Students in need were paid $500 a month to stay in school. It worked.
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/…— Beverly Mann (@beverlymann19.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Who could’ve guessed?… the best cure for poverty is money. From the Washington Post, “Students in need were paid $500 a month to stay in school. It worked.”:
Some of the students at Mayfield High School found it hard to believe.
They were in a conference room, setting up their own bank accounts. And as long as they stayed in school, did all their homework and went to tutoring, they could soon begin receiving monthly $500 deposits, their school leaders had explained…
A real chance to get money that could help the students afford transportation, pay their families’ bills and mitigate the myriad ways homelessness has interfered with their educations. And a real chance, educators believe, for the teens to get their grades up and eventually walk across the graduation stage.
The Mayfield students are among about 330 New Mexico high-schoolers set to join a newly launched state pilot program offering monthly $500 payments to teens experiencing housing insecurity and other issues, conditioned on meeting certain goals. The students are in varying situations but may share others’ homes, live without their parents or have substandard housing.
The initiative aims to help remove barriers that keep the teens from attending school — most often, a lack of transportation, utilities, food, clothing or health care.
“I do put a lot of effort into school, with or without the money,” said Dai, a 16-year-old junior at Mayfield who lives with her grandmother. But the new payments offer further incentive — and relief. “It makes me feel really happy because I know I’m not going to be having struggles.”
For Dai, whom The Washington Post is identifying by her first name because she is a minor, the money will mean being able to buy the food she and her grandmother can’t always afford, along with clothing and toiletries. She’s looking forward to purchasing chicken and vegetables so she can get more nutrition for cross-country and track practice.
The payment program was pioneered by New Mexico Appleseed, a child poverty nonprofit that first tested the initiative in 2020. Only 51 percent of the state’s homeless students had graduated the year before, but in the test cohort, 13 of 14 seniors graduated — a 93 percent rate.
Now, leaders in New Mexico — which in 2023 had the highest child poverty rate in the nation and has about 10,000 homeless students — hope to test that success at Mayfield High and about a dozen other districts with a three-year pilot program. The initiative is the first of its kind, advocates say, and could become a national model for improving academic outcomes for homeless students…
To get the money, students must maintain a 92 percent monthly attendance rate, complete all their schoolwork and meet weekly with a counselor. They do not have to account for how they spend the funds, but they will participate in financial advising, said Jennifer Ramo, executive director of New Mexico Appleseed.
If a student doesn’t meet the monthly academic requirements, they will have a chance to try again the next month, said Simone Vann, who is heading the program at the state education department.
The program is New Mexico’s latest move to bolster social support for children. This year, it became the first state to implement universal child care…
Many students developed a sense of ownership over their education and pride in helping their families financially, said Banegas, whose district previously participated in a summer pilot for the initiative. Knowing their electricity wouldn’t get shut off or that they wouldn’t get evicted gave them stability that helped them focus at school, he said.
In some cases, teachers noticed that the younger siblings of students in the program were also attending school more frequently, said Karen Sanchez-Griego, who was superintendent in one of the pilot districts, Cuba Independent Schools, at the time.
“We never looked at anything we did as a handout,” Sanchez-Griego said. “We’re trying to show them us investing in them, showing them that they have a place in the world and that their lot in life is not just, ‘I’m destined to impoverishment.’”…
Much more at the link. (I’m trying to save some of my gift links for later in the month.)
Baud
You give kids free government money and they just end up becoming Republicans who oppose giving people free government money.
NotMax
Weekend watch.
Yes, Virginia, there were banana vans.
;)
p.a.
Excellent, but there’ve been trials & studies proving this for decades for those who care. Just like: giving women power of the purse, especially in desperately poor 3rd world countries, leads to very positive outcomes: $$$ spent wisely on family health/wealth, and, horrifyingly, women no longer forced to be baby machines.
But the powers-that-be…
Another Scott
Thanks for this, AL.
I think that we have to keep hammering away at problems like these with real resources and actual money.
