That’s a complicated question to answer. In this episode, @TraeCrowderLiberalRedneck looks into why the history of slavery through the lens of party lines can be confusing and how the “Southern strategy” comes into play.
The American South is a complicated place, and we know a lot less about it than we think we do. And many things about the South that seem to make no sense are less confounding in context. The reality is the history of many Southern things has been manipulated, hidden, or just plain ignored. Trae Crowder guides us through the pride points, failures, and contradictions in “Southin’ Off.”
We all have a pretty skewed image of what “Southerner” means. @TraeCrowderLiberalRedneck takes a look at who the real Southerners are and how our views got so skewed. The American South is a complicated place, and we know a lot less about it than we think we do. And many things about the South that seem to make no sense are less confounding in context. The reality is the history of many Southern things has been manipulated, hidden, or just plain ignored. Trae Crowder guides us through the pride points, failures, and contradictions in “Southin’ Off.”
Let’s be clear urban sprawl, cars, and the needed roads are destroying our country. Here in Florida we have to fight to get any mass transit and it is not planned in the county development plans at all. Every attempt at mass transit and fast trains is destroyed. Also let’s be honest it also was driven not just by profit for big oil and car manufacturers, but also by racism. When I was in Germany in the 1980s I was stunned how towns with housing, shops, everything a person would need including bars were closely clustered in to a small area with lots of land for growing crops or animal pastures around them. Plus I could go anywhere by mass transit, train, subway, or trolley. All fast and convenient. Most soldiers that were transferred in to the country never used their cars that they paid to have shipped. I came from a small cow town and we drove 30 minutes to the nearest big town. Here in Florida, about 30 minutes from where I live by highway is a completely new development based on the model in the video. It has shops, theaters, restaurants on ground floors, business offices above and lots of apartments, even doctor’s offices, and single family town houses, all confined into one place and walkable to everything. The only problem the residents have is all of us outsiders driving our cars in coming in to shop or go to medical appointments and they have very limited parking. If I could afford to live there I would. It simply works and is easy not just for the young but especially us older or disabled people. Give the video a watch please and thank Ten Bears for posting it. Hugs
Because we must make slavery look as beneficial as possible to the black slaves. White people were doing these subhumans a favor by enslaving them and they gave them a chance to find the true god, have shelter, to have food, and work which every republican thinks black people should do more of. Sickening, but she is a true believer in the white race and in the need to have her god in every aspect of everyone’s life, enforced by the Christian Taliban moral police gang thugs. Hugs
The Arkansas Department of Education instructed the 6 schools offering AP African American Studies to submit their curricula to the state to ensure they don't violate a new state law banning "indoctrination" and Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools https://t.co/MQ9YWKRJ4S
They aren’t just denying credit for the course, now the state is demanding schools hand over all books and course materials on African-American history. https://t.co/7YWBCf3guQ
But notice what book they don’t submit to the bot scan is the bible, which includes everything they programmed into it for getting rid of LGBTQIA inclusive material.
Official: “It is simply not feasible to read every book” for depictions of sex.
In response to recently enacted state legislation in Iowa, administrators are removing banned books from Mason City school libraries, and officials are using ChatGPT to help them pick the books, according to The Gazette and Popular Science.
The new law behind the ban, signed by Governor Kim Reynolds, is part of a wave of educational reforms that Republican lawmakers believe are necessary to protect students from exposure to damaging and obscene materials. Specifically, Senate File 496 mandates that every book available to students in school libraries be “age appropriate” and devoid of any “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act,” per Iowa Code 702.17.
But banning books is hard work, according to administrators, so they need to rely on machine intelligence to get it done within the three-month window mandated by the law. “It is simply not feasible to read every book and filter for these new requirements,” said Bridgette Exman, the assistant superintendent of the school district, in a statement quoted by The Gazette. “Therefore, we are using what we believe is a defensible process to identify books that should be removed from collections at the start of the 23-24 school year.”
