Assurance needed
Hello friends and supporters of public education. I’m writing in the middle of our highest COVID surge to remind readers that we are headed back to school with students this week. The thought of scores of cases of COVID/omicron running rampant throughout our communities after numerous holiday gatherings worries many of us in our public schools.
Historically, we often have large numbers of students calling in sick within the first weeks back after winter break; this year, those absent numbers will have an ominous feel. Sadly, over the past few weeks, more children nationwide have been hospitalized from COVID (omicron) than in the past 16 months of this crisis. Now, we are expected to go back to live instruction, but without any new guidelines?
During the past few weeks, while omicron has invaded our shores, HSTA (our teachers union) has been asking for a concrete “action plan” from the DOE. Everyday of increasing infection rates makes it glaringly clear that we need a plan of action on how to combat COVID spread, and offer parents an option, if they do not feel their child is being protected in our public schools. Parents need to exercise their voice: What has the DOE done to change our COVID response? What additional “precautions” have been put in place to protect our keiki? Concerned parents should contact the DOE and the governor and ask “What additional precautions are being offered to combat COVID?” Teachers and staff at your local schools all want assurances that we can return to in-person learning, safely.
Toni Reynolds
Kona
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Jan. 6 was the tip of the iceberg
Jan. 6 was the tip of the iceberg coming for America’s constitutional balance of power. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Patriotism is standing up for the country, not the president.” But on that day, adoring, obsessed Trump fans, believing the subversive message that only he should be in power, tried to sink the ship of our democracy.
The GOP plotted throughout Trump’s presidency, using divisive means to set their politicians and his followers apart from bipartisan America; to the extremist point of claiming that the only way Trump could lose an election was if Democrats cheated.
Unquestioning, devoted media feeds and propaganda websites spread the insidious message that Democrats were evil and couldn’t be trusted. Any free press criticism was called “fake news.” Insider loyalists in the White House administration, including our non-political DOJ, FBI and AG, were expected to defend Trump no matter what. Soon, every Republican politician was pressured to pledge unilateral allegiance to avoid Trump’s wrath.
Trump and the GOP played the “us vs. them” game and split America into two sides. You were either “for or against” immigrants, Blacks, the police, the government, masks or vaccinations. His regular tirades whipped up crowds with angry accusations and aggressive language. His supporters followed suit on Facebook, in social interactions and in public discourse.
On Jan. 6, shocked Americans watched and anxiously waited for the U.S. president to take control and condemn the desecration of our Capitol. Instead, Trump said, “Go home. We love you.” A year later, his politicians still refuse to cooperate in the investigation.
A man and a party blatantly manipulating politics to gain full and unbridled control would be unimaginable in any democracy. But Jan. 6 is the wake-up call that the GOP’s seditious desire for absolute power has arrived to sink America.
Martha Hodges
Kailua-Kona
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