A tip of the hat to parents, grandparents and guardians who are juggling work and helping their children with distance learning.

It can’t be easy keeping little ones — or teenagers, for that matter — entertained at home week after week. Add in the fact that the school-aged kids are supposed to be completing classes, and some parents are also trying to do their jobs from home, and it creates an incredibly difficult mix of circumstances.

Thank you for your efforts, and we hope you’re not being too hard on yourselves in the process.

A kick in the pants to vandals, particularly those who vandalized a campaign banner in Hermiston this week. It’s a good time to remind everyone that tampering with campaign signs, from drawing on them to tearing them up or stealing them, is a crime.

A tip of the hat to farmers and those who work in the agricultural industry across the supply chain for keeping us fed during these difficult times.

A sharp increase in baking has led to a difficulty in finding flour and yeast across the United States, pointing to the fact that when many of our other usual pleasures have been taken away, people are finding extra comfort and enjoyment in making and eating delicious food.

We can’t do that without our farmers, and many of them are facing a difficult time right now. While wheat farmers might be looking at a good year, school and restaurant closures have sent demand for certain crops, such as potatoes and onions, plummeting.

Some growers are destroying their crops and dumping milk in places like Wisconsin, but on Friday AgriNorthwest and Riverpoint Farms gave out truckloads of onions and potatoes for free in Hermiston, Walla Walla, Washington, and other areas. Other local growers are also stepping up donations through organizations like Farmers Ending Hunger.

We appreciate the hard work of our agricultural community, and their continuing generosity.

A kick in the pants to companies price-gouging hospitals and clinics on personal protective equipment and ventilators.

In many parts of the country, health care providers are reusing single-use masks for a week at a time, greatly reducing their effectiveness, or resorting to less-effective homemade gear. Thousands of doctors, nurses and other workers have been sickened. Some have died, or spent weeks in intensive care.

Meanwhile, companies are pitting hospitals and states against each other, driving prices up in bidding wars and exponentially increasing hospitals’ costs at a time when they have seen revenues from elective surgeries, screenings and other nonessential procedures dry up.

The nonprofit Society for Healthcare Organization Procurement reported that prices for PPE have gone up by 1,000% in the past couple of months, with N95 masks going from an average of 38 cents apiece to $5.75 apiece.

If it’s illegal for a grocery store to sell toilet paper for $10 a roll right now, the same principal should apply to medical supply companies.