Confirmed. Fuck.

Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos arrives before testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at her confirmation hearing. CREDIT: AP/Carolyn Kaster.

Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos arrives before testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at her confirmation hearing. CREDIT: AP/Carolyn Kaster.

Think Progress has the story. All the bad news is at Pharyngula, where I first saw this, and experienced that caved-in, sinking chest feeling, in spite of being heavily medicated.* All I can say right now is go read. Read, and renew your conviction and commitment to fight back. We are in situation dire as fuck.

*Dealing with extreme stress right now, PTSD shit. Likely to be on the erratic side for a bit, can’t focus right now. There will also probably be mass amounts of typos, please be kind in your corrections.

Heil Hitler, Heil Trump.

Texas high school students (Twitter / @louismccorgilee).

Texas high school students (Twitter / @louismccorgilee).

CYPRESS, Texas – Several controversial photos of students from Cypress Ranch High School are circulating on social media.

The pictures show a group of students, some with their hands in the air making what appears to be a Nazi salute.

In an email to KPRC Channel 2, a student who witnessed the incident but asked to remain anonymous said students were shouting “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Trump. The student also said it was at least 70 or so people and, “It was pretty terrifying.”

The photos were taken on Tuesday, picture day for the senior class. One photo was supposed to be serious, the second was supposed to be funny.

But no one is laughing about it now.

The email from the Cypress Ranch student went on to say, “Most people may think it was just kids just joking around but in the current political climate and the fact these kids are seniors in high school, it’s beyond unacceptable.”

I’m very weary of the “funny! joke!” bullshit. No, it’s not funny. No, it’s not a joke. There are people who can do such a thing right, like Mel Brooks, but this is plain old ugly nazism, performed by a bunch of young white men, about ready to launch themselves into the world at large. Not remotely funny.

From a letter written by the principal of the school:

“This letter is to make you aware of a situation that occurred on our campus today while our senior class was taking a large group panoramic picture. Several of our students made the poor choice of displaying inappropriate gestures during this time. Unfortunately, many of these images have been shared on social media. This is extremely disappointing as this is not an accurate representation of our student body.

“We are currently conducting an investigation and those implicated will be punished according to the Student Code of Conduct.

“We ask that you talk to your students regarding the posting and sharing of negative social media as this perpetuates a false image of Cy Ranch HS.

No worry at all about the fact they have a large group of nazis in their school. No, this is all about image. Dammit, nazi boys, we told you, be discreet! This is a disgusting response, to say the least. What’s the punishment going to be, a course in proper nazi etiquette? Going by the Raw Story article, there were teachers present, but not one of them said a word, or told the nazis to knock it off. So normalised already that fully fledged adults turn their heads away from nazi youth. Great sign, ennit?

Via Click2Houston and Raw Story.

In the same vein, white supremacy was on view at a basketball game:

Video has surfaced from the controversial Dover and Jefferson basketball game on Friday during which members of the Jefferson crowd shouted racial remarks at an African-American player on the Dover team and “Build the wall” during their pre-game warm-ups.

The incident came to light Monday when Jefferson Superintendent Patrick Tierney apologized after students “allegedly made racist and/or offensive statements directed at the Dover athletes” during Friday’s game. Dover Superintendent Robert Becker issued a statement hours later in which he identified two of those statements, saying Dover students chanted “ashy knees” at a player, as well as, “Build the wall.”

Video obtained by NJ Advance Media shows several instances of members of the Jefferson crowd shouting “ashy knees” when an African-American player steps up to the free throw line for several foul shots. Occasionally, one area would shout “ashy,” and the other area would follow with “knees.”

The theme for the night was American pride, and several people in the video were dressed in clothes featuring the American flag — and one member of the crowd waved a full-sized American flag. Earlier chants combined with the flags, upset some Dover parents.

Michael Moore, a parent of a Dover High School basketball player, told NJ Advance Media he believed the Jefferson crowd’s intent was to disparage Dover — a town with a significant Hispanic and African-American population.

