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The Global Search for Education: Conversation with Alex Piperno, Director of Window Boy Would Also Like To Have A Submarine

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“What I like most about the film, in relation to its production process, is discovering how the different parts are related to each other.” – Alex Piperno

In Alex Piperno’s Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine, doors never lead to where they’re supposed to. A young sailor on a cruise ship off the coast of Patagonia stumbles upon a magical doorway that leads to a woman’s apartment in Montevideo.  Meanwhile, a group of Filipino farmers discover an abandoned shed in the valley that holds supernatural powers.  These two stories will merge in Piperno’s film and allow people in different parts of the world to enter one another’s spaces.  

Alex Piperno, was born in Montevideo.  He studied Film Directing at the Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires.  Following a series of short films, Piperno directed the Hubert Bals Fund supported Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine.  His feature debut had its world premiere at the Berlinale in 2020. The film was nominated for the International New Talent Competition at the Taipei Film Festival, The International Competition at Jeonju Film Festival, and the Best First Feature Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The Global Search for Educationis pleased to welcome the film’s Director, Alex Piperno. 

“As a spectator, my favorite part is the end of the film, when everything ends up mixing and that leads to catastrophe.” – Alex Piperno

Alex, tell us what you like most about your film and also what audience feedback you’ve received.  Is there anything in your production process that you would do differently?

What I like most about the film, in relation to its production process, is discovering how the different parts are related to each other. They are not ideas that I came up with. I experienced that discovery and surprise in the process, and that is my greatest joy as a director. This happened during the script writing, but also during shooting, editing and sound design. In each of the stages, with different materials, I discover how old notes enter in relation to other notes, how frames leave doors open for someone to enter or not, how a shot in one scene works differently in another scene, what happens when this or that sound comes in, and thus the film becomes a system of opacities and transparencies that drives me crazy and keeps me fascinated during the different stages. As a spectator, my favorite part is the end of the film, when everything ends up mixing, and that leads to catastrophe.

Regarding the feedback from the audience, the Q&A experience at the Berlinale was deeply moving for me. The conversation with the audience was warm, stimulating, and extensive, and while I had no prior thoughts, it was unsettling for me to discover the spectators appropriating the film. There may be no other way, but it is my first film and I have not experienced that feeling before. After so many years, with so many moments of uncertainty and loneliness, putting the film on the table like a fruit and seeing how each one grabbed his own piece was wonderful. And I especially remember this: I would enter the theatre towards the end of each screening and I would wait at the entrance, and at one point, always the same, I would hear the audience giggling. It was not a time to laugh, I thought so, but the audience was laughing. There I understood that I had nothing more to do with the film and that was a great relief.

In relation to what things in the production process would I do differently: everything.

People have referred to your movie as “a globalized fairytale”. In what ways do you think the characters and the locations in your movie might inspire the audience to reflect on some of these relevant societal themes?  

I think the film does not talk about but works with. It is true that its materials are peripheral characters and places located in the antipodes, that these places become close and that the world ends up turning inside out like a sock. But the characters cannot communicate with each other, that is, the distance between them is not elided. I don’t know if I am interested in globalization as a topic. I do know that I am interested in the characters that watch, and I understand that in order to watch they have to be outside the thing, on the periphery. I also know that when I went to the cruise ship and framed the tourists, I felt a lot of rejection, and that when I panned to one side and the space was empty, I felt much better. I know that in a film, I prefer silence to bustle, that I like characters who do not know what to do and who are ashamed of themselves and are pushed by circumstances. I know that I hate the idea of work and that I am moved by the poetic function of language, that is, impertinence, humor, surprise, diagonals, frame within frame compositions. All this will make one type of film appear instead of another.

“In relation to what things in the production process would I do differently: everything!” – Alex Piperno

Funding and especially funding during a pandemic – what lessons did you learn from the process?  What advice would you give to other young filmmakers trying to raise money for their first film?

The development of the film began at the end of 2011. I had screened that year the short film The Inviolability of the Domicile which is based on the man who appears wielding an ax at the door of his house during the Cannes Critics’ Week, which I imagine must have helped the project to be considered more carefully. The film was selected in a script workshop called Taller Colón along with other projects by Latin American directors, who later became very dear friends. The following year the film obtained its first development funds, from ICAU (Uruguay) and the Hubert Bals Fund, which was essential for me to dedicate myself seriously to its development. I had decided to be the majority co-producer on the Uruguayan side and I conceived the film as a co-production between Uruguay and Argentina. I associated with my beloved Lukas Rinner, who at that time was taking his first steps with his production company Nabis Argentina. We began to be selected for different laboratories and markets, such as Bafici Bal, San Sebastián Co-production Forum and Berlinale Script-station, among others. The truth is that we had no idea how to produce a feature film, much less this one in particular.

Years passed and we could not obtain any production funds. Then we applied to the Uruguay and Brazil co-production fund and obtained our first production fund. Meanwhile, we continued applying to national and international funds without luck. My life had been reduced to trying to carry this film forward and I felt that the film was getting stuck in a well and myself with it. We were still applying to laboratories. The search for financing for production lasted until 2017.

In 2014 Lukas shot his first feature film and we decided that it was best for him to open up about the project. He was replaced by Argentine producers Esteban Lucangioli and Araquén Rodríguez, from Pelícano production company. In those years we obtained INCAA production fund (Argentina), IBERMEDIA co-production fund, NFF + HBF from Netherlands (joining the project the producer Frank Hoeve, from Baldr Film), a municipal production fund from Montevideo (Uruguay) and, at the last moment, ICAU production fund (Uruguay), which finally allowed us to start the production. The staged shooting strategy, which was the condition of possibility of the film and that extended from 2017 to 2019, also involved going through a severe devaluation of the Latin American economy. The funds obtained in our national institutes, which are granted in local currency and staggered in installments, were devalued in some cases above 70%. The film was made possible with the entry of the Philippine producer Armi Rae Cacanindin to the co-production team, and with a very significant effort in time and money from all the production companies, to which I am eternally grateful.

