Were Similar Concerns Brought Up 4 Years Ago? 8 Years Ago?

Video from the major Sacramento newspaper:

Is it right for a high school teacher to talk politics?
Nov 14, 2016
Teachers and staff at Oakmont High in Roseville were warned Monday not to share political views with students.

If this warning wasn't issued 4 years ago, 8 years ago, 12 years ago, etc., then it's just another case of political bullying by the left.

Update:  They're taking a different tack in San Francisco:

San Francisco's public schools have been offered a classroom lesson plan that calls President-elect Donald Trump a racist, sexist man who became president "by pandering to a huge racist and sexist base."

The union that represents city teachers posted the plan on its website and distributed it via an email newsletter to its more than 6,000 members. The school district has more than 57,000 students.

It is unclear how many teachers have used the plan outlined by a Mission High School teacher, but it appears to have the tacit support of city education officials.

Good Thing I Didn't Go To Work Today

A cough to rip the lungs out, and no voice.  I would not have been a very effective teacher today.

One Of Those Days

I got to school this morning, socialized for a moment, then headed straight to the office to the principal's secretary.

"How are we on subs today?"
"We're one short."
"Fine, I'll stay."

It should be pretty clear how I felt at 7:30 this morning.  I gutted it out all day, but now that I'm home, it's herbal tea and rest for me.  I've already put in for a sub for tomorrow, but given how little our district pays substitutes, and how many people I know of at just my school who will be out tomorrow, I don't have high confidence that  there will be someone waiting for my classes tomorrow.

If I feel great by 4am, I can cancel the sub request and go in.  Otherwise, there's no way in heck I'm going to suffer through another day like I did today.

Nap time now....

Gauss-Jordan Elimination

After Sputnik went up in '57, plenty of Americans worried that our education system was substandard.  How could it not be, they presumed, given that the Russkies beat us into space?  Part of the solution became known as New Math.

By the time young Darren got into elementary school in the 70s, the New Math was firmly rooted.  I recall learning about set theory and numbers in different bases--presumably, the "smart" people decided that if students learned and understood those two topics, our deficiencies in math would be over.

I didn't pay much attention to education in the 80s, I was too busy protecting America from the commie hordes.  But the 90s turned us to "fuzzy math", and the counter-swing to that in the 2000s was a "back to basics" approach.

So here we are in 2010s, Common Core-ing away, and it looks to me like the "smart" people have decided that if students learned and understood matrices, our deficiencies in math would be over.  In the past I've taught how to add and multiply matrices, and even how to use Cramer's Rule (an application of matrices) to solve systems of equations.  But today--ah, today I taught Gauss-Jordan elimination.

It doesn't matter if you know what that is or not.  What matters is that I've never taught it before, so I did plenty of prep work to ensure it went smoothly.  I even created a step-by-step worksheet that my students and I worked on together.

It went so smoothly.  Before they knew what was happening, they'd solved a 4x4 system of equations and hadn't even broken a sweat!  Such a feat would have been extremely difficult and time-consuming using algebraic elimination or Cramer's Rule, but the Gauss-Jordan algorithm made light work of it. 

It was great fun teaching something new :-)

Blast From The Past

I hope we don't have to worry about such things with a Republican about to take up residence in the White House:

Do you remember this "Dear Leader" moment?

(As an aside, equal pay for equal work has been the law of the land since before I was born.)

Will Our Students Learn Anything From This?

A week or so ago, our school newspaper reported that in a mock election held on campus, our relatively well-to-do school's students voted 2:1 for Hillary Clinton.

Do you think they'll learn anything about accepting different ideas?  About real diversity, which is diversity of thought and not of skin color?  About what animates people outside of northeastern Sacramento?

In California?  No, I don't, either.  Sadly.

Stand Up To The Man! Fight The Power!

I hope this is the start of restoring 1st Amendment freedoms on our university campuses:

DePaul University’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom says they will defy an administration ban on “controversial” speakers, and go ahead with an event next week at the Chicago school featuring conservative speaker Ben Shapiro and “Based Mom” Christina Hoff Summers.

Late Friday, YAF issued an open letter to DePaul University’s administration, noting that they could no longer accept DePaul’s argument that Shapiro did not “substantively contribute” to campus discourse, and that “security concerns” warranted keeping him off campus.

