The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Author: mongreldogs

My remarks at the School Board

Jenks High School, where I work, has a planetarium in the science building. It hosts thousands of students and residents each year and is a point of local pride — when our band was in the Rose Bowl, it was the tidbit about Jenks selected to share with the nation.

For reasons unclear and inexplicable, the District is shutting it down.

I’m pretty upset — a lot of us are pretty upset — and I decided to attend tonight’s School Board meeting to share my thoughts. Here is what I said.
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2026 April 13
Week of 2026-0405
Sunday 2026 April 5
- John Ambrosio at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Achilles Heel of Trump’s Mafia-State Authoritarianism“
- Mike O’Brien at 3 Quarks Daily: “Species of leased concern“
- Barry Goldman at 3 Quarks Daily: “Trust the Machine?“
- Liz Bourke at Reactor: “Aragorn’s Tax Policy and Other Weird Shibboleths“
- James Davis Nicoll at Reactor: “Seven Plot-Friendly Ways to Spur Societal Collapse“
- Lorna Wallace at Reactor: “Five Time Travel Stories About Taking Out Hitler“
- Don Kaye at Reactor: “70 Years Ago, Forbidden Planet Changed Science Fiction Cinema“
Monday 2026 April 6
- W. Alex Foxworthy at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Arrow and the Leap: Towards a Shared Framework of Meaning for Humans and AI“
- Paul Krugman: “The Terrorist in Chief“
- G. Eliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Why Democrats are suddenly winning back the left — and the “double-haters”“
Wednesday 2026 April 8
- Hussein Banai at New Lines: “The president has backed himself into a corner where making a deal with Iran risks appearing, in his eyes, like a humiliating failure“
Friday 2026 April 10
- Paul Krugman: “From Drill, Baby, Drill to Toll, Baby, Toll“
- G. Eliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Why gas prices tend to move presidential approval“
Saturday 2026 April 11
- Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, and Money: “Just Say No to Confederate Nostalgia“
- Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Gun, and Money: “Trump promising preemptive mass pardons“
- Paul Krugman: “Talking with Lisa Graves“
- Joseph Trevithick at The War Zone: “Navy Calls It Quits On Attack Submarine USS Boise’s Never Ending Overhaul“
- Wed O’Donnell: “The Marines Could Take Kharg. Then the Real Disaster Starts“
2026 April 12
Week of 2026-0329
Sunday 2026 March 29
- Daniel Gauss at 3 Quarks Daily: “Victory at Charlie’s Place: A Democracy More Like ‘High Noon’ than de Tocqueville“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Rubio: Iran May Own The Strait Now, And That’s a Huge Bummer“
Monday 2026 March 30
- Martin Butler at 3 Quarks Daily: “Kant and Individual Responsibility“
- Paul Krugman: “The Worst and the Dumbest“
- Paul Krugman: “Trump’s America and the Axis of Autocracy“
Tuesday 2026 March 31
- Malcolm Murray at 3 Quarks Daily: “Key World Indicators in AI Forecasting“
- Paul Krugman: “The Oil Crisis is About to Get Physical“
Thursday 2026 April 2
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Always Stuck in the 1950s, Trump Courts His Own Suez“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Next Day Trump Speech Re-Reax” (gift)
- John P. Judis at Talking Points Memo: “Donald Trump on April Fool’s Day“
Saturday 2026 April 4
- Paul Krugman: “The Psychology of Military Incompetence“
- Paul Krugman: “Talking With Lina Khan“
- Rebecca Solnit at Meditations in an Emergency: “Eight Million Protestors and No Kings: The Case for Showing Up“
- Scot Nakagawa at The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook: “How Democracies Win“
- G. Eliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “The six big events that have dragged down Donald Trump’s approval rating“
- Howard Altman at The War Zone: “Navy Juggles Its Aircraft Carrier Plans To Stay Afloat (Updated)“
- Priya Varadachary at Vital City: “Why Your Pre-War Radiator Runs Hot, Clangs at 3 a.m. and is Painted Silver“
