155 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2016
  2. Sep 2016
  3. Jul 2016
    1. After so many years of Republican politicians refusing to even talk about factory closures,

      But haven't Democrats been doing this, like, forever?

    1. And then there’s Donald Trump.

      It was here that in delivery, after the crowd booed at the first mention of the GOP nominee, that Obama ad-libbed one the best lines of the convention: "Don't boo, vote!"

      Given the jeers from "Bernie or Bust" delegates over the first few days of the convention, it was hard not to read the line as a broader rebuke to those who might sit this one out.

    2. or jihadists or homegrown demagogues

      This is a powerful line (read: burn), basically lumping together Trump--the homegrown demogogue--and terrorists.

    1. When Little Bird, a social media data mining company, analyzed a week of Mr. Trump’s Twitter activity, it found that almost 30 percent of the accounts Mr. Trump retweeted in turn followed one or more of 50 popular self-identified white nationalist accounts.

      Scary.

    1. Let me begin by thanking Harris Wofford for his contributions to this country in so many different ways.

      Wofford is a former US senator who was a surrogate for Obama during the campaign and had just introduced the candidate before the speech. He has had an uncanny presence at many important moments in US history. Here he is with JFK in 1962--the occasion was the first contingent of the Peace Corps which Wofford helped start.

  4. Jun 2016
    1. But we do not need change based on the demagogy, bigotry and anti-immigrant sentiment that punctuated so much of the Leave campaign’s rhetoric — and is central to Donald J. Trump’s message.

      Can one be taken without the other? I don't know the answer, but have the feeling they are more intertwined.

    1. Priebus was saying in effect that it would be possible to build a wall around Donald Trump and not have the G.O.P. pay for it.

    1. her role as a prominent working woman, and hence a symbol of feminism at a time when feminism is under siege.
    2. Like horse-racing, Hillary-hating has become one of those national pastimes which unite the élite and the lumpen
    1. In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'.

      I still can't get over the immediate pivot to attacking Obama and Clinton. I realize that Trump is all about not being "politically correct," but to pass over the immediate tragedy and those affected by it in such a perfunctory way just seems to evidence is egomania.

    2. According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law.

      Ethos!

    1. Additionally, the leaders will take action to end deportations and criminalization with a march and rally to demand that Harris County – responsible for more deportations than any other – stop collaborating with federal immigration agents.

      I'm interested to understand the nature of the collaboration between this Texas county and federal immigration agents.

      Also, it is noteworthy that activists want to end the criminalization of immigration. Do politicians on the left embrace this? I think it is a rational approach since the current system has normalized the way our economy attracts and depends on an "illegal" workforce. We situationally enforce a law against workers but rarely hold businesses who employ undocumented workers accountable for running afoul of the law.

    2. United We Dream members will also celebrate the 4th birthday of their victory – the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) which is now protecting well over 700,000 from deportation.

      The youth activists are celebrating the impact their advocacy has had in the past.

    1. denigrates women and minorities

      This seems to be the role of the media in this campaign- to shift from fact checking what candidates say to supporting with evidence the conclusions they draw as they are awash in half-truths and spin. Instead of fact checking the next speech, it is perhaps more important that journalists ask about the implications of the statements candidates make. When it is clear that one candidate denigrates women and minorities, the media should report it as fact and ask if that is disqualifying. Fittingly, in a democracy the people will decide.

    2. Because American history, despite periods of nativism and bigotry, has from the first been a grand experiment in bringing people of different backgrounds together, not pitting them against one another;

      Our periods of nativism and bigotry have been missteps in a grand experiment about freedom and the effort to make America a metaphoric melting pot.

    3. The following is a statement signed by more than 450 U.S. writers, regarding the candidacy of Donald J. Trump for the Presidency of the United States.

      This petition is a unique textual artifact in this presidential campaign because it represents a coalition of artists, specifically writers, opposing a candidate on a number of grounds and using their celebrity to seek support for this opposition. I've annotated it to highlight their concerns with Trump's xenophobia because it meshes with my topic of interest today- immigration.

    1. she believed that the teenager was proud of “taking advantage of the system.”

