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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[bankshot1]

Joe seemed a little pissed at dick-head Donnie's pissing on democracy and on his legitimate victory.

He has every right to feel that way.

So should most decent democracy loving Americans.

I wonder if we get a CAP-riddled tweet rebuttal from the clown grifter in chief?

[LarryBnDC]

Out of the totality of written literature are those the very best books to teach people about the times and places they are set in?

The voice is not eliminated. No longer required and eliminated are not the same thing.

Reading lists get updated and toothless geezers winge about it. This has always been and probably will always be the case.

While I'm not yet toothless, according to this article from the LA Times re the Burbank 5, the books have been quarantined until further notice.

In essence, they have been effectively eliminated.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-11-12/burbank-unified-challenges-books-including-to-kill-a-mockingbird

During a virtual meeting on Sept. 9, middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received a bit of surprising news: Until further notice, they would not be allowed to teach some of the books on their curriculum.

Five novels had been challenged in Burbank: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Theodore Taylor’s “The Cay” and Mildred D. Taylor’s Newbery Medal-winning young-adult classic “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.”

I've read 3 of the 5, and it was a long time ago, IIRC Huck Finn and of Mice and Men were assigned reads in 7, 8 or 9th grade. To Kill a Mockingbird was in high school.

But whether they are the best teaching materials I supposed depends on what is being taught. We are led to believe that racism and prejudice might have been the lessons here. and the teachers thought they were effective teaching tools in discussing the issue. perhaps greater sensitivity can be employed and giving the kids some context and spoilers as to what they might find offensive.

But banning books that some find offensive is the real offense.

And as the LAT article details many teaching orgs were firmly and loudly against the books being in lock-down.

No doubt they are toothless geezers.

That some in the community are offended by certain words or themes presented in the books is unfortunate. But the remedy to racism should be trying to understand it, discuss it, expose it, or read about it to see how it affects us today. Pretending it doesn't exist and we should not talk about it as it might offend someone or a lot of someones seems counterproductive to the presumed goal.

I'm squarely in the free speech camp and think the recent movement to restrain offensive ideas on college campuses is dangerous and stupid and somrthing the left should not remotely embrace.

the woke generation, like some of us geezers,  should take a nap from time to time, as their brains could probably benefit from some sleep.

The problem is these books teach lessons as if racism is a relic of the past of the bulk of these times are written from a white perspective.

Usually being the one of the few blacks in “A track” I can attest to feeling targeted when in discussing these books in the classroom.

But hey... I have everyone of those books on the shelf... except for the Cay. I hated that book.

The problem is these books teach lessons as if racism is a relic of the past of the bulk of these times are written from a white perspective?

And? So?

What they teach is that racism is an integral part of the past, and that there were white people who recognized this wrong and wrote books to bring that wrong to light.

That you wish to silence that white perspective of the past reflects your own current bigotry towards white people.

Teachers don't teach books. They don't choose books to preach a point if view. They use them to teach students how to examine a perspective. Those books reflect varied and relevant points if view when placed within the context of when they were written.


Any of these books can be used to teach reading, writing, and critical thinking about society then, and the challenges facing society now.

Think your Jewish Grandma would work to ban "Number the Stars" because it tells a Holocaust tale as written by a gentile?

Your argument here is weak.

No. Im not a big fan of Magical Negro classics being extolled just because they make white people feel better about themselves.

My maternal grandfather was Jewish.

Fuck you very much.

Oh, well that would be your failure to comprehend what you were challenged to read.

Then again, when you approach everything the way you do, as though you already know everything there is to know, or already have experienced all that can be experienced, it's what we can expect.

Small minds like yours yield few wonders.

And thank you for confirming your bigotry and hatred for all to see. Again.

It’s not my fault you’ve done so little in life you have such a deep seated insecurity you must measure yourself with me. It’s not my fault you find yourself lacking.

[LarryBnDC]

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal printed a piece mocking the new First Lady for being so highly educated that she uses the titled "Dr. Jill Biden". The response was tremendously averse to that opinion. Today, the WSJ tried to defend itself from the slings an arrows of the press, who they believe are all in it for the Bidens.

Here's a good response to the piece that was written by an "academic" who, um...has no doctorate of any kind. Not EdD, or PhD, or JD, or...

Well, you can read all about this faux controversy, wherever you wish, but I like this piece best:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/jill-biden-and-joseph-epstein/617377/

(Little Larry, don't bother reading it. You will discover it's all about people whom you cannot begin to comprehend, as evidenced by your own "research" that was dropped on this site.)