This whole process was very formative for me. It was a ten-year process of many “first times”. 

An incredible journey for sure.

Yes, I had to learn how to write a film, how to produce a film, how to direct a film. Naturally, having had the experience, I would do things differently. For example, the most important thing is to find your own way and defend it from common sense. Cinema is such a normed, hierarchical, collective and expensive discipline that it can pass over you. The crew need urgent definitions that many times I cannot give them and it is necessary to be able to deal with that, with the chronometer running and without fully understanding what I am doing. I was very afraid that the common sense of the shooting would win me over, because I knew that would be a disaster for the film. Finding out what my times and priorities were and learning to trust them in the midst of that fire was the hardest thing for me. So it seems to me very important to be able to invent a production system that can be solidary with the way one has to face a film. Because the traditional way of production rejects any possibility of doubting, playing or making mistakes, and at the end of the day, these are our most valuable working tools.

“The traditional way of production rejects any possibility of doubting, playing or making mistakes, and at the end of the day, these are our most valuable working tools.” – Alex Piperno

Where can audiences see Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine?

The film was released in the last days of the pre-covid era and we had a beautiful schedule of international festivals and premieres in confirmed theaters that exploded in the air and we still continue putting together the broken pieces of all this. The film is now available on IFFR Unleashed, the VOD platform of the Rotterdam Festival, exclusively for the Benelux territory. We continue to prioritize the screenings in festivals and theatres, because the film is, as it is said – or as it used to be said – a film “to watch in the theatre”. 

Thank you Alex

C.M. Rubin and Ben Stassen

Thank you to our 800 plus global contributors, artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, researchers, business leaders, students and thought leaders from every domain for sharing your perspectives on the future of learning with The Global Search for Education each month.

C. M. Rubin (Cathy) is the Founder of CMRubinWorld, an online publishing company focused on the future of global learning, and the co-founder of Planet Classroom. She is the author of three best-selling books and two widely read online series. Rubin received 3 Upton Sinclair Awards for “The Global Search for Education.” The series, which advocates for Youth, was launched in 2010 and brings together distinguished thought leaders from around the world to explore the key education issues faced by nations.

Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld

The Global Search for Education Community Page

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Breath life into your main dish with Caviar to get the master taste

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Better caviars are unbelievable eaten with toast, blinis, or unsalted wafers. While using different sorts of caviar, they should be presented with inside the requesting for intensity of the flavor, beginning with a milder-taste, for example, White Sturgeon and moving onto the ones which are more important phenomenal, for example, Sevruga.

It is regularly now not, now supported to dispatch the eggs from the tin to a serving dish on account that they’ll break, other than if wide thought is taken on the unclear time. Silver and metallic dishes and utensils must be stayed away from on account of oxidation, which may moreover deftly a steel flavor to the caviar. The most extraordinary superb choices are laborers and utensils created from glass, bone, or to be when in doubt customary, mother of-pearl or gold. Despite reality that caviar is amazing served with no other individual, fundamental fortifications fuse crème Fraiche, lemon wedges, hard-cooked eggs (yolks and whites cut unreservedly), scaled back potatoes, minced onions, blinis (Russian little crepes), toast thinks tenderly covered with the unsalted spread.

Eating caviar in conscious business calls for positive gastronomic inclinations, essentially as serving this delicacy for diagram capable manager longings express real factors on caviar and different pieces of information as for its introduction. Let us find the sum of the fundamental data, to have the choice to use it at a few sporadic events. Fine caviar must be served without any other person, freezing (26-35F) and preferably in a non-steel bowl settled internal a greater bowl piled up with squashed ice.

The procedures to introduce caviar: observable segment. You ought to see that the run of the mill Russian and European procedures to introduce caviar conventionally range with the guide of using flatware and prizes that may be facilitated with this thing. The Russian served caviar in metallic, porcelain, or glass bowls without ice. The traffic helped them using astounding silver or gold-plated caviar spoon-planned edges and having positive bits of the delicacy. All things considered, caviar in Europe is served in an absolutely novel caviar bowl this is put on a dozing cushion of squashed ice in a particular compartment. In events remarkably made pearl-shells caviar bowls are utilized. It is fit over use the mother of pearl spoons and forks notwithstanding, indisputably, by and by now don’t steel (bone, horn, glass, wood spoons, and forks are in like way conceivable). It is more noticeable reasonable and the most extraordinary prescribed method to prepare caviar, on account that for this model your estimation of flavor presumably won’t be hindered with the guide of using steel added substances a spoon contains, and you may have a capacity to experience the veritable pack of caviar taste and fragile smell.

Champagne and caviar picture the rewards to be mixed in with caviar. Caviar is the top of the line accomplice for liquor rewards. Show of Russian cooking expects the fish eggs to be offered with overwhelmingly chilled vodka; champagne and wine must be left for a sweet.

Bit by bit directions to decorate caviar

Guide Ines to decorate and what to give caviar. The authentic caviar gourmets recognize that the most ideal approach to manage How to Serve Caviar, eat and serve the fish eggs are with no increments, basically caviar and that is it pretty much. They acknowledge that similarly as such nothing can shield you from feeling this extraordinarily restoring flavor, and paltriness, at the same time, can affect the sort of caviar. In any case, what to eat or not to eat with it incorporates taste. In the event that you acknowledge that the sort of caviar is nonsensically authentic, there are sure increments to go with this delicacy.

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U.S. Presidential Election: Open your eyes!

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The result of the U.S. presidential election marks the triumph, not of the Democrats and a senile senator, but of the Puritan current over the Jacksonians. It does not reflect the political views of American citizens and masks the crisis of civilization in which their country is sinking.

