Play Ball

This afternoon the UIL did an about face and said that it is now OK to go back to playing ball (or running track).  The Indians have two games left:

Friday: Varsity (5 pm) @ Keller High School vs. Colleyville
Saturday: Varsity (12 noon) @ Fossil Ridge High School

Colleyville is undeafeated in 5-5A District Play and are playing to keep that record intact.  Keller is currently in second place, but has Grapevine and Fossil biting at their ankles.  Show up and support your team, both should be great games.

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Quasi KISD Closing

Shellie Johnson at KISD is working the midnight oil:

Keller ISD has cancelled Career and Technology Education (CTE) classes at Birdville ISD’s Shannon Learning Center.

Birdville ISD has closed its Shannon Learning Center campus effective immediately through May 11. Birdville reports one confirmed case of swine flu.

Some KISD high school students attend CTE classes at Birdville’s Shannon Center. Those classes are cancelled until the campus reopens on May 12.

The confirmed case occurred with a BISD teacher’s aide in a classroom which contained exclusively Birdville students. No Keller ISD students had direct contact with the aide. All other BISD campuses will remain open on their normal schedule.

Keller ISD has still yet to have a confirmed case of swine flu within the district. All campuses are planned to be open on Friday, May 1.

Thank you,

The Keller ISD Department of Communications

Robert Gibbs gets laughed at

Trying to defend the moron that is our Vice President.  I miss Dick Cheney!

Swine Flu Good for Traffic

See what I get, I take a nearly two week break from blogging, and then come back with a flurry posting everything I can get my hands on about Swine Flu…..and traffic goes through the roof.  This will officially be the busiest day ever on the blog.  If you are new here, take a look around.  We deal with more than just Swine Flu 24/7, but just in case the world is ending, we will bring it to you live.

You wanna know how people are getting here?  Google and Yahoo searches for Keller ISD Swine Flu……think there are a few parents out there wondering what is going on?  Everybody stay safe, and wear those masks and rubber gloves.  I think I’ll go home now and consume some adult beverages to make sure the alcohol kills all the germs.  What?  That doesn’t work?  Well, I’ll still try.

Swine Flu Getting Serious

Keller Baseball made the playoffs for the 8th straight year the other night, but it looks like it will be awhile before the Indians play again. 

Cleburne School District (Just south of Ft. Worth) has closed for the week.

UPDATE:  The UIL, in all their wisdom has released the Baseball Playoff Schedule:

District Certification                                May 19  
  Bi District Deadline                               May 23  (1 game or 2 out of 3)  
  Area Deadline                                         May 26 (1 game only)  
  Regional Quarterfinal Deadline       May 30  (1 game or 2 out of 3)  
  Regional Semifinal Deadline             June 2 (1 game only)  
  Regional Final Deadline                     June 6  (1 game or 2 out of 3)  
  State Tournament                                 June 10-13 

Couple of thoughts, if this was Football, would they be doing this?  Secondly, why are they just postponing UIL events, why not close down the schools if there is such danger.  And Third,  changing the playoff rounds to one game is going to give the teams with an ace the advantage.  I haven’t decided if this is good or bad for the Indians.  My initial thought would be bad, because every year Coach Stramp always has a few cards up his sleeve come playoff time.

UPDATE #2:  A troublmaking reader emails;  “If they can postpone baseball games, why aren’t they postponing the School Board Election?”  (ed – that’s a joke folks, you can quit emailing me about it)

UPDATE #3:  Shannon just text messaged me at work and said all Ft. Worth School are being closed.

Swine Flu Takes Over the Newscycle

Yes, it has officially become a Pandemic to the News Cycle, especially here at BeyondRightField.

It seems a Richardson School has a confirmed case of Swine Flu, and has shut down for the time being. 

I have sent some questions over to Shellie Johnson at KISD and I’ll post up when I get a response.  One of the questions I sent her came from a concerned reader, asking about whether or not the district is going to be proactive looking for sick kids.  The reader also brought up a point I hadn’t thought of, it’s TAKS week, and districts will get punished if a certain number of minority groups are missing from school during testing.  The question was whether the state has taken any action on that front.

Also remember that early voting begins today for the School Board Races, make sure you vote and vote often.

Swine Flu and the US GDP

Found this on the net somewhere earlier today, forget where I got it, but it’s an interesting read.  Then Senate Majority Leader Frist asked the Congressional Budget Office what would happen to the US Economy if the Avian Flu became a pandemic.  The gotcha paragraph follows:

In December, CBO estimated that a severe influenza pandemic (similar to the one that began in 1918) might cause a decline in U.S. GDP of about 4-1/4 percent and that a milder pandemic (similar to those that occurred in 1957 and 1968) might reduce GDP by about 1 percent, in comparison to what it would have been in the absence of a pandemic. In each case, economic activity would probably snap back once the pandemic ended, as consumers increased spending and businesses increased production to meet pent-up demand.

You can read the whole CBO report here.