As I said downstairs:
High school can be a scary time. Seeing college ahead, or seeing it as an impossible dream. Worrying about how to pay for it, or how to pay for living away from home. If on top of that you can’t afford to have a normal home and utilities and food and transportation and don’t have the time for school work, then it can be overwhelming. These small payments can make a huge difference, not least because it shows that society cares and can actually help to make things better. There can be a better future for you.
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@p.a.:
Also too, minimum wages do not lead to unemployment and progressive taxes on rich people will not cause them to flee.
(Obviously, there is a point where things can be taken too far, and be harmful, but in the US, we almost never come close to it. But we’re always at war with the slippery slope.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
I thought they ended up being lazy, do-nothings who wanted free abortions-on-demand.
Slippery slope and all. NM should be giving those kids BOOTSTRAPS!
Oh wait, that’s still giving away something.
I’ll come in again.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
They need to take out payday loans to buy their bootstraps.
NotMax
Have an extremely well-off , very – VERY – distant relation who picks up the tab for four years of college for all students graduating from a high school in a particular low income neighborhood who choose to take advantage of the offer.
In actuality, met him for the first time this past summer. He took us in a golf cart on a tour of his nearby estate after lunch at Oheka Castle on the opulent North Shore of Lawn Guyland.
Another Scott
@NotMax: Nice cottage. :-/
I wonder if they regret having a Great Gatsby Night??
It’s great that he pays for college for those kids. I’d prefer, myself, that those kids didn’t have to depend on a private benefactor…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
NotMax
@<a href="balloon-juice.com/2025/12/06/saturday-morning-open-thread-92/#comment-9786618"Another Scott
From Wikpedia:
:
Elizabelle
Thank you, Anne Laurie. Seeing that story is balm for hard times.
Also: I have a WaPost sub. If you run low on links, please check in with me and other jackals, and we can share.
I have a feeling even the BezosPost smells blood in the water (beyond that spilled by hapless Venezuelans on small boats), and the coming month should be something to see.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: Wow, those are some beautiful gardens.
Raven
My dissertation was a study of GED graduates looking at why they quit, why they went back and the meaning they made of their preparation for the GED. Financial concerns was the number one reason they gave for dropping out. This is a good idea.
Cjcat
Lurker here. I want to thank you, Anne, for all the hard work you put into getting us news like this. Thanks to all you front pagers for keeping the candle of democracy burning for us. Sometimes you have been a light in the darkness.
Booger
@NotMax: There’s always money in the banana van!
Deputinize America
“You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas.”
– Old Man Potter, “It’s a Wonderful Life”
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Good to see you around, I know you’ve been scarcer. Hope you are doing well, or at least as well as can be expected.
David_C
The big news this week was a train wreck of a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which revoked the 30+ year recommendation for newborn vaccination against Hep B, unless the mother has tested positive for Hep B. The problem is that because of the state of health accessibility in this country, not every mother gets tested, and there are occasional false negatives.
Yes, more children will be saddled with a preventable illness, but it gets worse. You see, this is just one step in the undermining of vaccines in general. The CDC and FDA have already cast doubt on mRNA vaccines in general and the Covid vaccines in particular, and after this latest, will be going after aluminum adjuvants, using the same specious arguments while ignoring real experts, including practitioners. I can see their final solution being the removal of protections for vaccine manufacturers, so that companies will no longer provide vaccines against such diseases as measles or polio. This turning back of the clock suits their eugenics longings because they believe that only the vulnerable (black and brown people) will suffer.
Add to this their dismantling and redirection of medical research, and we see the effects of a perfect storm of incompetence and malevolence. I’ve been doing this medical research thing for over 45 years and have never seen it so bad, and that’s not hyperbole. The people on the inside are shouting “fire” but it seems that nobody is listening, as even many researchers and their professional organizations are keeping their heads down, hoping this will blow over. Anyway, my friend Angie Rasmussen has the better description of what went down.
rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/say-hello-to-hepatitis-b-baby
Elizabelle
@Cjcat: Agreed. Find the jewels among the *$^* we are served up, daily.