Voltaire Network | Paris (France)
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Joe Biden, 46th President of the United States of America

The U.S. presidential election of 2020 confirms the general trend since the dissolution of the Soviet Union: the U.S. population is going through a crisis of civilization and is inexorably heading inexorably towards a new civil war that should logically lead to the partition of the country. This instability should result in the end of the West as a hyper-power.

In order to understand what is happening, it is necessary to overcome the fear of the European elites in the face of the impending disappearance of the power that has protected them for three-quarters of a century; and to look honestly at the world history of the last thirty years. It is necessary to go back into US history and reread its Constitution.

The hypothesis of the dissolution of NATO and the United States of America

When, after three-quarters of a century of undivided dictatorship, the Soviet Union collapsed, all those who wanted it to disappear were surprised. For years, the CIA had organized systematic sabotage of its economy and denigrated all its achievements, but it never foresaw that it was the Soviet people who would overthrow this regime in the name of its ideals.

It all began with a catastrophe to which the state failed to respond. (Chernobyl, 1986). A population of a quarter of a million people had to flee their land for good. This incompetence marked the end of the dictatorship’s legitimacy. In the five years that followed, the allies of the Warsaw Pact regained their independence and the USSR broke up. This process was led from start to finish by the Young Communists, but at the last moment it was taken over by the mayor of Moscow, Boris Yelstin, and his team trained in Washington. The ensuing looting of public property and the economic collapse it caused set the new Russia back a century.

This is how the United States should in turn disappear. They will lose their centripetal strength and be abandoned by their vassals, before collapsing. Those who will have left the ship before it sinks will have a better chance of escaping. NATO should die before the USA, just as the Warsaw Pact died before the USSR.

The centrifugal force of the United States

The United States is a very young country, it has only two hundred years of history of its own. Its population continues to grow with successive arrivals of immigrants from the most diverse parts of the world. According to the British model, each one retains its own culture and does not mix with the others. The concept of the “melting pot” only existed with the return of the black soldiers of the Second World War and the abolition of racial segregation, which under Eisenhower and Kennedy it brought about, only to disappear afterwards.

The U.S. population moves widely from state to state. From the First World War until the end of the Vietnam War, they tried to live together in certain neighborhoods. For about twenty years, it has remained static. And since the break-up of the USSR to the present day, it has been ghettoizing again, no longer along “racial” lines, but along cultural ones. In fact, the country is already divided.

The United States no longer forms one nation, but already eleven separate ones.

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The 11 rival cultural communities that share the United States today.
Source: Colin Woodard

The inner conflict of Anglo-Saxon culture

American mythology links the existence of the country to the 67 “Pilgrim Fathers”, the immigrants of the Mayflower. They were a group of fanatical English Christians who lived in a “community” in the Netherlands. They were given the mission by the Crown to settle in the “New World” to fight the Spanish Empire. One of their groups landed in Massachusetts and built a sectarian society, the Colony of Plymouth (1620). They veiled their wives and used harsh corporal punishment for those who sinned and strayed from the “Pure Way”, hence their name “Puritans”.

Americans ignore both the political mission of the Pilgrim Fathers and their sectarianism. However, they celebrate them on Thanksgiving. These 67 fanatics had a considerable influence on a country of today 328 million inhabitants. 8 presidents out of 46 are their direct descendants, including President Franklin Roosevelt or Presidents George Bush.

The Puritans organized a revolution in England around Lord Oliver Cromwell. They beheaded the king, founded an intolerant Republic, the Commonwealth, and massacred the “heretical” (papist) Irish. These events are referred to by British historians as the “First Civil War” (1642-51).

More than a century later, the settlers of the New World revolted against the crushing tax burden of the British monarchy (1775-83). These events are known to American historians as the “War of Independence”, but British historians see them as the “Second Civil War”. Indeed, if the settlers who fought this war were poor, hard-working people, those who organized it were descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers who wanted to assert their sectarian ideal against the restored British monarchy.

Eighty years later, the United States was torn apart by the Civil War (1861-65), which some American historians refer to as the Anglo-Saxon “Third Civil War. It pitted the states, who, true to the original constitution, wanted to maintain tariffs among themselves, against other states who wanted to shift tariffs to the federal level and thus create a large internal market. However, it also pitted the Puritan elites of the North against the Catholic elites of the South, so that the cleavages of the two previous wars were repeated.

The Anglo-Saxon “Fourth Civil War,” which is taking shape today, is still being waged by the Puritan elites. What masks this continuity is the transformation of these elites who no longer believe in God, but retain the same fanaticism. They are the ones who are now dedicated to rewriting the history of their country. According to them, the United States is a racist project of the Europeans that the “Pilgrim Fathers” have not managed to correct. They are convinced that it is necessary to re-establish the “Pure Way” by destroying all the symbols of Evil such as the statues of the Monarchs, the English and the Confederates. They speak of “political correctness,” claim that there are several human “races,” write “black” with a capital “black” and “white” in lower case, and rush to the abstruse supplements of the New York Times.

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Entrance to the headquarters of the Pilgrim’s Society. England and the United States together hold the torch that lights the world.

The recent history of the United States

Every country has its demons. President Richard Nixon was convinced that the first danger the United States had to prevent was not a nuclear war with the USSR, but this possible Anglo-Saxon “Fourth Civil War. He surrounded himself with the specialist on the subject, the historian Kevin Phillips, who was his electoral adviser and allowed him to accede twice to the US presidency. However, the heirs of the Pilgrim Fathers did not accept his fight and made him sink into the Watergate scandal (1972), brought to light by the deputy and successor of J. Edgar Hoover after his re-election.

