Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Memories of Prides Past

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021

I’m not going to lie — the last year or so has been a doozy. My kids’ school shut down in March and, like everyone else, we’ve been just trying to keep our heads above water. College selection, high school graduation, senior dance performance, summer teaching job — all these were scaled back or shifted to virtual for my oldest. The robotics competition season was simply cancelled; our living room became a storage locker for tools and materials, in case the kids were able to work on their robot outside the school or over the summer. This past school year was all online — my oldest did go off to school but took his classes from his dorm room, while the other two attended Zoom school in their bedrooms. My wife turned our dining room into her classroom, complete with posters and number corners; she worked overtime all summer learning new technologies and creating materials to teach remotely.

And so, here we are at the start of another Pride Month and — I’ll be honest — I’ve not really had the time or energy to think about it. Heck, I haven’t even really been wearing my pride shirts (but in my defense, I haven’t been wearing anything, so…)

With that in mind, I’m thinking about it now. Specifically, I’m thinking about Prides past.

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A New Look for Civics Lessons

Saturday, September 21st, 2019

According to a survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, only two out of every five Americans could name all three branches of the federal government and one in five couldn’t name even a single branch. This is better than it has been in past years, but the survey unequivocally shows that Americans really need to know more than they do about how their country works. Fortunately, there is a solution.

High school civics classes, as you’d expect, make a big difference in an adult’s knowledge on the topic. With that in mind, Florida Representative Alcee L. Hastings, along with 62 cosponsors, has introduced a bill to allocate additional funding for civics classes as a means of addressing this issue. Rep. Hastings, however, is not the only one tackling the problem. The Center for Cartoon Studies might seem an unlikely ally in the push to increase civics awareness, but they could very well be the key to getting kids — and adults — up to speed on the way government works.

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Two and a Half Years of Trump

Monday, June 3rd, 2019

At the end of 2016, I wrote about the election of Donald Trump to the office of President of the United States and how to talk to my kids about it. I made some predictions about the effects of a Trump presidency, all of which came true. (Don’t congratulate me too hard; they were all quite obvious.) Even as he tweeted about Pride Month, the Orange Menace was rolling back protections for the LGBTQ+ community.

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Talking to Kids About Trump

Wednesday, November 9th, 2016

My Daughter's Whiteboard Crossed out: Equality, Diversity, Constitution, and Education

My Daughter’s Whiteboard
Crossed out: Equality, Diversity, Constitution, and Education

Well that didn’t go the way I’d hoped.  Welcome to a Trumpian world.  Or perhaps I should say dysTrumpian.  In case you hadn’t heard, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States.

I’m sure there will be plenty of analysis about how this happened and what went wrong and who is to blame.  Personally, I blame those who underestimated the amount of racism and hatred that has been hiding and festering in this country for at least the last 150 years.  I also blame not only those who fought for Trump but also those who fought against Hillary Clinton.  Too many people went around saying that while Trump was a nightmare, they didn’t trust Clinton or believed she was dishonest or even simply didn’t like her.

But that’s not the issue I need to deal with right now.  What I need to figure out is what to tell my kids.

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Being a Model Citizen

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014

Voter PamphletOkay, I admit it.  Other than for a couple of critical issues, I am just not that into politics.  When an election rolls around, I try to pick people who will run things for me the way I want them to, and that’s about it.  So when I realized that today was the primary election here in California — on the way home from taking the kids bowling — I was seriously considering blowing off voting.

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Why I’m a Girl Scout

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

I grew up in San Francisco, California and was definitely raised a city boy.  As a child, I could make my way around the Tenderloin at night as surely as Grizzly Adams navigated the Sierras.  I grew up on food from around the world and could use chopsticks as deftly as a country boy could handle a whittlin’ knife.  Buses and streetcars were my horses, alleys my hiking trails, skyscrapers my hills and mountains.  Guns, even the aquatic variety, were verboten (hunting was something done at antique stores or garage sales) and I think the only reason my mother allowed me fishing gear was because there weren’t any fish anywhere near us to be caught, other than at the grocery store; neither one of us would have known what to do if I actually did catch one.  In our family, “roughing it” meant going to “Opera in the Park”.

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One Ad, Two Dads, One Million Moms

Friday, June 1st, 2012

JC Penney's Fathers' Day AdWell, J.C. Penney is at it again.  They’re trying to destroy the very fabric of our society, causing social upheaval, widespread misery, and universal damnation.  Yep, they’re running a father’s day ad with real-life dads in it.  Two of ’em, to be exact.  But how is that any different from the hordes of other advertisements we’ll be subjected to over the next couple of weeks as we work our way towards Dad’s day?  It’s because the couple in question is just that — a couple.

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Grading on a Curve — for Schools

Thursday, February 9th, 2012

A young girl, studying in schoolGenerally speaking, in order to get an “A” grade, you have to demonstrate that not only did you learn the material but that you demonstrated an understanding far beyond what was expected for the course.  You could say that someone deserving of an “A” would know the material so well that they wouldn’t even make careless mistakes on a test — the material would be far too simple to provide any wrong answers.  In the case of a school, an “A” would mean that the school is turning out students who not only meet the standards but go well beyond them.  But what do you do if your schools aren’t performing so well and you still want to say they get an “A”?  Well, if you’re the Public Education Department in New Mexico, you redefine what it means to get an “A”.

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Alex P. Keaton and the Fourth of July

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

I have an early memory — probably from about age four or five — of Fourth of July fireworks.  We had gone to see the big fireworks show and I was in bed trying to go to sleep.  Back then, however, firecrackers and bottle rockets were completely legal and larger explosives were not uncommon.  To a young child, however, the noise was terrifying — I knew for sure that one of those fireworks I was hearing was going to land on our roof and burn the house down with all of us in it.  And perhaps that’s why I’m an ultra-liberal these days.  Yes, before you head out to that Fourth of July parade or fire up the Independence Day barbecue, you might want to take a look at what a new study has to say about the lasting effects of such festivities.

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Don’t Say Gay in Tennessee

Saturday, May 21st, 2011

I gather it’s not easy being gay in Tennessee. If you listen to country music, most of it seems to be about the value and nobility of small town life — hard labor, cheap beer, and church on Sunday. There’s not much room in there for difference, let alone anything not considered manly. It seems the rest of the state isn’t much different from Nashville’s music. The state senate has recently approved a bill that would prevent teachers from discussing anything related to homosexuality before the ninth grade.

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