Once more, welcome to another edition. Let's see what we got this week. Not too many items, so let's get on with it.
Education News
- As schools still struggle to decide whether to open for the fall or not, or open in what capacity if any, parents are seriously concerned about their jobs, if they still have one, and child care. Via The Hechinger Report. There is something to be said for the fact that schools, institutions for education, are more basically babysitters so parents can go to work because in the Bad Economy both parents do have to work to keep food on the table. So when schools get disrupted, that precarious plan of parents working gets messed up as well. Then again, my sympathy only goes so far since more often than not many of those parents degrade and are outright hostile to schools and funding them properly. So suddenly, when the shit hits the fan they are all "OMG, we need those schools to open" without much regard for the teachers who will risk their lives to care and teach for their demon spawns. And let's not even get started on the total disregard for other school staff like, oh, say, the janitors who have to sanitize the whole thing.
The Bad Economy Around the World
- In Hong Kong, under the stairs shops, small mom and pop stores in the city, often kept by residents of a building to help them pay rent, are disappearing. They are becoming a victim of redevelopment (i.e. getting gentrified it seems). Story via Al Jazeera.
In Other News of the Bad Economy
- Well, child hunger is up in the United States. Via The Rural Blog. Probably because feeding children is not quite a priority in the U.S., kind of goes along with not funding schools properly and other things for the common good.
- Do you live in the U.S.? Do you need an affordable modest car because, you know, you pretty much need a car for things like getting to work? You can't afford a giant truck or gas guzzling SUV? Well, you are up shit's creek because car companies are basically phasing out small subcompact cars that used to be the affordable option. Via VICE. It is not necessarily that they are stopping production and not making them at all. They are just NOT making them for the U.S. market. You can go to any other part of the world and still find them, but in the U.S. where people really need a car, because public transportation is laughable where it may exist, well, as I said, shit's creek.
- If things keep going the way they are, we are probably not going to see polar bears much longer. Story via VICE. By the way, this is not something in the far off future. Polar bears can go extinct in 80 years or so.
- As we all know, the Bad Economy and the pandemic have hit small businesses hard. The U.S. government has been pretty inefficient (read here they helped their rich buddies instead) in helping small businesses out. However, in some small good news Country Time, the lemonade people, decided to help their own and they are offering bailouts for children's lemonade stands. Story via ABC 30. This is not a joke. Read the story for details, deadline to apply is August 12, 2020.
Hustlin' in the Bad Economy
- The illicit drug trade is one where you definitely need to hustle and be creative to keep the money rolling in. The latest smuggling scheme? In Italy, police intercepted a shipment of cocaine smuggled inside hollowed out coffee beans. Via Boing Boing. So many questions. One, who looked at a coffee bean and said, yep, we can smuggle cocaine in these little babies? Two, who got stuck with the job of hollowing out all those coffee beans?
- Restaurants have been hit very hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as they gradually reopen, they still need workers. It turns out that in addition to the usual workers, like cooks and waiters, restaurants may need a few new types of worker. So if you need a job, this may be an option, or if you already work in a restaurant, some of this may become extra duties. Story via Departures.
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