I only have one more Atlantic read until subscribe in January. I’m unwilling to do that so you should except the relevant points, print them out and eat them.

Meanwhile here’s a piece I like from a person I’ve known since she was a 4th grader and she was smarter than you when she was 9.

Please don’t call me ‘Doctor.’ I, Victor Frankenstein, am the Monster.
Alexandra Petri

Everyone, everyone! Please, do not address me, Victor Frankenstein, as “Doctor.” Technically, I am that Modern Prometheus, the man whose hubris has set him to steal fire from the gods and seek to create life from a reanimated corpse. Which is to say that addressing me as “Doctor” would be a mistake. I am, clearly, the Monster in this novel.

Also, I am not technically a doctor. My whole life people keep addressing me as “Doctor,” erroneously, I think because I am a man, or perhaps because I created life where there was none in a wild fit of hubris and science has yet to determine a good term for someone who does that!

I agree, I do technically possess the kind of knowledge of the natural sciences that might cause someone to be addressed as “Doctor,” and you would think, rationally, that the conversation would stop there. But nothing with me ever stops at a rational bound! I’m Victor Frankenstein! I steal body parts and reassemble them into an enormous being of my own design, I am ignorant in my pride of science, and now, I am writing an op-ed in a major newspaper asking for someone with an advanced degree to be addressed in a less respectful way.

Monica Hesse: The Wall Street Journal column about Jill Biden is worse than you thought

A doctor vows to do no harm. Can it be said that I have done no harm, when I have made a being from assorted corpse components who suffers as my Creature does? Yes, he did do a little bit of murder, and yes, I agree his attitude that he deserves a woman is sort of retrograde, but at least he never addressed anyone as “kiddo"!

Besides, everything that is wrong with him is my fault for building him that way. I just thought, “I want him to be as big as possible, and I’m sure the other details will work themselves out!” But they didn’t! That is on me, and I want the title I have earned by my negligence.

I know that people work hard all their lives to be addressed as Monsters. Am I diminishing Stephen Miller’s achievement by asking for this title? I think not. I have worked hard, too.

I have heard that no one who has not delivered a baby should be addressed as “Doctor” — and all that I have done is to reanimate a grotesque specimen. This is, in a sense, a baby, like when people call their novel or their PhD dissertation a “baby,” but in a stricter more technical sense, it is not a baby. The difference here is that creating a PhD dissertation and unleashing it on the world would make someone else a doctor, whereas creating my creature and unleashing him upon the world made me a Monster. I have rightly won this credential, and I demand to be addressed by it.

They say, too, that it is alarming and wrong to call anyone “Doctor” who could not save you if there were a medical emergency. (That is why people who have degrees in literature or education or who are professors have to refer to themselves as, say, Mr. Faustus.) Could I save you? I cannot even save myself! No, I must perish on this ice floe. It is the only way!

I should not have created a being who would be so pierced by absolute solitude, the kind of acute and painful loneliness only otherwise experienced by a man on the Internet who would gladly and eagerly address a female PhD with whom he disagreed by her correct title. And yet I have done so, and it has caused no end of pain.

I understand when people get mad and say that actually “Monster” should be reserved for people who transform during full moons or write dismissive op-eds about women’s educational credentials. But I think it should be applied to me. And I am a Monster, so you must listen.

[Hamilton Samuels]

Out of the totality of written literature are those the very best books to teach people about the times and places they are set in?

The voice is not eliminated. No longer required and eliminated are not the same thing.

Reading lists get updated and toothless geezers winge about it. This has always been and probably will always be the case.

While I'm not yet toothless, according to this article from the LA Times re the Burbank 5, the books have been quarantined until further notice.

In essence, they have been effectively eliminated.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-11-12/burbank-unified-challenges-books-including-to-kill-a-mockingbird

During a virtual meeting on Sept. 9, middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received a bit of surprising news: Until further notice, they would not be allowed to teach some of the books on their curriculum.

Five novels had been challenged in Burbank: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Theodore Taylor’s “The Cay” and Mildred D. Taylor’s Newbery Medal-winning young-adult classic “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.”

I've read 3 of the 5, and it was a long time ago, IIRC Huck Finn and of Mice and Men were assigned reads in 7, 8 or 9th grade. To Kill a Mockingbird was in high school.

