Pearls – What I've Learned

January 22, 2021September 20, 2022

Time capsule January 2020

OK, I’ve updated my stock response now to MAGA-teen-fascist-gate, let me know what you think, FB fans (edits have been made! Several times lolol.)

“The following is not my original metaphor or analogy, but they are my words … the fucking media is framing this whole thing as if we are talking about the weather (who was guilty, the MAGAteen or the Native American Elder?) and nothing is said about the climate (MAGA hats in DC – incendiary from the start; who sent them to DC to petition the government to subjugate a woman’s control over her body?; Where were the chaperones?; Why was the Elder there anyway?; Why should we care about the history of the Native American?; What part did the MAGAphalanx(patent pending) (30+ others) play in the face to face stare down?; Who were the four “Black Hebrew Israelites” and do they matter?; Does the MAGAphalanx making ape sounds and mimicking apes at the “Black Hebrew Israelites” mean anything?; Why did MAGAteen’s mother call them “Black Muslims”; Why did MAGAteen suddenly have GOP/McConnell tied PR firm writing the boy’s “I’m the victim” letter?; So many climate-based questions, etc etc thus far and where’s the media? They are fucking focused on the Rashomonian “event” to find out “what really happened”).

You know, the media needs a fucking horserace, or a boxing match or whatever. I mean, they HAVE to sell soap and boner pills and to pander to your inadequacies, because you know, it’s a living.

Then there’s this video from before the “MAGteen vs Native American Elder” videos.   

Get a clue. It DOES take a village to raise a child, and the Covington High School “village”, located in a Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati, raises racists and rapists. There’s a LONG history of video and photo evidence (although Covington HS is doing a bang up job of closing down their sites and removing those videos and photos). Note: I’m too lazy to curate all the links, do your own research.   

So, like Climate Change, in which our proudly ignorant president, who tweeted that it would be great to “have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now” in a January arctic blast that’s deep freezing much of the US, and who also tweeted in support of MAGAteen (while misspelling his name), it’s not about the weather today, it’s a bigger and much more complex picture that requires a bit of focus and some higher order thinking skills. I fear there are still a large enough number of people who possess no thinking skills whatsoever, because you know, it’s hard work and all that.

…and the media, well, again, they just won’t do their job properly.  

In short: Forget the WEATHER and look at the CLIMATE.”

I use these three tags regularly for posts…

#MAGACONJOB – because you know, we have a master snake oil salesman sitting in the Oval Office with his finger over the nuclear button. He’s also doing a fabulous job of sucking the air out of every room and keeping our attention completely on him, so that little fuckers like the MAGA teen can be poster children for privilege of all kinds.

#kentuckyfriedturtle – Because Mitch McConnell has been the biggest enemy of the US Constitution for how many years now? He’s also involved in this incident through his crony network. He’s really where we need to focus, but #MAGACONJOB just keeps doing things so incredibly moronic we just can’t look away. He is also the sole current owner of the government shutdown. Trump got it rolling, but McConnell is the one feeding it with his inaction.

#dominionistveep – I don’t want Trump going anywhere unless this creepy creepy CREEPY fucker goes with him. Pence’s world view is the scariest of them all.

May 12, 2020September 20, 2022

Time Capsule: November 8, 2017 –

Note: lifted from my FB post, and embellished here, cuz it’s fun to embellish.

<rant>

What will work:

1. Before the election, non-partisan redistricting to get rid of Gerrymandering.

2. 100% public funding of elections. PACs made illegal, and Citizen’s United decision reversed through legislation.

3. Campaign period limited to three months before election day.

4. Second Tuesday in November is a national holiday called “Election Day”. Polls open Tuesday 12:00:01 AM. Polls close Wednesday 12:00:00 AM.

National Holiday

5. Uniform Federally Printed Paper ballots for the Presidency. Collected and sent to Washington DC for counting. State ballots for everything else. Exception for the two or so million of us who live overseas. Then, some form of secure digital authenticated transaction for voting for president, then for state candidates and issues. Just don’t contract Equifax for that. Those US Based who will be overseas on election day do paper mail-ins.

6. Absolute news blackout when polls are open. When Alaska/Hawaii polls close, the press can do their thing.

7. Abolish the Electoral college. Five times in history, but two times in my lifetime is enough to show the system doesn’t work as planned. Instead use “The Alternative Vote” for instant runoff.

Why none of the above will work:

1. Get rid of Gerrymandering? Will get on that right after we’ve put in comprehensive gun control.

2. Citizen’s United, where money is speech. It’ll always be louder than actual people actually speaking their opinions. See the Cruella DeVoucher confirmation story for more on that.

3. Trump filed for re-election literally right after he was done with his inauguration ceremony. Like, it was the same day or the next day (too lazy to look it up to confirm). He’s gamed the system so that we, the taxpayers, are now paying for his “campaign rallies”.

