#mcps

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has filed a civil rights complaint against Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), alleging severe, persistent and pervasive antisemitism in the schools that district officials have failed to address, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.  The complaint, against Maryland’s largest school district, was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today.

The ZOA’s complaint documents years of antisemitic harassment and intimidation endured by Jewish students and staff, including the following: 

Ethnic slurs, such as “Jewish f—k,” “Jew-boy” and Hey, Jew”; “Heil Hitler” salutes; and Jewish “jokes” from peers that recommend that Jewish students should be put in a concentration camp. One Jewish student was recently told that Hitler had not done enough and that he should go back to Israel. 

School property throughout the district has been defaced with swastikas.

In December 2022, the entrance sign at one MCPS high school was vandalized with the words, “Jews Not Welcome.” The day before, several staff members at the high school received antisemitic email messages.

School staff who have publicly denied the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, and who have publicly called for Israel’s elimination are tolerated and remain in teaching positions in the district. MCPS retained a staff member who promoted the lie that “Palestinians are being killed and their organs are being sold.”  MCPS hired this staff member as a “diversity, equity and inclusion” teacher.

Student “pro-Palestinian” walkouts at MCPS high schools after the Hamas massacre disrupted school operations and caused many Jewish students to stay away from school out of fear for their safety. School officials tolerated the walkouts and remained silent even after student protesters at these walkouts legitimized and encouraged violence and terrorism against Jews and Israelis and called for Israel’s destruction.

At one MCPS high school, the organizers of the “pro-Palestinian” walkout posted on social media that “There is no country called Israel” and “‘Israel’ is a group of Zionist Jewish people from all over the world & dont [sic] have a state.” The organizers also openly called for Israel’s elimination, posting, “We want liberation, we want our lands back.  All of PALESTINE.  From the river to the sea.”  School officials not only failed to condemn the conduct; they allowed the walkout to proceed and disrupt classes, and later commended the protesters for “demonstrating peacefully.”

At another high school walkout in MCPS, a faculty member overheard one student say, “We should bring Hitler back,” and another student say, “Kill the Jews.” After being alerted to the antisemitic comments and threat, the principal failed even to alert the community or condemn the comments.  Instead, the principal praised the protesters for their “fantastic job.”  Moreover, MCPS retaliated against the faculty member who reported the antisemitic comments and threat, by knowingly making false accusations against her and baselessly sanctioning her.

MCPS retaliated against other staff members after they raised concerns about antisemitism in their schools.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein and Director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., stated, “The ZOA’s complaint is based on horrifying reports from parents and teachers about the antisemitism that MCPS officials have known about for years and have failed to address.  Their indifference and inaction are a stark contrast to how vigilantly district officials have responded when other ethnic and racial groups were targeted.

“Members of the MCPS community have spent years trying to resolve the antisemitism in their school district. They’ve asked for district officials to speak out forcefully against antisemitism, to appropriately discipline perpetrators, and to provide students and staff with the training they need to understand how antisemitism is expressed today and how to respond to it effectively.  But these community members have largely been met with indifference and even hostility from district officials.

“We are grateful to the many community members who came forward to share their painful experiences with us.  And we are hoping that the Office for Civil Rights will investigate the ZOA’s complaint promptly and thoroughly.  It’s time that MCPS is finally held accountable under the law for failing to provide a learning environment that is physically and psychologically safe for Jews.”

[felinefractious]

🐱 Maine Coon Polydactyl [6666]

📸 Irina Goriunova [Eyktan]

🎨 Black Tortoiseshell

[mycutepastels]

<3

[peacereturnedtothevalley]

as of media club plus 26 (hxh spoilers if you’re following along to the pod)

[qurolo]

Two little knife wielding, “slightly” unhinged kids(kind of)

Yeah 👍

Anyway again, these two fandoms would totally get along

ALSO- I did NOT know that Paris was fucking 5’11

Process below cut

[int3rn3tb0y]

I hav FINALLY thought abt it and talked abt it w/ ppl and THEY AGREE W/ MEEEE!!! ^_^ (this'll be kinda rushed since I'm in the middle of smth and trying to multitask and my spelling is super shitty)

