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You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Friday Morning Open Thread: Beautiful

Friday Morning Open Thread: Beautiful

by Anne Laurie|  April 8, 20228:03 am| 158 Comments

This post is in: GOP Death Cult, Music, Proud to Be A Democrat, Something Good Open Thread, Supreme Court, War in Ukraine

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I was so moved to see Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed this afternoon. Like so many of you, I can’t help but feel a sense of pride—a sense of joy—to know that this deserving, accomplished Black woman will be a part of the highest court in the land. pic.twitter.com/hnPcDuPt8w

— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) April 7, 2022


Put another way. pic.twitter.com/yM6sZd3fe3

— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) April 8, 2022

Most popular recent nominee by a long shot, and there will be no handwringing articles about how Republican incivility might cost them in the midterms with those crucial swing voters. https://t.co/e54dYMMyhI

— A.R. Moxon (@JuliusGoat) April 7, 2022

Opinion by Anita Hill: The Senate Judiciary Committee mistreated Judge Jackson. I should know. https://t.co/ijx2eZnbsL

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 7, 2022

The Critique: “Jackson’s confirmation doesn’t transform everything,” Robin Givhan writes. “But it reminds us of what is possible.” https://t.co/JeHCXZoW3W

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 8, 2022

With Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation comes a new version of the Supreme Court.https://t.co/8HCzjMP1G4

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 8, 2022

Bonus (I *hope* this works) — The ethereal bandura, national instrument of Ukraine:

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Previous Post: « COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Thursday / Friday, April 7-8
Next Post: Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law is built on a lie »

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 8:08 am

    Most popular recent nominee by a long shot,

    I’m surprised. I thought a lot of Americans really liked beer.

  2. 2.

    SFAW

    April 8, 2022 at 8:18 am

    Someone posted the news to the local NextDoor yesterday (here in the oh-so-red Taxachusetts). The first comment? Asking if the poster knew about Judge Jackson’s leniency on child molesters, and something about a laptop. [The post has apparently been taken down, so I can’t provide the actual wording.] Pretty effing sad — but not surprising, I guess — that the QAnon MAGAts won’t just shut up and go away.

  3. 3.

    SFAW

    April 8, 2022 at 8:19 am

    @Baud:

    Beer? Or having persons-unknown pay off your gambling debts?

    Yeah, I know — por que no los dos?

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 8, 2022 at 8:23 am

    @Baud:  I’m a both-sideser. I like Justice-to-be Jackson, and I like beer.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    April 8, 2022 at 8:24 am

    @SFAW: por que no los dos?

    Maybe you’ve got a better class of bookie, but I’ve yet to find one that lets you pay off your gambling debts with beer.

  6. 6.

    SFAW

    April 8, 2022 at 8:27 am

    @Ken:

    Yer not doin it rite.

  7. 7.

    germy

    April 8, 2022 at 8:28 am

    I can’t stop watching this six second video of Ketanji Brown Jackson moments after her history-making confirmation to the US Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/MYMjiCwJXQ

    — Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) April 8, 2022

  8. 8.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 8:29 am

    @SFAW: 

    The post has apparently been taken down

    Cancel culture!

  9. 9.

    eclare

    April 8, 2022 at 8:31 am

    @germy:   Getting dusty in here…

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    April 8, 2022 at 8:31 am

    Media note.

    Season 1 of Arctic Circle included with Prime for the month of April. Convoluted and occasionally prone to spinning its wheels when it comes to pacing but a decent binge, IMHO. The little tyke is a heartbreaker. And snow; so much snow. Plays out somewhat differently today than when originally aired in 2018 seeing as it involves an insidious virus. Finnish-German production which includes a heaping helping of English dialogue.

  11. 11.

    Joe Falco

    April 8, 2022 at 8:31 am

    @SFAW:

    Pretty effing sad — but not surprising, I guess — that the QAnon MAGAts won’t just shut up and go away.

    It’s part of the expanding mythos they create now for their rabid base to repeat ad nauseum. It’s a pathetic life to having come up with a constant stream of lies to fool gullible yet malicious people into being their stormtroopers for the next election, rally, planned attack, etc. The Goebbels of the American Right can’t be stopped fast enough.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 8:33 am

    Another side benefit. Breyer was the worst of the libs. Jackson should be an enormous step up.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 8:36 am

    Opinion by Anita Hill: The Senate Judiciary Committee mistreated Judge Jackson. I should know

    I’ll assume that the article, unlike the tweet, puts the blame on the GOP.

  14. 14.

    Butch

    April 8, 2022 at 8:45 am

    Please to excuse me, CNN, but “some” Republicans walked out?  I can count only three who stayed.  And ever the optimist, I’m thinking the GOP did some damage to itself with a whole swath of voters, not only with its preening, insulting behavior during the hearings but with the opposition to her nomination.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 8:48 am

    Magdi Semrau on Judge Jackson’s confirmation as Supreme Court Justice:

          Let’s not forget that Justice Jackson has a public defender record, a paradigm shift for the modern court. In addition to that, she’s issued strong pro-labor rulings. It’s a good day for everyone on the left.

    Magi_jay April 7

  16. 16.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 8, 2022 at 8:54 am

    I am wondering how the conservative justices will take this.  Republicans really, really hate black women, especially having to treat them as equals.  It is possible some of them won’t be able to handle it.  I have no idea what would result from that.

    @Joe Falco:

    It’s part of the expanding mythos they create now for their rabid base to repeat ad nauseum.

    It’s part of the expanding mythos their base creates and requires their elected officials to repeat ad nauseum.  This crazy shit comes from the ground up, from chain emails and old prejudices they’ve never stopped telling each other and right wing talk hosts.  That gays are pedophiles shit?  Mainstream cultural opinion in the 80s.  The base never stopped believing it and are gleeful Desantis gave them a chance to say it in public again.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 8:55 am

    @JuliusGoat
    Most popular recent nominee by a long shot, and there will be no handwringing articles about how Republican incivility might cost them in the midterms with those crucial swing voters.

    Political media never, ever have this discussion for some reason. “Incivility and swing voters” is a rule that applies only to Democrats.
    “Extremism” too.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    April 8, 2022 at 8:55 am

    What happens if Breyer gets it into his noggin to change his mind about retiring? It’s in no way a binding decision.

    /hypothetical

  19. 19.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 8:58 am

    @Kay: Also, elitist.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:02 am

    @Baud:

    Just one example of the extremism. Rape exceptions have disappeared in conservative state law banning abortion.

    Republicans moved to a position where they will force rape victims to carry their rapists child to term and have a lifelong legal connection to the rapist (child custody) and there has been absolutely no commentary on it. It’s quite literally forced impregnation and then forced birth and then at the very least a 18 year long (forced) legal relationship with the rapist for the victim. No comment from political media.

