As a general rule anything John Hawkins writes is worth checking out so when he mentioned that he has a new substack focusing on the culture wars called Cultursidal and asked if I’d mention it I immediately checked it out.
As you might guess there are interesting pieces but what caught my eye the most is this from the “about” page:
Andrew Breitbart was absolutely right when he said that “politics is downstream from culture.” However, Breitbart didn’t go nearly far enough. In one sense or another, almost everything that matters is downstream from culture. That’s because a non-functional culture produces non-functional people. The sort of people who create disastrous, broken lives for themselves and then demand that the rest of the world change to accommodate their bad decisions. Go look at #BlackLivesMatter, ANTIFA, Incels, transsexuals, drag queens, furries, welfare addicts, modern feminists, Nazis, and any number of other groups and you’ll see people who are losers that want to rewrite the rules of the game to make themselves winners. It would be easy to blame society for their problems, but that’s not quite accurate. They largely created their own problems and society is at fault to the extent that it cruelly caters to their delusions instead of pointing them in the right direction.
As both a cultural warrior who has been told more times than he can count by people supposedly on my side who make their living off of public office & power that my concerns over the last three decades that fighting said wars were overstated and as a practicing Catholic who actually believes in the faith and worried about the salvation of individuals this is one of the best summaries of what is going on.
Why bother to achieve in reality when you can redefine achievement? Why bother struggling against sin when you can redefine sin? It’s literally the oldest trick in the book: you will be like gods and the Devil has been taking people with it for decades?
This alone tells me that John gets it and it’s the reason why I’m happy to interrupt this blog long enough to tell you to head on over and check out Culturcidal today and on a regular basis.
Posted: August 11, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized
I was rather surprised to hear about Cuomo’s resignation. I’m curious as to what the carrot was because the stick wasn’t going to be enough. I was pretty sure he would brazen it out as he’s done so many other times.
It’s been suggested by old friend that the carrot would be prosecutors after a time giving this case a miss. This is extremely possible but I think the bigger carrot might be for the various leftist organization retaining various members of the Cuomo clan in their jobs. Although I suspect this will not apply to cousins and nephews and nieces and children of same who will suddenly discover that there is no longer an incentive to tolerate any lack of competence
There are some who are calling this a victory for Janice Dean who lost her parents in a nursing home under the Cuomo rules, but I think that what his departure in disgrace is welcome it likely means that the Nursing Home abuses that cost thousands of lives will be swept under the rug because said abuses reflect not just on Cuomo but on the lot.
Speaking of incompetent relatives it will be interesting to see how long Cuomo’s brother lasts on CNN. I suspect they will wait a short time for appearances sake before replacing him, but all of that might have to do with the older brother keeping his mouth shut about what he knows. I suspect that will have a lot to do with if he is prosecuted or not.
Finally I don’t expect much from the New Governor of NY basically we are dealing with a NY liberal who to my knowledge had nothing bad to say about Gov Cuomo’s policies or his actions until this stuff became public knowledge. Like the media and the folks who gave him an Emmy she remained blissfully ignorant at best and complacently silent at worst. In other words a perfect Democrat office holder.
Vietnam veteran Bill Poulton stood on the bandstand erected on his farm in Muncy, Pennsylvania, and asked the several hundred spectators to stand.
With almost military precision, the assembled crowd rose, placed their hands over their hearts, looked upward to the American flag nearby, and said the pledge of allegiance.
I hadn’t seen such a display of unity and patriotism in many years. It was a striking reminder that my wife and I had chosen well when we decided to leave the woke environment of Philadelphia and move to Muncy, a town of 2,500 people in central Pennsylvania.
After the pledge, the crowd settled back into their lawn chairs to listen to The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra perform a collection of old American tunes from around the turn of the 20th century.
Nearby, Boy Scouts sold hot dogs to raise money for their troop, and the Muncy High School band and choir offered burgers at another stand. The Muncy Historical Society provided free popcorn.
“It was a slice of Americana,” one of the organizers told us. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have put it any better, and the scene just a few blocks away from our home was reminiscent of a Rockwell drawing.
