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Purdue is fundraising around Plexiglas shields.
It’s a strange decision.
CARES Act money can be used for Plexiglas and similar equipment. It just can’t be used to replace lost operating funds. Philanthropy generally doesn’t go into operating funds, either. (Operating funds are what pay for people and utilities. Capital funds pay for buildings and long-term equipment.) Fundraising for Plexiglas -- if that’s what it’s actually going for -- is probably the least productive way to use philanthropy.
The real issues around Plexiglas aren’t so much the purchase and installation, as significant as those are at scale. They’re around maintenance and cleaning. As long as the stuff is there, the cleaning staff will have to be augmented to keep up with it. That’s an operating cost. That’s the money that keeps getting cut.
If you get the Plexiglas but don’t have the money to clean it …
Ugh.
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Am I the only one who suspects that traditional-age students brought back to dorms will have a hard time socially distancing on Friday nights?
The one thing that might help is that it’s so much harder to distinguish days of the week anymore. At this point, naming a post “Friday Fragments” feels like a public service.
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Speaking of public service announcements, Winslow Township, N.J., issued an advisory this week that residents should not pose for selfies with bears.
I’ll just let that one sink in for a minute.
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After a brutal couple of weeks, seeking a momentary distraction, I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole and discovered videos by a mechanic named Scotty Kilmer. He’s kind of a cross between the Car Talk guys and Reverend Jim from Taxi. He’s on the border of unhinged, but he’s compelling viewing.
He clearly knows cars well, and even his more, uh, idiosyncratic opinions are based on something. Although the videos are obviously pretaped -- he even throws in little meme-like pictures as a sort of running commentary as he speaks -- there’s a consistent feeling that he could blow at any moment. I suspect he’d be a nightmare to be around for any length of time, but for 10 or 20 minutes at a time, he’s a hoot.
