Today is the Twentieth Anniversary of Dave's Internet Lounge.
Yeah, February 17, 2006 I threw up that photo above (Mexico, 1998) and started writing.
Everyone had a blog in those days. Now, the term blog sounds antiquated.
I look back on much of what I wrote and so much of it is nonsense. Fortunately very few people actually read my posts.
Even less read my posts today. My primary audience was made up of my Mom and Dad and Grandparents. Maybe a former student or a friend hopped on every once in awhile. Well, my grandparents and my Dad have all passed away. I'm not sure if my Mom still passes this way online or not. I might get a stray random eyeball occasionally. But honestly, I no longer write for an audience.
I post to maintain a routine. Posting forces me to stop for a moment and observe the world around me. This blog has become an online journal of sorts. So, if I'm the only reader of Dave's Internet Lounge, I think I would actually prefer that.
20 years! Man, so much has changed. It's nice to see there are still some corners of the world or internet that are still here.
My old mentor stopped by the school today. He now lives overseas and doesn't visit America much. Good to see him.
I was recently reminded of the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) barricades himself in the warden's office and plays Sull'aria...che soave zeffiretto, from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro over the prison PA system. Activity in the prison yard stops and Red (Morgan Freeman) says "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about...I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it."
To be clear: I'm directing this to all you people complaining you couldn't understand the words of the Super Bowl Halftime show because it was in Spanish.
So a few months back the state of Texas passed a law stating that if someone donated posters of the Ten Commandments to a school district, then teachers were required to post them in their classrooms.
Of course several school districts filed suit stating the obvious violation of separation of church and state. So a judge placed an injunction on districts that filed suit allowing them to pause putting these posters up until the matter was resolved in the courts. My school district was not one of these.
Our local state representative, a man who has proven to be no friend of public education, donated Ten Commandment posters to our school district. Then, our district stated they were going to put the posters up without our input and after hours.
This is wrong on so many levels. It's simply performative, a play to the ignorant MAGA base. Anyone who thinks a poster is actually going to change the behavior of students is ignorant at best. Shoving religion down someone's throat violates all what public education stands for. If you want a Christian education, go to a private school. If you can't afford it, use the private school vouchers this same rep voted for to pay for it.
I have students of many religions, creeds and backgrounds. It is insulting to force one's views on them. Not only is it unethical it also doesn't even work!
And to have this forced by a state Attorney General who violates many of the ten commandments on a regular basis is even more infuriating.
So, I was ready. I made posters that showed the basic tenets of the five major world religions. I also printed out the First Amendment of the Constitution. Then I surrounded the new poster, once maintenance put it up, with my religion posters.
I have no problem with the Ten Commandments. I am a Christian. But this is public education for all. And if we're going to put up the tenets of one religion, I'm going to put up the tenet of all the major world religions.
The whole thing is so dumb.
I did not watch the super bowl last night. But I did tune in for the halftime show. I may not have understood Bad Bunny's lyrics (even with a 400 day streak attained yesterday my Spanish still needs work!) I understood the message. Really a nice show. Surprisingly I enjoyed it. Many thoughtful touches. An interesting take I saw last night: the same people who needed a separate halftime show are the same type of people who once needed separate water fountains.
One of the earliest posts on this blog was about the 2006 Winter Olympics. I used to really get into the Olympics, especially the Winter edition. But with the Games starting tonight I'm meh about the whole thing. I just don't have much interest. I'm sure there are many factors on my declining Olympic enthusiasm. But I honestly don't have the interest to spend time delving into it. Truly meh on an Olympic level.
TPUSA has announced they are presenting an alternate halftime show during the Super Bowl. Their headline performer is Kid Rock.
They have said they want to present a family friendly show that presents American values. They have betrayed their true motives.
Some MAGAs decried having a non-citizen performing at the SB Halftime ignorant of the fact that Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States since the Spanish American War. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Can you hear the dog whistles? They didn't seem to have a problem with Paul McCartney and Bono and many others performing at the Super Bowl.
Now, I have never heard a Bad Bunny song. I am not familiar with him as a performer. I have never seen any of his lyrics. For all I know his lyrics could be super "clean." They could also be obscene. I don't know.
But I have seen and heard Kid Rock songs. I have heard him sing songs glorifying and celebrating the pursuit of underage girls. I have heard him sing songs downplaying statutory laws that protect girls from predators. I have heard him use language that is far from "family friendly."
But Kid Rock is white. TPUSA has long revealed who they are. Remember, the Ku Kux Klan also claimed they were protecting Christian values. TPUSA believes in Christian values, as long they are white Christian values. And that is not Christian at all.
The map above is often startling to a lot of people. The little blue dot is the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Some estimates believe there are now eight million people living in DFW. This is twice the population of the entire state of Oklahoma. Wyoming's population is around 600,000. The eight states with the smallest populations have a smaller population combined than Dallas-Fort Worth.
This, of course, always calls into question the equability of our representative system of Democracy. Because each of those states have the same representation in the United States Senate as a metropolitan area far larger in population. Why does a senate vote from North Dakota, a state with a population of less than 800,000 carry the same weight as a vote from Texas with a population of nearly 30 million? We are seriously basing our democratic system on a compromise made in 1787 under circumstances much different than those today?
And yet, I'm not so sure I would want to abolish the U.S. Senate. It is usually (not always!) in the Senate that cooler heads prevail. This is because Senators have to represent an entire state and not a smaller district. It's in the House of Representatives where you find the more clownish of our politicians. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of clowns in the Senate (Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz to name a few) but the Senate usually is a much more stable body than the House.
So, what's the solution? Surely there's a compromise, designed for modern times, out there that can bring equity to our representative system? I'm going to have to think on this.