Deputinize America
George Bailey Responds:
“Just a minute – just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. Just a minute. Now, you’re right when you say my father was no business man. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I’ll never know. But neither you nor anybody else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was — Why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn’t that right, Uncle Billy? He didn’t save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me. But he did help a few people get outta your slums, Mr. Potter. And what’s wrong with that? Why — here, you’re all businessmen here. Don’t it make them better citizens? Doesn’t it make them better customers?
You, you said that they — What’d you say just a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even thought of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what?! Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they’re so old and broken-down that — You know how long it takes a workin’ man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you’ll ever be.”
Elizabelle
@David_C: Is this going on in other countries as well? And to what extent?
Raven
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks, I posted yesterday that I had a couple of falls. My CT scan was negative so I hope being more careful will help.
Ramalama
@NotMax: there’s money in the banana vans….
EDIT: great minds ( I’m slow on the draw)
Nice video, btw. My Dad was crazy about trains and transport. He’d have loved this.
Raven
We have a similar program here.
“On the first day of school this year, an anonymous donor gifted every senior in the Class of 2026 a $1,000 investment portfolio—plus free access to high-quality financial literacy lessons to help them learn how to grow it. When they complete the school year, turn 18, and finish the lessons, they’ll gain full control of their portfolio.”
Baud
@Raven:
Glad to hear about the good test result.
NotMax
Anyone have any solution?
Program which (a) have never watched and (b) have no intention of ever watching inexplicably showed up in the Continue Watching choices of Prime video. Since it is marked “On Now” apparently cannot be removed from there by any way I can find.
Deputinize America
To show how much influence government could wield over entertainment back in the halcyon days of the 40s and 50s, It’s a Wonderful Life was reviewed by the FBI and accused of being a communist movie. Ayn Rand was on the FBI’s advisory panel.
inthesetimes.com/article/its-a-wonderful-life-communist
Elizabelle
@Deputinize America: I liked the Saturday Night Live lost ending for It’s A Wonderful Life.
Youtube provides. Introduced by William Shatner! With Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz.
Deputinize America
@NotMax:
Run it while you’re tending to the yard, and it will fall off the list.
Raven
@Baud: Tanks!
NotMax
@Raven
Still “gone fishin’?” Curious how (or if) Artie reacts to the ocean.
;)
Ramalama
Atrios from Eschatonblog has been saying for a long time that giving poor people money actually helps them more than cards or services or tax credits (ok we’re laughing now). I love how New Mexico decided to pilot this program rather than an individual. And how there’s a forgiveness element that lets a kid get back in if they miss a month.
Nelle
Spanky
I suspect Suzanne will be in mourning today. Frank Gehry has died at the too- young age of 96.
Ramalama
@Raven: what was your degree in? Your dissertation sounds interesting
Jeffro
@NotMax: LOL
I thought for sure this was going to be about those free banana carts/trucks that Bezos has around the whole Pentagon City/Crystal City area.
Raven
@NotMax: She is afraid of many things including the water. I surf fished on the Gulf of Mexico and caught one decent drum. Getting gear back up from the beach was a bitch but it was good to try,
NotMax
@Deputinize America
Worth a go but am leery of it being replaced in the listing by the next episode.
Jeffro
off to Charlotte to (hopefully) see the Hoos trounce the Blue Devils…keep those fingers crossed, peeps!
Raven
@Ramalama: Adult Education. It was very rewarding especially since I also have a GED.
Raven
@Jeffro: Good luck from this Hokie!
Oh yea, Go Dawgs!!!
p.a.
@Ramalama: IRRC someone in the Nixon admin… NIXON… had the idea of a “negative income tax”: a basic guaranteed income floor for every family. The feds give $$$ to get anyone below this # up to that level.
Of course the devil is in the details: the number itself, inflation adjustments, family growth, you get it. And of course, incorporating this meant, for the planners, ending all other fed aid programs. It was: here’s the cash, have a great life. (Not sure about unemployment insurance since it’s state-by-state. Also not sure if it meant ending Medicare & Medicaid, but given: Nixon, I think it might have.)