- Samantha Maldonado at The City: “A Fifth of NYC Built on Bygone Water Now at Risk: Study Maps City’s ‘Blue Zones’“
- Janna Brancolini at The Daily Beast: “DOJ Goon Reveals Why Trump’s Cabinet Is Terrified of a Potential 2028 Loss“
- Techdirt at Above the Law: “Trump’s Anti-Migrant Surge Is Now A Mudslide That’s Wiping Out What’s Left Of His DOJ“
- Chris Williams at Above the Law: “Responses To Justice Jackson’s Birthright Citizenship Argument Show There’s Some Stupid You Shouldn’t Argue With“
- Kathryn Rubino at Above the Law: “That Was Fast: Bondi’s Portrait Already Living At The Dump“
- Wes O’Donnell at Eyes On: “Russia Probably Helped Iran Kill the AWACS, but the Scandal is That We Made It So Easy“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “Cops Arrested a Black Pastor Watering His Neighbor’s Flowers. The Alabama Supreme Court Is Fine With That“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “For Once, the Supreme Court Seems to Think the Fourteenth Amendment Means What It Says“
- Steve Vladeck at One First: “Qualified Immunity and the Shadow Docket“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Who’s the Next Lady on Trump’s Chopping Block“
- Layla A. Jones at Talking Points Memo: “Small Businesses Are Being Left Out of Tariff Refund Process, CBP Data Suggests“
2026 April 5
Week of 202-0322
Sunday 2026 March 22
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “CNN’s “100% MAGA Trump approval” segment omits key nuance for virality“
- Gold and Geopolitics: “March, 19-21: God is a comedian“
Monday 2026 March 23
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Iran Is Setting the Pace; Trump Is Reacting.” (gift)
- Michael Sainato at The Guardian: “Workers who fall for ‘corporate bullshit’ may be worse at their jobs, study finds“
Tuesday 2026 March 24
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Iran has Trump over a (Oil) Barrel. Sad.” (gift)
Wednesday 2026 March 25
- Jerry Cayford at 3 Quarks Daily: “How Reform Fails“
- Natalie Wolchover at Quanta: “Are Strings Still Our Best Hope for a Theory of Everything?“
- Charlie Wood at Quanta: “The Strange Numbers That Birthed Modern Algebra“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Trump Casts His Drama-of-the-Day Spell While the World Moves On” (gift)
Saturday 2026 March 28
- Jillian Taylor at KGOU: “Oklahoma lawmakers advance measures that could undo Medicaid expansion protections“
- Emma Murphy at Oklahoma Voice: “Lawmakers propose hosting Oklahoma constitutional convention“
- Paul Krugman: “Talking with David Roberts“
- Paul Krugman: “Treason in the Futures Markets“
- G. Elliott Morris: “Poll: Americans reject ICE at airports, want Trump to end the war in Iran“
- G. Elliott Morris: “NEW POLL: Trump’s approval stuck at record low as approval on prices sinks to -39“
- Thomas Newdick at The War Zone: “U.S. Is Burning Through Tomahawk Cruise Missile Stockpile At An Alarming Rate: Report“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Not a Game“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Notes on yet another week of war“
- Chris Williams at Above the Law: “White Law Student Has Multi-Million Discrimination Suit Against Howard University Thrown Out“
- Wes O’Donnell: “Ukraine is About to Get Hivemind AI to Power Drone Swarms“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “The Supreme Court Is Making the Constitution Optional For Cops“
- Akim Reinhardt at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Uncommon Enemy“
- Marie Snyder at 3 Quarks Daily: “On Heroes and Role Models“
2026 March 29
Week of 2026-0315
Sunday 2026 March 15
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Forget the “MAGA split” on Iran. It’s the independents and soft partisans that matter.“
Monday 2026 March 16
- Ashutosh Jogalekar at 3 Quarks Daily: “On Empathy“
- Jim Hanas at 3 Quarks Daily: “Your Fellow Americans: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know“
- Paul Krugman: “No, America is Not Respected“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Rube President Continues High Velocity Collision with Reality“
Tuesday 2026 March 17
- Jonathan Kujawa at 3 Quarks Daily: “Math in the AI Era“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Is Trump a World-Historical Figure?” (gift)
