Kimberly Steele

I turned 47 a short time ago. In almost half a century on this planet, I never thought I would see a day when American public schools clung to fading relevance in a zombie state of half-closure and shopping at beautiful, newly built stores would be an activity I avoided because I prefer to breathe freely. Nevertheless, here we are. At least for now, Big Sister is running the show. She has willing armies intent on re-educating anyone who doesn't believe that fastidious hand washing and sneezing into a towel (or just staying home) is enough to keep the majority of people out of harm's way from a severe seasonal flu.

Warning: if you are one who becomes upset at the notion that legally enforced masks are a bad precedent, scroll away. Your comments will not see the light of day here. You have your forums; Facebook and Twitter spring readily to mind. Your voice is already well-received and perpetuated by the mainstream media. There is no need for you to try to exert control over a peon like me who cannot possibly put a dent in your towering pyramid of fear.

For everyone else, please do not waste your energy by wishing harm on the type person I am describing in the above paragraph. They know not what they do and when it comes down to brass tacks, they were depressed busybodies before they tasted authoritarian power and matters have not improved. They are merely a bit more unhinged than they used to be.

Instead of trying to wrest power from petty dictators, let's do what rational people have done since the beginning of time when dealing with petty dictators: GO AROUND THEM.

It's time to bring back the Speakeasy. The Speakeasy was born long before Prohibition. Back in the day, a speakeasy was an establishment that sold liquor without a license. They were called speakeasies because everyone knew you couldn't blah de blah loudly about them in public, just in case the police or a nosy neighbor overheard. Speakeasies ranged from simple back rooms to grand parlors. During Prohibition (1920 - 1933) the speakeasy hit its stride, and within speakeasy walls the genre of jazz music bloomed as musicians did what they do best in a freewheeling, experimental setting.

The Speakeasy is more than just an illegal place to get an alcoholic drink: it is a state of mind. The Speakeasy is peaceful guerrilla warfare.

Death

The end is a strange place to begin, but we are living in strange times. One of the most ignominious characteristics of the shutdowns was their tacit assault on the very elderly they pretended to defend. At this time, old people are still dying without any contact with their loved ones in nursing homes and hospital wards. Anyone who has been at death's door since March of 2020 is condemned to a frightening and lonely death for the crime of dying during a panicdemic. For many, there were and are no funerals or memorial services to help the living mourn the dead. If you are a religious person wishing to send off your loved one with traditional ceremonies, you can expect to be mocked and potentially arrested for gathering to properly mourn your dead.

The solution to all of this is not to allow the dying to fall into the clutches of corporations disguised as healing centers and asylums disguised as assisted living facilities. If an elder decides they must go into a hospital, nursing home, or assisted living, that is certainly their choice and we should respect it, but if they don't choose such an outcome, we should do everything in our power to move them into our own private living spaces despite the burden they will create. The following is only my opinion, but from what I have seen, death of old age and its related causes should happen at home, surrounded by as many loved ones as possible. When death of old age happens in a hospital or a nursing home, there are legions of paid counselors, managers, and medical staff who must be paid in order to "assist" with a phenomenon that never needed their assistance prior to the advent of nursing homes. If death occurs at home, there is time to say goodbye, light candles, play music, and pray as the loved one's spirit hovers nearby, waiting that short time before the next step in the cyclical death process. If it occurs in a remote place where staffers await to whisk away the corpse, it is probable that you won't even be allowed to see your loved one before they are cremated or otherwise interred.

Schools

The American education system was already a bad joke before the tide of current events swept the land. Quasi-scientific restrictions in the US have turned all forms of school, including college, into a lab rat maze for student and teacher alike. Plastic partitions, no lunch, no recess, and bizarre social distancing and hygiene rites succeed in making public school a far more hellish experience than it was when I attended in the 1980s, and that's truly saying something. In areas with "good" schools, property taxes and house prices are staggering precisely because of the money that goes towards the "good" schools. With the New Normal cemented firmly in place, one wonders if the professional managerial classes who occupy these dramatically overpriced homes will remain willing to finance schools their children can only set foot in two days a week?

