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robertreich · 2 years

Video

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The Secret to the GOP’s Assault on Your Rights

Democracy is not just under attack in America. In some states, it’s being lost.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once suggested that states could serve as laboratories of democracy, but these states are more like laboratories of autocracy.

Take Wisconsin. The GOP has so successfully rigged state elections through gerrymandering that even when Democrats get more votes, Republicans win more seats. In 2018, Republicans won just 45% of the vote statewide, but were awarded 64% of the seats.

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Wisconsin is one of several states where an anti-democracy movement has taken hold.

But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, Wisconsin pioneered the progressive era of American politics at the start of the twentieth century — with policies that empowered workers, protected the environment, and took on corporate monopolies. State lawmakers established the nation’s first unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and strict child labor laws.

Teddy Roosevelt called the state a “laboratory for wise … legislation aiming to secure the social and political betterment of the people as a whole.”

But for the last decade, Wisconsin has become a laboratory for legislation that does the exact opposite.

After Republicans took control in 2010, one of the first bills they passed gutted workers' rights by dismantling public-sector unions — which then decimated labor’s ability to support pro-worker candidates.

This move aligned with the interests of their corporate donors, who benefited from weaker unions and lower wages.

This new Wisconsin formula has been replicated elsewhere.

Republicans in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina won a minority of votes in 2018, but still won majorities in their state assemblies thanks to gerrymandering.

In Texas, Ohio, and Georgia, Republicans have crafted gerrymanders that are strong enough to create supermajorities capable of overturning a governor’s veto.

Even more alarming, hundreds of these Republican state legislators, “used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,” on behalf of Donald Trump.

How did this happen? Put simply: years of careful planning by corporate interest groups and their radical allies.

And the corporations enabling these takeovers aren't just influencing the law — their lobbyists are literally writing many of the bills that get passed.

This political alliance with corporate power has given these Republican legislatures free rein to pursue an extreme culture-war agenda — one that strips away rights that majorities of people support — while deflecting attention from their corporate patrons’ economic agendas.

Republicans are introducing bills that restrict or criminalize abortion. They’re banning teachers from discussing the history of racism in this country. They are making it harder to protest and easier to harm protestors. They are punishing trans people for receiving gender-affirming care and their doctors for providing it.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are still laboratories of democracy where true public servants are finding creative ways to defend the rights of us all.

Elected officials in Colorado and Vermont are codifying the right to abortion. California lawmakers have proposed making the state a refuge for transgender youth and their families. And workers across the country are reclaiming their right to organize, which is helping to rebuild an important counterweight to corporate power.

But winning will ultimately require a fifty state strategy — with a Democratic Senate willing to reform or end the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade, protect voting rights, and protect the right to organize nationwide.

America needs a national pro-democracy movement to stop the anti-democracy movement now underway — a pro-democracy movement committed to helping candidates everywhere, including in state-level races.

This is where you come in. Volunteer for pro-democracy candidates — and if you don't have time, contribute to their campaigns.

This is not a battle of left vs. right. It is a battle between democracy and autocracy.

#roe v wade #roe #Supreme Court #states #Wisconsin #democracy #videos #video

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beardedmrbean · 7 months

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EU ministers have urged member states to do more to screen migrants and expel those regarded as a security risk, amid rising concerns over militant attacks.

Interior and justice ministers were meeting days after a teacher in France and two Swedish nationals in Brussels were murdered by suspected Islamists.

Police across Europe are on high alert in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron has attended the funeral of the teacher fatally stabbed at a school last week.

The service for Dominique Bernard, who was 57, took place in the northern city of Arras. Mr Macron met the family beforehand.

The literature teacher and father of three has been posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour, France's highest civilian decoration.

Dominique Bernard was among several staff who tried to tackle the attacker. Another teacher and a security guard were seriously wounded.

"He was sensitive and quiet. He did not like the sound and fury of the world," Bernard's wife Isabelle, who is also a teacher, told mourners.

The service was broadcast on a screen in Arras's Place des Héros (Heroes' Square).

The suspect, named as 20-year-old Mohamed Mogouchkov, is a Russian national of Chechen origin. He shouted "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", during last Friday's attack, eyewitnesses said.

He has been arrested and faces murder and terror charges.

Mohamed Mogouchkov was known to security services. As a former pupil at the school, he had alarmed teachers with his extremist language, reports said.

Police have also arrested several members of his family, including a brother aged 17, his mother, a sister and an uncle.

As European Union ministers met in Luxembourg on Thursday, EU migration commissioner Ylva Johansson told reporters: "It's important that those individuals that could cause a security threat to our citizens be returned forcefully, immediately."

She added: "We need to be more efficient, close the loopholes and be quicker on decisions to carry out returns."

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said there was "still a bit naivety either in the institutions of some countries, or in the EU".

Monday's attack in Brussels also highlighted problems with the EU's migration and asylum systems.

The Tunisian gunman, identified as Abdesalem Lassoued, shot dead two Swedish football fans on the evening of a Euro 2024 qualifier, before being killed by police the following morning.

Belgian authorities revealed on Thursday that the 45-year-old had tried and failed to get asylum in four European countries - Norway, Sweden, Italy and Belgium. Sweden's migration agency had earlier said he had served a prison sentence there between 2012 and 2014.

He had stayed in Belgium illegally after a bid for asylum was rejected in 2020.

A plan to make it mandatory for EU states to try to return people staying illegally has been stalled for years.

The war between Israel and Islamist militant group Hamas has led to fears of further violence from militants on the continent.

Italy is imposing controls on its border with Slovenia for 10 days because of concerns over national security and irregular migration. Slovenia will follow suit on its borders with Croatia and Hungary from Saturday.

Several other EU member states, including Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland, have already imposed checks in a bid to counter people-smuggling.

#nunyas news

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dweemeister · 2 months

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Best Animated Short Film Nominees for the 96th Academy Awards (2024, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages.

If you are an American or Canadian resident interested in supporting the short film filmmakers in theaters (and you should, as very few of those who work in short films are as affluent as your big-name directors and actors), check your local participating theaters here.

Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards. The write-ups for the Documentary Short and Live Action Short nominees are complete. Films predominantly in a language other than English are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

Yet again, this completes this year’s omnibus write-ups for the Oscar-nominated short films for the upcoming Academy Awards:

Our Uniform (2023, Iran)

Director Yegane Moghaddam used to be a primary school teacher in Iran and often “observed the students… struggling with their uniforms and headscarves all day.” These observations informed her film and narration in Our Uniform, which won Best First Film at Annecy (the largest animation-only film festival, in the French Alpine resort town of the same name) in 2023. Only the fourth ever non-Western/European and non-Japanese nominee in this 92-year-old category – following 2014’s Bear Story (Chile; that year's winner), 2020’s Opera (South Korea) and 2021’s Bestia (Chile) – Our Uniform adopts a unique style never before seen in this category. Instead of traditional cel animation with ink and paper or computers, Moghaddam nearly single-handedly painted images directly on clothing fabrics (pants, jackets, shirts, scarves – all from her personal wardrobe) to illustrate the memories her narration shares. These memories, of attending public school in Iran, invariably intersect with Iran’s theocratic politics. There are references, never pedantic, about government propaganda as part of the school curriculum, and the segregation between boys’ and girls’ education. Most vividly, Moghaddam remarks on the restricting school uniform and compulsory hijabs for girls at school, issues which enflamed protests against such laws beginning in 2017 (and spiking after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022).

Moghaddam, who cites graphic novelist/director Marjane Satrapi (2007’s Persepolis, 2011’s Chicken with Plums; the former I consider among the finest animated films of this young century) as her primary artistic inspiration, curiously does not contain as much messaging in her film as one might expect. As an Iranian citizen who currently has no plans to officially distribute the film within her home nation due to fear of retribution, how could she? But the film’s slightness cannot distract from its painstaking, loving artistry. Without relying on inventive camerawork, Moghaddam uses the natural pockets and folds of her clothes to suggest dimension and personality. To Moghaddam, all clothing has a personality and personal history to the wearer, even compulsory clothing, all of which she uses to wonderful effect. What originally began as a fun side project that Moghaddam had no expectations for gifts audiences a truly original viewing experience.

My rating: 7.5/10

Letter to a Pig (2022, Israel/France)

Qualifying for the Academy Awards after winning the Grand Prize for Best International Short Film at Anima, the Brussels Animation Film Festival, in early 2023, Nal Kantor’s Letter to a Pig sees a Holocaust survivor retelling a story of survival to a group of largely disinterested and scornful teenagers. As the elderly man recounts how he wrote a letter to a pig that inadvertently saved his life, a handful of students start insensitively snorting. Quietly, Letter to a Pig adopts the standpoint of one of the girls in class, half-listening at first. Here, Kantor seamlessly switches between the man’s memories and the reality of the classroom, through heavy rotoscoping to outline her figures, mixing it with live-action footage for the limbs or eyes, but only using a few ink scribbles to outline facial features and hair. Generally, the more movement either the schoolgirl or Holocaust survivor show, the more scribbles and live-action footage that appear. For all other figures, they remain mostly abstract.