Wednesday 2026 March 18
- Lionel Ramos at KOSU NPR: “Here’s how a 2024 law may have helped sink Oklahoma’s SQ 836“
- Lei Wang at 3 Quarks Daily: “Would You Love Me If I Never Finish My Book?“
- Rebecca Solnit at Meditations in an Emergency: “Today I Need to Say Something About (the Stupidity of) Antisemitism“
- Gabby Birenbaum at The Texas Tribune: “Cornyn, Paxton decline to withdraw from Texas Senate runoff ballot as deadline passes“
- Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic: “Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done“
- Robert Reich: “How California Can Neuter ‘Citizens United’ and Improve Democracy for Us All“
- Jamelle Bouie at The New York Times: “This Is What the President Is Fixated on Right Now?” (gift)
Thursday 2026 March 19
- Steve Hely at Helytimes: “Mystery of the 27,574 muskets collected at Gettysburg“
- Steve Hely at Helytimes: “Machine Learning Learning“
- Christopher Hall at 3 Quarks Daily: “Criticism and Critical Thinking“
- Paul Krugman: “Slavery, Tariffs and the Dire Strait“
- Steven Yoder at Talking Points Memo: “Conservative Education Activists Have a New Target: Math Class“
- The Farce: “The man who cannot lose is losing. He still can’t stop.“
Friday 2026 March 20
- Ken MacVey at 3 Quarks Daily: “Why Do We Get Mad at Inanimate Objects?“
- Chris Horner at 3 Quarks Daily: “Your Mad World“
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “New poll: 58% of voters say the war in Iran is a bad use of taxpayer dollars“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “How Magical Thinking and Trump Love Drove the Energy Markets Mad” (gift)
Saturday 2026 March 21
- Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: “Iran Gets a Vote in This War“
- Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns, and Money: “Fox News’s Book of Martyrs: An infinite series“
- Paul Krugman: “Talking With Robin Brooks“
- Catherine Belton at The Washington Post: “To tilt Hungarian election, Russians proposed staging assassination attempt” (gift)
- Howard Altman at The War Zone: “What Boots On The Ground In Iran Could Entail, According To Former CENTCOM Commander“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Pathocracy“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “The Longer View“
- Sean Campion at Vital City: “New York’s Worst Housing Production Impediment?“
- Vital City: “Dan Garodnick on What Comes After Yes“
- Greg David at The City: “World Cup Economic Bump Is Starting to Look Like a Bust“
- Kevin Underhill at Lowering the Bar: “FEMA Official: Teleporting to Waffle House Was an ‘Incredible Adventure’“
- Wes O’Donnell: “Iran is Winning. We Need to Get Out Right Now“
- Wes O’Donnell: “What Happened to Ukraine’s ATACMS?“
- Jay Willis at Balls and Strikes: “Trump Expects His Judges to Do Whatever He Wants“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “John Roberts Is Hanging District Court Judges Out to Dry“
- Jay Willis at Balls and Strikes: “Jury Decides Afroman Songs Mocking Cops Are Too Funny to Be Defamatory“
2026 March 22
Week of 2026-0308
Sunday 2026 March 8
- Thomas R. Wells at 3 Quarks Daily: “Eating The Rich Won’t Fix Climate Change“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Iran: It’s Hard to Know How To Exit When You Don’t Know Why You’re There“
Monday 2026 March 9
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Iran and Asymmetric Wars of Attrition“
Tuesday 2026 March 10
- Samuel Dunlap at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Bias of the Biases“
- Andrew Egger, Benjamin Parker, and Jim Swift at The Bulwark: “Trump Confounded by the War He Started“
Wednesday 2026 March 11
- Mark Harvey at 3 Quarks Daily: “Scoundrels and Scriveners: How the West Was Really Won“
Thurday 2026 March 12
- Scott Samuelson at 3 Quarks Daily: “Songs for Sisyphus: A Mixtape“
- Thomas Fernandes at 3 Quarks Daily: “Perceptual Shifts Part I: Seeing Through Other Eyes“
- Thomas Fernandes at 3 Quarks Daily: “Perceptual Shifts Part II: The Hunter’s Interface“
- Paul Krugman: “The Billionaires’ War“
Friday 2026 March 13
