Linkspam: Education, ASD, Politics, Race, R&I, Humor
I've been saving a half dozen or more links to share and I'm going to do it now so I can close the things. Sadly, I don't remember where I got most of them, so...general thanks to those who shared here or at FB or elsewhere.
"Five True Things About Education Reform"...a brilliant satire.
[A] really long time ago, the nation was full of really good teachers, mostly women (because even back then men thought teaching was really gay), who were allergic to money and eating and keeping a roof over their heads. These women were wildly happy to teach school for some beads, a used tissue, and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. But then along came some mean, nasty, vicious, conniving, sneaky, Commie pinko union organizers, who rounded up all the good teachers and threw them in a bottomless well. Then the union organizers went deep into the forest, where a tribe of very stupid, lazy child-haters lived, and they rounded the tribeswomen up to become teachers (because even tribesmen living deep in the forest, far from civilization, thought teaching was really gay). The union people dressed these women in polyester pants suits and made them join the union, pay dues, accept higher wages and benefits, and sit in overcrowded classrooms cracking their gum and doing crossword puzzles while their students fell off their chairs from sheer stupidity. And that continues even unto this day.
"Shylock, My Students, and Me: What I’ve learned from 30 years of teaching The Merchant of Venice"
[F]or my students at the time, Shylock was unsavory, brutal, and ultimately inhumane. They could comprehend him up to a point, but they continued to insist that he was the villain, and that to say otherwise would be to twist Shakespeare’s intention. [30 years later] ...Now, Shylock became the heroic central figure, and the other characters became villains: Bassanio weak and opportunistic; Antonio passive and creepy; Portia mean.
My own position is that, if we want a happy ending, at some point we must draw a line and close our eyes to the injustices that it entails. We must accept accommodation to oppression and, in some cases, to evil itself. A happy ending is only an approximate good, pointing beyond itself to a time when happy endings will be happy for all the deserving, and evil will be fully recognized and purged. My students in the old days would have called this The Last Judgment. My students today are likely to call it wishful thinking.
"How to Email Your Professor" ...and many other awesome "how not to be a dork if you're a student" essays if you look through the history.
"An Aspie in the City"
Since teachers are unlikely to flag kids who excel in written work no matter how quiet they are, many girls with AS are overlooked for special education, says Michael John Carley, director of GRASP, a supportive network for people with AS.
One teacher noted that "Kiriana had many problems learning the square dances and musical games. Changing direction or actions at musical cues appeared to be quite difficult for her." Struggles with spatial orientation earned her scorn on the playground; lacking an intuitive sense of direction, she repeatedly kicked the ball into her own team's goal. She eventually refused to play at all. She also refused to call any of her classmates by their nicknames, because it seemed too familiar. "It was like I had an alien complex," she says. "The result was that they treated me like an alien."
Girls are generally recognized as superior mimics, says Tony Attwood, a pioneering Asperger's researcher. Those with AS hold back and observe until they learn the "rules," then imitate their way through social situations. But for a girl like Kiriana with undiagnosed Asperger's, her ability to manage her symptoms better than a boy can be less than a blessing; often it's a curse that keeps her suffering in silence.
"Girls can fake it quite well," says Liane Willey, a psycholinguist with AS who describes how she assumes different personalities when switching social gears in her autobiography, Pretending to Be Normal.
"Burning Korans and Building Mosques: America’s Blasphemy Laws"
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin
"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god." - Mark Twain
Many conservative politicians, and pundits, including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, have suggested that both the Koran burning as well as the development of the Islamic Center should be cancelled simply due to opposition. The fact that both of them share in the Islamophobic sentiments that are sweeping the nation, openly support fundamentalist Christian Nationalism, and construct their platforms out of the fears, biases, and bigotry of their audience and political base, provides them with strong motivation to pursue this anti-Constitutional agenda. They draw a false equivalency between the two situations, equating an overt action that has as its sole purpose to send a message with the building of a facility that others have chosen to interpret as an offensive message. The only similarity is that, in either case, their offense is of no import.
To say that the surrendering of these rights is a responsibility that we all have in order to be part of civil society is incorrect. To consider such actions morally superior, defining them as taking the high road for the greater good, is equally erroneous. An honest admission would include these excuses as nothing more than self-flattering disguises of the fear of the threatened consequences. The threat of an uncivil reaction does not define the action itself as uncivil. An action cannot be defined by the reaction of others. Civil society cannot be defined by those who threaten others with uncivil action. Civil society is not achieved by pursuing policies of appeasement to the more base aspects of our human nature, or to the more violent and reactive elements within society.
The claim that the burning of a Koran is like yelling fire in a crowded theatre is also a gross misrepresentation. It may be like cheering for the Washington Redskins at a Dallas Cowboys home game, but it certainly is not like yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
Tim Wise: "Imagine if the Tea Party was Black"
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters -the black protesters - spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester - these black protesters with guns - be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans?
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark "other" does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and "American-ness" of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
[T]his, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the mess we do, on a daily basis.
The Really Gay Subtext Reviews of Rizzoli and Isles (definitely via cybertardis...and SO MUCH FUN!)
Remember when that crime show with the two good-looking leading ladies first started airing way back in July and you started watching and then started thinking, "This show is really gay." And then you kept watching and kept thinking, "No, really, this show is super-duper gay." And then, you were hooked and each week you were even more hooked and said, "No, I could not be more serious, these women could not be more gay for each other."
The subtext behind "Jane Rizzoli, a.k.a.The Butchest Cop in All the Land (trademark pending)" and "Dr. Maura Isles, a.k.a. The Femme Your Femme Could Be Femme Like (trademark also pending)" ...for the pilot then, if you search the history, later eps as well...and more to come.
