The sign on the hill

My Sunday evening movie this week was Up by Pixar. Yeah, it came out a dozen years ago, but I hadn’t seen it. I knew the basic premise that an old guy and a young scout flew away in a house held up by thousands of balloons, but nothing beyond that. So I was pleased by how sweet the first half of the movie is. I was also surprised at how much the second half was a simple swashbuckler, with an unrelenting evil nemesis, surprise attacks, derring do, and improbable escapes. It was fun. After watching I read through the trivia of the movie on IMDB. It said to lift a 1600 square foot house 20 thousand balloons wouldn’t be enough. It would take 12.5 million balloons, which would take 3.5 years to inflate if one didn’t stop to eat or sleep. I had considered watching the movie Summer of 85. The trailer showed two young men in a sweet gay love story. But then it showed the highly homophobic reaction of the adults. I’m so over that. Homophobic parents were accurate in 1985, not so much 36 years later in 2021. So I didn’t watch. When I checked the Michigan COVID data on Saturday I discovered it had not been updated in a week. Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed a report written by Sydney Page in The Lily. Hamilton County, Tennessee announced a mask mandate that included an opt-out options parents could sign. “Wendy” of the East Hamilton school district wrote on Facebook (as excerpted by Dartagnan):

As the parent of a daughter at East Hamilton, I find the school’s dress code policy to be misogynistic and detrimental to the self-esteem of young women. … In light of the opt-out option related to the recently announced mask mandate, I can only assume that parents are now in a position to pick and choose the school policies to which their child to be subject. ... I therefore intend to ... send my daughter to school in spaghetti straps, leggings, cut offs, and anything else she feels comfortable wearing to school.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported on Republicans arguing to expose school children to the virus. He started with a few basic points: * Masks work in protecting us from a potentially deadly virus. * One can still get enough air and release enough CO2 while wearing a mask. * Various workers have worn masks for years during prolonged shifts and heavy labor. Some cultures, including some in Asia, routinely wear masks in public spaces. * It is only Republicans who are attempting to prevents schools and workplaces from using masks. Cynthia Silva of NBC News reported that Newberg Public Schools, located about 20 miles southwest of Portland Oregon, passed a measure 4-3 on Aug. 10 to ban “political” signs and clothing from its campuses. This included Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ signs. Supporters of the ban said the signs would cause “more division and more anger,” while those opposed said such signs made students feel seen and helped comfort those who had been bullied. A few days later farmer Jaybill McCarthy shared an idea on social media and got donations and supplies to build an 8x16 foot pride-transgender-black lives matter flag on painted plywood. They mounted it on a hilltop on his farm highly visible from the high school. It is a message that everyone belongs to the community. McCarthy tweeted a thread with pictures showing progress and finished sign. Tai Harden-Moore is an advisor to the school’s Black Student Union. Her son appreciated seeing Black Lives Matter signs in classrooms to know what teachers were safe to talk to. A one minute video of a guy beating his own drums in an unusual way.