current events – No Filters (Reality As I See It)

School Terrorists and Hostage takers

Posted on April 5, 2022 by Tony Fernandez

I am no fan of the government local, state or federal. There are some things they are supposed to do, but more often than not they do things they aren’t supposed to do. My beef now is with the school district, or as I refer to them, the ultimate terrorists in hostage taking. There is little you can do to stop them, because they will tell you it is for the kids. They need more money and if you don’t give it to them your kids will suffer. Never mind the fact that your kids will suffer no matter what because they will pump your kids with their political views (usually the left side), and even if you take your kids out they still get your money. Remember the government is the greatest thief you either give them your money or they take your house or your freedom.

My school district has decided they need more money, almost $800 million, never mind that they got almost $600 million 4 years ago. This is being voted on as bond proposal, and the district is pushing hard to get it passed. Most of the parents I have seen don’t want their kids to fall behind the curve, and think the bond is a going to be good for the kids. Currently they are planning on replacing existing schools that are around 50 years old and were poorly maintained and now are falling apart. Somehow other school districts have older buildings in worse environments that are magically in relatively good condition. Apparently $600 million dollars wasn’t enough to fix things, they really needed $1.3 billion and they didn’t know that in 2018. Besides replacing schools, we also get (wait for it)…………..new facilities for extracurricular activities and fancy playgrounds.

Schools now a days are all about sports, because so many of our students end up in the professional sports arena. Forget if they can read, write or do basic math lets shell out money so that the kids know what to fucking do with various balls. Hit it, bounce it, throw it, or kick it that is the way to make a living, don’t worry about balancing your million-dollar bank account or even know what the contract says before you sign it, you can hire people to do that. Oh wait, no you can’t because we were to busy teaching you what to do with the ball that we didn’t spend any time teaching anyone else how to move society forward, because sports are all that matter. Recess is so important, because kids can’t just figure out ways to have fun with a stick and some rocks, that’s why we need million-dollar playground. When I decided to live somewhere based on a school district, I never looked at the academics, only how good they were at football, basketball, and baseball.

They have told us that they will not increase our tax rate, because increases in housing values with help pay for the bond as the payments come due. I guess housing values have never gone down and only go up. For those with short memories in 2008 there was a housing collapse, and this district that year asked us to increase the rate otherwise they were going to have to cut all of the extracurricular activities. I can’t tell you how incomplete my life would be without the honor choir. Tack onto that the county wants to build a low income housing project in this school district. Because nothing brings up housing values like low income housing projects. Per the current budget they spend about $13k per student, in-state colleges cost less for tuition.

I have a better solution, how about instead of spending the money before you have it, save it as our property values go up, cut the administrative staff and the bullshit salaries of political level positions, and stop buying bullshit for shit that doesn’t matter like sports. Principals don’t need to make more than every household of the students they serve, and neither does the superintendent. Pay teachers based on performance and not years worked. If teachers are skilled professionals, pay them like skilled professionals not laborers. Engineers, accountants, managers etc. get paid by performance not time, time is a factor in performance, but not the only one. Better yet, stop stealing my money and I’ll give it to the schools I choose not the ones that are currently holding my children hostage. It doesn’t seem to matter, both the left and the right seem to be all in on voting to give the district more money. As far as the bond is concerned, if you haven’t figured it out I am voting FUCK NO. I am probably in the minority, but at least I can cast my ballot.

current events, perspective

Masks?

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Tony Fernandez

Alright, so it has been forever since I have written anything. What can I say? It has been a hell of a year. Covid-19 has shown how even mundane things can become political and stupid. Somehow making a decision or an innocent mistake makes people crazy, as if we haven’t been living with deadly diseases since the planet formed an atmosphere. I mean there is an entire continent where nature tries to find new and creative ways to kill us. Looking at you Australia.

I live in Texas and apparently when the government isn’t mandating that people do something, this somehow pisses people off. Now that statement may make you think I am going make a right sided argument, but I am actually going make my own argument. I am going to continue to wear a mask, and I never actually gave two fucks what a government official said on the matter. I do not think the government needed to say shit on this, nor I do I think not wearing mask needed to be crime worse than stealing (aka non-violent crime). I bring that up because we let people out of jail for non-violent crime, but were willing to throw people in jail for not wearing a mask. Thankfully it never actually happened, but in some places it was actually written down, the police just decided not to enforce it.