As a young man, the Holocaust survivor recalls how filled with rage he was, long after his near-death encounter. Now, physically unable to exact retribution on those who harmed him, he tells the students “you are my revenge” – passing along his trauma to those not realizing what they have just received. The schoolgirl’s vision in the surrealistic final minutes is her absorption of the Holocaust survivor’s story. This masterfully drawn finale is the emotional apex of Letter to a Pig, fully justifying its black-and-white palette (with one exception: pink for the pigs, considered an impure animal in Judaism) in service for its profound sense of dread. Symbolizing memory, the pig appears throughout the film as a savior, a monster, or something worthy of mockery, depending on who is on screen. It is in these final moments Letter to a Pig leaves the audience with pressing questions. Can one impart painful memories without the trauma that gives such memories form? Most urgently, can we choose not to act on the trauma we inherit? May it be possible not only in dreams.

My rating: 8.5/10

Pachyderme (2022, France)

Stéphanie Clement’s Pachyderme, like Letter to a Pig, is an unsettling short film that delves deeply into the mind of a troubled character. In this film, a young woman named Louise (Christa Théret) recalls her days visiting her grandparents in Provence (southeastern France) during her childhood. The sun-bathed rural landscape is picturesque, the grandparents’ house gorgeously stylized. Beyond this, some of Louise’s recollections feel incomplete, with no apparent structure or chronology. That might read as a criticism, but Clement and screenwriter Marc Rius fully intend for Pachyderme to seem fragmented. The film strongly implies – and some viewers will pick this up earlier or later than others – that the grandfather sexually abused Louise. In reaction, Louise, while recounting her memories for the audience, has repressed her memories and is showing signs, in her narration and in her visual recollections, of disassociation. I do not recall ever seeing disassociation, a common symptom of those who have been sexually abused, portrayed as cinematically as seen in Pachyderme. It is best exemplified, metaphorically, in the scene where our protagonist disappears into the wallpaper (this scene was originally the first bit of test footage made for the film).

But perhaps there is no better visualization of all Pachyderme has to say than the moment where Louise’s grandfather notices her index finger bleeding. He grasps her hand, and his hands dwarf hers. The simultaneity of Pachyderme’s picture book visuals and its horrifying implications show the viewer a woman who has not fully processed what has happened to her. It is not helped by the defensiveness of Louise’s grandmother following the grandfather’s death. Family denial, too, is playing a role in how Louise is choosing, consciously and subconsciously, to remember the past. In its eleven minutes, Pachyderme passes in a dreamlike haze, its illusory moments enabling the viewer to more closely connect to Louise’s (both the young adult narrating the film and the child on-screen) feelings. Unlike many nominees in Best Live Action Short Film down the years that addressed childhood trauma (it's a long-running trend for that category), Pachyderme prioritizes healing in as cinematic a way as possible.

My rating: 8.5/10

Ninety-Five Senses (2023)

If the names Jared and Jerusha Hess are familiar, that is because this husband-and-wife directorial team also made Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Nacho Libre (2006). Some of those same comedic sensibilities carry over to Ninety-Five Senses, which qualified for the Academy Awards by winning Best Animated Short at the Florida Film Festival in 2023. The film features an old man named Coy (Tim Blake Nelson, a Coen Brothers regular whose voice fits the narrative here) reflecting back on life – a reverie that jumps, hops, and skips across time and place. At first, Ninety-Five Senses, with its wildly shifting style changes, does not seem to have much of a point or purpose. But the film gradually reveals itself: first through the subtle shading of what appear to be prison bars and, later, the mountain of discarded food cartons sitting on the table in front of Coy. We soon realize that Coy is in the final hours or minutes of being on death row, and he is describing to the audience his internal peace before he meets his fate.

Ninety-Five Senses is not here to make a point about capital punishment, incarceration, or the terrible actions that landed Coy in prison. Foremost, this is a film that attempts to capture the last gasp of humanity of an individual before their execution. In contrast with the drab grays whenever Coy is seen in his cell, his flashbacks are intense – a fount of color, with both crude and elegant character designs, hand-drawn and computer-generated (sometimes appearing side-by-side). Not every vignette – of which there are five, one for each human sense – showcases as much aesthetic excellence as the others, such as an early instance where Coy recounts his childhood. That vignette does not evoke the respective human sense it covers as well as it thinks it does; the art style of that vignette also recalls hand-drawn television animation, but flows too smoothly to exactly replicate it. In any case, this is a promising first foray into animated film for the Hesses.

My rating: 8/10

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (2022)

War Is Over! (you cannot make me write or say the full title ever again) has the basics of a promising animated short film. Yet its simplistic take on humanity and warfare and close association with John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” condemns the film as pure hogwash. On second thought, I retract “hogwash”. That is an insult to Letter to a Pig and to porcine animals. This is self-congratulatory treacle from director Dave Mullins and co-writer Sean Ono Lennon (the son of John and Yoko). In a supposedly alternate World War I reality, a pigeon delivers messages between an Allied and a Central Power soldier on opposite sides of No Man’s Land. The messages contain chess notation, as they, somehow, began a game of chess with each other without ever meeting. One day, at presumably Christmas, the two armies inexplicably charge toward each other and, amid gunfire and a mass mêlée that should leave many more soldiers dead than shown, our two soldiers encounter each other on the battlefield in combat shorn of its gruesomeness.

Despite the film using the Unreal Engine for its animation, I admire the film’s lighting effects, character movements, pigeon animation, sound effects, and art direction for the otherwise sanitized trenches. That may be all the positives I can offer.

The contrived scenario sinks even further when our two chess-playing soldiers discover a critical message from their pigeon messenger. Cue the second-most embarrassing needle drop among this year’s fifteen short film nominees (somehow, the closing moments of The After are worse than this). Unlike The After, War Is Over! feels as if constructed around its respective song. Is this now a glorified music video? In an instant, the film reduces the tragedy of the Great War to something akin to a soft drink commercial or that “Imagine” video (could we stop disrespecting John Lennon and his fellow Beatles?). The sanitized depiction of war and farfetched resolving actions undercut the film’s message, embarrassing itself as it lurches through its excruciating final minutes. That the first credit in the end credits read “music and message by John and Yoko” rather than director Dave Mullins leaves an even more sour taste. At the heart of War Is Over!, Mullins and Sean Ono Lennon want us to know that war is bad. I never could have guessed!

My rating: 4/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013) 87th (2015) 88th (2016) 89th (2017) 90th (2018) 91st (2019) 92nd (2020) 93rd (2021) 94th (2022) 95th (2023)

Two other films played in this package as honorable mentions: Wild Summon (2023, dir. Karni Arieli and Saul Freed; 6/10) and I'm Hip (2023, dir. John Musker; 6/10).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

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mariacallous · 4 months

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In early December, a rightwing Wisconsin organization called HOT Government sent out a breathless email: Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman turned election conspiracy theorist and staunch Donald Trump ally, had nominated an important Wisconsin politician for a dubious award.

The prize would go to the person who exemplifies “leadership in BEING AN OBSTACLE TO STOPPING ELECTION CRIME”, the email declared.

Lindell’s target wasn’t a Democrat, nonpartisan election official or even a moderate Republican – it was Robin Vos, the powerful Wisconsin Republican assembly speaker.

The nomination reflects a stark turn of fortunes for Vos, who has spent more than a decade using every tool at his disposal to cement Republican power in Wisconsin, touting a deeply conservative record including on voting.

Vos helped re-draw the state’s legislative maps in 2011, ensuring Republican control of the legislature ever since. The same year, he followed former Republican governor Scott Walker’s lead in creating the most restrictive voter identification law in the country and passing legislation to kneecap union power in a state where organized labor was once the core of the Democratic coalition.

Vos was elected speaker of the assembly in 2013 and has used his years in office since to shore up his party’s minoritarian lock on power in the swing state. When Republicans lost the governorship in 2018, the assembly quickly passed legislation that curbed the power of the incoming Democratic governor. And after Trump lost the state in 2020, Vos initiated an investigation into Wisconsin’s election, hiring a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” movement to lead it.

He was in all respects a loyal rightwinger. But Vos has drawn a line at embracing Trump’s false claim that he actually won Wisconsin in 2020 and refused to join colleagues who suggested overturning the 2020 election. His unwillingness to cross that line has turned him into a pariah on the far right, a target of Lindell, an enemy of Trump and a symbol of the current state of the Republican party where loyalty to Trump is the key litmus test.

Now, Vos is fighting elements of his party that rejected the results of the 2020 election and have come to view him not as a hardline conservative who has done more than almost anyone else to strengthen Republicans’ power in the state, but as a corrupt establishment hack complicit in Trump’s undoing.

With the Trump flank of the grassroots Wisconsin Republican party as strong as ever ahead of the 2024 election, Vos is scrambling to appease his hardline party detractors so he doesn’t become a casualty of the movement he helped create.

“There’s a segment of the Maga crowd who despises him, because they adamantly believe President Trump was cheated,” said a veteran Wisconsin GOP operative, who spoke anonymously given his role within pro-Trump circles. “Where he is right now is kind of emblematic of the fight going on within the Republican party – here in Wisconsin and across the nation.”

From the young Republican …

Since he was a child, Vos led a political life. In sixth grade, he tagged along with a teacher to political events, then joined the Young Republicans and worked for former Republican governor Tommy Thompson before starting college. During his first semester at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Vos ran for and won a seat on the student senate and then went about lobbying every member of the Wisconsin state legislature for reduced tuition hikes.

His eagerness was rewarded two years later, when Governor Thompson appointed Vos to be a student member of the University of Wisconsin system’s governing body. Vos surrounded himself with other young Republicans: his roommate and friend at UW-Whitewater, Reince Priebus, would go on to chair the Republican National Committee for six years before working as Donald Trump’s chief of staff in 2017.