      It is sad that a classmate's mother took the opportunity to speak out against the valedictorian. ApparentlyHere's hoping that more youth take advantage of our public education system.

    2. “State law also does not distinguish between documented and undocumented graduates of Texas high schools in admissions and financial aid decisions,” the statement said. “University policies reflect that law.”

      It is heartening that universities like UT accept, and grow stronger by accepting, documented and undocumented alike.

    3. Ms. Ibarra wrote in a tweet posted last week, hours after she gave her valedictory speech to fellow graduates at David Crockett High School in Austin.

      This tweet was retweeted over 9,000 times and liked almost 20,000. Though she opened herself up to racist attacks, her choice of medium put her in the same channel as Trump and the post got as much attention as his do. Twitter confounds traditional candidates and, though notably inane at time, it is a medium that deserves and receives much attention.

    4. “I have never thought about deporting a child who graduated from a U.S. high school and fought against the odds to be successful. Until this moment,” Ms. Davis wrote on Facebook.

      These young women flipped an instant switch in their lives, which opened a stream of racist response from the communities they live in. By speaking openly about their undocumented status and calling into question the everyday racism they encounter, they make themselves greater targets and they make racism more plain.

    1. Note: This website is all about digital marketing, so it has a certain bias towards how to "sell" messages. Still, I think its analysis here is useful. - Kevin

    2. The voter who wants information tailored for their personal political preferences need only click a couple of boxes on a list to ensure they get newsletters personalized in a way that direct mailers can only dream of.

      This is also a strange privacy line, too, right? A candidate knows what you want because it is scouring your responses, and maybe extrapolating to Tweets and Likes and other social media posts. It is using algorithms to parse through your data (my data, our data) and then sending you what you want to see. This may just create another Echo Chamber in our lives.

    3. Of course, the internet is not the first technology to play a game-changing role in political campaigns. The advent of the radio gave politicians a voice and the ability to broadcast in a way they had never had before. Television, too, presented candidates to the world a more than just a slogan or a speaker, but as a person, live and in living color (all, at least eventually in color).

      Good to have some historical perspective. Each technology changes the way that a candidate potentially reaches voters. Those who don't adapt often don't survive for very long.

    4. An event streamed via the internet is just as live as the radio or television broadcast that accompanies it, yet is also easily accessed immediately and in perpetuity following the event via any one of dozens of free video streaming services.

      It is also more likely to be picked apart and remixed by the opponent. Veracity of content is part of the equation, too. With so many editing tools in our hands, can we even believe what we see with our own eyes to be true?

    5. An individual can hear a comment, record it, upload it, and tweet it to thousands of people within seconds of it occurring.

      This is part of the Revolution ... one person potentially (and that is a key word here) can shift a campaign. Potentially.

    6. Today political campaigns are no longer about being able to shake every hand in the room but rather about reaching every single person who might wander into a polling place and mark a ballot.

      This was always the case, I think. Politicians always wanted voters. The difference is that data analysis makes the courting of voters more focused.

    1. As a facilitator, it’s important to customize such events to their needs, making sure you are encouraging a gender appropriate, inclusive and supportive environment.

      I think it is important for teachers to understand that current practices lead to inequitable experiences in STEM for girls. These tips are really suggested changes.

    1. Arizona's K-12 public district and charter schools in the next few weeks will get an additional $224 million to apply to the current fiscal year. For the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, they will receive an additional $230 million over 12 monthly payments.Each district controls its share of the money, which is tied to enrollment. Many of the largest districts have indicated they intend to use much of the extra money for teacher pay raises, bonuses or other financial rewards.Arizona voters narrowly passed Prop. 123 last month, approving a measure that is expected to provide public schools $3.5 billion over the next 10 years. About $2.2 billion of that is supposed to come from the land trust fund.

      How might teachers remix these stories to ask community members for support during tight elections?

    1. White supremacists associated with the alt-right, many of them avid supporters of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, like to highlight Jewish users for targeting with parentheses: (((Rosenberg))), for example.

      I've been exposed to feminist hate speech via gamergate but I was unaware of this until the ((())) showed up in my feed by colleagues who aim to show solidarity and "mess with the Nazis." As we think about interest topics and #2nextprez, I wonder about articles related to combating hate online.

