Bill Maher lists his 8 words (or phrases) people should stop redefining: hate, victim, hero, shame, violence, survivor, phobic, and white supremacy. I'll add a 9th: oppressor.
At 7:34 he says, "You can try to change reality by changing the words, but you can't. It just stops you from dealing with it."
Then he quotes one of "the bad guys" from Orwell's 1984: The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought.
Yep! to both.
Perhaps these students have learned their lessons well. Great job, Fauxcahontas:
A survey from Intelligent found that 34 percent of white students who applied to colleges and universities falsely claimed they were a racial minority on their application.
The publication found that 81 percent of students who faked minority status did so to improve their chances of getting accepted. Fifty percent of students who lied said they did it to get minority-focused financial aid.
Most students, 48 percent, claimed to be Native American on their application. Thirteen percent falsely marked that they were Latino, while 10 percent falsely claimed to be Black. Nine percent of those surveyed lied that they were Asian or Pacific Islander.
For the most part, Intelligent found, these white students tended to get away with their lies. About 3 in 4, or 77 percent, of white applicants who faked minority status on their applications were accepted to those colleges.
Henry Rogers, aka Ibram X. Kendi, lamented this in a recent tweet, now deleted. Why would he delete the tweet?
If being white is such a privilege, why would the students do this? It sort of shuts down Rogers' entire world view.
Halloween isn't a big deal for me. Dressing in costume can be fun, but in most cases, it's more effort than it's worth. Why not just have the party without the costumes?
I'm not a fan of trick-or-treating, either, but I did it as a kid so I guess I have to pay it forward. For years now I've gone to Sam's Club and bought an 80-pack of fruit snacks; since I never have more than 20 trick-or-treaters, I have lots of leftover fruit snacks to take to lunch for the next several weeks!
Far more exciting for me than Halloween is what it portends at school--we're coming upon "the stretch". After this next week we have Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Dr. King's birthday, the February "ski week", and then Spring Break--holidays, fast and furious! Given that Halloween is the signal that these are soon upon us, I guess I can forgive the costume silliness :-)
Our local West Point Society had a nice get-together at a member's house, not far from my place and actually on my way to work! Not that I have/had any intention of going in to work today.... Anyway, there were even a couple Air Force grads there; we're very tolerant and inclusive of those from the other academies 😉
I was told to bring only an appetite, which I did--and it was sated. So many types of cooked animals and plants!
I can't be sure, but it seemed to me that a good time was had by all. They'll be watching for me in the stands at the game next weekend!
Have you heard about the high school in Kentucky at which boy students in drag gave lap dances to male staff members at the homecoming rally? How is it that no one thought this would cross a line? Here are some of the pictures. Here is some of the fallout:
The superintendent of a Perry County, Kentucky, school district said disciplinary actions were taken after photos posted to social media showed high school students giving lap dances to staff members.
Incidentally, the school principal, seen in some of the pics enjoying his lap dance, is also the town mayor.
The pictures were posted on the Hazard High School Athletic page but have since been removed. They are still circulating on social media sites and show scantily clad students appearing to touch and dance in front of staff members.
"I found photos of inappropriate student-led activities that had since surfaced on social media. The district has the responsibility to address these issues that arise out of school-based activities. As a district, we are doing exactly that," Combs said in a statement.
She said "appropriate disciplinary action has been taken" but could not disclose further information because it involves a personnel matter.
The lap dances occurred during homecoming festivities at the school, which is located roughly 210 miles from Louisville. Combs said the activities are "driven by the students" and are supposed to be "fun and good-natured" but "did not play out as intended."
"We strive to foster creativity in our students, but unfortunately, this time it was carried too far," she said in her statement...
"While we value our student’s creativity, we also must ensure that it is focused in an appropriate direction and will be more vigilant toward that goal in the future," she wrote. "At the end of the day, the light-hearted activity simply got out of hand, and for that, we apologize. In the future, we will strive to keep the lighthearted, fun nature of school activities without the inappropriate behavior."
Let's hope so.
Stories and excuses like this make a mockery of the word tradition:
And while some locals were appalled by what happened in their school, many parents, students and residents, stung by the onslaught of condemnation, have leaped ferociously to the school’s defense — casting the controversy as overblown and the work of outsiders.
“People who were not even connected to the school went after us,“ said student Gavin Goins, a sophomore who was at the event. “I think it’s an attack on tradition.”
That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Our campus is a "ranch style", as are so many in California, and is spread out to the extent that we have 3 small staff lounges across the campus. In the lounge in which I dine, tomorrow we're having a potluck--or, in the parlance of those long-forgotten on campus but whose impact remains, a "try mine".
One teacher will bring a pot of his renowned baked ziti. One of our counselors will bring her unmatched Chinese chicken salad.