Most Known Adam Savage Quotes" (My favorite is "I can't help but notice that it's NOT ON FIRE YET.")
"Five True Things About Education Reform"...a brilliant satire.
[A] really long time ago, the nation was full of really good teachers, mostly women (because even back then men thought teaching was really gay), who were allergic to money and eating and keeping a roof over their heads. These women were wildly happy to teach school for some beads, a used tissue, and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. But then along came some mean, nasty, vicious, conniving, sneaky, Commie pinko union organizers, who rounded up all the good teachers and threw them in a bottomless well. Then the union organizers went deep into the forest, where a tribe of very stupid, lazy child-haters lived, and they rounded the tribeswomen up to become teachers (because even tribesmen living deep in the forest, far from civilization, thought teaching was really gay). The union people dressed these women in polyester pants suits and made them join the union, pay dues, accept higher wages and benefits, and sit in overcrowded classrooms cracking their gum and doing crossword puzzles while their students fell off their chairs from sheer stupidity. And that continues even unto this day.
"Shylock, My Students, and Me: What I’ve learned from 30 years of teaching The Merchant of Venice"
[F]or my students at the time, Shylock was unsavory, brutal, and ultimately inhumane. They could comprehend him up to a point, but they continued to insist that he was the villain, and that to say otherwise would be to twist Shakespeare’s intention. [30 years later] ...Now, Shylock became the heroic central figure, and the other characters became villains: Bassanio weak and opportunistic; Antonio passive and creepy; Portia mean.
My own position is that, if we want a happy ending, at some point we must draw a line and close our eyes to the injustices that it entails. We must accept accommodation to oppression and, in some cases, to evil itself. A happy ending is only an approximate good, pointing beyond itself to a time when happy endings will be happy for all the deserving, and evil will be fully recognized and purged. My students in the old days would have called this The Last Judgment. My students today are likely to call it wishful thinking.
"How to Email Your Professor" ...and many other awesome "how not to be a dork if you're a student" essays if you look through the history.
"An Aspie in the City"
Since teachers are unlikely to flag kids who excel in written work no matter how quiet they are, many girls with AS are overlooked for special education, says Michael John Carley, director of GRASP, a supportive network for people with AS.
One teacher noted that "Kiriana had many problems learning the square dances and musical games. Changing direction or actions at musical cues appeared to be quite difficult for her." Struggles with spatial orientation earned her scorn on the playground; lacking an intuitive sense of direction, she repeatedly kicked the ball into her own team's goal. She eventually refused to play at all. She also refused to call any of her classmates by their nicknames, because it seemed too familiar. "It was like I had an alien complex," she says. "The result was that they treated me like an alien."
Girls are generally recognized as superior mimics, says Tony Attwood, a pioneering Asperger's researcher. Those with AS hold back and observe until they learn the "rules," then imitate their way through social situations. But for a girl like Kiriana with undiagnosed Asperger's, her ability to manage her symptoms better than a boy can be less than a blessing; often it's a curse that keeps her suffering in silence.
"Girls can fake it quite well," says Liane Willey, a psycholinguist with AS who describes how she assumes different personalities when switching social gears in her autobiography, Pretending to Be Normal.
"Burning Korans and Building Mosques: America’s Blasphemy Laws"
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin
"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god." - Mark Twain
Many conservative politicians, and pundits, including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, have suggested that both the Koran burning as well as the development of the Islamic Center should be cancelled simply due to opposition. The fact that both of them share in the Islamophobic sentiments that are sweeping the nation, openly support fundamentalist Christian Nationalism, and construct their platforms out of the fears, biases, and bigotry of their audience and political base, provides them with strong motivation to pursue this anti-Constitutional agenda. They draw a false equivalency between the two situations, equating an overt action that has as its sole purpose to send a message with the building of a facility that others have chosen to interpret as an offensive message. The only similarity is that, in either case, their offense is of no import.
To say that the surrendering of these rights is a responsibility that we all have in order to be part of civil society is incorrect. To consider such actions morally superior, defining them as taking the high road for the greater good, is equally erroneous. An honest admission would include these excuses as nothing more than self-flattering disguises of the fear of the threatened consequences. The threat of an uncivil reaction does not define the action itself as uncivil. An action cannot be defined by the reaction of others. Civil society cannot be defined by those who threaten others with uncivil action. Civil society is not achieved by pursuing policies of appeasement to the more base aspects of our human nature, or to the more violent and reactive elements within society.
The claim that the burning of a Koran is like yelling fire in a crowded theatre is also a gross misrepresentation. It may be like cheering for the Washington Redskins at a Dallas Cowboys home game, but it certainly is not like yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
Tim Wise: "Imagine if the Tea Party was Black"
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters -the black protesters - spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester - these black protesters with guns - be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans?
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark "other" does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and "American-ness" of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
[T]his, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the mess we do, on a daily basis.
The Really Gay Subtext Reviews of Rizzoli and Isles (definitely via cybertardis...and SO MUCH FUN!)
Remember when that crime show with the two good-looking leading ladies first started airing way back in July and you started watching and then started thinking, "This show is really gay." And then you kept watching and kept thinking, "No, really, this show is super-duper gay." And then, you were hooked and each week you were even more hooked and said, "No, I could not be more serious, these women could not be more gay for each other."
The subtext behind "Jane Rizzoli, a.k.a.The Butchest Cop in All the Land (trademark pending)" and "Dr. Maura Isles, a.k.a. The Femme Your Femme Could Be Femme Like (trademark also pending)" ...for the pilot then, if you search the history, later eps as well...and more to come.
Most Known Adam Savage Quotes" (My favorite is "I can't help but notice that it's NOT ON FIRE YET.")
