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At Jenks, we say the Pledge of Allegiance every day at the start of school. (Kids can opt out.) Not usually a big deal to me — I don’t think reciting the pledge makes one patriotic, nor does not reciting it make one NOT patriotic. It’s more or less rote, which is sad, because we never explore the words in it. Today of all days I expected it to be a tough slog.

But you know what? Surprisingly, it wasn’t.

I don’t really pledge allegiance to a flag, because that’s silly. But I do pledge allegiance to the ideas behind the flag, to the Republic for which it stands — this confused, conflicted, amazingly frustrating kludge of a nation, that is so much lesser than it claims to be but which wants, desperately, to be so much more than it is. A majority of my compatriots have just made an error which I cannot comprehend, and I grieve for what that means for my country. But it remains my country. They can’t take that away from me and I won’t surrender it.

People say, “This is not who we are”. The “we” is doing an awfully lot of lifting right there. Who’s the “we”? Millions chose this, but millions didn’t — not enough, perhaps, but not nothing. But if the “we” is “the people of the Unites States in toto”, then… well, I’ve got bad news for you. This is precisely who we are, who we have been for the entirety of our history. This is a country founded on high ideals and base actions — lofty rhetoric written by enslavers. It is a country that has sung the immigrant while simultaneously punching him in the face. It is a country that preaches the dignity of property, while building on stolen land. America has given so much to so many, but it has taken so much from so many, and a nasty nativist strain has been woven throughout our national fabric since the inception.

This IS who we are. But it isn’t who we have to be. It isn’t who we should strive to be. It isn’t who we have to accept being. I recognize the base actions, but I cling to the high ideals — to the America of the mind, a shining nobility we have never achieved but never stopped reaching for. It’s honored more in the breach and it’s a little hokey and a little naïve, but I still believe in the land of the free, with liberty and justice for all. We’ve never been that place but we still could be. It’s just going to take some work, some sacrifice, and some tears… just like it always has.

Take some time to grieve. Take some time to reflect. And then stand up, dust yourself off, and begin the work again. No one is coming to save us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be saved. We’re just going to have to do it ourselves.

McConnell is finally stepping down as Republican Senate Leader. Good riddance.

Mitch McConnell, more than any other American, is responsible for the perilous state in which we currently find the Republic. While not subscribing to the worst of the MAGA madness, he absolutely is to blame for its rise, its prominence, and its persistence. He was the co-opted immune cell that allowed this cancer to metastasize and spread. By orchestrating the theft of a SCOTUS seat from President Obama, McConnell near single-handedly destroyed the credibility of the Court; his pernicious and ambitious slow-rolling of Obama judges, coupled to his forced-march advance of Trump’s, has corrupted the judiciary perhaps beyond recovery. His unwillingness to push the second Trump impeachment while the thug was in office — and then piously and disingenuously opining that the Senate could not impeach after Trump’s term ended — allowed Trump to retreat in full order and to ensconce himself at the center of the Republican party like some malign spider.

The leader of a political party by default is the president of that party. McConnell failed to challenge Trump’s role there in any way, pretending he remained a legitimate President even after Jan 6. McConnell owns everything that came after.

TL;DR: There is none. Putin isn’t holding some terrible secret over Trump’s head to get him to dance to the Russian’s tune. It’s far far worse than that.

I’m an AP teacher and have been my entire career, and I think the program can add tremendous value. But the entrenched resistance to transparency makes the College Board look extremely sketchy. They like to make sweeping statements about data-driven policy making — but then tell you that the actual data is proprietary and private. In a lot of ways they still embody the “Trust us, we know best” paternalism of the elite colleges that formed the original core group of AP schools way back in the 1950s.

The most important role that AP serves in education might be to offer a patina of objective scientific backing that gives permission to school administrators to dedicate resources to rigorous courses. Does a class HAVE to be AP to be advanced? Certainly not. Is a school more likely to create and support an advanced course if it can stick the AP(R) tag on it? Sadly, yes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/us/college-board-ap-exams-courses.html

I’ve had a surreal experience with Facebook today, specifically, Facebook moderation. I made up a funny meme (well, at least I think it’s funny):

and posted it to Facebook. (Yes, I really really dislike Star Trek: First Contact).

Within minutes, I received a notice:

 In case the image gets lost, the note says “It looks like you shared symbols, praise or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous, or followed them”. As far as I can tell, the people or organization so referenced is … the Borg from Star Trek.

I can’t tell if Facebook feels the Borg are a put-upon population and I’m attacking them, or if Facebook feels that the Borg are menace to the Alpha Quadrant and I’m a fellow traveler. The process is, to say the least, opaque.

Also, while writing this, I had restrictions on my posting placed on my account — oh, no, no live Feeds for me! — apparently because I had the temerity to request a review.

Still no word on what dangerous organizations I am supporting … Starfleet, I guess? Is Zuckerberg really, say, a Klingon? That might explain some things.

{rescued from the drafts folder, many many years late.}

[I just noticed that this is the first I’ve written since the night of Trump’s victory in the election.  There’s something in that.]

A few days ago I came across an article (I’ve since lost the link  😐 ) saying that the Left will continue losing until it learns to tell better stories.  That resonated with me, pro and con.  It’s hard to argue that, for the past three decades or so, the Right has told a reasonably consistent and electorally effective story: America is mankind’s last, best hope (they would say) but it’s imperiled by enemies foreign (first the Soviets, then briefly drug kingpins, now comfortably Islamic terrorists) and domestic (globalist patronizing elites boosted by morally-deficient entertainment cadres).  Failure to conform risks the greatness that is America and will lead to the common man being enslaved by faceless bureaucrats who value woodland vermin over real people and who seek to tear down what is wonderful in order to hand everything over to lazy, immoral people who are not the right kind of people.

In contrast to that, the proponents of the Left offer… what?  Is there any competing narrative that can rally the troops (so to speak) and, more importantly, inspire the unaffiliated to align themselves on this side of the aisle?

I recognize that humans are story-telling creatures and that the power of a strong narrative can change the course of history, though I remain wary of the errors that befall when one mistakes “a story” for history.  (That’s a worthwhile topic for its own post, and it would consume quite some space, I suspect.)  I think I agree with the basic premise, that for 30 years or so, the conservative movement has outplayed the liberals in America in putting forth a cogent story, and that part of its unquestioned success stems from the logistic advantage of a media arm that could push a single, coherent narrative.  The Right has tapped and laid claim to charged words and hallowed themes like “patriotism”, “freedom”, and even “America” (as an ideal).

Perhaps this is unanswered because the Left, at least in this country, has almost never been other than a loose association of people pursuing ends that, while not quite in opposition, have never quite jelled.  We celebrate “diversity”, and that almost necessarily implies a certain dispersal of energy and emotion.  If your unifying factor is that people should not be boxed into set categories, than it’s hard to enforce any sort of ideological purity — and (I would argue) that’s a good thing, even if it does mean that liberals labor under a constraint not binding the other side.  (What is the antonym for “fellow traveler”, anyway?)

A screwup in migration to a new SQL database went awry in April and frakked this site. (I’m sure you all noticed the disturbance in the Force.) It took until today for me to have the time to resolve it, but now it is and I think I was able to restore the backup. So all the words should be here and accessible

Thanks for your patience and perseverance. Or, if you didn’t even know, then thanks for visiting today. 🙂