No Kings

I'm going to change my little graphic up top. I won't get to it until school is out, and I'm not sure what it'll say, but I'm not doing any sort of "what to do" kind of posts. What I'm doing is ranting about what's going on. 

I aspire to "what to do". But right now I don't know. Besides advocating calling your reps and telling them that you don't like what's going on. And perhaps letting you know the next major protest is a "No Kings" thing scheduled for the day our petulant man-baby leader is throwing himself a military parade like all the despot dictators hold for themselves (that would be June 14th). 

Today I have a request. Does anyone know where to find a good article explaining how the most recent presidents did on the budget? 

On Saturday, I got into a yelling match with a MAGAt, and when I mentioned that the Repubs have basically tanked the budgets to get tax breaks for billionaires while the Dems mostly balanced things out, she attacked me (verbally), loudly proclaiming the opposite. (Fox News has rotted her brain.) Telling me that the deficit ballooned under Dem presidents. (Which it has, but that's a both sides thing.) 

I know there's something out there that breaks this down quite well, but I can't find it (and I don't have the time to go digging right now). If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it. 

Finally, I'll leave you with an article about how the U.S. is continuing its descent into villain territory. Now the ICC isn't safe in the U.S. (Because going after the people that investigate crimes against humanity is what we do now.) And an article on how those LLMs work. (That's what AI actually is.) 

• Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model

Take care of yourself. Stay safe. 

Quick Edit: They're talking about making COVID boosters only available to those over 65 or otherwise with risk factors. Everyone else would be out of luck. Public comments are open until Friday, May 23rd. Go here: public comments on COVID boosters. 

A Cable Swatch

On May 5th, I posted a picture of some of my swatching for my take-along project. My final image was of the beginning of the cabling swatch: 

I warned you that it didn't look like anything yet. And it didn't. I have now completed just over a pattern repeat, so now you can see what it's supposed to look like.

I kinda like it, kinda don't. Not sure what I'm going to do. The idea is to take four different cable patterns and do them in different colors. We'll see. I have to test it out and see how it all looks together first. 

It's something to work on. Until something better comes along. 

That Teen Attitude

Thursday. Third period.

It was a pause day in our reading of The Great Gatsby. The students had an assignment on various quotes from the book, and I was giving them the period to complete it. It was also some time for them to go over the chapters to prepare for an upcoming quiz. 

I had explained the assignment, solicited questions, and released them to work independently. The room settled. I took a quick walk around the room to make sure they knew I was available for questions. 

I passed behind Aria. She had a computer out, but propped on it was her phone. With a movie playing. Deep sigh. 

"Are you going to get to work?" I asked, in my sweetest, quietest voice. 

Aria turned towards me with a look of such malevolence that I was surprised her head did not continue all the way around in a full circle. 

This is the girl who complained that I didn't give them more in class time to complete a previous assignment. 

And so many of them had phones out and were clearly not working on the assignment. 

Ah well. I suppose they don't need class time to finish their work anymore. Fine by me. I'd rather spend time on the chapters, anyway.

Sideways

Tuesday. 

You ever have one of those days? Nothing wrong, exactly. It's not a bad day. But things just kinda feel off. 

First off, I was running late. (I ran late all week. Just tired. Even though I'd been sleeping.) When I got home and looked in the mirror, I realized I had forgotten to apply makeup before leaving for school. And I didn't even notice all day. Sigh. 

I start my day with the daily Wordle. I do this as I log into the computers (for this gig, I've been using three, daily... well, four if you count the in-class TV screen). And... Hole in one:

And you know my first reaction? "Damn it! Now I have to find a new starter word." (It's now "tenor". In case you're interested.) 

Just as I was coming to terms with that (and while I was eating a muffin), the assistant principal dropped in. (It was my prep period. I was kind of trying to sort of prep.) I did need to see him. 

I have two ELD classes. They have to take a test yearly called the ELPAC. A few of them really need to take it so they can reclassify. (They'd be considered "fluent" in English, so they would no longer need to take an ELD class.) I can't give it because sub, so I have to coordinate with another teacher to get it done. 

The assistant principal came by to discuss when we'd get this done. He proposed doing it Wednesday/Thursday. But, long story short, that fell through as the teacher who would have done it then was actually out on Tuesday, so he couldn't coordinate anything. Naturally. 

