Every time I see the Links name, I think of this.
General Flynn is finding out what fragging means.
Don’t let your drones drown. Or something. Playa Manhattan hardest hit.
One nice thing about Trump Derangement Syndrome- we now know how to outsource proofreading.
And just in case you’re looking for grant fodder, here’s something new to shit your pants about.
And not news, but I just love Chef John. So here’s a plug and it’s even apropos for today.
It’s Valentine’s Day! Treat your beloved to a romantic candlelight dinner…
… while the soulful stylings of Yumi Matsutoya play in the background.
So I read a book recommended to me by a nice dealer at the Lewisville Gun Show a few weekends back: Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse, by James Wesley Rawles. I’ll give a brief review, then I thought it might be interesting to open up the comments to ideas on prepping and survivalism, since these are recurrent themes in a lot of the circles that radical constitutionalists and libertarians run in.
I am sorry to say the book disappoints. The writing is didactic in the extreme. People regularly refer to their gear by both the brand and model number, and their weapons by brand, model, and caliber. In casual conversation. I don’t think at any point during my time in the Army National Guard did I ever refer to my equipment by anything more than it’s most generic name, i.e., “Hey hand me my LBE”. The names of specific companies where supplies were purchased are given, and even the names of the clerks at the companies that the protagonists deal with, only to never be used throughout the rest of the story. The author goes into agonizing detail on how to weld steel shutters over your windows, set up traps, etc. Frankly it reads more like the author wanted to write a how-to manual on setting up your own Cwazy Compund, but decided to do it through the medium of a novel.
There are, of course, the usual fringe-right fever dreams. The villains are cardboard cutouts: the UN, lead by nefarious Europeans, wants to conquer America because they simultaneously hate/envy us because we’re free, and two traveling communists are found to be literally eating children. Only religious people can be moral, and one of the most important things you ask refugees when you first meet them is if they’re Christian. It’s formulaic: everyone who has a Bible or mentions going to Bible study is found to be a good-guy, and the ones who don’t, well…see the second sentence of this paragraph. There is a Jew who is one of the main protagonists, though he several times reminds the group that they worship the same God. Their Christianity is repeatedly invoked as being the reason they don’t go around raping and pillaging. The main protagonist is leery of leaving two young people alone at his compound, because he won’t tolerate “fornication”, but his wife assures him that as Good Christians they can be trusted to be celibate until they are married. And the Waco and Ruby Ridge killings by the government are described as specifically being the massacre of Christians who just want to be left alone. Would those incidents have been less tragic if they were Buddhists?
There is a happy ending – a Libertarian gets elected president! Hooray! But aside from that, I’m afraid it doesn’t resonate with a person like myself, who is taking sensible precautions for a several week disruption of supplies and services (accompanied by potential looters or attempts at street violence by bolsheviks), but doesn’t have the time or money needed to create your own private Fortress of Solitude in rural Idaho. Even if it sounds like a fun project, I have no doubt that a divorce would be in my near future should I attempt the thing!
That brought me the idea for the post: if you’re reading this, presumably you, too, are of a libertarian-ish bent. That means that it is likely that you have thought about prepping in some form or other. Personally, I have several weeks worth of water and non-perishable food stored, a bug-out bag with the usual contents, and a variety of weapons in several common calibers, with a few hundred spare rounds for each.
So I’ll open it up to the comments: do you consider yourself a “prepper”? What thought, if any, have you given it? What preparations have you made? What’s in your bug-out bag? What’s your main plan (bug-out, bug-in, etc.)? Perhaps we can have future articles on BOB prep, good fall-back locations, tips & tricks on making do without utility service, etc.
Fredrick Hess, former social studies teacher, asked on EducationNext this morning whether educational scholars are afflicted with a bias. He ponders that the movers and shakers of our nation’s schools may have an anti-conservative bent which leaves masses of the ruralvolk and their ilk cold, if not blocking them out of the conversation entirely.
He would like you to judge for yourself.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA), an Affiliated Group of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), invites proposals for its Annual Conference, which will be held on November 15-17, 2016, in San Francisco, CA. The theme of this year’s NCSS conference is Expanding Visions/Bridging Traditions. In the spirit of this year’s theme, the CUFA 2017 program will challenge presenters and attendees to (re)envision the future of social studies while also responding to the present conditions of the field. CUFA 2017 will look at what social studies can make possible in turbulent times when settler colonialism, systemic and systematic racism, white supremacy, Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, free speech and voter suppression, socioeconomic disparities, sexism, environmental destruction, and the corporatization of PK-12 and teacher education (to name a few) continue to threaten each and every one of us, both personally and professionally, in the United States and around the world. Social studies education must be(come) a driving force for social change.
