Brock About Town

they can claim some credit. —Jason A.

LITTLe VILLAGe ASKeD: Iowa students, teachers, administrators, parents: What was your experience on Thursday adapting to a sudden ban on school mask mandates?

My kids were doing great, they have never complained about the masks, not even once. They knew why masks were necessary and went on with life. But as soon as it became optional, masks were off. And now...”masks are the worst!!” If the state just would have stuck it out... they actually made our job (as parents, teachers, etc) much, much harder. —Jessica P.

It was weird. I felt that the timing and the suddenness of it didn’t make sense, especially if you’re in favor of local control. To wake up and find your protocols and expectations that had been in place were suddenly null and void for no good reason other than, what, convenience? —Ben S. GENTLE READERS, for the first time in over a year, Brock About Town is living up to her name. Having gotten my “Fauci ouchie” (and muted all my Facebook friends who call it that), I have ventured outside of the nuclear fallout bunker that I’m beginning to worry was a waste of money to find a summer like any other. The ice cream truck is making the rounds; college students who live two blocks away from the police station are flagrantly smoking weed on their front porches; and many of our town’s beloved summer traditions, like the farmers market and blowing things up in the middle of the night, have resumed. I was at said farmers market, buying some of my favorite hypoallergenic foot cream, when it suddenly occurred to me that people have pretty much stopped wearing masks. Even there, in the spiritual home of the crunchy IC mom! A month ago, these women were making masks out of hemp cloth and spraying everything with tea tree oil before they touched it, and now they were looking at me like I was some kind of rube, showing up to a cocktail party in a Renaissance Faire costume. I felt slightly betrayed. Don’t get me wrong; I’m overjoyed that people are getting vaccinated and that it’s allowing them some freedom. It’s just that like most people, I can no longer keep up with the pace at which the world is changing, and I’m now slightly traumatized by all normal social interaction. I took my mask off at a bar last weekend and I spent the whole night with my arms crossed over my chest, subconsciously fearing I’d had a nip slip. I’d forgotten, though, how much fun going out can be. I even sort of enjoyed being held hostage by a sloppy, middle-aged drunk with a 45-minute monologue about how Yeats is the greatest poet of all time. So, you know, have your fun, but remember that even if you do have clearance to go out without your mask, there are dangers other than COVID that surround us. Having a gin-fueled one-night stand with an armchair lit professor, for instance.

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The school told the students to stop wearing masks and literally bagged up all students masks and sent them home in Hudson, IA. The teacher told our daughter “they don’t need them anymore.” With no further explanation about the actual relation to community health discussed. —Christine E.

One warning I would give parents: Be sure you know that your child wears their mask at school if you want them safe. At the start of the day yesterday, there was at least 70(ish)% mask usage. This morning I would say it’s down to 20% or less. Kids are succumbing to peer pressure. And by “safe” I mean as safe as they can be, given the circumstances. Obviously, being unvaccinated and masked around someone who is unvaccinated and refuses to be masked isn’t truly “safe.” —@gopanthers95 on Twitter

I’m thinking about arming my kids with insults that will send anyone who hassles them about their masks to a lifetime of therapy. —@VenerableBidet on Twitter

/LittleVillage READER POLL:

Which rap album would make the best musical?

32% ‘Enter the Wu-Tang’

16% ‘The Score’ (Fugees) 28% ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’

24% ‘The College Dropout’

STRESS FRACTURES

JOHN MARTINEK

“It’s important (Johnson County Republicans) run because, without opposition, these are coronations. Democratic primaries should not be how elections are conducted in Johnson County. I’m heartened by the fact that issues I’ve brought up are now the talking points of other candidates running as Democrats. This isn’t a Republican thought but a view shared by the community.” —Phil Hemingway, Republican candidate for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors, to the Press-Citizen

“I’ve worked with most of the current supervisors when I was [Lone Tree] mayor, and Sherry I know that Pardee they care about the rural parts of the county, but I do bring a different perspective, just by virtue of where my boots are at. I run in different circles, I shop in different places, I talk to different people than the folks whose gravitational pull is in Iowa City.” —Jon Green, Democratic candidate for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors “My family, who came to the United States to escape the Israeli occupation, are now forced to fund the terror they were running from in the first place. … We help pay for the planes that raid Gaza at night, we help pay for the bombs and the tanks and the guns and bullets. Well, we want our money back. We don’t want to build bombs, we want health care.” —Serena Qamhieh at the Protest for Palestine on the UI Pentacrest, May 15

Jason Smith “I think the problem is that when we hear the word racism, people Jason assume Smith some bad intention. People assume you’re accusing them of being racist. That’s not what systemic racism is. Systemic racism is basically systemic power. It’s when a system gives power or privilege to a group over another and then there’s a disparate impact to the other groups.” —Amara Andrews, Cedar Rapids mayoral candidate, during a May 8 forum “Success for me would be helping as many kids as we can, making sure that they are as comfortable going into the workforce as they can be. I know that it’s hard when you’re graduating high school. It’s a lot that gets handed to you and I think it’s important to understand that.” —Sabrina Collins-Atkinson, founder of the new nonprofit Early Bird CR

“I am proud to be a governor of a state that values personal responsibility and individual liberties.” —Gov. Kim Reynolds on signing HF 847, banning mask mandates in schools

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