The race for the nominations of the two major parties are moving closer and closer. Normally, when the midterm elections end then the two sides come out swinging at each other. Governors, prominent senators, and cults of personality collide on stage and on the roads of Iowa and New Hampshire. One often wonders why those particular states get such a prominent position, but we can set that down for the moment.

The Democratic side has some intrigue. Joe Biden will be 80 before the campaign for the nomination is over. One can’t help but wonder whether he has the energy to do this again. Obviously, the right would like nothing more than to see him step aside. It opens the door to Kamela Harris and other potentially more progressive candidates.

If we assume norms for a moment (I know, I know) we would assume that past presidents will move on into the sunset (or an eight by ten room with bars) then the Republican side has a handful of challengers that would seem to be ready to run. Most of them are governors, so we should probably take a moment to look at the latest.

The headliner just might be Ron DeSantis from Florida. It’s a populous state and he finds himself in the news often enough. We can go with the free version or the pay wall version. It’s the same basic story. Recent data has them third in current COVID cases. Being behind California and Texas is par for the course. They are bigger states. The fact that they are ahead of New York and Illinois is perhaps more telling.

In all fairness, that was the past. Newer data would seem to indicate that they are not the most egregious offenders in the past month. Great. They still have had more than 70,000 people die from COVID-19. That number could become 80,000 by the time campaign season gets here.

Not to be outdone, Greg Abbott in Texas has been at the helm when nearly 90,000 Texans have died from COVID. He will be one of the other major contenders for the nomination. Of course, Abbott is an equal opportunity to killer. If he doesn’t get you with lax regulations and mind-numbingly stupid belligerence then perhaps he will freeze you to death.

Both DeSantis and Abbott have postured their way into the former guy’s good graces. I’m sure the hope there will be that he will step aside (or step inside) and will tab one of them as the heir apparent. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. In this case, freedom could lead to the loss of more life.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem should not be forgotten. Her track record is a double edged sword. She set marks for positive COVID cases per capita, but was also part of a response that turned the tide. I’ll just let the charts do the talking.

I’m sure the usual suspects like Lyndsay Graham and Ted Cruz will throw their hat into the ring. Why vote for a senator who may lead thousands of people to their death when you can elect someone that’s actually done it? Let freedom ring all the way to the cemetery.

The bottomless pit that is Matt Gaetz managed to reach another low this week when he brought his performance art to another sad level. For those that really don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, Gaetz cancelled his membership to conservative hot spot “The Capital Hill Club.” Seems they got under the Congressman’s skin when they started requiring patrons to be vaccinated.

Like just about anyone else, I was enjoying Twitter just for the comments. Dozens retorted back with some making mention of the fact that Gaetz could be enjoying three meals a day at Club Fed in the near future. That of course was a veiled reference to his possible sex trafficking charges that could come some time this year. This story isn’t really about Gaetz. We could go off the deep end as it pertains to leadership. We can talk about moving cheese, personality profiling, communication models and other such nonsense and really talk about nothing.

True leadership is nearly as much about sacrifice and service as it is about any of those other buzz words or phrases. Gaetz happens to be hitting upon pandemic issues and like any crisis, the pandemic has revealed who the leaders are and who the pretenders are. From the get go there have been two effective strategies that have helped deal with the pandemic: vaccines and masks. While not perfect, they have allowed business to continue. If the vast majority would do both we wouldn’t see our hospitals clogged with idiots.

Our beloved governor in Texas has barred us from requiring masks. He’s barred public places and private places from such a requirement. A political philosophy that prides itself in allowing businesses and private entities to run themselves as they see fit is not allowing them to do it. They’ve essentially reduced themselves to governing by temper tantrum.

So, in our schools we are left to simply highly encourage that administrators, teachers, and students wear masks. In a world where you cannot require compliance, you are left to hope that adults will act like leaders and students will be inclined to follow their example. On my campus the administrators can’t be bothered to wear masks. Some of the teachers can’t either. You can’t make them do it and suggesting it would trample on their precious rights.

It’s all a failure of leadership. Really it’s a foundational failure of adulting. Most parents understand that they have to do things they don’t want to do. Most adults understand that we have to do things we don’t want to do. We may think it’s stupid or that it doesn’t really apply to us. We may think it’s a waste of time. Somewhere deep in the recesses of our psyche we know it really isn’t meant for us. Leaders understand this. Those who like to play leader do not.

