dasfoo
1yr ago
I'm on the fence about this. I have no problem with my kids seeing nude figures in classical art. But it seems to me this teacher was either asking for trouble or had some motive that superseded his job survival instincts.
It's clear from the chain of events that this teacher knew this might be an issue for some kids/parents, because:
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The school already considered it controversial enough to (fail to) send out a warning letter.
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The teacher felt the need to categorize it as "non-pornographic" (Why, exactly, did he feel this was necessary? ISTM that raising the topic of porn is more likely to get him into trouble, not less likely. Hopefully, it wasn't to differentiate Michael from the art he showed the students on other days....)
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"Don't tell your parents." Come on. Maybe he wanted this. Maybe he wanted to become a cause celebre for the left. This is not the behavior of a teacher without some other motive. He got what he wanted. He poked the bear and the bear gutted him and we all know about it and I'm sure there's a related GoFundMe we can support or a TikTok we can heart.
Given all that, I have another question: Why Michelangelo's David? Yes, it's famous. But it's not like it's the only work of art in existence. I don't know enough about art to tell you why David is more famous or worthy of study than any other partially clothed statue. They all look pretty good to me. He chose it for a reason. Maybe laziness. Maybe a lack of imagination. Maybe he just a little bit likes to make kids look at schlongs. Maybe it's his favorite work of art and he has a unique and scintillating perspective on it. Maybe he holds that fraction of parents in contempt and wanted to fuck with them. All or some of the above, still it was poor judgement on his part, unless it's what he wanted.
dasfoo
1yr ago
#2 Is straight up witch-hunt logic. Defending yourself by saying the sculpture David is non-pornographic does not suggest you were on other occasions showing kids pornography.
If you are displaying nudism in art because nudism is natural and non-lascivious, there's no need to draw attention to other lascivious forms. By classifying David as "not porn" you are not only virtually inviting the students to be curious about the mentioned alternative but you are implicitly categorizing "porn" as the default and "not porn" as the exception. I understand why someone would psychologically feel the need to defensively declare "not porn!" if one is already anticipating cries of "porn!" but that's not the act of someone who is not already defensive about their course.
dasfoo
1yr ago
A pure hypothetical thought experiment: imagine it occurs that the Pfizer mRNA vaccination + all booster follow-ups (4+ shots) regimen is disastrous to health, and has a high 10-year mortality rate. In other words, those who strictly adhered to the recommended CDC/Pfizer vaccination schedule have a 25% of dying by the decade’s end, or some such risk. What would be the public’s response and what would be the just punishment for those involved?
The cynical answer is "nothing." The vaccine deaths would be categorized as "Long Covid" or something else and any respectable scientist or doctor who claims otherwise would risk their career.
dasfoo
1yr ago
Could you elaborate on what specific harm showing an anatomically correct sculpture to sixth graders does to them?
This is a wholly irrelevant question. I know it's what the pro-David side likes to focus on, because it makes their opponents look like aliens to the ingroup, but it fundamentally doesn't matter.
If we can agree that there are two groups who differ on the answer to your question: regardless of the substance of their answers, this is an issue of how a community has decided to navigate through this difference in opinions. Now, it may seem to some like the question is so stupid that the community process no longer matters, but this is a great way to destroy a community. This is the essence of a lot of culture war issues at the moment, a focus on terminal values above the process by which we allow competing values to co-exist peacefully.
dasfoo
1yr ago
he's been an utter failure. Maybe apart from appointing SCOTUS justices.
