Beetle-Juice Three Times. Thank Jeebus that cheesehead is not banned from primary and secondary schools in Wisconsin. Because nothing says “Freedom” and “Liberty” like being the language police. If you talk about “spirit murdering” and “action civics” they might even exist. Better to be “un-woke”, because you might develop an “unconscious-bias”. Darn...
Students
I was born in the 1950s when it was not illegal for black people in the south to vote—it was suicide. Pseudo-laws, tests, intimidation, hoods, ropes, and guns were the anti-democracy tactics of the day. Southern state officials could not legitimately ban black people from voting, so the strategy was...
Ikaria Washington and Layla Temple did what they were asked to do. Following the rules, taking difficult classes made them valedictorian and salutatorian. There was great coverage by Ali Velshi. Valedictorian and Salutatorian award fraud See full episodes here. Mississippi’s West Point High School denied them the sole winners of the...
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words, terrorism? 9/11? ISIS? The Taliban? While these examples are certainly just, they don’t always represent terrorism in its entirety. Dan Brown said, “History is always written by the winners”. Stereotypes and generalizations often cause the public...
Florida bans its schools from teaching critical race theory On Thursday, Florida’s State Board of Education unanimously voted in favor of an amendment banning the teaching of critical race theory in schools throughout the state. The theory, according to PolitiFact, is a collection of ideas about systemic bias and privilege...
It’s sick. So, so sick. But that’s what Republicans are all about these days: inspecting children’s genitals. It’s pretty much all they talk about—when they’re not talking about Mr. Potato Head. And his starchy, androgynous genitalia. They’re so into it, in fact, they’ve passed bills that would allow them to scrutinize any...
Police made two arrests after the French president was slapped in the face by a man in the crowd during a walkabout session in France’s Drome region. The incident took place as Macron visited the southeastern region to meet restaurateurs and students to talk about how life is returning to...
Former President Trump ordered the Pentagon to release all of its information on “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) within 18 days in his last coronavirus relief bill in December 2020. More inexplicable sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) will be released for public scrutiny in June — including a UFO that broke...
The US calls it “forced diversion” and the EU uses “State Hijacking”. Belarus’s Lukashenko regime resembles a successful 1/6 with rogue international behavior, martial law and questionable elections, complete with client relations resembling the Soviet era. The latest is interfering with air transport to arrest a dissident journalist. RIGA, Latvia — European leaders...
Oklahoma’s right-wing politicians would like to erase history because that’s what they do, whether it’s the omission of facts or rewriting them to favor those in power. Historical guilt and its associated media effects cooties can’t be part of public school curricula. H.B. 1775 implies that the past prior to 1776...
Ron DeSantis is actually giving Trump a run for his money on dictatorship try outs. Check this out. www.local10.com/… I would assume that includes hurricanes. No emergency shut downs. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that he is using his executive powers to terminate all local COVID-19 orders, effective immediately. During a...
I step back to reflect on many things, including this strangest year of my more than 2 ½ decades as a classroom teacher. It is also as I approach what I suppose is a milestone of sorts, my 75th birthday on May 23. And of course since my major course...
A little over a year ago, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham postured that helping out hungry Americans would make them lazy. “Very few people would choose work over unemployment benefits that provided moderately more money,” said Graham. Not only was this an attack on those in need but their work ethic...
There are a lot of people I’d like to keep home on Election Day—about 74 million, by last count. But they have every right to tick a sad little box for a bloviating mound of venal earwax, no matter what I think about it. I’ve also known my share of ignorant college...
This is a bad place in history. Apparently half of the GQP thinks the 1/6 insurrection was left-wing activists trying to make Trump “look bad”, accordingly, MSM thinks Biden has “tamed” the left. The administration’s warm relationship with the left is one of the most surprising aspects of the Biden presidency, particularly...
Received this e-mail today from Governor Tony Evers’ (D. WI) re-election campaign: As someone who believes in science and keeping Wisconsin safe, I have trusted public health experts to guide our decision-making since the beginning of COVID-19. As a result, we’re leading the nation in vaccine distribution and next week...
Change as a rising tide seems to be falling short as history’s stream is not as mighty. Apparently slavery is still “ordained by God for ultimate good” at Baylor University, as a RW campus group wants to accuse the University of canceling its “Christian identity”. No mention of its athletic team’s...
Today is the 2nd of 11 days of our spring break. A part of me would like to totally ignore anything related to my teaching until I have to again start to plan, which I would like to delay at least for the next full week. But even though I...
The 6th Circuit rules that Shawnee State University violated a professor’s free speech and free expression rights by punishing him for refusing to use a trans student’s preferred pronouns. More lawfare ahead. Apparently a professor’s socratic method (and his religious beliefs) trumps gender expression and public accommodation keeps bigotry in a bathroom...
Friendly reminder: retiring U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R. PA) is still an asshole and will not be missed: Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania on Thursday blocked a bill meant to bar private debt collectors from seizing checks issued as part of the recent stimulus bill. The law that Toomey...
A noted piece of work, State Senator Hensley, a Sons of Confederate Veterans member, decided there were so many new ways to get a KKK founder’s statue to stick around in the usual battles of Tennessee culture. This particular 1978 bust is a Jim Crow monument with marginal historical value other than honoring...