When US power began to run out of steam, the imperialist lobby, dominated by the Puritans, placed in power one of the direct descendants of the 67 Pilgrim Fathers, Republican George Bush Jr.. He organized an emotional shock (the attacks of September 11, 2001) and adapted the armies to the new financial capitalism, under the tetanized gaze of his fellow citizens. His successor, Democrat Barack Obama, continued his work by adapting the economy. To do this, he chose the bulk of the team for his first term of office from among the members of Pilgrim’s Society (the Pilgrim’s Association).

A disruptive event occurred in 2016. A television presenter who had challenged the transformation of capitalism and the September 11 attacks, Donald Trump, ran for president. He won first the Republican Party and then the White House. All those who had brought down Richard Nixon came after him even before he took office. They managed to prevent his re-election by clumsily stuffing the ballot boxes. What is important is that during his term of office, centuries of unsaid things resurfaced. The U.S. population has once again fractured around the Puritans.

Therefore, while it is obvious that a majority of Americans did not enthusiastically vote for a senator who is senile, it seems to me wrong to say that this election of 2020 was a referendum for or against Trump. It was actually a referendum for or against the Puritans.

A result in line with the Pilgrim Fathers’ project

When the War of Independence or Second Anglo-Saxon Civil War was over, the successors of the Pilgrim Fathers wrote the Constitution. They made no secret of their desire to create an aristocratic system on the English model, nor of their contempt for the people. This is why the Constitution of the United States does not recognize the sovereignty of the people, but that of the governors.

The people, who had fought and won the war, accepted this state of affairs, but imposed ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, according to which the ruling class could in no way violate the rights of citizens in the name of an alleged “raison d’état”. The amended constitution still applies.

If one is willing to acknowledge that, constitutionally, the United States is not and never has been a democracy, there is no reason to be outraged at the outcome of the elections. Although it is not provided for in the constitution, the popular vote for the presidential election has gradually become the norm in every state in the last two centuries. Governors are required to follow the guidelines of the popular ballot when appointing their 538 delegates to the Presidential Electoral College. As a result, some Governors have stuffed the ballot boxes without much expertise: in more than one county in 10, the number of voters is higher than the number of adult residents. With all due respect to commentators, it is therefore perfectly impossible to say how many voters actually voted and who they would have liked to be president.

A bleak future

Under these conditions, President-elect Joe Biden will not be able to ignore the justified fury of his challenger’s supporters. He will not be able to reunite his people. I wrote four years ago that Trump would be the Gorbachev of the United States. I was wrong; he has been able to breathe new life into his country. In the end, it will be Joe Biden who will have to take the blame for failing to maintain the territorial unity of his country.

The Allies who do not see the catastrophe coming will pay a heavy price.

Thierry Meyssan

Source: U.S. Presidential Election: Open your eyes!, by Thierry Meyssan

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The elites want COVID-19 lockdowns to usher in a ‘Great Reset’ and that should terrify you

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‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ host accuses America’s hypocritical lawmakers of not following own coronavirus rules

America is locking down again. In some places, that’s already happening. If you have kids, you’ve seen it. Joe Biden has promised more of it — more masks, more quarantines, more limits on travel, more restrictions on who you can eat with and who you can touch.

The most intimate details of our lives are being completely controlled by our leadership class. The people who used to scream at politicians, “Keep your hands off my body!” aren’t saying a thing about this. In fact, they’re encouraging it.

So the question is, what exctly is this about? It’s not about science. If masks and lockdowns prevented spikes in coronavirus infections, we wouldn’t be seeing spikes in coronavirus infections after nine months. But we are seeing them, so clearly, the geniuses got it wrong once again. This time, they’re not even bothering to point to legitimate scientific studies to support continuing their policies because there aren’t any studies that support that. So what is going on?

Trap Was Set In 2018, The Evidence Will Blow The Minds Of Every Person In This Country

Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has some idea. Viganò is one of the truth-tellers in his church. He made himself deeply unpopular with many in the hierarchy several years ago by exposing their complicity in decades of sex abuse. Viganò is 79 years old and in the way that older people stop caring what others think, he really doesn’t care. So instead, he says what he thinks is true.

A few weeks ago, he wrote a letter to President Donald Trump assessing the lockdowns from a perspective you almost never hear in this country.

“No one, up until last February,” Viganò wrote, “would ever have thought that, in all of our cities, citizens would be arrested simply for wanting to walk down the street, to breathe, to want to keep their businesses open, to want to go to church on Sunday. Yet now it is happening all over the world … The fundamental rights of citizens and believers are being denied in the name of a health emergency that is revealing itself more and more fully as instrumental to the establishment of an inhuman, faceless tyranny.”

There’s a reason you may not have heard those words before. The usual foot soldiers for conformity in our news media did their best to suppress and discredit Viganò’s letter to the president. Yahoo News tried to tie the elderly clergyman somehow to QAnon, which to them made sense. He alleged that a global health emergency was being used by the people in power for ends that had nothing to do with the virus itself, and of course, that’s crazy talk. That’s the media position on that.

The only problem is that what Viganò wrote is actually true. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it is factually accurate. Here’s Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking to the United Nations in September.

TRUDEAU: This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change. 

“This is our chance,” says Justin Trudeau. Not our chance to save you from a virus with a 99% survival rate. This is our chance to impose unprecedented social controls on the population in order to bypass democracy and change everything to conform with their weird academic theories that have never been tested in the real world and, by the way, don’t actually make sense.

“This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset.” Keep in mind, that’s not from QAnon, that is a head of state talking and he’s not alone. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, has written a book called “COVID-19: The Great Reset.” The book isn’t really about science or medicine. Instead, it describes,  “what changes will be needed to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward.”

What changes is Schwab talking about? We don’t know. What we’re certain of is that you’re going to pay for them and the people in charge will benefit from them.