TONYG
@Baud: From the point of view of the billionaires who own this country, poverty, hunger and homelessness for Those People are good things. Their example keeps people frightened and obedient.
Rusty
This reminds me of a story from almost a decade ago. A St. Louis high school principal was trying to combat high truancy. She determined that one teason kids weren’t coming to school was because they were too poor to afford to do laundry and it was embarrassing to come to school with smelly clothes. Whirlpool at the time was there, so she talked them into donating washers and dryers, and the kids could anonymously wash their clothes. Truancy dropped. We keep needing to relearn the same lessons over and over because of our broken culture that looks at everything from the perspective of the well to do.
Almost Retired
New Mexico is often the only blue state lumped in with mostly Southern and Appalachian red states in those top ten misery index lists. But NM is clearly trying to do something, as evidenced by this income support effort.
I’m in Las Cruces right now and if anecdata via billboards is any indication, there’s a broad recognition of the problem and a desire to take action.
One billboard said something to the effect of “We’re well above average in crime and well below average in education. Let’s do better.” And there was a web address listed below, which I did not write down because I was dodging speeding trucks, whose drivers were evidently paid by the lane change.
Another billboard referenced an effort to keep college graduates in the state, with another listed website (the next billboard cautioned against texting and distracted driving, so there’s some mixed messaging here).
This seems more productive than advocating church attendance, bootstraps, and six forms of photo ID as a prerequisite for voting. I’m rooting for NM!
JMG
@p.a.: It was economist Milton Friedman who proposed the negative income tax.
Marleedog
@Almost Retired:
The large indigenous population mired in poverty.
David_C
@Elizabelle: The anti vaccine movement is everywhere, but it’s just in the US that the leadership is decidedly anti-vax. Basically, that’s how RFK, Jr. got on the map.
H.E.Wolf
Quoted for truth… and for saying it so eloquently and movingly.
Thank you to the cat, from the wolf. :)
Baud
@Almost Retired:
I think NM also rolled out free child care.
Suzanne
@Spanky: LOL, we were talking about Gehry’s passing at work yesterday. He wasn’t my favorite, but he was undeniably an icon. And the Disney Concert Hall really is just spectacular. You can get a tour, even if you don’t have tickets to a performance.
Some of the detailing on his buildings is bad. Mostly because we can digitally model things that we still struggle to build and fabricate. But, like everything else….. we push forward.
ETA: I’m not sure normies fully appreciate how much of the way buildings look today is a function of having the software available to model and engineer things that we couldn’t really do before.
Baud
@TONYG:
Yep. If only Elon Musk hadn’t been so secret last year about which candidate he supported, people might have realized how bad it could get.
Baud
@Baud:
Doing my own research
raven
@Rusty: A man in my study was in a family that didn’t have money for shoes. Someone teased his sister on the school bus and he beat the crap out of him and got thrown out of school. Twenty years later, with a good paying job, he went back and got his GED because he felt “something was missing” in his life.
Deputinize America
Nuzzi out at Vanity Fair
wsj.com/business/media/vanity-fair-to-part-ways-with-journalist-olivia-nuzzi-f1f1ac6f?mod=author_con…
The Harvard Institute of Politics will probably hire Livvy next.
CCL
Off topic. Thank you, Watergirl, if you read this, for Ozark’s ice flower photo. The photo of Ozark yesterday had me thinking of these glorious phenomena (is that appropriate plural form?) and the photos he took of them. Miss his posts.
Wapiti
@Spanky: Wow. Saw two of his buildings this year on a trip to Spain.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Speaking of the minimum wage, I think we need to talk about it in a different way. What it should do rather than what it should be.
At the very least, one person working 40 hours a week for the minimum wage ought to be able to support themselves on that. Rather than pass a bill raising the minimum wage to $12 or $15 per hour or whatever, the Dems should try to pass a bill that sets the minimum wage at a level that’s capable of enabling workers to support themselves on 40 hours’ work per week in parts of the country where at least 80% of the people live. (States and cities with higher costs of living can raise their minimum wage, as they do now.)