Tonight I'll be peeling, coring, and slicing apples. Tomorrow my classroom will smell heavenly as the scents of cooking apples and cinnamon from my crock pot, in which I'll be making applesauce, waft up and down the rows of students.
It'll be a good lunch tomorrow.
Hasn't quite turned out that way, has it?
Remember the dog days of summer, when there was near consensus in the media that Florida was led by a madman whose reckless Covid policies represented a grave threat to the nation? Those hyperbolic claims have been quietly shelved, now that the number of new Covid cases in Florida has plummeted from 151,748 for the week ending August 20 to 19,519 as of October 8, according to the Florida Department of Health’s weekly Covid situation report.
According to the New York Times Covid Tracker, Florida now has the second-lowest per capita Covid rate of any state: 12 per 100,000, behind only Hawaii, with nine per 100,000 as of October 18. Florida’s vaccination rate (59 percent fully vaccinated) is now above the national average (57 percent.) I live in Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), which currently has a per capita Covid infection rate that’s lower than every county in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other blue states.
Scratch a leftie, and a totalitarian bleeds. Totalitarians love bodies stacked up in the streets. It's clear they fantasize about it regarding their political enemies. They are sick people.
From today's Instapundit:
100 YEARS AGO, Warren Harding gave an address on racial equality in Birmingham, Alabama.
Related: This Presidential Speech on Race Shocked the Nation…in 1921: Ninety-five years ago today, Warren G. Harding traveled deep into the heart of Klan country and delivered a sermon on civil rights that was decades ahead of its time. Coming after the deeply racist and segregationist Woodrow Wilson, Harding was an underappreciated figure. But the press didn’t like him because he was a Republican.
...gumption. (This is a family blog and I'm too classy to go with the obvious pun in the title--but not so classy as to pretend I didn't think of it!)
A teacher is going to unusual lengths to spread his love of sums by uploading maths lessons to PornHub.
Speaking to Mel Magazine, Changhsu, who has a master’s degree in mathematics, explained that he turned to the platform hoping he would reach large numbers of people who might then sign up for his online courses.
“Since very few people teach math on adult video platforms, and since there are so many people who watch videos on them, I thought that if I uploaded my videos there, a lot of people would see them,” he said.
He admitted he suspects a lot of people watch his videos as a joke but “people may not be interested in my videos, but they’ll all know there’s a teacher who teaches calculus on an adult video platform,”
This is the foolishness that people who make their living selling "woke" come up with:
“How many of you, when you go to the grocery store, need somebody to help you with the top shelf?” Parle asked. Because supermarkets use the law of averages and build for the “average height person,” Parle says this is a “system of oppression.”
Everything isn't oppression. And if the above truly is oppression, than oppression is so benign as to not be worth worrying about.
REMINDER- It is mandatory that a mask be worn while in line to pick up food at every Meal Service. You will be asked to leave the line if you are not wearing a mask. Thank you for your cooperation.
It doesn’t look to me like “cooperation” is the correct word. “Obedience” or “compliance” would be more accurate.
This clip is an oldie but goodie:
"Jack Webb, Dragnet - The Big Departure Speech - Joe Friday and Bill Gannon give a speech to some teenagers about their wishes to start a new country. Jack Webb’s 'The Big Departure' Speech Still Holds True Today. In this episode of Dragnet which aired March 7, 1968 titled 'The Big Departure', a few teenagers want to start their own country on an island off the coast of California. When they are caught stealing from local stores to fund their efforts, Jack Webb has THIS to say to them."I can't even remember who was president the last time Army beat a ranked team, but 4-2 Army is holding its own against 6-0 Wake Forest, down 28-21 at the half. Army gets the 2nd half kickoff.
Update: I just noticed that all three services academies are hosting ranked teams today. #2 Cincinnati leads at Navy 13-10 at the half, and later this afternoon #22 San Diego State 6-0 will play at 6-1 Air Force.
Update #2: I might have just watched the play that lost the game for Army today. Down by a touchdown, Army was driving, and then this:
OH NO! Army tried a fake field goal on 4th and 5. The ball was intercepted and returned for a touchdown, 42-28.
Update #3: According to the CBS announcers, the last time Army beat a ranked team was 1972, inching out Air Force. Right now Army trails 49-42 after scoring on the 1st play of the 4th quarter.
Update #4: Army fumbles twice, losing the ball the 2nd time. A few plays later the score is 70-49 with 1:48 remaining. This week the offense did their job, the defense didn't show up.
When was the last time you saw this many points scored in a Division 1 football game?
Update #5: This is only the 2nd time in Army football history, which dates back to 1890, that Army allowed 70 points. Today's is the highest point total ever scored in Michie (pronounced Mikey) Stadium. Wake Forest goes to 7-0, Army drops to 4-3 after starting the season 4-0.
Here's a screen shot of the team stats from today:
click to enlarge
If you couldn't see the Wake Forest numbers, who would you think won that game?!