  21. 21.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:03 am

    @SFAW: I think their new tactic of calling everyone who doesn’t agree with them a child molester and pedophile isn’t going to work out like they think it is.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:03 am

    @Kay: The exception won’t make any sense anyway once they decriminalize nonconsensual sex.

  23. 23.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 8, 2022 at 9:03 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: I remember a bunch of male colleagues arguing about whether gay people should be allowed to be teachers. One of them asked me how I’d like it if my son’s home room teacher was gay. Since my son’s home room teacher was gay, I enjoyed telling him that guy was able to resist my son’s charms every bit as much as his het female teachers were

    ETA: Looking back, I realize it never occurred to these guys that a female teacher might be gay. Their fears were all about gay men

  24. 24.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:07 am

    @Kay: Political media never, ever have this discussion for some reason. “Incivility and swing voters” is a rule that applies only to Democrats.

    It’s because they see the beliefs of white people as the ” mainstream” beliefs of Americans (even though that’s not right anymore). So when they see a bunch of white men saying these things, they don’t think “extreme”, they think “That must be what the average voter thinks”. This will continue until the myth that white men are representative of the average is destroyed.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:09 am

    @Baud:

    We’re not even going to have a discussion on this. They all just lurched Right to remove the exceptions for rape and the health of the mother and it gets no coverage at all. They simply do not give a shit what happens to women. It isn’t an area of interest to political media. They’ll spend weeks covering and promoting a shoplifting panic but you can’t pay them to cover the radical brand new anti abortion regime that is going in right now, in 25 states.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:11 am

    @Kay:

    I’ll be interested in seeing if the coverage changes when Roe is officially overturned and these laws start getting enforced.

  27. 27.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:13 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: That gays are pedophiles shit?  Mainstream cultural opinion in the 80s.  The base never stopped believing it and are gleeful Desantis gave them a chance to say it in public again.

    Yeah, I remember that. It was assumed that since they couldn’t have children the “normal” way, they had to recruit “members”, and thus would “recruit” young boys in schools. They didn’t think there was anything anyone could do to change them being attracted to women, but somehow gay men (and yeah, it was always about men, they thought lesbians were those hot women shown getting it on in the porno magazines) were going to be able to make young boys be attracted to other men even if they didn’t want to be. *rolleyes* It’s so dumb.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:15 am

    @Soprano2:

    Maybe they’re right. I don’t pay for the NYTimes but I read some of the comments under an article they did about black female law students at Harvard and how they reacted to the confirmation and a disturbing number of the comments are literate, well written whining about how we talk about black people too much.

    Apparently their readers suck too. “Wah, wah, wah. Are we talking about BLACK people again?”

    We need to dispense with the notion that this is a midwestern working class thing, or a southern cracker thing, or any of the rest of the “it’s about a lack of education” nonsense. It’s national and it crosses class boundaries. Just the Trump Administration proved that.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:18 am

    @Kay:

    a disturbing number of the comments are literate, well written whining about how we talk about black people too much.

    How many were by Andrew Sullivan

     

    ETA: Biden talks a lot about labor.  I wonder if anyone is paying attention.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:21 am

    @Baud:

    Why would it? They barely cover the Texas repercussions. If it wasn’t for the Texas Tribune there wouldn’t be any real coverage at all. They can’t find Texas? It’s too far away? All those huge cities with giant airports and we get more coverage of the San Fransisco school board elections than we do when millions of women lose a right they had?

    I don’t want to hear anymore about “me too” from these people. They don’t give a shit about women, unless they’re women somehow connected to powerful men. It’s like anti feminism. The coverage depends on how powerful the man involved is.

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    April 8, 2022 at 9:22 am

    @germy: Beautiful!

    I loved her story about “Persevere.”

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 8, 2022 at 9:22 am

    @Kay: Incivility is the Republicans’ brand. It’s not ours. They have the asshole vote sewn up and there are enough assholes that they only need the barest additional margin to win.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:23 am

    @Kay:

    Yeah, I haven’t heard anything about what’s going on in Texas.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 8, 2022 at 9:24 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I realize it never occurred to these guys that a female teacher might be gay.

    prrrrretty sure my 7th grade science teacher was, ca. 1980.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:26 am

    @Baud:

    I think labor is paying attention. The largest part of our local Democratic group are still labor people. They are paying attention. I don’t know if it will help in the midterms but they’re aware of it. One thing that might matter a lot in Ohio that gets no attention is the pension rescue Biden and Democrats did. Sherrod Brown has been promising it for a decade and they delivered. Half a million pensioners in Ohio could really make a difference.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:28 am

    @Kay:

    ?

    At some point, if we can’t turn this around, our people will stop caring about others and become more like me.  Nobody wants that.

  37. 37.

    citizen dave

    April 8, 2022 at 9:30 am

    When I read the part of the tweet about Biden worked for the first Black President for eight years, I honestly thought, wait, Biden was a Senator during the Bill Clinton years; that’s not really working for him.

    These 47 Republican Senators are all the worst people in our nation, I mean, WTF?  Of course my two are in the group.  What I don’t get is why the nominee even went and met with these retrograde racists in their offices.  Maybe to see signs of them having to hide any confederate flag memorabilia or such.

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 8, 2022 at 9:31 am

    Excited Finnish snipers pose in group photo amid Russian threats pic.twitter.com/U74A6yX3et— Sputnik (@Sputnik_Not) April 7, 2022

  39. 39.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:31 am

    @Kay: a disturbing number of the comments are literate, well written whining about how we talk about black people too much.

    Oh man, I hear that here too. I think it’s that black and brown people are finally penetrating media organizations and thus being talked about and featured more, and it distresses some white people to no end. I listen to the 1A program a lot; it replaced the Diane Rehm show. Both hosts have been black people, and periodically I see listeners in the comments whining about how they have too much programming about black people! Why isn’t 1A just like Diane Rehm, they cry? I tell them there are a million things out there they could be listening to, so if they don’t like what’s on 1A they can listen to something else – that’s what I do when I’m not interested in the topic they’re discussing! There is a certain kind of white person (not confined to the South and Midwest, I agree) who cannot stand that there might be a program on a mainstream outlet that isn’t all about them and what they’re interested in. They think all that stuff is supposed to be on “black” media, because who else could possibly be interested in it? *rolleyes* That’s what we’re seeing, unhappiness that as black and brown people become a larger part of our population more attention is being paid to them, and less attention is being paid to white people.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:35 am

    @Baud:

    I think Amazon is going to end up with the Teamsters. They need an infrastructure and funding to deliver immediately to their (prospective) members. It’s not like Starbucks where there are 15 people in a shop. They have to serve 9000 members, immediately. I think it will be some kind of negotiated alliance rather than a straight merger. It could be really interesting.

  41. 41.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 9:35 am

    @Gin & Tonic:  LOL. That’s good.

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:36 am

    @Kay: we get more coverage of the San Fransisco school board elections than we do when millions of women lose a right they had?

