I'm seeing this over at Instapundit:
Here's the underlying Not the Bee article, showing that the outdoor lunch-eating happened in 40° weather:
Stunning footage circulated around the Internet this week of a school in Portland, Oregon forcing young children to eat their lunches outside, in 40-degree weather, on buckets, because school administrators were afraid of a COVID outbreak or something.
The kids had coats on. Outdoor eating is healthy. Hardiness is good! I remember when the right mocked the left for making kids into "snowflakes."
"Snowflakes" is a bad metaphor for this issue — since real snowflakes do better in the cold — but you know what I mean. They melt in heat. Personally, I'd rather sit outside and eat when it's 40° than when it's 90°, but yeah, temperatures vary, and we need to adapt to the weather as it cycles around. Kids are strong and resilient. They even play in snow until their cheeks turn rosy. If you let them.
There's no way this outdoor lunch is torture or child abuse.
ADDED: "How to plan a snow picnic."
AND: The coolest kids are into snow picnics:
Posts
139 comments:
The left's business model is soap opera, the right's used to be reporting on what the crazy left is saying. The entertainment hook was outrage on the left and amusement on the right.
The right has moved over into outrage as their hook now. Clicks are clicks.
--- There's no way this outdoor lunch is torture or child abuse. [AA]
Not by itself, no. It's the fear factor that caused it that constitutes the abuse. But it will (sooner or later) teach those kids that adults and other authorities can be grievously wrong, even when they seem most certain and convinced.
Sit on buckets?
Joyless and depressing but does not rise to torture level…but I haven’t been to Portland lately, either.
"Kids are strong and resilient."
This is what parents say to themselves and each other when they know that they are going to hurt their children for selfish reasons.
Thank you for saying it.
…and there appears to be outdoor social distancing? I’ll add stupid and not following the science…
…so, adding denial of social interaction to the aggregate, this rises to torture levels.
I’m taking the over.
I agree, it's not torture or child abuse. It's insanity.
Obviously, "torture" is meant as hyperbole. Of course eating in 40 degree weather while sitting on buckets isn't torture, unless we saw videos of Gitmo prisoners doing the same thing, then there would be a UN Commission appointed.
Torture is Jen Psaki haranguing the American people being ungrateful for everything Joe Biden is doing for them.
I hope they're eating a cold lunch, because anything cooked is going to be cold in about 30 seconds.
I'd not only get my kid out of that school, I'd get the hell out of that city as soon as I could. I wouldn't live among people so stupid.
I mean cm'on people, this mix of Oliver Twist, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the Stanford Prison Experiment doesn't just happen....
...we find you lack of gratitude disturbing.
I wouldn't call it torture. though, perhaps miserable. Eating in the cold is miserable.
I recall as a kid we were forced to go out after lunch, no matter what. It was freaking sub-zero and we were forced outside. I hated after-lunch outdoors.
I get the chills and nervous flash-back just thinking about it.
Plus back then all the cool high-tech coats, gloves and hats were not invented yet. Back then it was hand-made not-warm crap and hand-me downs.
the coat with the low-tech lining that let the wind cut you to the bone.
and if you complained - no adult cared.
Yeah - it toughened me up. but not in a good way. I'm just bitter. ;-)
I grew up in Northern Canada and I can remember as a child my father haranguing me to go out and play in the winter saying: "For Pete's sake, it's 20 above!" And yes, that was Fahrenheit.
It’s not the eating outside in the cold, it’s the sitting alone. On buckets.
My four-year-old grandson -- who is very smart, sociable and fun-loving -- has to wear a mask all the time at pre-school.
When he misses a school day for some reason, I ask him whether he was sad that he missed school that day. He always answers: "No, I was happy".
"Hardiness is good!"
Now do acquiring natural immunity to a virus.
Bigger child abuse in Baltimore here: making the kids wear masks all day long in classes. I've heard from some of the teachers how much it interferes with their teaching. A lot of the process of teachers and students learning about one another is non-verbal. The teachers just can't tell what the students are thinking, if they understand, if they're making a joke. And vice versa.
All for nothing; kids are not in real danger from COVID, and it hardly ever makes sense to do this to protect old people somewhere downstream. One of the blessings of COVID was that kids are not at risk, and they're throwing that blessing away.
"There's no way this outdoor lunch is torture or child abuse."
It is child abuse, pain inflicted for no good reason, to soothe the irrational fears of authoritarian adults at the expense of the young. Shorthand for the lefty approach to Covid, an exercise in generational injustice.
As a Cub Scout parent, I forced many kids to eat outside in 20 degree, 30 degree and 34 degree weather many times! They loved it!
The only time I really remember the kids hating eating outside was the day we did a camp and it was 33 degrees and a constant rain for 12 hours. Barely got a fire going and not enough space under the lean-to.
Bad attitudes are contagious and of course, that attitude started with the parents who were agitating for coffee that was late!
It’s the double standard of things Left and Right. So the Right takes a page outta the Left’s handbook and it’s torture…
It’s the Sun Pipo vs. the Ice Pipo.
“ Personally, I'd rather sit outside and eat when it's 40° than when it's 90°, but yeah, temperatures vary, and we need to adapt to the weather as it cycles around.”