Army now has two weeks to get ready for Air Force at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX. If Army wins, we keep the Commander-in-Chief's trophy no matter the outcome of the Army-Navy game. If Air Force wins, they get the trophy this year.
Beat Air Force! Beat Navy!
Update #6: #2 Cincinnati also goes 7-0 after a 27-20 win at hapless Navy. San Diego State at Air Force starts in about 3 hours.
Update #7, 10/24/21: The altitude did a number on San Diego State in the 2nd half, especially the 4th quarter, but they held on to beat Air Force 20-14.
How many state organizations have parted ways with the National School Boards Association after their letter to the president which referred to parents as domestic terrorists? Well, now the NSBA is sorry about their unfortunate choice of words.
They deserve all the condemnation and derision they've gotten, and then some. And as one comment at the above link says:
AG Garland has to testify before Senate Judiciary Cmte next week. This is going to make it all the more excruciating -- NSBA just hung him out to dry.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer a-hole. Break out the popcorn!
Here's the Washington Free Beacon story that prompted the NSBA's backtracking.
From a Heritage Foundation report:
Summary
An analysis of student test-score data shows that employing a chief diversity officer (CDO) in K–12 school districts does not contribute to closing achievement gaps and is even likely to exacerbate those gaps. If CDOs are not accomplishing their stated goals, what is accomplished by creating these positions? CDOs may be best understood as political activists who articulate and enforce an ideological orthodoxy within school districts. They help to mobilize and strengthen the political influence of one side. The creation of CDOs tilts the political playing field against parent and teacher efforts to remove the radical ideology of critical race theory and other illiberal ideals from school curricula and practices.
(Said in deadpan, obviously sarcastic voice) Yes, Twitter is known for its right-wing politics:
Twitter amplifies tweets from right-leaning political parties and news outlets more than from the left, its own research suggests.
The social-media giant said it made the discovery while exploring how its algorithm recommends political content to users.
But it admitted it did not know why, saying that was a "more difficult question to answer".
It's sad that "I want black children to be proud, but they don't have to be proud by making white children feel bad" is such a controversial statement these days.
Video here.
The lowest level course I currently teach is Financial Math. Yes, I have some high-achieving students in the class who genuinely want to learn some financial literacy, but most students are in there to complete their graduation requirement of passing a second year of math. Thus, most students, while perhaps interested in the material, aren't going to put in any more effort than is necessary to pass.
So it was a big deal this afternoon when one of my students came in after school. She told me she just doesn't understand what we're learning right now. What, exactly, is the difference between a debit card and a credit card? What, exactly, is interest?
We teachers love it when kids ask questions so that they can understand, not just so they can pass a test! And 15 minutes later, when she left, she had a much better grasp of the topic of credit.
Guess I have to find another dentist. I've only had this one for about a year.
Six months ago I scheduled an appointment: tomorrow at 4:00 pm. Twice already this week I've had to confirm this appointment, once via text and another via phone. This afternoon I received a phone call, my appointment needs to be cancelled or rescheduled because the office has changed its hours and no longer does 4 pm appointments.
I left my last 2 dentists because they couldn't honor the appointments they made with me. Now I'm seeing it happen again.
I'm not going to take time off work to go to the dentist. Also, when they schedule an appointment with me, and confirm it twice, that's sort of a contract, an agreement. I don't like them breaking our agreement, especially the day before.
Is this a dentist thing, are they all this bad at running a business? Or have I just had three bad dentists in a row? Are my standards too high?
(Update, 10/22/21: Made a few minor corrections to this post but the theme remains the same.)
Always, always, always press charges:
An 18-year-old Louisiana high school student may face up to 10 years in prison after new felony charges were filed in connection to an attack on a disabled teacher that was recorded during a suspected TikTok challenge earlier this month, authorities announced Tuesday.
Larrianna Jackson was charged with felony second-degree battery and with cruelty to the infirmed on Friday, District Attorney Warren Montgomery’s office said in a news release. Jackson had initially been charged with felony battery of a school teacher after her arrest on Oct. 6...
The incident happened at Covington High School, where the 18-year-old allegedly punched her 64-year-old teacher, who reportedly uses a wheelchair.
A student-recorded cellphone video of the incident shows that a student approached her seated teacher and punched the teacher, knocking her to the ground, according to police. The student is seen violently punching the teacher, at which point the video ends.
The 64-year-old teacher was hospitalized and treated for injuries sustained in the attack, police said at the time.
We teachers have a natural desire to help children--that's why we have the jobs we have. We don't do anyone any favors by pretending this is anything other than what it truly is--barbaric violence. Lock the girl up, she should not be out amongst normal people.
Want to know how much European-style social programs cost? Here's how much:
Germany gdp per capita for 2020 was $45,724, a 1.6% decline from 2019. Germany gdp per capita for 2019 was $46,468, a 2.81% decline from 2018.
