This Man Is Disgusting

 If you want to know what Democrats are doing, see what they accuse Republicans of doing.

The American left are anti-American, fascist thugs.  And they're hypocrites.  There's no way around it.

And Dementia Joe is among the worst.

Brave Doctors

These people are brave indeed, sticking their necks out for a view that is wildly unpopular with their governments:

Abstract

Students at North American universities risk disenrollment due to third dose COVID-19 vaccine mandates. We present a risk-benefit assessment of boosters in this age group and provide five ethical arguments against mandates. We estimate that 22,000 - 30,000 previously uninfected adults aged 18-29 must be boosted with an mRNA vaccine to prevent one COVID-19 hospitalisation. Using CDC and sponsor-reported adverse event data, we find that booster mandates may cause a net expected harm: per COVID-19 hospitalisation prevented in previously uninfected young adults, we anticipate 18 to 98 serious adverse events, including 1.7 to 3.0 booster-associated myocarditis cases in males, and 1,373 to 3,234 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity which interferes with daily activities. Given the high prevalence of post-infection immunity, this risk-benefit profile is even less favourable. University booster mandates are unethical because: 1) no formal risk-benefit assessment exists for this age group; 2) vaccine mandates may result in a net expected harm to individual young people; 3) mandates are not proportionate: expected harms are not outweighed by public health benefits given the modest and transient effectiveness of vaccines against transmission; 4) US mandates violate the reciprocity principle because rare serious vaccine-related harms will not be reliably compensated due to gaps in current vaccine injury schemes; and 5) mandates create wider social harms. We consider counter-arguments such as a desire for socialisation and safety and show that such arguments lack scientific and/or ethical support. Finally, we discuss the relevance of our analysis for current 2-dose CCOVIDovid-19 vaccine mandates in North America. 

Castreau will probably have the Canadians arrested for this wrongthink.  Dementia Joe will sic the FBI on the Americans.

Two Down, One To Go

If, as they say, trouble comes in threes, then I've had a very expensive three:  my under-the-slab hot water leak, which caused hundreds of dollars of water and natural gas bills and necessitated a $10,000 replumbing of my entire house through the attic; a $2,000 bathroom renovation, since part of the replumbing involved removing the wall in my master bathroom so that the plumbing to both bathrooms could be replaced; and the break-in of my travel trailer, parked in my driveway.  It's been an expensive summer.

A couple weeks ago the plumbing work was completed.  However, I still had a master bathroom with large pieces of sheet rock missing and no sink/vanity.  A former student of mine, a real estate agent, referred me to a handyman who could do the job.  He started yesterday, and when I got home from work I was very impressed with the quality of the work he had done so far--you couldn't even tell there had been sheet rock missing.  Today when I got home there were two coats of paint on the walls and the vanity had been installed expertly.  I think I got what I paid for.

As I said, this handyman charged a lot, so I opted to install the faucet and under-sink plumbing myself.  It took me longer than it would have taken an expert, but I finished it and there's not a leak to be found.  I've never been someone to do such work myself, but I admit that a certain amount of satisfaction goes along with being able to do even a relatively simple job with my own hands.

Once the plumbing was all connected it was time to start moving back into the bathroom.  Surprisingly, that's taken more than time that it took to do the plumbing!  The former white wall shelves are now painted dark brown, and I'll hang them tomorrow and "decorate".

House replumbing:  check.

Master bathroom renovated:  check.

Now I have to find a compatible window for my trailer and get it installed, and finding such a window is turning out to be a difficult task.

Update, 9/24/22:  I've received a sizable settlement check that will cover almost the entire cost and installation of a new, custom window, as apparently the size I need isn't standard anymore.  I'll have to pay to replace the door lock myself, but I'll just consider that to be my deductible.  Things are moving forward.

There Are Two Types of People In the World

There are those who want to tell others what to do all the time, and those of us who just want to be left alone.  Let's read the first paragraph, the first sentence sentence, the first clause, of this article from the major Sacramento newspaper, and then you tell me which of those two types the author of the article is:

Sacramento is saturated with the wrong type of housing, and the consequences of these shortsighted land use decisions go beyond cost-of-living or environmental issues. It could ultimately derail any hope of expanding light rail to the region’s suburbs.

You know what another term for "wrong type of housing" is?  Based on the current real estate market in the Sacramento area, that would be "housing that people want to buy". 

Lefties always want to tell you how you should live your life.