DePaul’s Vice President of Facilities, Bob Janis, issued the ban in August, telling YAF students that they could not host the author and radio show personality. He said this decision was based on an experience with the provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos — whose detractors shouted down and attacked speakers. DePaul’s modest security forces simply could not handle the ensuing chaos...

“Given the experiences and security concerns that some other schools have had with Ben Shapiro speaking on their campuses, DePaul cannot agree to allow him to speak on our campus at this time,” Janis wrote.

Since then, however, Shapiro has spoken at several schools, including Yale and UT Austin, without incident — as has Milo Yiannopolous, whose “Dangerous Faggot” tour has criss-crossed several states. YAF argues that it’s DePaul’s students, and not its invited speakers, that create the problem.

I've Been Saying This About Liberals For Years

From Bloomberg:

“Too many of my progressive friends seem to have forgotten how to make actual arguments, and have become expert instead at condemnation, derision and mockery. On issue after issue, they’re very good at explaining why no one could oppose their policy positions except for the basest of motives. As to those positions themselves, they are too often announced with a zealous solemnity suggesting that their views are Holy Writ — and those who disagree are cast into the outer political darkness. In short, the left has lately been dripping with hubris, which in classic literature always portends a fall.”

What A Disappointment

This happens every few years--I seem to recall one such incident during West Point's Golden Age (1983-87)--but it's damned disappointing when it does:

Six cadets have been charged with drug-related offenses and placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation, according to the U.S. Military Academy.

Five members of the class of 2017...and one member of the class of 2016...have been charged under military law with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and wrongful use, introduction and distribution of controlled substances, according to the academy.

The six cadets, who have been placed on leave away from the academy, will go through a court-martial process, which began on Thursday when they were charged.

He's Angry About A Trump Presidency--But I Agree With His Message

Speaking to his fellow lefties:  "Stop thinking that everyone who disagrees with you is evil or racist or sexist or stupid and talk to them.  Persuade them otherwise, because if you don't, I'll tell you what you get--you get President Trump."

It's unfortunate that it took a presidential freakin' election for some lefties to admit that insulting and denigrating and dismissing the opinions of half the country is not the way to win friends and influence people.  I hope the lesson will stick, but I'm not optimistic.

Yet Another Post On How The Outcome Of This Election Spotlights What's Wrong On So Many University Campuses

The following is true:

A bunch of InstaPundit readers who are students or faculty at various universities have been forwarding me emails about dealing with the “shock” “fear” and “dismay” that people on their campuses are supposed to be feeling. These emails generally either come from, or are copied to, the school’s “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” or some such. Yet the notion that a candidate supported by a big electoral majority is somehow beyond the pale — so much so that merely contemplating the election results is psychological trauma — is itself a slap in the face at the notion of diversity and, of course, a way of excluding the (many) students at these institutions who supported Trump from the university community. This should be a wakeup call for higher education, but I predict that the snooze button will be hit again.

I got not one but two such emails at my University of Idaho account this week.

I was a student there 4 years ago, too.  I don't remember getting any "now, now dear" emails then after Obama's victory, but I guess it could have happened.  I wonder how many universities did offer such "help" to people who should act like adults, 4 years ago?  8 years ago?  My guess, with no data to back me up, is not near as many as there are this year.

University students:  if you want your university to act like your mommy, perhaps we really do need to return to the days of in loco parentis.  Lefties fought against that concept in the 60s, and they fought for free speech, too.  Funny how lefties have reversed course on both these days.

But wait, there's more:

So, Donald Trump won the presidential election, and colleges and universities around the country are predictably canceling classes and exams because students are predictably too devastated to be able to do their schoolwork.

It’s everywhere. A professor at University of Michigan postponed an exam after too many students complained about their “very serious” stress. Columbia University postponed midterms, a Yale University professor made an exam optional, a University of Iowa professor canceled classes and a University of Connecticut professor excused class absences — all because their students just absolutely could not function knowing that they’d have to live in a country where their president would not be the president that they wanted. And it’s not even just the students — a University of Rochester professor canceled all of his meetings with students the day after the election because he decided he just could not bear to talk about it with them.

Reading all of these stories, I really have to wonder: Do any of these people realize that this kind of behavior is exactly why Donald Trump won?