Let’s actually talk about these masks for a second. Shall we? First let’s talk about the psychology of safety. A mask does not make you immune or 100% guarantee that you won’t catch anything. The reason this is important to acknowledge, is because of how the human brain works when it thinks it is safe. The illusion of safety, makes the brain dial up the level of risk each of us is willing to engage in. This is always a topic at my safety meeting because safety features and person protective equipment (PPE) don’t guarantee you will survive everything you will encounter. You can compare American football to rugby, there is more PPE in American football, and way more injuries than in rugby. Why? Because the players engage in way more aggressive play than they do in rugby, essentially nullifying the safety they get from helmets and all of the padding. Highway fatalities go unchanged year over year even though cars have way more safety features. Why? Well, that is because people choose to drive faster and make crazier decisions, like jumping 4 lanes of highway to exit, because they thing they are safe.

Now, as for the masks, do they help? Yes, they do. Not because they act as a filter, only a full-blown respirator that seals to your face will do that. The cloth masks or surgical masks everyone is touting, will catch the mucus when you sneeze, but it won’t stop a virus from getting out. What it does do, is decrease the radius of exposure an infected person has, from 6-8 feet down to 1-2 feet. So, if you wear a mask and decide to get in someone’s face, congratulations you negated the purpose of the mask. If you are going somewhere where you will never be within 10 feet of another human being, a mask isn’t hurting anything, but it isn’t really preventing anything either.

To all of the people that post videos showing that stuff gets through the mask, understand that isn’t the point. It’s so that when you go someplace where 6 feet isn’t possible to maintain, that radius can be decreased to 1 or 2 feet, like at the aisle of a grocery store. To all of the people touting masks and proclaiming from the rooftops that you are going to continue to wear masks. Where the fuck were you before Covid-19? If you’re worried about your kids, the flu kills more kids than Covid has. Most Covid deaths are for people that are over 65, and a rare few are people under 20. I am not making this comparison to the flu to minimize Covid, but to say everyone should have been doing all of this shit during flu season. I mean there is a fucking season, you know when your ass should be masking up, and it is between September and April.

I am fine with vaccines. I love them, you don’t have to agree with me on that, but to all of the other people who love vaccines and are screaming about how you’re gonna always wear a mask, I have some questions. Do you get you and your kids vaccinated every year for the flu? Do you always wash your fucking hands after you use a public restroom? If you don’t answer yes to both of those questions, I really don’t value your opinion on this matter. Because not only do I get vaccinated every year, I wore masks during flu season, I used handkerchiefs and paper towels to touch surfaces in public, and kept hand sanitizer in my car or on me when I went to a place that I wasn’t sure if they had some inside.

I did have Covid in my house, and either my boys and I have amazing immune systems or we just did an excellent job of not giving a shit to a point that we never got infected. My daughter caught it at a Volleyball game, we were alerted that she may have been exposed, after she was in contact with my boys and I. So, we didn’t bother to do anything to isolate or quarantine her in the house, we just started boosting our immune systems as best as we could. We waited for 5 days before we got her tested, because we wanted to be confident in the result, since she never had any symptoms. She tested positive, but my boys and I never tested positive. We all got tested twice, 5 days after exposure, and another 5 days after the first test. I don’t know how we did it, but we did.

I believe people are free to do what they like, and business are as well. If a business wants you to wear a mask to come in, then wear the mask or go somewhere else and don’t bitch about it. We didn’t seem to have a problem with “No shirt, No Shoes, No Services,” because we respected private business. Apparently, bottoms were optional, but you better have a shirt and some fucking shoes. If you want to wear a mask, then wear a mask, and if it bugs you that some people don’t wear one, then don’t hang around those people. But neither side needs to act all high and mighty and announce to the world what they are going to do because of whether or not they chose to wear a mask.

On another note, if I can make a mask out of my shirt, then pulling my shirt up over my nose and mouth should be the same as wearing a mask. Especially, if you’re not going to have problem with the person wearing a mask around their chin or with their nose hanging out. Sometimes, I just forget the damn thing, its not a political statement, and the thickness of the fabric doesn’t change when I rip off my sleeve and wear it like a gator. That actually happened, at the courthouse of all places. My shirt over my nose and mouth was not proper, but the person in front of me was fine with their nose hanging out, and the lady telling me I needed a mask with her mask hanging around her chin. Thankfully, they had masks there for me to use, but I legitimately thought I had one in the car, and didn’t realize I didn’t until I got to the courthouse.

