Politics
Re: Politics
January...... nothing had happened yet......oh yeah, just taking out Iran's second in commamd.
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Oh man 2020 is epic...........
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Re: Politics
I think in Jan and Feb the other big story was the Australian bushfires.
My last social event was Feb 29(b-day celebration) with about 10 people.
My last social event was Feb 29(b-day celebration) with about 10 people.
Re: Politics
Our visit to Istanbul and Gobekli Tepe feels that it happened 5 years ago... and it was only at the end of February.
5 years ago, we were leaving for Edinburgh.
Life is so weird.
5 years ago, we were leaving for Edinburgh.
Life is so weird.
Re: Politics
I feel so lucky I got to go to Santiago de Cuba at the end of November.
I was so close to not going as I just paid for a whole trip to Iceland that I couldn't go on because I broke my leg.
Almost didn't go to Cuba as I was still on crutches. One of the best trips I have ever taken.
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Won't be going anywhere interesting for a really long time now......
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Re: Politics
Tom Morello has been trending for days. Apparently people are just now discovering Rage Against the Machine are political. ![lol :lol:](./images/smilies/lol.gif)
![lol :lol:](./images/smilies/lol.gif)
Re: Politics
Similar to people who realise that Roger Waters (thus Pink Floyd for like 10 years) is not precisely a supporter of the right-wing. ![yikes :yikes:](./images/smilies/yikes1.gif)
![yikes :yikes:](./images/smilies/yikes1.gif)
- Pandemonium
- Posts: 5720
- Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:18 pm
Re: Politics
Problem is, a lot of people take them seriously and don't see they're just political hucksters using the "fight the man" angle to make millions off their nearly 25 year old back catalog.
Re: Politics
The man in the photo with Rubio is the late Elijah Cummings.
(Rubio has since taken the photo down and replaced it with one where he is pictured with John Lewis.)
Re: Politics
I was going to post this engaging piece by Dave Grohl, praising/defending teachers, in the Art & Music section but decided not to since it is political.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/arc ... rs/614422/
In Defense of Our Teachers
When it comes to the daunting question of reopening schools, America’s educators deserve a plan, not a trap.
DAVE GROHL
JULY 21, 2020
I hate to break it to you, but I was a terrible student.
Each day, I desperately waited for the final bell to ring so that I could be released from the confines of my stuffy, windowless classroom and run home to my guitar. It was no fault of the Fairfax County Public Schools system, mind you; it did the best it could. I was just stubbornly disengaged, impeded by a raging case of ADD and an insatiable desire to play music. Far from being a model student, I tried my best to maintain focus, but eventually left school halfway through 11th grade to follow my dreams of becoming a professional touring musician (not advised). I left behind countless missed opportunities. To this day, I’m haunted by a recurring dream that I’m back in those crowded hallways, now struggling to graduate as a 51-year-old man, and anxiously wake in a pool of my own sweat. You can take the boy out of school, but you can’t take school out of the boy! So, with me being a high-school dropout, you would imagine that the current debate surrounding the reopening of schools wouldn’t register so much as a blip on my rock-and-roll radar, right? Wrong.
My mother was a public-school teacher.
As a single mother of two, she tirelessly devoted her life to the service of others, both at home and at work. From rising before dawn to ensure that my sister and I were bathed, dressed, and fed in time to catch the bus to grading papers well into the night, long after her dinner had gone cold, she rarely had a moment to herself. All this while working multiple jobs to supplement her meager $35,000 annual salary. Bloomingdale’s, Servpro, SAT prep, GED prep—she even once coached soccer for a $400 stipend, funding our first family trip to New York City, where we stayed at the St. Regis Hotel and ordered drinks at its famous King Cole Bar so that we could fill up on the free hors d'oeuvres we otherwise could not afford. Unsurprisingly, her devoted parenting mirrored her technique as a teacher. Never one to just point at a blackboard and recite lessons for kids to mindlessly memorize, she was an engaging educator, invested in the well-being of each and every student who sat in her class. And at an average of 32 students a class, that was no small feat. She was one of those teachers who became a mentor to many, and her students remembered her long after they had graduated, often bumping into her at the grocery store and erupting into a full recitation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, like a flash mob in the produce aisle. I can’t tell you how many of her former students I’ve met over the years who offer anecdotes from my mother’s classroom. Every kid should be so lucky to have that favorite teacher, the one who changes your life for the better. She helped generations of children learn how to learn, and, like most other teachers, exhibited a selfless concern for others. Though I was never her student, she will forever be my favorite teacher.