Wait! The cute girls are going OUTside for lunch? Eff this cafeteria—I’m going out! With the other strong and resilient kids. WE ARE THE SNOWFLAKES. SNOWFLAKE POWER!!!
Ann: You know better. Of course it isnt "torture" anymore than the person who says "I could kill you I am so mad" means it literally.
However, separating children who have virtually zero risk in transmission and side effects, only during lunch one assumes, making them sit outdoors and not providing a table, disallowing any social interaction during that time borders on child abuse or neglect as interpreted by the State agencies. If a neighbor called the authorities because parents did this to their children they would lose custody and there would be an investigation.
The logic behind this decision is lacking and the adults who allow it are reprehensible.
Blogger Humperdink said...I agree, it's not torture or child abuse. It's insanity.
I suppose when a mediocre writer reaches for different ways of saying “stupid,” they risk crossing over into other areas.
40 is pushing it for sedentary activity like eating. Kids are fine at 40 for running and playing, but will quickly become chilled sitting and eating. Remember the lower body mass. And how quickly 40 to 60 pound children start to lose core temperature. There are reasons they have weight restrictions instead of age restrictions on whitewater rafting.
I view eating outside in 40F to be an inconvenience and certainly wouldn’t enjoy doing so, but not torture. That being said, it’s the inconsistencies that drive me crazy. For instance, it’s no ok for children to eat inside, in their relatively large and somewhat ventilated school cafeteria, but it is ok for airplane passengers to be maskless while eating and drinking in a far more cramped and enclosed area with the same air being forcibly recirculated for the duration of the flight.
While all the "adults" who insist on masks always have an excuse why theyre not wearing one.
Its for the children.
It's the stupidity that is really offensive. The Democrats in charge know the vaccines are BS, that masks and distancing are BS. This kind of control is pleasing to them. Yes, they have a bunch of stupid true believers (useful idiots), creating and enforcing policies like this that please them, but the ones in charge smile evil smiles, while rank and file Liberals smile stupidly.
North Vietnamese, China, and North Koreans did things like this to thier prisoners.
This is not torture in the sense of direct harming someone for information, but it is very abusive and the behavior of people that have no concern for the wellbeing of these children.
Unlike you Professor they are FORCED to sit on bucket, they could not even get them tables and chairs, and to sit isolated and eat a meager lunch in silence and isolation.
That is torture and abuse.
"Personally, I'd rather sit outside and eat when it's 40° than when it's 90°,"
False dichotomy.
40° in sunshine is very pleasant. 40° when it is damp and cloudy is a different matter. Being on cold concrete just makes it worse.
At least The Beatles could sit with each other, instead of in isolated solitude.
We used to have fire drills mid-winter. We hated it. We also werent lemmings. Get back to me mid January when the kids are having fun eating outside.
What will the neo-Nazis demand then?
You do realize that Beatles photo is staged.
They all hot-footed it inside for some hot tea as soon as the shoot ended. And that snow isn't even real.
Calling it "torture" is hyperbole, obviously, but it doesn't look like much fun. Lunch time is usually a fun time for kids. They sit with their friends, laugh, talk, socialize, relax a little from the discipline of classroom behavior. Are these kids allowed to get up and move around or do they have to sit there on those frigging buckets balancing their lunchboxes on their knees the whole time? Seems like the school has found a way to make lunch time suck as much as classroom time.
Kids are fine playing outside in all kinds of winter weather when they're running around, moving around, generating body heat. Sitting on a bucket for 30 minutes in the cold is another matter.
I've worked outside all my life. I've eaten outside year 'round in all kinds of weather. You get cold after you eat. Did you ever notice that? You have to get up and start moving after. I've eaten sitting on buckets. It sucks. It's better than sitting on the ground, but not by much. We always bring folding chairs to sit on for lunch. Can't they get these kids some chairs? Do the teachers sit outside on buckets when they're eating lunch or taking a break? I bet they don't.
And what is this obsession with putting them in rows facing forward? Insane. Can't they sit in a circle facing one another? Or why not let them circle up with their friends, as long as they keep their proper space?
Is this shit even really necessary? I get the feeling the people who make the kids do this love making the kids do this. I could be wrong, but I'm not.
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
I have been an Instapundit reader for years -- since college, and I'm creeping up on 40 -- and in the last two years I've learned to just skip past anything with a Hoyt byline. I know it's not nice to call a woman hysterical, so I'll just say she's a nut, instead. A nut who is prone to overreacting and treating everything like the end of all civilization.
And I have to say that rhetoric like that makes it harder for regular parents to advocate for dropping the insane restrictions on kids, because who wants to be on the side of a person who says eating outside is TORTURE? I've been trying -- without success -- to get my youngest's preschool to drop outdoor masking. It's SO DUMB. And I lose friends when I say as much! It's a co-op and I'm on the board and I'm the ONLY one who speaks up against restrictions and they're all starting to look askance at me. But in cool temperatures the kids' breath condenses on the inside of the mask so then they're wearing wet masks for hours! I pack an extra mask for my son but in the scrum to put stuff away in cubbies and go to the bathroom when they get back inside he always forgets to switch it. At least he's not prone to eczema -- I have seen the faces of kids who are and they're all chapped and red.