    And the coverage of that school board election wasn’t even that good. My understanding is that the main motivator for the Asian voters was that the school board changed the way kids got into the elite school in the district, and the Asian parents who had spent years doing things to make sure their kids could get into that school just weren’t having the idea that other kids could displace them based on a lottery.

    I agree, for the most part the press doesn’t seem to care that much about the things that affect half the population other than how it affects the economy. Not being able to get a needed abortion – well, that’s sad, but abortion is kind of icky and controversial (in a bad way, not in a ‘it drives clicks to our site’ way), so we don’t want to talk about it much.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:37 am

    @Kay: I hope so.  I’ve been hearing about a resurgent labor movement for a little while now, but it seems like the victories have been sporadic one-offs.

  44. 44.

    Starfish

    April 8, 2022 at 9:38 am

    @Kay: A lot of comments that I have seen on a lot of newspapers have been racist. It is as if racists have more free time to leave dumb comments. It is as if newspapers should be paying comment moderators.

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:39 am

    @citizen dave: My “R” senator Roy Blunt is the worst kind – he mouthed all the right platitudes about how she’s historic and qualified, blah blah blah, but he voted against her anyway even though he’s retiring! It would have cost him nothing to vote for her; 30 years ago, he probably would have.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 9:39 am

    @Starfish:

    It is as if racists have more free time to leave dumb comments.

    What do you think they do when they aren’t aimlessly circling metropolitan beltways?

  47. 47.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:41 am

    @Soprano2:

    It’s not even coherent. They’ll start with some variation of “I don’t see color!” and by the second paragraph they’re citing statistics on how many black women there are and how now “11%” of the SCOTUS is black women, so they’re overrepresented. Come on. Work this up into something that hangs together at least. Put some effort in.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 9:41 am

    @Baud:

     

    @Kay: One set of people who surely are paying attention to the President’s pro-union statements are heads of corporations with non-union workforces, and their labor lawyers. They know they are in a war for the next few years, and they will fight it fiercely.

    I think this will be a mistake so far as corporate self-interest goes. As long as their competitors are in the same boat, the shareholders of Amazon and it’s like will benefit in the long term from the unionization of their workers. Our economy is not a zero sum game, and more prosperous workers and communities will have more money to buy stuff from companies like Amazon.

  49. 49.

    H.E.Wolf

    April 8, 2022 at 9:42 am

    The only teacher who tried to groom or recruit me was my 5th grade teacher – the same sex as me, and a few years younger than retirement age – who invited me over to the house for ice cream and while I was there, gave a speech inviting me to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

    I remember phrasing my refusal as politely as possible, while being embarrassed for, and disappointed in, someone I’d previously respected.

    As an adult, my question is: why did my parents allow this expedition? It must have been naïveté either about the existence of gay people (not at play in this situation, so far as I know) or about the proclivities of evangelical Christians. In TX. :)

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 9:43 am

    I just remembered I wanted to say I heard the dumbest comment about inflation from one of those “person on the street” things on “Morning Edition” this morning. A man who was upset about the high price of gas talked about how there’s no reason for that because we have enough oil in the U.S. that we shouldn’t have to depend on other countries for it. It’s stunning to me how many people who are conservative (he blamed it on Biden) seem to have zero understanding of economics or how free markets work. He seemed to think we could have an “American” price for gasoline based on American oil supplies. Good God…..

  51. 51.

    Peale

    April 8, 2022 at 9:46 am

    @Soprano2: At this point, I’m pretty much resigned to having about 40% of the women in this country living in a state without an exemption for the health of the mother. Its going away. The result of that is going to be a very sharp and noticeable rise in death during pregnancy. As it stands, the difference in outcomes between poor and especially African American poor women and white women is significant. In Texas it was 3X has high already.  We’ll know in in 5-6 years how effective this bill was implemented for white middle class women. When these stats are released and we’ll see a huge increase in mortality rates, will the Media even remember what might have caused it? Or will they just wander around wondering why women are “less healthy” these days.

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    April 8, 2022 at 9:48 am

    @NotMax: Hmmmm. I’m sure that won’t happen, but I wonder if the rules proscribe confirming multiple justices-in-waiting as a hedge against McConnell’s telegraphed intransigence should Repubs take the Senate in November? It would be nice to have, say, a Judge Michelle Childs waiting in the wings in case Justice Thomas takes a dirt nap next year…

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    April 8, 2022 at 9:48 am

    @Butch:

    I stopped believing Republicans’ asshole behavior would cost them votes when they nominated Trump and he won.

  54. 54.

    H.E.Wolf

    April 8, 2022 at 9:49 am

    Oops, I forgot about the workplace sexual abuser when I was in my 40s, who tried assiduously to groom oblivious me. Not only did I miss all the grooming signals, I was mystified by the years of hostile workplace retaliation that were the result of my noncompliance. (Speaking of naïveté.)

    The ice-cream/accept Jesus talk was much more comprehensible. :)

  55. 55.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 9:50 am

    @Soprano2:

    There are 50 million public school students in the US. Making the “exam school” controversy, where the question is should it all be based on test or should there be other factors into something that broadly applicable to US public schools is nonsense. Most districts don’t have selective schools, but they do have selective programs or classes. That’s how they square that circle and serve both advanced students and those who are less advanced. If you’re an ordinary district and not a huge urban district you can’t create an “exam school” so you create an advanced track and put your 30 students a year who qualify on it. But covering that is hard work. It’s easier to create this narrative that “merit” isn’t being considered in public schools because they’re all “woke”.

  56. 56.

    citizen dave

    April 8, 2022 at 9:53 am

    @Soprano2: Same for at least one of my Indiana Senators, and I’m guessing both.  I try not to hear their vapid utterances, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.

     

    As far as SCOTUS representation goes, shouldn’t we do a 250 year weighted average.  Two-plus centuries of NO black women representation to make up for…

    As has been noted here many times, the Ivy League/Christian/whatever has been off the charts are SCOTUS.  I’ve always thought we should physically move the SCOTUS to the middle or western part of the country.  Just for, you know, representation; have them closer to the people.

  57. 57.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 8, 2022 at 9:54 am

    @Geminid:

    she’s issued strong pro-labor rulings. It’s a good day for everyone on the left.

    For the love of god, won’t anyone think of the management-side labor lawyers?!

  58. 58.

    Peale

    April 8, 2022 at 9:57 am

    @Soprano2: Yeah. Inflation is a problem and never popular. So are any measures to combat it forcefully. So it is feasible for that yahoo to get what he wants. The US sets the price of a gallon of gas at $1.99 and either pays a subsidy to the petroleum companies to make up the difference (that’s really expensive!) and bans the export of US refined petroleum (or there won’t be any gas to put in our tanks). Easy peasy. Right? Just two little bitty laws. I’m sure this yahoo wouldn’t be screaming about creeping socialism.

  59. 59.