US States per capita GDP (in 2019 dollars)
Bottom line: If Germany, the “economic powerhouse of Europe”, were the 51st US state, its per capita GDP would place it 47th in the country, ahead of only Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The UK would beat only Mississippi. France wouldn't even beat Mississippi. Denmark would be near the middle of the pack, Sweden would be near the bottom, and Norway (with its North Sea oil revenue) would be near the top.
That's how much the social welfare state eats up.
Update, 10/26/21: People can't/won't be generous when government takes too much of their income:
Yet by nearly every measure Americans are more generous with their money and time than anyone — including Europeans.
Indeed, American charitable giving exceeds the entire GDP of most European countries.
According to the Almanac of American Philanthropy, Americans donate around seven times as much as continental Europeans to charitable causes per capita. Per person, even after adjusting for differences in household income, Americans donate twice as much of their income as the Dutch, three times as much as the French, five times as much as Germans, and ten times that of Italians...
The entire nation is altruistic, though the more religious the population, the more it gives. But even 40 percent of secular Americans give to charity, still better than most European nations...
Europeans will, no doubt, argue that they already give charity in high taxes that fund big social safety nets. The data shows, however, that in overall spending, there isn’t much difference between the United States and other developed nations — each redistributing 20 percent of GDP. Once added in with the massive amount of charity, there is no comparing American generosity — the only difference is that most of ours is not a state obligation.
Are college sports, especially high profile sports like football and basketball, dominated by whites and Asians or something?
“Student-athletes” will not need minimum scores on standardized tests to eligible for Division I and II sports under a proposal by an NCAA task force, reports Mark Schlabach for ESPN.
Dropping scores is “part of the NCAA’s eight-point plan to advance racial equity,” writes Schlabach.
My tax dollars pay for state schools and their NFL/NBA farm teams. And now they're considering getting rid of even the veneer that we're teaching "student-athletes" anything. Why should I have to pay for that?
There are idiots supporting Sacramento's most audacious commie teacher:
Supporters of a Natomas Unified School District teacher filmed in an undercover video discussing antifa called for the district to allow the teacher to return to his position during a Wednesday news conference at the Sacramento office of civil rights attorney Mark Merin.
Natomas Unified has announced they plan to fire the Inderkum High School teacher, Gabriel Gipe, after a conservative group, Project Veritas, filmed him and published an edited 12-minute video of him sharing how he wants his students to become revolutionaries...
“After an investigation, Mr. Gipe was recommended for termination because he had violated many policies, Ed Code, and more,” read a statement from Natomas Unified. “As we shared, there are nearly 400 pages of charges and evidence. Mr. Gipe was actively teaching pro-communism ideology in a US Government class.”
The district said Gipe “was clearly representing his school and district” during the recorded conversation. His termination must be approved by the board of trustees...
Merin, who is not officially representing Gipe, said the district moved forward with its decision without due process.
“How is it that a school board can jump to a conclusion and announce a disciplinary job action against a fantastic teacher who is extolled by his students without the minimum due process that is enshrined in our state constitution, our federal constitution, and in the contract that teachers have with their school board?” Merin said.
I call BS here. I have no doubt that Comrade Gipe was provided due process. What it looks like he wasn't provided is what I call undue process, the purpose of which is to make eliminating the commie so difficult that the district just acquiesces.
The linked article goes on to identify several people speaking in support of Comrade Gipe. This one, though, wins the idiot prize:
Sonia Lewis, a community activist who works with several school districts in the area, said teachers across the country are afraid of losing their jobs for speaking the truth in history classes.
“And that truth is simply the history of those who have been left out of Black and brown and indigenous, API, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslim communities all over this country,” Lewis said. “Having taught social studies in this state, knowing the standards that are required to make sure that information is disseminated based on the information on standards and curriculum, I know for sure that revolution is change and it is positive.”
No one in California is afraid of losing his/her teaching job due to speaking in favor of the groups Ms. Lewis mentions. No one. Let me wear a MAGA hat to school one day (on Hat Day, no less) and let the complaints roll in. BTW, I almost never wear hats, certainly not to school, and I wore that one only because it was a gift from a student.
Anyway, here's what I have to say to Comrade Lewis:
I spent the first several years of my adulthood training to kill commies, I'm not going to brook their nonsense now.
G'bye, Gipe. May you rot in Hell some day.
Previous post on the topic. Here's a more subdued cockroach after the light was shined (shone?) on him.
First there was this:
They laughed and cheered when plumber Scott Smith was crash-tackled by police and humiliated at a school board meeting on June 22 as he tried to raise the plight of his 15-year-old daughter, who he says was raped and sodomized in the school bathroom by a boy in a skirt. No one expressed any concern for his daughter.