It takes a certain kind of person to devote their life to this difficult and often-thankless job. I know because I was raised in a community of them. I have mowed their lawns, painted their apartments, even babysat their children, and I’m convinced that they are as essential as any other essential workers. Some even raise rock stars! Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Adam Levine, Josh Groban, and Haim are all children of school workers (with hopefully more academically rewarding results than mine). Over the years, I have come to notice that teachers share a special bond, because there aren’t too many people who truly understand their unique challenges—challenges that go far beyond just pen and paper. Today, those challenges could mean life or death for some.
When it comes to the daunting—and ever more politicized—question of reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, the worry for our children’s well-being is paramount. Yet teachers are also confronted with a whole new set of dilemmas that most people would not consider. “There’s so much more to be addressed than just opening the doors and sending them back home,” my mother tells me over the phone. Now 82 and retired, she runs down a list of concerns based on her 35 years of experience: “masks and distancing, temperature checks, crowded busing, crowded hallways, sports, air-conditioning systems, lunchrooms, public restrooms, janitorial staff.” Most schools already struggle from a lack of resources; how could they possibly afford the mountain of safety measures that will need to be in place? And although the average age of a schoolteacher in the United States is in the early 40s, putting them in a lower-risk group, many career teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, nurses, and janitors are older and at higher risk. Every school’s working faculty is a considerable percentage of its population, and should be safeguarded appropriately. I can only imagine if my mother were now forced to return to a stuffy, windowless classroom. What would we learn from that lesson? When I ask what she would do, my mother replies, “Remote learning for the time being.”
Remote learning comes with more than a few of its own complications, especially for working-class and single parents who are dealing with the logistical problem of balancing jobs with children at home. Uneven availability of teaching materials and online access, technical snafus, and a lack of socialization all make for a less-than-ideal learning experience. But most important, remote setups overseen by caretakers, with a teacher on the other end doing their best to educate distracted kids who prefer screens used for games, not math, make it perfectly clear that not everyone with a laptop and a dry-erase board is cut out to be a teacher. That specialized skill is the X factor. I know this because I have three children of my own, and my remote classroom was more Welcome Back, Kotter than Dead Poets Society. Like I tell my children, “You don’t really want daddy helping, unless you want to get an F!” Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution. But as much as Donald Trump’s conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country prematurely open schools in the name of rosy optics (ask a science teacher what they think about White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comment that “science should not stand in the way”), it would be foolish to do so at the expense of our children, teachers, and schools.
Every teacher has a “plan.” Don’t they deserve one too? My mother had to come up with three separate lesson plans every single day (public speaking, AP English, and English 10), because that’s what teachers do: They provide you with the necessary tools to survive. Who is providing them with a set of their own? America’s teachers are caught in a trap, set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership that have never been in their position and can’t possibly relate to the unique challenges they face. I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class? (Maybe she should switch to the drums.) Until you have spent countless days in a classroom devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have. Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?
May we show these tireless altruists a little altruism in return. I would for my favorite teacher. Wouldn’t you?
- Pandemonium
- Posts: 5720
- Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:18 pm
Re: Politics
My sister is a teacher in upstate New York in her mid-50's. My sister-in-law who is 65 with chronic asthma is a K through 8th grade speech therapist in Atlanta. Both are facing troubling and often contradictory safety problems teaching this fall.
For my sister, it appears she is looking at in-class instruction featuring a phonebook sized list of social distancing and health measures in the classroom that will make it difficult at best to effectively teach. Kids and staff of course must wear masks at all time and undergo daily routine screening before class. The thing is, if someone tests positive, say a student, the entire class and teacher(s) must self quarantine for two weeks. Doing the math, and dealing with kids, it's likely this sort of thing could easily disrupt a majority of the school year with repeated two-week breaks. This also puts a strain on the teacher's sick pay/time, as they only get a limited amount every year. Conceivably, once they quickly burn through their sick time via a couple stay-at-home orders, they could be forced to take two weeks off without pay every time someone tests positive.
For my sister-in-law, she will be doing speech therapy on-line which should be ideally good at least from her own health standpoint. Problem is, the school wants her to be doing the instruction from a classroom on site among other staff and teachers, despite the fact she has a perfectly good home internet setup. Add to that, doing speech therapy with pre-teens like autistic kids, etc online under any circumstances is not going to be effective.
It's an incredible mess with no good answers and the end result is going to be a generation of kids that are going to have a high percentage of poor basic skills.
For my sister, it appears she is looking at in-class instruction featuring a phonebook sized list of social distancing and health measures in the classroom that will make it difficult at best to effectively teach. Kids and staff of course must wear masks at all time and undergo daily routine screening before class. The thing is, if someone tests positive, say a student, the entire class and teacher(s) must self quarantine for two weeks. Doing the math, and dealing with kids, it's likely this sort of thing could easily disrupt a majority of the school year with repeated two-week breaks. This also puts a strain on the teacher's sick pay/time, as they only get a limited amount every year. Conceivably, once they quickly burn through their sick time via a couple stay-at-home orders, they could be forced to take two weeks off without pay every time someone tests positive.