And then the bill should give the Department of Labor the responsibility of determining what that wage is, and adjusting it at specified intervals. Which would mean the minimum wage could keep on increasing to keep up with inflation without Congress having to do anything.
twbrandt
Yoopers are different from normal people.
Almost Retired
@Suzanne: Gehry designed my law school. What seemed cutting edge 40 years ago seems dated now. There are quite a lot of Gehry-designed buildings around town (Los Angeles), and to my untrained eye, they all kind of look alike. But the Disney Hall is another matter entirely. It’s spectacular from a designer standpoint and the acoustics are superb.
One of his last projects was a hotel/office/retail project across the street from Disney. It was supposed to be part of an effort to make that stretch of Grand Avenue (also near two art museums) a cultural gathering point with ample street life.
In my view, it mostly failed. It looks like an exurban office tower (Irvine), set too far back from the street. The retail didn’t materialize. It feels like he was going more for design prominence rather than actual street-level usability. But I am an architectural troglodyte so I may be missing something.
Baud
In the end, t’was the Ballroom that killed Gehry.
frosty
@NotMax: That’s on Long Island???? Where are all the Levittowns and expressways? Not a single one in sight! I bet you don’t even hear sirens all night if you stay there.
UncleEbeneezer
@Elizabelle: Can you share a gift link for this article? Not a WaPo subscriber anymore, but as a NM resident I’d really love to read it in full. I basically took most of this year off from following local politics and it’s time to start learning more about our new home state.
TS
@UncleEbeneezer:
gift link
wapo.st/3XEli9O
Elizabelle
@UncleEbeneezer: My pleasure. I think BezosPost will still ask for an email address, so maybe make one up.
GIFT LINK TO ARTICLE ABOUT NEW MEXICO PAYING STUDENTS TO STAY IN SCHOOL
bluefoot
@David_C: I am so angry about this. The government, especially RFKjr and his ilk, are creating so much unnecessary suffering and death. Tearing down scientific research will have consequences for decades, even if funding and apolitical oversight was restored tomorrow. They’re also eroding trust in government agencies and in expertise.
Neither do I know what these people are counting on when diseases make a comeback as a consequence. Vaccine protection isn’t perfect, so even if they are all vaccinated, it isn’t a guarantee they will be okay. I guess it’s a good way to close the border – the rest of the world isn’t going to allow unvaccinated Americans into their countries, and no one is going to come here.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Because (afaik) there’s no song about Frank Gehry, I have this song going through my brain instead.
Elizabelle
@TS: So kind of you! Another source for WaPost links!
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Wahoowa!
prostratedragon
Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park, Chicago. For an outdoor venue, the sound from speakers on the overhead mesh is quite good.
As an afterthought, Gehry also designed the snakelike path over the drive to the right/east, so people can walk to the lake shore. We’ve been told that great deal of engineering went into keeping those sails from taking flight.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My small press publisher released this collection of short stories yesterday, centered around the theme of community. So basically everything the Trump administration loathes. $3.99 in ebook.
I have a story in there but just started reading the others. I think they’re uneven but there’s one about a fanatical gardener that some jackals might like
ETA: I forgot to say that my publisher is a registered social enterprise in the UK, meaning they had to prove they acted in socially responsible ways to qualify.
bluefoot
SCOTUS will be taking up a case to decide to the legality of TFG’s executive order on birthright citizenship. I don’t even know what to say about this except I am horrified.
Miki
@Rusty: The program is still around according to this link.
WTFGhost
@Baud: Opposition to a minimum wage increase is driven by those who, in their intellectual bloodline, thought slavery was just fine, because otherwise, the slaves would just be slaughtered, like horses that couldn’t work.
