came back. Or we lost our jobs and couldn’t pay for college. Or he failed out. Or he graduated and didn’t have a job. Or house arrest.

It was circumstances beyond anyone’s control.

On a frenzied weekday afternoon, with an invisible, toxic shadow in the crevices of the city, he had to pack up and come home. He is back eating our food, sitting on our couch. Overall, we are glad to have him here safe.

But it can also be irritating.

Before I explain, I should point out that this is still a guy who cuts the grass when he’s asked, takes out the trash, never cusses, and even goes out at wee hours to give rides to his younger brother so we don’t have to.

But still, I now get to see the everyday life of an 18-year-old who was torn from seven months of living away unexpectedly, inadvertently back home.

Lots of giggling at TikTok. Fortnite. There is no such thing as breakfast. Somehow, during, the pandemic, he got a girlfriend. She’s great. She likes him. He likes her. I’m watching it unfold.

My wife wants to check his phone to see where he is sometimes. But he’s a generally honest guy and all I normally need to do is ask. I remember once in high school when my wife called and asked him his business and he provided what was admittedly a seemingly improbably series of steps with an improbable group of people before he came home. Well, she followed the phone path and it turned out he did exactly what he said he was going to do.

I’ve been forced to be whirled into my own past: What was I doing at 18? What would I have done at 2:00 p.m. back then? 2:00 a.m.?

I bite my tongue. A lot. We’ll wait to see as the grades come in and the resumes go out.

Again, we get along well, but I bite that tongue because there are dangerous moments with a father and son, and you have to watch what you say. The boy might try you–in fact my younger one already does that a bit.

So if I get too chippy, too, well, anything, it could disrupt what’s been a good 18-year-run.

I was lucky (?) enough to have lived with a wide range of people in my life: About 30 roommates. I think sometimes people living with adult kids forget the simple reality that it’s plain hard to live with people. Why would living with your own adult child be any different?

People across the country are dealing with the oddity of not only having had their kid abruptly bumped back home, but then also being home bound themselves.

It’s a recipe for madness, so you have to step back and realize, even in favorable circumstances like ours, that no one wished for this. It was brought upon us. Like all things, it will pass.

So we’ll bite our tongues, back off on the surveillance, and sometimes, when he wonders down bleary-eyed at one in the afternoon, say a mantra: “He’s supposed to be living away right now.”

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This opinion piece I wrote appeared yesterday in The Burlington County Times: “Guest Opinion: The Sixers Could’ve Had Tom Brady.”

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Like everybody else (who’s smart), we’re at home, trying to work and learn and co-exist. Let’s face it: This lifestyle shatters long-term parenting philosophies. I suppose many people can toss the shards quietly into the trash, but I was foolish enough to have documented them publicly, often in this very space. [Read more →]

Tags: virtual children by Scott Warnock // 3 Comments »

The unexamined life is not worth living. We need more tests.
–Socrates

That which does not kill you makes you stronger, but you still shouldn’t touch your face.
–Nietzsche

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. Either way, you should maintain quarantine for at least 14 days.
–Aristotle

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world. Stay home, you idiots.
–Kant

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. But even I wouldn’t call the Coronavirus a hoax.
–Descartes

I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves. You might want to cancel your house party.
–Wittgenstein

Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance. Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety. Let’s go clubbing.
–Plato

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. So let’s get the economy going and open up those businesses, especially the ones that sell oysters.
–Hume

Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure. That’s it—that’s the quote. This isn’t a joke.
–Confucius

Tags: health & medical, religion & philosophy // Comments Off on Coronavirus wisdom from great philosophers

I’m fortunate to have two hands, and for a long time I’ve had a simple, straightforward policy for them: World hand, my hand. [Read more →]

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Concerns about COVID-19 are widespread. I am not an epidemiologist, so I will not make any predictions, but different sectors/segments of our culture will be tested, if not by the thing itself than certainly by the “infodemic” surrounding it. [Read more →]

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