Category: Schools / Schooling / Education / Libraries
Something on my mind…
Some Joe My God posts I wanted to share but was busy for two days changing my computer browsers.
So what started out to be a simple fix of a malware problem on the blogging computer I used to completely change all my old Chrome tabs into Firefox tabs. I don’t like the new agreements on Chrome about information gathering no matter who you make your settings to prevent. Basically everything you do is recorded and sent to Google. It is frustrating. Firefox has less work ability and on Chrome I could always recover old tabs if I did not delete them in entire windows, even on other devices. So far Firefox doesn’t seem to have the same ability. If I start to lose to many pages or comments, then I will have to switch back. While privacy is important I need function much more. I need to be able to switch open tabs from one computer to the other to clean them. I will try this but it may not last.
Here are the open Joe My God posts I wanted to share before this all happened. Enjoy.
Florida Teacher Training Calls Joseph Stalin’s Execution Of 750,000 Dissidents “The Original Cancel Culture”
Read the full article. There more. Photo: Florida education chief Manny Diaz.
And is the republican party dead and reborn as the tRump cult … here is this.
And it total partisan Christian Nationalist news ….
And in bigotry thuggish maga right wing behavior wins news … But think about this. We have normalized and now accept that people going into a store and destroying the merchandise and attacking the staff is OK as long as it fits our religious or political beliefs. Is this what a civilized society is or has become?
Lastly in the SCOTUS corruption news.
Florida Educators Train To Teach Christian Nationalism
And more on the attempt to force Christianity on everyone else kids in public schools regardless of the parent’s religion, here is the attempt to teach that the US is and should be a Christian nation whose laws, morals, and rules should be based only on the Christian bible I present this. Yes in Florida where the legislature passed letting Christian religious leaders be untrained school counselors but DeathSantis the governor claimed that no other religion especially the Satanic Temple. Of course the law can’t be used that way but the die hard rabid fundamentalist Christian are desperate to push their religion and only theirs on the public. Side issue, it is hilarious how the fundamentalist Christians freak out over the name not realizing the religion is a science based social civil rights based faith, not one that worships their devil. Although with the way they are anti-science and ant-civil rights for anyone not white, straight, and cis maybe they should freak out. Hugs. Scottie
Popular Information reports:
Training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education direct middle and high school teachers to indoctrinate students in the tenets of Christian nationalism, a right-wing effort to merge Christian and American identities. Thousands of Florida teachers, lured by cash stipends, have attended trainings featuring these materials.
According to speaker notes accompanying one slide, teachers were told that “Christianity challenged the notion that religion should be subservient to the goals of the state,” and the same hierarchy is reflected in America’s founding documents. That slide quotes the Bible to assert that “[c]ivil government must be respected, but the state is not God.” Teachers were told the same principle is embedded in the Declaration of Independence.
The next slide in the deck quotes an article by Peter Lillback, the president of Westminster Theological Seminary and the founder of The Providence Forum, an organization that promotes and defends Christian nationalism. The group’s executive director, Jerry Newcombe, writes a weekly column for World Net Daily — a far-right site known for publishing hundreds of stories falsely suggesting Obama was a Muslim born in Africa.
Read the full article. There’s much more.
The Christian nationalist materials were obtained through a Freedom Of Information Act demand.
As the piece notes, Peter Lillback is a signatory to the infamous Manhattan Declaration, which calls on Christians to commit “civil disobedience” against LGBTQ rights.
Photo: Florida education chief Manny Diaz, who previously appeared here over the successful bill to teach K-12 students about the evils of communism and the bans on sociology courses and diversity programs.
3 really great short videos from Rev. Ed Trevors.
I like all of these because the message in them is so wonderful. In the first video he talks about a fundamentalist hate preacher and how he is wrong. Rev Trevors says it is not the job of Christians to burn books, to demonize others, to cause harm. He talks about what the job of a Christian really is. Again it is a message I as an atheist can enjoy and agree with.
In the second video he talks about religious men who blame women for their own sexual feelings and lust, so tell those women they must be completely covered and show no skin so men won’t be sexually excited by seeing them. The Rev. again shows how this is wrong. The sexual sin is the man’s, not the woman’s to deal with. Women shouldn’t have to cover up and show no skin to protect men, men need to take responsibility for themselves and their feelings.