After graduating in 1991, Vos snagged a job as a legislative aide to Bonnie Ladwig, a leader in the Wisconsin state assembly, then returned home to Burlington, in south-east Wisconsin, and won a seat on the Racine county board. When Ladwig retired a decade later in 2004, Vos won her seat.

“Jim and Bonnie Ladwig were super close to me,” Vos told the Guardian, sitting at the end of a long and formidable wooden table in his Capitol office. Vos had been taking back-to-back interviews all day but he was focused and energized. “They were like a second set of parents – and then Tommy Thompson, I talk to him almost every week – Governor Evers, annually.”

Vos advanced quickly in the assembly, learning how to manage the personalities in the Republican caucus and when to make bipartisan alliances. Perhaps emulating his slogan as a college politician – “We want your views” – Vos earned the reputation of listening carefully to his colleagues and learning their vulnerabilities and strengths.

“I really want to be a consensus builder,” said Vos, who said he believed eking out a policy win, even a small one, was worthwhile – and faulted the contemporary Republican party for adopting what he viewed as an all-or-nothing politics.

Mark Pocan, a progressive Democratic congressman in the state, who sat on the joint committee on finance with Vos, formed an unlikely friendship with the legislator. “I always found him someone that I can have [a] conversation with,” said Pocan. “He’s very effective in knowing how to work his members to get things done.”

“Everybody seems to think that Robin tells everybody in the caucus, ‘You will vote this way, you will do this, you will do that,’ and it’s not that way at all,” said Kathy Bernier, a Republican who served in the assembly for five years under Vos’s leadership. “He will be always cognizant of the vulnerable members of his caucus.”

But Vos has also gained a reputation for cracking down on uncooperative members of his caucus and withholding committee seats from disloyal members. In 2016, he withheld committee appointments from three conservative lawmakers who had previously clashed with him. Most recently, his caucus removed Janel Brandtjen, an election denier and Republican staterepresentative, from her leading role on the elections committee after she endorsed his primary opponent.

None of the seven leaders of the Republican caucus in the assembly agreed to an interview.

… To ‘the prince of darkness’

Under Vos’s leadership, the Republican-controlled legislature has flexed outsized power in Wisconsin. While statewide races are often determined by vanishingly narrow margins, Republicans can comfortably count on strong majorities in the legislature – a product of the 2011 redistricting law Vos helped craft. He currently presides over a 64-35 seat majority in the assembly, which he has leveraged to strengthen Republican power in the state.

But Vos is quick to contest the view, held by many Democrats, that his legislative style is anti-democratic – or really anything but good, effective politics. “Democrats can’t accept that because they think the only reason they’re losing is the maps – maybe it’s your strategy. Maybe it’s your campaign, maybe it’s the issues you run on.”

Also in 2011, Vos helped push through one of the most restrictive voter identification laws in the nation; independent studies have found it disproportionately impacts low-income and Black voters, but the law has nonetheless survived numerous court challenges by voting rights advocates. When Wisconsin’s government accountability board found in 2015 that the legislature had failed to provide sufficient education around the new voter ID rules, a requirement of their own law, the assembly voted to dissolve the board.

After Democrats won races for governor and attorney general in the 2018 election, Vos rushed through laws limiting the powers of both offices in the weeks before they took office. The “lame duck” legislation, among other provisions, limited the governor’s authority to appoint leaders to certain state agencies and gave the legislature the right to hire outside lawyers to intervene in lawsuits. The power grab outraged Democrats and good-government groups and illustrated the lengths to which Republicans in office would go to wrest power from their opponents. A 2022 Politico article referred to Vos as the state’s “shadow governor”.

In 2015, Vos even tried to bring about a law that would shield state lawmakers entirely from public records requests. The effort failed, but he and other members of his caucus are known to habitually delete their work emails – a practice that, while legal, makes it harder for journalists and the public to access documents.

“When it comes to sunshine in government, Robin Vos is the prince of darkness,” said Bill Lueders, a political journalist and the president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

He has developed a reputation for obstinance towards working with Democrats in office. In early 2020, while Republican- and Democratic- led states across the country delayed primary elections amid the rapidly-spreading coronavirus, the state legislature shut down attempts by Tony Evers, the Democratic governor, to move the date of the Wisconsin primary. In a viral image, Vos, donned in head-to-toe protective gear and volunteering as a poll worker, told voters it was “incredibly safe to go out”.

A ‘rigged and stolen election’

After years of fighting Democrats, the 2020 election brought Vos into a separate and unexpectedly fierce conflict – with his own party.

A day before the scheduled certification of the presidential election in Congress, as Trump supporters piled into buses headed for Washington, DC for a rally that would devolve into the January 6 Capitol riot, 14 Wisconsin lawmakers – including 13 members of the assembly – signed a letter addressed to Mike Pence, the vice-president, urging him not to certify the election. The missive, signed by lawmakers in five swing states, accused governors and state officials of “obfuscation and intentional deception” and claimed state legislatures have the final say in certifying the election results. The chair and vice-chair of the Wisconsin assembly committee on campaigns and elections were among the signatories.

Vos did not sign. But in a press conference that day, he told reporters he took the party’s rightwing base seriously and said the widespread doubt about the election results called for a re-evaluation of the electoral process. Since then, he’s sought to walk a tightrope of appeasing his base while refusing to bow to their wildest demands. But that has proven challenging.

Trump and his allies spent months filing lawsuits to try to overturn his loss in Wisconsin and other states. When his lawsuit asking the Wisconsin supreme court to toss out thousands of votes cast in Democratic strongholds failed, he tried to pressure Vos and other Republicans in the legislature to decertify the election themselves.

“I think it is unlikely we would find enough cases of fraud to overturn the election,” Vos told reporters at the time, suggesting that the state first investigate the 2020 election.

The Republicans’ refusal to actually attempt to decertify the election angered Trump. In June 2021, as Wisconsin Republicans gathered for their annual convention, Trump issued a statement accusing Vos and other legislative party leaders of “working hard to cover up election corruption”.

Vos has responded to Trump’s attacks by alternatively rejecting his wild claims while at the same time granting political concessions to groups peddling conspiracy theories.

Under pressure from Trump, Vos in 2021 announced an investigation into the election, appointing Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin supreme court justice who had bolstered Trump’s disproven claims of election fraud and spoken at a Wisconsin “Stop the Steal” rally shortly after the 2020 election, as special counsel. During his investigation, Gableman traveled across the US, speaking at an elections conference hosted by Lindell and viewing the discredited Cyber Ninjas election audit in Maricopa county, Arizona.

A year later, when the Wisconsin supreme court ruled that the use of ballot “dropboxes” during the 2020 election was unlawful, the former president approached Vos with another call to decertify the election. “I explained that it’s not allowed under the constitution,” Vos told WISN-TV 12 News in Milwaukee.

Trump was furious. Days later, the former president endorsed Adam Steen, Vos’s election-denying primary opponent, calling Steen a “rising patriotic candidate” and denouncing Vos.

Vos barely survived the primary, winning by less than 300 votes.

“One of my biggest regrets was hiring Gableman,” said Vos, who fired the judge days after his primary. “He was way wackier than I thought. He was disappointing. He was inept. He was way worse for the system.”

As Trump turned on Vos, cracks within the Wisconsin GOP deepened.

Vos was roundly booed at the state convention in 2022 for telling the delegates that lawmakers “have no ability to decertify the [2020] election and go back and nullify it” .That day, more than a third of the delegates voted to oust him from party leadership.

Vos will not break the law to try to win them over, but he’s still looking to win back some of their support – all while trying to keep himself and the Republican party in power amid a shakeup in the Wisconsin supreme court.

After voters elected liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz to the state’s highest court, Vos entertained the idea of impeaching her before she could rule on the constitutionality of the state’s gerrymandered maps, only dropping the cause when a panel of former justices recommended against it.

Vos has also come under pressure from election denying groups to oust Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s nonpartisan election commissioner who became a target of false claims that she broke the law to hurt Trump in 2020.

“As the leader, [Vos] takes the brunt of it,” said the state senator Duey Stroebel, a Republican who served in the assembly for four years and has, like Vos, worked on restrictive voting laws during his tenure. “He’s kind of the poster boy for these things.”

Vos has echoed calls for Wolfe to step down. But he has slow-walked impeachment efforts, referring impeachment articles to an assembly committee in November, where they have languished since. A group that goes by the name “Wisconsin Elections Committee, Inc” has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV and newspaper ads running regularly since November pressuring Vos to impeach Wolfe.

“It’s not gonna happen,” Vos said brusquely, voicing his irritation at Trump and his allies’ unyielding focus on the 2020 election. “Donald Trump’s unhealthy obsession with 2020 is not what Americans want to hear about in 2024.”

But at this point, it seems unlikely Vos can do much more to satisfy the far right base of his party. Even if he pivots and sees Wolfe’s impeachment through, a move that could destabilize elections ahead of 2024, the right wing will likely continue to ramp up their anti-democratic demands.

“As long as Donald Trump is politically active, they will be politically active,” said Bernier, who has been vocal in pushing back against Trump’s election lies – and counts Vos as a friend. Wisconsin activists who challenge election outcomes, she said, “will continue this until Donald Trump is no more”.

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whalepropaganda · 2 years

Photo

In honor of the start of the season, here’s this!

Now with the promised text-only edition below!