What’s telling is how different this is from the way our leaders were talking back when the pandemic began. Statewide coronavirus lockdowns in this country started about eight months ago, in mid-March. At the time, California Gov. Gavin Newsom predicted that 56 % of his state’s population — more than 25 million people — would become infected with the virus within eight weeks. Businesses would need to shut down, Newsom acknowledged. But he also promised he would all be over soon. “This is not a permanent state,” Newsom assured us. “It is a moment in time.”

That should have made us nervous. Because in the end, that moment continued indefinitely. Pretty soon Gavin Newsom was telling us who we were allowed to be around and who we were allowed to talk to.

NEWSOM, IN JULY: As always, I want to remind you, limit your mixing with people outside of your household. It’s just common sense. But the data suggests not everybody is practicing common sense. 

What have we learned from the data since then? Well, as of Nov. 15, about 2.6% of the total population of California has been infected. That’s roughly 20 million fewer people than Gavin Newsom predicted to be infected by May. So in some ways, that looks like a victory. Can we declare victory? No, just the opposite.

Monday, Newsom announced that more lockdowns are underway. Right now, 41 counties in our biggest state are under the most restrictive form of lockdown. Churches, gyms, and restaurants cannot conduct any kind of indoor operations.

Newsom is implementing these lockdowns on scientifc grounds, of course, but he doesn’t believe in it for himself because apparently he is exempt from the laws of epidemiology. We know this because nine days ago, the governor was caught violating his own guidelines by eating at one of the state’s most expensive restaurants with a dozen other people. By the way, he’s fine. He didn’t die from it. When you’re God, you don’t fear viruses. Lockdowns are for mortals.

You’d think getting caught would hurt Newsom. Getting caught ignoring your own rules used to be a major problem for politicians, but it’s not anymore. They are no longer humiliated by their own hypocrisy. The point of the exercise is to humiliate the rest of us by forcing us to obey transparently absurd orders.

“Everyone has to wear a Viking hat with horns every Wednesday. It’s the law! Dr. Fauci’s orders!”

By the way, people would do that. They would follow the orders and would scream at others if they didn’t. In an environment like this, dominated by completely unreasonable demands from the people on top, mediocrities like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot thrive. This is a moment created for her and people like her. Lightfoot explained on MSNBC Friday that she has no personal obligation to follow the lockdown restrictions that you could be arrested for ignoring.

STEPHANIE RUHLE: What do you say to those who are criticizing you, where less than a week ago, you went out and stood before a massive crowd who was celebrating Joe Biden’s victory, and now you’re saying your city has to shut down? How do you have one and not the other? 

LIGHTFOOT: There are times when we actually do need to have the relief and come together. And I felt like that was one of those times. That crowd was gathered, whether I was there or not. 

Notice the complete lack of embarrassment and shame. “There are times when the rules just don’t apply to me.”

So when specifically are those times when the rules don’t apply to the people making the rules? Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser decided that her rules did not apply to Joe Biden’s victory party in Delaware, so she went. Going to the party, she explained, was, “essential.” Muriel Bowser didn’t have to quarantine or restrict her travel in any way because it was on behalf of the Democratic Party.

What does the Great Reset look like? This is what it looks like: The people in charge doing whatever they want because they’re in charge. There will be no live music in the Great Reset. Choirs will be illegal unless they are singing the praises of Kamala Harris. Christmas will be banned. “Sorry, put on your mask and spend the holidays alone. Good luck.”

So how long can this all continue, this weird and yet weirdly recognizable combination of hypocrisy and authoritarianism? Well, it’s hard to imagine it could go on forever. In his letter last month to the president, Archbishop Viganò wrote this and it’s worth hearing:

“This Great Reset is designed to fail because those who planned it do not understand that there are still people ready to take to the streets to defend their rights, to protect their loved ones, to give a future to their children and their grandchildren.”

Let’s hope that’s true.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue on the Nov. 16, 2020 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Source: Tucker Carlson: The elites want COVID-19 lockdowns to usher in a ‘Great Reset’ and that should terrify you | Fox News

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How America’s Cities Became Bastions of Progressive Politics

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Misguided compassion backed up by billions in political donations, remains the reason America’s cities, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, are barely governable and set to get even more ungovernable.
By Edward Ring

In 2016 the American presidential election was not so much blue state versus red state as blue urban centers versus everywhere else. That pattern repeated itself this year, as voting results in the deep blue cities of Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta spelled the difference between a Trump victory and a win for Biden.

Leave it to others to question the legitimacy of votes in these deep blue cities. Suffice to say it would insult the intelligence of any honest observer of politics to suggest no irregularities occurred, when, for example, you have a state with mail-in ballots, accepting them without postmarks or signature verification, and continuing to collect them until November 6 by a court order in Pennsylvania.

And within the sphere of media influencers and social media sleuths, for all those thousands who question such results, there are millions who do not. As one wag put it on Twitter, “there is no evidence of widespread journalism.”

Four years ago, the New York Times published a revealing graphic, reproduced below. It shows, in shades ranging from deep blue (Clinton) to deep red (Trump), how every county in the United States voted. The quantity of votes in each county corresponds to the height of that county in this 3D graph. Notice the dramatic disparity in demographic impact by county.

As this 3D map makes obvious, back in 2016 only a few cities became decisive factors in Clinton’s popular-vote victory—Seattle, Miami, New York City, and most prominently, Los Angeles and Chicago. In Los Angeles County, Clinton received 1,893,770 votes versus 620,285 for Trump. In Chicago’s Cook County, Clinton received 1,528,582 votes versus 440,213 for Trump. If either of these two counties—either one of them—were taken out of the equation, the popular vote would have been a toss-up.

This pattern repeats itself across the United States, and clearly there is a political and cultural schism today between America’s urban voters and rural voters. If a similar graphic is produced for the 2020 presidential election, it won’t look much different from this one. But what political forces are exploiting and exacerbating this schism? Why is the split between America’s urban voters and rural voters more dramatic than it’s ever been? If you want to answer this question from a historical perspective, look no further than the single most powerful special interest that has dominated nearly every major city in America for over a generation—public sector unions.

In Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, and hundreds of other major American cities, government unions have exercised near-absolute control over the political process. This extends not only to city councils but also to county boards of supervisors, school boards, and special districts ranging from transit systems to departments of water and power. Most government funding is spent at the local level. Most government jobs are at the local level. And the more local these jurisdictions get, the more likely it is that only the government unions have the money and the will to dominate elections.

In America’s cities, where the union agenda that controls public education trains Americans to be hyper-sensitive to any alleged infringements on their “identity,” big government is presented as the guardian of their futures and their freedoms. In America’s cities, where poor education combined with overregulation has resulted in a paucity of good jobs, welfare and entitlement programs are presented as the government’s answer. And the more poverty and social instability we have in America, the bigger government gets. When society loses, government unions win.

What Changed Between 2016 and 2020

For years, a precarious balance of power existed, even to some extent in these big cities, between the power of the public sector unions and the power of other corporate and monied special interests. But between 2016 and 2020 that balance of power was shattered. Several causes can be identified, many already well underway even in 2016.

First, corporations increasingly realized their profits and market share were boosted by embracing a leftist agenda. The leftist open-borders agenda allows labor-intensive companies to import low-wage, low-skill workers, and allows the knowledge-intensive companies in Silicon Valley to import low-wage, high-skill labor. The leftist preference for global citizenship over national allegiance allows multinational corporations to export jobs under a cloak of moral authority. The leftist agenda to micromanage the economy in order to address the “climate crisis” is a goldmine for corporations who want captive markets, and a weapon they can wield against smaller emerging competitors lacking the resources to comply with the overregulation.

As for woke politics of all kinds, corporations are indifferent. If spouting these mantras is all it takes for them to maintain their detente with the Left, they’re all in.

In all these areas, Donald Trump opposed the agenda shared by the Left and by corporate America. In a stunning inversion of reality, the people who want to dismantle American institutions joined with institutional America to convince voters Donald Trump was a menace. Almost overnight, the urban political machines, controlled by leftist government employee unions, saw their biggest enemies turned into allies.

There’s more, of course. In 2016, the rapidly consolidating Big Tech companies that controlled social media and search had not finished weaponizing their political bias into actual suppression of pro-Trump online discourse.

In 2016, Trump’s supporters made better use of what were still largely neutral platforms than Clinton’s supporters, which helped the Trump campaign. Between 2016 and 2020, two things happened: First, in a series of escalating waves of deplatforming, deboosting, demonetizing, search results manipulation, biased trending items and news feeds, and, late in the game, blatant censorship, the online momentum of the Trump campaign was decisively undermined.

Second, during the same period, the sheer financial power of the Big Tech monopolies, already almost unimaginably wealthy, increased even more. Four years ago, Amazon shares traded around $760. Today, they’re running more than $3,130 per share. Facebook shares in the last four years have more than doubled from $115 to $276 per share. Google? Up from $760 to $1,752. Twitter? More than doubling from $18 to $43.

Where there’s burgeoning wealth and unbridled political passion, there are donations to candidates. Not only donations from diehard leftist billionaires like Jack Dorsey or Jeff Bezos, but also from hundreds of employees of these companies who have themselves become multimillionaires. Collectively, according to Wired, more than 95 percent of their donations went to Joe Biden. As Vox crowed on October 30, “people who live in the nine counties considered to be in the San Francisco Bay Area gave 22 percent more to Democrats in 2020 than they did in 2016, a jump from about $163 million to $199 million.”

The Next Phase, Urban Anarchy, Has Already Begun

When you’re making so much money in salary and stock options that money is practically an abstraction, you may think you empathize with the consequences of rabid leftism—even if you really don’t. The big corporations and their extraordinarily privileged employees may beat their chests and proclaim their compassion, but the politicians and the policies they’ve supported have accomplished the exact opposite.

The obligations of compassion, unfortunately for the corporate Left, the opportunistic public sector unions, and—it must be said—their clueless libertarian enablers, do not mean that just anything ought to be tolerated. It is not compassionate to permit heroin and methamphetamine addicts to openly practice their habit, nor is it compassionate to tolerate theft and vandalism because those who engage in these activities may be disadvantaged or feel disenfranchised. And if the hordes of addicts and thieves and rioters who have created lawless enclaves in every major American city were turned loose in the gated suburbs of the leftist elites, who can doubt their compassion would be redirected within hours into more effective avenues?

As it is, however, the Democratic machine is methodically turning over larger and larger swaths of America’s cities to anarchy. The riots of the last six months which convulsed cities across America and look to be ongoing in Portland and Seattle, if not elsewhere, are only the most recent expressions of this anarchy. The out-of-control homeless populations in countless American cities, especially in California, are the true harbingers of anarchy in America.

In the name of compassion, Californians have legalized vagrancy and hard drug use, and effectively decriminalized petty theft up to $950 per day. They have also overregulated the construction industry, making it impossible to build housing without subsidies. In general they have overregulated all economic activity in the state, which has driven out small businesses and created the highest cost-of-living in America. The consequences for California’s cities are predictable: a homeless population of well over 150,000 people, with no effective legal means of separating the truly unfortunate from the criminals and predators. Law-abiding residents of these anarchic zones are terrified and besieged.

In Los Angeles, the 2020 election results indicate these problems will only get worse. George Gascón, a progressive backed by George Soros, has unseated incumbent Jackie Lacey to become the new Los Angeles County district attorney. That Los Angeles voters could choose a candidate who promises to increase and expedite policies that have created this mess is inexplicable, until you reflect on the power of rhetoric and money over cold reality.

This combination, compassionate rhetoric backed up by billions in political donations, remains the reason America’s cities, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, are barely governable and set to get even more ungovernable.