4. Empirical evidence showing shorter voting times in heavily Democratic districts, especially those with a minority population as its majority, has worked well with voter suppression.

5. Citizen’s United again. Three Voting machine companies have a stranglehold, and their money talks more than me.

6. The press will scream first amendment. The Supreme’s will probably take their side, because it’s a money thing again.

7. It was a good idea when populations of states weren’t that far apart from each other. Wont happen any time soon without a constitutional amendment, and that’s a pipe dream for reasons (too lazy to explain, but state government control is the key).

Thanks for playing. Factual mistakes are all mine. Comment on anything else that will work.
</rant>

May 12, 2020September 20, 2022

Time Capsule: Dec 2, 2019

Hi everyone, some personal updates from me…

1. I turned 58 on December 1. Thanks for your birthday wishes. I share birthdays with the late great Richard Pryor, Bette Middler, the disgraced Woody Allen, and the putrid piece of shit Senator from Florida, Rick Scott, among of course many other people. Birthdates determine nothing about your future.

2. My friend and long ago classmate Charlie Williams announced that he’s leaving Facebook at the end of this month. I think it’s the right move, and it triggered something in me, and today, I’ve spent time unfollowing between 50 to 75 groups that I’ve been in on Facebook. I’ve had friends leave FB for various reasons, and, you know, by staying here, we are all contributing to…well, if you don’t know it by now, it’s not even worth commenting. It’ll be hard to leave FB because it’s one of my lifelines to family and friends. What are the alternatives to serving a billionaire who lied and cheated his way into his billions, and is now quite alright that the thing he built is one of the biggest sources of misinformation on the planet. The alternatives are serving the billionaires at twitter, who pretty much do the same thing; serving the billionaires at Instagram (aka Facebook-owned but for the younger generations); serving someone else in order to stay in touch with friends and family. No matter what we choose, it’s the wrong choice. We have no choice, so I’m thinking what to do.

3. The groups I’ve unfollowed are 80% political, with the remaining 20% various news agencies and other weird websites. I’ve kept some web comics sites, some art and design sites, and of course the UU sites, who remind me that religious points of view are embraced by a vast majority of humans and I need to keep my mind as open as possible. Already, I’m seeing a lot more posts from family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances that were being drowned out by all the other flak I had on my “news feed”.

4. I spent a good three or so years as an online adjunct for St. Thomas University, my former employer, and subsequent alma mater (Ed.D. in Ed. Leadership), and I taught a few doctoral level courses about Social Media Management, naively extolling the virtues of the major social media websites. Now I realize I was duped like we’ve all been duped. The hardest part is admitting the dupe. I actually have a lot to say about higher education and education in general, but I think I’d probably have a serious brain aneurysm if I started to do the research that I want to do. I’d be doubled over in rage at the ghetto education has become globally, and especially the anti-educational road that the USA is barreling down.

5. I’m very thankful for my current job. I work with people from over 80 countries. I recently attended a talk at NYU-Abu Dhabi (they have a huge campus on Saadiyat Island…actually kind of hermetically sealed off from Abu Dhabi proper) and their main problem was, they spent all their time recruiting students globally, but their teaching staff come from a homogenous educational background (that being from Western Universities mostly from the English speaking countries). They have a huge disconnect, whereas our college student body comes from open-enrollment Emerati students who have the amazing value of faculty from, as I said, people from over 80 countries. The irony of it all … that’s just the tip of the iceberg… I have a lot of creative freedom in what I do, and have had many valuable working relationships here … and I’ve been humbled and reminded daily of my world view talking with the faculty and staff here. Long story short, this is the longest I’ve ever worked anywhere. I’ve had some frustrations, but I have to say, it’s the least stressful job I’ve experienced in my lifetime, and the opportunities for collaboration, whether with my Italian friend / colleague who will need my help with instructional design issues, my Jordanian and South African colleagues looking to collaborate with designing PD sessions on assessment, or the teachers who I coach from Mexico, India, Panama, Malaysia, Iraq, Nigeria, Tanzania, Australia, Pakistan, Romania…it’s been a really fabulous opportunity and I look forward to our transition to competency-based education at the college. If I write anything (and I still am not disciplined enough) it will be about the diversity of the people I work with. The government of the UAE is, I believe, doing their best to leverage the wealth that oil has brought them, and they are doing their best to diversify their economy. Of course, the road to where they want to go is bumpy, and seat belts are fastened. So far, everything I see here is forward looking, especially from my view inside the college.

6. With that said, moving to Okinawa is somewhere on the horizon, but I’m wondering if I should try to crowdsource some cash so I can have an adventure in Rwanda, first… there are still a lot of teachers who need guidance, and I wonder if there’s a place for me in or around Kigali. What do you think?