“Their intent was disrespect,” he said. “Not to promote the country as a whole.”
Moore, who was in attendance at the game, said he placed the blame on the adults in the Jefferson group as they “allowed this and put this together.”

If you click on over to the full article, you’ll see the incredibly flimsy, bullshit excuses provided by adults for their little nazis in training. Disgust isn’t strong enough. There’s also video at the link.

Word Wednesday.

words

Audacity.

Noun.

1. Boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.

2. Effrontery or insolence; shameless boldness.

3. Usually, audacities. audacious or particularly bold or daring acts or statements.

1400-50; late Middle English audacite < Latin audāc-, stem of audāx daring.

Adamsberg was beginning to take in her plan, based on two elements which were usually in contradiction: audacity and finesse. Together they made up an unpredictable force, like a battering ram with the delicacy of a needle. – Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, Fred Vargas.

New Cases of HIV: Check Your City.

lead00_0

The CDC’s 2015 HIV Surveillance Report is out, and with it, the 15 cities with the highest rates of new cases of HIV. What’s striking here is that most of the new cases are in the South. Tireless work has helped to reduce the stigma of HIV, but with the ongoing and ever increasing bigotry against all queer folk, that stigma is re-asserting itself, along with the stigma of being LGBT in many states. It must be emphasised, once again, that hetero people also contract HIV, it’s no guarantee at all that you won’t be at risk. I don’t care what people do sexually, as long as they are fully consensual adults, but in such hateful and uncertain times, especially in regard to healthcare, this is no time to take risks or blithely assume it won’t be a problem for you. It’s best to remember that a great many people cheat, too. And cheaters have a tendency to lie. Please, be careful, protect yourself and your partner[s] at all times, take the time to be aware of not just HIV, but all sexually transmitted diseases, get tested, urge others to get tested, and don’t let yourself be bullied by any partner or potential partner who does not want to use protection or get tested. If you are sexually assaulted or raped, don’t eschew testing, it could save your life. This applies even if you do not want to report. No one can force you to report, but get tested.

Cities, in order: 1, Miami, Florida. 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 3, New Orleans, Louisiana. 4, Jackson, Mississippi. 5, Atlanta, Georgia. 6, Orlando, Florida. 7, Louisville, Kentucky and Jefferson County, Indiana. 8, Memphis, Tennessee. 9, Jacksonville, Florida. 10, Baltimore, Maryland. 11, Houston, Texas. 12, Washington, DC. 13, Columbia, South Carolina. 14, Las Vegas, Nevada. 15, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida.

If you’re in one of these cities, be vigilant about your health, but remember, being outside these states is no guarantee. Be careful, please.

Via Plus.

The T.R.U.T.H Project will be active in one of the listed cities, Houston.

To commemorate National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, an initiative to engage the Black community about the importance of HIV education and testing, on February 7 the T.R.U.T.H project will hold a performance and panel discussion with Houston health professionals and advocates to discuss and answer questions about HIV and mental health.

The one-night only event is titled “I am My Brother/Sister’s Keeper: Fight HIV/AIDS” and will also be providing free HIV and Syphilis testing for all who attend. The show is sponsored by the Houston Department Bureau of HIV/STD Prevention and Walgreens, with additional support from AIDS Foundation Houston, and will be moderated by author and empowerment coach Jai Sneed.

[…]

“We can’t address HIV/ AIDS without touching on mental and emotional health. The public health and scientific communities are working on great new biomedical interventions, but uptake and effectiveness are stagnated when other needs aren’t being met.”

Panelists include licensed professional counselors Dr. Kimm Perez and Milton Smith, Human Rights activist and HIV advocate Deondre Moore, PrEP and HIV Advocate Adonis May, clinical social worker DeShantra Moore, HIV/AIDS advocate Tiffany Quinton, and will feature artists Nick Muckleroy and visual artist Ashley “Pinklomein” Price.

Those with mental health issues are at higher risk of becoming HIV-positive, and once poz are more likely to have negative health outcomes, especially if they are Black gay men.