Update: A friend sent me the following a text stating that the role of college administrators is now riot control, policing Halloween costumes, inventing new pronouns, and recruiting sports teams. Notice how none of those relates to what should be the focus of universities, education, and that's part of the problem.

Update #2, 11/12/16:  Even blogger Joanne Jacobs, whom I surmise is not a Trump supporter at all, has this to say:

Elsewhere in the Ivy League, a Clinton supporter bragged to the Princetonian that she’d spent Wednesday morning crying in her dorm room. “I sat and sobbed and I still have the tissues all over my floor to prove it,” wrote Marni Morse, a politics major. (I think “brag” is the correct word.) Finally, she left for class, still crying, wearing her “Dare to say the F-word: Feminism” t-shirt and her “A woman belongs in the House and the Senate” sweatshirt to feel “stronger.”

This is feminism? She’s not even strong enough to pick up her tissues.

To Our Friends On The Left: What, Exactly, Are You Afraid Of?

The left is going unhinged.

Look, I understand the disappointment when "your guy" loses the election.  My guys lost the last 2, and I'm 5-4 in presidential elections.  I get it.

I was very afraid when Obama was elected.  Specifically I was worried about my 2nd Amendment rights, and I was justified in that--Obama talked about gun control all through his candidacy and all through his presidency.  Only Heller kept his worst impulses at bay.

I was worried about my 1st Amendment rights.  Candidate Obama talked about implementing the so-called Fairness Doctrine.  Fortunately, he dropped such talk within the first year of his presidency, and for that I was truly relieved.

I was concerned about socialism, and one of my worst nightmares came true when Obamacare was passed.  On the day that I learned that Chief Justice Roberts was the deciding vote that declared Obamacare constitutional, I admitted to myself that I was no longer a free citizen but a subject of a far-away government.

So yes, I get that you're disappointed, and I understand that you have some fears.  I don't understand what those fears are.

To my gay friends:  what are you freaking out about?  Gay marriage is a right as determined by the Supreme Court.  There's nothing a Republican Congress and president can do about that.  I get the impression that you're worried about violence against gays.  Why?  Because, after the election, someone points out that VP-elect Pence believes in gay conversion therapy?  Why do you care, do you think he's going to compel anyone to undergo it?  Do you think Trump is going to make anti-gay actions a part of his agenda?  If so, on what basis do you believe this?  Do you think that there were plenty of homophobes just dying to harm gay people, but were kept in check by Obama's presidency, but are now somehow freed from their shackles by a Trump victory and are going to go on some rampage?  What possible reason do you have for believing such a thing?  Have you checked even left-leaning Snopes?  Try here and here.

To my ethnic minority friends:  what are you freaking out about?  Do you think a President Trump is going to advocate lynching for American blacks, and deportation of anyone who isn't lily-white?  What basis do you have for believing such a thing?  Yes, he wants to temporarily stop Muslim immigration until we can feel relatively safe that we're not going to admit a bunch of jihadis into America and suffer the fate of Paris, Brussels, Cologne, etc.  One 9/11 here was enough.  And you may not like to believe it, because it goes against your worldview, but huge majorities of Americans of all stripes support that.  What is it, though, that you really think he's going to do?

Remember that Trump got a higher percentage of both black and Hispanic votes than Mitt Romney did.  Why do you think that is?  What do you think he's going to do, round Americans up and put them in camps or march them across the continent?  No, that's what Democratic presidents did in the past.  Why are you worried about a Trump presidency that might enforce some of our immigration laws, but don't lift a breath to complain when Obama's tenure has seen a significant (Trump would say huuuuge) increase in deportations of Hispanics?  What do you think he's going to do, such that you wail and, in some cases, burn down your own cities?

To women:  yes, Trump was recorded (10 years ago) saying vulgar things.  Have you never said vulgar things in private?  I have.  Yes, it was foul, but do you really believe that he's a misogynist?  Do you really believe that he'll--what, compel women to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?  What is it, exactly, that you fear?  Did you support President Clinton, after all of his actions were well-known?  (This Vanity Fair article, as you can tell from the URL, appears first to have been published in 1998.)  I get that you're not on the Republicans' team, and I get that you may not like Donald Trump, but what is it that you fear?  Do you think he, a long-time Democrat and liberal, is going to somehow unilaterally overturn Roe v. Wade--which, like gay marriage, has already been decided?