There was no compassion, either, from superintendent Scott Ziegler, who claimed bafflingly at the meeting that there had been no assault in a school restroom anywhere in Loudoun County and airily dismissed parents’ concerns about the risks of transgender bathrooms. Then he gave a little woke homily to show those powerless parents in the room who really was in charge.
“Time magazine in 2016 called that a red herring … we’ve heard it several times tonight from our public speakers but the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” he said.
Tell that to the Smith family.
The rainbow activist who allegedly threatened Smith’s livelihood at that meeting told him point-blank his daughter’s rape three weeks earlier did not happen, as if she would know.
That made the Dem narrative look bad, so now there's this:
Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly voted for — and Governor Ralph Northam signed — a law allowing schools to refrain from reporting instances of sexual battery, stalking, violation of a protective order, and violent threats occurring on school property in 2020.
Some people are so open-minded that their brains fall out. I'm talking to you, lefties.
Update, 10/16/21: And then...
Scott Smith, a Loudoun County father who was arrested at that June event, said this week that his daughter was sexually assaulted in a girls' bathroom at Stone Bridge High School by a male student who was wearing a skirt. The Loudoun County sheriff's office has confirmed that an on-campus sexual assault was reported on the day Smith says his daughter was victimized.
The boy accused of assaulting Smith's daughter later allegedly groped a female student at nearby Broad Run High School after forcing her into an empty classroom, Loudoun County Commonwealth's Attorney Buta Biberaj told WTOP in an interview this week.
The oldest man to travel into space so far:
WELL, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Star Trek alum William Shatner, 90, becomes the oldest man to travel to space. Shatner “became the oldest person to ever to reach the edge of space — the Kármán line, which is 62 miles above Earth — on Wednesday when he traveled on Blue Origin’s New Shepard 4 for the 10-minute commercial flight. Shatner was emotional after he landed, saying, ‘Everybody in the world needs to do this.’”
He wasn't an astronaut yet when I met him, but he was still a fairly exalted figure:
How do you explain this? Mask/vaccine nazis will have a hard time, either because it means that their favored authoritarianism doesn't work, or because it exposes their authoritarianism as nothing more than authoritarianism for its own sake:
"Full Measure" host Sharyl Attkisson traveled to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to see how Amish communities handled Covid-19 without electricity or television.
"There's no evidence of any more deaths among the Amish than in places that shut down tight— some claim there were fewer here. That’s without masking, staying at home, or" vaccines, Attkisson reported.
"Oh, we're glad all the English people got their Covid vaccines. That's great," one man said. "Because now we don't have to wear a mask, we can do what we want. So good for you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Us? No, we're not getting vaccines. Of course not. We all got the Covid, so why would you get a vaccine?"
Some post-conquest sources report that at the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days. This number is considered by Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, to be an exaggeration. Hassig states "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[12] The higher estimate would average 15 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple.[19] Additionally, many historians argue that these numbers were inaccurate as most written account of Aztec sacrifices were made by Spanish sources to justify Spain's conquest.[20] Nonetheless, according to Codex Telleriano-Remensis, old Aztecs who talked with the missionaries told about a much lower figure for the reconsecration of the temple, approximately 4,000 victims in total.
I guess 4000 is ok.
Is there any people in history that hasn't been conquered by some other? My own ancestors, the Britons, were conquered by Romans, by Angles/Saxons/Jutes, by Vikings, by Normans--whom did I miss?
Indigenous People's Day. I'm not buying it.
Update: The Historical Falsification of Columbus' "Crimes"
Update #2: If you offer a "land acknowledgement", a statement recognizing that your event is taking place on "stolen land", and you don't give the land back to the natives, aren't you just rubbing their noses in it?
Of the few pictures I've posted on Unsplash.com, one has reached 1000 downloads!
There's no telling how long (weeks, months, years, decades) that link will last, so here's the picture:
All the fake things labelled as "toxic" in our culture can't hold a candle to the actual toxicity surrounding the destruction of excellence:
Mayor Bill de Blasio is phasing out New York City’s Gifted and Talented program, he announced Friday — bowing to critics who complain that the coveted model is racist.
There are big problems in our culture, but white supremacy and structural racism are not among them. Let's be honest about what the "problem" is with Gifted And Talented Education programs--too many Asians and not enough blacks. We can't fix the problem if we don't identify it properly.
We had a random 3-day weekend off school, so Friday I went up to the KOA in Oroville. I took my trailer, a friend took her new rig, and we had a great time hanging out.
This is what I came home to today. Outside of Costco and Sam's Club, Arco is about the cheapest gas around:
Today is a random day off in my district; I'm not going to mock this silliness of random days off when we started school the second week of August.
In a few minutes I'll hook up the trailer and head to a campground about 90 minutes away, where I'll meet my friend from school who's bringing the Taj Mahal. Should be a nice way to spend the weekend.
