So I sent all three of my kids back to school last week. I think Mizzou starts tomorrow. A lot of schools here in DFW started last week, the remaining start today or tomorrow. So lets start there:
1. I am an alum of Mizzou's Engineering School and Mizzou's Law School. I don't know Mizzou's Law School dean personally. I know she has cancer, she runs, and she is a first amendment savant. Lyrissa Lydsky is her name. She posted this tweet:
Now lets unpack why that tweet is so problematic. First off, most would say, that's great, a lot of women going into law. I think that's fine. I have no problem with women going into law. However, i really have a problem with that tweet. The first thing that Ms. Lydsky used to describe the incoming class was the amount of women it had. Not their academic credentials, not their backgrounds, not their wide range of expertise, but only their gender. That means, that you as a student to Mizzou Law have more value to the dean if you are female. That means if you are a woman at Mizzou Law, the first attribute to identify you is that you are a woman, not your academic credentials, not expertise, not your background (geographic or economic), but that you are a woman. My opinion that the prevailing opinion that gender as discrimination still occurs, because it is still done to this day by the highest people in the highest positions in a backwards way. This creates a lot of assumptions and massive resentment. In summary, they don't want to celebrate you as an individual, but they want to celebrate you because of your gender first. And I have a big effing problem with that. Lydsky can publish, post about the diversity, number of women in the 1L class, but to this day, it was the first thing she published about them and the only thing that I have seen her tweet about them.
2. Teachers: I get that teachers have a really hard job. I get that they are forced to teach to ridiculous testing, not problem solving. I get that for the most part, the pay is not great (especially in rural areas). However, is there any other form of work that complains as much as teachers to? My social media feeds have been inundated (outside of political posts) with how awful life is for teachers that they had to go back to work this week. Many are counting down their years they have until pension (some will be retiring by the age of 53 with full pension, I feel awful for them). There are memes, there are songs, there are complaints. This is after a summer of freedom posts where they had much free time. Listen, I think teachers should be paid more. If that happens, you get higher quality teachers, but good god the complaining on social media is so exhausting. Additionally, no other profession posts all the time about how under paid they are or how under appreciated they are, or how important they are. Get over yourself. You chose to be a teacher. Now with that said, I agree that teachers are very important. Lord knows I have been impacted by many teachers, both negative and positive. But the complaining on social media is way over the top. Teachers have a union, that is what the union is for.
3. Recently I had a friend post an article in Dallas News about switching from Private School to public school: Why we are opting in. When I first heard snippets about the article, my response was, what a hypocritical azzhole. When I spoke to him personally about it months ago, he had a plan to move on from his job and become a full time real estate investor. At the time, he had like 5 or 6 houses that he rented out. I think he sold a couple and is trying to buy cheaper houses to replace them. The houses he owned had appreciated quite a bit. Anyways, I said to do what he wanted to do, he needed to cut down on his burn rate at home (amount of money he spends to live). They have an au pair. And their kids went to a private catholic elementary. Now Jimmy is pretty cheap in everything. He calls it contrarian living. So cheap that they went down to the new school supplies fair to get free school supplies until they realized that it was limited to only poor families receiving free school supplies. He told me that they were going to move their kids into public schools to cut down on the expenses so that they could live where he could be his own boss doing investing and such. That made sense to me. So when I saw this article posted on FB, I was like, WTF. Jimmy is pretty liberal and the article may come off a little holier than thou, but at the end of the day, he is a pretty good guy. So I sat down and read it and my opinion of Jimmy and the article changed. Jimmy made some really good points about the charter school they put their kids in where it is 50/50 mix (50% below and economic threshold and 50% above). Also the mix language classes make sense. So apparently, they did a ton of research on the academic impact and how it would be positive. I am sure that saving over $20K per year in tuition will help pay for some tutoring if needed. So in the end, my knee jerk reaction was too severe and probably incorrect. I could have posted on his FB post, but I refrained. I'll probably walk through it, because I am sure the financial impact had a lot to do with the decision.
4. Now I separate this paragraph because I think Jimmy and many people who are well off and on the left suffer from ignorance when it comes to their conclusions on people who are in poverty. People on the right basically just don't give an eff. I read Ben Shapiro's comment about switching jobs if you don't make enough to live. That seems rather dumb as well. I grew up in NWMO, and while I had two parents and they had a job (farming), my situation was better than some around me, but it was not idea, especially the first 10 years of my life. I can't tell you how much I hate potato freaking soup because we had it so often which was basically potatoes, water, milk, butter, and some salt and pepper. I spent the first decade in a double wide trailer. AND yet, I still had it way better than most. It's like the book Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie was old, and couldn't take care of himself and stated that money didn't matter. No one who has ever been poor thinks that money doesn't matter, because they have been seriously without because of the lack of money. When someone who always has had money says that, I really want to punch them in the face and then make them eat potato soup for a month.