    Alison Rose ???

    April 8, 2022 at 9:58 am

    Honestly, my favorite thing about the BFD moment is Obama’s response to him. That nod and shoulder pat–it’s so Obama “there’s Joe being Joe again” language :P

  60. 60.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 8, 2022 at 9:59 am

    @Kay: I was on a call earlier this week with the new general counsel of the NLRB and have worked on a couple of cases since she took over.  It is a different world now, and some companies out there are going to experience shocks….

  61. 61.

    Peale

    April 8, 2022 at 9:59 am

    @Steve in the ATL: Since Ted Cruz’s position is that public defendant offices attract criminals, does labor-side labor law attract actual hard working lawyers?

  62. 62.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:00 am

    @Soprano2:

    Ohio public schools have a requirement, pushed by conservatives, that every public school create a plan for gifted students because they convinced themselves that public schools were maliciously thwarting the brightest students because of “wokeness” or “equity”. “No, you may NOT take an AP class!” This is what they imagine is going on. Parents love it of course, but I’ve had kids in public schools both prior to the new requirement and after it and other than, I don’t know, making college educated parents feel better I don’t think it makes a bit of difference. They recognize smart kids. They always have.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 10:04 am

    @Steve in the ATL: I think that management-side labor lawyers are going to have some good years financially before this war ends and they retire to their alpaca ranches and blueberry farms.

  64. 64.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 8, 2022 at 10:05 am

    @Peale: no, it’s mostly pregnant women

  65. 65.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 10:05 am

    I wonder if I’ll feel awkward the next time I take my dog in for grooming.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:08 am

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Starbucks is on a roll. They’ve won 13 of 14. That’s just amazing to me.

    The funniest part of media coverage of unions is how they themselves are often in unions. It seems like every online outlet either has or is agitating for a union. They’ll have a union bug in their Twitter bio.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 8, 2022 at 10:08 am

    @NotMax: Breyer is a decent man who has been a good, but not great, liberal on the Court.  He is, I believe, 83.  Why would you even suggest that he would pull his resignation?

  68. 68.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 8, 2022 at 10:10 am

    @Geminid: when Obama was elected, management-side labor firms made serious alpaca-and-blueberry money scare mongering over the Employee Free Choice Act, which never had higher than a 0% chance of becoming law.

     

    @citizen dave: there were no catholics on the court for most of our nation’s history, but they’ve been a majority for a long time now.  I would love to see that happen with black women.

     

    @Baud: you are en fuego this morning!

  69. 69.

    debbie

    April 8, 2022 at 10:12 am

    How long until Ginnie drunk-calls Professor Hill?

  70. 70.

    dww44

    April 8, 2022 at 10:13 am

    @Soprano2:  I think it was McConnell’s arm twisting, reinforced by the power of  wealthy  elites, that resulted in Blunt’s no vote, along with some of the other non- grandstanding Senators.

    Honestly, it was their collective walkout after the confirmation vote that most offended me. Did Dems do this with the last two McConnell nominees?  And what does it say about  Kentucky voters who elect people like Paul and  McConnell?

  71. 71.

    debbie

    April 8, 2022 at 10:15 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    That would be a pisser if the Biden administration lined up, say, three justices in waiting!

  72. 72.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 8, 2022 at 10:15 am

    @Steve in the ATL: We do.  That’s a big reason that these rulings make us happy.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:17 am

    The COO of Parler backed a slate of far Right school board candidates and they did not win :)

    One person exiting in Hamilton, who declined to be named, said they were “not happy that the [chief operating officer] of Parler impacted town government.” Another leaving in Wenham said “there’s conspiracies around election security. I’m not for it.”

  74. 74.

    James E Powell

    April 8, 2022 at 10:19 am

    @Kay:

    It would be nice if Ohio Democrats could regain some of the losses in Mahoning & Trumbull counties. Tim Ryan country.

  75. 75.

    TheTruffle

    April 8, 2022 at 10:21 am

    Gotta disagree with  Julius Goat. If the DNC is smart, they will use those bonkers quotes about a qualified judge in campaign ads.

  76. 76.

    James E Powell

    April 8, 2022 at 10:21 am

    @Baud:

    Biden talks a lot about labor.  I wonder if anyone is paying attention.

    The press/media grabbed the narrative that Republicans are the real party of the working class and they are clinging to it like grim death.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 10:21 am

    @SFAW: Just wrapped up the Impeachment installment of American Crime Story, and li’l Brett pops up as a Starr lackey fighting to include more sexy time material in the report’s main body. Boofs will be Boofs, certainly SCOTUS material.

  78. 78.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 10:24 am

    @Kay:It’s easier to create this narrative that “merit” isn’t being considered in public schools because they’re all “woke”.

    True, but the coverage I heard that seemed more thorough mentioned that the biggest issue that brought out huge numbers of Asian parents for the recall was the school board’s change where instead of having a test or a certain GPA to get into this “elite” high school they were going to do it as a lottery . The wealthy and middle-class Asian parents just rebelled against that idea. They thought it was terribly unfair that their highly-tutored and dedicated child had to share the school with “those people” who weren’t really even qualified to be in an elite high school (according to them, anyway). We sometimes forget that all people can be prejudiced, not just white people. This is one of the problems caused by too much emphasis on the idea that you have to get into the elite high school and the elite college in order to be successful in life. They believed their child’s chance for success in life was endangered, and reacted accordingly.

  79. 79.

    Immanentize

    April 8, 2022 at 10:24 am

    Just popping in to thank all of you for the kind thoughts and prayers you all expressed yesterday. Also, I was moved to tears by all the trials you jackals have and are suffering. I’m pretty close to the surface right now.

    Still no migration of his infection to lungs or blood, so good, but it is still kicking his ass otherwise which is bad.

    Stay well.

  80. 80.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 8, 2022 at 10:24 am

    @debbie: I’ll take the under

    @Omnes Omnibus: zing!

    Pursuant to our discussion last night, two great songs that start the same but are not ripoffs of each other, the Nerves and the Jessica Fletchers

  81. 81.

    Bupalos

    April 8, 2022 at 10:25 am

    @Joe Falco: The Goebbels of the American Right can’t be stopped fast enough.

    Not to go all linguistic, but I think we’ll make more progress when we stop using the passive, catastrophic voice.

  82. 82.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 10:26 am

    @Kay: That tells you how much it must suck to work there in spite of what the company tells us.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:29 am

    @James E Powell:

    I can’t really figure out Ohio Democrats right now. It’s obviously an uphill battle but having been involved with them for so long they seem MORE optimistic than national Democrats. Tim Ryan and Nan Whaley have real campaigns. They have the kind of campaigns where it seems like someone thinks they can win even in a year where it’s widely (and correctly, I think) believed it’s a tough environment for Democrats. It’s kept me interested. No national pundits agree, but it’s what it feels like in the rooms they are in.