Rick Benjamin, the orchestra leader, provided background about each of the songs, including tunes from Scott Joplin, John Philip Sousa, and some lesser-known composers. Our neighbor, talented soprano Bernadette Boerckel, sang some of the selections, such as “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” by Gus Edwards. She led the crowd in a rendition of The Pan Alley Song Medley, which included “The Sidewalks of New York,” “Sweet Rosie O’Grady,” “A Bicycle Built for Two,” and “The Band Played On.” Muncy Ragtime Band
As twilight merged into nighttime, the orchestra erupted into an encore by John Philip Sousa, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
On a cloudy, summer evening, this verse seemed particularly appropriate:
“Let eagle shriek from lofty peak The never-ending watchword of our land; Let summer breeze waft through the trees The echo of the chorus grand. Sing out for liberty and light, Sing out for freedom and the right. Sing out for Union and its might, O patriotic sons.”
SHREVEPORT – In absolutely shocking news today (insert sarcasm here), the standardized testing scores for Louisiana’s students last year show a significant drop as both teachers and students attempted to conduct classes in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, there are now calls to shelve the annual school report card scores:
The letter grades are typically announced in November and are aimed at showing taxpayers how schools are performing.
But scores in math, English, science, and social studies took a nosedive that affected virtually every school system in the state.
Scores on the exams, called LEAP 2025, fell 5 percentage points in meeting state achievement targets after years of inching up a point or two annually.
This is an indicator to why so many people distrust the suits that run public education. Who in the world ever thought this would turn out any differently? Who thought these test scores would resemble anything like a normal year? Who thought it was even a good idea to go ahead with standardized testing in a year when students were dealing with unprecedented stress because of the pandemic?
It doesn’t matter how you feel about the pandemic; that’s not the issue here. Whether you believe it is a political conspiracy or the next bubonic plague – it doesn’t matter here. The events since March 2020 have affected literally everyone in some degree or another, but I’m not sure we are paying enough attention to how it has affected our at risk kids, or even kids in general.
Let me tell you what I saw.
I taught in a Title 1 school for twenty years and that’s where I was when this all rolled out. In our high school we had kids in extreme poverty, terrible home situations, homeless kids, stories that would make you weep. Not every kid was in a dire situation but by far the majority had some level of poverty at the very least. I say this only to indicate the level of stress at which these kids were already functioning.
In March 2020 we closed schools and they did not reopen until August. For at least five months these kids lost the support system of the school including the administrators and educators who look out for them, who look to be sure they have food, a roof over their head, or if abuse is present. In our school we have paid electric bills, bought shoes, found housing, provided meals and clothing when it was needed. Maybe this isn’t the job of a school, but it’s the job of humanity.
When we returned in August, our kids were so damn glad to be back in a social, structured environment, we had zero classroom management issues. But, we had other issues.
We dealt with quarantines and A/B schedules. We struggled with online classes, kids with no technology, kids with no home support, kids that never logged on. Imagine the struggle of a child trying to log onto an online Chemistry class while mom is entertaining all night, your house is filled with people some of whom you don’t know. You aren’t getting proper rest or food. Maybe you don’t have electricity. You don’t know where you are going to be sleeping from one night to another. Any number of heartbreaking situations.
And we expect these kids to learn at the same level as a normal year? And then give them a standardized test?
When our State Dept of Education announced that we would not waive testing as some other states had done, as teachers we had no choice but to do our best to prepare these kids as best we could. So many of them felt unfathomable stress over these tests. It broke my heart.
The State wanted the data. They wanted to see how far students had dropped, what the learning loss was because of the pandemic.
So now they know.
And I could have told them all along that the scores would drop. I had only half my kids in class at any given time. In addition to the quarantines and the illness, as teachers we also dealt with incessant cleaning and sanitizing our rooms and equipment. We had to modify lessons and deal with changing restrictions and guidelines on a weekly basis. Kids weren’t the only ones feeling the stress.
And so now those brilliant Suits in Education think maybe it could be a good idea to waive school report card scores. We spend a bloody fortune on standardized testing which we knew would show a significant drop yet we forked over all that money anyway, and for what?
For what?
What has been gained from all that testing?
Nothing.
And the suits in Education wonder why we rail against public education.