I Can See

In 2017 I started wearing a special contact lens at night.  It was a hard lens, and it reshaped my eye while I slept and gave me 20/20 vision in the morning.  I've gotten a new lens each year since then, as my vision continues to deteriorate.  

I wasn't pleased with last year's lens, it didn't seem to correct my vision very much or for very long.  When I visited the eye doctor a few weeks ago, he decided to let my corrected eye go back to its natural state.  Three weeks later he took measurements of that eye and ordered a lens to correct my vision.  I picked up that lens yesterday and wore it for the first time last night.

When I took the lens out this morning I looked across the front room and out the window to the house across the street, on which I could see every line on every shingle of the roof.  And this was after only one night of wearing the lens.  After only a couple more nights my eye will be reshaped, and wearing the lens at night will merely help retain that shape.

I can see again.  Here's to another year without glasses!

Closing The Racial Achievement Gap

Here's an essay so counter to much of what passes for intellectual thought these days that it had to be published in the Journal of Free Black Thought:

The persistence of this achievement gap is harmful to society. But how can we close the gap, and whose responsibility is it to do so?

To many college and university officials, the reason for the gap is racism. Moreover, colleges and universities have decided that they know how to close the achievement gap and that they should assume the primary role in doing so...

These efforts, however, demonstrate academia’s unwillingness to hold black students primarily responsible for their own academic uplift. Largely by design, colleges and universities have taken it upon themselves to be the main agents for improving black academic achievement.

This is a profoundly misguided idea. It is premised on the assumption that colleges and universities alone can close the gap by making a few changes here and there. But they don’t actually know how to close the gap, and most of these changes will do nothing to address it.

Lowering academic expectations for black people is one new change, and it is a regressive one. It fosters the notion that blacks can’t cut it when it comes to academics.

If you truly believed that black students are capable, you would hold them to high standards and let them prove how capable they are.  Treating them like delicate flowers would be among the last things you would do.

Moreover, lowering enrollment standards in order to admit more black students whose academic skills are measurably inferior to those of other admittees inevitably consigns many of the black students in question to the lower spectrum of the academic performance scale. This cruel fate will surely undermine their self-respect.

Some call that "the soft bigotry of low expectations". 

What, then, is to be done? The most effective strategies for closing the achievement gap are straightforward. Moreover, these strategies must be implemented by black people themselves. First, blacks need to accord greater respect to black intellectual achievement... Second, blacks must never let racism become an excuse for not excelling academically...Third, black students should stretch themselves intellectually...Fourth, blacks must reject being subjected to lowered expectations...Fifth, blacks must avoid engaging in self-defeating behaviors...My final recommendation is that black people should not rely on others for their academic success...

Although these recommendations seem like common sense to groups that have already achieved academic success, when it comes to blacks, the recommendations suddenly become hot-button issues. Even though college and university officials want blacks to do well in school, this desire is conditioned upon doing it a certain way: avoiding difficult conversations, lowering academic standards, engaging in wishful thinking, and then taking credit for being tolerant and open-minded. It is a play that has been run repeatedly, despite never reaching the goal officials supposedly seek: closing the achievement gap.

Make no mistake, racism still exists. But racism today is much less powerful than it was even two generations ago. It is certainly not an anchor that can keep down a race of people who place great value on education for its own sake, who relish the opportunity to meet intellectual challenges, who insist on being held to high standards, who refuse to make excuses, and who celebrate academic high achievers.

This can all be distilled to a catchphrase I've used a lot lately:  you don't raise standards by lowering them.

You Know What Else Is A Slap In The Face?

Having to cover classes for which there is no teacher, that's what:

Plans in Florida, Oklahoma and other states starved of teachers to give veterans and first responders a shot at teaching is a “slap in the face” to teachers, President Biden’s education secretary said today.

“To provide educators who are not qualified or trained in the pedagogy of teaching is a slap in the face to the profession,” said Miguel Cardona.

Training in pedagogy is, for the most part, an enormous waste of time.  And how does Cardona know these people are not qualified?  They may be (temporarily) uncredentialed, but to say they're unqualified is at least as much a slap in the face to those who want to enter the profession.  Here's Florida's announcement regarding veterans:

Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the launch of a new webpage to help recruit qualified military veterans to join schools across the state. On August 17^th, the State Board of Education will consider a rule to formally implement a program for veterans to receive a five-year temporary education certificate while they finish their bachelor’s degree, provided they meet certain criteria. This rule implements SB 896, which Governor DeSantis signed earlier this year after it received unanimous bipartisan support throughout the 2022 Session. To learn more about this program, visit www.fldoe.org/veterans. To watch a video of Governor DeSantis discussing the progam, click here...