To determine which books fit the bill, Exman asks ChatGPT: “Does [book] contain a description or depiction of a sex act?” If the answer is yes, the book will be removed from circulation.
The district detailed more of its methodology: “Lists of commonly challenged books were compiled from several sources to create a master list of books that should be reviewed. The books on this master list were filtered for challenges related to sexual content. Each of these texts was reviewed using AI software to determine if it contains a depiction of a sex act. Based on this review, there are 19 texts that will be removed from our 7-12 school library collections and stored in the Administrative Center while we await further guidance or clarity. We also will have teachers review classroom library collections.”
Unfit for this purpose
In the wake of ChatGPT’s release, it has been increasingly common to see the AI assistant stretched beyond its capabilities—and to read about its inaccurate outputs being accepted by humans due to automation bias, which is the tendency to place undue trust in machine decision-making. In this case, that bias is doubly convenient for administrators because they can pass responsibility for the decisions to the AI model. However, the machine is not equipped to make these kinds of decisions.
Large language models, such as those that power ChatGPT, are not oracles of infinite wisdom, and they make poor factual references. They are prone to confabulate information when it is not in their training data. Even when the data is present, their judgment should not serve as a substitute for a human—especially concerning matters of law, safety, or public health.
“This is the perfect example of a prompt to ChatGPT which is almost certain to produce convincing but utterly unreliable results,” Simon Willison, an AI researcher who often writes about large language models, told Ars. “The question of whether a book contains a description of depiction of a sex act can only be accurately answered by a model that has seen the full text of the book. But OpenAI won’t tell us what ChatGPT has been trained on, so we have no way of knowing if it’s seen the contents of the book in question or not.”
It’s highly unlikely that ChatGPT’s training data includes the entire text of each book under question, though the data may include references to discussions about the book’s content—if the book is famous enough—but that’s not an accurate source of information either.
“We can guess at how it might be able to answer the question, based on the swathes of the Internet that ChatGPT has seen,” Willison said. “But that lack of transparency leaves us working in the dark. Could it be confused by Internet fan fiction relating to the characters in the book? How about misleading reviews written online by people with a grudge against the author?”
Indeed, ChatGPT has proven to be unsuitable for this task even through cursory tests by others. Upon questioning ChatGPT about the books on the potential ban list, Popular Science found uneven results and some that did not apparently match the bans put in place.
Even if officials were to hypothetically feed the text of each book into the version of ChatGPT with the longest context window, the 32K token model (tokens are chunks of words), it would not likely be able to consider the entire text of most books at once, though it may be able to process it in chunks. Even if it did, one should not trust the result as reliable without verifying it—which would require a human to read the book anyway.
“There’s something ironic about people in charge of education not knowing enough to critically determine which books are good or bad to include in curriculum, only to outsource the decision to a system that can’t understand books and can’t critically think at all,” Dr. Margaret Mitchell, chief ethicist scientist at Hugging Face, told Ars.
Please forgive me, This is not how I wanted to start this post. Earlier I had a great plan and took pictures, and was so happy I was kind of humming to my self. Then as I sat down to do this post when on the other computer screen came a video I shouldn’t have watched, I should have shut down. It was a news station report on two young boys fostered (me adopted) and the physical abuse they suffered. They suffered no sexual abuse, but the descriptions of the physical abuse sent all my former great happy thoughts fleeing as I totally understood their thoughts they might die and their struggles with the pain inflicted on them, I started to cry and shake and then damn it the vortex came. It howled and tried to consume me, I floundered looking for something some handle, anything in my mind to grab so it wouldn’t take me and I could with stand it. Fight it off.
I put music on the other computer, wiping off the abuse video, I have no idea the songs I can not think on them. The screen says the best soft rock of the 70s,80s,90s. But I am calming down, remembering what I wanted to post, the great idea I have. I must stop sobbing, Ron must not come out and see me like this. Such a great day, great week, and yet …
By my dogs that love gravy I wonder how my heart, my body can take these sudden panics, the mental sounds of the vortex coming for me, my body’s desperate attempt to flee or just to curl up in a ball and let it happen. My heart rate is again down to 76. According to my Apple Watch that monitors it, my heart rate went to 158. Anyway. I am calm enough to do the post I wanted to do. But damn, I need to be more careful on the news I see coming across the many web feeds. But I did not select the video, I was watching a new channel on the fires in Hawaii.
