That which does not kill me, only makes me hotter. 🔥

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

what if i told you, you didn't make a mistake? ( klick - s02e010 )

shout out to elias bouchard for fucking up a perfectly good mildly toxic workplace. you literally couldn't have done worse

Omg I can't choose between young Alastor pretending to be gay to dodge the draft or him going "You banned broadcasting so now I'm joining and making you pay to give me practical experience"

Right? Both concepts have been bouncing around in my brain. On the one hand, I love Alastor pretending to be gay to avoid going to war. It just - its so good. It's 🤌

But on the other hand, Alastor joining the army and developing skills in radio and broadcasts from there is just so RAHHHHHHHH. I'm chewing on it. Yummy yummy yummy, it's so delicious. It also means he's a war veteran and I just

This guy

This guy is a war veteran

He fought in World War 1

Is that not the greatest thing ever?

masters of the air 1x05 – band of brothers 1x10 ↳ requested by anon

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

recent sketchbook mcwexlers

I think we should all talk about how Wee John is super working the eyeliner in these eps

(slay)

Considering we know at some point in the season we're gonna see him like this

I think it would be very funny if instead of this being some special dress up one time performance thing his makeup just gets gradually more and more dramatic every episode until he has evolved into his final form, this absolutely majestic flamboyant drag queen

@seemoreseymoursbay day 4!! Platonic relationship day

I chose Nat and Louise for today! I just love how she looks up to Nat, Louise seems to have a lot of insecurities about her place in the world and how she expresses herself and her gender (being worried about not liking girly things or about her interests being too scary or dangerous and about those things making her bad or wrong) so the way she seems to see Nat as a positive rolemodel for non traditional femininity and aspires to be more like her is just really sweet to me. I also personally hc Louise as a lesbian and I think when she starts to crush on a girl (in this case jessica bc i love them together) she wouldn't want to talk to her family about it for fear of them trying to involve themselves so she starts going to Nat to vent about her crushes and get advice (and hold snakes probably)

"rise and shine robert! it's your old friend otto here making sure you eat some real food once in a while--"

PLAYBOY: In their admiration for you, many young people have begun to imitate the way you dress - which one adult commentator has called "selfconsciously oddball and defiantly sloppy." What's your reaction to that kind of put-down?

DYLAN: Bullshit. Oh, such bullshit. I know the fellow that said that. He used to come around here and get beat up all the time. He better watch it; some people are after him. They're going to strip him naked and stick him in Times Square. They're going to tie him up, and also put a thermometer in his mouth. Those kind of morbid ideas and remarks are so petty - I mean there's a war going on. People got rickets; everybody wants to start a riot; 40-year-old women are eating spinach by the carload; the doctors haven't got a cure for cancer - and here's some hillbilly talking about how he doesn't like somebody's clothes. Worse than that, it gets printed and innocent people have to read it. This is a terrible thing. And he's a terrible man. Obviously, he's just living off the fat of himself, and he's expecting his kids to take care of him. His kids probably listen to my records.

-Playboy Interview: Bob Dylan, February 1966

BOB'S BURGERS ⇢ 6x05 | NICE-CAPADES

while i work on new stuff, here’s something simple from a few months ago!

BAND OF BROTHERS · PART 6 / THE PACIFIC · PART 4

Roleswap anyone??

Tell me Fernando wouldn't make a fantastic general/emperor, and that Napoleon wouldn't make a fanastic driver/tp!!