As Program Chair, I challenge you to disrupt status quo discourses, practices, and methods in your paper and session proposals. I ask you to consider the following question: How does your research and/or teaching work to transform social studies education in our local, state, national, and global communities?
As you prepare your proposals, please consider the following areas of relevance for social studies in PK-12 and higher education settings:
Intersectionality
Decolonization
Anti-Oppressive, Anti-Racist, and Critical Pedagogies
Subversive Social Studies Teaching Methods
Indigenous Studies
Gender Studies
LGBTQ+ Studies
Critical Race Studies
Critical Media Literacy
Environmental Justice
Technology
Economics Education
Geography Education
Global Education
Politics, Power, and Policy in Social Studies Education
Research Methodologies (Qualitative, Post-Qualitative, Quantitative, Mixed Methods)
Social Studies Advocacy and Outreach
Citizenship Education
History EducationThis year’s program will include individual papers and roundtables, symposia, contemporary issue dialogues (CIDs), invited speakers, and CUFA/NCSS co-sponsored Research into Practice (RIP) sessions. I am also working closely with NCSS event staff to offer CUFA pre-conference workshops on the morning of Wednesday, November 15. CUFA 2017 will continue to also feature an unconference space and the Java Networks lunch.
I encourage colleagues preparing symposia and CID proposals to explicitly create space(s) that talk across theories, methodologies, and practices where everyone is seen, heard, and can contribute to new visions for social studies. I urge colleagues from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to submit their work. Accepted proposals will be linked to presentations through the open conference system. Authors will have the option of uploading their completed papers to replace the proposal after the program is finalized.
The submission deadline is 11:59 pm PST, Tuesday, February 28, 2017: http://www.socialstudies.org/cufa2017/openconf.php. No submissions will be accepted after that time and date.
For those of you on Twitter, please tweet about the conference using the official conference hashtag: #CUFA17. I will also post regular updates about the conference on CUFA’s Facebook groups.
If you have any questions about the call, proposal submission process, or reviewer sign-up process, please contact me at [email redacted]. Thank you for your hard work and commitment to the social studies education community.
In Solidarity,
SarahSarah B. Shear, Ph.D.
CUFA Program Chair, 2017 San Francisco
Assistant Professor, Social Studies Education, Penn State Altoona
Faculty, The Graduate School, The Pennsylvania State University
Mr. Hess made efforts to discuss this with his fellow educators and colleagues, and the response was, in part, to ask whether any possible bias was a “product of his imagination”.
First off, Happy Valentines Day to all you lovebirds out there. Now let’s get the day going.
All that news out of the White House about Michael Flynn staying put turned out to be the real “palace intrigue”. Flynn has resigned from his National Security Advisor post after a very short time in office.
All the protests, marches and pussy hats haven’t prevented Donald Trump from maintaining his popularity out there in flyover country.
Rahm Emanuel flew to D.C. recently in a bid to forge new relationships with the new GOP power players and shore up support from some old Democrat stalwarts.
UConn’s women’s basketball team won their record 100th consecutive game.
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca’s legal defense took several hits yesterday, as he prepares for his retrial on federal obstruction of justice charges.
I will admit that, being an old fart, I have never heard of PewDiePie before. Apparently, he’s a YouTube phenom, and has triggered the screeching of the Humor Police.
Maker Studios dropped Kjellberg on Monday after a Wall Street Journal investigation highlighted the anti-Semitic sign, as well as eight other videos that included anti-Jewish jokes or Nazi images.
Now, one does not have to be a dreaded “alt-righter” (whatever the fuck that actually means) to see the humor in what he’s doing. I think it takes a special sort of stupid to conclude that because he used Nazis and Nazi symbology as a means of parody (“what people will do for five bucks!”) that this is somehow anti-Jewish or threatens people in any way. But the Humor Police are always on the job, stamping out anything that looks even the tiniest bit transgressive.
So in that vein, I will confess that this video cracked me up. For a donation, this school will teach any English phrase you like. Since I found this funny, clearly I’m advocating that little kids use intoxicants. Right?
OK, quick quiz. You’re an employer who has either fallen prey to the stupid Nancy Reagan delusion or is required to profess fealty because of contracts or regulation. The emphasis is heroin, since that’s been grabbing the headlines. You have a drug test, done by one of the “certified” labs that has greased the correct palms; this test is 98% accurate for heroin detection. You randomly grab one of your workers, force her to piss in a cup, and you get a positive result. What is the probability she’s a heroin user?