I want to just add that I was one step from activating the emergency Scottie needs help signal. That is to Randy. For those that never followed my old blog I had a breakdown in 2014. I started self harming again and was trapped in my head by the vortex, reliving my childhood abuse. I won’t and sorry can not describe it, but Randy who was working long night shifts keep his phone on all the time, called me repeatedly if he did not hear from me, texted me, and took hours long phone calls from me desperately trying to stop the nightmares in my head from the memories. He went without sleep so many days just to be there for me. When I say Randy is the best brother ever, I mean it, and that is part of the reason why. It is not an exaggeration to say that after drawing a sharp knife or razor blade across my skin drawing blood instead of doing it again I would reach out to Randy instead. It got to where instead of the blades, I reached for him. Anyway those days are past now. For good I hope. Yet it still gets scary sometimes.
Ok Ron got up, kept asking me what was wrong, I denied anything was wrong and told him my allergies were acting up. He seemed like he was going to pursue it but then dropped it, and I am glad. I just don’t want to deal with all that now at this time. I am trying hard to let the past sink back in to the deep depths of the deepest part of the ocean in a chest wrapped in many layers of big chains, weighted down by as many happier thoughts as I can push against it.
Ok my head is clearing and I want to do the happy bread post I started to do. Hugs to all who want them. Scottie
This is long, and maybe too long for most people. It took me three days to watch it all. But it is even handed, it is informative, it is well documented, and it is truly how I and so many feel. I loved TYT, but about the time Cenk decided to run for office and gave a lot of control over the company / show to Anna, I noticed a shift / change in both hosts and the company direction. Cenk became very bitter and anti-democratic party, while Anna became overly more assertive on every show. When Cenk came back so bitter from being what he felt was unfairly treated by the democrats but others felt was him trying to claim a position without doing the work others had done before him Anna started talking over him, interrupting him, not letting him finish his sentences. But at the same time if he tried to interrupt her she got very vocal about it and wouldn’t tolerate it. She was now in charge and she wanted the world to know it. It showed how she felt about her position, she had the authority and say, so don’t disagree with her. That was very off-putting for me a long time viewer and supporter of the show. But then Cenk’s constant vitriol against the Democratic Party started to interfere with his reporting on Biden. Right from the start he wanted Biden to do the impossible and when he did not Cenk couldn’t even give him credit for what he did get accomplish. Cenk being a bombastic fighter spent two years demanding Joe Biden attack and call out Joe Manchin and pushed for the most virulent attacks on him. Which would have lost the democrats the control of the Senate and stopped any left leaning judge appointments. Then Cenk got more bitter towards Biden and other progressive members of congress who did not throw the disruptive bombs he wanted to destroy the party, so he openly attacked the very groups he started along with attacking all progressives. What crossed the line for me what his attacks on Biden and openly trying to promote primary challengers to him talking up fringe candidates, knowing historically any time a sitting president was primaried they lost, giving the other party the win. He did not care, his bitter anger was more important to him. He kept up his now constant attempts to tear down Biden to the point he is doing the work of a republican challenger for president. I wrote that when I canceled my long time membership, that Cenk was doing the work of the Republican Party in tearing down and maligning Biden. This hard right turn of Anna’s and Cenk’s weirdly not even willing to listen to any criticism of her was the last straw for me. He is not even really addressing the issue that Anna made as the start of this problem, and keeps misrepresenting it. If Anna wants to be called woman that is great, if trans women demand to be called women that is great and everyone would do as they ask. But there are transmen with parts that medical people need to address and that are on medical forms / question forms. It was pointed out so often that no one in conversation referred to Anna as a “birthing person” but she still took offense to the term even existing. She was demanding a medical term to be inclusive not exist because she felt it diminished her as a female. Total right wing maga fundamentalist thinking. This is entirely a case of two people drinking their own Kool-Aid on their own importance and getting called out for it. Their egos have gotten in the way of the work they were doing. I can no longer support them as they are, and I hope people will watch this well researched and documented video. Hugs
Cenk Uyger, Ana Kasparian, and The Young Turks have had a history of scandals and controversies throughout the existence of the network. I want to talk about that history, as well as the events leading up to their recent meltdowns on the podcast circuit and Twitter.