- Paul Krugman: “The Plot Against Intelligence, Human and Artificial“
- Mike Bendzela at 3 Quarks Daily: “World Oil Production Has Surpassed Another Peak. All’s Good, No?“
- Dilip D’Souza at 3 Quarks Daily: “Bows, arrows and what will become sine“
- Rebecca Solnit at Meditations in an Emergency: “Terminology, Clarity, and the Question of What Is the Left?“
- G. Eliott Morris: “I graphed every president’s approval rating during “rally around the flag” events“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Trump Brain Trust Figured Iran Wouldn’t Block the Strait of Hormuz. Oh Well“
Saturday 2026 March 14
- Paul Krugman: “Phillips O’Brien on Iran“
- Thomas Newdick, Howard Altman at The War Zone: “Marine Expeditionary Unit Deploying To The Middle East: Report (Updated)“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Unfavorable Winds“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Can Democrats compete for Christianity?“
- Wes O’Donnell: “How the US military is now using AI in war“
- Steve Kennedy at Balls and Strikes: “Republican Lawmakers Are No Longer Even Pretending to Care About Judicial Independence“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “Americans Are Ready to Stop Executing People For Murders They Didn’t Commit“
2026 March 15
Week of 2026-0301
Sunday 2026 March 1
- Christopher Benfey at The New York Review: “Road Trippers“
Tuesday 2026 March 3
- Paul Krugman: “War Is Expensive for the Little People“
Wednesday 2026 March 4
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Six data-driven reasons Texas could actually go blue in 2026“
Thursday 2026 March 5
- Barry Goldman at 3 Quarks Daily: “Incompleteness and Its Discontents“
Friday 2026 March 6
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “All the polls on the U.S. war in Iran so far“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “War and Presidential Self-Care: How We’re Tumbling Toward November” (gift)
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Let’s Face Facts: This Isn’t Going Well (Iran War Edition)” (gift)
Saturday 2026 March 7
- Gary Borjesson at 3 Quarks Daily: “On the Eleusinian Mysteries“
- Tim Cushing at TechDirt: “Oregon Federal Judge Says ICE’s Warrantless Arrests Are Illegal“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Stop Asking“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Why this? Why now?“
2026 March 8
Week of 2026-0222
Sunday 2026 February 22
- Paul Krugman: “The Ultra-Rich Are Different from You and Me“
- Paul Krugman: “Tariff Policy by the Numbers“
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Trump decides he’ll FAFO on Supreme Court tariff ruling“
Monday 2026 February 23
- Ryan Burge at Graphs about Religion: “Creationism Isn’t as Common as You Think“
Wednesday 2026 February 25
- Michael Liss at 3 Quarks Daily: “Together We Cannot Fail: FDR’s Ten Days“
- Daniel Gauss at 3 Quarks Daily: “Three Times the USA Flirted with Utopia in the 20th Century (MAGA Is a “Restorative” Utopian Movement?)“
- Paul Krugman: “A SOTU Like No Other“
Thursday 2026 February 26
- Chrystia Freeland at The New York Times: “The Great Capitulation Is Over. What Will Take Its Place?” (gift)
- Akim Reinhardt at 3 Quarks Daily: “Bad Stupid”
- David Kordahl at 3 Quarks Daily: “Conservative Postmodernism and the Stuck Culture Hypothesis“
- Paul Krugman: “When Extraterrestrials Attacked the Stock Market“
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “Two-thirds of Americans want term limits for Supreme Court justices“
- Jamelle Bouie at The New York Times: “What Hath Trump Wrought?” (gift)
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Time for the States to Gear Up for Trump’s Fake Elections Exec Order” (gift)
- Samantha Powers at The Washington Monthly: “Almost No One Needs College Algebra Anymore“
Friday 2026 February 27
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Trump’s War on the Constitution“
- Charles Siegel at 3 Quakes Daily: “A Palimpsest, Scraped Clean & Reinscribed“
Saturday 2026 February 28
- Kelsey Ables at The Washington Post: “A professor challenged the Smithsonian. Security shut the gallery.“
- Randy Krehbie at Tulsa World: “Mullin boasts about Sanders confrontation“
