Speaker of the House


I can’t stop thinking about the new Speaker of the House and what it means that he was unanimously elected by his party…

The Doctors are Leaving Idaho

This is one of the fallouts when you ban abortion in a state. Highly respected medical professionals leave and the people suffer.

This shouldn’t be our reality America. Nowhere in this land of freedom, should the personal feelings of politicians be considered above the medical decisions of people and their doctors.

Is The Orca Uprising Upon Us?

In 2023, a whole bunch of orcas started attacking boats off the coast of Spain. Was this the first battle in an all-out interspecies war? Well, probably not. But it’s a pretty neat look into how trends come and go in orca pods – like salmon hats.

Dems win big, anti-trans and LGBTQIA hatred loses big. Republicans lose big. What they are pushing which is minority rule by fundamentalist Christian fascism is not wanted. Let people live their lives in peace, equality, and openly as who they are.

Moms For Liberty Gets Clobbered In Pennsylvania

 

 

Did Prager U Just Accidentally Release a PRO-Trans Documentary?

This is a great video detailing the lies, debunking the myth or the anti-trans line of the mass rush to force kids to transition gender, it goes over the fake studies, provides real information, and shows how several of the detransitioned are still having gender issues, but due to religious pressures from family they try to ignore them.  One person claims to still dream three or more times a week of being a man, thinks of it, hates her body, but knows she has to be a good woman and mother.  The video shows more of the flaws of the anti-trans movement than its claim to validity.  It is longer than some of my viewers like at a bit over an hour.  I watched it about 20 minute segments while doing other things.   It is delivered in a well spoken deliberate non-sensational manner.  Just going over the video and the real facts.  I really hope if you have questions about trans people, are an anti-trans hater, are someone who thinks kids are rushed into being trans and that a large number regret it, please watch the video.  It shows you the proof these are hate myths pushed to cause a regressive return to gender stereotypes.  Most based in a religious foundation of god doesn’t make mistakes, and kids don’t know their gender, they just need to be convinced to be happy with the way the world wants them to be.  Like gay kids are not gay, they just need to be convinced they are straight.  Like one point, it is easy for 15 and 16-year-old girls to get breast implants, but when it is a trans woman wanting them the anti-trans haters call it abuse and mutilation.  That doesn’t make sense.  At one point the video shows the same study that Tildeb tried to push where the claim was a huge percentage of kids were having their breasts removed.  But like I pointed out the report showed the number was small and the ages of the majority were adults in their countries and those younger were for medical reasons other than trans such as cancer.  Such deceptive tactics have to make people wonder what the anti-trans people really are driven by.   Watch the video please, at least get past the first part of jabber about the scary music and into the real substance of the issue.   Thanks.   Scottie

A great new site I was introduced to.

Top Five Republican Nightmare Fantasies About Public Schools

Stay Woke, Public School Teachers

Muzzling America’s Teachers with a Ban on Critical Race Theory is What Orwell Warned Us About

Reading for Pleasure – One of The Most Important Lessons in School

The Absurdity of PROTECTING Kids from the Holocaust Narrative ‘Maus’ 

Teachers are Being Spied on for Thoughtcrimes

Teaching Blind Obedience is Child Abuse

Stop Trying to Hide S-E-X From Students in School – They Already Know All About It From the Internet 

A wonderful post.  I got the link from https://poodyheads.wordpress.com/2023/11/02/stop-trying-to-hide-s-e-x-from-students-in-school-they-already-know-all-about-it-from-the-internet/ and adult who thinks kids own bodies are not driving their innocent angels to pleasure are beyond stupid.  Most of them deny their own preteen / teen years.  Heck, can any of us at any number claim to know that we did not know that rubbing and touching ourselves felt good.   I remember as a 14 yr old seeing a classmate rub his junk on a counter and I wondered if he knew he was doing it.  He knew it felt good, or he wouldn’t have been doing it.  But yes kids often younger than age 8 know it feels good to touch themselves.  Why do you think adults get so upset and punish toddlers for doing that in public, because the youngest kids know it feels good, and the adults want them to feel shame over it and do it sneakily in private.  