If you really, genuinely, truly believe that Trump has the desire to do these things, and that the president has the power to do these things, then I invite you to join me on the right and work to keep from consolidating so much power and authority in Washington, DC.  Let's return to having 50 states and a "laboratory of democracy", where we in California aren't impacted by what they do in Alabama and the people of Wyoming don't care what they do in Massachusetts.  If you support consolidating power in Washington, DC, you have no one but yourselves to blame when the "other side" takes control and tries to implement their vision of what's right.

Again,  I understand being disappointed.  But I'm trying, and failing, to see the logic of your positions.  Please--with the same decency and civility I've shown in this post--help me understand.  I may not agree with you, but this is a genuine outreached hand I'm offering.

Update, 11/12/16:  Added the Snopes links.

Update #2, 11/14/16:  What else does the man have to say in order to make his position known?

In an apparent attempt to assuage the fears of LGBT Americans, President-elect Donald Trump told Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes that he has no plans to roll back same-sex marriage rights. Asked by Stahl if he personally supports marriage equality, Trump replied, “It’s irrelevant because it was already settled. It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it’s done.” He went to clarify that even if he were to appoint a judge who opposes marriage equality, the issue has been “settled” and he’s “fine with that.”

As for the “fears” that other groups, such as blacks and Muslim Americans, have expressed since his election, Trump told Stahl, “I think it’s horrible if that’s happening.”

These groups' concerns aren't real.  They're manufactured in order to generate fear and divisiveness.

College-Educated Americans Are Out Of Touch

Even had Donald Trump not won the election Tuesday, the central thesis of this article would still be true:

The most important divide in this election was not between whites and non-whites. It was between those who are often referred to as “educated” voters and those who are described as “working class” voters.

The reality is that six in 10 Americans do not have a college degree, and they elected Donald Trump. College-educated people didn’t just fail to see this coming — they have struggled to display even a rudimentary understanding of the worldviews of those who voted for Trump. This is an indictment of the monolithic, insulated political culture in the vast majority our colleges and universities...

But I also know that that those with college degrees — again, with some significant exceptions — don’t necessarily know philosophy or theology. And they have especially paltry knowledge about the foundational role that different philosophical or theological claims play in public thought compared with what is common to college campuses. In my experience, many professors and college students don’t even realize that their views on political issues rely on a particular philosophical or theological stance.

Higher education in the United States, after all, is woefully monolithic in its range of worldviews. In 2014, some 60 percent of college professors identified as either “liberal” or “far-left,” an increase from 42 percent identifying as such in 1990. And while liberal college professors outnumber conservatives 5-to-1, conservatives are considerably more common within the general public. The world of academia is, therefore, different in terms of political temperature than the rest of society, and what is common knowledge and conventional wisdom among America’s campus dwellers can’t be taken for granted outside the campus gates...

Thus today’s college graduates are formed by a campus culture that leaves them unable to understand people with unfamiliar or heterodox views on guns, abortion, religion, marriage, gender and privilege. And that same culture leads such educated people to either label those with whom they disagree as bad people or reduce their stated views on these issues as actually being about something else, as in Obama’s case (mentioned previously in the article but not excerpted above--Darren). Most college grads in this culture are simply never forced to engage with or seriously consider professors or texts which could provide a genuine, compelling alternative view...

The alternative, a reduction of all disagreement to racism, bigotry and ignorance — in addition to being wrong about its primary source — will simply make the disagreement far more personal, entrenched and vitriolic. And it won’t make liberal values more persuasive to the less educated, as Trump victory demonstrates.

Many lefties I know are trying to "explain" the riots that are occurring in the wake of Trump's putative election.  They want the rest of us to validate and understand the concerns and fears of the protesters (or other groups).  Perhaps they need to extend that same courtesy to the rest of us, to try and understand us--and not settle for the intellectually lazy refrains of racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, etc.

Liberals Don't Like It When People Leave The Plantation

Some Gay Voters Say It's 'Dangerous' to Come Out for Trump

So will gay Republicans be wearing Trump 2016 t-shirts and "Make America Great Again" hats at LGBTQ Pride events this year? Eric said it's unlikely.

"It's easy to come out of the closet," he said. "It's dangerous to come out as a Trump supporter."

I can't imagine why. Liberals are always so tolerant.

Remember When Talk Like This Was Raaaacist?