We haven’t gotten past the angst-ridden discourse of privilege and buoyancy even in law schools. Then again E. Jean Carroll really wants that DNA sample from Trump and only good lawyers are going to make that happen. The Georgetown law school said Sandra A. Sellers, an adjunct professor, had been terminated,...
Democrats look for solutions, and Republicans look for blame. I am not sure where I heard that phrase and I probably rejected it as just political rhetoric. Recent events have given me reasons to examine and not dismiss the statement. Democrats are not perfect as demonstrated by the wavering support...
Recovering memory and historical revisionism in sex work might be the sad product of many repressive regimes. What becomes worse is the complicity of academic institutions in white-washing crimes against humanity. Harvard is no stranger to items like Alan (buddy of Jeff Epstein) Dershowitz’s attempt to move the statutory rape...
Trump aide who slipped an abortion pill into a girlfriend’s smoothie claims Trump is happier. The reality is that there may be a Trump sockpuppet account in Parler anyway, but fortunately no one has yet noticed. x https://t.co/tFzNoKODki— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) February 8, 2021 x A Former Aide Would Like...
No one wants to hear about GameStop(gate) even if it’s not really a scandal or a flaw in capitalism. Slavoj “we must end capitalism but won't” Žižek on GameStop is like imposing a libidinal economy on Sudetenland when you take it over. Was the appeasement good for you too? There’s a market...
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the one-woman wrecking ball of the GOP (OK, she’s not the only one, but one of her is enough), has managed to wrangle a spot on the Education Committee, even though she has seriously claimed that various school shootings were hoaxes. (Maybe she thinks the students were...
Playing catch up here. Received this e-mail from U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen’s (D. MD) re-election campaign: For far too long the people of the District of Columbia have been denied their right of self-governance and have faced taxation without representation. This injustice must end. Washington, DC should be a...
From The Los Angeles Times: But a Times investigation found that recall campaign leaders, seeking to capitalize on the darkening public mood, allied with radical and extreme elements early on to help collect signatures. Those included groups promoting distrust of government, science and medicine; peddlers of QAnon doomsday conspiracies; “patriots”...
I live in Virginia, where we have now entered phase 1b for vaccination. On Sunday notices were sent out as to who was eligible. As a teacher in the Pre-K through 12 range, I was included. Our medical care is through Virginia Hospital Center, where my wife’s cancer was largely...
No, I am not Dave Wasserman, calling another election. What will ensue in this posting is my cumulative reaction to events of the past few days. It will also be shaped by observing and hearing the reaction of others, including the students I teach — I postponed tests scheduled for...
M-i-c-k-e-y, Why because we like it. M-M-MMT. “We collectively decide just what counts as a resource, economic base, or productive work.” OTOH, it could all be trippin’ on bong hits. The superlative science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, The Ministry For The Future, is essentially about using MMT to...
As he prepares to ride off into the sunset on a screeching, incontinent llama, Donald Trump is wasting no time in abusing his power even more than he already has. While he still hasn’t given up on turning the U.S. into a hereditary monarchy that swears allegiance to a damp sack of...
Of course, Tucker Carlson is a journalist in the same sense that Joseph Goebbels was. Which means, not at all. The Hill: Fox News host Tucker Carlson took aim at incoming first lady Jill Biden on Monday evening, downplaying her doctoral degree in education amid the escalating controversy over whether she should use the...
On a day when Trumpite dead-enders vigorously blasphemed out of pretty much every orifice (I kinda wanted to show up to their faux-Christian pity party with a giant “Where’s Your God Now?” sign), this might be the craziest thing you’ll see today. Needless to say, this is bonkers times infinity: x...
All his life, Donald Trump has managed to avoid responsibility for the damage he’s done to others: his racial discrimination in his housing (not to mention his neglect of that same housing), his stiffing of contractors, driving many of them into bankruptcy, his exploitation of undocumented immigrants, his misogynistic treatment...
This is the first time I have posted here in more than 2 weeks. I have read some of what others have offered, but have not, before today, felt moved enough to sit down and offer anything, thoughts, observations. Today is the 6th of 10 days away from teaching my...
“Sometimes you own the libs; sometimes the libs own you.” says a new Olivia Nuzzi piece. Nuzzi does get the inside WH dope probably better than Maggie Haberman because Trump does like talking to her rather than leak information. Trump worrying about assassination is not something related to being IMPOTUS,...
I have not gotten much work done this week. I have at least for now suspended work on my dissertation, and it was only yesterday that I again began correcting student papers (although I have stayed current on email correspondence with students and parents). I have two more classes (out...
Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords tweeted a video of a special needs child, the son of a murdered teacher at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, meeting the former vice president in Washington DC during the March for Life protests. Gabbards herself is a gun violence survivor. The video is...
The song written by Sonny Bono and was a hit for Sonny Cher had a song called The Beat Goes on. The song was released in 1967 but applies to every year it seems. I sat on my porch today thinking, “ This is one crazy year”. I never say...
Trump and his supporters are such dupes that rather than taking a village, it may take a dominatrix to de-program Trumpists: But up until recently, there’s one group of potential Biden voters who have not been the subject of voter outreach: kinky, submissive male Trump supporters with humiliation fetishes. Now,...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
There is a story making the rounds on Twitter now — a video from 2018 has resurfaced. It’s Biden comforting people after the Parkland shooting. Footage of Joe Biden comforting Parkland families circulates on social media The clip shows former Vice President Joe Biden with survivors and their families at...