    1. Well, we believe we should lift each other up, not tear each other down.

      Keep this message ...

    2. let’s remember all that unites us.

      As a country, not just as a political party ...

    3. So many of you feel like you are out there on your own, that no one has your back. Well, I do. I hear you, I see you.
    4. we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now. But don’t worry, we’re not smashing this one.

    5. and they set it forth in something called the Declaration of Sentiments,

      While we're at it, let's annotate the original "Declaration of Sentiments."

    1. said “there could be” a line that the presumptive nominee crosses that would make him withdraw his support.

      Important to know that Corker doesn't consider Trump's proposed Muslim ban or his previous racism against Mexicans as behavior that is over the line. Nor is this recent episode, a "textbook definition of racism" over Corker's imagined line.

    2. Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Tuesday called Donald J. Trump’s criticism of a federal judge of Hispanic heritage “the textbook definition of a racist comment” and said he “regrets” the remark. But Mr. Ryan also reiterated his support for Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
    3. He said, “I believe that we have more common ground on the policy issues of the day and we have more likelihood of getting our policies enacted with him than with her.”

    1. In the late summer, L2P 2.0 converts to a massive, open online publishing platform

      This is an opportunity for educators to think about public writing with networked group of peers who can support what might be shift in practice for some.

    2. A growing list of nonpartisan educational partners are committed to providing learning opportunities and resources.

      When we combine learning opportunities with learning resources, we set the stage for powerful collaboration and important iteration. How might a teacher- or educator of any sort- filter this site for resources for their context?

    3. With support from teachers and mentors, the resulting websites, news coverage, and publications brought the voices of young people into the public discourse and invited young people around the country to write letters to the future president about their concerns, hopes, and perspectives. If you’d like to read some of the student letters from the 2008 iteration of Letters to the Next President, this report from the National Commission on Writing features writing that was selected from the online publishing project sponsored by the National Writing Project and Google. The Letters to the Next President 2008 website featured 6,466 letters from 212 schools across the country on topics such as global warming, the economy, healthcare, education, and immigration.

      Do youth participating now know about the scale and scope of the last project? Would knowing this information stoke youth's interest?

    4. How can we support our youth to participate as productive and active citizens?

      This is a great essential question for this whole project with many possible write answers. I hope this question inspires us to prepare community ready and civic ready students with a strong feeling of agency.

    1. If you want a revolution, you have to vote for it.
    2. Young people just don’t vote.

      Maybe this will be the year of the shift ...

    3. “Disenchantment with Obama was a driver of the Occupy movement for many of the young people who participated,” they wrote.

      Which explains the energy behind the Sanders' Movement ...

    4. At a time when the federal government is dragging its feet on every issue, the most significant policy decisions often come at the local and state level.

      This is a critical point ... change happens more on the local level but ... but ... the Supreme Court .. that is the key to so much in terms of fundamental change in the country ... now and into the future ...

    5. It will be the first presidential election in which Generation Y—a.k.a.: Millennials—makes up the same proportion of the U.S. voting-age population as the Baby Boomers.

      Let's hope they become informed voters, too

    6. the rising cost of school has combined with a chilly labor market to create a perfect storm:

    7. Although several polls find that young people are less likely to identify as Democrats, that has much more to do with an aversion to establishments and labels.

      I wonder if this is always true, or just this generation ...

  5. May 2016
    1. One wonders now where our leaders got the idea that mass torture would work to our advantage in Indochina. It never worked anywhere else. They got the idea from childish fiction, I think, and from a childish awe of torture. Children talk about tortures a lot. They often make up what they hope are new ones. I can remember a friend's saying to me when I was a child: "You want to hear a really neat torture?" The other day I heard a child say to another: "You want to hear a really cool torture?" And then an impossibly complicated engine of pain was described. A cross would be cheaper, and work better, too. But children believe that pain is an effective way of controlling people, which it isn't--except in a localized, short-term sense. They believe that pain can change minds, which it can't. Now the secret Pentagon history reveals that plenty of high-powered American adults things so, too, some of them college professors. Shame on them for their ignorance.

