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Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Meanwhile our very eloguent speaking President just returned with his son, Hunter, from a taxpayer funded trip to Ireland where he promised that there is nothing our nations cannot achieve if we "do it together.....and go lick the world"!

Joseph Gentilini

Have enjoyed reading all the discussion on grammar, which I also did not like.  I still can't understand the different tenses, especially past-perfect, etc.  Never made any sense to me.  For 2 years I helped teach the American English language to a woman from Japan.  When we got to these past-perfect stuff, I told her that I could tell her which sounded correct, but I couldn't explain it.  she laughed and said there are things in Japanese that she would say the same thing about to me.

Mary Margaret - I take it you were being a bit (!) sarcastic in using the adjective of "eloquent" before the word president.  He may not be the most eloquent president, but he didn't try to overthrow the government or consistently lie as the last president did!

Joseph Gentilini

Oh, I really did like to diagram sentences which my 7th grade teacher loved to do and taught us to like it also.  Well, I liked it - helped me with my English.  joe

Michael McLeod

I wonder if they make kids diagram sentences these days. Haven't hear my brilliant, way-smarter-than-me-and I'm-not-kidding montessori early ed girlfriend mention it. 

She is one well rounded human being. Apart from being brilliant and dedicated as a teacher she was raised way out in the sticks - as in "you can play with that little piggie kids but just know it's eventually going to be our dinner so you probably don't want to give it a cute name"  - and does lots and lots of traditionally dude things way better than I could ever dream of doing. It's humbling, if not embarrassing, but I'd be a fool to complain.

Plus, I forgot, on top of everything else she's gangsta. Potentially. She's in line for a third degree felony if desantis and his crew catch her with a book in her classroom that they deem objectionable. Heaven help her if it features too many black characters or kids questioning the body they were born in.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mike,

As part of training surrounding HR 1467, educators were reminded of the felony penalties contained in Florida statute 847.012.

HB 1467 does not, itself, impose felony penalties on educators for leaving unapproved books in their classroom collections, nor does it explicitly require any educator to cover the library with paper or anything of that nature. However, training materials provided at the county level for the express purpose of educating teachers on the new law explicitly recommended covering unapproved books and warned of third-degree felony penalties for the distribution of books deemed harmful to children under a pre-existing anti-pornography law. Pornography defined in the Miriam Webster dictionary is the depiction of erotic behavior, as in pictures or writing intended to cause sexual excitement. Florida statute 847.012 further describes this and that any person violating any provision of this section commits a felony in the third degree. 

You might want to check out the latest User Forum post regarding materials that have been found in certain school districts' libraries to see if any of our grandchildren should be exposed to them without a parent's consent.. 

Michael McLeod

thanks mm. she's been briefed. 

PS I believe she still has a copy of "The Boy with the Pink Shadow" in her classroom. So I am tempted to turn her in.

Jeanine Eilers (Decker)

Yesterday I had lunch and several hours of great conversation with Julie Carpenter who was in town (far east side) to see her sister.  We had an outstanding time and it made me think about how welcome all of you would be in my home or just for lunch or dinner any time.  Arizona is so beautiful and we would be glad to take you to the Grand Canyon or any of the wonderful mountain communities or Indian reservations that make this state so special.  So, just remember, you are always just a phone call away.  

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mike....I have alerted the authorities for you. I suggested that they might want to check out the books in a Montessori classroom somewhere in Orlando🙂

Michael McLeod

Jeanine that is just so gracious of you. I am way too grumpy to travel but you get like a dozen brownie points just for extending that invite.

In other news, every now and then a random memory from childhood often pops into my head, as it just now did. I'm sure it's a fairly common occurrance for people our age.

I may have mentioned this before but often these random memories are attached to things my father said, little sayings that popped up that I hadn't heard from anyone else befor or since. If there were chores to do around the house for me and my sisters, he would say, mostly in jest: "When I say frog, you jump!"

Looking back I think that expression, like many of his that I remember, date back to his years in the active service during world war 2, and then afterwards due to his continued military connection in the reserves.

Anyway the memory of that expression brings a smile to my face. It sounds like he was being grumpy but he was just having fun with us.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

My Dad used to tell us.....Whenever you get a chance to change a subject....go for it!  

