The surest way for a politician to get a reaction online is by tweeting something outrageous. Ninety-nine percent of the time, these provocations are best ignored.

But once in a while, this kind of unserious tweet merits discussion because leaving it unexamined perpetuates harmful ideas. For example, St. Louis Alderman Jeffrey Boyd recently posed this question on Twitter: "Do anyone remember when (St. Louis Public Schools) had a paddle that had 'BOE' engraved on it? Teachers and Administrators rarely had a problem with discipline and children were able to truly learn without a lot of disruptions ..."

This observation makes as much sense as reminiscing about when schools were segregated and school shootings rarely happened. Or saying, "Remember when husbands could beat their wives, back before laws made it a crime? There sure were fewer divorces back then."

These absurd and offensive statements illustrate that even if two things happen around the same time, it doesn't mean one causes the other.

I called Boyd to ask him what he really meant by his tweet.

"I'm not advocating for (corporal punishment)," he said. "All I'm saying is 'Hey, what happened? Now that we don't have it, kids are running amok.'"

In fact, there are several reasons why some schools may be dealing with more disciplinary issues than they did in years past: A greater number of students have diagnoses of significant mental illnesses and emotional problems, for one thing. A far greater percentage of households are headed by single parents or two working parents. Children are growing up immersed in technology and social media in ways previous generations never experienced. There are greater numbers of public school students whose families struggle with poverty and homelessness. And in recent years, we've seen parents publicly attacking teachers and school officials -- insulting and threatening them on social media and at school board meetings.

Social media is not exactly famous for its nuanced, deliberate discussions on controversial topics. Surely, as a Black man, Boyd understood that opining about the good ol' days of swatting kids with a paddle to keep them in line would generate some feelings.

In 19 states, including Missouri, it's legal for schools to use physical pain (corporal punishment) to discipline students. It's well documented that those bearing the brunt of those punishments are Black children.

Gillian Grant noted in a 2021 essay in the Law Journal for Social Justice that even though its use in schools has declined steadily over the past few decades, nearly 70,000 public school students still received corporal punishment in the 2017-2018 school year.

Grant detailed the disproportionate impact of who gets hit in school: More than 75% attend school in one of these five states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi or Texas. Black boys are almost twice as likely to experience corporal punishment as white boys, and Black girls experience corporal punishment three times as often as white girls, she noted.

Stacey Patton, author of "Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America," argues that spanking and corporal punishment are vestiges of slavery -- when slaveowners used beatings and brutality to control Black bodies.

Geoff Ward, a sociologist at Washington University, published a study in 2019 revealing a disturbing connection: Counties that had historically experienced a greater number of lynchings had a higher rate of use of corporal punishment in schools, especially against Black students.

Boyd told me that he was spanked as a child, as was common practice then. But he chose to discipline his own children differently.

"We realized you don't have to be that harsh" to give a child consequences or address inappropriate behavior, he said.

Schools that have abandoned corporal punishment have likely come to the same conclusion, I said.

And while we are pondering the way society's tolerance for physical punishment has changed over the years, consider this: Purposefully and intentionally causing injury or suffering to an animal is against the law in Missouri. However, a principal or teacher is legally allowed to purposefully and intentionally paddle a first grader.

Perhaps Boyd could have tweeted about that.

The holiday for lovers has been friend-zoned.

Over the past decade, enthusiasm for Galentine's Day, a day to celebrate friendship rather than romance, has surged to a critical and commercial mass. Meanwhile, the bloom is off the rose for Valentine's Day.

Leslie Knope, the patron saint of female bonding, debuted the idea of Galentine's in a 2010 episode of the NBC hit sitcom "Parks and Rec." Knope, the show's lead character, played by Amy Poehler, described it as "Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus, frittatas."

She explained the origin story for the uninitiated: "Oh, it's only the best day of the year. Every Feb. 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast style. Ladies celebrating ladies."

This was a siren call to every woman's brunch-loving heart, especially those who needed an excuse to gather with their girlfriends.

Jennifer Walski said the episode inspired her and her friends to start their own Galentine's ritual.

"We used to call it Singles Awareness Day," she said. But even after she got married, the friends have kept up the tradition. Earlier this month, they hired Posh Picnic Events to set up a heated, decorated pod in the snow for drinks and dining as their Galentine's Day celebration. Company owner Rebecca Polys decked the pod with pink table settings, flowers, tulle and mini hearts.

"We knew that Posh Picnic was a little over the top," Walski said. "Our husbands wouldn't have enjoyed it."

In the spirit of Galentine's Day, she has also planned an outing to see "Mean Girls" at a local theater with another group of girlfriends. She had been needing some time with her friends after having a baby four months ago.

Walski says she loves her husband, and that they dutifully book dinner dates on Valentine's -- "but, honestly, I have much more fun doing Galentine's."

In fact, the whole Valentine's Day-timed romance seems a little forced, she said.

Walski is hardly alone in that sentiment.

The number of those participating in Valentine's Day activities has dropped off over the past decade. In 2009, 72% of adults aged 18-34 and 65% of those aged 35-54 said they planned to celebrate Valentine's Day. Ten years later, a 2019 survey from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights and Analytics found that a little more than half of those under age 55 planned to celebrate.