The State Board of Education will consider a rule to allow military veterans to obtain a 5-year temporary teaching certificate without a bachelor’s degree, providing the following criteria are met:

• Minimum of 48 months of military service with an honorable/medical discharge;
• Minimum of 60 college credits with a 2.5 grade point average;
• Passing score on a Florida subject area examination;
• Employment in a Florida school district, including charter schools; and
• Cleared background screening. 

Doesn't sound so horrible to me.  Just shows Cardona is a political hack.

Grooming

If you don't want to be considered a groomer, don't focus on teaching sex to other people's children:

A California teacher in the Capistrano school district posted about a "queer library" in her classroom that was filled with over 100 books – some of which contained sex imagery, information on orgies, sex parties and BDSM.

The teacher at San Juan Hills High School, identified on the school's website as Danielle Serio, is known as "Flint." Flint posted repeatedly on TikTok about books in the "queer library" and said it was available to students and has been active for five years. 

Why is it always Drag Queen Story Hour with other people's kids, rather than Drag Queen Pick Up Litter By The Freeway?  Why does this teacher need to focus on sexual activities rather than providing books on history or science?  To ask the questions is to answer them.

This entire (short) post says all that needs to be said.

You Had To Expect This In the People's Republic

Do as I say, not as I do:

On the brink of blackouts, California's energy agency issued a flex alert state-wide, asking neighbors and businesses to lower their energy use but our CBS13 crew found not everyone is heeding the call for conservation.

Our camera captured government buildings in downtown Sacramento with interior lighting left on with no signs of anyone working inside, during the holiday weekend.

All five floors at the Sacramento County courthouse were glowing, the California Employment Development Department left lights on multiple floors, and the District Attorney's office was also lit up. 

Hypocrisy is ugly.

The Wheels of Justice

Sometimes the wheels of justice can turn slowly, but they do turn:

It looks like the Gibson family’s long struggle with Oberlin College is over, and the college will pay the judgment it has been fighting for years.

Oberlin issued a statement, and my previous statement that there is a special place in Hell reserved for Oberlin administrators is still in force: 

Notice what is not in the statement: An apology. Oberlin College still appears not to understand or accept what it did wrong. It considers itself the victim.

(added) There also was no apology, instead a dismissive attitude, in a mass email sent by the president of the college...

What Oberlin College appears to have lacked from the start was a level-head, and a disinterested ability to evaluate both the case and the defenses. Viciously attacking the Gibsons in the case never was going to work, yet it was the tactic pursued by the college through the trial and post-trial proceedings.

I don't know whom I'd have lunch with anymore.

Have you ever played the mental game, "If you could have lunch with any living person, who would you choose?"  My answer has never changed, it was always Queen Elizabeth.  I've long admired her, I have tremendous respect for the leadership her parents showed during World War II, and she experienced so much history that I couldn't imagine a more interesting lunchtime conversation partner.

Now I don't know whom I would choose anymore.  And my day is a little darker because of it.

Dual-enrollment Statistics

One of the new movements in K-12 education is to get students started in college early, often by offering high school courses in which students get college credit for completion.

At nearby Sac State there is ACE certification, and students who complete ACE certified courses at high school get credit for completing the equivalent course at Sac State.  It's a two-fer, and a good way to help students get an inexpensive (free) start at college.  For years I tried to get my statistics course ACE certified, but the math department at Sac State threw up every hurdle they could.  Eventually my point of contact there told me point-blank that they'd never approve my course because that would take students away from them.

I turned my attention to the local community college district and tried to get a Memorandum of Understanding with them that would essentially do the same thing as ACE--students who completed my stats course would also get credit for the equivalent course at the local community college.  It never went anywhere for the same reason--fewer students would have to take math at the CC, risking jobs.

Last winter I was asked if I'd be willing to "facilitate" a dual-enrollment stats course; the students would learn stats asynchronously via distance learning from the community college instructor, but I would also have them in a high school class to answer questions, ensure they keep up with all the college requirements, etc.  It was not the model I was looking for but it was the only option I had, so I said yes.

It was a rocky start.  Even though I'd been working on this since last school year, I still had no books and calculators for my students when school started a month ago.  And when, a week and a half later, the local community college semester began, I still didn't have the materials.  And from my few communications with the instructor, I had some doubts about the curriculum.