I am not a parent, but if I was, I would be yanking my kids out of the public school system faster than billionaire cheapskate J.B. Pritzker yanked out the toilets of his mansion to avoid property taxes. There is a stereotype that homeschooled children are isolated from their peers that isn't true for most. Many homeschool situations are co-ops with their own formal curricula. When parents with similar educational interests for their kids band together and homeschool, the result is more like the one-room schoolhouses of yesteryear, where kids of various ages are obligated to help each other learn. It's simple: we need to start our own micro schools in private spaces. These micro schools should be close by (started by a band of neighbors or friends) and they should feature formal curricula. Because kids are kids, it goes without saying they should be mask free and should include food breaks as well as recess and field trips. Can you tell I was a schoolmarm in a previous life?

As for higher education, the mandatory college for all racket is nearly done. We will see it imploding shortly. I graduated from musical college 25 years ago. Among my peers, I am one of two who uses her degree every single day. Everyone else works in unrelated fields for which it is uncertain if they needed their expensive degrees. If your kid is set on going to college, sit them down and have an honest talk with them about finances. Is the degree worth it if they have to go into debt for a degree that will be mostly obtained online?

I feel for these kids. We can do better.

Food

One of the worst features of the panicdemic was the threat of food shortages. In our land of plenty, nobody should ever go to bed hungry. Plenty are doing that as I write because they have been cut off from the ability to make a living.

We have to take food production and distribution away from large corporations and government via any means possible. It's not possible except in rare cases to be off the food grid entirely, however, my suggestion is that we all need to do whatever small things we can to become less dependent on nationwide and global supply chains for our daily bread.

The obvious first method of re-organizing the food system is growing your own. If you can grow any small bit of what you eat, do it, even if it is only a single jar of sprouts. Anyone with a successful garden knows it is a learning curve and that once the curve is mastered, providing free vegetables to dozens of people at a time is going to be the natural consequence of planting a seed in the ground. Get to know your local gardener -- they want to provide you with fresh produce!

The second is food preparation: Facebook is generally a trash site but there's a feature of it called Marketplace where people often sell ready-made food. Do you have a famous dish, a condiment, or a dessert that you can make in a clean setting in mass quantity? Sell it. Let's get used to the idea that food doesn't have to come from a grocery store.

The third is food gatherings: throw a party to which Big Sister and Big Brother are not invited. We can still enjoy food and we don't need to wear masks upon entering the door, and we don't have to sit six feet apart from each other. If we are feeling truly revolutionary, we can give each other hugs and/or shake hands. The old fashioned dinner party needs to make a comeback.

A cooking circle is a series of dinner parties where people take turns hosting -- they're wonderful because the pressure isn't always on the same host and everyone gets to sample different cooks.

Potlucks are another option -- they're quiet, and they always end up with too much food. For a better potluck, have the participants list what they are bringing ahead of time so you don't end up with three tons of leftover hummus.

Cookie (or other food) exchanges are great especially around the holidays. Once again, getting a list of who is bringing what helps there to be fewer unwanted cookies.

Teaching Your Skills

Just like we need to take back the means of production where food is concerned, it is imperative that with universities collapsing and shortages on the horizon that we learn to hone and trade our skills.

Are you good at knitting? Cooking? Gardening? Carpentry? Beading? Electronics repair? Can you speak more than one language? Are you a pro at dealing with stress? Are you good at finding good deals at garage sales? Are you a pet whisperer? People need you. You don't have to start a formal business in order to have a few like-minded people over to teach a small class. If you can afford to do so, offer at least one class for free -- as a music teacher, the first lesson free approach helped me to build a thriving music studio that has lasted 25 years. Don't wait: figure out what you are good at, reach out, and teach what you know. Now more than ever, people need to learn practical skills.


Entertainment

We now live in an era of vacant arenas and empty stadiums. I personally was never into sports, but it angers me that giant stadiums exist partially funded by my tax dollars that rot in the open air.

If you can get to a wild space, for instance a forest preserve, do it for your own sanity. Get away from screens and online games (including social media) for your own mental health's sake.

Musicians are hurting the worst from the panicdemic. I myself don't have it so bad, as I have never been a regularly gigging or touring musician. My gigging and touring musical brethren have been hit the worst by the current mess. If you have any ability, please find a local or regional musician and ask them how you can host a house concert for them. House concerts are where the musician plays in your living or office space and the audience pays directly for the entertainment. These sorts of underground, DIY events are potential lifesavers for musicians who have lost almost all their streams of income.

Host a board game day for friends when the weather turns nasty. A game day is a pleasant activity in conjunction with a potluck as well.

These are just a few of my suggestions to get the ball rolling. I hope they inspire people of like mind to come up with their own brainstorms as we go around the paranoid neo-Gestapo.

Thanks for reading and refraining from profanity in the comments.