    I love upsets so it’s sort of tailor made for me :)

  84. 84.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 8, 2022 at 10:31 am

    @Immanentize: Thanks for updating us. Continued good thoughts for you and Immp.

  85. 85.

    James E Powell

    April 8, 2022 at 10:32 am

    @Kay:

    I feel like we have the advantage in the senate, but are seriously handicapped in the house.

  86. 86.

    Jay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:32 am

    We arrived 15 mins after the missile exploded outside the Kramatorsk train station. We counted at least 20 dead including 2 children. Spray painted on what remained of the Tochka-U ballistic missile “for the children”. pic.twitter.com/gkDYmS711w— Dalton Bennett (@DDaltonBennett) April 8, 2022

  87. 87.

    citizen dave

    April 8, 2022 at 10:32 am

    @Steve in the ATL: Related, as I learned here (like so many things), essentially the modern Senate confirmation show started when a Jew, of all things, was nominated to the SCOTUS–Louis Brandeis, circa 1916.

  88. 88.

    Alison Rose ???

    April 8, 2022 at 10:32 am

    @NotMax: This isn’t the first time you’ve suggested this. You say hypothetical, but why do you seem so concerned about the possibility?

  89. 89.

    Bupalos

    April 8, 2022 at 10:32 am

    @Soprano2: From here it looks like its all an outgrowth of a kind of zero-sum conception of human relations. Truth be told, this era on the left is just prostrate when it comes to ennunciating and defending a vision of human relations that is actually….you know…. human.

  90. 90.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 10:35 am

    Things are looking even worse with the Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian train station. Bolding mine. Bastards.

    At least 50 people were killed and 98 injured in the attack, according to Ukrainian officials. Witnesses interviewed by The Post describe an initial explosion followed by four to five blasts that struck outside Kramatorsk station as large crowds had assembled for an arriving train. The words “for the children” were written on what remained of a missile that The Post observed at the scene. WaPo

  91. 91.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 10:38 am

    @debbie: If I were Anita Hill I’d file a restraining order on Ginnie.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:39 am

    @Soprano2:

    I don’t know about all that but public schools recognize that there’s a population who want an advanced track and they accomodate it. When my oldest child was in middle school they had an A Team and a B Team- not known for “subtle”, rural public schools. The difference was math and english. The “A Team” had more difficult material. They have since gotten rid of that designation, but the truth is they are tracked and everyone knows it.  It’s a “school within a school” which they say outright and college educated parents love. So it isn’t limited to “exam schools”. It’s just part of the public school scene.

  93. 93.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 10:40 am

    @Immanentize: Thank you for the update. Continuing to think of you and the Immp.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 10:40 am

    @Jay: Monsters. The more we learn the worse it becomes, and we know very, very little at this point.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    April 8, 2022 at 10:45 am

    Wordle in 3 and Worldle in 3, too, this morning!  And after all the rain this week, it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day.

    Have a very happy Friday!

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 10:45 am

    @Kay: I was in a split class when I was a 6th grader. The 5th grade class had 40 students and the 6th grade had 35, so their solution was to separate us by Iowa test scores; the “smart” kids were in a combined 5th/6th grade class with one teacher, I guess because they couldn’t afford to hire two more teachers. It was my best year of grade school because we could go fast with the material (in 5th grade we spent a month learning simple long division, which I learned in less than a week!). It caused a permanent rift in our class, though, because we came back together in the 7th grade and the kids in the other class felt they had been branded the “dumb kids”. It was corrosive. I hope schools now have a better way to help the smarter kids who want to go faster, because I know I would have been helped a lot by that.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:45 am

    @Soprano2:

    The exam school thing in big cities seems overvalued to me, in the same way they overvalue prestigious colleges. It just isn’t representative of the vast, vast majority so if people want to talk about “public education” or “society” or “merit” they should use something else to measure it.

  98. 98.

    Sure Lurkalot

    April 8, 2022 at 10:47 am

    @Immanentize: I didn’t get to the thread in time to add my thoughts and prayers for strength and recovery, to you and your son.

  99. 99.

    satby

    April 8, 2022 at 10:48 am

    @Immanentize: Tell him your invisible online friends are all thinking of and rooting for him. And for you too, take care of yourself as well as your boy. ?

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 10:48 am

    @Jeffro: Happy Friday to you! They say April showers bring May kayaking. I way get on the Shenandoah myself this year!

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    April 8, 2022 at 10:51 am

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Obligatory…

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 10:51 am

    @Soprano2:

    They try, I think. It’s hard. They have to serve a really diverse group. I do think having a diverse group of ranges made me a better person though, infuriating as listening to someone “sound things out” when you’re a speedy reader is. I think it has value past straight academics. It teaches you “patience” or “kindness” or maybe most important “not everything here is about me” and I think I benefitted from that.

  103. 103.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 8, 2022 at 10:54 am

    @Kay: Precisely.

    It’s a white people thing that white people don’t want to acknowledge.

  104. 104.

    TheTruffle

    April 8, 2022 at 10:55 am

    @Kay: I tend to think political norms just don’t apply anymore. There is no ground rule that there has to be a blue wave or a red wave. If Ohio Dems are optimistic and ready to do the legwork, that is a good thing.

  105. 105.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 10:57 am

    @Kay:

    Disagree. My happiest days in school were in a “tiered” system (7th and 8th grade). We actually got to learn and were with other students who wanted to learn! I no longer weep with frustration over the years of school time wasted because the first half of every frickin’ school year was spent repeating what we had covered the previous year, but I’ll never regain the child’s capacity to absorb new information. I appreciate the value of patience and kindness, and I also don’t want to stigmatize the “slower” kids, but good grief, what do you think happened to kids of lesser skill in gym? Why should kids with intellectual skills be penalized?

    [My teacher step-mom strongly disagrees with me, but I hate the structural anti-intellectualism of our schools, at least during the years and in the place I attended. I first heard about AP classes after I got to my blessedly elite university, where it was ok to be smart and interested in academics. It was a joyous and liberating experience.] :)

    edited

  106. 106.

    brendancalling

    April 8, 2022 at 10:59 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: Speaking of which, apparently yesterday Fox did a piece on the LGBTQ+ students at the high school where I’m a sub, and this morning I woke up to an email from our superintendent saying the orcs had been calling from all over the country to leave nasty and threatening messages.

    I don’t like it when anyone is harrassed, but these orcs are targeting children and that brings out the ogre in me.

  107. 107.

    Jeffro

    April 8, 2022 at 11:01 am

    @Geminid: Hope to see you out there!  I need to take a look at the family calendar and start blocking out some paddling time.  =)

  108. 108.

    brendancalling

    April 8, 2022 at 11:02 am

    @Soprano2: Let me guess: no one corrected him either.

  109. 109.

