The Flower That Blooms in Adversity

KTLA |  Ds and Fs surge, attendance slips among L.A.’s poorest students amid distance learning

Education Week |  ‘Schools Need to Be Bolder’ About Reopening, Public Health Expert Says  

Daily Mail | Pediatricians believe it’s riskier to keep schools CLOSED because of  mental health problems and the risk of obesity as studies show kids  being in classrooms does NOT cause the spread of COVID

Washington Examiner | Trust the Science, Reopen Schools

New York Times | Are We Seriously Talking about Closing Schools Again?

City Journal | The Child-Neglect Pandemic

New York Times | ‘Remote Learning Is Not Working’: Shutdown Hurts Children, Parents Say

Politico | UNICEF: Schools Are Note ‘Main Drivers’ of Covid among Kids

Yahoo! Finance | Coronavirus School Closures: ‘We Are Going to Lost a Generation of Doctors, Civic Leaders, Scientists:’ NYU Prof

The Atlantic | Why Are We Closing Schools? - United Nations University International Institute of Global Health fellow Nina Schwalbe

The Atlantic | Why British Kids Went Back to School, and American Kids Did Not

The Post Millennial | Suicide Rates among Seattle-area Youth up 30 Percent During Pandemic

Houston Chronicle | Houston-area Schools See Surge in Failing Students as COVID Wreaks Havoc on Grades

KARE | Nearing End of 1st Quarter, Nearly 40% of St. Paul Public High School Students Have Failing Grades

Los Angeles Times | LAUSD Enrollment Decline Continues During Online Learning, with Unexpected Drop of 6,000 Kindergartners

Washington Post | Failing grades spike in Virginia’s largest school system as online learning gap emerges nationwide

Washington Post | Remote School is Leaving Children Sad and Angry

The Cut | Children of Quarantine: What does a year of isolation and anxiety do to a developing brain?

NPR: Pandemic Takes Toll on Children’s Mental Health

CBS Sacramento | Sheriff: Woodbridge Elementary Student Dies By Suicide During Online Class

FOX 5 Washington DC | Failing Grades on the Rise for Montgomery County Students

AP | ER Visits, Long Waits Climb for Kids in Mental Health Crisis

Washington Post | Failing Grades Double and Triple – Some Rising Sixfold – Amid Pandemic Learning

New York Times | Childhood without Other Children: A Generation Is Raised in Quarantine

Novant Health | Childhood Trauma Can Intensify During COVID-19

National Geographic | Exclusive: Kids Catch and Spread Coronavirus Half as Much as Adults, Iceland Study Confirms

Boston Globe | Nearly a Quarter of Boston Public High School Students Not Logging into Classes Daily as Course Failure Rates Rise

News Medical Life Sciences | COVID-19 Lockdown Measures Negatively Impact Children’s Mental Health

KLAS | 4th CCSD Suicide Raises Concern of Mental Health Crisis During COVID-19 Pandemic

Journal-News | Leaders concerned after more than a dozen Mason students recently hospitalized for suicidal thoughts

UN News | Shutting School Systems Wrong Response to COVID-19, UNICEF Says

San Francisco Chronicle | Pediatricians to San Francisco: Children are suffering, so reopen schools

New York Times | Disadvantaged Students More Likely to Be Learning Remotely, Study Finds

You all know how big a rabbit is.  Jack Rabbits and hares are much bigger. they’re the size of large cats or small dogs or just-walking-age children.

They also like to hang out in gangs of a hlf dozen to over 30.

and in the middle of backcountry dirt roads.

perhaps they’re dustbathing

or blood sacrifce

I don’t know because when you come up the road at night because your dog has a tiny bladder and needs to go out at midnight and you have no yard so you’re walking him on the dirt road around your neighborhod because you might aw well get some stargazing in, and you come just over the ridge to see a coven of twenty jackrabbits in the middle of the road

and

they

all

stand

up

not just onto all fours like a proper prey animal

No they get up on thier hind legs and don’t just sit but STAND like tiny rabbit-skinned toddlers, wobbing slightly as they stare directly at you eyes shining in your flashlight’s glow

…Blood Red.

And a chill goes through you on that warm july night because while they’re a puntable size and allegedly herbivores they’re standing and watching you just like people and you are vastly outnumbered.

everyone freezes

you’re considering your odds aganst roughly 200lbs of Suspiciously Humanoid Hare

and they’re considering their odds against you

the only sound in the never-ending high desert wind 

somewhere in your peripheral vision you can see the streetlights but they seem awfully far away

The nearest Jack Rabbit

Blinks

and takes a single shuffling step

forward

You area an overdevloped monkey and your prefrontal cortex is capable of some amazing feats but it runs very slowly compared to the reflexes of a rabbit and you’re frozen as you desperately scramble for the appropriate course of action, hands feeling thick and useless, mouth dry and feet imeasurably heavy there’s no way you’d outrun THESE, god there’s a rabies outbreak going around that shit’s not curable-

The Dog

L U N G E S

It’s only the briefest of movements but the animal you’d picked out for his gangly legs and floppy ears and goofy smile is suddenly a dark shape of muscle and teeth and had flung himself at the horrible goblin rabbits faster than mere physics should dictate, appearing in the circle of the flashlight for only the briefest of moments before the jolt from the leash makes you stumble and the light falters

The Jack Rabbits

Scatter

Vanishing into the faintly starlit sagebrush in as so many faint gray shapes that might be mistaken for the dustclouds they kick up

Later, you sit on the couch disquieted

and you wonder

If the sight of the Jack Rabbits standing and studying you was frightening enough to make you yearn for the safety of the yellowed streetlights

what must it be like from thier end?

what terrifying creature 

deliberately ties itself

to something so horrible

CONGRATULATE, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GOING FOR.