🎉 Buckle up for a rollercoaster ride through history, humour, and a touch of scepticism! In this video, we dive headfirst into the curious world of Young Earth Creationism, taking a side-splitting journey through their interpretation of the Bible’s age claims. 🌍📖
Join us as we dissect the claims that the Bible itself supposedly contains evidence of Earth’s mere 6000-year existence. With a dash of wit and a sprinkle of satire, we expose the creative contortions these claims require. 🎭🤯
From deciphering Bible verses with the finesse of a Shakespearean rapper to exploring the hilarious linguistic gymnastics of Young Earth Creationists, we dissect the arguments that keep us chuckling. 💃🎤
But hey, why stop at the age of the Earth? We’ll also tackle burning questions like: Did Moses really part the Red Sea? Why didn’t God just snap his fingers for creation? And who’s Father Abraham, the smurf guy or the biblical patriarch? 🤔😂
Get ready for laughter, thought-provoking analysis, and a pinch of scepticism as we navigate the world of scripture interpretation, contrasting it with the tried-and-true methods of science. 📚🔬
So hit that play button, grab some popcorn, and prepare to laugh your way through the twists and turns of biblical literalism and the scientific pursuit of truth. Don’t forget to hit the like button, subscribe, and ring the notification bell so you won’t miss a single punchline in our journey to unravelling the age-old mysteries!
WATCH: “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no?”🤔😳
Desantis/FLORIDA’s Ed Dept approved Prager U indoctrination videos to be taught (Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens as narrators) which teach kids slavery was better than the alternative: https://t.co/cJWcVLiiUWpic.twitter.com/Hng5fsg8r8
Florida’s latest curriculum—featuring cartoon Christopher Columbus explaining, “being taken as a slave is better than being killed!” and telling time-traveling kids that slavery was “no big deal.”
This is the kind of propaganda DeSantis and his friends at PragerU are teaching… pic.twitter.com/wPY8USFzhQ
Weird. Why are these white supremacist fascists upset about being identified as white supremacist fascists. No white fascist pride? Patriot Front members sue activist who infiltrated, identified them. Kudos to the activist who infiltrated them! https://t.co/fZq3PxFkpv
00:00 Introduction 2:22 Sodom (Genesis 19) 7:48 (NEW) Sodom Additional Commentary 10:20 Romans1:26-27 16:00 Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 21:06 (NEW) Fourth theory on Leviticus 23:22 First Timothy 1:9-11 // First Corinthians 6:9-10 28:41 Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve
During the Fall of 2020, my college course on the “Theologies of Gender and Identity” was forced to go virtual. This video is one of the pre-recorded lectures from that course that I would like to share with a larger audience. Feel free to respectfully comment and question and I will respond in kind.
This lecture explores the traditional “texts of terror” or “clobber passages” that have been used to justify the marginalization of the LGBTQ people — namely Genesis 19 (Sodom); Romans 1:26-27; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; 1 Timothy 1:9-11 // 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; and Genesis 1-2 (Adam and Eve). For each passage, we’ll apply exegetical tools to determine whether or not this marginalization is justified.
The format of this lecture features a compilation of previous videos from this channel’s Queer Theology series. Most of these videos have been updated and include an additional commentary in between each topic.
Recommended Reading: “Misguided Love: Christians and the Rupture of LGBTQI2+ People” by Charles Fensham; Chapter 4.
Scottie's Playtime 