    Another Scott

    April 8, 2022 at 11:03 am

    @Soprano2: Too many people remember the pre-mid-70s as some magical age where the Power of Capitalist Industry kept America running just fine with cheap gas and oil, when it was overt government policies.  Lots and lots of things changed in the 1970s and people learned the wrong lessons.

    Wikipedia – 1973 Oil Crisis:

    American production decline

    By 1969, American domestic output of oil was peaking and could not keep pace with increasing demand from vehicles. The U.S. was importing 350 million barrels (56 million cubic metres) per year by the late 1950s, mostly from Venezuela and Canada. Because of transportation costs and tariffs, it never purchased much oil from the Middle East. In 1973, US production had declined to 16% of global output.[4][5] Eisenhower imposed quotas on foreign oil that would stay in place between 1959 and 1973.[5][6] Critics called it the “drain America first” policy. Some scholars believe the policy contributed to the decline of domestic US oil production in the early 1970s.[7][8]

    When Richard Nixon became president in 1969, he assigned George Shultz to head a committee to review the Eisenhower-era quota program. Shultz’s committee recommended that the quotas be abolished and replaced with tariffs but Nixon decided to keep the quotas due to vigorous political opposition.[9] Nixon imposed a price ceiling on oil in 1971 as demand for oil was increasing and production was declining, which increased dependence on foreign oil imports as consumption was bolstered by low prices.[8] In 1973, Nixon announced the end of the quota system. Between 1970 and 1973 US imports of crude oil had nearly doubled, reaching 6.2 million barrels per day in 1973. Until 1973, an abundance of oil supply had kept the market price of oil lower than the posted price.[9]

    In 1970, American oil production peaked and the United States began to import more and more oil as oil imports rose by 52% between 1969 and 1972.[10] By 1972, 83% of the American oil imports came from the Middle East.[10] Throughout the 1960s, the price for a barrel of oil remained at $1.80, meaning that with the effects of inflation considered the price of oil in real terms got progressively lower and lower throughout the decade with Americans paying less for oil in 1969 than they had in 1959.[11] Even after a price for a barrel of oil rose to $2.00 in 1971, adjusted for inflation, people in the Western nations were paying less for oil in 1971 than they had in 1958.[11] The extremely low price of oil served as the basis for the “long summer” of prosperity and mass affluence that began in 1945.[11]

    So, yeah, oil and gas prices could be (and were in the past) lower than the world price, but it takes overt action and there are real costs in doing so. Most of the time those costs can be hidden – for a while, until there’s some crisis (which always comes).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 8, 2022 at 11:04 am

    @James E Powell: When Reagan bitched about “welfare queens driving Cadillacs” and “strapping  young bucks buying T-bones with food stamps” and won in a landslide…

  111. 111.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 8, 2022 at 11:11 am

    @Another Scott: In the mid-20th-century, industry and business in general were regulated to a degree that even liberals would probably consider insane today. The Reagan Revolution was aimed at rolling that back to Gilded Age norms. I guess conservatives concentrate on the few areas like OSHA and the EPA where regulation actually increased in the 70s, rather than stuff like production caps and wage and price controls.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 11:14 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    In the mid-20th-century, industry and business in general were regulated to a degree that even liberals would probably consider insane today.

    Yes and no.  The government had a stronger hand back then, but the breadth of activities that were covered by regulations was a lot smaller.  To take one example, environmental regulation really didn’t become a thing in its own right until the 1970s.

    ETA: I commented before you edited.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    April 8, 2022 at 11:14 am

    @Another Scott: The way gasoline prices are dropping here I expect I’ll buy my next fillup at $4 a gallon or less. I acrually think $3.75 is about right on economic terms. That’s high enough to incentivize individuals and companies to purchase more efficient ICE vehicles and electrics, and for oil producers to increase production. I don’t think it’s so high as to drag the economy down.

    Politically, I don’t know if that price is good or bad, since public opinion can be fickle.

  114. 114.

    bluegirlfromwyo

    April 8, 2022 at 11:15 am

    @Soprano2: It’s stunning to me how many people who are conservative (he blamed it on Biden) seem to have zero understanding of economics or how free markets work.

    Not too me. I learned a long time ago that conservative belief in the free market was mostly code for don’t give my tax dollars (always their tax dollars) to those people and let charities decide if they’re truly deserving. They don’t really believe that charities run on government grants, in my experience.

  115. 115.

    Another Scott

    April 8, 2022 at 11:16 am

    @Matt McIrvin: Yup.

    Nixon did it (because he was convinced that he lost to JFK in 1960 because of the 1960 recession).  Carter did it (airlines and all the rest).  Then Reagan finished the job.  Even Gore’s freeing up the Internet could be regarded as more deregulation.

    There can be lots of benefits in reducing some economic regulations (cheaper flights, more choices – at least for a while).  But there are real costs too (slashing wages, inevitable consolidation and increases in market power) – especially when regulators are strangled or just throw up their hands.

    TANSTAAFL.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  116. 116.

    debbie

    April 8, 2022 at 11:18 am

    @Immanentize:

    I missed this yesterday, and will search for it later after work, but I am so sorry to read this. Every positive thought I can muster is winging its way to you and Immp.

  117. 117.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 11:20 am

    @Another Scott:

    TANSTAAFL

     
    WTFDTM?

  118. 118.

    Another Scott

    April 8, 2022 at 11:20 am

    @Geminid: $5.09/gal for diesel for me yesterday, vs $5.20/gal a month ago, here in NoVA.

    It looks like $0.30/gal in 1970 would be about $2.20/gal today (based on the CPI).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  119. 119.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 8, 2022 at 11:21 am

    @Baud: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

    Thank you, Grandmaster Heinlein.

  120. 120.

    JWR

    April 8, 2022 at 11:22 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    prrrrretty sure my 7th grade science teacher was, ca. 1980.

    Almost positive my 8th grade history(?) teacher was, ca. 1972. Pretty cool guy. One time, one of my BFFs and I started laughing about something and we could not stop. It just got worse and more uproarious He ended up sticking us on the outdoor stairs, checking on us every few minutes until we calmed down. Ah, the memories.

  121. 121.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 11:22 am

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    My kid’s HS has a magnet program that attracts hundreds from around the district (they have open enrollment). It was begun in the ’90s by a group of teachers concerned about waning enrollment and has been quite successful–the school went from about 1,700 to over 2,500 students today. Kids also do not have to be in this program to take AP classes, so it’s not either/or. They have a very good track record getting kids admitted to top-tier colleges and especially into the UC system. It’s also a Title 1 school with copious problems typical of big city school districts.

    No great conclusions here, just that we were fortunate they kept the kid engaged four years (3.5 after accounting for covid spring) and she graduated knowing how to study and how to prepare college-level papers and research, so she’s now kicking butt in college. That’s as much as we could have asked for.

  122. 122.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 11:24 am

    @brendancalling: No, of course not. Sometimes I think these reporters are as ignorant about this topic as the average person.