IM GONNA GET FACE FIRST INTO THIS AND JUS SAY THAT THE INFANTILATION IN THE GHOST EYES FANDOM IS A PROBLEM!! All I get when I ppl talking abt it I jus see "Stop calling Rudy" this and "Tobias isn't a cinnamon roll" which is 100% true and maybe it's me being a full on hater when it comes to calling ANYONE that but it actually is very annoying. I see so many ppl calling Rudy (I'll mostly be talking abt Rudy here only bcuz he's the one I see these statements most targeted at) a cinnamon roll and it infuriates me bcuz DID WE READ THE SAME FUCKING COMIC?? BCUZ IF YOU'RE ACTING LIKE THIS I SURE AS HELL KNOW WE DIDN'T! Rudy has shown on multiple accounts he isn't very innocent like (I don't hav many examples but I know for a fact there's more) his movies and the fact he hunts! Though the hunting thing isn't big I jus wanted to mention it. Also ppl calling him a femboy is annoying bcuz theres a HUGE difference between a "femboy" and a boy who jus happens to like dressing in feminine clothes (also the small fact femboy is a sexual term imo and Rudy IS A MINOR) Rudy is more than jus a bean and I need ppl to notice that. I don't see ppl talking abt this topic I'm gonna bring up often but I'd like to put it into to light either way which is ppl in the fandom mostly caring abt the "bl" (aka Boys lov for those who don't know) title and I most prominently saw this on the forest scene w/ ppl constantly talking abt them shipping Tobias and Emilio but not the fact that Emilio CLEARLY ASSAULTED TOBIAS and I only remember seeing ONE person talking abt it and how "kinky" it is (especially in the Halloween arc where Emilio has an episode) which is WEIRD bcuz jus like Rudy EMILIO IS A MINOR AND THAT IS WEIRD TO BE TALKING ABT A MINOR IN THAT WAY and when I found out abt ghost eyes I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THERE WAS GONNA BE GAY PPL (I don't see a problem w/ it since I, myself is in the lgbtq+ community) I FOUND GHOST EYES OUT THROUGH A PERSON MAKING EDITS ABT THE COMIC I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE THE "BL" IN THE CORNER OF THE COVER! anyways I dunno how to finish this rant off since that's all I want to say other than ppl are very annoying (and weird) especially towards "cute" looking characters (not to say the characters I went over aren't cute bcuz I find them adorable) anyways bye!!!

[pantherpilz]

finally read ghost in the machine and ?? the whole comic is already a lot, but this???? this ?? uhhhh

[astercontrol]

Ever think about how amazing it is that we got a character like the Bit in TRON 1982?

I mean, yeah, having some cute little robot or animal side characters was, and still is, very typical of movies in that genre.

But, look at the Bit.

It's based on a computer science concept, of course: the simplest unit of data in a computer, a single 1 or 0 indicating yes or no. And it's anthropomorphized just enough to get actual computer nerds confused about what exactly it is supposed to be. Clearly you'd need lots more than one bit, to create a programmed entity that behaved the way a Bit does!

Is it the mystical energy of Programmer Spirits that animates it beyond what should be possible-- as it does for the Programs themselves, who also aren't nearly complex enough to be alive on their own? Or is a Bit something else, like an external subroutine of a program, which is called a Bit simply because of the way it communicates?

Who knows? Who cares? It's a Bit! It's adorable!

And yet… this same level of anthropomorphizing is very unusual for Disney, and for the whole genre, in a whole different way.

Though it's much more animate than one could reasonably imagine for an actual bit… the Bit is much less anthropomorphic than any creature playing any comparable role in any comparable movie I can think of.

It has no eyes, no mouth, no words except a synthesized Yes and No. It expresses itself only by shifting appearance between three faceless geometric shapes.

And yes, we love it! Yes, we adore the heck out of that sassy little thing! Yes, we will absolutely look at this object that resembles no person or animal in existence, and we will find enough cuteness to scream over!

We are the weird nerdy audience that you sucked in with the promise of a movie about computer programs being alive, and YES we are invested enough to take this ALL the way!

But I haven't seen any other movie do this, ever since.

And even the original Tron movie wasn't GOING to do it, at first.

Now, every other time I've looked at the early development of ideas in a movie, I've seen a pattern of "Less Relatable being reworked into More Relatable." Any creature design that looks "too weird," "too unfamiliar," "too alien," will evolve over the course of edits, until it satisfies the developers' expectations for being something audiences can relate to.

In other words… looking at the early concept art and the final product, I am certain any other movie I can think of would've adapted the Bit in the exact opposite direction.

Same with the MCP.

Whether it's a villain or an adorable little sidekick, the fans who became captivated by the classic Tron movie are an audience eager and ready to see life and personality in something utterly alien, something that resembles no actual life in the world we know.

And yet, I'm sure this wasn't even the goal of any of the character designers.

When you look at the early design of the Programs, you see them follow a more typical pattern, starting out more robotic, less humanoid, less "Relatable," and progressing toward recognizable humanity.

That movie, I'm pretty sure, was an exception to the rule not because of any philosophy about what would resonate with audiences... but simply because of the constraints of the medium.

The Bit and the MCP became more simple, more geometric, because that was easier to computer-animate.

Programs became more humanoid because that was easier for human actors to play.

A big, huge chunk of what made this movie relatable in a gloriously weird way, to gloriously weird audiences who may have had serious trouble relating to lots of other media, is just a serendipitous side-effect of the wild experiment that it was.

...I wish movies would take risks like that more often.

Really.

[simonbreeze]

It's Monday, must be time for some Marvel!

This guy is my Doc-Oc form Spider Foes for Marvel Crisis Protocol. Had great fun paint him, lots of vibrant green and yellows!

[gas-station-chai]

WHO just called Jack Townsend bear codded. WHAT

[ninthprime]

a week from today jack will meet the gorilla

[vertigoartgore]

1992's Marvel Comics Presents Vol.1 #102 B cover by Sam Kieth. Source

[felinefractious]

Bluesmaine Rainbow

🐱 Maine Coon Polydactyl

📸 Natalya Alyeva [Bluesmaine]

🎨 Black Silver Shaded

[mycutepastels]

naawberry

[peacereturnedtothevalley]

I want to relisten to mcp to collect Jack’s Mistake(s)

[qurolo]

I made a silly little thing:

A bunch of silly little guys,

Just being silly!

With audio (the superior version imho)

And without

LOOK AT THEM GO

And just playing with filters below, TW flashing lights