Category Archives: politics

Bearing Witness

politics, rhetoric, teaching Leave a comment

[Content warning: This blog contains discussions of bullying.] Nathan Phillips says Covington Catholic teens were disrespectful after investigation clears them (USA Today) One of my primary motivators as a teacher, and something I repeat to myself every day I teach, is that I need to be the kind of teacher for my students that I needed when I was younger. This would be a difficult enough task on its own, but as I’ve often pointed out, anyone who gets into teaching because they think it will…

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The Beginning of the Spiral

politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

How to help families affected by the government shutdown (nbc12.com) I’ve written before about how I believe the greatest work Chris Matthews has ever done on Hardball (not exactly a high hurdle to leap) is a series he did in 2013 called “The Unkindest Cut,” which looked at how ordinary Americans were being devastated by “sequester” cuts in government spending on social services. Sequestration was created as a last-second compromise to avoid Republican brinkmanship on this country making its debt payments, as power-mad conservatives tried…

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Web of Lies, Web of Hate

cyberbullying, internet, politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually (New York)The Internet Became Less Free in 2018. Can We Fight Back? (Wired)Lawsuit Alleges Facebook Duped Advertisers, Publishers With Inflated Video Stats (Variety) My YouTube suggestions have gradually shifted these past few months to being nothing but longform music mixes, mostly ambient and downtempo, but with the occasional synthwave set thrown in. This is probably due to me playing said mixes in my office while I’m working; I’m still getting used to…

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Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring

freespeech, internet, politics, rhetoric, sex Leave a comment

Tumblr Has Banned Adult Content, RIP the Tumblr That Was (The Mary Sue) For a couple of years after my family moved back into our house post-reconstruction (following the fire we had back in 2001), we didn’t have cable television. My father claimed that he did this to encourage us to talk more with each other, but as with so many of his similar plans, he just wanted more excuses to spew out his inane prattle on any and all topics under the sun. Right after he…

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A Province to Call Home?

canada, politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

First past the post vs. proportional representation: B.C.’s referendum explained (CBC) Jared Golden declared winner of first ranked-choice congressional election, but challenge looms (Portland Press Herald) Brian Kemp’s Win In Georgia Is Tainted by Voter Suppression (Mother Jones) The combination of my growing interest in politics of all stripes in the early 1990’s, and me living close enough to the Canadian border that I was regularly watching CBC to satiate my hockey fix, meant that I quickly got hooked on CBC’s Friday night political comedy…

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