  123. 123.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 11:25 am

    @Another Scott: California is its own market (in-state refineries, unique gas formulations) and the prices seem as high as ever; admittedly I have not filled up since last week. Diesel here is more than premium, IDK if that’s the case elsewhere.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    April 8, 2022 at 11:25 am

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Disagree. My happiest days in school were in a “tiered” system (7th and 8th grade). We actually got to learn and were with other students who wanted to learn!

    I have mixed feelings about “tiered” systems. In my middle school years (5th through 8th grade), I was in such a system, and I quickly figured out that many of the kids in grade 5A were the children of the middle class elite, doctors, lawyers and other professionals. But they were not always particularly smart or motivated. I was originally in 5B, because I was very shy and “slow,” but soon got promoted to 5A based on my performance.

    I was more than lucky that I had teachers who cared about me. Some were friends of my family and had a vested interest in me.

    But I also noticed that a lot of the kids in the lower tiers were not neglected by teachers, but often were not expected to do well. Some teachers didn’t try to help these students. Again, some teachers tried to be supportive, but others clearly kind of wrote these kids off.

  125. 125.

    Another Scott

    April 8, 2022 at 11:25 am

    @Baud:⑁ɔnu⅃ ɘɘɿꟻ A ƨA ϱni⑁T ⑁ɔuƧ oИ ɟ’niA ɘɿɘ⑁T

    .ɟɒ⑁ɟ wɘnʞ uoγ ,ɘƨɿuoɔ ʇO

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  126. 126.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 11:27 am

    @trollhattan: Your daughter’s school sounds wonderful! I’m glad she was able to go to a place that prepared her well.

  127. 127.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 11:28 am

    @Matt McIrvin: For one thing, most people probably don’t know it was a Democratic congress and President Carter who deregulated the trucking industry!

  128. 128.

    wetzel

    April 8, 2022 at 11:31 am

    Hi Anne. Looks like I’ve graduated.

    I’ve gone from Balloon Juice reader to commenter this week. I also joined the community of cardiovascular patients. There’s a dizziness to it!!! An existential juissance!!

    Why complain there won’t be stories about GOP incivility hounding them in the media for the next month. I think Democrats have it all wrong to see the media as some kind of judge, or ref we need to persuade. Democrats need to persuade the people, not CNN producers. What you do for CNN producers is make their day easy. That’s what the GOP understands. They give them the whole song with their morning coffee, verses, chorus and bridge. Professional Democrats scapegoat the media because it is convenient. Don’t persuade the media. Put together the story boards for the producer so he or she can have time to get lunch today. That’s what they care about. Producing. They don’t care about your dumb politics hobby. Democrats look at the media as ‘refs’. Republicans look at it as a channel.

  129. 129.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 11:33 am

     

    @Brachiator:  Yes, I genuinely appreciate that criticism of tiered systems in education. They are problematic and can hurt/stigmatize kids who are in the “slower” groups, and sometimes they are wrongly assigned there, as you note. The system can also perpetuate inequities, also a serious problem.

    However, one also needs to factor in the very real harm done to “bright” kids when appropriate educational options are unavailable, and the resulting loss to them and society.  Contrary to popular opinion in my day, the cream doesn’t always rise to the top when suffering benign neglect (at best). Sometimes it just curdles.

  130. 130.

    taumaturgo

    April 8, 2022 at 11:34 am

    Baud: ETA: Biden talks a lot about labor.  I wonder if anyone is paying attention.

    Biden and the Democrats talk a good game and yes, very few are paying attention to this lip service.

    https://www.levernews.com/biden-offers-amazon-workers-rhetoric-but-no-action/

  131. 131.

    Baud

    April 8, 2022 at 11:39 am

    @taumaturgo:

    Glad to hear it. We could use more serfs.

  132. 132.

    catclub

    April 8, 2022 at 11:40 am

    @NotMax: ​
     

    What happens if Breyer gets it into his noggin to change his mind about retiring? It’s in no way a binding decision.

    Well, she HAS been confirmed, so I guess there will be ten justices.

  133. 133.

    Alison Rose ???

    April 8, 2022 at 11:41 am

    @Immanentize: Sending all the prayers and good thoughts your way <3

  134. 134.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 11:43 am

    @Brachiator: This is a problem, because the range of students the public schools have to serve is so large. How to help the kids who need extra help because they are already behind when they come to school and at the same time motivate the kids who are bored because it’s the 3rd week of learning long division and they already got it the first week and are ready to move to the next thing is a tough nut to crack. I don’t know what the solution is. I have a nephew who dropped out during his senior year because he was so smart that he was tremendously bored and didn’t think there was anything else there for him. He easily got his high school equivalency and now works for a local dairy company in their office making a lot of money. Then you have the idea that advanced programs are only for the unpopular, nerdy kids so even if a kid is smart they might not want to get labeled that way and so avoid the program that could really help them.

  135. 135.

    cain

    April 8, 2022 at 11:43 am

    @Kay: Too busy trying to figure out how to kneecap the Biden administration for clicks.

  136. 136.

    catclub

    April 8, 2022 at 11:44 am

    @Professor Bigfoot: TANSTAAFL

     

    and TAFFOARD    Take a flying fuck on a rolling donut

  137. 137.

    trollhattan

    April 8, 2022 at 11:46 am

    @O. Felix Culpa: Thanks, yes, we feel blessed. Other parents shuffled their kids here and there for thirteen years with varying outcomes, and we ended going to the closest of all three schools for the entire time. Sometimes “lazy” is best! :-)

    I will parenthetically add it does not matter where you send your kid for middle school–it will be a horrid time for everybody.

  138. 138.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 11:48 am

    @trollhattan: ?

  139. 139.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 11:51 am

     

    @trollhattan: Heh. Ironically, junior high (now called middle school) was the happiest of school years for me, thanks to the much-reviled (and to be fair, for many valid reasons) tiered system. ?

  140. 140.

    Bex

    April 8, 2022 at 11:58 am

    @Gin & Tonic: There are some great pictures in that thread.  I liked the blank one.

  141. 141.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    On my way out the door, but I’ll add that the sneering at “elite” institutions that crops up on this site gets old sometimes. No argument that they have their problems and a problematic subset of graduates. That said, they can be amazing places to get an education and meet amazingly interesting and talented people, many of whom are making extraordinary contributions to society. I lucked into an elite college for undergrad, which literally saved my life. I will always be thankful for that.

    For the record, I have also studied (and taught) at public universities and community college, and have highest regard for those institutions as well. They all are needed and add value.

  142. 142.

    Kent

    April 8, 2022 at 12:04 pm

    Maybe this is a dead thread. But anyone here have a good recipe for Ukrainian borscht or tried to make it?

    After Cole’s soup thread yesterday I got to thinking about trying to make some borscht but have no idea where to start other than random googling.