Slide 1:

[image: The Connecticut Whale logo (a blue silhouette of a whale surrounded by a blue, white, and green letter C appears in the background]

Your 2022-23 Connecticut Whale—a primer by whalepropaganda

Slide 2: Overview.

The Connecticut Whale is a professional hockey team that plays within the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF; formerly known as the National Women’s Hockey League, or NWHL). The Whale is one of the Founding Four teams in the league and the only one of those four that has yet to win the Isobel Cup. They were really bad for several years, but now they’re really good!

NUMBER ONE IN THE LEAGUE LAST SEASON BAYBEYYYY

[image: A red arrow points toward a partial screenshot of the 2021-22 PHF standings. The Whale are at the top of the standings.]

anyway then they lost to Boston in the Isobel Cup Final and honestly I’m still Quite Annoyed About It

Whale games are broadcast on ESPN+ in the US, TSN+ in Canada, and ESPN Affiliates in other countries.

Whale home games will (mostly) take place at the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury.

[image: a partial map of New England. The location of the International Skating Center of Connecticut is circled in red and has an arrow pointing to it. The city of Boston is visible near the edge of the map and is crossed out with a red X]

Slide 3: Oh Captain My Captain

[image: Shannon Turner smiling while surrounded by several teammates, all wearing the Whale’s 2021-22 pride jerseys]

Shannon Turner (prev. Shannon Doyle)

Position: Defender | Born: March 6, 1992 | Height: 5’4” | Hometown: Markham, Ontario, Canada

2021–22 stats: GP 20 | G 2 | A 5 | Pts 7 | PIM 10

• One of the few remaining original NWHLers!

• Also an English teacher!

• Was part of the first Canadian roster to win a gold medal at U18 Women’s Worlds (2010)!

• Won a 2021–22 PHF Foundation Award!

• Came out of retirement for last season and got soooo close to winning the Cup, but alas L L L She says this will be her last season, so I’m gonna need the Whale to remember one thing:

[image: “Do it for her” meme from the Simpsons, with photos of Shannon added to it]

This is Theo! He’s excellent.

[image: A red arrow points toward a photo of a very cute German Shepherd dog]

Slide 4: Alternate Captains

Alyssa, Janine, and Emma are returning As; Kennedy is new to the leadership group [smiley face emote]

Alyssa Wohlfeiler

[image: photo of Alyssa from during a game]

Position: Forward | Born: May 6, 1989 | Height: 5’8” | Hometown: Saugus, California, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 18 | G 8 | A 8 | Pts 16 | PIM 8

• Wohlfy!

• An original NWHLer

Janine Weber

[image: headshot of Janine in her Whale jersey]

Position: Forward | Born: June 19, 1991 | Height: 5’8” | Hometown: Innsbruck, Austria

2021–22 stats: GP 16 | G 5 | A 8 | Pts 13 | PIM 6

• The first player ever to sign an NWHL contract!

• Won 2015 Clarkson Cup (CWHL), 3x D1A Worlds silver & more

Emma Vlasic

[image: photo of Emma in her jersey from the 2021-22 All-Star Game]

Position: Forward | Born: September 2, 1996 | Height: 5’7” | Hometown: Wilmette, Illinois, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 20 | G 4 | A 9 | Pts 13 | PIM 4

• Like basically every player with the last name Vlasic, she’s Pickles

Kennedy Marchment

[image: photo of Kennedy in street clothes, flashing a peace sign]

Position: Forward | Born: December 6, 1996 | Height: 5’8” | Hometown: Courtice, Ontario, Canada

2021–22 stats: GP 20 | G 13 | A 20 | Pts 33 | PIM 8

• Holy crap she’s good

• 2021–22 PHF MVP!

• Led league in assists and points last season

Slide 5: Returning Forwards

Amanda Conway

[image: photo of Amanda Conway wearing her 2021-22 pride jersey]

Born: December 26, 1996 | Height: 5’4” | Hometown: Methuen, Massachusetts, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 18 | G 12 | A 9 | Pts 21 | PIM 4

• Nineteenth overall pick in the 2020 draft!

• Ranked second in goals and third in points on the Whale last season

• One of the most, if not the most, underrated Whale players imho

Janka Hlinka

[image: photo of Janka from during a game]

Born: October 31, 1995 | Height: 5’7” | Hometown: Stratford, Connecticut, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 16 | G 1 | A 1 | Pts 2 | PIM 2

• Born in USA but represents Slovakia in international competition!

• Also known as Janka Hlinkova

• Won D1A bronze in 2022

Taylor Girard

[image: photo of Taylor in athleticwear, giving a thumbs up]

Born: July 17, 1998 | Height: 5’10” | Hometown: Macomb, Michigan, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 20 | G 11 | A 13 | Pts 24 | PIM 14

• First overall pick in the 2021 Draft!

• 2021–22 PHF Newcomer of the Year

• Ranked second on the team in assists and points

• Also tied for second in PIM lol

Melissa Samoskevich

[image: headshot of Melissa in her Whale jersey, doing the Brandon Tanev stare]

Born: March 31, 1997 | Height: 5’4” | Hometown: Sandy Hook, Connecticut, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 7 | G 1 | A 1 | Pts 2 | PIM 0

• Second overall pick in the 2018 draft!

• Won U18 Worlds silver in 2014 and gold in 2015 (and scored the most goals of the 2015 tournament, with six)

• Won gold at Worlds in 2019

Slide 6: Returning Defenders

Tori Howran

[image: photo of Tori in her jersey from the 2021-22 All-Star Game]

Born: June 11, 1998 | Height: 5’9” | Hometown: Bancroft, Ontario, Canada

2021–22 stats: GP 20 | G 0 | A 8 | Pts 8 | PIM 10

• Seventh overall pick in the 2020 draft!

• Won silver at U18 Worlds in 2016

• Co-owns a business called A&T Sewing and makes very cute stuff

Hannah Bates

[image: photo of Hannah wearing an athletic shirt with the Whale logo]

Born: May 20, 1999 | Height: 5’4” | Hometown: Trenton, Michigan, USA

2021–22 stats: GP 18 | G 1 | A 4 | Pts 5 | PIM 6

• Twentieth overall pick in the 2021 draft!

• Currently youngest player on the team

• Adorable tbh

Allie Munroe

[image: photo of Allie wearing her jersey from the 2021-22 All-Star Game]

Born: April 20, 1997 | Height: 5’6” | Hometown: Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

2021–22 stats: GP 18 | G 3 | A 10 | Pts 13 | PIM 14

• Led Whale defenders in scoring last season

• Nominated for 2021–22 PHF Defender of the Year

Slide 7: Returning Goalie

Abbie Ives

[image: photo of Abbie in street clothes, holding her sticks]

Born: October 7, 1998 | Height: 5’11” | Hometown: Bedford Hills, New York, USA

2021–22 stats: GS 15 | W 10 | L 3 | OTL 2 | Sv% .894

• Nominated for 2021–22 PHF Goaltender of the Year!

• The tallest member of the team

• Notorious among her teammates for her phone always being dead

Slide 8: Whalecome Back

(players who used to play for the Whale and then didn’t play for the Whale and now are once again playing for the Whale)

Kateřina Mrázová

[image: photo of Katka in her Team Czechia jersey, holding her bronze medal from 2022 Worlds]

Position: Forward | Born: October 19, 1992 | Height: 5’5” | Hometown: Praha, Czechia

Most recent team(s): Team Czechia; Brynäs IF (SDHL)

• Katka!

• Played for the Whale in 2018–19

• Won 2013 Clarkson Cup (CWHL)

• Won D1A Worlds gold in 2014 and 2015

• Won bronze at Worlds in 2022 (Czechia’s first medal at that tournament!)

Meeri Räisänen

[image: photo of Meeri in her Team Finland jersey, sticking her tongue out]

Position: Goalie | Born: December 2, 1989 | Height: 5’7” | Hometown: Tampere, Finland

Most recent team(s): Team Finland; JYP U20 Akatemia (U20 Mestis)

• Played for the Whale in 2018–19

• Won bronze medals at Worlds in 2015 and 2021

• Won bronze at the Olympics in 2018 and 2022

Slide 9: Primer I Hardly Know ‘Er!

(the new additions)

Caitrin Lonergan

[image: photo of Caitrin in her Clarkson University jersey]

Position: Forward | Born: September 10, 1997 | Height: 5’6” | Hometown: Roslindale, Massachusetts, USA

Most recent team(s): Clarkson University

• U18 silver (2014)

• U18 gold (2015)

Lenka Serdar

[image: photo of Lenka in her Whale jersey]

Position: Forward | Born: July 21, 1997 | Height: 5’8” | Hometown: Lexington, Massachusetts, USA

Most recent team(s): Team Czechia; Linköping HC (SDHL)

• Born in US but plays for Czechia

• Competed at 2021 Worlds and the 2022 Olympics

Justine Reyes

[image: photo of Justine in street clothes]

Position: Forward | Born: February 14, 1997 | Height: 5’4” | Hometown: Chino Hills, California, USA

Most recent team(s): Linköping HC (SDHL)

• Was 2018–19 MVP at St. Lawrence University

Emma Keenan

[image: photo of Emma in her Buffalo Beauts jersey]

Position: Defender | Born: November 26, 1997 | Height: 5’7” | Hometown: Mission Viejo, California, USA

Most recent team(s): Buffalo Beauts (PHF)

• 2x NCAA champion with Clarkson University

Mallory Souliotis

[image: photo of Mal in her Boston Pride jersey and a bucket hat after winning the Isobel Cup in 2022 (sigh)]

Position: Defender | Born: April 1, 1996 | Height: 5’5” | Hometown: Acton, Massachusetts, USA

Most recent team(s): Boston Pride (PHF)

• 2x Isobel Cup champion with the Pride (2021, 2022)

• Won a 2018–19 PHF Foundation Award

Tori Sullivan

[image: photo of Tori in her Boston Pride jersey]

Position: Forward | Born: August 4, 1996 | Height: 5’5” | Hometown: West Bloomfield, Michigan, USA

Most recent team(s): Boston Pride (PHF)

• 2x Isobel Cup champion with the Pride (2021, 2022)

Slide 10

Misc. Fun Facts

• Jessica Strack, who was a practice player for most of last season and officially signed with the team late in the season, is back as a practice player for 2022–23. She’s also the Whale’s current equipment manager.