5. 2020 update: FoxNews Polls seem to be a major outlier and not in a good way for Trump. Economist, NBC, etc. all have Trump about even with everyone in H2H races except Biden and maybe Bernie. But FoxNews has Trump getting massacred. I recently listed to Piers Morgan interview with Ben Shapiro and it was interesting. Morgan is somewhat liberal, but he likes Donald. They are friends. I think Morgan's analysis of Donald and the media is pretty damn good. They are just building on each other. Donald calls himself a counter puncher and to some extent, he kind of is. Donald also plays to crowds, which in person is easy, but there is no crowd in press conferences, so Donald is out of his element there. And Donald's crowds are limited to he most devoted followers, so he takes stuff from there and then spouts it on twitter or to the media. The media then runs roughshod. Morgan summarizes that Trump wants the Squad to be the face of the Dem party running into 2020, because Trump knows that he can beat them easily. Which makes sense. Morgan also said that Trump loves chaos among his employees, he creates it, which explains the cabinet disaster.
Also, there was an article by Bridget Phetasy (a comedian) about being politically homeless. This resonates with me a lot, because I constantly feel that I have no home, but am somewhat in the middle and the far right or the far left think you are evil if you don't agree with them 100% of the time. It sucks.
On the dem nom, Biden lead widens this week. It's like he is terrible in the debates and then when everyone has a second to think about the candidacy, they go with the safe pick. I just don't see anyway that Biden gets knocked off unless Warren or Sanders tank quickly and the other picks up those who abandon. Props to O'Rourke on trying to raise his profile by going full race card. And Beto got a little bump as a result, but it's not going to be enough to pop him up. Tulsi needs some poll love, but she is off the trail for a couple weeks since she is in active duty for 2 weeks. Yang has jumped to 3%, but unless he gets some major momentum, he can't make a move.
We have a few weeks until next debates. I hope Tulsi can get it.
1. I am an alum of Mizzou's Engineering School and Mizzou's Law School. I don't know Mizzou's Law School dean personally. I know she has cancer, she runs, and she is a first amendment savant. Lyrissa Lydsky is her name. She posted this tweet:
Now lets unpack why that tweet is so problematic. First off, most would say, that's great, a lot of women going into law. I think that's fine. I have no problem with women going into law. However, i really have a problem with that tweet. The first thing that Ms. Lydsky used to describe the incoming class was the amount of women it had. Not their academic credentials, not their backgrounds, not their wide range of expertise, but only their gender. That means, that you as a student to Mizzou Law have more value to the dean if you are female. That means if you are a woman at Mizzou Law, the first attribute to identify you is that you are a woman, not your academic credentials, not expertise, not your background (geographic or economic), but that you are a woman. My opinion that the prevailing opinion that gender as discrimination still occurs, because it is still done to this day by the highest people in the highest positions in a backwards way. This creates a lot of assumptions and massive resentment. In summary, they don't want to celebrate you as an individual, but they want to celebrate you because of your gender first. And I have a big effing problem with that. Lydsky can publish, post about the diversity, number of women in the 1L class, but to this day, it was the first thing she published about them and the only thing that I have seen her tweet about them.
2. Teachers: I get that teachers have a really hard job. I get that they are forced to teach to ridiculous testing, not problem solving. I get that for the most part, the pay is not great (especially in rural areas). However, is there any other form of work that complains as much as teachers to? My social media feeds have been inundated (outside of political posts) with how awful life is for teachers that they had to go back to work this week. Many are counting down their years they have until pension (some will be retiring by the age of 53 with full pension, I feel awful for them). There are memes, there are songs, there are complaints. This is after a summer of freedom posts where they had much free time. Listen, I think teachers should be paid more. If that happens, you get higher quality teachers, but good god the complaining on social media is so exhausting. Additionally, no other profession posts all the time about how under paid they are or how under appreciated they are, or how important they are. Get over yourself. You chose to be a teacher. Now with that said, I agree that teachers are very important. Lord knows I have been impacted by many teachers, both negative and positive. But the complaining on social media is way over the top. Teachers have a union, that is what the union is for.