We're now a few weeks into the year and things have settled down into a smooth rhythm.  After I (finally) received a copy of the instructor's syllabus, I saw that he actually did plan to teach the course mostly as a normal elementary statistics course.  After I raised the book and calculator flags with some of my district suits, books and calculators were shortly delivered.  Students are now familiar with Canvas, the "Google Classroom" of college, and are able to navigate the assignments and expectations without problem.

I don't think the instructor does much work!  From what I can tell, all of the work our students do is done online--and it's graded automatically.  I'm sure he did a lot of work on the front end and now it runs on autopilot.  I have much to learn about setting up a classroom this way.

I don't have access to Canvas so I myself cannot see the assignments or the grades; embedded in all the various dual-enrollment classes is a "success coach" who keeps us high school teachers informed.  Ours went to my school, and while he did not have me as an instructor, he understands our school "culture" and the information I need and why.  I have to submit in-progress grades by the end of this week, and on Thursday my success coach will send me all student grades directly from Canvas.

After a very rocky start this is turning into a good experience both for me and for my students.  I have confidence that it will continue to be one.

Cooking in California

It was supposed to get to 114 or so degrees today, which would tie a record set around 100 years ago.  Whether or not we reached it, it's freakin' hot right now.  In fact, it's only supposed to get to 74 tonight.

My local power company keeps threatening rotating hour-long blackouts to cut down on electricity usage.  I guess all those wind turbines and solar cells aren't enough; let's not forget that California can only implement its unicornian energy policies by importing more electricity from out-of-state than any other state in the Union.

Being the eternal optimist (snicker snicker), though, I've found a benefit in this excessive heat.

I'm sure I've mentioned it in the last couple months, but while I was in Baja this summer, and probably shortly before, I got a hot water leak under my slab.  That means that my gas water heater was running non-stop, because water was running through it non-stop.  Eventually I was draining 900+ gallons of hot water per day according to the water company.  And I pay by the gallon.  Ugh.

Not being interested in having to run a camera through my water lines and eventually have to do something like jackhammer through my dining room floor to get to the leak, I made the expensive decision to have the entire house replumbed.  Several years ago when I had a gas leak under the slab, the gas was rerouted through my attic.  Now, with a water leak under the slab, I've had the water lines rerouted through the attic.

My 60+ year old house has plenty of insulation in the attic; when it was put in several years ago I was told it exceeded new-house standards.  This means that my air conditioned house is insulated while the attic just cooks in the heat.  The water that sits in the lines in the attic also cooks.  It gets hot.  And that's the benefit I described earlier.

Because now, when I want to wash off some dishes, I don't need to turn the hot water on.  I just turn on the cold water, and 120-degree-plus water comes out!  This would suck if I wanted a glass of cold water, but that's why I keep a Brita pitcher in the frig.  I get about a minute of very hot water before the cold water from the underground pipes makes it to the faucet--by which time I've rinsed off my dishes.

Silver lining.

Update, 9/7/22:  I read today that we broke the record, 116 degrees!  Dayum it's hot, even at night.

They Were Wrong But They Won--So They Don't Care

Children are such convenient victims for lefties, since children can't fight back:

Critics of the pandemic school closures have been vindicated.

They warned the closures would cause serious, possibly irreversible, developmental retardation. They warned of severe learning loss.

Alas.

The critics were not just ignored, they were also maligned by a vicious cabal of politicians, news media personalities, and education professionals, most notably American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The critics were called monsters and "grandma killers." They were accused of not "trusting" the science.

"Children are resilient," the pro-closure camp smugly asserted. (No, it’s not that children are resilient. It’s that they don’t yet have the words to describe the ways in which you are harming them.)

Now, a little more than two years after the pandemic first came to America, new data confirm the mass school closures, which, by the way, Democratic politicians and teachers' unions enforced with a religious fever even long after the restrictions were shown to be little more than superstitious hocus-pokery, caused serious harm to young students. 

They won't apologize and won't admit they were wrong, because they won so much (e.g., the presidency) in the process.  No, this will go in their toolbags for the next crisis, which won't be allowed to go to waste.

The Golden State Today

When I was growing up, I thought of California as some sort of beacon to the world.  There was nothing that couldn't be accomplished in this state.  Now we can't even keep the lights on, according to this email I received today from my electric company:

As an extreme and unprecedented heat wave deepens, SMUD and all grid operators across the state are using every available means to avoid rotating outages in the early evening hours. SMUD asks customers to limit their use of electricity from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. This aligns with Governor Newsom’s state of emergency order and the California Independent System Operator’s extended series of Flex alerts.