Via Plus.

Word Wednesday.

words

Twaddle.

Noun.

1 a: Silly, idle talk. b: something insignificant or worthless. Nonsense.

2. One that twaddles: Twaddler.

Verb.

Twaddled; twaddling. – Prate, babble.

Origin: probably alteration of twattle (1550s), idle talk.

1782.

“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table; “I never read such rubbish in my life.” – A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle.

Just The Facts, Ma’am.

facts

Handy dandy help for everyone, from FactCheck.org – How to spot fake news. An article to bookmark and refer to when needed, and I imagine it might be needed a lot in the coming years.

…Those all still hold true, but fake stories — as in, completely made-up “news” — has grown more sophisticated, often presented on a site designed to look (sort of) like a legitimate news organization. Still, we find it’s easy to figure out what’s real and what’s imaginary if you’re armed with some critical thinking and fact-checking tools of the trade.

Here’s our advice on how to spot a fake:

Good, solid advice. Click on over to read the whole article.

And, here’s a good way to sharpen up those bullshit detection skills, learning that correlation does not imply causation. While most people know this, at least hazily so, that’s one fact that tends to get kicked out in favour of “hmmm, that’s interesting, ennit?” and “that’s some coincidence!” and so forth. We’re all prone to veering off into the more magical type of thinking, and the correlation/causation bit is an oft used trick to manipulate people. Being much smarter than that, of course you want to make sure you don’t fall for such shit. Head on over to Tyler Vigen’s Spurious Correlations, and you can enjoy learning all about it. Spurious Correlations is now a ridiculous and wonderful book, and I highly recommend it.

Budget Slasher Horror.

Pennywise

© Jorgel007, via http://welcome2creepshow.tumblr.com/

Trump is preparing his own slasher flick, featuring The Budget. Most Trumpoids won’t care, they will most likely cheer this massacre on, but those of us who cherish things like art, social justice, education, the environment, because our earth sustains us, and other commie hippie stuff are in for a very bad ride. As per usual in the rethug agenda, anyone who isn’t rich is gonna get screwed.

Incoming President Donald Trump’s administration is already working on preparing his budget. And it looks like it will be far more extreme than anything the Republican Party has proposed so far.

The blueprint Trump’s team is working with as it crafts the plan would cut federal government spending by $10.5 trillion over a decade, according to The Hill’s sources.

[…]

To get such deep cuts, the Trump budget contemplates completely eliminating a number of programs, particularly at the Departments of Energy, Justice, State, Commerce, and Transportation.

On the chopping block, according to The Hill, would be the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; the Department of Justice’s Legal Services Corporation and Violence Against Women Grants; funding for the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Electricity, and Office of Fossil Energy, among others.

It’s likely many other programs will be cut as well, even if they aren’t eliminated entirely. […] But if the House Republican budget is any guide, programs that serve the most needy are likely to be in danger. That proposal derived 62 percent of its cuts from low-income programs, such as food stamps and Pell grants, even though those programs account for just 28 percent of non-defense spending.

Think Progress has the full story.

The Fine Art of Calling Bullshit.

Carl T. Bergstrom (left) and Jevin West, of the U. of Washington, want to teach students how to survive the avalanche of false or misleading data shaken loose by shifts in media, technology, and politics.

Carl T. Bergstrom (left) and Jevin West, of the U. of Washington, want to teach students how to survive the avalanche of false or misleading data shaken loose by shifts in media, technology, and politics.

Facts and figures are like cow pastures. Unless you squint, you can’t always tell how full of bullshit they are.

Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West, a pair of scientists at the University of Washington, think it’s time to arm students with boots and shovels. They have published the outline of a course, titled “Calling Bullshit,” which would try to teach how to spot bad data and misleading graphs at a time when bending statistics has become a popular art form.

“Pending approval from the administrative powers-that-be at the University of Washington, we hope to offer the seminar in the near future,” they wrote on a website they built for the course. “In the meantime, connoisseurs of bullshit may enjoy the course syllabus, readings, and case studies that we have lovingly curated.”

