Random Notes from a Crank

Jennifer Berskhire has a great article in The Nation that anyone who cares about public education should read. It's titled "Why Teachers Are Dropping Out." 

Because of a confluence of low pay, exploitation, shitty benefits, attacks against teacher unions, and stupid cultural battles about what's being taught in classrooms that is aided and abetted by Fox Faux News and other right-wing media outlets, I worry about the teachers we're losing in public education. 

Then again, having witnessed the sorry state of social studies education my daughter has gotten in her high school, some of those folks' teaching practices (or lack thereof) need to be examined. They wouldn't know squat about critical race theory and would only hazily understand it. Unfortunately, as the stereotype goes, the social studies faculty all too often are an intellectual backwater of coaches. 

The crap going on in Iowa in regard to K-12 education, for example, is ridiculous. And other nonsense like that is happening in other states. 

Meanwhile as Russia's invasion of Ukraine goes on, the ratings leader of Faux News, Tucker Carlson, is a darling of Russia's state-run propaganda machine: "How Russia Is Using Tucker Carlson In Its Propaganda." 

Random Notes from a Crank

Texas held the first primaries of the year the other day, and there was a tremendous turnout of Democratic voters as you can read about in Newsweek: "Democrat Turnout Surges 87 Percent in Texas Primary Since 2014." 

The trick of course is using that enthusiasm to capture seats in Congress and the the Texas legislature in November. We'll see.

Here in Illinois we vote in our primaries on the 20th. J.B. Pritzker sure has a crapton of money because he's been running TV ads for ages. I prefer Daniel Biss, but I suspect Pritzker will win the nomination for candidate for Governor. 

That Stormy Daniels affair keeps resurfacing, doesn't it? Moscow Don aka David Dennison is getting sued: "The 7 Most Ineresting Aspects of Stormy Daniels's Lawsuit Against Trump." 

I foresee a lot of David Dennison jokes in the future.