John Merrow had breakfast with Ambassador Gordon Sondland!

Open this link to find out what happened!

And, please know, before you open the link, that I will forever love John M. for what he says inside it.

Categories Bigotry, Technology

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LeftCoastTeacher says:

November 23, 2019 at 9:55 am

Am I glad I clicked the link. No lie, that was amazing. Thank you.

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Linda says:

November 23, 2019 at 10:23 am

I thank the Jewish organizations representing 90% of Jews and, the expanding Pastors for Texas Children who work to support public schools.
Damnation to those among the theocracy who aligned with oligarchs in the furtherance of a parallel school system aimed at destroying public education (the training manual of the Koch’s guy is posted at Theocracy Watch).

I praise ADL for its activism and, curse those in religions who set a goal to “preserve civic order” when the nation is threatened with fascism and oligarchy.

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carolmalaysia says:

November 23, 2019 at 10:35 am

A “sewer of bigotry and vile conspiracy theories” pretty well states what many are following. Social media isn’t the only problem. Fox also promotes that which isn’t truth.

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- Susan Lee Schwartz says:
  
  November 23, 2019 at 11:04 am
  
  Read my comment below regarding the transformational era, tht began with television. Of course it was tv ,that window on the world, now a huge screen in living color on the walls of our citizenry… telling us the VALUES of the people who own the transmitters… the billionaires, who are running the world into chaos.
  
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- dianeravitch says:
  
  November 23, 2019 at 11:07 am
  
  I watched a clip from FOX and Friends where Trump repeated all his favorite conspiracy theories about Ukraine and CrowdStrike and a “missing server” that is now in Ukraine.
  
  Google CrowdStrike. It is a cyber security firm in California that the DNC hired in 2016 to find out how its emails were hacked.
  
  There is no missing server. Emails are stored in a cloud, not a server.
  
  Who feeds him this garbage? Guiliani? Alex Jones?
  
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Susan Lee Schwartz says:

November 23, 2019 at 10:38 am

I write about The Unintended Consequences of transformational eras. This Is one. Information technology changed every society The world is currently in chaos.

The chaos of the internet is what is different, today, and it is is this ripping apart societies across the world. It is not just that families, neighborhoods, communities have disappeared, so all the benefits that their wisdom and companionship are gone. It is that IN THE PLACE OF the Beneficial values passed on in real communities , comes the internet… cyberspace, where division and violence are fed to our most impressional people–
And now, in this transformational era of information technology (tv and the internet) comes the anarchy of cyberspace, where images and memes sell disinformation to a stressed, fearful and ignorant citizenry. Read ‘In the Absence of the Sacred’ by Jerry Mander.
http://scott.london/reviews/mander.html

The information technology revolution began with television. Pushing the values of the power elites who own the media… and suddenly, 60 years after Howdy Doody, we can flip channels and see in that huge window on the world… endless aggression, violence and blood. The animated shows fed to our young people are all about violence — as an evil character must be bested by powerful super-heroes.No more stories where people work together to find solutions.And instead of quiet time, where one reads timeless stories where people find ways to survive over adversity, video games give angry people a way to finally ‘win,” and as they watch…they lose touch with humanity.

Here is a ‘must see’ Jerry Mander video, made about television’s impact in 2010.
I read his book on this subject, “Four Arguments for the Elimination Of Television” in the eighties. This is the subject that I studied and which I write about for decades! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3NBEurnIqY

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Susan Lee Schwartz says:

November 23, 2019 at 10:54 am

I posted the link to the ” Never Is Now Summit on Anti-Semitism and Hate: Sacha Baron Cohen’s Keynote Address at ‘ADL’ 201″9
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Never-Is-Now-Summit-on-Ant-in-Life_Arts-Anti-semitism_Conspiracy_Dangerous_Democracy-191123-536.html

with this introduction taken from his speech.

“Voltaire was right, “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” And social media lets authoritarians push absurdities to billions of people.’

