Browsed by
Tag: #SocialDistancing

The 2021 Then & Now List

The 2021 Then & Now List

Image by iXimus

2020 was a year that changed almost everything. Brick and mortars’ footprint got a lot smaller as we embraced online shopping. Not necessarily by choice: the former were shut down and/or driven out of business, especially SMBs.

The CDC admitted that deaths from seasonal flu, pneumonia and even heart attacks were included in the Covid numbers, thus inflating the actual deadliness of this flu, yet Big Media ignored these reports, which more or less made fear porn arguably the real superspreader – of click rates and note to self: according to the National Review, Stats Hold a Surprise: Lockdowns May Have Had Little Effect on COVID-19 Spread.

Working remotely became de rigueur, but with K-12 being ‘taught’ remotely, this definitely created problems in River City. On many levels, what with parents working from home, too – or attempting to. Can young children truly learn this way? There is a difference between ‘teaching’ and ‘learning.’ If remote education is going to be the so-called new normal, the basic tenets of effective remote learning need to be seriously re-examined, or the teacher is simply another talking head. Read More...

Urban Distancing and the Rise of the Rest

Urban Distancing and the Rise of the Rest

For years, our urban areas have been attracting the young and the talented away from smaller towns, cities and suburbs, which had been leading to a seeming unabated expansion of our major urban centers into sprawling megalopolises. You could rattle off the destinations almost by rote: New York, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Seattle, Los Angeles, plus a few more here and there. It didn’t matter that housing costs were absurd and, in many cases, up to half one’s salary would go into living quarters roughly the size of one’s college dorm. These were the epicenters, the hubs, at what may well prove to be, in retrospect, a moment in time.

We have yet to see the full after effects of the lockdowns, and while there have been reports of urban areas and states like New York and California hemorrhaging citizens, we’ve been hearing from our readers that many of them who moved out New York et al seemingly temporarily, sheltering with family or friends, gravitating back to the cities/towns/communities where they grew up, carrying on business over zoom et al, and watching the Draconian lockdowns and more lately, urban rioting, from afar, now have no intention of moving back. In fact, one investor friend who moved to a farm upstate at the onset, recently posted on the gram, showing off his new brood of calves. They were like having little kittens, he said. Read More...