• Longtime NWHL/PHF player and 2018 Isobel Cup champion Kiira Dosdall-Arena (D) is a practice player this season.

• Meeri and Katka are sharing a beach rental in Milford for the season (seemingly also with the Whale’s new athletic trainer). Taylor, Amanda, Tori H., and Hannah are also sharing a rental on the beach. (I feel like these are fun facts, idk)

“Is [Whale Player] Related to [Dude]?” Containment Zone

• Mason Marchment is Kennedy’s cousin

• Alex Vlasic is Emma’s brother, and Marc-Édouard Vlasic is her cousin

• Mackie Samoskevich is Melissa’s brother

• The cool guy who showed up to the 2022 playoffs in a whale costume is Janine’s husband, Bruce

Team Staff

• Coach: Colton Orr

• Assistant coaches: Jeff Devenney, Sue Merz

• Consulting coach: Jack Han

• General manager: Alexis Moed

Where Are They Now?

(i.e., are players from the 2021–22 roster playing hockey this season, and if so, where?)

• Hanna Beattie: Whale director of youth hockey and gameday operations

• Kaycie Anderson: Metropolitan Riveters (PHF)

• Taylor Marchin: Metropolitan Riveters (PHF)

• Catherine Crawley: Metropolitan Riveters (PHF)

• Kati Tabin: Toronto Six (PHF)

• Mariah Fujimagari: AIK (SDHL)

• Rebecca Morse: no team as of Nov. 5, 2022

• Emily Fluke: no team as of Nov. 5, 2022

• Cailey Hutchison: no team as of Nov. 5, 2022

• Emma Polaski: no team as of Nov. 5, 2022

#connecticut whale #phf #premier hockey federation #whale primer #primer #i'm working on a text-only version for accessibility purposes so stay tuned for that as well!#as of february 6 2023 this now has the text-only version added to the post #took me long enough!#note to self write all the powerpoint text in a word doc first for ease of copy/pasting #wp 22-23

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niaking · 1 year

Photo

Queer & Trans Artists of Color: Volume Three Book Launch!

A night of interviews featuring the following artists:

Qwo-Li Driskill is an unenrolled Cherokee Two-Spirit/queer/trans writer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent. They are the author of Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory and Walking with Ghosts: Poems.

Ant J. Williams is a Black queer abolitionist writer and sociologist. Their work on Blackness, gender identity, sexuality, and disability has been published in Hazlitt, California Magazine, Electric Lit, and The Outline. antjwilliams.com.

Joamette Gil is an Afro-Cuban cartoonist, editor, and letterer for hire. She’s the publisher of such award-winning titles as Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology and Heartwood: Non-binary Tales of of Sylvan Fantasy.

Kamal Al-Solaylee is an award-winning author of three nonfiction books: Intolerable, Brown, and Return. He is the director of the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Osa Atoe is an artist, teacher, and ceramicist operating Pottery by Osa, producing small-batch handmade ceramics. Osa wrote Shotgun Seamstress and performed in numerous bands, including VHS, New Bloods, and Firebrand.

Venus Kii Thomas is a Black trans femme multidimensional artist & sex worker based in Baltimore, Maryland. Support Venus at bit.ly/venuskiithomas.

Arielle Twist is a Nehiyaw, Two-Spirit, author and artist originally from George Gordon First Nation, Saskatchewan, now based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her debut collection, Disintegrate/Dissociate, won The Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry and she won the 2020 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBTQ authors.

Nia King and Maliha Ahmed are the co-hosts of this event and the co-editors of Queer & Trans Artists of Color, Volume 3. Buy the book at bit.ly/buyQTAOC3.

Sponsored by the Aydelotte Foundation, Black Studies, Film & Media Studies. ASL INTERPRETATION PROVIDED by the Libraries at Swarthmore College.Time

Mar 23, 2023 06:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

#qtpoc #bipoc #qpoc #qpoc books #qpoc lit

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year

Text

By: Luke Gentile

Published: Dec 7, 2022

A teacher in California who identifies as "cringey" is going viral after claiming she does not teach grammar usage and writing skills in an attempt to defeat white supremacy.

Marta Shaffer teaches English at Oroville High School and uses linguistics to fight "white supremacy in my classes" and be "inclusive of all kinds of ways we use the language," she said.

The expectation that students should use syntax and proper grammar is based in a deep-rooted white supremacy culture, she argues, according to a report.

"I try to undermine that B.S. in my classroom as much as I can," she said. "We study linguistics and the rules that we actually use to communicate instead of the made-up rules that white supremacy created for when we write papers and stuff, which is what scholars call the 'language of power.'"

"As an educator, I constantly worry if I'm the problem. What do I mean by that? Well, public education is an institution that upholds lots of problematic systems in our society like white supremacy and misogyny and colonization, etc.," she said. "Well, let's look at how we write essays [in which we] start with an introduction that includes a thesis, always cite your sources, use transition words like 'however' and 'therefore.' These are all made-up rules. They were created by Westerners in power. Which got me thinking, what if I started my school year with a unit honoring how we talk rather than teaching students how to write properly."

One example is a prompt in which Shaffer has students examine how they communicate at home.

"Just because your teachers, your professors, and your boss may expect you to write and speak in a certain way that may not be natural to you, does not mean that your more natural ... languages are not important," she said.

"They are just as important, if not more important, than the 'language of respectability.'"

Despite her efforts, Shaffer wants to make sure she does not become a "white savior."

"Did I worry I was being a white savior? Absolutely. Was it uncomfortable? Definitely, but a lot of my students come here, and they're uncomfortable with the white mainstream culture of public school life," she said.

"So I think it's good for them to see their teacher deal with linguistic discomfort, too."

When the inmates aren't just running the asylum, but society itself.

Reminder that K-12 teachers do not have academic freedom. They're government employees. They have no more freedom of expression in the performance of their job than Kim Davis has freedom of religion the performance of hers. Firing Shaffer is removing a dangerously unqualified employee, like removing a bus driver who doesn't have a license.

One could easily be convinced that Shaffer is a member of the KKK deliberately undermining students and particularly minorities, with her rhetoric of school being a white place, syntax and grammar being white things, writing skills being for white people. What better way to keep them in their place than by sabotaging their education? Marta Shaffer herself is a full-blown white supremacist. She's exactly that.

What's not mentioned in the article but stated in the video is that she didn't just come up with this on her own. She cites "Dr." April Baker-Bell's "Linguistic Justice," which has over 160 5-star reviews on Amazon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Baker-Bell

April Baker-Bell is an American academic and the author of Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy. She is the 2020 recipient of the Orwell Award from the National Council of Teachers of English.

She is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and is an associate professor in the English department of Michigan State University.

Baker-Bell's website proudly boasts that she's been featured on the BBC and in USA Today.

When a Muslim beats his wife, he knows he's doing the right thing because the quran says so. Marta Shaffer isn't just some random nutter; she has certainty that she's doing the right thing because the scripture says so. Which also means that there's even more Shaffers out there doing exactly the same thing with exactly the same certainty. We just haven't identified them yet.

#Marta Shaffer #April Baker Bell #Linguistic Justice #corruption of education #TikTok teachers #academic corruption #education #reading and writing #linguistic skills #language skills #grammar #syntax #white supremacy #woke activism #cult of woke #wokeism #woke #wokeness as religion #religion is a mental illness

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jooshthepunished · 1 year

Text

Real-world trivia of Goncharov (1973):

Gomorrah was made in 2007 and released in 2008

The title is a double entendre, referencing both the Camorra (the Neapolitan mafia) and the depraved city of Gomorrah which God destroyed along with Sodom in Genesis 19

The director's name is Matteo Garrone (neither of his parents are license plates as far as I'm aware)

It was based on a book by Robert Saviano

Saviano along with Maurizio Braucci wrote the bulk of the screenplay, with treatments by several different writers, including Garrone

It is genuinely critically acclaimed (which means it probably blows absolute hot stanky ass, I haven't seen it)

The budget was €6m and it made just over €10m domestically in Italy. It made over $40m worldwide

Saviano got death threats from the Camorra over his book. Special safety measures had to be taken so that he could even attend the premiere of the film. He is under permanent police protection even still

It was genuinely produced by Domenico Procacci Pictures

Garrone re-cut the film twice. Once in 2010 and again in 2020, ultimately reducing the runtime to 125 minutes from the theatrical runtime of 137 minutes

Members of the Camorra demanded to be involved in the production, including playing roles

Several of those mafiosos were arrested for various crimes after the national release of the film, including Bernardino Terracciano, who is serving a life sentence for a double homicide he allegedly committed in 1992

The book was re-adapted as an HBO series in 2014

Martin Scorsese merely presented it to the IFC, which is likely where we got the badly translated patches for the knockoff shoes that started this meme

The shoes were knockoff Buffalo London women's black hi-top platform sneakers in size 7 sold through a vendor on Poshmark called maggiesphinx in March 2022

Since the meme, hopeful Goncharov shoe owners have inquired as to the origin of the sneakers

Maggie does not remember where she got them originally.