“On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate. the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner. We have lost, it seems, a shared sense of the basic facts upon which democracy depends. Today around the world, demagogues appeal to our worst instincts. Conspiracy theories once confined to the fringe are going mainstream. What do all these dangerous trends have in common? The greatest propaganda machine in history. Thanks to social media, conspiracies take hold, it’s easier for hate groups to recruit, easier for foreign intelligence agencies to interfere in our elections, and easier for a country like Myanmar to commit genocide against the Rohingya. ”
“I’m speaking up today because I believe that our pluralistic democracies are on a precipice and that the next twelve months, and the role of social media, could be determinant. “

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NoBrick says:

November 23, 2019 at 12:14 pm

“Voltaire was right,
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

Is Ralph Nader right?

“…All societies perpetuate lavish myths that enable the few to rule over the many, repress critical thinking and camouflage the grim realities. Our country was, and remains, no exception.

In school we learned that our country was number one, the greatest in the world. We sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” in music class. Being the “greatest” was neither defined nor questioned. We simply had a vague sense that “great” meant militarily and economically “big.”

In practice, however, “great” was associated with kneejerk patriotism and served as a barrier to thinking critically about what we were told to take for granted. For were we to parse the deeper meaning of the word “great,” we might have had to make specific comparisons of the United States in concrete ways with other countries such as Canada and those in Europe. And we might have discovered that we weren’t first in many areas of human and environmental well-being.

Early in elementary school we were told that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America and what followed was the arrival of the pioneers of “civilization.” This myth served to justify the white man’s domination over “inferior races,” whether native or brought in as slaves from Africa. In truth, as my father taught me, Columbus invaded America in search of gold and, with his soldiers, slaughtered Caribbean tribes that long preceded Columbus’s arrival in their lands.

Along the way in school we were told that, unlike other “evil” countries, American soldiers did not intentionally kill civilians, as did our cruel enemies. Somehow General Sherman’s march to the sea during the Civil War escaped our attention; as did later mass slaughter of human beings in the Philippines and the deliberate targeting and incineration of entire residential, civilian areas in World War I and World War II – to, in the language of the official strategies, “terrorize the populations.”

The myth of an America without imperial intentions camouflaged the purposes of several wars and many imperial assaults and overthrows. Who were we to question? Other countries were Empires; America was guided by “manifest destiny.”

…With the exceptions of some marvelous teachers, our many hours in class teach us to believe***, not to think, to obey, not to challenge. For too many of our school years, the process was, and is, memorization and regurgitation. At the most, we are given some cursory training, but not educated in any deep or productive sense.
***The central tenet of the STATE catechism- the EXCEPTIONALIST myth.”

Unless/until contradictions are brought to a head, we will remain the same…

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- Duane E Swacker says:
  
  November 23, 2019 at 1:00 pm
  
  How about the myth that standardized tests measure something?
  
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 1:01 pm
    
    Or is that just a plain lie?
    
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  - Abigail Shure says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 1:12 pm
    
    Standardized tests measure social class.
    
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 7:23 pm
    
    Nope, they test results correlate with SES status but the tests don’t measure anything. Consider:
    
    CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL MEASURE by any stretch of the meaning of those terms.
    The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them.
    
    Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
    
    “Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition] (notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”)
    
    Now since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
    
    THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
    
    PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
    
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  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 3:48 pm
    
    “How about the myth that standardized tests measure something?”
    
    Duane, standardized tests do measure something.
    
    They measure a student’s ability to do well on that particular standardized test.
    
    To me, the argument is whether measuring that ability to do well on that standardized test is of any use or not.
    
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 7:29 pm
    
    Again, no.
    
    Pray tell, please give us the standard unit of measurement of/for a “student’s ability to do well on that particular standardized test”. What is the agreed upon unit of measurement on that “particular standardized test?”
    
    Hint: There isn’t any, never has been and never will be.
    
    Now does the student’s score reflect a student’s ability to take said standardized test? No doubt but “reflecting” and “measuring” are not the same thing.
    
    Word usage matters. To continue to use the false language usage of the psychometricians (or better psychomeretricians) can only insure that the educational malpractice and travesty that is standardized testing will continue. This truly is a battle of words.
    
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 7:33 pm
    
    Assessing one’s ability to do well on standardized tests is a complete waste of time, energy and resources.
    
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  - carolmalaysia says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 7:37 pm
    
    Duane E Swacker: Well stated. I wish politicians had the smarts to understand what you have written.
    
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 9:41 pm
    
    I just don’t have the $$$ to make the politicians smart enough to understand!
    