So yes, eating outside isn't torture, but it is DUMB, especially since you know they don't have proper tables or even picnic blankets. You know kids are going to be dropping their food on the ground and most of them will probably still eat it. And that's probably fine! But you know what else is probably fine? Eating in a perfectly serviceable cafeteria, just like they've always done. Better than nothing is a high standard when it comes to COVID restrictions, too.
"So now it's "torture" for children to eat outside when it's 40°?"
That isn't the point. But people don't want to argue about the point.
This is just another episode of the public school teachers putting their needs above the students they are supposed to be serving.
The public school system needs to be abolished and we need to find jobs for all of the below average IQ public school teachers that more befits their abilities.
The administrators in public schools should mostly just be put on a rocket to the sun.
I want Creighton to cut the temps in the dorms and classrooms to 60 in order to save the planet.
Do the right thing!
I am curious.
Did the teachers and administrators eat outside too?
If not then the whole lot of them should be shot into the sun.
The reason is the problem. When you tell kids, "We're going to eat outside because (for instance) we're studying the pioneers and they did it on their way across the Great Plains" or "... because it's about time we all did something fun and different," or "... because it's a bluebird day and we can enjoy that at any temperature," it's different from "... because otherwise you might catch COVID-19 from one of your dirty, dirty friends and die."
An elderly relative, who is in many ways a sensible man, is retiring from teaching in a private preschool-8th grade school. He spent part of Thanksgiving insisting to me - I directed a developmentally-focused preschool for seven years and had wonderful staff with far more experience than I - that the preschoolers at his school wore their masks all day with no problem at all. I told him I thought it was awful to handicap young children who are still building their picture of the world and the people in it this way, particularly as they're at no statistical risk. (I didn't get to the cognitive effects of reduced oxygen, which were understood before we all put our masks on, or to the fact that there was zero chance the 3-year-olds' masks fit and were being worn "all day" in any way that would remotely curtail the spread of a respiratory, aerosolized virus.)
Then his wife gave him the look and my husband gave me the look, and I changed the subject before I started yelling about it.
97% of parents appreciate that.
Achilles has the best post yet. If the teachers and admins are not SITTING ON A BUCKET, OUTDOORS, to eat, then shoot them into the sun! Sparklies!
This is just another episode of the public school teachers putting their needs above the students they are supposed to be serving.
Their emotional needs. Don't forget that. And maybe the school's legal needs too, versus their teachers' union.
Dickens
Love it
**Agree with Bob Boyd.
These days, kids probably spend too much time inside and I certainly think it is a fantastic idea to give children as much opportunity and encouragement to play outside, as much as possible. More time out - less time in front of video games.
Forcing kids to eat on a bucket sitting in the cold damp - I don't think that builds character. It's just kinda cruel and pointless. and yes - unless the teachers and administrators are doing it too - they suck.
A planned outdoor picnic sounds nice, but that is not what this looks like.
"That isn't the point. "
Then why say it? When people have to make gross exaggerations to make their "point," they are just preaching to the choir and undercutting whatever point they claim to be making with open minded people.
...in the last two years I've learned to just skip past anything with a Hoyt byline.
HaHa! Me too.
Any time I find myself rolling my eyes while reading through Instapundit, I look down and sure enough, a Sarah Hoyt post.
I disagree, Ann. It's one thing for a group of kids to decide for themselves to go on an ice lunch and another for a mambly-pambly adult to force the kids to eat outside. An adult who's afraid of his own shadow when it comes to the CCP flu. Kids don't get sick and don't pass the CCP flu, unlike the adult hamsters running the school. Adults who probably eating in the nice comfortable teachers' lounge with music playing in the background and nice lighting. They're probably laughing to each other how they've put the little varmints that they have to babysit everyday in their place. Parents be damned. The teachers are going to have a good laugh and a good time.
They are torturers. They should all be fired, without unemployment. Forced to stand outside in the 40-deg weather, begging for help from any passerby. They also probably believe in CRT and are neo-segregationists.
I don't object to the fact that they are outside in the cold, my school district does outside recess for elementary kids if it is not raining/snowing and above 32 degrees since well before covid. Recess outside when they are running around and playing is one thing. Sitting still and eating is a different thing. On Friday it was a crisp 34 degrees at 10:30 AM when my 9 year old was sitting outside in MA for his snack, that is just too far.
Why can’t they use a cafeteria?
"It’s not the eating outside in the cold, it’s the sitting alone. On buckets."
There are people who travel great distances to Vermont to do this in the winter on the frozen lake, in front of a hole in the ice, which a tiny fishing pole in their hand, bobbing a tiny jib up and down on the bottom. On a march day, when it is 30 degrees, and the sun is shining and the wind is still, and you are properly dressed, and the ice is covered by brilliant white snow, it can feel like a day at the beach, however; sitting together at picnic tables makes a lot more sense. But then I like the idea of teaching with the windows open too. I never read the crap Sarah Hoyt posts, this pandemic has broken her just as much as it has broken so many schoolteachers, but if they are being sat alone on buckets to eat, that's just wrong. The hysteria (word chosen deliberately) about the 40 degrees is a complete distraction.