I went back to getting prepped for the day. I looked over the next quiz the eleventh graders would take on The Great Gatsby. And as I read through it, I discovered that there are questions on it that I have not covered. Stuff like symbolism. And... Yeah, probably should mention some of this stuff so the quiz doesn't take them by surprise. 

It's always something. I suppose I should have realized that things were going too smoothly. I had to be missing something. Hopefully I found most of the issues. 

No Spoilers

Monday. Seventh period. 

It was the end of the period. The kiddos had put away their Chromebooks and were lining up at the door. 

Elliot: "Oh my god! Chapter seven..."

The eleventh grade English classes are reading The Great Gatsby. I may have mentioned this once or twice. On Monday, they had a quiz on the first three chapters. And then we started reading chapter four together. 

However, some students are reading ahead. I'm not sure why as we will be reading the whole thing together, but whatever. I'm not going to stop them. 

Elliot's been a chapter or so ahead for over a week. He was kind of bragging how far ahead he was. But this day, he was blown away by the events of chapter seven. 

And... Well... Yeah. I'm not giving spoilers for those of you who may be tempted to read it. But here's a link to the chapter summary for those of you who would like a reminder or aren't worried about spoilers. Anyway, chapter seven is a humdinger of a chapter. 

I nodded in understanding. Dennis, who sits next to Elliot, was also a bit blown away, as he said he looked over at what Elliot was reading. Elliot pointed out that Dennis really needed to read the prior chapters as they set the scene for chapter seven. 

"Just don't spoil it for the rest of the class, please," I asked. 

Elliot: "Oh no. I want to see their reaction when they read it." 

Me too, actually. 

Although, considering how bland their expressions are, I rather think they won't visibly react. We'll see. 

As for the quiz, they did pretty well. So, maybe they're not reacting, but it seems like they're following along with the plot just fine. 

Information Is Key

There are some people we can't reach. These people are fully in the cult. No matter what arguments we make, they'll still believe the lies of the regime. In fact, they might actually approve of what the regime is doing. 

And yet, it seems like in general, they seem to be the ones that get targeted by all the memes and arguments and media. 

We forget that there are so many people who just don't want to get political. The low-information voters. And the mass media has downplayed and normalized all the horrors. These are the people we need to reach. Because they don't realize how bad things truly are. 

And things are bad. ICE arrested a sitting mayor and disappeared him. A woman who was arrested for writing an op ed (and denied her asthma medication, so she was in severe respiratory distress) was finally released, but only after hard fighting to get her out. RFK Jr wants to create a list of autistic people (and why would the government want a list like that?). The regime is ignoring judicial orders. And that's just the things I can think of off the top of my head. 

So, what should we do? 

Well, first, call your reps and register your opposition to them cutting Medicaid. Then, don't help the regime make any lists. Be aware of where ICE is in your community, and if you see them kidnapping people, do what you can to impede them. (I know, some will only get themselves kidnapped too, so only what you can safely do.) 

Finally, I'm including last week's Last Week Tonight (just because)... 

...and a video that popped up on my BlueSky feed. It'll be interesting to see who agrees and who is offended by this one. 

Take care of yourself. Take care of your community. Stay safe. 

Two Rows

The last time I mentioned my dragon swatch was in April: 

And I pretty much hadn't worked on it since. There's just something about how complicated it is that stalls me out. I feel like I should have a couple hours of time to just sit and knit before I'll even contemplate pulling it out. 

So, last Sunday, after spending the day busy (with laundry and blog writing and such), I again found myself in the evening hours without having pulled out the dragon even though I wanted to. And so I told myself, "Just two rows." I could do just two rows. And I did. 

At that moment, I determined that I could do two rows a day. It's not much, but it's way better than the nothing I've been doing. 

So, before my two rows for yesterday: 

Progress. Definite progress. 

I counted. I've got 14 more "two rows" days to complete the dragon. (There are a few rows of straight stockinette stitch to form the border. I'm not counting those as I don't have to focus on them.) This is doable. 

(I'm not going to say it'll take me 14 days as Saturdays I'm busy elsewhere, so I won't commit to the two rows that day. And there's the possibility that a day might get away from me.) 

I'm getting there. Finally. I've been working on this thing off and on for two years now. Two years? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been two years.