For my sister-in-law, she will be doing speech therapy on-line which should be ideally good at least from her own health standpoint. Problem is, the school wants her to be doing the instruction from a classroom on site among other staff and teachers, despite the fact she has a perfectly good home internet setup. Add to that, doing speech therapy with pre-teens like autistic kids, etc online under any circumstances is not going to be effective.
It's an incredible mess with no good answers and the end result is going to be a generation of kids that are going to have a high percentage of poor basic skills.
- drwintercreeper
- Posts: 225
- Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:57 am
Re: Politics
And that will be what people remember from the era of the orange one. A completely bungled response that set an entire generation of kids at least a year back. And left us with at least ten trillion in new debt.Pandemonium wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:04 amIt's an incredible mess with no good answers and the end result is going to be a generation of kids that are going to have a high percentage of poor basic skills.
But hey, at least my taxes decreased for two years.
Re: Politics
How is it any different than what our schools are currently producingPandemonium wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 11:04 amthe end result is going to be a generation of kids that are going to have a high percentage of poor basic skills.
![lol :lol:](./images/smilies/lol.gif)
Re: Politics
How did trafficking in conspiracy theories move from the fringes of U.S. politics into the White House?
Tonight, as the coronavirus pandemic continues, America reckons with racism and the 2020 election looms, FRONTLINE’s acclaimed political team investigates the alliance among conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, longtime Trump associate Roger Stone and the president — and their role in the deepening battle over truth and lies.
United States of Conspiracy premieres on PBS tonight at 10/9c (check local listings), or stream it online starting at 7/6c.
From veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, United States of Conspiracy tells the story of how three men helped to lay the foundation for conspiracy theories to take center stage in America’s national conversation, how the idea of truth itself became part of America’s divide, and what it means for the future of our democracy.
“Conspiracism has become a recognized and accepted way of exercising political power. It creates a polarization in the population that’s much deeper than partisan polarization — it’s a polarization about what it means to know something,” Nancy Rosenblum, co-author of A Lot of People Are Saying, says in the documentary.
“I think it’s likely to spread across the political spectrum," she adds. "And whether it returns to the fringes or not I think will depend on whether people in office can resist using it.”
For the full story, don't miss United States of Conspiracy tonight on FRONTLINE.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film ... onspiracy/
Re: Politics
So there is a Democratic Senate primary coming up in my neck of the woods between incumbent Senator Ed Markey and his challenger House Rep Joe Kennedy.
Markey just put out an ad. He opens with a NIN song in the background. Didn't see that coming.
Cool ad though.
I am not originally from Massachusetts so I was not familiar with Markey's early history.
Markey just put out an ad. He opens with a NIN song in the background. Didn't see that coming.
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I am not originally from Massachusetts so I was not familiar with Markey's early history.
Re: Politics
I'm just going to put this here because I don't want to start a separate thread.
WTF, Andrew Cuomo?? The cover-up about the nursing home deaths and now 6 women have come forward with sexual harassment complaints. So disappointing.![no :no:](./images/smilies/noangry.gif)
WTF, Andrew Cuomo?? The cover-up about the nursing home deaths and now 6 women have come forward with sexual harassment complaints. So disappointing.
![no :no:](./images/smilies/noangry.gif)
Re: Politics
Uhm, why was Rep. Westerman left behind?
Yet McCarthy is the one traumatized. Maybe it's because he didn't have a sword.
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Yet McCarthy is the one traumatized. Maybe it's because he didn't have a sword.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/us/p ... Position=1
Kevin McCarthy, Four Months After Jan. 6, Still on Defensive Over Trump
By Mark Leibovich
April 25, 2021
...
After the House chamber was evacuated on Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy retreated to his Capitol office with a colleague, Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas. When it became evident the rioters were breaking in, Mr. McCarthy’s security detail insisted he leave. But Mr. Westerman was left behind in Mr. McCarthy’s inner work area, he said in a recent interview.
For protection, Mr. Westerman said he commandeered a Civil War sword from an office display, barricaded himself in Mr. McCarthy’s private bathroom and waited out the siege while crouched on the toilet.![]()
Friends describe the postelection period as traumatic for Mr. McCarthy, who publicly perpetuated the fiction that Mr. Trump had won while privately asking him to stop.
...
- Pandemonium
- Posts: 5720
- Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:18 pm
Re: Politics
So who is surprised Afghanistan is going to hell so quickly?
What a waste of 2 decades, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and untold resources.
What a waste of 2 decades, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and untold resources.