And that one notable success was the result of Trump delegating SC nominees to the swampiest establishment Republicans. Trump strengthened the process with his refusal tro cower in the face of outrage, but he succeeded here by essentially doing nothing.
dasfoo
1yr ago
That paragraph completes a collection of 3 paragraphs all follow the form "Republicans do , but Democrats aren't any better". That is to say, I'm pretty close to certain OP is saying "Roe v Wade, anyone" as a dig at Democrats
It read to me like the first hint of a tipping point, but it was vague.
dasfoo
2mo ago
When Obama was elected, Democrats were, understandably on a high, and while I can't point stats my sense of the national mood was that the younger Boomer Liberalism that first assumed power under Clinton considered itself victoroious in the culture war (and it was!) and this was reflected with unusual smugness. A new generation was in charge, and they were "on the right side of history." There were some prominent books and articles that got a lot of talk radio play in the wake of Obama's election, like the uncreatively titled "The Death of Conservatism" by Sam Tanenhaus (2009, The New Republic) and "The Death of Conservatism" by Lee Siegel (2009, The Daily Beast). Even quasi-conservative Andrew Sullivan got into it with a book titled "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back." More self-eulogizing from conservatives in "The Death of Conservatism: A Movement and Its Consequences" edited by Lee Edwards (2011).
As for the ideological composition of the federal workforce, the size doesn't matter as much as who made up the ranks. I asked ChatGPT and it responded with this:
One notable initiative in this regard was the National Performance Review (NPR), also known as the Reinventing Government initiative. Led by Vice President Al Gore, the NPR sought to make government more efficient, customer-focused, and results-oriented. It aimed to eliminate waste, reduce bureaucracy, and improve the delivery of government services.
While the NPR did involve workforce reforms, such as encouraging early retirements and implementing performance-based management systems, the primary goal was not age-based replacement but rather improving the overall effectiveness of the federal workforce. The initiative emphasized the importance of attracting and retaining talented employees, regardless of age, and creating a culture of innovation and accountability within the government.
Additionally, the Clinton Administration supported initiatives to promote diversity and equal opportunity in the federal workforce, including efforts to recruit and retain a diverse range of employees across age groups, backgrounds, and demographics.
Obviously, there is not going to be a stated purpose in these initiatives to replace older workers with young democrats, but there is going to be a natural influx of Democrats in such an environment led by party operatives, especially with diversity initiatives driving part of it.
dasfoo
4mo ago
A world in which men can fuck boys and don’t want to is such a perversion, too. Which is to say not at all. Pederasty and teen sex drive are far from the “focused drive” you’re lionizing.
I think somewhere deep down in the human subconscious M/F sex is understood as the most essentially (pro-)creative act, mirroring in kind other forms of great human achievement. Any other kind of sex (that carries no risk of impregnation) is anti-creative or a nullification of creativity (sort of like the black nothingness in The Neverending Story).
dasfoo
4mo ago
1990s non-religious centrist conservative, part of Jonah Goldberg's "Remnant."
dasfoo
8mo ago
Chamber of Commerce
LOL. I just got back from a local Chamber meeting. I'm not sure what you think it is, but I am sure it doesn't belong in the company you think it does.
dasfoo
1yr ago
e. DEPAPE stated that they went downstairs to the front door. The police arrived
and knocked on the door, and Pelosi ran over and opened it. Pelosi grabbed onto
DEPAPE’s hammer, which was in DEPAPE’s hand.
Does this course of action sound like something that happened in the real world? Pelosi is far enough away from Depape that he can run to the door to open it for the police. AFTER opening the door -- at which point police are inside the house with Pelosi and Depape -- Pelosi re-engages with Depape to grab the hammer (very spry for an 80+ year old, why not let the police take it?), and Depape pulls the hammer away and hits Pelosi (even though the Police must be literally on top of them at this moment).
dasfoo
4mo ago
I don't think Joe was pushing Hunter on anyone to make bucks for Joe
"10% for the Big Guy" isn't nothing. If I got 10% of my son's wages, I would rather he not work at a pizza place and might encourage him to aim higher.
dasfoo
1yr ago
As an isolated gag, it's funny. Because the teacher I'm sure had 0 actual fear of getting fired for showing his students Michaelengo and was perfectly fine with them showing their parents, and thought that was common knowledge for everyone listening, until he actually was fired.