Those folks feel “you’re getting a JOB. If you don’t like it, get another one!” And the idea that someone gets to say they have to value another person’s life above a certain level is just, you know, foul to those people.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
@Cjcat:
Truth 👏🏾
VeniceRiley
@Almost Retired: I agree with you on the Disney Hall acoustics! Absolutely wonderful. I saw Barbara Cook sing Sondheim songs on her 80th birthday there. Such a warm wood and ace fidelity.
Lastly, I hope they study what happens with these kids and break out by gender what they ended up spending the money on.
p.a.
@bluefoot: cross your fingers, the expression roughly went, “the Constitution may follow the flag, but the Supreme Court DOES follow the election.”
Those were simpler times…
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Rusty
@Miki: Thank you for finding that.
rikyrah
@David_C:
😡😡😡😡
rikyrah
@Raven:
🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
rikyrah
@Spanky:
RIP 🙏🏾 😢
rikyrah
@Deputinize America:
She will fail up🙄🙄
RevRick
@NotMax: @Another Scott: @Elizabelle:
This was the setting for Royal Pains.
WTFGhost
@Cjcat: I’ll second that thought. A neighborhood thinkin’ hole is better for having more discussions going.
(What? Ain’t nothing gets watered….)
Suzanne
@Almost Retired: I mostly share your opinion. Every Gehry building is designed to look like a Gehry building. Some work well, others…. meh. (If I have a favorite architect, it’s Mies van der Rohe.)
But, in general, he did a huge amount to drive our discipline forward. Starchitect-y look-at-me buildings grate on me, but cheap developer-dictated crap and Fake History buildings make me despair. And I don’t work on building exteriors, but his influence is undeniable.
artem1s
@Almost Retired:
NM ranks third in states with Native American population. There’s over 7M of the 55M acres of tribal land. Interior Dept corruption and mismanagement, lack of development, lack of funding has taken its toll and caused a lot of generational poverty. Deb Haaland was the first Native American appointed Secretary of the Interior and now is a House rep. She’s running for governor in 2026. I hate to lose her in the House but having another blue governor might be more important and she will definitely be good for NM’s future economic health.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
The Onion, from 2002: Frank Gehry No Longer Allowed to Make Sandwiches for Grandkids
Wapiti
I think that paying kids to motivate them in school is a grand idea. Hey young ‘un, school is sort of your job.
I might broach this with my brother and pay for my nibling to do their homework.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The median person really likes Fake History buildings and seems to get mad at buildings not looking like that, so I don’t think they’re ever going away.
mappy!
Financial aid can work in a variety of ways. SS survivors benefits for children paid for the first three years of college for me. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Matt McIrvin
@p.a.: Yeah, UBI is often proposed as a replacement for all other forms of government aid by people who are mostly hoping the total expenditure will be much lower. And it often goes hand-in-hand with privatizing services in a way that would probably drive prices up. So I’ve become a bit suspicious of these ideas especially when they come from the right.
But I do think we could stand to be less nosy about what people do with government aid, especially if one aim is to stimulate the economy, and the impulse is always to be suspicious of the recipients and poke into their lives. Rich people should be able to buy as much candy and booze as they want, but not with MY tax dollars! etc.
Baud
@p.a.:
Pretty sure that’s what the earned income tax credit is.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot:
We saw it during the COVID pandemic: deny, stop testing, claim the people are dying of something else or impugn their life choices.
Professor Bigfoot
I really like this approach and this as a “bottom line.”
It also moves the discussion out of the realm of “how much this will cost” versus “what it will accomplish.”
You want your good-for-nothing nephew to get the hell out of your sister’s basement? Set this up and you can tell him, “boy, go get a job!”
Mark’s Bubbie
@Another Scott: You make such an important point. As I told my husband when we delivered meals on wheels, the outreach is more important than the food.
Shalimar
@NotMax: I learned recently that tamale venders were a huge thing 100-130 years ago in Oregon and elsewhere in the West. So at one point we as a nation had a choice between vast chains with hamburgers or vast chains with tamales and we chose to franchise the hamburgers.
Captain C
@Deputinize America: Or the FTFNYT editorial page.