This is almost unbelievable:
On September 22, AB 1184, which was cosponsored by Planned Parenthood, became law. As the California Family Council explains, this diktat “prohibits insurance companies from revealing to the policyholder the ‘sensitive services’ of anyone on their policy, including minor children, even though the policy owner is financially responsible for the services.” The term “sensitive services” refers to all health care services related to mental or behavioral health, sexual and reproductive health, sexually transmitted infections, substance use disorder, gender affirming care, etc. The bill doesn’t detail the kindly sounding “gender affirming care,” but as defined by the University of California, San Francisco, it’s hormone therapy and a laundry list of surgeries including vaginectomy, scrotoplasty, voice modification, etc., ad nauseam.
And all these goodies start when the child is 12 years old! So, if your daughter, who is in 7th grade, wakes up one day and decides she rather be a boy, she can now act on it. She starts with puberty blockers, and uses your family insurance policy to pay for the services rendered. When the statement is sent to you, there is no explanation of any procedures she underwent. It’s a dirty little secret between your kid, her doctor and the insurance company. You, the parents, are reduced to insurance bill-paying bystanders.
I say almost unbelievable--because is it truly so hard to believe that such a law was passed in California?
Lefties say they want parents involved--until the parents make a decision not in accord with unicornian politics. Then, the state just takes over. Problem solved!
A year ago, these people were hailed as heroes. Homes and businesses had yard signs celebrating and honoring these people. What a difference a year makes:
Kaiser Permanente announced thousands of its employees across the country have been suspended after choosing not to get vaccinated.
The hospital reports that 2,200 of its nationwide employees have been placed on unpaid administrative leave as of October 1.
The suspensions are impacting two percent of Kaiser's entire U.S. workforce.
Company officials say those employees have until December 1 to either get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs permanently.
Next we'll be told we have to keep 'rona restrictions in place because of "overloaded" hospitals.
This teacher needs to be not only fired, but jailed. Or beaten. Perhaps both:
A father was seriously hurt, he says, for standing up for the rights of his second grade son at school.
The boy was allegedly told he couldn't go the bathroom and stayed in his soiled pants all day.
The angry dad confronted the teacher and that's when the trouble started.
Vincent Nemorin was put in handcuffs after questioning the second grader's teacher at PS 193 Wednesday about why his son was allegedly left sitting in feces for hours.
"We are just demanding basic health needs. Nothing extra. Children should never be restricted going to bathroom," said Yumi Nemorin, Vincent's wife.
Yumi says she never imagined a simply discussion would end with her husband in handcuffs.
At one point he slips trying to get in the police vehicle.
Police say the teacher told them she felt threatened.
She should have felt threatened. My guess is if the man was going to hurt her, he would have. Her principal should be threatening her job. Instead, way to use law enforcement as a cover for this horrible teacher.
A Department of Education spokesperson said in a statement: "We take this allegation seriously, and are investigating the matter. Ensuring safe and supportive environments in all our schools is critical, and there is additional support being provided to the school to address parent concerns. We will continue to work with the school community to ensure the school is meeting their needs."
Eyewitness News could not reach the principal or teacher directly for comment.
I'm curious how the teacher would defend having a 2nd grade child sit in "soiled" pants all day. How would the principal defend the teacher?
If the facts truly are as attested in this article, the minimum that needs to be done is firing the teacher.
From Instapundit:
JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO DECENCY: Biden Calls Disgusting Harassment of Sinema and Manchin ‘Part of the Process.’
Biden is basically inviting continued harassment of senators of his own party but, hey, no mean tweets.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Seems like this gives Sinema and Manchin an excuse to switch parties and blame the Dems’ activist wing. Sure they’ll get grief from that, but when you’re already being chased into the bathroom. . . .
The Dems like harassing those with whom they disagree, and they especially like having the power of government behind them when they do it:
The Department of Justice is launching an effort to combat what it said is an "increase" in "threats of violence" against school officials and teachers across the country.
"Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values," Attorney General Merrick Garland said of the effort in a statement Monday. "Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety."
The guy the Dems wanted on the Supreme Court now says that disagreeing with the local school board makes you a terrorist. Nope, no way that's going to be abused.
Riot in the streets, rob from stores, burn down city blocks--FBI stands back. Tell your elected school board you don't want your kids learning toxic racism in schools--FBI will be there to arrest you.
These people are disgusting.
Update:
I'm a little hesitant to talk about "failing schools". As a teacher, when I see a "failing school" I ask why is it considered failing. Of course it's considered failing if a large number of students is failing, but where does the fault lie in that? My observations tell me that "failing schools" often have a lot more problems than just low grades--those problems are brought from the community into the schools by the students. But if there are discipline problems, why are there discipline problems? It's not like the teachers of the school don't want order and an opportunity to teach, so why do schools have discipline problems?
