Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

I wrote in this thread, I think, about a zillion pages back about our 10-year-old grandson doing his Zoom school from our house 5 days a week. They are closing in on the end of a grading period and his teacher e-mailed out a series of slides showing what assignments hadn't been turned in so kids would have a chance to get their work in before yesterday's deadline. There are 31 kids in her class and only 8 had turned in all their assignments. Our grandson is one of the 8, so I feel good about that. She is having to get more and more strict with some of the kids. They alternate between half-hour instruction blocks and half-hour independent work for much of the day. Before, she let the kids go off Zoom for their independent work, but now she makes them stay connected so she can see if they are doing the work. I can hear the frustration in her voice sometimes. When second semester starts, she said she will lose 3 kids whose parents are sending them back into the classroom, so they will transition to a new teacher. She'll still have 28 and she has to have two large computer monitors open so she can see all of them. She should drink heavily.

 

My grade book would horrify you and I’ll take it everyday and twice on Sunday if it means I’m not doing anything under 6th grade. I will bow my head in that teacher’s honor.

 

Roughly:
これを整理するのに1年かかりましたが、これが最善の方法ですか？ 君たちをファック！
Kore o seiri suru no ni 1-nen kakarimashitaga, korega saizen no hōhōdesu ka? Kimitachi o fakku!

 

I'm hoping fakku is exactly what I think it is.

 

For what it's worth, both the IOC and the organizing committee denied it, but both of those parties were insisting the games would go on in 2020 until about two days before they weren't.

It sounds to me like the Japanese government is trying to find a backdoor out of a very very expensive bad break/mistake, and the source claimed they want to get back in line in 2032, which is the next available date, though hot take, I'd tell them 'fakku.' Japan is perilously close to going 1-for-3 in Summer Olympics (Tokyo was scheduled for 1940 before they invaded China several years beforehand), and honestly I wonder if they're just cursed. Public opinion polls are very against the Games going on, which is why I suspect the leak was very political in nature. Also, the current prime minister is new after Shinzo Abe (who appeared as Mario during the 2016 Closing Ceremony) stepped down due to health problems.

As mentioned before, a Summer Olympics not happening would be financially crippling to the IOC and several of its constituents (hell, the USOPC has already been through the ringer in the last five years over Larry Nassar and for good reason). I may be completely irrational here but I still think there is a possibility of this happening (you'd think vaccination would be in good enough shape by spring to maybe send these folks to the front of the line) but the idea that folks would want to be bailing out is not surprising either.

 

I understand why the Japanese government would want to push ahead with the Olympics -- these were supposed to be the "Recovery Games" marking Japan's triumph over the effects of the Fukushima triple disaster, and Abe sank almost as much political capital into the Games as his attempts to revise Article 9. I struggle to see how it's going to happen, though. Six months to get everyone qualified, booked, tested, quarantined, etc. is an awfully tight timeline.

The Tokyo Twitter people I follow are almost uniformly dreading the Olympics happening, and I can see why. Speaking from personal experience, Tokyo's transport infrastructure -- robust as it is -- can barely handle the tourists and people who live there already. The morning rush on the Yamanote line was one of the most singularly unpleasant experiences of my life. An Olympics with no fans would avoid that extra crush, but it seems the only people who would stand to gain in anything other than civic pride are those whose budgets rely on TV revenue.

I do wonder why 2023 is being discussed as the next feasible date if the Summer Games don't go ahead this year. Seems like the IOC and FIFA could team up to make 2022 the Year of Spectator Sports' Triumphant Return (brought to you by Coca-Cola and Alibaba). The Winter Games take up all of February, the Summer Games in July/August, and the Qatar World Cup caps the year in November/December. It'll temporarily be like it was up through 1992 when both Games were held in the same year. A year-long sports orgy (sporgy?) to celebrate victory over Covid-19, international unity, and fat envelopes of unmarked bills for only the world's finest sports "administrators". It's a Nobel Peace Prize nomination just waiting to happen.

 

Likely due to COVID 19.

 

no mo summa tokyo mister roboto

 

I'm not sure a crush of tourists is a problem in Japan right now

 

FFS

1,900 doses of Moderna vaccine destroyed after cleaner accidentally unplugs freezer in Boston

 

This is worrisome.