Amaryllis
Amaryllis's JournalAnimals that will make you laugh, because don't you need something to make you laugh?
https://animalencyclopedia.info/20-random-animal-photos-that-will-cheer-you-up/18/
When Obama was POTUS, we didn't have to check a source to know if something was satire or not.
Just saying. So many times I have read a post and had to look at the article source to know if it was satire, and I very often read posts from others saying that. If it's Borowitz or The Onion, then we know it's satire. But when Obama was president, you knew almost immediately without checking the source if it was or not. (Fox news excepted.)
Rachael Crooks (one of DJT's accusers) won her primary for a state house seat in Ohio
https://twitter.com/i/status/1027536507224113153Rachel: GOP wants Kavanaugh confirmed before trying to impeach Rosenstein in case it goes to SCOTUS
Because of Kavanaugh's position on executive power, etc. They know he will rule in their favor.
SHe's talking about it right now in relation to the Nunes tape and going into a lot of detail about Kavanaugh allegedly lying under oath to get his last judgeship.
Rachel talking Nunes- THey have a tape that wasn't supposed to be public - turn it on!
Edited to add: Nunes said they do plan to impeach Rosenstein but want to wait till after Kavenaugh is confirmed and after the election.
They have to keep the majority "or all of this goes away if Sessions won't resign and Mueller won't clear POTUS, "We are the only ones who can stop it."
RAchel going to post audio and transcript online.
In WW2 when my dad was in the Philippines, the navy wanted breastfeeding native women to cover up...
So they gave the women white sailor uniform tops to wear. Those who were breastfeeding obligingly wore them, but cut holes in the tops for their breasts so their babies could access them. So practical! It was many years ago that my dad told me this story, and he is long gone. I don’t remember more details – if it was only the breastfeeding women who were bare breasted, or all of the women. But this story always stuck in my memory because I thought it spoke volumes about the clash of cultural norms, values, and paradigms, and imposing the values and morality of one onto another.
The recent posts about women breastfeeding in public reminded me of this story. I hadn’t thought about in a long time, and thought you all would find it interesting.
Those posts got me wondering if some of the objection to public breastfeeding is that for some, it ruins breasts as appealing sex objects when they are shown being used for a utilitarian purpose.
Author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me": flawed approach to teaching history create present injustice
I was a writing teacher, not a history teacher, but my progressive history teacher friends know and love sociologist and historian James Loewen’s “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and “Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History.” He is brilliant and insightful, and his observations were never more relevant than today. A new version of Lies My Teacher Told Me was just published; Loewen says that his bestselling book has “new significance … owing to detrimental developments in America’s recent public discourse.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/history-education-post-truth-america/566657/
The Atlantic
How History Classes Helped Create a 'Post-Truth' America
The author of Lies My Teacher Told Me discusses how schools’ flawed approach to teaching the country’s past affects its civic health.
In 1995, the University of Vermont sociologist and historian James W. Loewen published a book that sought to debunk the myriad myths children were often taught about the United States’ past. Framed largely as a critique of the history education delivered in America’s classrooms but also serving as a history text itself, Lies My Teacher Told Me was the result of Loewen’s analysis of a dozen major high-school textbooks. It found that those materials frequently taught students about topics including the first Thanksgiving, the Civil and Vietnam Wars, and the Americas before Columbus arrived in incomplete, distorted, or otherwise flawed ways. Take, for example, the false yet relatively widespread conviction that the Reconstruction era was a chaotic period whose tumult was attributable to poor, uncivilized governance of recently freed slaves. Textbooks’ framing of the history in this way, according to Loewen, promoted racist attitudes among white people. White supremacists in the South, for example, repeatedly cited this interpretation of Reconstruction to justify the prevention of black people from voting.
snip
Now, with the release this summer of a new paperback version of Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen contends that his bestselling book has “new significance … owing to detrimental developments in America’s recent public discourse.” By providing students an inadequate history education, Loewen argues, America’s schools breed adults who tend to conflate empirical fact and opinion, and who lack the media literacy necessary to navigate conflicting information. I recently spoke to Loewen about how the quality of Americans’ history education could affect the country’s civic health. An edited and condensed transcript of our conversation is below.
Alia Wong: What’s changed with regard to your thinking on history education since the first edition came out in 1995? What about since the second edition in 2007?
James W. Loewen: Not much has changed in my thinking, and that’s because I think I was right in the first place. What has changed has to do with our current intellectual era. History and social studies, as taught in school, make us less good at thinking critically about our past. For one, textbooks don’t teach us to challenge, to read critically—they are just supposed to provide exercises in stuff to learn. Secondly, the textbooks (and the people who teach from those textbooks) don’t teach causality. They aren’t designed to have students memorize anything about causality—what causes racism, for example, what causes a decrease in racism. That means that those of us who are more than 18 years old and are out of high school and voting may have never had anybody teach us anything about what causes what in society.
Wong: How do you think inadequate history education plays into what some describe as the country’s current “post-truth” moment?
Loewen: History is by far our worst-taught subject in high school; I think we’re stupider in thinking about the past than we are, say, in thinking about Shakespeare, or algebra, or other subjects. We historians tend to make everything so nuanced that the idea of truth almost disappears. People in graduate history programs have said things to me like: Why should we privilege one narrative above others with the term “true”? That kind of implies that all narratives are equal—or, at least, that all narratives have some merit, that no narrative has all the merit. But maybe there is such thing as a bedrock of fact. Take the way we talk about the Civil War, for example. A lot of people will say that the war grew out of a pay dispute; many others say it had to do with states’ rights. Well, it’s quite the contrary—the southern states seceded so they could uphold slavery. Sometimes we don’t need nuance.
More at link. Interview well worth reading.
US Security Chiefs Express Alarm About Election Meddling in presser today at WH briefing room
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-officials-concerned-potential-efforts-meddle-election/4511150.html
Top U.S. national security leaders made a rare joint appearance in the White House briefing room Thursday to express concern about efforts by Russia — and potentially others — to meddle in upcoming elections here, and to reassure the public that strong countermeasures are being taken.
"We continue to see a pervasive message campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States," said the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, adding that he was aware "Russia is not the only country that has an interest in trying to influence our domestic political environment."
Coats said President Donald Trump "has specifically directed us to make the matter of election meddling and securing our election process a top priority."
FBI Director Christopher Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Army General Paul Nakasone, who is head of the National Security Agency, also appeared at Thursday's briefing.
As they spoke, a letter national security adviser John Bolton sent to five senators of the opposition Democratic Party was released outlining the Trump administration's "extensive, historic actions" taken to "ensure the integrity of our elections and defend against foreign malign influence."
The letter specifically mentioned actions taken against the Russian government, companies and individuals.
snip
Wray warned, however, "Any moment is just a moment before the dial can be turned up." He also revealed that FBI field offices across the country were investigating election interference, and he stated that adversaries were "manipulating news stories and spreading disinformation."
More at link
Jim Acosta appreciation thread.
I always wonder about appreciation threads, if the person being appreciated ever sees them, but in case, let's do one. And then email him individually. As Dan Rather said, he needs to know he has support.
"Last night @CNN's @Acosta faced down a hostile crowd. Support from his colleagues, competitors, and general public is a must."
I felt so grateful for him today watching that press briefing, and at the event yesterday that Dan Rather referenced in quote above. Speaking truth to power both times, which he does regularly.
Any other ideas on how to let him know he is supported?
Mueller as The Last Witch Hunter. You gotta see this.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024646945640525826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1024685256035717125&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100210950366
He doesn't look conflicted ...
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