It's not
about being liberal or conservative anymore y'all. That is a hype offered by the fascist whores who want to confuse the people with lies while they turn this country into an aristocratic police state. Some people will say anything to attain power and money. There is no such thing as the Liberal Media, but the Corporate media is very real.
Semi-regularly (lately once a week) I get a twice-cooked pork dish with no rice from a Chinese
restaurant around the block on Clement and 32nd. I love the fortune cookie sayings that come on the
little pieces of paper after you crack open the cookie, getting some lucky number combinations and a
free Chinese word too. Sometimes the pithy aphorism really hits home. That was the case yesterday.
Here is the quote:
Your dream must be bigger than your fear.
Friday, 22 June 2018 at 16h 39m 10s
The Majority of all voters have a favorable view of immigration
Here is the latest Gallup Poll
[SOURCE:Megan Brenan | Gallup Poll | 21
June 2018]
Thursday, 14 June 2018 at 22h 32m 8s
My neighbor
Today I spoke with a fellow who is a neighbor to a fellow teacher whom I have worked with for 20
years. His name was Steve. He said he was from Chicago. He said he joined the military in the
1960’s and served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He lives around the corner from my favorite San
Francisco cafe. I have seen him before — even perhaps spoken with him before — but we don’t usually
connect except when I am on Summer sabbatical, spending my free time reading books in the morning at
my favorite San Francisco cafe. Steve is now retired, and has served on the board and as President
of a local Waldorf school.
He is a typical San Francisco “conservative” in that he isn’t Republican, is open minded to reason,
is not blatantly judgmental or overly racist, tends to be parochial, and is staunchly supportive of a
local view of property rights. Like every typical San Franciscan who intends to live here for the
long haul — as opposed to being a temporary station in life — Steve is engaged with his
fellow neighborhood citizens, which is why we strike up a conversation most of the time we are in the
same vicinity. I mean, how else do you explain a guy pushing (or beyond) 70 years talking to a 49
year old
long haired hippie who looks like Frank Zappa vintage 1972.
Our city recently elected London Breed mayor of San Francisco. She is a mainstream darling funded by
large real estate interests, developers, internet and big-tech moguls, and is backed by financial
slush funds
such as Save and Affordable San Francisco slurring opposition candidates with 3 million
dollars over the last 3 weeks before the election date -- conveniently registered out of Sacramento in
order to not have to immediately file or disclose for the city ethics board. Steve called her a
politician. Then Steve
commented on our common district supervisor Sandra Fewer. He was upset with our district supervisor
because of an instance a few years back when she was on the school board and voted against
continuing the JROTC programs — apparently because our district supervisor has a gay son and she was
upset about don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy of the military.
We got into a conversation about education, partly because I mentioned that I am a high school math
teacher. He mentioned about how the United States was behind. I cut in and mentioned that if
you look at the International PISA scores you are looking at an average, which is quite different
than the median, and that furthermore, if you remove all the schools which have more than 20% school
free lunch students (a good proxy for poverty) American students rank anywhere from number 1 to
number 3. The real issue is not addressing the underlying needs of a large segment of the students
in our public schools -- single parents, drug addiction, alcoholism, constant moving because of
shifting job markets, unstable and unhealthy community environments, low nutrition. Steve agreed.
He went back to the JROTC matter as a means of giving kids
structure and leadership opportunities. I was not in disagreement, although I think those same
goals can be achieved without the military being involved. But we agreed on the same principles.
Which is my goal when I converse with other people. I want to learn how they feel and how they
think and discover what we have in common. I have no agenda or delusion that I can convince anyone
of anything. Every encounter with another human being is either an exchange or it’s just an
exercise in egotistical banter, the latter of which is a waste of time if you are a sentient being.
Whereas, for the insentient and inobservant, egotistical banter is perhaps a necessity. The view
of self cannot be separated from the engagement with others because any engagement with others must
support the view of self.
Monday, 11 June 2018 at 4h 3m 15s
The falsehoods
Headline: In 500 days Trump has said 1655 falsehoods.
This is what I ate the last 3 days. OMG it's delicious. It takes 5 minutes once you have the
boiled eggs. I also like to steam the broccoli for 5 minutes.
The spices are important btw. Turmeric in particular has a compound called curcumin that stimulates
the enzyme production in the liver that increases metabolism of the fats that build up in the liver.