Bottomline, you do you. You don’t need the government to mandate something for you to feel like you need to do it. You also don’t need to call me a pawn because I wear a mask, or that I am an inconsiderate asshole, because I forgot one. I have better things to do with my time, than worry about how what I have on my face makes you feel. Besides, I thought the point was to flatten the curve, the assumption was that the same number would be affected by the disease, and we just wanted to spread it out so the medical system wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Well, it’s been a year, how flat do we want this curve to be? From what I’ve seen the over flow capacities were never used, and were shuttered without seeing a single patient. So, to conclude, just leave me alone. I don’t give a shit what you decide to do, and I don’t give a shit about your opinion about what I am doing at any given moment.

current events, perspective

License Debacle

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Tony Fernandez

A week ago, I got a letter in the mail telling me that I need to renew my driver’s license, but this time I must bring proof of citizenship. God forbid the local government upgrade to email, like everyone else, instead they rely on people being chased by the neighborhood dogs to not drop the letters while running like Usain Bolt. You would think for important documents they could at least send it certified mail, then at least there is a little more motivation for the mailman to deliver it.

Now to the other annoying part, I must prove that I am a citizen. To do this I, I can bring my birth certificate or an unexpired passport. But when I got my passport, I had to bring my birth certificate too, because somehow this magical document proves you’re a citizen. I also had to have my birth certificate to get my license when I first got it at 16 years old. I figure since we are dealing with the government, a tiny bit of logic is just way to much to ask, so even though I proved my citizenship decades ago I apparently have to do it again.

Back to the birth certificate, what about this document proves anything? It doesn’t have anything on it other than text saying your name, your parents’ name, the date and place of birth. No wonder it is so easy to steal someone’s identity. If you can get your hands on someone’s birth certificate, there isn’t really anything to prove that you’re not the person on the certificate. Then there is the fact, that your parents get this document when your born, and given the way most people are, it gets lost. If you need to get a replacement you can order one online. The things you need to fill out, you might actually be to get on anyone just by reviewing their Facebook page.

You don’t exactly have to be the world’s greatest criminal mastermind to get someone’s birth certificate. And this is the document that is used to prove citizenship? My mortgage, bank statement, utility bill, or tax records at least show that I am sending money to a place that supplies services to my home or gave me money to buy my home. My birth certificate does none of those things. I don’t mind having to prove I am a citizen, but figure out a way that cross-eyed, hairless llama couldn’t do. And if I did it to get my license the first time, how about not forgetting that I have already it.

current events

The Big Game

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Tony Fernandez

Today we have one of the largest sporting events in the United States (not the world, that goes to the other football, otherwise known as soccer). The San Francisco 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs, and if you are a fan of either team, sports can be like politics. I am a Steelers or Eagles fan, depending on whose doing better. When I said that to a Cowboys fan, it was like I was a democrat at an NRA convention.

Even though I am a fan of football, I can’t see getting upset when my team loses (of course with my teams I am just immune to disappointment anyway). But I see some people get really angry or sad when their team loses, no matter the league or sport. I always thought following sports was for entertainment, but if you take it so seriously, that it can make or ruin your day, is it really the escape it is supposed to be? Losing friends and family over something that doesn’t make much of a difference a week later just seems silly, it’s not like your loosing benefits or money (provided your not gambling on the game).

Of course I also can’t see spending the amount of money and time on going to a game either. I get wanting to spend time with friends and family, but all of the headaches of going to a game are just overwhelming for me. The tickets are expensive and so is parking, and what do you get for it, even if your on the field your never going to be able to see what they show you on television. I hate the traffic when I go to work, but going to sporting events makes rush hour traffic look like a Sunday afternoon drive (except when a sporting event is going on, obviously). Then there is the bathroom, watching the game at home, it is a short walk to the bathroom, and with a DVR, I can pause the game and rewind if I missed something. And the best part, it is free to stay home and watch. I know, someone is going to point out that there are ads, but remember I have a DVR, I skip most of those bastards, but I stop for the funny ones.

If you are staying at home to watch the Super Bowl it is another American holiday, complete with its traditional cuisine of pizza, wings, chips, soda, and beer. We hang out with our family and friends and have a good time, even when our teams aren’t playing in the game. It’s like Thanksgiving for sports. So everyone have a good Super Bowl Sunday, and may the best team win (since it isn’t the Steelers or the Eagles).