Did the teachers and administrators eat outside too?
I've been told that I'm not allowed to open my classroom for the students to eat in at lunch. Our lunch room at the high school has been closed all year and the kids forced to eat outside.
And I have to say that rhetoric like that makes it harder for regular parents to advocate for dropping the insane restrictions on kids, because who wants to be on the side of a person who says eating outside is TORTURE?
How about when the temperature is 40? How about 32? Ann is someone who likes living in cold Wisconsin. Maybe you are too. I would also like to know if the teachers and administrators ate lunch outside as well.
A. Sarah Hoyt is known by Insty readers for her hyperbole.
B. Kids are “strong and resilient” which is why it was criminally irresponsible to lock them out of their schools because of a virus known to pose a minimal risk to them. Who did that?
Snow picnics sound cool. Do the schools in Wisconsin require kids to participate?
"Sit on buckets?"
A hell of a lot of people repurpose 5-gallon plastic buckets as stools. What is the argument that these stools are inappropriate for children as opposed to a good lesson in lateral thinking and recycling. Bitching about the buckets sounds like elitist, anti-deplorable bullshit.
"I wouldn't call it torture. though, perhaps miserable. Eating in the cold is miserable.
I recall as a kid we were forced to go out after lunch, no matter what. It was freaking sub-zero"
So you went out when it was more than 40 degrees colder than what we are talking about. How is that at all comparable?!
"It’s not the eating outside in the cold, it’s the sitting alone. On buckets."
The only bad part is the space between the children, but they are not alone.
Are they forbidden to talk? If that's part of it, that's the worst part by far.
So Ann, you gonna start sitting outside eating lunch now? I mean it ain't torture, right? Just fun fun fun!
Heck, why do they even heat up the schools inside? After all Global Warming! Gonna need to turn off all that nasty energy!
I'd go to a snow picnic...once.
But if the cool kids were there, I'd go somewhere else.
Paul looks really uncomfortable.
Ann,
40 degrees in damp cold it probably comparable to 30 degrees in dry cold.
I merely recall how much I hated being forced into a cold situation as a kid. When you're a kid, you put up with a lot, because you have no power. and yes - today's kids are probably the most pampered ever. So - perhaps you are correct that sitting out in 40 degree Portland weather on a bucket is no big deal.
I would like to know what these kids think about it.
This is another example of how our "experts" do not know what to do, but that have to do something.
If the school building were 40 degrees, it would be declared unfit for human habitation. Yes, demanding that people sit outside just to engage in the necessary function of eating is child abuse.
Sarah from VA said... in the last two years I've learned to just skip past anything with a Hoyt byline.
The best thing about Sarah Hoyt is she posts overnight, so there’s new stuff when I wake up in the morning. Some of her links are good. But she herself—she is an immigrant from a dysfunctional country (Portugal) and she doesn’t really appreciate the resilience of the American system. We look the other way at a lot of stupidity because we are strong enough that we don’t have to take a stand on every little thing. We know the system will lurch along well enough for all the petty bullshit. I don’t blame her being a little hysterical, but I do tire of hearing about her shocked face and her middle fingers.
Can’t we all agree that “following the science” in no way produces a policy like this?
I’ll bet dollars to donuts these aren’t recycled buckets. These were bought with Covid relief funds from the feds.
I will be okay with this, when I see Nasty Nancy, all of Congress, The Bidens and all the other hypocrites eating every meal outside. Until then, this is demented, but then...everyday all I see and hear is more Progressive dementia. It really is a mental disease.
Gahrie said...
Did the teachers and administrators eat outside too?
I've been told that I'm not allowed to open my classroom for the students to eat in at lunch. Our lunch room at the high school has been closed all year and the kids forced to eat outside.
I think your administrators should be shot into the sun. Please tell them that for me.
This system is designed to make sure nobody takes responsibility for what is being done to our children and our society.
For Sarah from Va and Bob Boyd: Hoyt does tend to stay at Defcon 1, but I think her vision is mainly correct. We, as a nation/culture, are teetering on something. I believe that millions feel the instability, a sense of dread they can't put a name to. It's a "something very bad is coming" feeling that is prompting record gun sales and the internal migration and national segregation for politcal reasons.
I think Hoyt can see what could be coming based on her life in a socialist country and the sharpened sense of history an immigrant brings to the US. For me, given the level of indoctrination going on in K-12/university, the collapse of journalism, and the insane radicalism of our political left, it's hard not to share Hoyt's dark concerns.
"When people have to make gross exaggerations to make their "point," they are just preaching to the choir and undercutting whatever point they claim to be making with open minded people."
This is most correct, no matter which side of the political fence you're on.
Ann Althouse said...
"It’s not the eating outside in the cold, it’s the sitting alone. On buckets."
The only bad part is the space between the children, but they are not alone.
Are they forbidden to talk? If that's part of it, that's the worst part by far.
What message are you sending the kids when they are sitting outside spaced out on buckets while the teachers and administrators sit inside and eat their lunch?
Ann Althouse said...
"Sit on buckets?"
A hell of a lot of people repurpose 5-gallon plastic buckets as stools. What is the argument that these stools are inappropriate for children as opposed to a good lesson in lateral thinking and recycling. Bitching about the buckets sounds like elitist, anti-deplorable bullshit.
