Yesterday was my wife's first day of school with the children and, as I wrote then, hers is one of the few districts in the county (a county with 36.5% of its population fully vaccinated) with a mask mandate, a mandate which, it would seem, caused no uncertain amount of strife on the part of anti-mask parents who profess to being "pro-choice" – the irony of which cannot be understated.

My (fully jabbed and masked) wife would die for her students – even the assholes: that she's placed, continuously, in a situation where the ability to fulfill her calling puts her at greater risk of that death – be it via plague or via gun – to appease the beliefs of sloganeering fuckwits is infuriating; that the local newspaper is brimming with references to "smiling faces" and resentment-filled headlines speaking of "like it used to be" only compounds it: in a land where the motto is "Keeping tradition a part of our future," the only tradition left is the increased likelihood of having no future at all.