no. 1118

 

no. 1117

“A reminder that one of my favorite ways to frame the economy for most people is that they are *never* three good months away from being rich, but *always* three bad months from being homeless.”

John Roger’s (@johnrogers.bsky.social)

no. 1116

My daughter came home from school and said,

“Mom, you’re not going to believe what happened in history class today.”

Her teacher told the class they were going to play a game.

He walked around the room and whispered to each kid whether they were a witch or just a regular person. Then he gave the instructions:

“Form the biggest group you can without a witch. If your group has even one, you all fail.”

She said the whole room instantly lit up with suspicion.

Everyone started interrogating each other. Are you a witch? How do we know you’re not lying?

Some kids clung to one big group, but most broke off into smaller, exclusive cliques. They turned away anyone who seemed uncertain, nervous, or gave off even the slightest hint of being guilty.

The energy shifted fast. Suddenly everyone was suspicious of everyone.

Whispers. Finger-pointing. Side-eyes. Trust dissolved in minutes.

Finally, when all the groups were formed, the teacher said,

“Alright, time to find out who fails. Witches, raise your hands.”

And not one hand went up.

The whole class exploded. “Wait! You messed up the game!”

And then the teacher dropped the bomb:

“Did I? Were there any actual witches in Salem, or did everyone just believe what they were told?”

My daughter said the room went dead silent.

That’s when it hit them. No witch was ever needed for the damage to happen. Fear had already done its work. Suspicion alone divided the entire class, turning community into chaos.

And isn’t that exactly what we’re seeing today?

Different words, same playbook.

Instead of “witch,” it’s liberal, conservative, vaxxed, unvaxxed, pro-this, anti-that.

The labels shift, but the tactic is the same.

Get people scared. Get them suspicious. Get them divided.

Then sit back while trust crumbles.

The danger was never the witch.

The danger is the rumor. The suspicion. The fear. The planted lies.

Refuse the whisper. Don’t play the game. Because the second we start hunting “witches,” we’ve already lost.

Unkown

no. 1115

 

no. 1114

 From someone who teaches AP US History: 

If you are confused as to why so many Americans are defending the confederate flag, monuments, and statues right now, I put together a quick Q&A, with questions from a hypothetical person with misconceptions and answers from my perspective as an AP U.S. History Teacher:

Q: What did the Confederacy stand for?

A: Rather than interpreting, let's go directly to the words of the Confederacy's Vice President, Alexander Stephens. In his "Cornerstone Speech" on March 21, 1861, he stated "The Constitution... rested upon the equality of races. This was an error. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Q: But people keep saying heritage, not hate! They think the purpose of the flags and monuments are to honor confederate soldiers, right?

A: The vast majority of confederate flags flying over government buildings in the south were first put up in the 1960's during the Civil Rights Movement. So for the first hundred years after the Civil War ended, while relatives of those who fought in it were still alive, the confederate flag wasn't much of a symbol at all. But when Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis were marching on Washington to get the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) passed, leaders in the south felt compelled to fly confederate flags and put up monuments to honor people who had no living family members and had fought in a war that ended a century ago. Their purpose in doing this was to exhibit their displeasure with black people fighting for basic human rights that were guaranteed to them in the 14th and 15th Amendments but being withheld by racist policies and practices.

Q: But if we take down confederate statues and monuments, how will we teach about and remember the past?

A: Monuments and statues pose little educational relevance, whereas museums, the rightful place for Confederate paraphernalia, can provide more educational opportunities for citizens to learn about our country's history. The Civil War is important to learn about, and will always loom large in social studies curriculum. Removing monuments from public places and putting them in museums also allows us to avoid celebrating and honoring people who believed that tens of millions of black Americans should be legal property. 

Q: But what if the Confederate flag symbol means something different to me?

A: Individuals aren't able to change the meaning of symbols that have been defined by history. When I hang a Bucs flag outside my house, to me, the Bucs might represent the best team in the NFL, but to the outside world, they represent an awful NFL team, since they haven't won a playoff game in 18 years. I can't change that meaning for everyone who drives by my house because it has been established for the whole world to see. If a Confederate flag stands for generic rebellion or southern pride to you, your personal interpretation forfeits any meaning once you display it publicly, as its meaning takes on the meaning it earned when a failed regime killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in an attempt to destroy America and keep black people enslaved forever. 

Q: But my uncle posted a meme that said the Civil War/Confederacy was about state's rights and not slavery?

A: "A state's right to what?" - John Green

Q: Everyone is offended about everything these days. Should we take everything down that offends anyone?

A: The Confederacy literally existed to go against the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the idea that black people are human beings that deserve to live freely. If that doesn't upset or offend you, you are un-American. 

Q: Taking these down goes against the First Amendment and freedom of speech, right?

A: No. Anyone can do whatever they want on their private property, on their social media, etc. Taking these down in public, or having private corporations like NASCAR ban them on their properties, has literally nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. 

Q: How can people claim to be patriotic while supporting a flag that stood for a group of insurgent failures who tried to permanently destroy America and killed 300,000 Americans in the process? 

A: No clue.

Q: So if I made a confederate flag my profile picture, or put a confederate bumper sticker on my car, what am I declaring to my friends, family, and the world?