Americans residing in blue cities vote for Democrats because unless the rioting or the homeless anarchy is on their street, or in their neighborhood, they don’t see it. The media doesn’t cover it, or if they do, they frame it so as to highlight the truly disadvantaged instead of the dangerous predators, and to emphasize the genuinely aggrieved instead of the opportunistic vandals and looters. The politicians know that business as usual enriches corrupt developers on the ground, while attracting almost limitless political donations from people too wealthy and too ideologically committed to support any solution that might be remotely construed as right-wing.

And as things go from bad to worse, in order to cope with the disorder, public sector unions demand more money and more members. For them, a breakdown in civil order is a business opportunity. Their interests are inherently in conflict with the public interest. And their new allies add strength to what was already quite strong enough.

There are choices politicians could offer voters and attorneys could argue in court: House the homeless in supervised tent encampments located in inexpensive parts of cities. Require sobriety and job training in exchange for further assistance. Lock up people who commit vandalism or physical assaults. Break up the social networks that have facilitated the extraordinary coordination of rioting, destruction of property, looting, and “peaceful protests.” Lower the threshold at which petty theft is decriminalized. Make public intoxication a crime punishable by jail time. Stop the scam of paying developers over a half-million dollars to construct a single apartment for one homeless person.

These commonsense solutions would solve the problem of anarchy and homelessness within a few months, without costing anything more than the policies currently being applied that are only making these problems worse. But they would have to be sold to voters who have finally had enough. Unfortunately, we’re still well short of seeing that happen.

Source: How America’s Cities Became Bastions of Progressive Politics – American Greatness

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California School District Bans ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ Other Classic Novels

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The Burbank Unified School District in California has banned several classic literary works that contain racial slurs. To Kill A Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two of the classics on the district’s new list of banned books.

According to a report by Newsweek, a school district in Burbank, California, has banned several classic books that contain racial slurs. The list includes: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, The Cay and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

The decision was motivated, in part, by an alleged incident in which a student used a racial slur he learned in the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. “My family used to own your family and now I want a dollar from each of you for the week,” one student reportedly said to a black classmate.

PEN America, a non-profit organization dedicated to literature, argued in a petition that it was inappropriate to ban the books.

“Each of the books in question deal with difficult subject matter from our country’s complicated and painful history, including systemic racism,” the petition reads. “Blocking engagement with these important books is also avoiding the important role that schools can and should play in providing context for why these books inspire and challenge us still today.”

The Burbank Unified School District is hardly the first school district to ban literary works that contain racial slurs. Breitbart News reported in December 21017 that a Mississippi school district banned To Kill a Mockingbird over its use of racial slurs. A school district in Virginia banned both Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 2016.

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.

Source: California School District Bans ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ Other Classic Novels

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Even a Military-Enforced Quarantine Can’t Stop the Virus, Study Reveals

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US coronavirus death toll crosses 2,000; Trump won't use enforceable quarantine in NY, NJ - ABC News

11.13.20 – AIER

“Even a Military-Enforced Quarantine Can’t Stop the Virus, Study Reveals”

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Even a Military-Enforced Quarantine Can’t Stop the Virus, Study Reveals

Excerpts from this article:

The New England Journal of Medicine [11.11.20 — https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717 ] has published a study that goes to the heart of the issue of lockdowns. The question has always been whether and to what extent a lockdown, however extreme, is capable of suppressing the virus. If so, you can make an argument that at least lockdowns, despite their astronomical social and economic costs, achieve something. If not, nations of the world have embarked on a catastrophic experiment that has destroyed billions of lives, and all expectation of human rights and liberties, with no payoff at all. 

AIER has long highlighted studies that show no gain in virus management from lockdowns. Even as early as April, a major data scientist said that this virus becomes endemic in 70 days after the first round of infection, regardless of policies. The largest global study of lockdowns compared with deaths as published in The Lancet found no association between coercive stringencies and deaths per million. 

To test further might seem superfluous but, for whatever reason, governments all over the world, including in the US, still are under the impression that they can affect viral transmissions through a range of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs) like mandatory masks, forced human separation, stay-at-home orders, bans of gatherings, business and school closures, and extreme travel restrictions…

A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center sought to test lockdowns along with testing and isolation. In May, 3,143 new recruits to the Marines were given the option to participate in a study of frequent testing under extreme quarantine. The study was called CHARM, which stands for COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines.

Of the recruits asked, a total of 1,848 young people agreed to be guinea pigs in this experiment which involved “which included weekly qPCR testing and blood sampling for IgG antibody assessment.” In addition, the CHARM study volunteers who did test positively “on the day of enrollment (day 0) or on day 7 or day 14 were separated from their roommates and were placed in isolation.”

What did the recruits have to do? The study explains, and, as you will see, they faced an even more strict regime that has existed in civilian life in most places. All recruits, even those not in the CHARM group, did the following.

All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate preplated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten. Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors who were assigned to each platoon worked in 8-hour shifts and enforced the quarantine measures. If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with Covid-19, they reported to sick call, underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.

Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with preplated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening. Instructors who were assigned to a platoon in which a positive case was diagnosed underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and, if the result was positive, the instructor was removed from duty. Recruits and instructors were prohibited from interacting with campus support staff, such as janitorial and food-service personnel. After each class completed quarantine, a deep bleach cleaning of surfaces was performed in the bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, and hallways in the dormitories, and the dormitory remained unoccupied for at least 72 hours before reoccupancy.

The reputation of Marine basic training is that it is tough going but this really does take it to another level. Also, this is an environment where those in charge do not mess around. There was surely close to 100% compliance, as compared with, for example, a typical college campus. 

What were the results? The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic…

And how does this compare to the control group that was not tested and not isolated in the case of a positive case?  