But whether they are the best teaching materials I supposed depends on what is being taught. We are led to believe that racism and prejudice might have been the lessons here. and the teachers thought they were effective teaching tools in discussing the issue. perhaps greater sensitivity can be employed and giving the kids some context and spoilers as to what they might find offensive.

But banning books that some find offensive is the real offense.

And as the LAT article details many teaching orgs were firmly and loudly against the books being in lock-down.

No doubt they are toothless geezers.

That some in the community are offended by certain words or themes presented in the books is unfortunate. But the remedy to racism should be trying to understand it, discuss it, expose it, or read about it to see how it affects us today. Pretending it doesn't exist and we should not talk about it as it might offend someone or a lot of someones seems counterproductive to the presumed goal.

I'm squarely in the free speech camp and think the recent movement to restrain offensive ideas on college campuses is dangerous and stupid and somrthing the left should not remotely embrace.

the woke generation, like some of us geezers,  should take a nap from time to time, as their brains could probably benefit from some sleep.

The problem is these books teach lessons as if racism is a relic of the past of the bulk of these times are written from a white perspective.

Usually being the one of the few blacks in “A track” I can attest to feeling targeted when in discussing these books in the classroom.

But hey... I have everyone of those books on the shelf... except for the Cay. I hated that book.

The problem is these books teach lessons as if racism is a relic of the past of the bulk of these times are written from a white perspective?

And? So?

What they teach is that racism is an integral part of the past, and that there were white people who recognized this wrong and wrote books to bring that wrong to light.

That you wish to silence that white perspective of the past reflects your own current bigotry towards white people.

Teachers don't teach books. They don't choose books to preach a point if view. They use them to teach students how to examine a perspective. Those books reflect varied and relevant points if view when placed within the context of when they were written.


Any of these books can be used to teach reading, writing, and critical thinking about society then, and the challenges facing society now.

Think your Jewish Grandma would work to ban "Number the Stars" because it tells a Holocaust tale as written by a gentile?

Your argument here is weak.

No. Im not a big fan of Magical Negro classics being extolled just because they make white people feel better about themselves.

My maternal grandfather was Jewish.

Fuck you very much.

Oh, well that would be your failure to comprehend what you were challenged to read.

Then again, when you approach everything the way you do, as though you already know everything there is to know, or already have experienced all that can be experienced, it's what we can expect.

Small minds like yours yield few wonders.

And thank you for confirming your bigotry and hatred for all to see. Again.

It’s not my fault you’ve done so little in life you have such a deep seated insecurity you must measure yourself with me. It’s not my fault you find yourself lacking.

Larry, Larry, Larry.

Clearly you have yet to confront the bias and prejudice that your informs you pitiable soul.

Work on it, before you decide to continue to lecture others here, particularly in the uniquely hypocritical style of yours.

We all have faults. The difference between us? i recognize mine and try to work on them. And there's still much work to do.

But you? Your life is marked by a deep-seated anger and hatred. It's quite sad, really. Quite sad. And it's eating you up inside.

Get help.

Good luck, Larry. You'll need it.

[LarryBnDC]

You really need a hobby...

[kidcarter8]

Research Sam Seaborn's thoughts on space travel.

Help us out here.   Only through season one.

Sam Seaborn:
There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry 'cause we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber 'cause we went to the moon.

Mallory O'Brian:
And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?

Sam Seaborn:
Yes.

Mallory O'Brian:
Why?

Sam Seaborn:
'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next



https://www.quotes.net/mquote/934211

[Yankguy1]

Yawn.

[REDSTATEWARD]

Apparently Google wasn't hacked,  just glitchy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/14/google-suffers-worldwide-outage-with-gmail-youtube-and-other-services-down

The widespread failure of Google services revealed to many the extent to which they rely on the company for basic tasks. The company’s smart home services were some of the first to cause real problems: users who had rebuilt their homes around voice commands found themselves unable to turn on the lights thanks to a failure of Google Home and Google Assistant, while those with the company’s Nest thermostats were unable to control their home’s heating with an app, as they had become used to doing.


( As if that weren't enough of a textbook case of "white people problems, " there was also the paragraph describing people who were "unable to even vacuum their homes, " being tragically abandoned by Roombas which were somehow tied to Google Smart Home apps...)

“White people problems”?
How condescending of you.

[LarryBnDC]

Research Sam Seaborn's thoughts on space travel.

Help us out here.   Only through season one.

