I think stuff commenters post in OT comments is probably a very bad proxy for what anyone, even OT commenters, thinks is appropriate material to teach to grade schoolers.
Transgender in other cultures – ok, but pillsy and others are selling it as if there’s been no change in recent years then suddenly Republicans went out looking for a campaign issue
I suspect that it's gotten more attention recently as social media has provided a new medium through which groomers can prime minors for sexual abuse, and one which often leaves a permanent record which can then be leaked, causing more or less severe reputational damage to the groomer.
Seems to happen a lot to YouTube stars, for depressingly explicable reasons.
There's a basic asymmetry here, where many members of Team Red sees any effort to ensure that LGBT students feel safe and welcome in school as political activism, and then freak the fish out over those efforts.
I might have more sympathy for the people who are terrified by the relentless political indoctrination on display in this Texas school district if they couldn't free themselves of that terror by just not being bigoted imbeciles:
It all started with teachers posting small rainbow stickers — long a symbol of the gay pride movement — outside their classrooms to show students that they were LGBTQ allies. In August, the administration required that all the stickers come down, later explaining in a statement to NBC News that decorations in classrooms, hallways or offices must be “curriculum driven and neutral in viewpoint” to “ensure that all students feel safe regardless of background or identity.”
So an effort to make students feel safe regardless of their background or identity is taken down because... why?
Yeah, also there's always been the universal understanding that the end goal of grooming is sexually abusing a child.
You know, doing something very evil for personal gain.
There just isn't an equivalent goal as part of this new made-up kind of "grooming", and even if you think something's going wrong, that something going wrong is not an adult sexually exploiting a child, or for that matter even motivated by anything resembling malice.
Or doing anything at all actually harmful to the kid.
EDIT to clarify: the "no malice and no harm" standard here is the lowest possible bar here. Parents can have very legitimate objections to things teachers do that are not malicious and not harmful.
Also while there is a reasonable concern there, a lot of the reason they end up at "grooming" is that they're fitting the concern into an existing homophobic and transphobic worldview that sees LGBT folk as inherently perverted and predatory.
The FX hold up extremely well. It doesn't try to do some stuff you might expect a contemporary movie to do, but pretty much every FX shot looks incredible, and a lot of more recent films seem to think they can do literally anything and everything with CGI and do faceplants.
It also tells a great family-friendly sci fi story about a kid who needs a dad, and finding that dad in a murderbot from the future.
Also it was from the time when family-friendly sci fi stories could be rated R and involve dudes getting stabbed right through the face.
Yeah whereas for me I think Bullit is a great flick, but Dirty Harry's downbeat storyline is in tension with the reactionary fantasy in a way that fascinates me every time.
Also Clint Eastwood is fucking amazing in that final scene.
I think "victory" and "loss" are not the best yardstick for evaluating many stories.
Russell lists Dirty Harry as his favorite movie. I agree that it's a great movie, but I'm not sure I would describe the end as a victory. Harry kills the Zodiac expy, which is nice because that guy really sucked, but afterwards he throws his badge in the lake, walks away, and has clearly given up.
Now they change that ending implicitly in the sequel, but taking the first movie alone, he can't win and probably never could have won.
I think the better superhero movies do have stakes, it's just that the stakes are not ultimately about whether the hero foils the villain's dastardly plot. Of course they do. A superhero story is not going to end with the villain blowing up the universe.
But a lot of the time while the hero wins the fight agains the villain, it's at a cost of something else that is personal. The hero won't lose the fight to the villain, but will they return home to the bosom of their family or end up outcast and alone? That's a question that you don't know the answer to, and one where the film can surprise you.
Lots of superhero movies don't do this, or don't do this well, but when it works it provides a story that can interest the adults while simultaneously hooking in the children with the fights and explosions and costumes.
I will not attest to what people remember or forget overall, but Zodiac is a favorite movie of mine, and one I've seen on more than one occasion, and the whole thing is about failure and dissatisfaction.
GoodFellas is maybe my single favorite movie, and ends in failure. And that one I'm sure people remember.
The problem here is that the Right can get and wield state power pretty effectively in the US, but they have no idea how to translate that into effectively resisting the cultural change that freaks them out, and also no idea how give up the awful ideas and values that constantly place them on the wrong end of the Culture War issues.
I think a lot of what's been happening politically flows from Team Red losing its ability to control bureaucracies. I don't know if they were ever as good at it as Team Blue, but some time between the start of the W years and the end of the Obama years it had just evaporated
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Words Have Meanings, Part Ten Thousand”
I think stuff commenters post in OT comments is probably a very bad proxy for what anyone, even OT commenters, thinks is appropriate material to teach to grade schoolers.
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I did?
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Hmm, I wonder what the odds of a teacher just making some shit up are.
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I suspect that it's gotten more attention recently as social media has provided a new medium through which groomers can prime minors for sexual abuse, and one which often leaves a permanent record which can then be leaked, causing more or less severe reputational damage to the groomer.
Seems to happen a lot to YouTube stars, for depressingly explicable reasons.
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what are you talking about
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Vice signaling, but otherwise I agree.