    Be that as it may I wish that the teachers and administrators (I’m playing nice in the sandbox with that) would not only understand what many of us here have to say but that they would also grow some cojones and stand up against the various educational malpractices identified here and in the many truly educational blogs, i.e., not the deform blogs.
    
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  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 8:00 pm
    
    Duane,
    
    I was being facetious in that comment, but I probably should not have even posted. You make an excellent point and I had not thought about how the word “measure” implies something different than “reflects”. Thank you! Joke retracted!
    
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    November 23, 2019 at 9:33 pm
    
    Actually what you wrote just gave me a good opportunity to reinforce what I’m trying to get across, so in that sense, thanks!
    
    I wish there was a facetious and/or sarcastic font!
    
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Linda says:

November 23, 2019 at 1:23 pm

Has the ADL issued a statement about the NFL owners and Kaepernick?

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- Linda says:
  
  November 23, 2019 at 1:32 pm
  
  “empathy over indifference”- Sacha Baron Cohen
  
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NYC public school parent says:

November 23, 2019 at 1:35 pm

One slight correction — I believe that Mark Zuckerberg met with Trump AND the person whose ties to Facebook, Donald Trump and Cambridge Analytica have gone virtually unreported in the US media (although there have been some in the British media).

Peter Thiel. Who was one of the early investors in Facebook and sat on the Facebook board when Facebook data was made available to Cambridge Analytica — a company who “coincidentally” just happened to have Peter Thiel’s Palantir employees sent to England help them use the Facebook data!

Peter Thiel, one of Trump’s biggest supporters during the campaign, who just happens to be a direct tie into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Arranging for he and Zuckerberg and Trump to huddle again to strategize.

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RT says:

November 23, 2019 at 9:18 pm

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

If this was Voltaire’s vision, what must he have made of the reign of terror as the revolution consumed its own in response to the fear of invasion and the disruption of a vanished old regime.

When change proceeds faster than society can bear, absurdity seems rational. People can be convinced that all sorts of things are reasonable. Fear, the strongest motivator of humanity, can rule. Fear mongering replaces reason. Demagogues rise on all sides.

In traditional society, knowledge is free. Your father, the weaver, taught you how to weave. Your mother taught you how to spin. The songs you sang were imbedded in the community. The grass your animals used to give you cheese was owned by the community. The superstition that ruled traditional society was another common thread.

In a society based on the sale of everything, we have now figured out how to sell superstition. Not working so well.

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carolmalaysia says:

November 24, 2019 at 7:26 am

Two years ago, President Trump shared a version of his foreign policy philosophy with a Fox News interviewer who asked about widespread vacancies at the State Department.
“I’m the only one that matters,” the president said.

I wonder how Hong Kong residents are taking the message that thousands of people would be dead if it weren’t for the magical abilities of our great Trump? They should all get down on their knees and worship Trump from having kept them from now being a police state.
The egotistical blatherings of this idiot is astounding. Compare the intelligence of State Department people who have testified against this clown’s rhetoric. This is coming from a newspaper published in Singapore.
……………………………………..

Trump: Hong Kong ‘would have been obliterated in 14 minutes’ without his help…Straights Times
PUBLISHEDNOV 22, 2019, 10:47 PM SGT

WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) – President Donald Trump said he has personally saved Hong Kong from being “obliterated,” sparing thousands of lives, though he declined to say whether he will support a US Bill backing pro-democracy protesters.

Trump, in a phone interview with the Fox & Friends programme on Friday morning (Nov 22), said the ongoing Hong Kong protests are “a complicating factor” in trade talks between the US and China, and argued that the US position has effectively blocked Chinese President Xi Jinping from a violent crackdown.

“If it weren’t for me, Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes,” Trump said. “He’s got a million soldiers standing outside of Hong Kong that aren’t going in only because I asked him, ‘Please don’t do that, you’ll be making a big mistake, it’s going to have a tremendous negative impact on the trade deal.’ And he wants to make a trade deal.”…

The Trump administration has import taxes in place on some US$360 billion (S$490 billion) in goods from China and has threatened to impose new levies Dec 15.

“If it weren’t for me, thousands of people would have been killed in Hong Kong right now, and you wouldn’t have any riots, you’d have a police state. But thousands of people,” Trump said on Friday. “The only reason he’s not going in is because I’m saying it’s going to affect our trade deal.” …

https://str.sg/JiFx

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