3. Recently I had a friend post an article in Dallas News about switching from Private School to public school: Why we are opting in. When I first heard snippets about the article, my response was, what a hypocritical azzhole. When I spoke to him personally about it months ago, he had a plan to move on from his job and become a full time real estate investor. At the time, he had like 5 or 6 houses that he rented out. I think he sold a couple and is trying to buy cheaper houses to replace them. The houses he owned had appreciated quite a bit. Anyways, I said to do what he wanted to do, he needed to cut down on his burn rate at home (amount of money he spends to live). They have an au pair. And their kids went to a private catholic elementary. Now Jimmy is pretty cheap in everything. He calls it contrarian living. So cheap that they went down to the new school supplies fair to get free school supplies until they realized that it was limited to only poor families receiving free school supplies. He told me that they were going to move their kids into public schools to cut down on the expenses so that they could live where he could be his own boss doing investing and such. That made sense to me. So when I saw this article posted on FB, I was like, WTF. Jimmy is pretty liberal and the article may come off a little holier than thou, but at the end of the day, he is a pretty good guy. So I sat down and read it and my opinion of Jimmy and the article changed. Jimmy made some really good points about the charter school they put their kids in where it is 50/50 mix (50% below and economic threshold and 50% above). Also the mix language classes make sense. So apparently, they did a ton of research on the academic impact and how it would be positive. I am sure that saving over $20K per year in tuition will help pay for some tutoring if needed. So in the end, my knee jerk reaction was too severe and probably incorrect. I could have posted on his FB post, but I refrained. I'll probably walk through it, because I am sure the financial impact had a lot to do with the decision.
4. Now I separate this paragraph because I think Jimmy and many people who are well off and on the left suffer from ignorance when it comes to their conclusions on people who are in poverty. People on the right basically just don't give an eff. I read Ben Shapiro's comment about switching jobs if you don't make enough to live. That seems rather dumb as well. I grew up in NWMO, and while I had two parents and they had a job (farming), my situation was better than some around me, but it was not idea, especially the first 10 years of my life. I can't tell you how much I hate potato freaking soup because we had it so often which was basically potatoes, water, milk, butter, and some salt and pepper. I spent the first decade in a double wide trailer. AND yet, I still had it way better than most. It's like the book Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie was old, and couldn't take care of himself and stated that money didn't matter. No one who has ever been poor thinks that money doesn't matter, because they have been seriously without because of the lack of money. When someone who always has had money says that, I really want to punch them in the face and then make them eat potato soup for a month.
5. 2020 update: FoxNews Polls seem to be a major outlier and not in a good way for Trump. Economist, NBC, etc. all have Trump about even with everyone in H2H races except Biden and maybe Bernie. But FoxNews has Trump getting massacred. I recently listed to Piers Morgan interview with Ben Shapiro and it was interesting. Morgan is somewhat liberal, but he likes Donald. They are friends. I think Morgan's analysis of Donald and the media is pretty damn good. They are just building on each other. Donald calls himself a counter puncher and to some extent, he kind of is. Donald also plays to crowds, which in person is easy, but there is no crowd in press conferences, so Donald is out of his element there. And Donald's crowds are limited to he most devoted followers, so he takes stuff from there and then spouts it on twitter or to the media. The media then runs roughshod. Morgan summarizes that Trump wants the Squad to be the face of the Dem party running into 2020, because Trump knows that he can beat them easily. Which makes sense. Morgan also said that Trump loves chaos among his employees, he creates it, which explains the cabinet disaster.
Also, there was an article by Bridget Phetasy (a comedian) about being politically homeless. This resonates with me a lot, because I constantly feel that I have no home, but am somewhat in the middle and the far right or the far left think you are evil if you don't agree with them 100% of the time. It sucks.
On the dem nom, Biden lead widens this week. It's like he is terrible in the debates and then when everyone has a second to think about the candidacy, they go with the safe pick. I just don't see anyway that Biden gets knocked off unless Warren or Sanders tank quickly and the other picks up those who abandon. Props to O'Rourke on trying to raise his profile by going full race card. And Beto got a little bump as a result, but it's not going to be enough to pop him up. Tulsi needs some poll love, but she is off the trail for a couple weeks since she is in active duty for 2 weeks. Yang has jumped to 3%, but unless he gets some major momentum, he can't make a move.
We have a few weeks until next debates. I hope Tulsi can get it.