The #1 way to conserve energy is to set your thermostat to 80oF or higher.

Residential customers can help by raising thermostat settings on air conditioners to 80oF, limiting the use of major appliances and turning off unnecessary lights. Commercial and industrial customers can reduce the use of lighting not essential for safety purposes in garages, hallways, lobbies, warehouses and displays. The minimized use of office equipment, supply and exhaust fans, circulating pumps and maintenance and repair equipment will also allow us to lower demand for electricity. We'll exhaust every avenue before rotating outages are called. This includes procuring power on the open market, activating our voluntary Air Conditioning Load Management program and calling on commercial customers who have previously agreed to reduce consumption.  Should rotating outages become necessary, impacted customers will be given as much advance notice as possible, and no customer will be out of power for more than approximately one hour. We'd rotate outages by sections until the emergency is over. No section will be repeated until all 39 sections have been cycled through. You can learn which section you're in at smud.org/RotatingOutage.

Find your rotating outage section

How are those wind turbines and solar panels doing?  Why do we only have one nuclear power plant left in the state, and the governor had to sign legislation to prolong its life?  Why do we have to import so much of our electricity into this Democratic People's Republik?

Are other one-party states run this poorly?  Remember that the governor was mayor of a city that has its own online map of where there's human poop on the streets and sidewalks.  There's an app for that, too.  I'm quite serious in asking this:  is there any part of California's government that's well run?

Fast becoming a Third World hellhole.

Been Awhile Since I've Done A TSA Post

When was the last time I flew, February?  To and from Mexico City?  And that was in the time of the 'rona, when I had to stand around outside the Mexico City airport and wait for the results of my $45 'rona test.  Then it was time to go through security.  I wasn't left alone, even at the gate--another passport check, my 'rona vaccination status, my 'rona test from an hour before.  *sigh*

Sacramento's TSA checkpoint is nowhere near the worst I've been through.  I despise the TSA, and I sound like a leftie when I say things like "Come the revolution, TSA officers will be the first up against the wall."  Sacramento's will be the last of the TSA officers, though, because I've never seen them be more obnoxious than their job requires.  I even complimented them once.

I'm not one of those people who will verbally denigrate TSA officers to their faces.  I have my passive resistance to their procedures, though.  For instance, I won't look them in the eye.  That would indicate a level of familiarity I just can't muster.  I hand them my boarding pass and passport and just look off to the side.  One actually said to me once, "Will you look me in the eyes, please?"  My reply was, "Is that a requirement?"  When he said that it was, I looked--glared might be a more accurate term, but I complied.

I've flown since I was a young child.  My first intercontinental flight was to Germany to visit my mother when I was 9 years old.  I've flown to Europe several times in the intervening years; heck, I was in Germany in '85 when some terrorist group or another blew up the Lufthansa counter at Frankfurt International.  A few weeks later a friend and I had firearms drawn on us at Atlanta-Hartsfield because we'd forgotten that he had dummy hand grenades in his carry-on bag to take to his little brother (we had just completed Army parachute training, were gung-ho, and had stopped by an army surplus store on the way to the airport).  After a few tense moments all was calmed down, the dummy grenades had been disassembled and put into his checked baggage (which airport personnel somehow found, as we'd checked in over an hour before), and we got on our respective flights.  Guantanamo Bay never entered our minds.  Almost 20 years ago when my son and I were returning from the DC area, I almost had to step out of my shorts--in full view of the flying public--to satisfy the TSA-hole that it was my zipper that was setting off his metal-detecting wand.

So what brought on today's rush of anger against the TSA?  This article:  The Humiliating History of the TSA.  Yes, much of the article was about "trans" and "brown" travelers and the extra humiliation they go through, but that doesn't mean there isn't enough left for the rest of us.  The article points out how TSA employees are overly stressed and among some of the lowest paid federal employees; I've been known to say they're minimum-wage-caliber employees with the full force of the US government behind them.

But what exactly is that job? Empirically, we know that the TSA does little to stop massive terror plots or even the occasional airport shooting. Instead, TSOs protect the flying public in lots of little ways — by stopping cases of human trafficking, for example, or confiscating firearms from people’s carry-on luggage. And that’s good! But it doesn’t justify the massive curtailing of individual liberties inside airports, the regular harassment of ethnic and religious minorities and gender nonconforming people, and the creation of one of the most vindictive and hostile workplaces in the federal government.