Not really, but I am changing the subject for the moment and then you can all get back to light-hearted topics. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

In this discussion, U.S. Presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy and cultural critic, James Lindsay delve into the the tactics and stategies used in the ongoing culture war. They discuss the challenges within the current political landscape, the rise of the ESG movement, and the strategic maneuvers used to demoralize and exhaust creative problem-solving. Together, they expose the hidden playbook of their opponents and emphasize the need to address the root causes of cultural and political issues. The hour-long conversation provides valuable insights into the long-term strategies employed activist groups to infiltrate and to subvert institutions. 

https://youtu.be/uXg56vmA-SM

Michael McLeod

In that same vein, I'd like everyone to take a look at this inspirational video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THcOw8LK55c

Michael McLeod

My new hero:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYICBReugOQ&ab_channel=MSNBC

Deborah Alexander (Rogers)

Happy Birthday, Janie!  Have a wonderful day and a joyful year.  Thanks for all your work to keep us all together and in touch on this website.  We appreciate you!!

Debbie

Michael McLeod

Happy Birthday Janie and thanks for keepin' it together. 

That's some trick, these days.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Janie,

Happy Birthday from your deer friends out west!

Jim

Michael Boulware

Jocko,

We had a golf outing to Pensacola, Florida last week. Our class was well represented. Don Holland, Brian McNamara, Tom McKeon, Kevin Ryan, Bob Curtin, and me were there from the class of '66. Rocky Amicon, Tom  McGarity , Bill Hummer, and Jeff Allen represented the class of '67. Fr. Larry Hummer started this annual excursion a long time ago and we really have a lot of fun being there. 

Brian told the story of taking you to the zoo, holding a pet monkey, on his Vespa and had everyone laughing. I was wondering if you remember doing that. Other participants were Dave Hanson fron U.K., Dan O' Rourke {Curtin's brother-in-law}; Mike Polaski, Tom Bish, and Steve Campell from Brookhaven. My neighbor, Jim Badgley was our Grove Ciiy golfer.  

Joseph Gentilini

Glad everyone had a good time in Florida for the golf outing and that our class was so well represented!

Happy Birthday, Jane!!

joe

Michael McLeod

That's a nice part of Florida -- the panhandle of the state.

Worked at the paper there many years ago. We called th area "L.A." -- for "lower Alabama."

That era of my life represented my awakening to real seafood, among other things. 

Joseph D. McCarthy

Sorry to interrupt the life in Florida, but I thought I would change the subject for a short item.  I have been meaning to mention this, but I kept forgetting.

I recently received an item from Turkey and then another from Canada; both with Tracking numbers.

Trying to figure out the whole thing, was it FedEx, UPS, DHL, or mail can be frustrating.  However, a while ago, and I won't say how many years, I found a way to enter a tracking number and have the APP tell me everything.

         https://parcelsapp.com/en/tracking           

Now we return to your normal program.

Joe

Joseph Gentilini

THANKS, JOE!

John Jackson

I’ve been meaning to write about the Dominion Voting Systems libel suit against Fox News for several months (and I realize that much of this, for those who follow mainstream media, is old news), but now that the suit has settled, here goes…

As part of the lengthy pre-trial discovery process, Fox News was obliged to hand over thousands of internal texts and emails that showed that Rupert Murdoch and Fox News prime-time anchors (Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Maria Bartiromo) knew, in no uncertain terms, that the stolen election claims by Trump and his merry band of delusional attorneys (Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and others) were total BS.  Yet Fox, even after it was obvious that there was no credible evidence to support the fraud claims, continued to hype the story and treat these claims seriously. 

In other Fox internal emails and texts it became apparent that, even though they knew the fraud claims were baseless, Fox was worried that its viewers, who desperately wanted to believe that Trump had won, would desert Fox for even more ultra–right news outlets like Newsmax and OAN.  So Fox made a “business decision” to lie to their viewers and continue to treat the stolen election claims seriously to preserve their market share among right wing viewers who desperately wanted to believe that Trump had been robbed. 

But, thankfully, Fox viewers have been spared these uncomfortble facts because “fair and balanced” Fox News has not seen fit to trouble its viewers with this embarrassing information.  Moreover, no one expects any serious change in their future behavior because Fox views $800 million penalties like this as simply the cost of doing business. 