Yeah.
Shut up peasants.
Stop acting like us...
err... the elitists!
My teen wears a sweatshirt to and from the schoolbus all winter except when it gets near zero degrees.
People moaning about this need to see the amount of shorts being worn in Midwest schools in winter.
Especially Big Time Fun during Flu season!
"Heck, why do they even heat up the schools inside?"
I'll bet the schools are way too warm.
We keep our house at 62°.
It's usually the adults that get upset if the indoor space is a little too hot or too cool. I noticed when my kids were growing up, I kept the house at maybe 68°, and I'd always have on long sleeves and socks, but my sons — old enough to dress themselves — would be running around barefoot and in short sleeves.
There's a lot of subjectivity to feeling hot or cold, and I'd recommend raising children to be relaxed and hardy about temperature differences.
Yeah you little maggots. Welcome to camp Juno.
The authoritarian impulse in school personnel is very, very strong.
But it's one thing pushing little kids around, it's quite another when these bullying thugs try their act with adults.
They get rather miffed when grown-ups push back at them.
A hell of a lot of people repurpose 5-gallon plastic buckets as stools.
For an occasional use, sure, but not for something you know you are going to be doing every day, day in and day out. Sitting on a bucket gets old real quick.
What is the argument that these stools are inappropriate for children as opposed to a good lesson in lateral thinking and recycling.
My argument is, sitting on a bucket to eat your lunch sucks. I've done it a bunch. I used my lateral thinking and started bringing a folding chair. There are a lot of good, inexpensive folding chairs out there nowadays and some of them advertise that they're made of recycled materials, if that's important to you.
The buckets weren't sitting around the school waiting to be re-purposed by some clever lateral thinker. Nobody asked the kids, hey, we need to sit outside. What do you think we should do? Somebody obviously went out and bought these distinctive, orange buckets at Home Depot for this purpose. Are these buckets really their best creative, long-term solution for these kids? Pathetic.
Bitching about the buckets sounds like elitist, anti-deplorable bullshit.
Sympathizing with these kids, based on my own experience, is hardly elitist. Just the opposite.
Anti-deplorable? What are you saying? These kids are deplorables and buckets are part of their culture? The way of their people? Don't judge them? Deplorable children don't feel pain or discomfort like normal kids? Now you're just trolling us.
I challenge you to sit outside on a bucket for 30 minutes and eat your lunch every day for a year and never think to yourself, I could do better chair-wise.
Personally, I'd rather sit outside and eat when it's 40° than when it's 90°
Sounds like you have a choice. Not so for the kids and their parents.
Wear the mask. Applaud the clown. Do as you are told.
Bitching about the buckets sounds like elitist, anti-deplorable bullshit.
The teachers intent with the buckets is to separate the students outside. That- and whatever elitist gibberish you’re spouting are in the same category…
I laugh because, as a child, I remember creating designs with my fingernail in the ice that formed on the inside of my bedroom window, and I never felt I was being tortured by cold, ever. Cold is a state of mind, and if you decide you don't like it, you will suffer a lot from it, and if you decide you don't care, you simply dress for it. As they say, there is no bad weather, just bad gear.
Sarah has gone bonkers because she has a health condition that increases her risk. I have a heart condition that has roughly the same chance of killing me each year as if I rolled a pair of dice on New Years Day, and if it's snake eyes, well, that's not good for old tim. The exact odds are not known because I have a congenital defect that makes the odds hard to calculate. That's a little worse than my odds of coming through COVID alive at my age, and I live with it, though I admit I went through a long struggle to come to terms with the heart condition, but sometimes I just want to say to Sarah "Shut up and die like an aviator!"
I used my lateral thinking and started bringing a folding chair.
Another possibility in lateral thinking and in learning good life lessons is for the students to tell the teachers/administrators, "GFY, we're not sitting outside."
What happens if Madison, for example, forces this in January when it is zero degrees, Ms. Althouse?
Don't be afraid to call the authorities out on this insanity. Yes, maybe using torture is the wrong word, but I suspect this is hyperbole with a purpose. The reasons for forcing the children outdoors to eat their lunch had nothing at all to do with health or wellness, so stop pretending otherwise.
Kids are "resilient "? Why are suicide attempt rates for them going up? Obesity rates are increasing too. It's a crime what we're doing to kids with this Covid hysteria.
This is part of the psychological torture which is being inflicted worldwide. Forcing people to isolate, wear masks, show papers, get experimental drugs or lose their jobs. Eating in the cold, isolated from others, is just part of the plan to instill FEAR!!11! Of something that, even without the vaccine, has a greater than 99% survivability rate for everyone who's healthy.
This pandemic has taught me 2 things: 1: most people are very easily cowed, and 2: because of number one, that's how horrors like Nazi Germany happen.
I'm not vaccinated and might lose my job because of it. Not that I fear the vaccine. If the mandate goes away I may decide to get a vaccine, assuming any of them are still effective. But I refuse to be forced. And I refuse to live in a state of manufactured fear.