Andrey Goncharov is the actual fucking name of a real guy. He was a Soviet author, theater director, and "pedagogue" (a dumb word for a bad teacher) who won several awards in the USSR for his work.

Basically he was a Socialist piece of shit bastard fuck communist scum fucking prick and I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad the USSR is dead. Rot in piss.

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scotianostra · 2 years

Video

youtube

Happy 96th birthday Scottish comedy great Stanley Baxter born in Glasgow May 24th 1926.

Stanley was a child actor who started his career in radio on the Scottish edition of BBC Children’s Hour.

After gaining a degree at the University of Glasgow, he joined the entertainment services during national service where he met comedy actor Kenneth Williams and film director John Schlesinger. Their influence persuaded him to become a performer rather than a teacher.

He returned to Glasgow and spent the next three years at the Citizens Theatre, where he was highly successful, and later appeared in panto with Jimmy Logan. He left Scotland in 1959 to work in television.

He won a Bafta for light entertainment in 1959, for co-hosting the satirical sketch show On the Bright Side. He won two years running, in 1973 and 1974, for The Stanley Baxter Picture Show, and again in 1981 for The Stanley Baxter Series.

Some of his best-loved comedy sketches include Parliamo Glasgow, in which the Glaswegian dialect was presented as a foreign language. It included phrases such as “Izat a marra on yer barra, Clara?” and the uniquely Glaswegian word “Sanoffy”, as in “Sanoffy cold day”.

He remained a favourite of the Scottish panto circuit, often playing the gloriously costumed dame alongside Angus Lennie, Jimmy Logan or Ronnie Corbett, until he retired in 1992.

In 1994 he returned to radio, appearing in plays and sitcoms. In 1997, he was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards. The Stanley Baxter Playhouse ran on Radio 4 from 2006 until 2014.

Even though he retired from TV comedy some 30 years ago, Stanley Baxter continues to hold a special place in the viewing nation’s heart.

He eats well, likes a glass of wine and enjoys a quiet domesticated life. Well into his 80s he was still cycling and swimming. Even when he was in the public eye, he shunned personal publicity, rarely doing interviews or appearing on chat shows.

In his retirement he has written an autobiography but refuses to allow it to be published until after his death, not apparently because it contains any hugely scandalous stories of his celebrity friends, but because he didn’t fancy schlepping round the country doing promotional appearances, press interviews and book signings, let’s hope it is a good few years before it is released then!

A widower since 1997, he says he doesn’t find it difficult to fill his days. “You wonder how you ever had time to work,” he says.

“I miss talking to actors. I can relate to actors better than real people. I have so few friends left. "I suppose I’m a bit of a loner. I’m not the kind of person to drop in on the neighbours.”

In 2020 Stanley in an authorised biography, The Real Stanley Baxter told for the first time of his struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, his efforts to keep the fact that he is gay secret and the effect his troubled marriage had on his life.

The book charts the career of Baxter, who was born in Glasgow in 1926, from his early days as an entertainer in the Army, where he met Kenneth Williams. The Real Stanley Baxter explores the complex relationship with his wife Moira, his early sexual encounters as a teenager, and the strenuous efforts he made to maintain his privacy in later life, including taking legal action over the publication of the diaries of actor Kenneth Williams, a long-time friend, after he had passed away.

Baxter described his discomfort with his homosexuality in the book, writing: "Anybody would be insane to choose to live such a very difficult life. There are many gay people these days who are fairly comfortable with their sexuality, fairly happy with who they are. I’m not. I never wanted to be gay. I still don’t."

If you want to know more about Stanley I recommend watching the feature length documentary, Stanley Baxter's Best Bits - and More, it’s on 5 and you don’t have to sign in to watch the show, it’s just over an hour long so settle down with a cuppa before viewing. https://www.channel5.com/show/stanley-baxter-s-best-bits-and-more

#Scotland #scottish #actor #comedian #Legend #gay #glaswegian #happy birhtday

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tampon-on-the-sidewalk · 2 years

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So, You’re the Commentator for your Eurovision Grand Final Party?

Have we got a treat for you! Facts about all 25 countries in one convenient post.

Now, I did say I would have different facts from my semi final posts, but on top of legit falling asleep as I type this, I know some people still only watch the Grand Final and may have missed the previous facts. SO, anything in bold at the end of each country are the new facts!

1. Czech Republic- We Are Domi-Lights Off- Formed in 2016, they met at the Leeds College of Music in the UK. Dominika Hasova, the singer, is Czech-American(born in NY) while the other two, Casper Hatlestad and Benjamin Rekstad, are Norwegian. The latter two are music teachers. The song is about a breakup, and is their 6th single. They were also featured on a song by Lake Malawi, who represented the Czech Republic in 2019. 2. Romania- WRS- Llamame 29 years old, started as a back-up dancer and part of the Pro TV Ballet before making his solo debut in 2020. He was nominated for 2 awards. He was part of a boyband in 2015. He learned spanish growing up through Telenovelas, which inspired the Spanish in his song. He considers his body his instrument, as a dancer. 3. Portugal- Maro- Saudade, Saudade- 27 years old, she intended on becoming a vet before deciding to pursue music. She also went to the Berklee College of Music. She currently resides in LA, and made her recording debut in 2018. Saudade is a uniquely portuguese word, meaning something along the lines of a wistful nostalgia. Wanting to see someone who you can no longer see, do things you can no longer do, etc etc

4. Finland- The Rasmus- Jezebel The band formed in 1994 and has achieved global fame with their song In The Shadows, a career spanning 9 albums. This is the first song with guitarist Emppu Suhonen after founding member Pauli Rantasalmi left. Desmond Child, known for writing many Bon Jovi songs(among others) and most recently Kings and Queens by Ava Max, co-wrote the song. The song was written before Emppu joined the band, and has hit both the Finland and Czech Republic music charts at 4th and 8th position, respectively

5. Switzerland- Marius Bear- Boys Do Cry- 29 years old, was a construction mechanic until being drafted into the army. A colleague told him he should pursue music, and he became a professional busker when he returned from the army. Recording debut in 2014. Won a Swiss music award for ‘Best Talent.

6. France- Alvan and Ahez- Fulenn- Thanks to this song being in the Celtic language of Breton, this is the first year in Eurovision history where not a single song is in French. However, it isn’t the first time France has sang in Breton (first time in 1996). Alvan and Ahez met by chance at a bar, which led to this collaboration.

7. Norway- Subwoolfer- Give that Wolf a Banana- Keith, Jim and DJ Astronaut. Two wolves from the moon who are known as ‘the best artists in the galaxy’. The song has more than 7 million hits on Spotify. While no one knows who Keith and Jim are, there is photo evidence that suggests that TIX of last year is DJ Astronaut.

8. Armenia- Rosa Lynn- Snap- 21 years old, a recording artist as of 2021 but made her TV debut in 2013 for Junior Eurovision’s National final. She has been playing Piano since the age of 6.

9. Italy- Mahmood and Blanco- Brividi- Translating to ‘Shivers’, this song sang by the Italian representative of 2019(Mahmood, with Soldi) and a rather successful new artist(Blanco). They are 29 and 19 years old, respectively. Blanco alone has won 3 awards in 2021 with nearly all of his discography being multi-platinum hits. 10. Spain- Chanel- Slo Mo - 30 years old, she is an actress in both musical theater and television since 2011. This song is her official recording debut. She is the first of the night to not have any involvement in the song-writing process.

11. Netherlands- S10- De Diepte- 21 years old, she began her career in 2016. Her debut album won an Edison Award(Dutch equivalent to a Grammy). It is the first song in the Dutch language since 2010. In Dutch, her name would be pronounced ‘Esteen’

12. Ukraine- Kalush Orchestra- Stefania Named after the founding member’s hometown, Kalush Orchestra a rap group that adds folk elements to their music. They were the runner-up of the national final, chosen after the winner withdrew.

13. Germany- Malik Harris- Rockstars 24 years old, he made his recording debut in 2018. He has been doing covers of songs on his guitar since age 13.

14. Lithuania- Monika Lui- Sentimentai- 34 years old, won a competition at age 16. She studied Jazz and also attended Berklee College of Music. She’s been a recording artist since 2013.

15. Azerbaijan- Nadir Rustamli- Fade to Black- 22 years old, he started his musical career in 2017. He won The Voice in his country in 2021, then was internally selected to compete in Eurovision. No involvement in the songwriting process.