The answer is simple. The moment parents or community groups challenge a rule or a disciplinary action, the dam begins to break. Administrators, either at the school or the district level, give in because doing so is easier (for them) than maintaining a standard. The moment students know there is no penalty for misbehavior, you get plenty of misbehavior. And why would you expect any different?
So I place the burden of "bad" schools on the students, the community those students come from, and administrators. Yes, there are incompetent teachers as well as bad teachers--those who made the news awhile back, changing students' answers on standardized tests to make themselves or their students look better, for example--but for the most part I don't think teachers carry the lion's share of responsibility for a school's being considered "bad" or "failing". You can say that since I'm a teacher, my view is somewhat self-serving--and it would be if it weren't sincere. On this blog I have never shied away from calling out bad teachers, but teachers don't usually support lax disciplinary policies or stupid grading policies. When a school has those, it cannot help but spiral out of control. It will be a "failing school". When a district doesn't care about student achievement, there will be many "failing schools".
That's what happened in this district:
In what could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, middle-class black families in Queens are mobilizing against the city Department of Education’s routine acceptance of rotten public schools.
As The Post’s Georgett Roberts and Selim Algar report, these parents in District 29 aren’t taking “We need more resources” as an excuse.
“A lot of people knew that it was bad,” explains local activist Michael Duncan, “but they didn’t know it was this bad.”
How bad? District-wide, just 28 percent of black students in grades 3-8 passed their 2019 state math exams and just 37 percent passed English. At some schools, almost no one passed: A whopping 94 percent of fifth-graders at PS 134 in Hollis, for example, flunked math; 83 percent bombed English.
No wonder the district saw a 13 percent drop in enrollment over the past four years. These are the children, after all, of middle-class black homeowners, “successful people,” Duncan points out. “The results in our schools are not reflective of the community. Something is wrong here.”
Money’s not the problem. PS 134 spent $27,000 per student in 2019, much more than double the national average (New York state spends the most per pupil in the country). Catholic schools and small private schools in the area spend far less, with far better results.
No, the problem, Duncan and others in the new Students Improvement Association say, is that the DOE’s chief priority is making the adults who run the schools happy, rather than ensuring kids get the best education.
Failed superintendents, principals and teachers aren’t fired; they’re dumped on majority-minority districts. Meanwhile, the de Blasio-era rollback of discipline has also fueled classroom disorder, as Queens state Sen. Leroy Comrie has warned.
District 29 isn’t unique: Gotham spent nearly $27,000 for every public school student across the city in 2018 — with dismal results. But the teachers union and other special interests do just fine.
With the pandemic further exposing the DOE’s priorities of serving the adults, not the kids, the rebellion in District 29 could force a sea change: If enough parents refuse to accept the system’s indifference to learning, a change will have to come.
Let's hope.
Is it Teacher Appreciation Week or something? We usually "celebrate" that in May--maybe that's a California thing?--but I've heard a little about it this week, too.
Yesterday, all our teachers (and who knows, perhaps other staff as well) each received a small bottle of scented hand sanitizer from the Senior Class. There was a tag with a witty comment attached. I thought that was nice.
Today each of us received a 1" succulent plant from the Junior Class. A popsicle stick sign in each one said "Thanks for helping (school name) students grow!", and on the back it said "from the juniors in student government". Awesome!
The standard has been set. I wonder if we're getting anything from the sophomores tomorrow....
Update, 10/6/21: Today we got Altoids and lip balm :)
Update, 10/11/21: I forgot to add last week that the freshmen gave us baggies of candy. Were they sending a message, one way or the other, by including an Airhead? :-)
Hard to disagree with this:
Societies set standards for a host of reasons, though two are primary. First, standards, whether civil or legal, allow us to measure objective reality. For instance, the purpose of standards, such as school grading, is to identify the relative skill of people in a particular endeavor–with the endeavor in schools being the ability to read, write, and reason. Second, and flowing from the first, standards allow us to identify those people who excel in that skill set and promote them and, as a corollary, to find and help those who fail to meet the standard. Moreover, the effectiveness of particular efforts can be assessed.
Everything in the above paragraph is either antithetical to, and under direct attack from, progressive leftists. They have no desire to identify objective reality. They have no desire for a meritocracy. They have no desire to assess the effectiveness of any efforts they embrace to address supposed problems. Their goal is not to benefit society by upholding a meritocracy or, at the other end of the scale, to help those they claim to want to help. Instead, they simply want permanent political power in this country. Everything else is secondary. And to accomplish their real goal, they invoke the charge of “systemic racism” to attack standards and the facts that inform those standards.
Read the whole thing.
How much damage did this ineffective policy cause?
New Zealand has abandoned its policy of COVID-elimination and will instead shift its focus towards a "contain and control" approach after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged more than a month of restrictions had not got the country to zero cases.