The third one I included not so much for the religious nature but as a reminder to all of us, myself included, to take down time, me time, just relax and enjoy life. I hope if you watch them you will enjoy them. Hugs.
Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools, electoral changes that would lock Democrats out of statewide office
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/25/texas-republican-party-convention-platform/
BY ROBERT DOWNEN AND RENZO DOWNEYCredit: Eli Hartman/The Texas TribuneRepublican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.
Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the U.S. government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.
The party hopes to finalize its platform on Wednesday, after Saturday’s votes on each proposal are tabulated.
Passed by delegates at the party’s biennial convention, the platform has traditionally been seen not as a definitive list of Republican stances, but a compromise document that represents the interests of the party’s various business, activist and social conservative factions. But in recent years — and amid a party civil war that’s pushed it further right — the platform has been increasingly used as a basis for censuring Republican officeholders who the party’s far right has attacked as insufficiently conservative, including Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R-San Antonio.
As the party has drifted further right, its platform has done the same. In 2022, it called for a referendum on Texas secession; resistance to the “Great Reset,” a conspiracy theory that claims global elites are using environmental and social policies to enslave the world’s population; proclamations that homosexuality is an “abnormal lifestyle choice”; and a declaration that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected.
Many of those planks were also included in this year’s platform, which was debated late into Friday night and presented for a vote Saturday afternoon.
One proposal asserts that illegal immigration is the “greatest threat to American security and sovereignty” and calls for the state and federal governments to devote all available resources to deporting undocumented immigrants.
Perhaps the most consequential plank calls for a constitutional amendment to require that candidates for statewide office carry a majority of Texas’ 254 counties to win an election, a model similar to the U.S. electoral college.
Under current voting patterns, in which Republicans routinely win in the state’s rural counties, such a requirement would effectively end Democrats’ chances of winning statewide office. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott carried 235 counties, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried most of the urban, more populous counties and South Texas counties. Statewide, Abbott won 55% of the popular vote while O’Rourke carried 44%.
However, some attorneys question whether such a proposal would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act because it would most likely limit the voting power of racial minorities, who are concentrated in a relatively small number of counties. (The party’s platform also reiterates its previous calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act).
The platform also takes a step further some of the party’s previous calls for more Christianity in public life. The 2022 platform proclaimed that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” for instance, and demanded the repeal of federal prohibitions on political activity by churches.
The 2024 platform goes significantly further: It urges lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools — which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.
Though more subtle, another proposed plank could also aid Republicans’ ongoing attempts to further infuse Christianity into public education. This year’s platform also calls for Thomas Jefferson’s “Letter to the Danbury Baptists” to be included in the list of “original founding documents” to be taught in history classes, along with the U.S. Constitution or The Federalist Papers. Jefferson’s Danbury letter is often cited by activists such as David Barton, a Texas pastor and self-described “amateur historian” who has spent decades arguing that church-state separation is a “myth” that has been used to shroud America’s true Christian roots — a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by actual historians and experts, many of them also conservative Christians.
The new platform comes as Republicans increasingly embrace once-fringe theories such as Christian nationalism, which argues that the United States’ founding was God-ordained, and therefore its institutions and laws should reflect conservative, Christian views. Barton’s ideas have been a key driver of that movement, and were repeatedly cited by lawmakers last year during debates over the chaplains bill and in legislation that would have required the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Barton’s group, WallBuilders, was also an exhibitor at this year’s Texas GOP convention, and the party has increasingly aligned with two far-right, fundamentalist Christian billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.
The draft platform also leans into the Texas GOP’s open hostility toward Texas House leadership and Phelan, with positions that would weaken the power of the House speaker and distribute power to the GOP caucus in the House as a whole. One plank advocates for limiting the speaker to two consecutive terms. Another calls for a discharge petition process, which would allow members to send bills to the House floor for a vote even if they haven’t passed the House committee process.
On Friday night, the convention elected former Collin County GOP Chair Abraham George as the next party chair, a vote that is expected to continue the party’s trajectory. During his candidate speech on Thursday, George called for the party to fight Democrats, radicals and “RINO” Republicans who go against “everything we stand for.”