This salad also has 235 mg of Vitamin C, the same as 2 cups of raw orange juice without the 40 grams
of sugar that you get with orange juice, about 10 to 15 grams of which is fructose. Whereas this
salad only has 15 grams of sugar, only 4.5 grams of which is fructose.
For those of you who care about Calories .. this is about 1100.
1 cup or handful kale
1 cup or handful mixed spring greens
4 hard boiled eggs (or 4oz Smoked Salmon)
½ cup crumbled pecans
10 cherry tomatoes, sliced into halves
1 cup of broccoli florets
8 large olives with pimentos, sliced into thirds
⅓ cup of feta cheese, cut and slightly crumbled
(optional) 2 medium peperoncini peppers
1 teas chia seeds
(optional) ½ T apple cider vinegar
2 T hemp oil (or olive oil)
1 T balsamic vinegar
1 teas paprika
1 teas turmeric
¼ teas coriander
(optional) pinch of cayenne pepper
Soak paprika, turmeric, cayenne and coriander in the oil and balsamic, and just enough water to make
it a little runny. Let it sit for 5 minutes, stirring before and after.
Cut the eggs in half. Mix all the other ingredients together, then mix in the oil-vinegar spice
mixture. Add salt and black pepper to taste.
Yep. Trying to solve underlying issues with a top-down mismanagement schema system that might work
when you have a relatively homogenous society like Japan or China; or a society like Finland where
the ancillary social support system diminishes the issues and factors exogenous to the school
system.
Mathematics and numbers are unique, in that they are completely dependent upon the environment and
culture from which humans arrive. Tribes cannot contemplate numbers greater than five, and often
have no conception of linearity or division, because it doesn't come up in their environment. We in
the West however expect young people to automatically have some innate capacity for mathematically
ability, completely ignoring the concomitant background environment that is critical for success in
mathematics. I still have seniors in statistics who get confused about the decimal point and
percentages, even though that is a 7th grade math concept. Why is that? We must realize that there
are various and different capacities for mathematics that exist in students and that there is not a
one size fits all. Otherwise we don't address the misconceptions and weaknesses in the large
sub-group of students who have weak mathematical conceptions.
Expecting children to ramp up and "struggle to solve hard problems" can be an immense
challenge for students who are 3 grades behind, living in stressful social situations, poorly
nourished by eating processed food and high sugar diets, and being largely raised by devices that
are eroding their focus and memory retention. It would be one thing if these other more relevant
issues were addressed, but they aren't being addressed at all -- and maybe cannot be addressed by
the school systems but are the result of a larger social/government policy environment.
Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 3h 43m 29s
The false meme of competition in public education
This is my response to Burt Saxby (who is probably a fake troll). This is what Mr. Saxby said that
got me riled up. Notice that he speaks in one line mantras loaded with bias
Schools should be privatized. That’s the only way to keep government nonsense out of teaching.
Schools would compete and the ones with the worst results would lose the contract.
Government is "nonsense" and "the [schools] with the worst results lose the contract". Really?
Schools will not compete because they can't compete in local districts because this is not a free
market. You think education is a business when it is a social responsibility. What happens is that
private business selects the students who are easy to teach and kicks out the students who are more
difficult to teach. What happens is that the private business minimizes the cost of education by
standardizing the instruction by photocopy machine, or sitting kids in front of a computer rather
than having a hired, experienced professional educate the children.
You want to believe in the myth of competition bringing out the best of the institutions that
educate, but there is no proof or evidence that this is what actually happens. Instead we have
private schools funded by large ideological donors subsidizing their loses while they demolish the
public sector, even while there is not a shred of evidence that they educate the children any
better. Look at New Orleans. Look at Ohio. Look at Detroit. Look at Chicago. Look at Florida.
Look at New York City.
What happens instead is the total dismantling of public influence in education for the other
children the private schools don't want to teach.
Schools don't compete. They raise and educate children. This is not a business sector, and people
like Burt Saxby are just ideologues who spread this ruse because it fills the pockets of the private
sector that has a motivation in dismantling public education in order to make a profit.
Thursday, 26 April 2018 at 1h 49m 3s
Malcolm Nance is a true patriot
You need to read Malcolm's 2016 book "The Hacking of America". I love his quote "Coincidence takes
a lot of planning."
The oligarchs plant these seeds into the minds of the "useful idiots" playing with their biases and
manipulating them to vote against their better interests.