And never mind the damage Fox has done to American democracy by convincing a large swath of voters that our election process is rigged.  The Fox business model of serving up lies and conspiracy theories that its viewers desperately want to believe is just too lucrative – and at Fox, money trumps democracy (and the truth) every time.

John Jackson

In other news, Mike Lindell (“the My Pillow guy” and a frequent advertiser and guest on Fox News) sponsored a “Prove Mike Wrong” contest with a $5 million prize for anyone who could disprove "evidence" he had gathered that purported to show Chinese interference in the 2020 election.  

A computer forensic expert from Utah (also a two time Trump voter who said he entered the contest because “a false narrative about election fraud is just really damaging to this country”) was the only contestant.  His 15-page entry was rejected by Lindell’s contest organizers but the contest rules specified that any dispute would go to binding arbitration and a three member panel of the American Arbitration Association has now ruled that Lindell will have to pay.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/us/politics/mike-lindell-arbitration-case-5-million.html

Michael McLeod

John:

As an educator who is in a relationship with an educator, I see the duping of certain paranoid parts of the public from a particular band width. Well, two of them.

I'm teaching college level students to write and think clearly and express themselves with the benefit of solid writing structure and skills. That task consumes all my time; I sure don't have the time or inclination to indoctrinate them with any particular social, political, or ethical way of looking at life). 

My significant other is at the other end of the spectrum, teaching first, second and third graders in a public school as a dedicated profession with three decades of Montessori training who leaves at 6 am and gets home at 6 pm and still doesn't have as much time as she'd like to deal with crazy parents and mixed-up kids and public school bureaucracy -- a public school system under seige at the moment thanks to a guv bent on using the system to score points with his base).

I surely hope my student and hers derive something in thinking and judgement that will assist them to work their way through a troubled, troubled political and economic landscape. Down here in Florida we have a governor who thinks we're brainwashing them. But I can assure you that nobody we know in either of our educational sphere has the time or inclination to do anything other than survive another day and hope that our student come out thinking and expressing themselves clearly, whatever their political views may be. Hell, with both of us it's a win if the majority of them turn up for class. Hopefully, somehow, when they do turn up we can do something to equip them with the logical and argumentative skills that will help them to see through the bs that infects the information landscape as typifiied by paranoia and ignorance capitalizing enterprises paranoid like Fox. 

I'm probably just queing up mm1 here -- in fact, I'll be disappointed if I don't; it's a healthy debate -- but what the hell. I really just want to make this point. Maybe someone already posted this here - but you have probably seen the stories about the steep decline in our national IQ. Fox getting cracked on the knuckles won't do much to dissuade others from continuing to take advantage of that.

If you want to get paranoid, get paranoid about that.

David Mitchell

I'm feeling realy old these days. 

I'm so old I can remember way back in my childhood when we went to Catholic schools, and the wonderful (underpaid) nuns kept talking about these ideas caled the Ten Commandments - or one could call them "God's rules to live by".

If I recall corectly, one of them was "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness" (Thou shalt not lie). And furthermore that lying was a sin.

I think that included the act of lying (commission), and the act of not telling the truth(omission). And maybe even allowing others to lie, and making it sound like they were telling the truth. Or the act of giving voice to and promoting others who lied.

But times have changed. I believe Comrade Tuckereo Rose Carlson also went to Catholic schools. But he is a younger man and they seem to have altered the curriculum somewhat since our own school days. 

Reading all these court filings over the past month showing public admissions of him and his buddies, Laura, Sean, Maria, and the rest of the gang, covering for the lying, giving voice to the liars, and sharing their agreement to keep lying (even pressuring the Company to fire one lady who attempted to stem the lying) seems to me to go directly against that same 9th commadment.  

After a huge - and newsworthy - settlement (though a mere slap on the wrist to Mr. Murdoch) in this Dominion Case this week, Fox News did not even mention the settlement on air. I was shocked to learn they were not even required to make any public apology or admission of guilt. 

But last night (or was it the night before?) Tucker added one more (barely perceptible) insult to injury. As he was closing his broadcast, and his voice was tailing off, he added the comment (about his show), ....."the enemy of smugness and lying". 

Wow!  I gotta hand it to ya Tucker, that took balls.