During a speech on the convention stage on Saturday, former gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Don Huffines carried a printed version of the platform with him. He noted that Republicans have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion for two decades, but the party still struggles to secure its priorities.
“We could get any piece of legislation done anytime we want, but, every session, we struggle to get our platform into law,” Huffines said.
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/0a90a146a42951fe20e608a941fc993d/0524%20GOP%20Convention%20EH%20TT%2023.jpg)
Jon Stewart on Conservative Cancel Culture & Kosta on Trump’s Assassination Claim | The Daily Show
I thought Jon’s part was incredibly spot on and correct. Plus very funny. The man has the touch of comedy for sure. That part ended about 14:13 when the other guy came on. Him I did not find funny even though he had a couple good lines. Hugs. Scottie
Louisiana Governor Gets K-12 “Don’t Say Gay” Bill
Please notice all the misinformation and religious reasons for this push to erase the LGBTQ+ from schools and the public society. Hugs.
The New Orleans Times Picayune reports:
The Louisiana Senate passed legislation Thursday afternoon to forbid school staffers from talking to students in grades K-12 about sexual orientation or gender identity. House Bill 122 passed 28-7, with all Senate Republicans and two Democrats in support. It now heads to Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican who has claimed without citing evidence that some teachers aim to indoctrinate students with “radical” ideas. Landry is expected to sign the measure into law.
Sen. Beth Mizell, R Franklinton, said the bill’s intent was not to harm LGBTQ+ students but to make schools a “safe space” where parents know that staff won’t discuss sensitive topics with their children. The lawmaker behind HB 122, Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, also authored a bill to require all public schools and universities in the state to post the Ten Commandments. The Senate overwhelmingly approved that measure last week.
Read the full article.
Last year Democratic former Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed Mizell’s anti-trans bill and Horton’s first attempt at a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Mizell is an occasional guest on hate group leader Tony Perkins’ podcast. Horton has said she tried again on her “Don’t Say Gay” bill upon the encouragement of her pastor.
So I live in Louisiana and I work in a public university. The Ten Commandments will really go over well on my campus, which has a very high student population of Muslims, and, as far as I can tell, almost no Jews. I should post the three versions of the Ten Commandments on my office wall. In Hebrew. Which, yes, I can read.
Don’t say gay. We really are going backwards. I graduated from high school in 1979, and no one ever said anything about gay, except when taunting the faggots and calling them, well, faggots. Like me. I hate this state and have already told my husband that I am leaving upon my retirement in two years.
Similar to you, homophobia was strong in my remote town in northern Alberta. I graduated in 1977, when nothing positive was ever said about gay except ‘faggot’ and ‘homo’ and the french versions fifi’ and ‘tapette’. No wonder I came out at 33, who would want to admit to anyone, or themselves, they were gay in that environment? That’s why is so depressing to see this anti-gay movement today.
I attended the third largest high school in the country, with 6000 students. And it was still a horrible place to be gay. I didn’t come out until I was 27 after a heterosexual marriage and divorce.
Yup, I tried hard to be straight, I had many girlfriends and at least three of them would have married me. Living a lie for so long just destroyed me psychologically. Straight people just don’t understand what we’ve been through. Hugs madknits!
Hate Crimes Against Queer and Trans Students Quadrupled in States With Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
The data comes amid an ongoing explosion in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
According to a new report, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in K-12 schools have quadrupled in U.S. states that have laws restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ students.
A Washington Post analysis of FBI data on anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes taking place in K-12 schools and on college campuses, published on March 12 found that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes “serious enough to be reported to local police” more than doubled across the country in recent years. The Post found that while an average of 108 anti-LGBTQ+ school hate crimes were reported between 2015 and 2019, that average rose to 232 between 2021 and 2022. According to FBI data, the most common hate crimes reported at schools were intimidation, simple assault (assault where no weapon was used), and vandalism.
However, this rise in school hate crimes was more pronounced in the 28 states that have enacted policies restricting LGBTQ+ students’ self-expression and/or limiting how teachers can talk about gender and sexuality in school. In these states, reported anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes on K-12 and college campuses more than tripled from an average of 28 per year between 2015 and 2019 to an average of 90 between 2021 and 2022.