May 12, 2020September 20, 2022

Glossary of Comments

For your convenience: a glossary of Dr. Larry-isms (I paid 70k for those damn two letters, let me have my vanity!), aka, my favorite ways to make quick notes or comments on shit that scrolls through the FB feed. BTW, fuck Zuck and fuck FB, but this is my only soapbox so there’s that. Make sure you print this out and tape it to the front of your computer / tablet / smart device for your reference. Print it out now before you read it. Stop stalling and print the damn thing…you know copy/paste into something and hit print. That color laser printer in the corner needs some use. If you want, color each point below a different color for variety, and you know, all that printer ink just sitting there. Jeez, go on eat some cheetos too, but watch out there’s onion powder in ’em. Or just watch this, instead, do I need to tell you everything?

Accurate – something that is way the fuck true. So true that you don’t even have time to shave. So true that that Japanese curry just needs a little more red chili powder so the burn in your mouth extends beyond each spoonful, although, hell yeah that piece of meat is better consumed via those aluminum chopsticks you just bought a few weeks back. So true that Patsy Cline and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Buddy Holly and Jane Russell would approve. So true that even Robert Mugabe would concede that everyone being a multi-mega-trillionaire just wasn’t helping.

Current Mood (and variations) – OMG I’m so fucking happy to have added a new pattern into my repertoire. Happy New Year 2020! A NEW DECADE! Just there’s literally a bug in the system and it has literally given us pause to gauge our mood. Shit, what’s gonna happen next? Is this just a 30-minute sitcom that will have resolution? OK, actually 22 minutes because of the fucking marketers…

Kill yourselves. No, seriously.

A pause! A time to reflect! I mean, yeah, I grew up on sitcoms, so everything should be resolved quickly. Who isn’t having mood swings right now? Among all my FB brethren and sisthren there are the pray-ers, the drink-ers, the meme-ers, the political-ers, and the ones I least understand, those who keep it strictly personal with photos of their dogs and cats and living room furniture. Well fuck all that, I’m gonna cuss because there’s empirical research showing I’m a goddamn genius for doing so. Moody? Foody? Goody? Broody? This one I’m gonna milk for a very very long time.

Framing – George Lakoff. George Lakoff. George Lakoff. George Orwell. George Orwell. George Orwell. Lev Vygotsky. Lev Vygotsky. Lev Vygotsky. What do a modern day linguist, an anti-fascist fighter in the Spanish Civil War, and a Soviet educational psychologist have in common? Language is a way to make sense of a world where there’s no sense, until you dig down and see how language itself has been used and is still being used to bend minds, and souls, and morality, and pineapple on pizza. As a language teacher who has always paid attention to the “whose English, exactly, are we teaching?” debate, and keeping in mind Orwell’s lament of the death of hundreds of other languages as the worst legacy of colonialism and hegemony… well shit…sticks and stones may break your bones, but you are fucking wrong to think names will never hurt you, moron. STAY THE FUCK INSIDE.

Kwaheri – Kwaheri is Swahili for “Goodbye”. Straws aren’t destroying the earth, corporations are, and we are all complicit. Dire predictions, animal extinctions, stuff lost forever, like tears in rain … it’s all kwaheri, though it used to be adios.

I used to smoke these`kabisa mabibi na mabwana! No really I did.

Pearls – (found in many different phrased ways). Clutch clutch clutch. Remember, in these times, there is no bottom. None. NONE. Almost every day something even lower happens. Because of this new given, nothing that happens from this moment forward should surprise you. Those who want to see the world burn are also dragons, sitting on their piles of gold, the worst hoarders of all, and we are supposed to admire their success. Well, you know what? Framing. The rest of us are their servants in one way or the other. Deep inside me there’s an optimist, but like that speck of dirt that causes oysters to secrete whatever the fuck they secrete to form a pearl, that’s pretty much where I am personally. Also, I really was getting into the XFL because fuck the NFL. I will never learn, will I?

PSA – Public Service Announcements are usually sometimes actual real important serious things…or they aren’t. If you know me and my sense of humor, you’ll be able to tell them apart. It’s really my shorthand for saying… do you really NOT have the basic common sense and decency that this post is flagging? What the ever living fuck is WRONG with you? I think it’s me being Calvin and ranting at all the injustices I PERSONALLY AM SUFFERING. It’s maybe the sociopath in me (I have strong genes in that area sherioshly). Anyway, it’s something that you should take note of.

Zen – Use this as reference
Face it: the contradictions in the human condition baffle as much as they entertain. They make waffles as much as they use sump pumps on sailboats headed to St. Croix. You either try to connect it and control it, or you realize that all is well because nothing is under control. It’s why I’m a left-handed-ambidexterous Unitarian. Now go enjoy your snickers.