Those who like to play leader will go to any lengths to avoid the simplest of things. They avoid the simplest of things because they are afraid it will make them look weak. So, they’ll drink their own urine. They’ll take medicine meant for barnyard animals. They may even resort to bleach or shooting sunlight up their butt. They’ll try all of these mind-numbingly stupid remedies and more just to avoid a simple shot and a simple mask. Good leaders lead by example. Good leaders subjugate their wants and needs for the good of the group. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough good leaders.

Dr. Jeannie Stone recently resigned her position as Superintendent of Richardson ISD. Richardson, Texas is an urban school district just North of Dallas. Stone was voted 2019 Superintendent of the year, and for good reason. Richardson ISD a majority-minority school district, and 56.9% of its students are economically disadvantaged, yet Richardson ISD graduates 91% of its kids.

Dr. Stone first drew the attention of the angry crowd when she stepped up in 2018 and met with student activists who shared tales of racism and discrimination throughout their experience with Richardson ISD. In response, she released a video listing their demands and vowed to keep the list posted on her office door until these demands were met. This alerted some parents who oppose any discussion on race to begin actively opposing her ideas to protect her students of color and focus on providing them the best possible education.

Cue COVID-19. The nationwide trend of angry parents shouting ugly personal attacks at school boards and administrators did not overlook Richardson ISD. Karen Clardy, the RISD board President, abruptly resigned in September. Richardson ISD was one of the first Texas school districts to defy Governor Abbott’s prohibition of mask mandates.

While a majority of parents agreed with the mandate, a loud minority of parents (20%) began a campaign of threats and harassment that led to the resignation of Dr. Stone and Mrs. Clardy. The losers in this situation will be the students, long after the worst of the pandemic is over.

My children attend school in a neighboring district and we have had the same issues at our school board meetings. A student stood to testify that his grandmother had a pre-existing condition and he wanted to protect her from COVID-19. Anti-mask parents stood behind him and laughed, mocking the child for his compassion.

These anti-mask parents haven’t stopped there. Emboldened by their surging numbers and media attention, they’ve now gone after Critical Race Theory. Next, they’re demanding to ban books with any references to sexual activity or transgender individuals being presented in a positive light.

The saying goes “give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile.” The 24/7 right-wing outrage media has expanded its local operation, folks, and Texas is in the thick of it. As an active, engaged, mom – I can tell you that very few people oppose masks, racially accurate curriculum, or support banning books. Those of us that desire reason over manufactured outrage have to start showing up in numbers that rival the angry crowd.

Greg Abbott has definitely cast his lot by throwing his muscle behind voter suppression, killing health measures, and failing to fix a broken energy grid. He is certainly courting those voters and he knows who to target. The question is whether those he targets will be there to vote for him when 2022 rolls around.

Multiple data points indicate that he may be fighting a losing battle. We know anti-vaxxers are more likely to be Republican than Democrat. Numerous other data points indicate that Republicans are dying at a much faster rate than their more progressive counterparts. Abbott certainly has taken care of making sure the wrong people can’t get to the ballot, but you have to wonder if he has stopped to consider that the right ones might be six feet under by the time November of 2022 gets here.

Turning a kid from a kid into a functioning adult is harder work than one imagines. At least, it’s harder than one imagines before they are tasked with the job. Life is full of firsts and each one brings its own interesting twists and turns. Yesterday, my daughter got her first high school tardy. For someone that hardly ever gets in trouble, it was a lot more traumatic than it needed to be.

That combined with a complaint about how much playing time she is getting on the volleyball team sets up the perfect template for a life lesson. The tardy wasn’t completely her fault. Somehow, they never are. The lack of playing time is not completely fair. I’ve been on the other end of that argument and I know it really never is.

The challenge for any parent is determining which (if any) of these situations to get involved in and which to let go as a learning experience. We’ve decided to split the difference. We offer advice on how to deal with the situation so she can get more playing time or get her tardy expunged, but ultimately she is going to have to do it for now. That may change if an adult doesn’t respond responsibly, but that rarely ever happens.

The question of whether to allow children to fight their own battles is an important one. It’s an important question that brings us to where we are right now. Millions of children grew up with helicopter parents. I know because I’ve taught a few of them over the years. Naturally, the reverse is also true. Many children grow up with absentee parents. That somehow fits more of the parents I’ve worked with.