- Robby Korth at NPR: “DOJ sues Oklahoma for not sharing voters’ personal data“
- Paul Krugman: “Talking with Barry Ritholtz“
- Paul Krugman: “Europe v America: Who’s Really Winning?“
- Paul Krugman: “Attack of the Zombie Tariffs“
- G. Elliott Morris: “New poll: Democrats’ real problem isn’t being too liberal — it’s being seen as too weak“
- G. Elliott Morris: “New poll: Trump’s SOTU “pivot” to affordability didn’t work“
- Carlos Lozada at The New York Times: “The Shields are Down, Mr. President“
- Kevin R. Kosar and John Guida at The New York Times: “The Best-Kept Secret in Washington” (gift)
- Gabe Fleisher at Wake Up to Politics: “DOGE’s Final Failure“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “Kindness or Cruelty?“
- Doug Mouder at The Weekly Sift: “The Tariff Decision“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “Supreme Court Says You Can’t File Tort Suits Against Postal Carriers Who Won’t Deliver Mail to Black People“
2026 March 1
Excellent APOD title

The image is cool, too, but today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day title — “Shadows of a Martian Robot” — is amazing. It sounds like a noir-pulp treatment of the psychological torment of a veteran of the War of the Worlds.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260222.html

2026 February 22
Week of 2026-0215
Sunday 2026 February 15
- Dilip D’Souza at 3 Quarks Daily: “Was he an outlier? Does it matter?“
- Katalin Balog at 3 Quarks Daily: “Against Success“
- Steve Szilagyi at 3 Quarks Daily: “Invisible Friends“
- Ezra Klein at The New York Times: “The Infrastructure of Jeffrey Epstein’s Power” (gift)
Monday 2026 February 16
- Dennis Lytton at Liberal Currents: “FDR’s Four Freedoms and the Second Bill of Rights“
- LOLGOP at TheFarce.com: ““I never want to see a child ever run away from our own government ever again”“
Tuesday 202 February 17
- Tim Sommers at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Asymmetry Between Pleasure and Pain: Is Life Worth Living?“
- Jeffrey Toobin at The New York Times: “The Plan for a Radically Different Supreme Court Is Here“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “The Uncanny Artifice of George Washington“
Wednesday 2026 February 18
- Dwight Furrow at 3 Quarks Daily: “AI and Consciousness“
Thursday 2026 February 19
- Paul Krugman: “How the Kakistocracy Became a Quackistocracy“
- Ken MacVey at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Constitution, Originalism, and the Ten Commandments“
Friday 2026 February 20
- Jim Hanas at 3 Quarks Daily: “The Oracle of Bacon: Thirty Years Later“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “The Fix Is In: Lutnick Family To Make Killing On Tariff Demise“
- Layla A. Jones at Talking Points Memo: “SCOTUS Knocks Down Trump’s ‘Emergency’ Tariffs in 6-3 Decision“
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “Don’t Be Fooled By the Corrupt Court’s Tariff Decision” (gift)
- Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: “CEOs Joined Trump’s Corruption. It Will Soon Be Time for Consequences.” (gift)
Saturday 2026 February 21
- Paul Krugman: “Talking With Ro Khanna“
- G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers: “The shutdown helps Democrats by changing what “immigration” means to voters“
- Joseph Trevithick at The War Zone: “F-16s Heading To Middle East Equipped With Angry Kitten Electronic Warfare Pods“
- Howard Altman at The War Zone: “U.K. Denying U.S. Use Of Key Bases Would Impact Bombers’ Role In Iran Air Campaign“
- Claudia Sahm at Stay-At-Home Macro: “Trust in Numbers“
- Kathryn Rubino at Above the Law: “Even A Trump Judge Knows We’re In The Middle Of A Constitutional Crisis“
- Steve Kennedy at Balls and Strikes: “Republicans Have Mastered This One Weird Trick For Dealing With Judges They Don’t Like“
- Jay Willis at Balls and Strikes: “The Trump Tariffs Case Is a Preview of Bigger Supreme Court Fights to Come“
- Madiba K. Dennie at Balls and Strikes: “Supreme Court Declares Trump Economy Too Fucked Up to Be Legal“
- Margaret Sullivan at American Crisis: “How to write a headline in the (lying) Trump era“
2026 February 22