Where I live, I can work from home (unless/until they reject my exemption request), most people don't wear masks (except to the doctor), and life goes on as normal. I thank God every day for this and pray that sanity returns to the world.
Sarah from VA,
Consider how you have failed to convince anyone without using hyperbole. You haven't failed because people like Hoyt utilize it.
Althouse, as bright as you are, your desire to focus on minutiae sometimes causes you to miss the big picture.
"Sounds like you have a choice. Not so for the kids and their parents.
Wear the mask. Applaud the clown. Do as you are told."
Also, show your papers with your ID to get in to see Sedaris.
Was this a one-time thing, or will children do the same thing every day as the temperature drops below freezing?
Not sure of the exact temperature threshold, but when I'm outside in the cold my nose runs, sometimes profusely.
So, what happens when lunch is over and these kids presumably come closer together after their runny-nose lunch?
You and Jen are pretty cold
If the kids were unionized this would not be a problem. The school should have permanent outdoor dining tables and benches for the students and the teachers and administrators year round. Freah air isn't just good for the kids.
Sarah Hoyt is a professional writer paid to play a role at PJ Media.
It's just business.
Blogger Duke Dan said...I’ll bet dollars to donuts these aren’t recycled buckets. These were bought with Covid relief funds from the feds.
I bet they were donated by parents. The COVID funds were used to shore up the under-funded pension system.
I don't mind eating lunch outside in the cold on a bucket therefor no one minds eating lunch outside on a bucket in the cold.
There's a word for that...
Sure, Psaki doesn't mind the cold because she has that nice warm Commie hat to keep her empty head warm.
"There's no way this outdoor lunch is torture or child abuse."
1: If we did this every day to prisoners, how long would it take before the ACLU et. al were suing to stop it as torture?
How long would it take for a left-wing judge to agree with them
2: Sitting outside, with coats and warm pants on, on a chair and at a table with your friends wouldn't be "torture".
Sitting outside on a bucket (metal? That transfers teh cold straight though to your body?), alone, no table?
That's abusive.
Doing it for a disease that almost completely avoids kids?
That's politically motivated insane child abuse.
https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/situation.html#ageg1
Ages 0 - 14: 3 deaths, 134k cases out of 9,872 deaths and 957k cases
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/oregon.health.authority.covid.19/viz/OregonCOVID-19PediatricReport/Demographics
15% of cases are among under 18. "Hospitalizations of pediatric COVID-19 cases during their illness remain rare.". 3 deaths (but that includes the 15 - 17 age range)
What does "rare" mean? It means a hospitalization rate of under 2 per 100,000
This is not a childhood disease. The forcing them outside is the petulant response of "teachers" who are pissed off that they're not being allowed to be the "cool kids" who work remotely.
The Portland Schools deserve every bit of attack they're getting over this
Temperature aside, it does tend to rain alot here in the Portland, Oregon area. This week especially. In my nonscientific observation of the elementary schools in my western suburb I've only noticed one with any sort of outdoors cover from the elements.
So if I had school aged children I wouldn't want them trying to eat their lunch sitting on a bucket in the rain.
Blogger Jamie said..."The reason is the problem. ... [insinuating to the children that] you might catch COVID-19 from one of your dirty, dirty friends and die."
Yes, I think this is the problem. If it were true you'd have to impart that message and live with the consequences, but it's not even remotely true. And that message is being communicated to the children (how could it not be?). I see it in my grandchildren.
Q: are the "educators' also joining in the fun of eating outdoors?
if not why not
"Sympathizing with these kids...."
Did the kids express that they were suffering? I think it's just a dumb made-up political issue.
And even if the kids did complain, it would be doing them a favor to encourage them not to grow up as fussbudgets. They should be encouraged to feel hardy and strong and adaptable and cheerful in the face of adversity. Having to eat outside and sit on buckets should be turned into fun by the children. If they lack the resources to do that, then they have a very serious contagious disease and need to be helped.
I don't know for sure, but my guess is that the real torture is having to be taught by anyone hired by the City of Portland school system as a teacher. I'm sure it's a bizarre and unique take on the world that can destroy a kid's chance at a life anywhere outside of the Left Coast or Washington DC.
"So if I had school aged children I wouldn't want them trying to eat their lunch sitting on a bucket in the rain."
If you look at the photographs, you'll see there's a roof over the place where they are eating.
Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand
You got all the love
Honey baby, I can stand
"And even if the kids did complain, it would be doing them a favor to encourage them not to grow up as fussbudgets."
Why do you troll your loyal readers? Who says shit like this and means it?
Not child abuse? Family services would be at your house seizing your children if your neighbors reported you doing it to your kids while you ate in the teacher's lounge, uh, excuse me, the kitchen.
And to ensure in other areas kids keep properly distanced, they're sitting kids on the floor to eat. As part of civilizing our young- we used to teach them NOT to sit on the floor to eat...
You're defending the indefensible.
Any time I find myself rolling my eyes while reading through Instapundit, I look down and sure enough, a Sarah Hoyt post.
Mark Tapscott is worse. He just can't stop proselytizing and insulting non-Christians on nearly every post.
About 40 degrees not being torture: It depends on how much wind and rain there are. But it's always cruel and stupid to cause anyone discomfort without a good reason for doing so.