  143. 143.

    kalakal

    April 8, 2022 at 12:05 pm

    @Immanentize: continuing to wish you both all the best

  144. 144.

    Brachiator

    April 8, 2022 at 12:15 pm

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    However, one also needs to factor in the very real harm done to “bright” kids when appropriate educational options are unavailable, and the resulting loss to them and society.

    I hear what you are saying, but I just don’t accept that a mixed class environment hurts bright kids. Yeah, it may make teaching more of a challenge, but you have to find ways to better prepare and support teachers.

    I have a lot of teachers in my family, including a great aunt who was especially beloved by her students. I didn’t even realize this until once on a summer visit, I was surprised at how many adults would come up to her when we were at the supermarket, and just gushed over her and how much she had helped and inspired them. It was like discovering that a family member was a superhero.

    Anyway, I know that some students feel neglected and can be lost. I have a close friend who was smart, but just not able to get into some AP classes, and has carried pain about this all her life, even though she has done quite well in life.

    Contrary to popular opinion in my day, the cream doesn’t always rise to the top when suffering benign neglect (at best). Sometimes it just curdles.

    Yeah, very true. But we have to find a way to create and maintain a system that tries to bring out the best in all students. We can’t write anyone off, or pit one group of students against another.

  145. 145.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 12:23 pm

    @Brachiator: I don’t recall suggesting that we pit different groups of students against each other. I agree that teachers capable of teaching a heterogeneous classroom are the ideal, but my lived experience says they are not the norm, not for me and decades later, not for my children. It is, as they say, complicated. The good teachers are indeed heroes and cherished way beyond childhood.

  146. 146.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 12:26 pm

    I just don’t accept that a mixed class environment hurts bright kids.

    My nephew who was tested as having an I.Q of 160 when he was in middle school had a lot of problems in school, I think mostly because he was super bored with it. He dropped out when he was a senior. I’ve known other bright kids who hated school because they found it boring. We can’t just ignore this and say that because they’re smart they’ll be all right. It’s not the “mixed class environment” that hurts bright kids, it’s the idea that they don’t need more and will be all right because they’re smart that hurts bright kids. That’s how it was when I went to school, and I’m glad to hear that schools now are trying to handle this in a different way.

  147. 147.

    Kent

    April 8, 2022 at 12:37 pm

    @Soprano2: HS science teacher here.

    There is no great solution short of throwing more money at education.

    Mixed classes are easier to teach frankly because the bright kids are usually a lot more self-sufficient and need less help and less disruptive.  So if you have a chemistry class of 30 students (not uncommon) and you have 5 or 10 bright ones mixed in that means far less kids you have to spend time individually helping and also less behavioral bullshit to deal with.  If you pull out all the bright kids that makes the class more toxic for everyone left as you end up with a higher percentage of disruptive kids (with no decrease in class size) and it makes it much harder to help the more average kids who do want to learn.    The worst and most difficult classes to teach are those in which the cream of the crop is skimmed off leaving you with the rest.

    That said, it is really difficult to challenge the brightest kids in a mainstream classroom.  Sure you can put them on independent assignments and such, but you can’t really aggressively challenge them because you are so focused on just getting through the regular curriculum with the rest.  So your bright kids often end up bored or sort of working for you as peer tutors.  Which is great for the class but you aren’t necessarily challenging them much or teaching them to their full potential.

    Short of putting a lot more money into education to make class sizes smaller and more manageable, I don’t have any good answers.  Some students are going to lose out no matter what you do.  It’s just a question of which students

    Yeah sure, in some sort of ideal fantasy world you should be able to teach all students in a mixed class to their full potential.  But in reality that is bullshit and doesn’t much happen.  It is hard enough doing a chemistry lab with 30 students in a classroom lab designed for 24.  The idea that you are going to simultaneously run 3 different labs simultaneously for the high, median, and low students in such a class is fantasy.  There is a reason why say AP chem labs look different from general chem labs.  It isn’t the same material.

  148. 148.

    Brachiator

    April 8, 2022 at 12:53 pm

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I don’t recall suggesting that we pit different groups of students against each other

    Whoa! Hold on there. I was not accusing you, but simply suggesting that this is sometimes what happens as a practical result. And I have seen bad teachers stigmatize supposedly “bad” students in front of other students and teachers.

    On my way out the door, but I’ll add that the sneering at “elite” institutions that crops up on this site gets old sometimes.

    I hear you. I usually just hold my tongue when I see this stuff.

    I lucked into an elite college for undergrad, which literally saved my life. I will always be thankful for that.

    This sounds like a very interesting story. I hope you expand on it here or later in an appropriate thread.

  149. 149.

    Jackie

    April 8, 2022 at 1:01 pm

    @Immanentize: Thanks for keeping us all updated! Continued healing and positive vibes sent to Immp and you!

  150. 150.

    Kay

    April 8, 2022 at 1:02 pm

    She’s going to be a great one and I’m thrilled she’s on the court.

  151. 151.

    citizen dave

    April 8, 2022 at 1:05 pm

    @wetzel: Just wanted to say I enjoyed your comment, it’s a good one.  Give the media all of the story…

    (I’m in the cardio community as well, to put a bit of a at least neutral spin on it)

  152. 152.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 1:05 pm

    @Brachiator: Thanks for the clarification and apologies for misreading your comment.

    ETA: We are all colored by our experiences, especially as children. Like you, I have seen “poor” students shamed by teachers. And I have seen (and experienced) “bright” students, especially those of the female persuasion, being shamed for asking for more material to work on. Sigh. Childhood and school are tough.

  153. 153.

    O. Felix Culpa

    April 8, 2022 at 1:44 pm

    @Kent:  Your description of what actually happens in the classroom reflects my experience. I would gladly throw more money at public education so that all students across the spectrum of ability got what they needed, and teachers got a reasonable and supportive working environment. :)

  154. 154.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 8, 2022 at 2:03 pm

    @Soprano2: And the airlines. Some of the things we associate with Reagan started under Carter.

  155. 155.

    Soprano2

    April 8, 2022 at 3:02 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Yep, this history has been disappeared. Jimmy Carter was a pretty conservative Democrat.

  156. 156.

    J R in WV

    April 8, 2022 at 3:47 pm

    @Immanentize:

    We’re all getting older, which can be tough, but beats the alternatives. Best wishes for Immp, is he in MA local to you, or still in Houston? Lots of great medical centers in Houston.

    Good luck, Immanentize~!!~ We’re all thinking of you and yours.

  157. 157.

    J R in WV

    April 8, 2022 at 4:14 pm

    @Baud:

     

    @Another Scott:

    TANSTAAFL

    WTFDTM?

    There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch~!~

    Pretty sure it’s from a Robert Heinlein novel, maybe The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress…

  158. 158.

    Kayla Rudbek

    April 8, 2022 at 5:39 pm

    @Immanentize: sorry to hear this, and I hope that the Immp is now recovering!

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