Of course as the post hints to abused kids like me knew all those things.  I can not remember the first times I was abused sexually I was so young.  But I knew about touch, how to touch, what happened at the end that made the abuser happy when the white stuff came out.  You know what I did not know?  That I could have gotten help!  That it could have stopped!  The reason I did not know that is because the right to my body was not taught in my schools back in the late 1960s.  The idea of consent or where to go if an adult uses you was not taught.   No kid knows about that so lets not burden with it, was the idea.  Think of the abused kids lives could be saved and changed if the fundamentalist Christians would move aside and let schools educate kids.   Then I remember, a lot of the Christian churches have huge sexual abuse of children scandals.  Then I remember that every attempt to raise the age young girls can be forced into a legal marriage, which in many red / religious states is 12, and the Christian religious leaders come out strongly to defeat those bills / laws.   I wonder why?  Would they be just as happy with a 12-year-old boy being required to marry an adult man?  Anyway here is the post and it is a great one.  Hugs.  Scottie


 
“Mr. Singer, do you know what foot finder is?” 

 


 
“No,” I said to the 5th grade girl in the class where I was substitute teaching.  

 


 
Her friends and her giggled through an explanation of the Website where people post pictures of their feet for sexual gratification.  
 

 


*** 
 

 


Several days later, I tried to play a video on ancient Rome for my students, but before it even began the 8th grade class burst into laughter over the station identification. 

 


 
The video was produced by the British Broadcasting Company. The BBC.  
 

 

 


I looked at them in confusion until I heard some of them muttering about “Big Black Cock” – a class of porn video many of them had seen online identified with the same abbreviation. 

 


 
*** 
 

 


Yesterday I overheard some of the girls in my 7th grade homeroom talking. One girl was saying how she really liked a certain boy but wasn’t sure if she was ready.  
 

 


I smiled thinking about my first kiss. Then I heard her ask a friend, “Can you get pregnant from swallowing it?” 
 


 
 
This is middle school, people.  

 


 
Most of the kids here already know about sex. They know way more than I did at their age. But what they know is a jumble of images and details without the big picture.  
 

 


And here come Republicans with a bunch of copycat laws to make sure public schools do nothing to dispel children’s ignorance.  

 


In my home state of Pennsylvania, GOP lawmakers are taking action once again to hide any mention of S-E-X in schools throughout the Commonwealth. 

 


 
They’re sending Senate Bill 7 to Harrisburg, another piece of legislation pumped out by the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC) following in the fundamentalist footsteps of  fascist Florida.  
 

 


The latest bit of dark ages lawmaking would require parent authorization before schools from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia could provide students with materials that contain anything that might be considered sexually explicit.  
 
For kids in kindergarten through 8th grade, this even includes books with depictions of any kind of nudity.  

 


God forbid they saw a wee wee or a va-jay-jay! 

 


Fun fact: did you know that most public school students have genitals? 

 


 
It’s true.  

 


 
Many boys have access to a penis anytime they want – in their underwear. 

 


 
Many girls have access to even naughtier bits.  

 


 
And don’t even get me started on nipples! Under their shirts, the Devil’s raisins!  

 


Thankfully the GOP legislation only prohibits depictions of these things in books. Kids are still allowed to look at their own bodies.  

 


For now. 

 


The bill passed the Senate in a 29-21 vote nearly along party lines, with only one Democrat supporting the proposal. It faces an uncertain future in the House where Democrats hold a one seat majority and would also require the signature of Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro before becoming law. 

 


similar measure was passed before Democrats took the House last year but was vetoed by the previous Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. 

 


If the new bill became law, districts would need to go through all books in their libraries and classrooms and list any that contain potentially sexual material. These would be books used in classroom instruction or available in the library that would then require parents to sign an opt-in form to grant permission for their children to access the books. 

 


The bill defines sexually explicit as showing “acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if the person is a female, breast.” 

 


It is beyond ridiculous

 


Not only is it closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but it’s a transparent attempt to quash any discussion of LGBTQ issues.  

 


 
What better way to discourage certain lifestyles than to legislate them out of existence?  

 


 
Schools can provide a safe place to discuss issues kids may be uncomfortable talking about with other adults. Books provide a safe way to mentally grapple with concepts and ideas of the adult world.  

 


 
For example, in my 7th grade classes, we read “Silent to the Bone” by E.L. Konigsburg. The book is about a middle school age boy who has gone mute after a questionable interaction with an adult.