Discovering that life is not fair is an important life lesson. Discovering that we have to do things that may not make immediate sense is also a life lesson. It’s a lesson that obviously needs to be learned based on what we are experiencing now. I’m fully vaccinated and yet I wear a mask at work. That combination doesn’t make sense to millions around this country.

Millions also don’t get the concept of inoculating yourself against a disease they cannot see. They may not know anyone that’s had it. If they do then they can excuse themselves because that other guy (or girl) is a lot less healthy than they are. Besides, their buddy at work told them about a new drug they can take that’s much easier than the vaccine. Sure, they have to go down to the feed store to pick it up, but that’s not a big deal.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Our children tend to reflect our values. They are a reflection of the values we raised them with. We are a reflection of our parent’s values. Even when we didn’t get along and cursed them under our breath we still unwittingly became them in many ways.

Yet, there’s a difference. Teachers especially know one thing to be true. We often remember the worst thing a teacher ever did to us and we vow that we will never ever do that to a kid. We may remember the worst thing our parents did. For many this became a shield to ward off life’s most unpleasant experiences.

Losing the big game turned into everyone getting a trophy. Not getting picked for the team became everyone participating at the YMCA and getting equal playing time. Getting stuck at a school that doesn’t fit me became school choice, charter schools, and magnet schools.

Then, there is the vaccine. We have become a victim of our own success. No one my age knows anyone that has had the measles, mumps, small pox, or polio. They hear stories from the old folks, but it becomes a “back in my day…” kind of thing and gets quickly tossed aside. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many have determined they don’t need it. Except you hear stories every day about someone you know (or someone that someone you know knows) going to the hospital or dying. If only we had been forced to live through those difficult times maybe we’d turned out differently. Sometimes fighting your own battles is a valuable experience.

We recevied an email yesterday from our daughter’s school. We’ve received an email every day from our daughter’s school. Each email has revealed new positive cases amongst the student body. Sometimes it’s three or four cases. Sometimes it has been as many as seven cases. These are all new cases. Last year, we got maybe one of those emails a week. When we got them there were usually only one or two positive cases.

Now, if we were to act like a scientist (crazy thought I know) we would make a mental note of all of the differences between this year and last. The first major difference is that virtually all of the students have returned to school. Last year was really a 50/50 proposition. My child’s district offers a stay home option, but they cease to be students at their neighborhood school. That means they can’t participate in any extracurricular activities at that school. So, that’s a non-starter for nearly 99 percent of the families around these parts.

The second major difference is that extra curricular activities were severely curtailed last year. Sports schedules were drastically reduced. There were virtually no clubs or organizations. Field trips dropped to zero. There were no pep rallies or other events that schools of all levels often take for granted. Even schools like mine that have few of those things canceled stuff like our Fall Festival.

The third and last major difference was a universal mask mandate. Now, a few large districts are requiring it, but otherwise it has become optional. I still see a majority of students and teachers wear masks, but there is obviously enough of a percentage that don’t to where we notice a difference. Of course, I could be getting ahead of myself here. Technically, any of those three differences (or all of them) could be the reason why we saw fewer cases last school year.

This begs a very simple and straightforward question. How many additional positives are acceptable? How many additional hospitalizations are acceptable? How many additional deaths are acceptable? We have some smart readers around here (a lot smarter than me) but if anyone new stumbles in, it might be good to talk about the difference between natural freedom and political freedom.

We aren’t covering new ground here. Yet, it hit me hard last night as I watched our daughter play volleyball. We watched dozens of students for the other school have a blast as the girls played a long and tough match. The school required everyone to wear masks. A few broke the rules, but most complied. It didn’t seem to curtail their fun at all and both sides gave fist bumps to each other as the girls walked to their bus. They all had fun.

To put this as simply as I can, we know what the human costs are of having half of the students at home. We know the lack of human interaction causes damage to the psyche and we saw its effects academically. We see the tangible and intangible effects of skipping out on those activities that we all used to take for granted. We saw it in reverse last night when we saw how much fun everyone was having.

Masks don’t enter into that equation. Kids can go on field trips and wear masks. Kids can go to football and volleyball games and wear masks. Kids can go to pep rallies and wear masks. Kids can go to homecoming and wear masks. Kids can all go to class and wear masks. Obviously, it’s too early to tell whether masks, social distancing, or curtailing activities was the most responsible for limiting cases. We do know that there are more cases. So, we return to our basic question. How many additional cases are acceptable? More importantly, if we don’t want kids to miss out on those experiences and we still want those numbers to stay low, can’t we just try requiring everyone to mask up?