The Chronicle caught up with Mr. Bergstrom, a biologist, and Mr. West, an information scientist, to talk about their course.

The full interview is here. All I can say is that we need these courses everywhere. On street corners, even.

I notice a poster of a squid over the door – this must be a Cthulhuian plot!

Defining Diversity, Whitesplaining Edition.

Who, me? I'm diverse, I swear!via YouTube.

Who, me? I’m diverse, I swear! via YouTube.

On Saturday, two days before the national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., Knoxville state Rep. Roger Kane opined that just because the Tennessee General Assembly is mostly white and male, that does not mean it’s not diverse.

Sigh. Here we go. Again.

“Women have actually gone down and minorities have gone up,” Kane said, talking about UTK enrollment. “Well, that’s just trading spaces. It’s really not creating diversity.”

Right. Women and minorities have absolutely nothing at all to do with diversity, no. It’s all about the white guys.

“If you look at this panel, that’s in front of you, we look rather homogeneous. But we’re incredibly diverse! We really are,” Kane said of the 12-person panel that consisted of 10 white men, one white woman (Sen. Becky Duncan Massey), and one African-American man (Rep. Rick Staples).

Insert a slight, nervous laugh here. Kane continues on in his diversity definition.

“You see me as a white, middle-aged man. But my mother’s Jewish, my father’s Catholic, and I’m a Baptist. Does that not make diversity?” Kane asked. 

Not really. It means you have a mixed religion background.

“I grew up in Houston, probably one of the most diverse towns you will ever see,” Kane said, accurately, mentioning the city’s large Chinese, Vietnamese, gay and black populations. “And that’s the school I went to. Does that not add to my diversity? But you see me as a white, middle-aged man, that’s all you see. But we’re so much more than that!”

People see a white, middle aged man because that’s what is there. Living in a high diversity town and going to a high diversity school doesn’t change the fact that you’re a white man. Diversity is not about personality or character traits.

Kane continued digging his hole, saying that UTK’s diversity office — which the Legislature defunded last session — doesn’t really show the true diversity on campus, because a lesbian Filipina only defined herself as that and not also as “a woman, she’s college-educated, she’s funny, she has black hair — those are all diversity things.”

“She had forgotten all of those things because in her strive to be diverse, she had honed in on two things, and that’s it,” Kane ended bitterly.

Oh for…yeah, no. Being a woman, a lesbian, and Filipino all matter when it comes to diversity. Once again, this is not about personality or character traits. I’m pretty sure you don’t get to count hair colour as a “diversity thing”.

These are the conservative white men who are in charge of education all over.

Via Nashville Scene.

Potential Grizzlies.

Waving Grizzly gif on Twitter.

Waving Grizzly gif on Twitter.

Betsy DeVos’s hearing veered straight into the absurd, citing potential grizzlies:

However, nothing quite caught the flavor of how poorly her hearing went than her response to Sen. Chis Murphy (D-CT) who asked her, “Do you think guns have any place in or around schools?”

After saying the availability of guns should be “best left to locales and states to decide,” Devos replied to further questioning on guns on campus by adding, “I will refer back to Senator Enzi (R-WY) and the school he was talking about in Wyoming … I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies.”

Ms. DeVos is not only singularly lacking any qualification to head up the Department of Education, she’s not exactly stellar in the thinking department. She did note she had a bleeding heart:

If the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.”

Buuuuuuut…potential grizzlies, man! I’m hearing Cheech & Chong in my head. The twittersphere erupted over the potential grizzly bears.

Mo Gaffney

✔ @mogaffney

So DeVos won’t say guns don’t belong in schools. Except says yes when grizzlies are near. How many grizzly adjacent schools r there?

*

Adam B. @AllThingsBooks

“We need guns in schools because of grizzly bears.” You know what else stops bears? Doors.

*

Sarcasticsapien @Sarcasticsapien

I’m confused. Betsy DeVos wants to bring God into schools but also guns because I guess God isn’t powerful enough to stop grizzly bears.