Sam Seaborn:
There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry 'cause we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber 'cause we went to the moon.

Mallory O'Brian:
And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?

Sam Seaborn:
Yes.

Mallory O'Brian:
Why?

Sam Seaborn:
'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next



https://www.quotes.net/mquote/934211

The guy wrote that scene is a writer on “This Is Us.”

[LarryBnDC]

Apparently Google wasn't hacked,  just glitchy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/14/google-suffers-worldwide-outage-with-gmail-youtube-and-other-services-down

The widespread failure of Google services revealed to many the extent to which they rely on the company for basic tasks. The company’s smart home services were some of the first to cause real problems: users who had rebuilt their homes around voice commands found themselves unable to turn on the lights thanks to a failure of Google Home and Google Assistant, while those with the company’s Nest thermostats were unable to control their home’s heating with an app, as they had become used to doing.


( As if that weren't enough of a textbook case of "white people problems, " there was also the paragraph describing people who were "unable to even vacuum their homes, " being tragically abandoned by Roombas which were somehow tied to Google Smart Home apps...)

“White people problems”?
How condescending of you.

How about “first world problems” Skippy?

[LarryBnDC]

I hear the Electoral College declared Biden the winner of the election.

William Barr resigned, he stayed three weeks longer than expected.

John le Carre', 89, died. my drawing of him on the book thread.

So amusing to see DeepRedStainWart carrying on "The White Man's Burden" 

Thinking about attending the Inauguration next month....only if I get a chance to yell
 "Bye, ShitHead!"

If he’s gonna attend the petulant test.

[LarryBnDC]

Larry, Larry, Larry.

Clearly you have yet to confront the bias and prejudice that your informs you pitiable soul.

Work on it, before you decide to continue to lecture others here, particularly in the uniquely hypocritical style of yours.

We all have faults. The difference between us? i recognize mine and try to work on them. And there's still much work to do.

But you? Your life is marked by a deep-seated anger and hatred. It's quite sad, really. Quite sad. And it's eating you up inside.

Get help.

Good luck, Larry. You'll need it.

How long have you been spilling this drivel in here?

You’re getting back to the level of hysteria when you told me I could ease my pain by killing myself.

Watch your tone, boy. These days those kind of communications can be prosecuted.

[barton]

Sam Seaborn:
There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry 'cause we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber 'cause we went to the moon.

Mallory O'Brian:
And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?

Sam Seaborn:
Yes.

Mallory O'Brian:
Why?

Sam Seaborn:
'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next

https://www.quotes.net/mquote/934211

Thanks,  KC.   Sam is a  great character,  and I can picture him saying that.   Really,  they're all great -- a great ensemble of actors.   I was saddened to learn Leo is no longer with us.   

[barton]

Apparently Google wasn't hacked,  just glitchy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/14/google-suffers-worldwide-outage-with-gmail-youtube-and-other-services-down

The widespread failure of Google services revealed to many the extent to which they rely on the company for basic tasks. The company’s smart home services were some of the first to cause real problems: users who had rebuilt their homes around voice commands found themselves unable to turn on the lights thanks to a failure of Google Home and Google Assistant, while those with the company’s Nest thermostats were unable to control their home’s heating with an app, as they had become used to doing.


( As if that weren't enough of a textbook case of "white people problems, " there was also the paragraph describing people who were "unable to even vacuum their homes, " being tragically abandoned by Roombas which were somehow tied to Google Smart Home apps...)

“White people problems”?
How condescending of you.

Nope.   It's a reference to the Louis CK standup bit.   Worth Googling finding on a search engine.   

[REDSTATEWARD]

Apparently Google wasn't hacked,  just glitchy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/14/google-suffers-worldwide-outage-with-gmail-youtube-and-other-services-down

The widespread failure of Google services revealed to many the extent to which they rely on the company for basic tasks. The company’s smart home services were some of the first to cause real problems: users who had rebuilt their homes around voice commands found themselves unable to turn on the lights thanks to a failure of Google Home and Google Assistant, while those with the company’s Nest thermostats were unable to control their home’s heating with an app, as they had become used to doing.


( As if that weren't enough of a textbook case of "white people problems, " there was also the paragraph describing people who were "unable to even vacuum their homes, " being tragically abandoned by Roombas which were somehow tied to Google Smart Home apps...)

“White people problems”?
How condescending of you.

Nope.   It's a reference to the Louis CK standup bit.   Worth Googling finding on a search engine.

ROFL