      Vonnegut on torture and where the appeal stems from. How lucky I was to stumble across this article while looking for another online this morning.

      This commentary offers me hope in an election year where the Republican candidates boasted about how, if they were elected, they would embrace torture.

  6. Apr 2016
    1. free community college

      Sanders proposes free community college. Would that not deincentivize hard work and success to some extent? My students may see this impact them soon. Who will pay?

    2. Hillary Clinton, who served as Secretary of State during President Obama’s first term, is the most hawkish of the Democratic candidates, advocating for greater U.S. involvement overseas.

      Candidates have different views on how to handle terrorism. Immigration is often cast as a south-of-the-border issue, but how will the threat of ISIS continue to impact immigration policy in terms of the Middle East region? As a teacher of immigrants, I would expect to see more and more students affected by this crisis.

    3. Some have called for more lenient sentencing for drug offenders

      It would be interesting to see if this might change in light of recent revelations uncovered from members of Nixon administration that the war on drugs was motivated to render the black community and hippie voices diminished.

  7. Mar 2016
    1. neurotoxic chemicalscontribute to developmental delays,hyperactivity, memory loss, attentiondeficit, learning disabilities, and aggres-sive behavior.

      These are preventable. That seems to be the message. Jill Stein is well suited to a year when Flint is still a boiling cauldron.

    1. In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Alito, the Supreme Court upheld the Eleventh Circuit decision and ruled that employees cannot challenge ongoing pay discrimination if the employer’s original discriminatory pay decision occurred more than 180 days earlier, even when the employee continues to receive paychecks that have been discriminatorily reduced

      Surely congress can make discriminatory pay illegal without a time frame. Companies shouldn't hide a difference in pay for genders. They should disclose the honest average pay between different positions in the company.

  8. Feb 2016
    1. It was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president showing off the demagogue's instinct for amplifying the angriest voice in the mob.

      This really hits at what's so scary about Trump (for me). It's the hatred that Trump seems to thrive off. He brings out the worst in people and amplifies it.

    1. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.

      Everyone was looking for work at this point and everyone was surely struggling immensely to find it. Trying to find a job is work, but without the pay, of course. FDR is asking the people to work not only harder, but to work with the government as a united nation to help surpass the economic struggles the U.S. was facing at the very moment.

    2. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

      FDR gives off the impression that he is positively sure that the U.S. will fix its economic issues, which gives hope to the people. Since the people hear these words coming from FDR, they have faith that all will be fixed, however, promises that cannot be kept always seem to occur in almost every promise that is made.

    3. I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly.

      FDR seems as if he is trying to persuade the people with the promise to give the people what they have demanded. FDR shows the people that he understands how harsh things may be in the U.S. and the people appreciate the fact that he is acknowledging the depression. FDR uses ethos in his speech.

    4. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it.

      This sentence reminded me of The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck due to its connection with the concept of a humans work ethic and nature. As people are presented with catastrophic events they manage to use it to their advantage and move with nature. This shows us that the human condition has been built up on perseverance, which is exactly what message FDR is trying to convey. He believes that if Americans works together as a whole, they can manage to learn and move on from this infamous time in America's history.

    5. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things.

      This directly reminds me of E. M. Forester's piece "My Wood". Forester stated life should solely be material and carnal. It seems that throughout a lot of the pieces we analyze there's a common theme regarding perspectives on life. Here, FDR uses diction to persuade the reader that a common fault of humans is that they only concern themselves with material things.

    6. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

      This line immediately connected me to Ehrenreich's Serving in Florida. In a passage, she had discussed that rather than home and identity, she misses competence the most. FDR's statement reveals the same idea because he emphasizes that happiness lies in the sense of achievement or fulfillment. Although we may not notice it, competence is a necessary factor in our happiness. The joy of achievement helps us succeed in life and ultimately acquire true happiness.

    7. withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side;

      FDR's usage of certain diction serves to express the difficulties of the people.He uses imagery when he states " the withered leaves of industrial enterprise". His diction and detail together work to possibly evoke a sense of sadness. The " withered leaves" convey the weakness of the country at the time since the word withered is associated with weakness or illness. FDR uses an appeal to pathos through the connotation of the word.