Baud
Pauline
@Suzanne: “Starchitect-y look-at-me buildings grate on me”
The Central library building that I work in was designed by Michael Grave and is definitely a look at me building that fell down spectacularly in functionality as a library. It was extensively renovated during the Covid years and is better now, but I still think that an architectural firm that specialized in libraries would have been a much better choice back when the building was funded. At least the lovely Burnham Hoyt building was incorporated into the new building.
greenergood
UK National Health Service vaccinates all newborns since 2017 (just looked it up after reading C’s comment).
UncleEbeneezer
@TS: Thanks!
WTFGhost
So since I have nothing useful to ponder and my head is demanding something to chew on, or it will continue to devour my soul[1], I wondered.
Could a naval vessel lawfully provide support for a Predator drone, if an offsite operator is going to use it to murder people?
I remembered a story of drones being flown by non-military folks. Well, they wouldn’t have taken the oath of enlistment – they haven’t sworn to be willing to die before following an order to commit murder.
So it sounds like it would create a legal grey area. The navy could then be forced to provide for the flying murderbots, and provide operational support, including targeting data, while some sicko pulls the trigger on the Hellfire missile.
[1] that means, I’m in a lot of pain, and if I don’t distract myself, bad stuff happens to my mood, etc.. If I’ve inadvertently started a fire, apologies, but, mostly, I was wondering if I might be guessing correctly, and where that might fit into our broader understanding of Trump’s murderous strikes.
Ella in New Mexico
Awww, all four of my kids went to Mayfield High School, so many great memories of being there with them for school activities and sports events. Just an semi-rural, average public school full of caring, hard working teachers and staff, and very diverse with kids from every level of our community.
@Almost Retired:
Don’t let anyone tell you we’re really what some of the statistics say about us being on the misery index or that we don’t care about our children in NM. I’ve lived here for going on 40 years, and I’ve witnessed in person how kids from even the lowliest of circumstances can and do get great educations and go on to thrivehere. My son’s best friend’s father was an immigrant who ran a body shop, his six kids all graduated from college and several have graduate degrees. My daughter’s class had two grads from lower income homes/immigrant families with multiple offers from Ivy League and other highly prestigious colleges.
Yes, we have more than our share of kids from extremely difficult circumstances that don’t give kids a great early start. But hopefully we’ll see that diminish over the next 10-15 years as we get early childhood care for free rolling.
Miss Bianca
New Mexico also the first state in the US to offer free early childcare to all families regardless of income. Just saying, the rest of the country could learn a lot from new Mexico.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: Cannot tell you how our previous childcare subsidy saved my son and daughter in law while she worked part time and went to nursing school. Now they have two kids and its going to defnintely make life better for their whole family to not be burdened with a $1500 a month daycare bill.
WTFGhost
@WTFGhost: The reason I started thinking of this, was, the admirals bloodless answer that he ordered a second kinetic strike.
Now, I thought of the horrors, because the captain on the ship, plus anyone with authority to relieve him, plus ever person in the chain of command of the person who fires the shot, is supposed to refuse. And then I wondered about how many of them could be cut out of being able to refuse, because they were not yet involved in murder, just surveillance.
That’s when I came up with the Predator scenario – a way to force the navy to participate in the missions, because nothing they were doing was explicitly unlawful. “It was the *other* guy, who fired the missiles, who was doing something unlawful. Now, y’all let us park this Predator, and you refuel and re-arm it.”
That would also explain why the Trump administration would despise Dems for putting out an ad that suggests there’s popular support for people who refuse to participate in state-ordered murder.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: I should have guessed you’d get there first!
Other MJS
The NSS statement is horrifying. I’m too upset to quote anything here. Treason in Moscow, war crimes in the Carribean, and now this.
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-5-2025
Another Scott
@Other MJS: Thanks for the pointer.
Infuriating, but not surprising.
Tmurp hates multilateral organizations, treaties, and agreements. He thinks that everything should be bilateral, every foreign leader (unless they’re tyrants he looks up to) needs to come to him on bent knees with tears in their eyes entreating “Sir!, Sir! Let’s make a deal!!1”.