As I understand this, the kids were forced to eat outdoors, suitably socially distanced (for a disease that essentially doesn’t affect them) because their cafeteria is closed (due to COVID-19?), and a school bureaucrat issued an order that they couldn’t eat in their rooms (COVID-19 nonsense again?). This, of course, doesn’t affect the teachers (who might be susceptible to COVID-19) because they have their faculty lounge (where they likely don’t properly social distance), and, of course are unionized. And, of course, the administrators preventing te kids from eating in their rooms, or probably even in the cafeteria, most likely are former (unionized) teachers, who managed to step up to higher paying positions that don’t require that much student involvement.
A few years ago I was working at Big Law in Palo Alto and once a week it was food truck day, where food trucks had a designated part of the parking lot. It was funny to watch the lawyers sitting on orange Home Depot buckets as they ate. It was not too cold, and the leaf blowers were told not to blow dust and dog shit on the diners at that particular time, so it worked. But it looked undignified and suboptimal, so I never tried it.
I like some of the stories on Instapundit, but when I see posts by Sarah Hoyt, I tend to just quickly scroll past them. She's a professional writer, so she knows that it's important to choose your words carefully. She is frequently over the top with her Instapundit posts and I have no doubt that it's totally intentional.
Winston said...
For Sarah from Va and Bob Boyd: Hoyt does tend to stay at Defcon 1, but I think her vision is mainly correct.
----------
serious Q
/to be considered in cruel neutral frame of mind : by not saying I would not mind at all - as done by Professora/
is torture [= inflicting pain/discomfort] in the intent or actual results?
does indifference to either element excuse any of the initiators = I am just following orders and implied - also you must follow orders
The kids are sitting in buckets out in the cold because of magical thinking that this is necessary to fight COVID, despite worldwide evidence that children can have a normal school routine without being transmission risks, and you think the *opposition* to this delusion is a dumb made-up political issue? You're usually prepared to call out this kind of nonsense; why are you so aggressively willing to be lied to in this instance?
My nephew is terrified that his 8 yr old son will get sick from a flu that won't kill him, and rushed to get him vaccinated once they were available. He proudly tells me how his son is a mask nazi who berates other kids for not wearing theirs.
Two of my teenage nieces have become obese during the pandemic. They had to remote school, and their parents never let them out of the house to go anywhere due to fear of infection. One of the "girls" (both also recently declared themselves as trans) went from being an A student to falling behind because she lacks the discipline to learn remotely.
This is not a joke. Do you really think what kids are experiencing due to the Covid hysteria is not harmful?
BTW the previous "Caroline" was "Night Owl". Not the other person who goes by "Caroline" and posts here.
Being outside is good for them.
All the Covid Crazy that comes along with it ain't.
Paul looks like he’s sooo loving life!
Are the teachers and administrators also eating rapidly cooling food outside?
The entire education system is run by nasty, overbearing, liberal, woke camp guards.
How about we tell every household that they MUST keep their house at 40 degrees during the winter.
It will help the environment.
Besides, we fucked ourselves on energy so there's not too much to go around anymore.
And it won't be 'torture,' it will be the right thing to do, comrade.
It's not torture. It's stupid beyond words.
Ann Althouse said...
"Sympathizing with these kids...."
Did the kids express that they were suffering? I think it's just a dumb made-up political issue.
Ann continues to run away from the real issue with her tail tucked firmly between her legs.
My school lunches for 8 years of parochial elementary came in a brown bag, containing a sandwich and fruit, with 5 cent milk bought in the lunchroom, or as I later realized, the basement of the church. Except for Wednesday, when ten cent hotdogs were scarfed down with glee.
In 9th grade, my first public school experience, I reveled in the joys of mystery meat, school "pizza" and overboiled vegs. However, the ladies manning the counters at Randolph Middle School in Charlotte, NC, made one amazing item: fresh hot buns about 4"x4"x4" each, which slathered with butter were without compare in my entire life since then.
High school? I missed the buns, and don't recall much about the food, except that there was a snack vending machine on one hallway. Yippee.
We sent outdoors in all seasons at lunch, this being the South, where frostbite is rarely an option.
farmgirl said... "Paul looks like he’s sooo loving life!"
tim maguire said... "Paul looks really uncomfortable."
Well.. which is it?
Did the kids express that they were suffering?
I don't know, but I do know from experience that having to sit on those buckets every day is not something I'd want to be forced to do long term. We can do better by the kids IMO.
Do you really begrudge them a chair? How about a stool?
District parents could provide stool samples to the school board to encourage them to consider possibly upgrading from Home Depot buckets.
Having to eat outside and sit on buckets should be turned into fun by the children.
I couldn't agree more, but judging by the picture of them sitting in front facing rows, having fun outside at lunch is not being facilitated by the school. I hope it's not as bad as it looks.
It's awful.
I would not want to be forced to eat outside in 40 degree weather. It's uncomfortable.
This is not a way to treat people, especially when the risk is so vanishingly small.
The kids need someone with some common sense to find them a good lawyer.
They are not eating outside at Sidwell Friends, are they?
"Kids are strong and resilient"
Correct. And they needn't be put outside because the adults inside are afraid of covid.
