Beat the Press was in fine form this morning

Of course all they talked about was the Corona virus epi/pan demic.  Chuck Todd opened with 10 minutes of just plain bashing of President Trump.  Helpful that is.  Then he gave Bill DeBlasio, the nutcase NYC mayor, a lot of air time.  DeBlasio wailed and cried that the government wasn't doing enough to help NYC.  He never got into specifics, except that he wants the US Army to send all its medical people to New York to help out. 
   And them we get to interviewing Pat Toomey, Republican senator from Pennsylvania.  "We have an important PROCEDURAL vote coming up this afternoon and then we will know..."  Good old US senate, the plague is sweeping the land and they cannot bring themselves to vote on a real issue, like passing the "phase 3" economic repair bill.  Procedural votes are just time wasters. 

Do a nature walk with the children

You would think every kid ought to be able to tell the difference between and an oak and a maple, a spruce and pine, and put a name to at least some of the wildflowers out there.  For this to happen, the kids have to see the trees and wildflowers in question.  Of course, either you have to be a fairly decent naturalist yourself, or you need a field guide to trees and wild flowers.  With the field guide the kids can find flowers and trees and you look them up in the field guide.  The weather is warming, snow is mostly gone, a;; the wildflowers are coming up as buds right now. 

The Incredibles II.

The first Incredible flick from Pixar was cute. The sequel is meh.  Not quite sure just what makes the difference, but the second one is not as cute, or as funny, as the first one. 

Try your library for educational videos

Franconia's library is about as small as they come, but they had/have a really dynamite video about the American revolution.  It was mostly lectures by a Gettysburg College history professor.  He was good, spoke well and clearly.  He had a few visual aids, a map or two, some paintings, but mostly just spoke standing behind a lectern.  No History Channel style CGI.  I watched the whole thing and enjoyed it.  He told the story straight, the accepted story, no Charles and Mary Beard Economic Interpretation of the Constitution stuff.  Although it was a college level course, I am sure that middle school kids and up would get a lot out of it.  I am sure there are a lot of other gems like this in your local library. 

Introduce your kids to Shakespeare

Yet another home school project to fill in the time while the public schools are closed for COVID-19.  Shakespeare is something everyone should know.  Reading Shakespeare is difficult, you  are reading just the dialog of a play not a novel.  Far better is to watch the play acted out by good actors.  Netflix has good productions of a lot of the Shakespeare plays.  Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Henry the Fifth, Merchant of Venice, and more. Watch them with your children and then discuss them.  Talk about motives, who is a good guy, who is a bad guy.  Who did a good thing and who did a bad thing.  Who is REALLY in love with who. 

Things you can teach your children now that schools are closed

All this lesson needs is an ordinary ruler.  Let 'em hold it.  Get them to understand that it is a one foot rule.  Show them that each foot contains 12 (a dozen) inches.  Show them the fractional inch marks.  Get them to recognize the differences between, and names of, halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths.  Have 'em measure some things accurate to a sixteenth.  Get 'em to find the center of things, boards, blocks, tin cans, whatever.  They do this by measuring to width of the item and then dividing the width in half.  Show 'em the trick of  halving a fraction by merely doubling the denominator (the downstairs part of the fraction).  Show 'em the trick of laying the ruler slant wise so the width measures out to an even number of inches and the center is the center of the ruler reading. 
   Once upon a time I taught an evening wood shop class for middle school kids.  Not one of 'em could read a ruler, let alone use it to find the center of a board. 

Is CDC dragging its feet over a COVID-19 vaccine?

The TV showed a brave volunteer taking the experimental COVID-19 vaccine.  She was taking a risk, that risk being that the experimental vaccine might actually infect her rather than granting immunity.  Hoist a glass to her, let's admire her courage. 
The TV is also saying that it might take a year to get the vaccine approved, assuming it works and is safe.  Some testing is obviously in order, but a year's worth??  Or is that the time CDC and FDA and who knows who want to go over the paperwork?  They ought to be talking about streamlining the paperwork, and cutting the testing down as far as they dare. 
   How come we ain't hearing that kind of talk out of CDC and the rest of 'em???