Yours truly was toodling down King Street/Route 7 in the Hyundai yesterday when I spied a group of eight students, likely from nearby Wakefield High School, waiting to run across the roadway (there being no traffic light in the vicinity) to get to, presumably, the newly renovated McDonald’s across the street.
Although they were outside, seven of the eight appeared to be fully masked up.
Let’s noodle this through. There are three threats to life and limb these students faced: (a) running across seven lanes of traffic with only a median to help get to the other side; (b) the long-term, if indisputably delicious, impacts of French fries and a Big Mac; and (c) the possibility one somehow might catch Dr. Fauci’s nasty bug while in the great outdoors.
I’d argue that (c) is by far the least of those kids’ problems, yet there they were, taking precautions against a threat that basically doesn’t exist. Welcome to our world.
It’s not their fault; as yesterday’s blog noted (sorry to be a broken record), they’ve been the repository of fearmongering, in the case of a 16-year-old, fully one-eighth of their lives, some of it real but much of it not. It’s no surprise they’re acting irrationally.
A spy at a local high school in Fairfax County said the percentage of students and staff wandering commando is high (75%) and growing every day. In Arlington, things will take a little longer because the kiddos have been scared, and scarred, more by the adults, but eventually sanity will prevail.
Until the next thing crops up to be exploited by fearmongers ….
LET ME KNOW HOW THAT WORKS OUT: One of my favorite local columnists, present company excepted, is Nick Benton of the Falls Church News-Press, because he so often has such a unique take on the world around us. (And they say I’m not a diplomat!)
In this week’s paper, Nick opined that Republicans have thrown in their lot with Vladimir Putin. That is a view that seems a little, mmmmm, disconnected from reality. But presuming for the sake of discussion it is valid, he sees a day of reckoning for the GOP.
“The entire Republican Party will now be held accountable in what will become the biggest U.S. popular mobilization in history to end the war and rid this nation of its pro-Putin menace once and for all,” Benton remarked.
So much to unpack in that last sentence, I won’t even try. But man, why this guy doesn’t have an MSNBC show is a mystery. His material is solid gold!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUCKAROO: My father turns the big four score and one today down in Florida, where such an age is just rookie status. Hope the card made it on time!
- Scott McCaffrey