- drwintercreeper
- Posts: 225
- Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:57 am
Re: Politics
Not surprised. The handover of security responsibilities was supposed to happen in 2014 and then seemed to be pushed back again and again.
When Biden announced the withdrawal, I thought it was bad but now I am not sure. To wash our hands of it is what most folks want. We have different capabilities to keep the homeland safe than we had in 2001. Nation-building is incredibly difficult as is, and in this case the odds were impossible. The place is poor as fuck; the culture is alien to most Americans. Women’s rights is nice—how about raping boys? Because that shit is fucking rampant over there. So our tax dollars went to supporting that, too, in addition to enriching a bunch of corrupt fucks. We did some good and helped build their civil society. We killed a bunch of people. We kept the homeland free of more attacks. We did all those things and much more. But that isn’t and shouldn’t be why we go to and remain at war and nation-build… particularly when so many things make it doomed to fail. What we could not do is prevent 300000 ‘security forces’ from seeing this enterprise as not being worth fighting the taliban for.
Folks should check out the doc ‘restrepo’… it shows the absurdity of it all. We repeated parts of vietnam that the media glosses over in their bullshit—namely, fighting and dying for hills only to give them up. It is all so utterly pointless.
This was always going to be the outcome, whether 2005, 2014, 2021 or 2030. I would not send my kid to fight for that govt’s survival. All the monday morning quarterbacks in the media should consider whether they would in all of their commentaries.
When Biden announced the withdrawal, I thought it was bad but now I am not sure. To wash our hands of it is what most folks want. We have different capabilities to keep the homeland safe than we had in 2001. Nation-building is incredibly difficult as is, and in this case the odds were impossible. The place is poor as fuck; the culture is alien to most Americans. Women’s rights is nice—how about raping boys? Because that shit is fucking rampant over there. So our tax dollars went to supporting that, too, in addition to enriching a bunch of corrupt fucks. We did some good and helped build their civil society. We killed a bunch of people. We kept the homeland free of more attacks. We did all those things and much more. But that isn’t and shouldn’t be why we go to and remain at war and nation-build… particularly when so many things make it doomed to fail. What we could not do is prevent 300000 ‘security forces’ from seeing this enterprise as not being worth fighting the taliban for.
Folks should check out the doc ‘restrepo’… it shows the absurdity of it all. We repeated parts of vietnam that the media glosses over in their bullshit—namely, fighting and dying for hills only to give them up. It is all so utterly pointless.
This was always going to be the outcome, whether 2005, 2014, 2021 or 2030. I would not send my kid to fight for that govt’s survival. All the monday morning quarterbacks in the media should consider whether they would in all of their commentaries.
Re: Politics
I'm just in disbelief that after all this time the Taliban remained strong enough, and the government weak enough, for this to even happen.
Re: Politics
thank fuck we are getting out...finally the inevitable happens
Re: Politics
Not surprised. The Taliban has been biding its time. I thought the deal brokered/signed with Pompeo back in Feb 2020 was worrisome. The guy who signed on behalf of the Taliban, Abdul Ghani Baradar, was released from prison in 2018 at the request of the United States. (Pompeo also met with Baradar in November 2020 after the election, but this meeting didn't get much attention.) It is likely Baradar will become the next President of Afghanistan.Pandemonium wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 4:18 pmSo who is surprised Afghanistan is going to hell so quickly?
What a waste of 2 decades, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and untold resources.
This mess has gotten progressively worse over two decades, with contributions from four US administrations (2 Republican and 2 Democratic). The official public vs private statements regarding the progress (or lack thereof) in Afghanistan are dramatically different.
For those interested in some background, The Washington Post has recently reprinted excerpts from a lengthy investigative piece from 2019. Here is a link to Part One: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... documents/
Re: Politics
what a disastrous 20 years....
Maybe this won't be what biden is remembered for, the jury is out on that...and not looking good so far..
, but it certainly doesn't help that he is just one more idiot in a long line of buffoons....
And Blinken.... could there be a worse name for our top diplomat....
Maybe this won't be what biden is remembered for, the jury is out on that...and not looking good so far..
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And Blinken.... could there be a worse name for our top diplomat....
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On July 8, the president defended his decision to withdraw all remaining U.S. forces from Afghanistan. After assuring Americans that “the drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way” and that “U.S. support for the people of Afghanistan will endure,” he took some questions. Here are excerpts from the White House transcript.
Q: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
The president: No, it is not.
Q: Why?
The president: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. …
Q: Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling ——
The president: None whatsoever. Zero … The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese Army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy. …
Q: Mr. President, how serious was the corruption among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing there?
The president: Well, first of all, the mission hasn’t failed, yet. There is in Afghanistan — in all parties, there’s been corruption. The question is, can there be an agreement on unity of purpose? … That — the jury is still out. But the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.