The Danger Index

The trick to survival is knowing the rules and having the skills. Living in the hood has one set of rules and special skills. It also has a high mortality rate. I grew up I S.E Alaska. I know the rules and have the skills for living on the ocean and in the rain forest of Alaska. I moved onto the tundra. I was smart enough to know that the rules were different. There is a lot of crossover but learning the new rules for my new home was vital.

In my early twenties I found myself hitch hiking across the desert. That is when I learned that there are different rules for surviving in different areas.

 

Andrew J. Wischmann (BS cum laude, Mathmatics, Arizona State University 2010) is a high school math teacher in Mesa Arizona. I say "is" because he's still working full-time from home, teaching the same six (yes, that's 6) math classes a day that he taught in the classroom before the pandemic.

His day stars at 0730, getting his computer communications system up and running and loading the day's syllabus and lesson plan for his students. At 0800 his first class starts, runs for 50 minutes, and he uses up the next ten minutes of "break" time answering questions.Two more classes, then an hour for "lunch" which is usually also spent communicating with students and their (usually irate) parents.

at 1600 his classes are over. He may spend an hour virtually tutoring students, then make some dinner, then spend the next two or three hours correcting the day's quizzes. (And this isn't marking them "true" or "false", but more like "Here's where you got the differential wrong, and here's how you can change the step to get the right answer. Let me know if you have any questions".)

By now it's 1900 or 2000 and he has to go over the new day's syllabus, incorporating the good or bad things he found out may not have worked earlier. By 2100 hours he's turned off the computer , done the dinner dishes, and talks with his girlfriend for a while, then falls asleep.

Weekends he catches up on the housecleaning, his girlfriend comes over and cooks a meal for the two of them, and then -- finally! -- it's time for a relaxing evening and a little hootchie-coo..

When the back-to-school classes start again, it'll be the same load of horse-shit, except that this time he has to get dressed, and commute a half-hour each way.

Oh, yeah, he gets a magnificent $5600 a year (taxable, of course) extra to take his track team to the Arizona state finals. Do you have any idea how many hours and meetings a high school coach spends?

Thank the Goddess summer finally comes, where all he has to do is to be "volunteering" to teach summer school for the kids that flunked Algebra 2 or Trig during the regular season. That and taking an additional 6-9 credit hours at Arizona State University or his Master's degree.

Being a math weenie, he actually logged his hours last year, factoring in travel time, volunteering, coaching, weekend work with parents, after-hours gratis tutoring, and even being a club advisor, when he wasn't taking required courses on his own time.

in 2018, my son made $4.78 an hour.

 

Must be the dry heat in Arizona. Over here in Kalifornia my next door neighbor teaches middle school. She’s busy cultivating her marijuana plants, throwing pot parties and going surfing all while being paid by the school district.

 

Good morning Duncan,

Those Arizona school kids are still unemployable.

You're accurately portraying the "micro-economic" view. Now, let's add the "MACRO-economic" view.

The Arizona high schools - and the rest of the states - absorb so much revenue that the private sector is crowded out and remains non-competitive involving the rest of the world.

After graduation, these high school kids join a socialist mercantile economy that is already in final decay.

 

Money is the name of the game. Schools in my neck of the woods will mark a student ‘present’ even if he or she is not at school, because the state government pays so much per student/per day to our school district. $$$$$$$$$$$

 

I said the danger level for me was a 6 in the first post, but if I see a zombie lurching towards me that goes straight up to 10!

 

All that my daughter ever wanted to do was coach and teach. She was very athletic and turned 18 travelings between the NCAA finals in Seattle and the JR. Olympics in Norfork

She went to school and worked. Monday Wednesday and Friday are school and Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday she worked. It took her five years to get her degree, a major in Kinesiology with a minor in math so she could both teach and coach. She also got a commercial license because it pays better if a coach can also drive a bus. as her graduation, she started putting in applications. While she went to school she worked at a truck stop and had the job of merchandising and handling the inventory of everything that wasn't a petrochemical.

Just before graduation, she came to me. She explained that the very best job that she could get teaching and coaching would require her to take a rather substantial pay cut, work more hours and move to Houston! So much for that. She went to work for the state handling contracts in the institutional purchasing and sales and is doing great. Next time you hear about the quality of education that kids are getting understand the big shots make a big salary but teachers are paid and treated like slime. What do you expect?

 

I honestly don't see much of a civil war happening. Worst case the big cities may burn and our systems and infrastructure may go down. the Democrats are going to try and see to this. They will do anything to improve their chances to beat trump in the November Elections.

The thing is that the liberals have less than zero survivability past being able to go to the store for food or waiting for someone to bring and give it to them. they also have no weapons and no training in weapon use, hunting or fishing. The rural people in New York, and New Jersy may have a big problem but they won't last long and without them, the liberal will starve. The same will be mostly true in California. the coastal megalopolis is like NYC and a death trap. They will come boiling out of it but not get far before they starve to death.

Honestly, I don't see Texas suffering all that much. Even the big cities are still standing strong. I think that in part it is that our big cities grew out rather than up and are not mass transportation based places. People that live in houses with yards just have more room and are more self-dependent than people in highrise apartments. Food here is as close as the nearest pasture. Get together with friends, buy a calf and take it to the butcher. The same goes for the hogs, goats and the gazillion chickens that we have. All of that doesn't even count the deer, rabbits and fish from the endless lakes, ponds and rivers.

We all have guns and we have proven over and over that when the going gets tough we tend to pull together as a people. I don't see most of Louisianna having a big problem other than New Orleans they are a very self-sufficient people. Oklahoma is full of native Americans that will pull together. I'm sure that a lot of places are like us. I see a situation where once again the United STATES becomes truly separate states with little interest in supporting the leaches in Washington DC and the rich in the megacities. It was never intended that we be the Republic of America. It may be time to remind Washington of that.

In the end, the military isn't all that much of a threat. For one thing, I doubt that many of them will fight Americans and Texas alone can field an armed militia 10 times the size of the US Army. The bases are basically unarmed. they are ruled by Washington and they are not trusted with live ammo. We will take them and what they hold. I doubt that there will be any real resistance. They are already sick of the Washington cutbacks and impossible rules of engagement.