A: That you support the Confederacy. To recap, the Confederacy stands for: slavery, white supremacy, treason, failure, and a desire to permanently destroy Selective history as it supports white supremacy. 

It’s no accident that: 

You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B, DuBois

You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington. 

You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth from slaves. 

You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street. 

You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”

You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals. 

You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race. 

You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession. 

Privilege is having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts. 

Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality. 

You have a choice. 

Jim Golden

no. 1113

 I'm turning a corner...but...my path is in my heart.

Marcel Proust, The Swann Way (transl. Brian Wilson)

no. 1112

 “No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” 

Ansel Adams

no. 1111

 “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Desmond Tutu.

no. 1110

 

no. 1109

 ”For my part, the thing that I would wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security. But what the typical modern man desires to get with it is more money, with a view to ostentation, splendour, and the outshining of those who have hitherto been his equals.”

— Bertrand Russell , The Conquest of Happiness (1930), Ch.III: Competition, p. 49

no. 1108

 I have attended several CPR classes over the years, but was never told this…..

When you are alone and have a heart attack. What are you gonna do then ?

A rarely good post that can't be shared often enough:

1. Take a 2 minute break and read this:

Let's say it's 5:25 pm and you're driving home after an unusually hard day's work.

2. You are really tired and frustrated.

All of a sudden your chest pains. They are starting to radiate in the arm and jaw. It feels like being stabbed in the chest and heart. You're only a few miles away from the nearest hospital or home.

3. Unfortunately you don't know if you can make it..

4. Maybe you've taken CPR training, but the person running the course hasn't told you how to help yourself.

5. How do you survive a heart attack when you're alone when it happens? A person who is feeling weak and whose heart is beating hard has only about 10 seconds before losing consciousness.

6. But you can help yourself by coughing repeatedly and very strongly! Deep breaths before every cough. Coughing should be repeated every second until you arrive at the hospital or until your heart starts to beat normally.

7. Deep breathing gives oxygen to your lungs and coughing movements boost the heart and blood circulation. Heart pressure also helps to restore a normal heartbeat. 

8. Cardiologists say if someone gets this message and passes it on to 10 people, we can expect to save at least one life.

9. FOR WOMEN: You should know that women have additional and different symptoms. Rarely have crushing chest pain or pain in the arms. Often have indigestion and tightness across the back at the bra line plus sudden fatigue.  

Instead of posting jokes, you're helping save lives by spreading this message.

❤️ COPY (hold your finger, click on the text and select copy, go to your own page and where you normally want to write, select finger again and paste)

Unknown

no. 1107

 “In all classes, from the lowest to almost the highest, economic fear governs men's thoughts by day and their dreams at night, making their work nerve-racking and their leisure unrefreshing. This ever-present terror is, I think, the main cause of the mood of madness which has swept over great parts of the civilized world.”

― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. VII, The Case for Socialism, 3. Economic Insecurity, p. 90

'In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays' is a 1935 collection of essays by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The collection includes essays on the subjects of sociology, philosophy and economics. In the eponymous essay, Russell proposes that a balanced allocation of labour, yielding shorter workdays, would decrease unemployment and heighten human happiness through expanded leisure time, consequently encouraging greater involvement in artistic and scientific pursuits.

no. 1106

 "The founding fathers mistrusted government power, and they had very good reason to, as do we. This is why they tried to institutionalize the separation of powers, the right to think, the right to speak, to be heard, to assemble, to complain to the government about its abuses, to be able to vote or impeach malefactors out of office.

John Stuart Mill talked eloquently in his essay "On Liberty" on the importance of free speech, of vigorous interaction. Let me just make one quote here from On Liberty:

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generations, those who dissent from the opinion still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit: the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error."

Despite our best efforts, some things we believe are probably wrong. We certainly are very keen on recognizing the errors of past times and other nations. Why should our nation, why should our time, be different? If there are things that we believe, if there are institutions in our society that are in error, imperfectly conceived or executed, these are potential impediments to our survival. How do we find the errors? How do we correct them?

I maintain: with courage, the scientific method, and the Constitution. Sooner or later, every abuse of power must confront the Constitution. The only question is how much damage has been done in the interim."

Carl Sagan "Science and Civil Liberties" (ACLU of Illinois Lecture, 1987)

no. 1105

 “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.”

-Justice Sonia Sotomayor

no. 1104

 “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That is Fascism: ownership of the government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling power.”

 Franklin Delano Roosevelt

no. 1103

 "The issue of government has always been whether individual men and women will have to serve some system of government and economics, or whether a system of government and economics exists to serve individual men and women." 

FDR, 1932

no. 1102

 So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.

George Orwell, 1984 

no. 1101

 

C. S. Lewis,  “The Screwtape Letters”

no. 1100

 "We humans are newcomers, arising only a few million years ago. Our present technical civilization is just a few hundred years old. We have not had much recent experience in voluntary interspecies cooperation. We are very devoted to the short-term and hardly ever think about the long-term. There is no guarantee that we will be wise enough to understand our planetwide closed ecological system, or to modify our behavior in accord with that understanding." 

Carl Sagan ; Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

no. 1099

 “Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.”

A. Whitney Griswold