A 2017 NRF poll revealed the top reasons consumers skipped out on Valentine's Day: They felt it was over-commercialized, they didn't have anyone to celebrate with or they just weren't interested. While about half of U.S. adults still plan to celebrate Valentine's Day this year -- and spend a total of $21.8 billion in the process -- that figure is down from $27.4 billion in 2020, according to the NRF.

Now, factor in a two-year-plus pandemic that has made dating even more challenging. Sana Habib, a St. Louis pediatrician, said that fewer social gatherings have meant that she's met fewer people. She plans to attend a Galentine's brunch with single and married women alike.

"You don't have to be in a relationship to celebrate love and friendship," she said.

The inclusive nature of Galentine's opens a larger customer pool for businesses looking to commercialize the sentiment.

Brianna Mullally tried to launch an event-planning business right before the pandemic struck. She works as a makeup artist, and teamed up with a photographer to host a Galentine's Day photo shoot and party for friends and past clients. They found a restaurant space, catered food and drinks and headed to a drag show after the event.

While "a lot of people think Valentine's Day is overrated now," Mullally said, "the idea of celebrating your friends has really gotten to people. We don't do that enough."

Galentine's is a slightly subversive take on a holiday that often leaves out the uncoupled. It's a message of empowerment parents can share with their daughters, rather than measuring one's worth by relationship status.

Mullally's business didn't survive the pandemic, but she plans on hosting another Galentine's Day in the future.

"We can claim this holiday for our own, on our own terms," she said.

Across the country, there are children confined to hospital rooms -- missing school, cut off from peers, unable to even step outside -- for no medical reason.

There's simply nowhere else for them to go.

The ongoing pandemic has caused mental health crises among the young to skyrocket. An increasing number of these children and adolescents are admitted to emergency rooms, where they are assessed and stabilized.

And then they wait.

One child at St. Louis Children's Hospital has been waiting for somewhere to go for nearly six months, according to Trish Lollo, president of the hospital.

"This is something that is not only a Children's issue. This is a national crisis that we are going to have to contend with immediately," Lollo said. She was one of four St. Louis-area hospital presidents who wrote an open letter sounding the alarm about this catastrophe.

"On any given day, our emergency department rooms are home to significant numbers of kids with mental health concerns, most of whom languish for days for access to a treatment facility," the letter said. "When we get to the point that there is no hope of transfer to an appropriate facility after holding these children for multiple days in our emergency departments, we end up admitting them to a hospital room."

Imagine a child, already suffering from severe mental health problems, stuck in an emergency department -- which is not at all equipped to provide what they need -- for days or weeks.

In some situations, the child needs a "step-down" alternative from a hospital, like an intensive outpatient program. Or the child might need a therapeutic bed in a residential facility that can provide treatment in a social setting, or perhaps a foster home placement -- but nothing is available in the state. In other cases, the parents or caregivers may refuse to bring a child back home after he or she is stabilized because they believe the child will again become a danger to themselves or others.

"This has been a particularly heartbreaking component of the crisis," Lollo said.

While they are waiting in the ER, these children are known as "boarders." There have always been a few cases like this, even prior to the pandemic, but now there may be up to 50 children boarding in ERs across Missouri during COVID-19 surges, according to Kyle John, vice president for Behavioral Health at Mercy Hospital St. Louis. Children who test positive for COVID-19 must be quarantined in the hospital before another facility will accept them. There are fewer residential beds for children and adolescents available in the state than there were before the pandemic, because some facilities have shut down.

John said Mercy has a child staying in the hospital who was transferred from a neighboring state. She is medically cleared to return, but the state won't take her.

"The home state can't find a shelter, foster placement or residential bed," John said. The consequences of lingering in an ER or hospital bed for weeks can be devastating for patients, who may start to regress and act out.

It can also be dangerous for the staff who care for them.

"It's a very challenging situation to keep our staff safe," Lollo said.

Alyssa Harrell, a nurse and clinical instructor at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, has seen the toll it takes on patients and nurses. A handful of times during the pandemic, she worked a full day shift, then came back from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. to serve as a one-on-one behavioral health "sitter" for a child, which involves watching the patient constantly and documenting their status every 15 minutes. Once that was over, Harrell would then work another full nursing shift.

Heather Dolce, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Social Service, said the Children's Division is in the process of securing a 15-bed emergency shelter facility in Jefferson City to provide temporary housing for some of these children. She could not provide a date for when the shelter might open.

"Facility build-out and staffing efforts are well underway. We assure you that the Children's Division has made moving forward with this as soon as possible a priority," said Dolce in an email.

It will take a multipronged effort to address a crisis that has been building for years. The state needs to pay a living wage to the caregivers who would be staffing these additional beds in order to attract and retain workers. Additionally, there needs to be a financial incentive for hospitals and facilities to open additional pediatric behavioral health units.

Lollo said she often thinks about the societal costs of children who need care but cannot get it, and about the long-term impact of boarding on a child's ability to recover and thrive.

The child who has been waiting at Children's for 160 days had had an earlier long-term admission there, too.

"He's been with us almost an entire year, in a hospital room," she said.

Waiting for a place that will take him.