You have to question if the schools are there for the benefit of the students, or of the employees.
I will mention there is a time for feeding kids outdoors in other than shirtsleeve weather. It’s when the kids sign up for it and the parents agree.
Only two Scouts with us at the Valley Forge camporee where we shoveled the snow down to the ground to pitch our tents. After the site was set up we pan fried boneless strip steaks in lots of butter for dinner, along with a large can of baked beans. 10 deg F as we ate. Standing up. Since I knew we were going with only 2 Scouts I made the menu and sprung for the steaks. Stayed standing and walking around to eat them. Keeps you warmer than sitting. Below zero overnight, and just above shortly after sunrise. A mixture of eggs and sausage for breakfast- cooked by the Scouts. Packed lunch and headed off for the day’s activities. Ate lunch in the park’s visitor center. Ate dinner quickly after getting back to the campsite and packed up and left since evening activities were canceled and most other troops were already gone.
The worse the weather conditions are on a camping trip the more the Scouts revel in telling tales about the great time they had.
One of the best times one of my sons had was when his leaders failed to pay attention to their training. Let the Scouts set tents close to the riverbank. Of course it rained heavily- upstream. Scouts got out of one tent, and my son loves telling how he helped hold on to another while the leaders slashed an opening in the side to let the 2 Scouts out. That troop lost 2 tents that day- but no Scouts. The son on that trip is in his 30s and still talks about it.
Kids volunteering to rough it learn valuable lessons in how to cope with adverse conditions. Kids forced to eat outdoors in coat weather learn to hate the people forcing them to do it. And hate may not be a strong enough word. And for some of the older students who were at school pre-co- I’ll bet they can remember not being allowed to go outside to eat in great weather- but we’re forced to stay in the cafeteria until lunch was over. I can just imagine what they’re thinking. Public school children are learning all about irrational authority- and it looks like Ann approves.
You poor people. Here in the Free State of Florida, we don't have any of that silliness any more. No mask mandates. And certainly no 40 degree temperatures. Some people still wear masks, but it's because they want to, unless they are in places where Federal law requires it, like mass transit or doctor's offices. If you want to get the vaccine or wear a mask, feel free to do so. And if you don't want to, feel free not to. I'm personally pro-vaccine but anti-tyranny, and I'll tell you, I'm seeing some "Sic Semper Tyrannis" coming down the pike.
Fortunately we can rely on the kids themselves and their parents, and not the imperious, out of touch, retired law professor, to decide whether eating outside in frigid weather is a good thing or a bad thing.
If the Professor wants me to believe that she would not be protesting at PTA meetings if it was her children affected. This post does not convince me at all. Both her sons are fully grown, and Wikipedia shows no grandchildren for her. So she supports a policy that does not apply to anyone she cares about.
Do they serve hot meals? Are they still hot when the kids are forced to eat them in 40 degree weather (and no doubt headed for colder temps as we get deeper into winter)?
If the faculty and staff aren't out there with them, then it's all theater...
The problem is that this is another overreaction of the schools.
If you really want to toughen them up, force them outside with No lunch.
That'll teach 'em.
Just saw the play A Christmas Carol. There's a scene where Bob Cratchit is caught trying to put another piece of coal in the stove and Scrooge reminds him that he gave him a candle to work by and that he should warm himself up with that. Working in the cold would give him character, Scrooge said.
That's about the same as what Ebenezer Ann is saying here.
Kids forced to eat outdoors in coat weather learn to hate the people forcing them to do it.
Them and their fat and psychopathic wives.
This is a perfect example o.f how the govt has got covid response all wrong.
A perfect example of not knowing how to evaluate risk, or simply ignoring all the facts and acting out of some warped effort to gaslight everybody.
As always, let's not forget the people making the decisions, are in the very small minority of highly educated "experts".
If they mess up something this simple, what makes you think their agenda on curriculum is going to be effective?
And of course these experts are the lower level, the "best" are teaching in colleges...with the same finely honed decision making process.
And the same pool of Phd's teach Constitutional Law to future SCOTUS judges. That's where emanations and penumbras come from.
It would be different if kids could eat outside and treat the outside as the outside. Running around definitely warms a body up. The problem is that the schools are treating the outside as if it was still the school cafeteria. "Sit down, be quiet, don't move." That is torture for busy children.
"So now it's "torture" for children to eat outside when it's 40°?"
Why don't you try it? Without a nice garden set to sit at, without it being your idea but imposed on you, without allowing yourself any fun or play. Get back to us when your fingers thaw.
Blogger Achilles said...
Ann Althouse said...
"Sympathizing with these kids...."
Did the kids express that they were suffering? I think it's just a dumb made-up political issue.
Ann continues to run away from the real issue with her tail tucked firmly between her legs.
Ann Althouse, cold coward.
Ann Althouse said...
And even if the kids did complain, it would be doing them a favor to encourage them not to grow up as fussbudgets
If we're going to eliminate "fussbudgets", lets start with the fussbudgets who are so desperately afraid of the flu that they're forcing this insanity on kids.
Sorry, Althouse, but the "we're scared of Covid" fussbudgets have that market cornered
Are first graders having to balance their lunch trays on their knees while sitting on the buckets?
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