As for Bush’s first line about protecting America, I don’t really recognize the America that exists at a TSA checkpoint. It is overly paranoid, vindictive, and unaccountable to us as citizens. In fact, it mostly brings to mind Masha Gessen’s observation that “resignation was the defining condition of Soviet life.” At airport security, I, too, feel a keen sense of despair and helplessness, and I can only pray that the gaze of the administrative state passes over me without notice. 

The TSA fits in well with Brandon's red-and-black-lit speech from Thursday night.

DEI/DIE

I don't like the acronym DEI when DIE is much more descriptive.  And here's one way you can tell how embedded DIE is in your school:

Center-right scholars have developed a measurement tool “scorecard” that allows students, parents, taxpayers and legislators to determine how embedded diversity, equity and inclusion principles and practices are at a given institution.

It will “allow stakeholders to assess the damage already done and identify areas for action,” said Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley in a news release that called the tool a way to measure DEI “sickness” levels at colleges and universities...

In an email to The College Fix, Gilley added the DEI tool was developed to “give concerned members of the public some way to see the extent to which DEI has spread in universities, almost unnoticed.”

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it. We also need some way to compare. Clearly, not all colleges are equally sick with DEI. We consciously used a stages of disease model because we think that this is like a disease in a college or university,” he said.

DIE stands for "diversity, inclusion, and equity", and describes far-left-wing practices that are often against the law (e.g., racial quotas and segregation).

Ghouls

It's better just to help grandma die, isn't it:

New research suggests medically assisted dying could result in substantial savings across Canada's health-care system.

Doctor-assisted death could reduce annual health-care spending across the country by between $34.7 million and $136.8 million, according to a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday.

The savings exceedingly outweigh the estimated $1.5 to $14.8 million in direct costs associated with implementing medically assisted dying.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's something very dark and very sick going on up north.

Searching Your Kids' Teachers' Social Media Accounts

Teachers should rightly be held to high standards of behavior.  That does not mean that teachers should be required to be saints.  

Is it ethical to search out your kid's teacher's social media?  Sure, especially if it's public.  Is it ethical to try to get said teacher fired or harassed because you don't like the absolutely legal and ethical pictures and views you encounter?  No, Karen, it is not:

Earlier this month, a parent on Twitter with a sizable following shared something she’d done that struck many on the app as a bit of a parental overreach.

“Got my son’s second grade teacher assignment and immediately found all of her socials,” the mom tweeted, before revealing what her investigation had wrought...

Some moms and dads came to the woman’s defense: “I check my kids teachers socials too. Looking for closet pervs and racists. Not gonna apologize for prioritizing my children’s safety above some stranger’s privacy,” one mom tweeted. 

What's good for the goose:

Comically, one teacher admitted she does the same thing at the beginning of the school year, only with parents: “Not gonna lie, I love looking through parent social media. Gives me a huge head’s up for the year. Small town bonus, somebody on faculty/staff already knows em from years back.”

Fortunately, the mom in question was forced to backtrack:

But largely, the mom who tweeted the tale got mocked. (She later deleted the tweet and played it off as a joke, no doubt tired of being Twitter’s main character of the day.)

I have thousands of posts on this blog, going back to 2005.  I'm sure anyone can find something they disagree with.  So what?  Disagree with me.  Very-long-time readers might remember Sandy Smith (who has since become anonymous).  I'm still teaching.

Update:  I'm going to link back to this one, too, although it doesn't show me in the best light.  Sandy kept threatening, so I lowered myself and taunted her.  Later, though, as I wrote in one of the (currently) 39 comments on that post:

I'm going to try to toss an olive branch to Sandy here. Ok, it's a twig, but I'm going to try.

Common Sense in Kansas

I have no confidence that a California teacher would win a similar case:

A retired Kansas teacher won $95,000 in a lawsuit against the Geary County school district after administrators attempted to force her to deceive parents about their student's gender identity.

Pamela Ricard, 58, argued that school administrators in Kansas had demanded that she use students' preferred gender pronouns in classrooms, but avoid using those terms when speaking to parents. Ricard sued, arguing such deception was against her Christian beliefs...

"No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs," ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer said in a statement.

For those of you who say that some parents might not support their children's views,  and thus that all parents should be deceived, I refer you to this post from a few days ago, and to this quote in particular:

“You’re not entitled to take it onto yourself as a teacher to make the judgment that somehow this parent does not share the right value system, or is going to correct or guide their child in a way that you don’t approve of.”