16. Belgium- Jeremie Makiese- Miss You. 21 Years old, he joined his church choir at a young age. In 2021 he won The Voice Belgium, and was internally selected. Influences include Michael Jackson, James Brown and Aretha Franklin, as well as Stromae. He is a proffessional footballer. 17. Greece- Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord-Die Together 25 years old, currently resides in Norway. Studied medicine before putting her studies on hold to pursue music. Recording Artist since 2014. 18. Iceland- Systur- Með hækkandi sól- Formed in 2011, a group of three sisters. Their father is a composer and keyboardist. Trans Rights activists! Title translates to ‘With the Rising Sun.’ 19. Moldova- Zdob si Zdub- "Trenulețul" These Eurovision legends barely need an introduction as they repped Moldova in 2005 and 2011, landing 6th place and 12th place respectively. Formed in 1994. 20. Sweden- Cornelia Jakobs- Hold Me Closer- 30 years old, daughter of The Poodles’ lead singer. Entered Melfest 2021 as a songwriter. Made recording debut in 2018, but her tv debut in 2008 on Swedish Idol. 21. Australia- Sheldon Riley- Not the Same- 23 years old, competed in X-Factor Australia, The Voice Australia twice, and America’s Got Talent before winning Australia’s National Final. He made his recording debut in 2018. Eurovision has been his dream ever since seeing Conchita win in 2014. His dress on stage consists of 90 thousand pearls and crystals, and weighs 40 kilos(88lbs). It was made by a team of 27 people and the design sketched by Sheldon himself 5 years ago. 22. United Kingdom- Sam Ryder- Space Man- 32 years old, he has been in the music industry since 2009, first as part of the band The Morning After followed by as a touring guitarist/backing vocalist for Blessed by a Broken Heart. He became their lead vocalist in 2012, but truly rose to fame in 2020 from doing covers on Tiktok during the Pandemic.

23. Poland- Ochman- River- 22 years old, he was born in Massachusetts to a Polish family. Was Prince Charmind in his school’s performance of Cinderella. Went to Poland for Music University. Won The Voice Poland in 2020 on Michal Szpak(2016 representative)’s team.

24. Serbia- Konstrakta- In Corpore Sano- 43 years old, she has been performing since age 19. She was a frontwoman of a band until her solo debut in 2019. Her stage name is inspired from her major in Architecture. The song title, as well as some lyrics, are in Latin. 25. Estonia- STEFAN- Hope- 24 years old, he participated in the national final 4 times in total since 2018. He won The Masked Singer Estonia.

#I'm sorry there's not as many new facts I'm legit falling asleep as I type this #eurovision #esc #Feel free to reblog with extra facts #eurovision 2022 #esc 2022 #eurovision2022 #esc2022

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saltdesert62 · 2 years

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Educational Specialist In School Psychology Eds

For more information about school psychology as a career, you may be interested in consulting The National Association of School Psychologists website. Our small, selective program is characterized not only by outstanding students, but also by a highly productive and caring faculty of excellent teachers and researchers. The college annually awards scholarships to its students to support their academic goals. These financial awards are made by Ohio State to students based on academic merit through a university-wide competition. Learn an ecological problem-solving model of practice and how to apply it in a variety of settings, particularly in urban schools.

Our School Psychology faculty dedicate a substantial amount of time and effort to our graduate students.

Program emphasizes need for students to become intelligent consumers and producers of research, and are trained to deliver culturally sensitive and ethical practices.

The current program is an 85-semester unit sequence consisting of coursework, field experience and research training that requires a minimum of three years to complete.

Become a leader in school psychology, taking an education rooted in science and modern techniques to develop and manage programs that improve the lives of children and their families.

The Trinity Education Department sends third-year interns to the Texas Association of School Psychologists’ annual meeting where students network with practicing school psychologists. A study of test and interview-based assessment methods to assess psychosocial development. The focus is on how diagnostic formulation is used to prepare comprehensive intervention plans.

School psychologists advocate for students, parents, and caregivers. The three major elements that comprise social justice include equity, fairness, and respect. The concept of social justice includes all individuals having equal access to opportunities and resources. A major component behind social justice is the idea of being culturally aware and sensitive. American Psychological Association and the National Association of School Psychologists both have ethical principles and codes of conduct that present aspirational elements of social justice that school psychologists may abide by. Some common roles are counseling, crisis intervention, consultation, psycho-educational assessment, social skills training, advocacy, behavioral interventions, academic interventions and research. Graduates of our program help students in today’s diverse public schools to achieve academically, socially, and emotionally—and they are sought after by employers. Although most go on to rewarding careers as school psychologists in public schools, others pursue careers in hospitals, private schools, prison facilities, and private practice. https://tpte.utk.edu/2020/04/16/tn-behavior-supports-project-offers-online-resources-support-for-educators-families/

Program Licensure

Able to obtain pertinent information through behavior observation, interviews, school records, and community resources that enhance the effectiveness of remedial programs and other intervention strategies. A genuine respect for individual and cultural diversity relative to the practice of professional psychology. Active in current healthcare reform endeavors, studies integrated behavioral health, attachment theory, and consultation theories and processes such as home-school partnership and family-centered treatment. Our PhD program in School Psychology is designed to prepare you for a fulfilling career in the field. Prior graduate coursework and/or professional licensure may reduce the amount of time needed to complete the doctoral program. The school psychology program faculty admit highly-qualified individuals who will enrich the program’s commitment to a diverse student population. Students are selected on the basis of their compatibility with the overall goals of the school psychology program and to the profession. Our intention is to select students whose professional goals, interests, and expertise match the available resources within the school psychology program. If you’re not sure where to start, check out some resources on the history of anti- Black racism in the U.S. here and/or this tool for anti-racist self-reflection here. We are always here if you need additional support or have ideas for this justice work in our program or the School of Education. The SWOSU School Psychology program is a nationally recognized program that provides specialized advanced graduate preparation in assessment, intervention, and mental health. Educational psychologists work with educators, administrators, teachers, and students to learn more about how to help people learn best. This often involves finding ways to identify students who may need extra help, developing programs for students who are struggling, and even creating new learning methods. For example, teachers might reward learning by giving students tokens that can be exchanged for desirable items such as candy or toys. The behavioral perspective operates on the theory that students will learn when rewarded for "good" behavior and punished for "bad" behavior. Demonstrate knowledge and skills in diversity as it pertains to development and learning.

Our Program Mission

Demonstrate strong knowledge in research methods and the ability to apply this knowledge within the diverse school context. Use varied consultation, collaboration, and communication methods as members of multidisciplinary teams to meet the needs of children, families, and systems. This video overview summarizes the key elements of our three-year, in-person, cohort program for prospective students. The Academic Health Collaborative provides interdisciplinary teaching and learning spaces, and access to experts, for all of URI's health disciplines. News and World Report‘s Best Jobs Rankings 2014, based on a variety of factors including salary, job satisfaction, and upward mobility, all of which are rated as above average. Please check the State Authorizations page to determine if Eastern University’s program fulfills your state credentialing requirements. It is one of only 6 programs of its kind in Massachusetts, and it provides you with a high-quality education at a competitive cost. Similarly, licensure for school psychologists will depend on their state’s department of education. However, the National Association of School Psychologists offers a National Certified School Psychologist designation, which is recognized by 33 states as a means of getting a license. Despite what you may think, educational and school psychology are not the same.

#school psychology

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central-philippine-university · 2 years

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Joan Cataluña Sabran Castor: A Board Passer’s story of success.

Centralian Joan Cataluña Sabran Castor: September 2021 LET Board Passer.

Due to some difficult circumstances, Joan Cataluña Sabran became a self-supporting student since her elementary up to college. She struggled and did her best to become successful. She eventually realized her dream and passed the September 2021 Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).

The following, as told by Joan, is a true story of sacrifice, perseverance, and determination to succeed; a reality that many work students of today with the same situations and experiences may follow.

Joan came from a fragmented family and was not living with her biological parents when she was still a baby. She was adopted by her aunt and uncle that’s why her last name became Sabran. Later on, with her marriage, her family name became Castor. She grew up with her Lola (grandmother) who took care of her and helped her to study in a public elementary school.

“I worked in the farm to help Lola in harvesting rice. She recalled in Ilonggo, “Pang garab lang humay (rice stalks), amon pangitan-an ni Lola sang una, para makakaon.” (That was our only source of income so that we can eat). Joan started as a working student since grade 5. I served other people at their homes – working as a kabulig (helper) to be able to buy my needs in school projects and daily allowance.” “I graduated from the Mambiranan Elementary School in Calinog, Iloilo.”

“I pursued my secondary education, again, by being a working student at Leganes National High School. I graduated With Honors and was the Model Girl of the Year Awardee,” she recalled.

Joan is thankful to Central Philippine University for the opportunity to study in college through its Work-Study program. She was qualified and became a dedicated work student. She graduated from CPU in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Health Fitness and Lifestyle Management degree – under the College of Medicine. She was a recipient of the God’s Grace Program since her first year in college and was awarded as an OUTSTANDING WORK STUDENT during the college honors and awards in the same year.

During her time in college, she recalls, “I was a working student assigned to the Weston Hall Ladies Dormitory and Dining Hall under the Services Laboratory Assistance Group. I was reassigned to the Janitorial Student Assistance Office so that I can balance my work and the On-the-Job Training requirement during my 4th year.”

She added that “Since there was no financial support for me at that time, I volunteered my services to the tenants at the Weston Hall dormitory. I washed their clothes, do errands for them; I served coffee, and snacks during my vacant periods. Life was difficult or so I thought, but my optimism and belief in God encouraged me to work hard even more.”

“As a challenge, I ran for a position of a Board Member in the College of Medicine as part of the Reform Party in the CPUR elections, and I won!”, she said.