Grr…
There’s so much damage to repair when he and his enablers are finally gone…
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
The starchitect designed Guggenheim museums…NY and Bilbao, contain spaces that aren’t suited to displaying 2 dimensional art. You may find them spectacular sculptures (Bilbao museum is particularly well sited and lends connection to a beautiful Calatrava bridge) but form dictated function out the window.
Denver Art Museum’s Daniel Liebskind addition is much the same. The exhibit rooms are discordant, the grand staircase makes people dizzy and angled walls play havoc with wheelchairs. Not to mention that in the winter, ice drops off the structure such that the exterior is cordoned off to keep people from being beaned.
Citizen Alan
In my opinion, the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals is whether you view other people as human beings or as resources to be exploited. Or as Granny Weatherwax put it, sin is when you treat people like things, including yourself.
Citizen Alan
@Deputinize America: i imagine most republicans still think that today. Ditto A Christmas Carol.
Other MJS
@Another Scott: Speaking of treason in Moscow, Rick Wilson’s quiet fury is satisfying here:
Treason with Benefits: Kushner & Witkoff Play With Putin
Citizen Alan
@Elizabelle: Part of my intense personal dislike for It’s A Wonderful Life stems from the fact that there is absolutely no sense of closure regarding old man potter, who, as the credits roll, can still shrug to himself and say “oh well, at least I got the equivalent of about $200k in free money because george bailey insists on keeping a dottering old fool in charge of his banking.”
(The main reason I hate the movie is that it’s basically the biblical story of Job reshot with gauzy frank capra kitsch.)
Elizabelle
@Citizen Alan: The story of Job run through a Capra filter. Well done!
Geminid
@artem1s: I was impressed by Deb Haaland when she entered Congress with the House Class of 2018, and was a big fan of her work as Interior Secretary. Later, when I read Haaland’s Wikipedia biography,* I was really impressed. I look forward to her campaign for governor next year.
But a minor correction: Haaland is no longer a House member. She has been out of public office since last January, when her tenure as Interior Secretary ended.
* If anyone is feeling down in the dumps about the current state of our politics, I recommend they read Haaland’s Wikipedia entry. It’s an inspirational story of personal resilience, and political resilience as well.
WTFGhost
@Citizen Alan: One thing I disliked about it, but dismissed as being part of the misanthrope package, was the OH SO PRECIOUSNESS of life.
Well, now, I recognize the “don’t gimme how precious life is,” attitude as one of the symptoms of my chronic pain. Of course I didn’t – don’t – see “just living” as precious.
I reckon those of you who have pain-free days have a different perspective, is all.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: it may literally be against the law at this point to put up a new building on the Ole Miss campus that is not designed to look like an antebellum mansion. To this day there are people who are angry that the student union, constructed in the 1970s, is in the Bauhaus/Brutalist style and sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of red bricks and ionian columns.
kalakal
@Pauline:
I work in one of those, in this case the culprit was Richard Stern. It has all the hall marks: insane utility bills, a lighting scheme that was so bad it had to be completely replaced ( having enough light to be able to read is considered to be a good thing in a library), appalling acoustics due to the layout, and as proof of Stern’s sincere admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright… a leaky roof.
Kayla Rudbek
@Citizen Alan: and maybe that’s another reason why I absolutely hate this movie so much (my Catholic grade school used to make us watch it every December).
Kayla Rudbek
@WTFGhost: although I was raised Roman Catholic, I have never bought into the pro-life nonsense (visiting Dachau before you’re seven years old teaches you that there are evil people in this world who deserve to be executed). Yet another reason why I hated having to watch It’s a Wonderful Life every December in Catholic grade school.
gene108
@p.a.:
Milton Friedman, during the Reagan Administration, was a proponent of negative income taxes. The Earned Income Tax Credit is an example of a negative income tax.
WaterGirl
@CCL: Just seeing this now. Ozark is most definitely missed. I had never even heard of a frost flower when he posted the pictures.
Magical, and so fleeting.