The day after Christmas I was supposed to go back to work. It was a Friday and according to my contract, I only get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off during the holidays as well as New Years Eve and New Years Day. If one or both of those days falls on a weekend, then I get an additional day or two off in the week.
Normally, it isn't that big of a deal, but when the holidays fall in the middle of the week and it splits your time off up so that you have to work Monday, Tuesday, and Friday over the holidays, it is kind of lame. Thankfully, I still wasn't feeling the greatest after having been sick over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
I decided to use a personal day (I don't get sick days, just personal days), partly because I still wasn't feeling great, and partly because we had about an eighth inch of ice dumped on us the night before. They actually closed down several of the major highways in our area due to the roads being so bad. I stepped outside to take some photos of the aftermath.
Unlike some other unfortunate people, we never lost power from the time the ice came until the time it was fully melted. That was a real blessing, though we have a generator, so it wouldn't have been the end of the world, just more inconvenient than anything else. Although I wasn't feeling 100%, I still made the short drive down the road to the store to grab some ice-melt to make our driveway and front walk a little safer.
Although it was less than a mile to the store, the roads were in bad enough shape that I was glad I didn't attempt the half hour drive into work. It likely would have taken me three times that long to get to my office.
You might gather from the title I have alternate intentions for writing this post. I was honestly on the fence about whether or not I wanted to turn these beautiful photos into a political thing, but here we are. It seems like turning everything political is pretty much the norm these days.
Honestly, I'm not looking for a debate. I just wanted to make some observations about thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for the past week or so.
It was right before the holidays that my sister in law texted us to let us know that they were doing ICE raids at the school district where she works near Columbus, Ohio. While we weren't overly concerned about our family getting picked up (we don't fit the "profile"), it was the first instance of someone so close to us having that close of an encounter with ICE.
Lucky for us for sure. We live and work in a pretty rural area, unless they are going to come gunning for migrant workers, they are probably going to be out of luck in our neck of the woods. Plus the fact that it isn't crop season means many of the migrant workers have moved along anyway.
I think what bugs me the most about all of this is the amount of value we have placed on human life these days. Trust me, I know the drill. I called it even before the official statements came out. The car was a deadly weapon, blah blah blah.
The funny thing is, I've seen enough police shows (like Cops, not fictional dramas) to know that they call off police chases all the time out of concern for collateral damage. This definitely seems to be a case where the agent could have just let her go or used some form of less lethal force.
I have zero doubt how accurate it is when they say that people in these positions have to make split second decisions and it's easy to pick it apart after the fact. The problem is, most of those people in that position usually have proper training and hopefully years of experience to apply in those situations. A quick fact check from a non biased source shows that these agents have been rushed into the field without proper training or vetting, which basically equals a virtual powder keg of crap to hit the fan.
It was honestly just a matter of time and likely won't be the last sadly.
She actually deals with it every day at school where she works. Teachers get frustrated because a student freaks out and won't listen. She tries to explain to them that in that moment the student isn't physically capable of listening (or perhaps complying), but everything is either black or white, cut or dry for them and they just can't see it.
She often gets accused of "rewarding" students for bad behavior, when really she's just getting them into the state where they can actually be talked to and understand what is being said.
I apologize though, I've kind of went off on a tangent. Like I said though. Whether it is a political coup, assassination, or a domestic murder, the lines are drawn with zero compromise and zero DMZ. I think it's ridiculous to even tie the words domestic terrorism to what happened in Minnesota, but people are buying it hook line and sinker, and the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
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