Joan was hired as a Secretary of the Office of the University President on a job order basis from July 1 to December 15, 2017, and on probation from December 16, 2017 until June 16, 2018. She later became a regular CPU employee after some time. “Thank you so much to University President Dr. Teodoro C. Robles for the job,” she said.

Joan was appointed Logistics Coordinator under the CPU Project ETC in June 2019 until this time. Joan also enrolled in the Diploma in Teaching program of the University (2018-2019).

“I was scheduled to take the Licensure Examination for Teachers in March 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, I took the exam on September 26, 2021 as scheduled.” Joan passed the LET Board Exam.

“It was a roller coaster ride before that since I stopped reviewing for the LET last year March 2020 upon knowing the postponement. I was almost losing hope for the LET exam to finally push through.” She added, “I stopped my review and did not open my notes anymore until August this year. Last June 2021, I was hospitalized, and I thought I won’t survive.” Her blood pressure was at (50/0). “This is my second life now. I had to realize the purpose of this God-given life,” Joan reflected.

“I prayed hard as I was about to take the exam. I asked God to give me wisdom so I can make it to the list of the LET board passers. God sustained me. I passed the Exam! Praise the Lord! God is always there despite the challenges in my life. I was strengthened by those challenges.” “I would always remember our work student motto, “Labor is Honor”, Joan added. She shared a favorite verse from Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Joan was recently married to Mr. Rene Castor Jr.

cpu.edu.ph

#centralphilippineuniversity #centralian #iloiloschool #bestschooliloilo #panayschool #westernvisayasschool #ilonggopride

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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Paris — At his swearing-in ceremony, new Education Minister Pap Ndiaye paid tribute to the nation’s teachers, singling out Samuel Paty, killed by an Islamist extremist in 2020.

Ndiaye described himself as a symbol of meritocracy and diversity. Rather than feeling proud, he said, he assumed his new job with a sense of duty and responsibility.

The 57-year-old Ndiaye is a longtime university professor and expert on the history of minorities and rights movements in both France and the United States. Last year, he was tapped to head France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration.

“It was unexpected, obviously, but it was very good news.”

Louis-Georges Tin is a Black rights activist and former head of the Representative Council of Black Associations, or CRAN. He salutes the new education minister.

“He’s a brilliant person," Tin said. "He’s respected in the academy. He’s done quite a few actions in terms also of the fight against racism in the country.”

While Tin is not alone in praising Ndiaye’s appointment, some right-wing politicians are criticizing it.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who came second in last month’s presidential vote, described Ndiaye’s designation as an alarming signal for the future. She called him a defender of so-called "racialism" and woke-ism, which critics deride as a leftist protest ideology. Other critics describe Ndiaye as anti-police.

Interviewed on French radio, Ndiaye’s sister, award-winning author Marie Ndiaye, said she wasn’t surprised at the criticism — but called it absurd and stupid.

Some observers say the controversy over Ndiaye’s appointment reflects simmering discrimination in France, as the 2020 death of African-American George Floyd in police custody in the United States ignited similar Black rights protests here.

In interviews over the years, Pap Ndiaye has said France is reluctant to fully examine its history of colonialism and slavery. He has praised French police but also said police violence should be discussed.

Activist Louis-Georges Tin said much more needs to be done in teaching French students about discrimination. Tin said he fears Ndiaye’s efforts to change things during his tenure will result in pushback.

“Having a Black minister in France is not new," Tin said. "And having racist attacks is not new either. It’s always the same story … so that’s why we are in a situation of state racism, systemic racism. People don’t want Black ministers in this country.”

Ndiaye is certainly different from his predecessor, Jean-Michel Blanquer, who criticized both the “Black Lives Matter” movement and so-called woke culture. Education unions, which clashed with Blanquer, have reacted positively to the country’s new education chief.

#nunyas news

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entrevista-para-clase · 1 day

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Chicanx Latinx Oral History Project: Mex2025

Arianna Michaud | May 6, 2024 | ANTH 3140 | Spring 2024

Through my talks with the collaborator of this work, he discussed his journey from being ashamed of his culture and experiencing citizenship difficulties which fostered feelings of loneliness to experiencing community and being proud of his heritage. This experience is reflected in many other Mexican individuals in the United States.

My collaborator identifies as Mexican as opposed to Latino, Hispanic, or Chicano. As a result and per his request to remain anonymous, I've chosen to list his pseudonym as Mex2025- his identity followed by the year he graduates college. I interviewed Mex2025 on March 28, 2024 in the College of Visual Arts and Design on University of North Texas' campus.

Mex2025 is a 31 year old man born in Monterrey, Nuevo Léon. He moved to Dallas but visited family in Mexico frequently. It was only when his younger sister, the first United States citizen in the family, was born 2 year old Mex2025 alongside his family stopped visiting Mexico. They moved to Carrollton, Texas when Mex2025 was in preschool. In total, Mex2025 has 4 sisters, the youngest of which being 13 at the time of this writing.

Throughout his childhood, Mex2025 struggled to learn to speak English until the 4th grade. He spent his early years ashamed of being Hispanic and often avoided disclosing his ethnicity or national heritage. This avoidance originated in the second grade, when Mex2025 was shamed by a peer for not knowing how to spell house in English. This, alongside seeing another child experience ridicule for the aromatic food he was eating, caused Mex2025 to not want to eat his mother's food and as a result was closer to his father. Being the only sibling without United States citizenship and the only one to struggle with English, Mex2025 felt abnormal even within his own family. Despite these struggles, Mex2025 didn't report a bad school experience. He had friends to hang out with one he grasped the English language and participated in online gaming communities from the age of 6.

One of those communities was Runescape. Through the game, he was able to meet people of varying nationalities and ages. About his experience on Runescape, Mex2025 said the following:

"I met two friends, Patrick, Pat, and I don’t remember his little brother’s name. But they were both Korean American and that’s kind of how I got into this huge aspect of my life. Kind of growing up with a lot of Korean culture and living in Carrollton, being in the Koreatown. So I mean like yeah, it did affect my school a lot but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get any good out of it."

Mex2025 played Runescape throughout middle school, until it became a problem academically. In high school, Mex2025 developed a passion for art and had dreams of being a museum curator. Unfortunately, he saw another artistically gifted student get their full ride to a prestigious art college revoked because "he was like [Mex2025]. He was undocumented." This experience alongside discouragement from his father, who wanted Mex2025 to go into business, led to Mex2025 giving up on academics.

It was only when Mex2025 joined the Academic Decathlon that he experienced an explicitly positive personal academic experience. The teacher's confidence in Mex2025's ability to perform as an A student despite being a C student motivated him to start trying and subsequently receive a large number of medals and awards. After high school, Mex2025 attended community college. Due to his undocumented status, Mex2025 couldn’t work and instead had to rely on his parents for college payments. About the financial situation, Mex2025 said “I felt, I felt like a huge burden. I felt terrible. I felt awful. So I just dropped out after two years.” Once he could legally work in 2013 thanks to DACA, Mex2025 slowly started saving up to continue his education. From 2010 to 2020, he took classes here and there as he could afford them. The increase of classes online due to COVID allowed Mex2025 to commit more fully to college coursework.

In between leaving college to avoid parental financial burden and the passing of DACA, Mex2025 learned Korean from a textbook he bought inspired by his friends who were attending 4 year institutions. Mex2025 utilized language exchange programs to speak with others in Korean and found it to be an overall positive experience. This language proficiency alongside his Spanish and English knowledge allowed Mex2025 job opportunities in translation and with Korean companies.

In 2021 Mex2025 joined a highly competitive program at UNT in which there is a small cohort of students that all take the same major courses. This fostered a classroom community that helped Mex2025 have the social support he needed in times of uncertainty due to his DACA paperwork being delayed. Currently, he does freelance work and will be interning over the summer.

To transcribe this work, I played the hour long audio recording and typed what I heard as I listened. Once that was complete, I printed the transcript and highlighted common themes in different colored highlighters. The themes are as follows: childhood, educational struggles, art, negative and positive emotions regarding education, immigration, DACA, Korean culture, identity, pride, shame, labels, learning English and Korean, and technology. These themes helped me to further understand Mex2025’s experience in the tapestry of other experiences had by undocumented and Latinx students.

Immigration issues have been a stressor in Mex2025’s life since he was a child, from visiting Mexico to losing his job due to DACA delay. Despite this additional barrier, Mex2025 has been able to claim vast accomplishments and continues to amass them. The USAmerican collective idea of a Mexican immigrant is vastly separated from reality

Benedict Anderson’s idea of imagined community amongst the Latinx community is seen here through Mex2025’s pride in his nationality and therefore community he feels with other Mexican people despite not knowing them personally.

Hispanic was created as a catch all term for Latinx, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other people from Central America. Mex2025’s rejection of that term avoids assumption and bolsters his pride in his community.

Bibliography

Alicia Ivonne Estrada. 2021. “11. (Re)Claiming Public Space and Place: Maya Community Formation in Westlake/MacArthur Park.” New York University Press EBooks, August, 146–56. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479805198.003.0012.

Lisa Marie Cacho. 2011. “Racialized Hauntings of the Devalued Dead.” Duke University Press EBooks, January, 25–52. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394075-002.

Oboler, Suzanne. 2021. “5. Disposable Strangers: Mexican Americans, Latinxs, and the Ethnic Label ‘Hispanic’ in the Twenty- First Century.” New York University Press EBooks, August, 67–80. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479805198.003.0006.

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