If the teacher "had 0 actual fear of getting fired" why would the joke ever occur to them? It's the joke of someone who is aware of the hazard, or there is no joke. Now, it may be that a teacher in an urban Portland Oregon school full of good little liberals might make that joke as an outgroup dig, but a teacher at a Florida school where "we don't use pronouns" is surely aware that he is operating in a different environment.
dasfoo
1yr ago
it means behavior done for the ultimate purpose of sexually assaulting the child
Rephrase that to "the ultimate purpose of sexually exploiting the child." What the people using the term "groomer" now are seeing is even worse than your definition: instead of one lone perpertrator running the entire grooming schedule, there's a diffused but coordinated grooming operation with multiple points of contact that is conditioning children for sexual exploitation. Perhaps many of these so-called "groomers" were groomed themselves by snowballing social conditioning to ignore past limits on sexual definition and expression and encourage further erosion of sexual norms, as if those norms had no utility.
dasfoo
1yr ago
So, because all groomers harm children, all who harm children are groomers? You are arguing that, because all Xs are Ys, all Ys are Xs.
That's obtuse.
Think of "grooming" as a long con. It's a program of psychological manipulation that targets vulnerable children and conditions them to a mindset that accepts abuse as a form of care. Obviously, if a stranger walks up to child out of the blue and abuses them, they are not a groomer. A groomer assumes a role of a trust and care in a child's life and convinces them that abuse is good for them. Whether the end product of that abuse is sexual or physical or psychological, the grooming approach is the same. And, IMO, a groomer doesn't even need to acknowledge to themselves that they are harming the child. A lot of abusers trick themselves into thinking that their abuse is utilitarian.
[For a look at a masterful real-life groomer, watch the doc Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix or the new drama miniseries of the same story, Friend of the Family on Peacock. That guy was a genius in all the worst ways. He groomed an entire family, methodically.]
dasfoo
1yr ago
They think they can DIY better than any clinics can help them, that they're fully informed and aware, and that they have a right to pass that knowledge on and push it onto minors with basically no oversight. I have never seen this kind of behaviour in any other kind of group;
You don't spend much time in vaccine-skeptic circles, do you?
dasfoo
1yr ago
Yes, and the teacher was totally correct to be defensive given what happened!
Which is why he should've known not to do it. Unless he is a new transplant with no sense of the community, it's either pure stupidity or intentional self-sacrifice.
dasfoo
1yr ago
I think the prediciton is correct becase it was assumed that by 'all' he was referring to the general population, not govt. employees or healthcare workers.
By this metric, there never was really a vaccine mandate for "the general population," so the prediction is non-falsifiable.
dasfoo
3mo ago
Bernie couldn’t even beat Hillary in the primary
We'll never know if he could've beaten her, as the Hillary-funded DNC fixed that race.
dasfoo
4mo ago
I have to ask, at this point, why does the West still support Ukraine?
Do you think any of the concerns you've raised are relevant to why the West supports Ukraine?
dasfoo
7mo ago
When you provide evidence, it magically doesn't count, because you have evidence.
Yes, the "deep" modifier of "the deep state" suggests such layered institutional presence that "the deep state" controls what counts as "evidence," making it therefore impossible to prove its existence within deep state-controlled venues.
dasfoo
1yr ago
Utopia is impossible. Every attempt at Utopia invariably results in dystopia.
dasfoo
1yr ago
Because the larger government would be ppl who say the right things. and enough ppl would support them. Similar things are happening now.
The trend, though, in the opposite direction, with the pro-1WG crowd consisting of WHO+WEF+EU+UN types who are all vaccine booster boosters. It seems like all of the hesitants lean more toward local/national sovereignty. I don't see an infrastructure in place for anti-elite types to suddenly assume or even drift toward elite status.
dasfoo
1yr ago
I've been quite disappointed by a lot of Musk's handling on Twitter.
Yeah, he didn't seem to come in with a clear plan for how to address the issues of uneven content moderation and how the tone of Twitter discourse is toxic. He's fumbled haphazardly with the first issue, and leaned into toxicity on the second.
The cornerstone of progressive education is that people are, at worst, a disease killing the earth. At least half of them are actively evil. And even the innocent ones who have done nothing yet are completely disposable if a woman finds them inconvenient.
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