*

Gary @mrgaryhuang

I must REALLY live in a liberal bubble. I didn’t think grizzly bears were even remotely a problem in public schools.

More Tweets at Raw Story.  Also covering this story, Think Progress.

Word Wednesday.

words

Demagogue

Noun.

1. A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

2. (in ancient times) a leader of the people.

verb (used with object), demagogued, demagoguing.
3. To treat or manipulate (a political issue) in the manner of a demagogue; obscure or distort with emotionalism, prejudice, etc.

verb (used without object), demagogued, demagoguing.
4. To speak or act like a demagogue.

1640s, from Greek demagogos “popular leader,” also “leader of the mob,” from demos “people” (see demotic ) + agogos “leader,” from agein “to lead” (see act (n.)). Often a term of disparagement since the time of its first use, in Athens, 5c. B.C.E. Form perhaps influenced by French demagogue (mid-14c.).

Demosthenes: A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.

Demosthenes [to the Sausage-Seller]: Mix and knead together all the state business as you do for your sausages. To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them. Besides, you possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing. -The Knights, Aristophanes.

 

The peculiar office of a demagogue is to advance his own interests, by affecting a deep devotion to the interests of the people. Sometimes the object is to indulge malignancy, unprincipled and selfish men submitting but to two governing motives, that of doing good to themselves, and that of doing harm to others. … The motive of the demagogue may usually be detected in his conduct. The man who is constantly telling the people that they are unerring in judgment, and that they have all power, is a demagogue. – The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper.

We Want Idiots!

Joyner

Rick Joyner.

Rick Joyner declared on the most recent episode of his “Prophetic Perspective on Current Events” program that the Common Core educational standards amount to “treason.”

“Common Core goes to a new level of evil,” he said. “I cannot imagine any sane person wanting that garbage to be taught to our kids. Now I will say this boldly: This is treason. Maybe not intentional treason, but it’s ultimate effect, impact, will be to absolutely destroy America, make us incapable of competing or maybe even surviving in the world to come.”

Common Core is “abominable,” Joyner said, which is why he is “so thankful that we have got a president who understands” its dangers, predicting that Trump “will do something to probably help fix it faster than anything else he can do.”

Well yes, Trump is out destroy education, given the whole Betsy de Vos business, but to declare common core as treason? Please.  So what’s it going to be then, no standard at all? No standards for learning, no standards for schooling, no standards for jobs? Destroying America? Oh my yes, why education results in pesky people asking questions! Those meddling kids!

I expect this is about the incredibly bad system of vouchers, so we will end up with little to no public education, and only people with money will be able to actually educate their children. Everyone else? Eh, I’m sure the rethugs want a sea of idiots for a number of reasons. I’d be willing to bet the number of secular homeschoolers is about to increase.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Word Wednesday.

words

Footle 

Noun. Intransitive verb, footled, footling.

  1. To talk or act foolishly.
  2.  To waste time: trifle, fool.

Footling

Adjective.

  1. Lacking judgment or ability: Inept <footling amateurs who understand nothing – E.R. Bentley>
  2. Lacking use or value: Trivial <footling matters>

v.”to trifle,” 1892, from dialectal footer “to trifle,” footy “mean, paltry” (1752), perhaps from French se foutre “to care nothing,” from Old French foutre “to copulate with,” from Latin futuere, originally “to strike, thrust” (cf. confute). But OED derives the English dialect words from foughty (c.1600), from Dutch vochtig or Danish fugtig “damp, musty;” related to fog (n.).

“It was a unique machine. By the time of his last try, Marc had grasped the point of it: you had to make up a question in your head, then consult the oracle. He had hesitated between ‘Will I get my medieval accounts finished in time?’ which he found too footling, and ‘Is there a woman somewhere who will fall in love with me?’, but he didn’t want to know if the answer to that was no, so he had finally opted for a question which didn’t commit him to anything: ‘Does God exist?’.  – Dog Will Have His Day, Fred Vargas.