As the Post points out, this increase is even more staggering when you remove college campuses and look at the anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in K-12 schools only. In states that have enacted restrictive laws, there were more than four times the number of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes across elementary, middle, and high schools, per year, from 2021 to 2022, compared with the years 2015 to 2019.
Although it’s only March, the American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking a whopping 478 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the U.S. this year, with 190 of those bills targeting student and educator rights.
Gerald Declan Radford, 65, initially claimed he shot Lay in self-defense. Prosecutors believe that Declan was the aggressor and was motivated by Lay’s sexual orientation.Meanwhile, nonprofits that work with LGBTQ+ youth have reported an increase in crisis calls. According to the Post, The Trevor Project received over 500,000 crisis contacts during the fiscal year ending in July 2023 compared to the 230,000 the group received the previous year, while the Rainbow Youth Project received over 1,400 calls to its mental health crisis hotline per month in 2023 compared to 1,000 per month in 2022. According to the Rainbow Youth Project, calls from Oklahoma to the group’s hotline more than tripled after details about Nex Benedict, the trans Oklahoma teen of Choctaw ancestry who died the day after three older girls reportedly beat them in a school bathroom, became national news.
“Young people will say, ‘My government hates me,’ ‘My school hates me,’ ‘They don’t want me to exist,’” the Rainbow Youth Project’s founder and executive director, Lance Preston, told the Post. “That … is absolutely unacceptable. That is shocking.”
Board For NC Universities Repeals Diversity Policies
Racism like bigotry is surging in the south right now. All in backlash to a black man being elected president. The racist went crazy. All backed by big money wealthy racists. The university president said that public universities should stay neutral on social controversies that is why they are doing it. Wrong. Racism is not or at least shouldn’t be a controversy, a difference of view points. It is wrong. I say again for those needing clarification. Racism is wrong. Period. It needs to die off like slavery and the old Jim Crow laws, that sadly are making a comeback. Diversity, equality, and inclusion programs are very much needed, as are LGBTQ+ centers at schools along with gay straight student groups. These all help bring in more of the people who historically have been disadvantaged. Understand what they do. It is not quotas. It is making available places, education, jobs that were traditionally once denied to those groups. The fact that sometimes it means white straight cis people don’t get everything they want to or get that position that they think they are owed then too bad, you have lots more opportunities. It is crazy entitlement. The idea that every straight cis white person automatically is better and deserves opportunities before someone not white straight cis is just horrible. Yet that is what is sweeping red states. Republicans pushing the idea that somehow opening a door for those that had then closed, somehow hurts the white straight cis people. The republicans like fundamentalist Christians love to play the victim, they love to be aggrieved. The republicans look at everything as a limited pie where something for one person means less for them. That is not the way it is, equality and inclusion benefits everyone. Hugs. Scottie
The Associated Press reports:
North Carolina’s public university system board voted Thursday to repeal a nearly five-year-old diversity, equity and inclusion policy, meaning its 17 schools will likely join other major universities in cutting diversity programs and jobs.
The 24-member University of North Carolina Board of Governors approved its agenda, which included the diversity policy repeal, with two members voting against the repeal. Campus changes are expected to take place at the start of the next school year.
UNC System President Peter Hans [photo] said in his meeting remarks that students and faculty should be allowed to confront “competing ideas” but the role of public universities is to remain neutral on “political controversies.”
Read the full article.
Board For NC Universities Repeals Diversity Take First Step In Approving White Hetero-Christian Nationalist Policies
FIFY
Just wonderin’ what the racial makeup of that there board might look like..
Bullshit excuse using “competing ideas” to not treat students equally or address dangers they face.
But CRT is banned as well? Seems like this might be a bullshit front for something else?
Because fundamental human rights like the right to exist in public are “political controversies.”
Fuck those bigots.
Univ. of N.C. is going to “join other major universities … ” No, they’re going to forego the company of other major universities.
Bad people win…
…when good people COMPLY.
DO NOT COMPLY.
Appropriate then, appropriate now.
Scottie's Playtime 