 

 
 
There’s nothing very graphic in the text, but among other issues it does discuss physical attraction, sexual coercion and an erection.  
 

 


The book was approved by the school board and has helped foster many productive – if uncomfortable – conversations that help kids put their thoughts on these matters into words.  

 


 
In my daughter’s school, in 9th grade she read “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about a high school girl dealing with being raped and the stigma of trying to talk about it.  
 

 


The text does a marvelous job of getting into the point of view of the girl and the trauma she endures while still being humorous, touching and empowering.  

 


 
Narratives like these are absolutely vital. They allow kids to relate to issues many of them have not directly experienced (but some have) and find a common language to discuss it. When we censor sex and sexuality and paint all of it as something dirty that can’t be talked about seriously, we do our children a major disservice.  

 


 
Conservatives complain that talking about these things grooms kids for greater sexual activity, but that’s nonsense. Kids grow into adults many of whom become sexually active. That’s positive and healthy. Meeting that in the safe places of the classroom and books helps kids prepare for adulthood without becoming victimized. 

 


 
But nothing grooms a victim more than the prohibition against talking about trauma.  

 


 
Finally, let’s consider the amount of ridiculous extra work this bill demands of schools and teachers. You really expect every educator with a classroom library to go through every book in it looking for anything that someone might consider sexually explicit!? Some people might think a book about a kid with two daddies is sexually explicit. You want teachers to become your perverted morality police!? Please! 

 


 
I dearly hope this bill has little chance of passing.  

 


 
It’s just another example of the Republican culture war against reality.  

 


 
It’s a way of insinuating that public schools are doing things they aren’t.  

 


 
No school is indoctrinating kids to be sexually active. But kids are coming into contact with sexually explicit material – usually on the Internet – and they have few tools to deal with it.  

 


 
Taking away public schools’ power to combat this ignorance is the worst way we could respond

The Birthing Persons SAGA will never end (Ana Kasparian on PBD podcast)

This is again another video on Anna’s hard right turn on trans people, which I guess is only to get her a better gig else where.   She keeps going on that she objects to doctors forms or offices calling pregnant trans males birthing persons.  But Anna has fervently claimed she doesn’t want kids and won’t have them.  So the term doesn’t apply to her at all.  She tries to claim the term is the same as the N word, but that is not used in any medical setting or forms at all.  She is tilting at windmills here.  She says she wants to be called a woman, and yes that is her right.  And if she was ever pregnant her doctor would honor that.   So why is she against what other people want to be called.   Her stance makes no sense when you look at it.   She got her plastic surgery nose out of joint and is making that the hill to die on.   Again the question is why?  But it is getting her a lot of attention and air time play on right wing podcasts / blogs.  So you ask why she has gone so far out on this that no one is calling her and making it her claim to fame?  Is she the new Riley Gaines, who made an entire media career over complaining she tied with a trans woman for fourth place!     Hugs.  

True Facts: Incredible Crab Stories

Medical group expands definition of “infertility” to include same-sex couples

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/10/medical-group-expands-definition-of-infertility-to-include-same-sex-couples/

Woman holds pregnancy test
Photo: Shutterstock

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Practice Committee has announced they are updating the definition of “infertility” to be more inclusive.

The new definition will include single people and same-sex couples. It will consist of anyone needing medical interventions “in order to achieve a successful pregnancy either as an individual or with a partner.”

“We made it explicit that lack of access to the kind of gametes you need is a condition deserving of treatment,” Sean Tipton, ASRM’s chief advocacy and policy officer, told CNN.

“That is, the reason you may need medical assistance to build your family, it can be because your fallopian tubes don’t work, or it could be because your sperm don’t swim right. But it could also be because you’re single, or because you are in a relationship with a person who doesn’t have the kind of gametes you need. Those are legitimate causes of infertility, and they need to be treated accordingly.”

“It is our hope that this definition removes one of the excuses that insurance companies have attempted to use to deny patients coverage for the medical care they need to have children,” he added.

The previous definition only defined the term as failing to get pregnant after a year of having unprotected sex or undergoing therapeutic donor insemination in women younger than 35, or within six months for women over 35.

The updated definition will be published in about a week as a report in the group’s journal.