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Let’s see how that’s working out, shall we?
A dozen airport and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees have been arrested for their alleged involvement in a massive cocaine smuggling operation in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
Which one of the preamble clauses do you think government drug smuggling and trafficking is? It must fall under one of those clauses, since that’s what the government is for and this is what the government is doing.
Logic, how does it work. Like this, clearly:
An Airport Aviation Services worker, who was a baggage handler and ramp employee, is charged with paying TSA employees to clear the suitcases stuffed with cocaine; taking the suitcases to their designated flights; and giving a drug trafficking organization member the “all clear” for mules to board the plane.
“These individuals were involved in a conspiracy to traffic massive quantities of illegal narcotics to the continental United States,” Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, said in a statement. “These arrests demonstrate the success of the AirTAT initiative, which has successfully allocated a dedicated group of state and federal law enforcement officers, whose mission is to ensure that our airports are not used in the drug traffickers’ illicit businesses.”
Emphasis added for effect. A government agency charged with providing for the common defense requires yet another government initiative and a dedicated team to police it to also provide for the common defense violated by the first agency.
Children sing of an old woman who swallowed a dog to catch a cat that she’d swallowed to catch a bird that she’d swallowed to catch a spider that she’d swallowed to catch a fly. As analogies go, this works quite well.
(Spoiler: no one knows why she swallowed the fly. Analogy still accurate.)
It remains unclear how much it will cost to swallow the buffalo to catch the cougar needed to catch the goat, and it seems unlikely we can comfortably swallow the elephant currently being eyeballed. In the old days, before modern medical innovations, the patient usually died but one must keep in mind the profession only had horses to rely upon. We’ve learned so much since then.
What a good thing the entire affair is such a demonstrated success.
The TSA has dealt with a number of high-profile security lapses at airports in recent years, including a gun-smuggling operation uncovered at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in 2015.
… awkward…
So, how ’bout them Bears?
Well. This is probably far preferable to and not even remotely similar to bathrooms and cloths and million-dollar birthday gifts. Sound off in the comments to explain which clause this feels like to you.
It’s been a good day, people. Let’s see what’s going on in the world…
The Hair and Zoolander do a little dance at their first joint presser. Both note the differences in policies and vow to work through them. Huh, almost sounds like what responsible adults do when they interact in the real world.
The New York Times has reprimanded a reporter for calling Melania Trump a hooker at a New York fashion week event over the weekend. They won’t say who the reporter is although Emily Ratajkowski made the comments public.
Somebody other than CNN and Alex Jones is about to seriously cash in on fake news.
The LA Metro is hemorrhaging ridership and the LA Times wants to know how to reverse it.
Like father like son in a very bad way. Jerry Sandusky, of Penn State child rape notoriety, has a son that was arrested for…you guessed it.
In an interesting piece over at The Daily Beast, Julian Zelizer posits that Gorsuch,
while eminently qualified to sit on the nation’s highest court, be Borked out of spite.
He begins with a fair amount of logic when he says:
“Given Gorsuch’s stellar professional record, his competence does not seem to be in question. At least from the leaked remarks about his meeting with Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, he appears to have a healthy unease with President Trump’s aggressive statements about the judiciary.”
Fair enough, you say? Well, his hysteria just couldn’t be contained anymore a couple paragraphs later. He begins to bemoan that Trump didn’t send a “consensus pick” and that since he “lost the popular election by large numbers,” he should have nominated someone that Democrats would want to vote for rather than the right. Now, I’m sure that he might have a different view of what a “consensus pick is”, but I’d reckon that a voice vote that was essentially unanimous in 2006 with a dozen current Democrat Senators as well as the recent President, Vice President, and the last two Democrat-appointed Secretaries of State on the record as supporting comes pretty close to it.
So he wants Gorsuch to get “Borked”. He’s too conservative and its simply not fair that the Senate chose to abide by the Biden Rule, proposed in a fit in 1992 by then-Senator and recent Vice President Joe Biden in an effort to undermine the possibility of George HW Bush filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court that never materialized. It’s just not fair that one of the Justices furthest to the right be replaced by someone relatively far to the right when Obama would have put someone left of center on the bench.
Perhaps the Senate didn’t do their job last year. Perhaps Biden should have kept his mouth shut in 1992 and this never would have happened. And perhaps Democrats mailed it in in 2006. I won’t try to answer those questions here. But I have a hard time respecting someone that would call for an eminently-qualified jurist to be kept off the highest court in the land merely out of spite. It undermines the presidential prerogative to nominate judges to federal judgeships that has served us well for over 200 years.