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There's a basic asymmetry here, where many members of Team Red sees any effort to ensure that LGBT students feel safe and welcome in school as political activism, and then freak the fish out over those efforts.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lgbtq-students-texas-school-rainbow-stickers-rcna23208
I might have more sympathy for the people who are terrified by the relentless political indoctrination on display in this Texas school district if they couldn't free themselves of that terror by just not being bigoted imbeciles:
So an effort to make students feel safe regardless of their background or identity is taken down because... why?
Every answer here is bad.
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The bill says it prohibits "classroom discussion of sexual orientation in certain grades" right there in the text, lines 21-23.
So yeah, I think "Don't Say Gay" is pretty damn fair.
And, "If you tell the truth about our bill, we'll lie about you!" is not a persuasive argument.
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Kid comes out to a teacher.
Teacher asks, "Should I tell your parents?"
Kid says, "No they'd beat the shit out of me if you tell them!"
What should the teacher do?
"
Yeah, also there's always been the universal understanding that the end goal of grooming is sexually abusing a child.
You know, doing something very evil for personal gain.
There just isn't an equivalent goal as part of this new made-up kind of "grooming", and even if you think something's going wrong, that something going wrong is not an adult sexually exploiting a child, or for that matter even motivated by anything resembling malice.
Or doing anything at all actually harmful to the kid.
EDIT to clarify: the "no malice and no harm" standard here is the lowest possible bar here. Parents can have very legitimate objections to things teachers do that are not malicious and not harmful.
"
Also while there is a reasonable concern there, a lot of the reason they end up at "grooming" is that they're fitting the concern into an existing homophobic and transphobic worldview that sees LGBT folk as inherently perverted and predatory.
Not doing that would be better.
Other times, it just turns out to be bullshit.
"
+1
On “The Mary Sue Problem And Giving The People What They Want”
Have you watched T2 recently?
The FX hold up extremely well. It doesn't try to do some stuff you might expect a contemporary movie to do, but pretty much every FX shot looks incredible, and a lot of more recent films seem to think they can do literally anything and everything with CGI and do faceplants.
It also tells a great family-friendly sci fi story about a kid who needs a dad, and finding that dad in a murderbot from the future.
Also it was from the time when family-friendly sci fi stories could be rated R and involve dudes getting stabbed right through the face.
"
Well you can either do that, or you can accept you can't win and not play.
A lot more movies are clearly taking that route these days.
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Yeah, and that comes up in Zodiac, too.
"
Yeah whereas for me I think Bullit is a great flick, but Dirty Harry's downbeat storyline is in tension with the reactionary fantasy in a way that fascinates me every time.
Also Clint Eastwood is fucking amazing in that final scene.
"
I think "victory" and "loss" are not the best yardstick for evaluating many stories.
Russell lists Dirty Harry as his favorite movie. I agree that it's a great movie, but I'm not sure I would describe the end as a victory. Harry kills the Zodiac expy, which is nice because that guy really sucked, but afterwards he throws his badge in the lake, walks away, and has clearly given up.
Now they change that ending implicitly in the sequel, but taking the first movie alone, he can't win and probably never could have won.
"
I think the better superhero movies do have stakes, it's just that the stakes are not ultimately about whether the hero foils the villain's dastardly plot. Of course they do. A superhero story is not going to end with the villain blowing up the universe.
But a lot of the time while the hero wins the fight agains the villain, it's at a cost of something else that is personal. The hero won't lose the fight to the villain, but will they return home to the bosom of their family or end up outcast and alone? That's a question that you don't know the answer to, and one where the film can surprise you.
Lots of superhero movies don't do this, or don't do this well, but when it works it provides a story that can interest the adults while simultaneously hooking in the children with the fights and explosions and costumes.
"
I will not attest to what people remember or forget overall, but Zodiac is a favorite movie of mine, and one I've seen on more than one occasion, and the whole thing is about failure and dissatisfaction.
GoodFellas is maybe my single favorite movie, and ends in failure. And that one I'm sure people remember.
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Yeah and that's how you wind up with designated cat fights.
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Controversial, sure, but still totally right
On “JD Vance, Josh Mandel Put The Race Into Ohio Senate Race”
Well in a sense I am, because that's exactly how dogwhistles are supposed to work.
You say something that racists and libs will both recognize as racist, but that normies won't.
The racists get fired up that you're on your side.
The libs get mad and point out you're a racist.
Then you turn to the normies and say, "These mean libs are calling me a racist over nothing!"
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"Are you a racist?
"Because I sure as hell am, and I'm gonna prove it by making a political ad about the Great Replacement!"
On “Florida “Parental Rights in Education” Bill: Read It For Yourself”
The problem here is that the Right can get and wield state power pretty effectively in the US, but they have no idea how to translate that into effectively resisting the cultural change that freaks them out, and also no idea how give up the awful ideas and values that constantly place them on the wrong end of the Culture War issues.
"
This is a great comment.
I think a lot of what's been happening politically flows from Team Red losing its ability to control bureaucracies. I don't know if they were ever as good at it as Team Blue, but some time between the start of the W years and the end of the Obama years it had just evaporated
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.