Random Notes from a Crank

With the Packers losing at home and the unvaccinated Aaron Rodgers not throwing a TD pass, that offense and Rodgers really could have used ... a shot in the arm. 

The Washington Post has a good article about the game: "How the 49ers Beat the Packers in the Lambeau Field Snow."  The 49ers went old school against them. As Sally Jenkins says, "The moral to them [SF], with their bandaged-handed quarterback and their toss sweeps, is that football is still a hitting game, and still a game won as much by the unglamorous men as the glamorous." 

This not-so-recent article from New York Times Magazine, "What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn," is revealing and can be used to make a good argument for smart, comprehensive sexual education. 

Tottenham Hotspur hasn't done squat in the January transfer window so far. There are craptons of rumors and supposed reports out there on the InterWebs, but nothing has transpired yet. It's frustrating. 

When I picked Spurs to be my main club to root for in the Premier League, someone had compared Tottenham to the Minnesota Vikings in some online article I read, and I think that's a pretty apt comparison. 

They have a number of excellent and good players along with a strong tradition, but they'll often disappoint you. 

I've been commiserating with Ben and Sim on WeAreTottenhamTV during the window. Those fellows do some fine work. 

Random Notes from a Crank

If there is no one in the porn industry working on a spoof of Moscow Don and the Stormy Daniels affair, filmmakers should be ashamed of themselves. 

And that statement begs the question: Are there any porn filmmakers who can be shamed? 

This much is clear: Moscow Don is a consummate buffoon. 

I have about 130 pages to go to finish Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant. It's quite good and provides a much needed history of Reconstruction that K-12 and college classes neglected from me. 

I'm not entirely through the whole of the biographer's coverage of his presidency, but one of my only gripes about the book is that perhaps it needed to cover more about what was going on with Native Americans during his administration. The horrible crap happened late in his second term, but I wanted more analysis of why Grant acted the way he did toward Natives and why his decisions led to destruction of their lives and culture. 

I did learn that Grant was a big proponent of the separation of church and state, a principle I have in common with him. Here are two statements from speeches he gave in 1875 that should clearly show where he stands on public education:

• "Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school ... Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church and the private school support[ed] entirely by private contribution. Keep the church and state forever separate."
• The US should "establish and forever maintain free public schools adequate to the education of all the children ... irrespective of sex, color, birthplace, or religions; forbidding the teaching in said schools of religious, atheistic, or pagan tenets; and prohibiting the granting of any school-funds, or school-taxes ... in aid ... of any religious sect or denomination."

These intelligent statements, however, conflict directly with how Grant wanted to Christianize Native Americans.

Regardless, if I were a voter in the 1860s-70s, I would have voted Republican because they (mainly the "Radical Republicans") cared about voting rights and protections for black folks. Democrats, in contrast at that time, were for the hokum that was/is states' rights, which was just cover for returning the US to white supremacy. 

Random Notes from a Crank

"What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn" by Maggie Jones in the New York Times is a really interesting article. It's not surprising that teenagers are having to learn about sex through porn because of the stupid glutted reality of abstinence-only sex education pervading curricula, which is right-wing idiocy. 

The Porn Literacy class featured in the article is doing a lot of good. Unfortunately, it is only reaching a small number of teenagers. It needs to be replicated across the country. That and realistic sex education. 

The Republican consultant Rick Wilson wrote "We Kissed Conservatism Goodbye When We Let Trump Lead the GOP" wrote a fair-minded assessment of MoscowDon. I could have told him similar points years ago. I disagree with the author on his feelings about the Second Amendment (how people should be able to have assault weapons, etc.), but it's been clear for a long time that the current president doesn't have consistent principles. Often narcissists don't.