Inserting fake data into legitimate data is real. This is how the authoritarian regimes roll. The
"pee tape" is real. The Russians have been systematically killing everyone they believe is related
to the "pee tape". From timestamp 9 minutes and beyond is intense.
How much evidence of collusion do we have to get in order to believe? God bless Mueller.
At 12:19 ... "This administration is a toxic sludge".
Thank you Malcolm. Thank you.
Thursday, 26 April 2018 at 2h 2m 21s
The difference between the NFL and the NBA
This segment is incredible.
Steph Curry and Lebron James and longtime San Antonio coach Popovich vs. Colin Kapernick and the
Kneeling players. Look at the difference in how the media and corporate sports franchises portrays
these two equal situations. The ex-NFL player says it best in this video at the timestamp 9 minutes
in response to Nicole Wallace's legit question "Why is the NFL so weak? Why is the NFL so afraid of
Donald
Trump?"
Chris Kluwe: It's disposable labor. In the NFL you get maybe 3 or 4 years out of the players.
Whereas the NBA players, you are playing 10, 15, 20 years.
Exactly. Well said. It's plantation economics. And when the owners are racists, they cower to the
racist in charge.
Oh god, that white NYTimes writer is such weak tea when he responds to Mrs. Wallace's question.. He
says the NFL is "The most patriotic of
sports?" Really. Fuck you dude. That would be fucking basketball asshole, which was created fresh
in the UNITED
STATES, as opposed to a knockoff of British Rugby. And mind you, "football" is soccer everywhere
else in the world except US and Canada, because you "kick" and "control" the "ball" with your feet
-- as opposed to orchestrating some militarist game plan with a central leader (Quarterback) in charge.
Nothing against American Football btw. I am never against a change or different viewpoint or
interpretation. I just want something the meets the standards of legit disagreement with some sort
of intellectual rational debate. If you disagree, give an opinion that explains your point of view
that isn't based on a vituperative scream or something akin towards false categorization of others.
We can have honest debates about perspectives that are healthy without debasing or pigeon holing
other people
BTW Gavin Newsome is the real deal for the next California Governor thanks to Willie Brown. I might
explain why this is in a future post, but just keep in mind that the corporate regime wants to
promote Villagorosa because he supports Corporate charter schools and is a latino. Do you want to
decimate public education and have private Charter schools run the education of our children? That
is the question.
I will have more to say about this matter in the future.
Saturday, 21 April 2018 at 22h 1m 46s
This is Mr. Kenneth Durham
You ask : Is Kenneth an insightful genuine real person who makes comments on youtube.com?
I'll let you judge for yourself.
The above video was what the esteemed Kenneth responded to. Here is what Kenneth said as regards a
Democratic primary runner in Calfornia's 50th district, running for the House of Representatives
against Duncan Hunter, Jr.
Yay! More Massive debt, failing schools l, higher drop out rates, lower home ownership,
homelessness, and skid row everywhere! Just stay there Californians.
Really? Here was my response back.
Because? Funny how your rapid fire degenerate phrases have nothing of substance to support your
contentions. Oh my. Two can play this silly game.
Yay! More dumb assholes who say outlandish bullshit without any attempt to justify said allegations,
who make false equivalences, and toss out extremes without ever bothering to make a complete logical
connection or genuine discussion about macro anything, flitting scatological screeds like children
in a food fight.
Oh but this coming from a handsome man who smiles, so everyone should bow down and become humble to
your infinite wisdom.
Oh by the way, the "massive debt" of which you speak, you know the one the last Republican governor
left to the state of California that you protest to loooooove soooooooo much, those billions of
dollars that you seem to have "conveniently" forgotten, that "massive debt" was erased by the better
management team of Jerry Brown and the state Democratic party ... because the Rethuglican party is
completely and utterly corrupt. Or have you been living in a comatose vegetative state eating an
endless feedback loop your philosophical diarrhea.
What's happening in California that is a legitimate social issue -- schools, homelessness, the high
cost of home ownership -- is not specific to California AND is not a residual effect of the policies
you think are somehow related to the "left wing." However, if it was the case that this line of
reasoning has some merit, you did not make that case at all. Instead you tossed out emotionally
laden political word bombs like a monkey in a zoo who throws excrement at the spectators.
Congratulations Mr. Ape. Thank you for the edifying erudite remarks. My opinion has now been
completely changed.