The nation recorded a further 29 community infections on Monday, taking the number of cases in the current Delta outbreak to 1,357.
The first case in the latest outbreak emerged in Auckland on August 17, prompting Ms Ardern to order a Level 4 nationwide lockdown while declaring: "We want to be short and sharp, not light and long".
"Short and sharp, not light and long". Reality doesn't care about your witty quips, either.
Will the KFC guys still be charged with "breaching public health rules"?
Just the language here should turn your blood to ice:
Auckland will move to a Level 3 lockdown from midnight on Tuesday. However, freedoms will still be severely limited, with residents confined to their homes unless they are attending school, work or shopping.
The rest of the country remains at a Level 2 lockdown with shops, restaurants, bars and nightclubs all open.
"Freedoms will still be severely limited". Amazing to hear that in the Anglosphere, which used to be a beacon of freedom in the world. For the BBC such talk is just another day at the office.
What could possibly motivate someone to complain about increased range from an electric vehicle?
Think about that. There is a fast, comfortable electric car that will go a full five-hundred and twenty miles before you need to stop and plug it in. As Jasper said when he stepped out the Kwik-E-Mart freezer, “What a time to be alive.”
But, like, do you really even want an electric car that can go 520 miles? The more I stare at that figure, the more I think the answer to that question is: Maybe I don’t.
I could be completely off-base here, but there's only one general reason I can come up with for not supporting as much fuel efficiency as possible: less opportunity to complain about global warming, less opportunity to control others, increased standard of living. In other words, for upbeat people like me, there's no downside--and that's the downside.
Fire up those nuclear power plants while we're at it, to keep those cars powered.
4-0 Army played at 1-3 Ball State (Muncie, Indiana) yesterday. Ball State returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and it went downhill from there. After spotting them 21 points, Army clawed back in the 2nd half but it was not to be. Final score: 28-16.
Our next game is at Wisconsin, followed by #19 Wake Forest. Ugh.
Not being a fan of rap music, I've never heard of this Zuby chap--but I like what he says here:
Very hot take. I am not convinced that the actions of governments around the world have saved more lives than they destroyed over the last 18 months... It's feasible that them doing absolutely nothing would have led to a similar or better overall result - all things considered.
I've thought about this a lot. I believe the vast majority of govt rules and policies have been a net negative. Many have directly and indirectly harmed or killed people. Strong suggestions to 'wash your hands, take vitamin D, and lose weight' would have been more effective.It was known from March/April 2020 that it was elderly people and those with major co-morbidities who were high risk. Instead of being calm, sensible, and trying to prioritise and protect said individuals (as many smart people suggested), they shut down the whole planet. SMH
If the world was run by sane, decent people, who care about liberty, they would have communicated transparent facts and honest risk statistics - by demographic Made health suggestions based on real science And allowed people to do what's best for them and their loved ones.The notion that government bureaucrats, giant corporations, and career politicians care about you, your friends, and your family more than you do is absurd. As is the notion that they know what's best for each individual's health and wellbeing.
They won't recommend sunlight, vitamin D, zinc, exercise, fat loss, or prophylactics... But they will force masks (even outdoors), business closures, house arrests, quarantining after negative tests, and other nonsensical BS... It was never about health. Clearly.
Preach.
If you want to see education thought at a twisted low, look no further than this example:
A YouTube video posted by Sunrise Park Middle School in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, details a new grading scale that lacks the letter "F."
The system, announced during the 2021-22 school year, does not include 0-49.9 percentiles for students.
"Our whole intent is to ensure that grades focus on the process of learning," Principal Christina Pierre said in the video. "Therefore, grades will not include behaviors, attitude, tardiness to class, whether the assignment was turned in late or on time. There's other ways that we can communicate those things to parents."
Associate Principal Norman Bell went on to elaborate that students are encouraged to retake/revise tests, quizzes, papers, projects and have a 10-day window to do so from the date the grade is posted.
I can agree that grades should reflect academic achievement and not behavior, but retaking assessments just to get a higher grade defeats the purpose of the assessment in the first place. Any incentive to do well on a test or quiz is removed, leaving the first attempt as nothing more than a "test reconnaissance". It's a system designed with a student's mentality rather than an educator's; students view grades as a commodity to be hoarded, educators view grades as a record of achievement towards a set of academic standards. This system is definitely of the "get the highest grade" genre, rather than the "let's see if the student has learned anything" genre. It sickens me when educators at any level advocate this sort of system.
Rather than insist on learning, they just get rid of the grade that shows that students aren't learning. Then they let students retake a test just to get a higher grade. What, exactly, does the grade signify at that point? The ability to hoard a commodity, is all.
And lest you think that this was done in a not-overly-full-of-white-students school, US News shows this school to be 63.5% white and 9.7% Asian.