I do.  It was only 8 years ago.
Progressive group vows to obstruct Trump presidency

Talking Politics In Class

I have a reputation for talking politics in class.  Liberals don't like it when you say anything that's not straight out of the DNC, and they complain loudly, so this reputation is somewhat exaggerated.  In fact, here's how much I talk about politics in class, contrary to popular opinion:

Students in the hall this morning: How could this happen?
Me: The universe owed me. I was due to be on the winning side after 8 years.
Students in the hall this morning: What, you’re a Trump supporter?

That's how much.

Actually, I’m not a Trump supporter, but I am a Trump voter. I can turn into a supporter if he pursues conservative means and ends. If he doesn’t, I’ll have to content myself with knowing he wasn’t the worst possible choice.

If You Don't Want An Abortion, Don't Get One. If You Don't Want A Plastic Grocery Bag, Though, No One Else Can Have One, Either.

Consistency is for rubes, I guess.

California really should be two states, Coastal California and Inland California.

California Wants Its Porn Natural

There was an initiative on the ballot that would require porn actors in movies made in California to wear condoms.  Californians rejected this, 54-46.  Yes, that's the kind of stuff we vote on here in the People's Republic:

Go figure.

If You Want To Know Why Trump Won...

Again, I didn't think he'd pull it out, but I'm glad that even a pseudo-Republican will be in the White House again.

There are plenty of people, though, who aren't glad about that.  And I get that, given that my side has been on the losing end of the last two presidential elections in a row.

But if you want to know why Trump won, if you want to understand the zeitgeist that propelled his movement, you need look no farther than on the other side of that movement, to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.  If you want to read bigotry, elitism, and condescension, you need look no farther than Paul Krugman.  If you want to understand why the same country that reelected Barack Obama four years ago could now replace him with a Donald Trump instead of a Hillary Clinton, you need look no farther than Paul Krugman.  The disdain, the contempt he has for those who don't think like he does--I admit it, I'm going to experience some schadenfreude over this:

We still don’t know who will win the electoral college, although as I write this it looks — incredibly, horribly — as if the odds now favor Donald J. Trump. What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in. We thought that our fellow citizens would not, in the end, vote for a candidate so manifestly unqualified for high office, so temperamentally unsound, so scary yet ludicrous.

We thought that the nation, while far from having transcended racial prejudice and misogyny, had become vastly more open and tolerant over time.

We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and the rule of law.

It turns out that we were wrong. There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don’t share at all our idea of what America is about. For them, it is about blood and soil, about traditional patriarchy and racial hierarchy. And there were many other people who might not share those anti-democratic values, but who nonetheless were willing to vote for anyone bearing the Republican label.

He really believes that crap about Republicans. Read it again, and tell me who the real bigot is.

Last Night and This Morning

I went to bed last night not knowing who won the election.  Knowing I wouldn't be entirely happy no matter what the outcome, I thought it best to get to sleep on time so I could get up at 5 and get on my elliptical trainer (for the 3rd day in a row).

I woke up at 3 this morning.  I actually felt a slight headache, and I knew it was because I wanted to know the election results.  I fired up the phone and checked the few apps I had open and waiting from the night before.  My plan was to look and then go back to sleep.

I'll admit it, I didn't think Trump would win.  When I saw that he had, a wave of relief washed over me.  It's not that I'm happy that he won, I'm happy that Clinton lost.  Far more important, though, is that the Republicans retained control of the Congress, albeit weakly.

There's no way I'm going back to sleep.  I finally gave up on that and now sit at my computer with a cup of Earl Grey Creme tea.

For those of you who were not on the winning side last night, let me share some thoughts with you as someone who's been around this block a few times.

• Yes, the Republicans will run the White House as well as both houses of Congress--but they won't have the supermajorities that the Democrats had from 2009-2011.
• Now will you please reconsider wanting to consolidate power in Washington, DC?
• Now will you please reconsider wanting a president who bypasses the will of Congress and attempts to rule by executive order?
• Now will you please reconsider mocking and hating your countrymen, hence bringing about the very president-elect you decry?

And to our good friends in the press--well, at least those of you whose heads haven't exploded yet--will you please  perform the watchdog role the Founders assumed you would?  With a white male Republican as president, I'm sure you will, but it would be nice if you did it all the time.

Those are my initial thoughts on this, the Day After.