Category Archives: rhetoric

Neither Free Nor Brave

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2021.07.05 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Independence Day and the Loss of America’s Democratic Public Schools (nancybailey.com)Canada Day muted as country reckons with treatment of indigenous, other minorities (Reuters via news.yahoo.com) One of the reasons Mom kept using her VCR through her final years was so she could keep watching her recordings of the Independence Day shows put on by PBS and A&E every year. She didn’t care much for the holiday itself, but she always loved the music, especially the orchestral pieces that played during the show-ending fireworks displays. Even…

Florida Man-dates False Balance

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2021.06.28 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

A Chilling New Florida Law Will Survey University Students and Faculty About Their Political Beliefs (Slate) Of all the books I need to read this coming month for research on my next book (as always, please subscribe to my Patreon for exclusive updates on that research, one of which will be dropping later this week), Ellen Schrecker’s No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities may be the one I’m looking forward to the most. Schrecker is one of the leading historians of McCarthyism and its…

Ideology Club

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2021.06.14 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Nevada Family Alliance: That Body Cams for Teachers Group (curmudgucation.blogspot.com) The first rule of Ideology Club is anyone who claims someone else is pushing their ideology on others is trying to push their own ideology without admitting it’s an ideology. The second rule of Ideology Club is anyone who claims someone else is pushing their ideology on others is trying to push their own ideology without admitting it’s an ideology. Yeah, I know it’s not as catchy as the source material, but that doesn’t make…

America’s Summer of Discontent

politics, rhetoric 2021.05.10 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

To twist an old joke, what’s worse than a year with a US presidential election? A year with two US presidential elections. On the one hand, thinking about going through two national-level election days in a single calendar year is somewhat mitigated by the fact that our political and infotainment spheres have wrenched us to a point where we’re perpetually in a national election cycle all the time now, as can be easily seen by the cornucopia of news stories about who might run for…

Loss Upon Loss

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2021.05.03 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Is Learning “Lost” When Kids Are Out of School? (alfiekohn.org) One of the most infuriating aspects of American big business is its seemingly deliberate ignorance of how much better well-rested employees work. Case study after case study in Europe shows how employees who aren’t forced to work as long as Americans in a given week, and who get much more vacation time than what is typical here, not only get a lot more done per hour on the job, but even a lot more done…