Have a look at this chart from the study:

New England Journal of Medicine

Which is to say that the nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate than those who were under an extreme regime. Conversely, extreme enforcement of NPIs plus more frequent testing and isolation was associated with a greater degree of infection. 

…No national news story that I have found highlighted the most important finding of all: extreme quarantine plus frequent testing and isolation among military recruits did nothing to stop the virus. 

…with this Marine study, you have a near homogeneous group based on age, health, and densities of living. And even here, you see confirmed what so many other studies have shown: lockdowns are pointlessly destructive. They do not manage the disease. They crush human liberty and produce astonishing costs, such as 5.53 million years of lost life from the closing of schools alone. 

The lockdowners keep telling us to pay attention to the science. That’s what we are doing. When the results contradict their pro-compulsion narrative, they pretend that the studies do not exist and barrel ahead with their scary plans to disable all social functioning in the presence of a virus. Lockdowns are not science. They never have been. They are an experiment in social/political top-down management that is without precedent in cost to life and liberty. 

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Pandemic ‘fuelling numbers of children out of school’

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Harry at work
Parents who home educate say it allows them to set a time-table that best suits their child

The coronavirus pandemic could be fuelling an increase in the number of children moving out of full-time schooling, town hall bosses warn.

The Local Government Association says some areas have seen significant rises in registrations for home schooling.

It comes after separate LGA analysis for 2018-19 suggested between 250,000 and a million children in England were out of full-time school.

The government says school is the best place for the majority of children.

A lack of oversight on how and why pupils leave, and where they end up, makes tracking them difficult.

There are no official figures for children who are missing out on school, and the issue has been a challenge for successive education departments which do not track it centrally.

Depending on how “missing school” is defined, the LGA, which represents councils in England. estimates the number could be around 280,000.

But if the point at which councils are formally required to provide tuition for sick pupils – 15 days absence – was adopted as a measure, children out of school would number one million.

The LGA began looking into how many children were out of full-time school before coronavirus hit the UK.

But there are concerns that the pandemic continues to push numbers up, and that the closure of schools and extreme pressure on support systems for special needs and mental health issues, make its findings even more worrying.

The LGA says that between September 2019 and September 2020, some local authorities, saw huge rises in registrations for elective home education.

For example, in Kent the figure rose by almost 200%, and in Leeds by almost 150%.

It is calling for more funds to enable schools to support children and more powers to keep an eye on them if their parents do take them out of school.

Judith Blake, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, says the rising numbers of children not in education are hugely concerning.

“It is hard to tackle due a lack of council powers and resources, and flaws in an education framework ill-suited to an inclusive agenda.

“Children are arriving in schools with a combination of needs, often linked to disruption in their family lives, at a time when schools’ capacity to respond is stretched to capacity.”

Life-choices

Ms Blake says while parents, councils and schools all have responsibilities to ensure children receive suitable education, significant gaps in the law mean it is possible for children to slip through the net and face serious risks.

These include safeguarding issues, gangs and criminality, serious under-achievement and damaged future prospects.

“The pandemic is only likely to increase these risks and add to the significant lifetime costs to the public purse of a young person not in education, employment or training,” she says.

There have always been a small proportion of parents who, for a variety of philosophical, cultural, lifestyle or religious reasons, decide to educate their children themselves, at home.

This is a right, set out in law, which parents are free to exercise.

Philosophical or life-choices remain the most commonly cited reasons but research for the LGA suggests health or emotional reasons are the fastest growing factors.

Some parents make the decision because they are frustrated with “zero tolerance” behaviour policies, their children’s refusal to attend or a lack of understanding of their child’s particular needs, the report says.

The LGA is keen to stress that not all the children who are taken out of school at the instigation of their parents end up missing out on their entitlement to education, and acknowledges that many parents provide an excellent home education.

It argues, however, that children are more likely to miss out on education if their parents remove them out of desperation because they feel the school is not meeting their child’s needs, or out of fear and hostility towards safeguarding or development interventions.

The report concludes: “Many have said that the world after lock-down might never be the same again.

“If that is the case, we should use this period of reflection to determine how we reconnect our education system going forward in a way that we can be confident that all children can access their entitlement to a formal, full-time education.”

In a statement, the Department for Education said: “For the vast majority of children, particularly the most vulnerable, school is the best place for their education.

“Home education is never a decision that should be entered into lightly, and now more than ever, it is absolutely vital that any decision to home educate is made with the child’s best interests at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

“Any parents who are considering home education on the grounds of safety concerns should make every effort to engage with their school and think very carefully about what is best for their children’s education.

“The protective measures in place make schools as safe as possible for children and staff, and schools are not the main drivers of infection in the community.”

Source: Pandemic ‘fuelling numbers of children out of school’ – BBC News

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Atlanta Teachers Innovate To Keep Students Engaged Remotely

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Atlanta Public Schools students have been learning remotely since March. Teachers, like North Atlanta High School’s Tamara Irving are coming up with creative ways to keep kids engaged.
Credit Catherine Mullins / for WABE
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Atlanta Public Schools will continue with remote learning through the rest of 2020. That means students will spend the first half of the 2020-21 school year online. That’s caused teachers to try to come up with creative ways to keep their kids engaged.

One Step At A Time

Tamara Irving teaches dance at North Atlanta High School. Like every other teacher in APS, she’s teaching remotely this semester. Her advanced students are rehearsing for two upcoming performances. Irving shows them the steps via Zoom, and they repeat them. They do it without music at first and then add music once they’ve rehearsed a bit.

Of course, these students are used to rehearsing together instead of in their homes rehearsing via Zoom. However, Irving is confident they will do fine when they have to perform.

Dance students at North Atlanta High School are rehearsing remotely for two upcoming performances. Their teacher Tamara Irving says they’re experienced, but learning dance moves remotely isn’t easy. (Catherine Mullins/ for WABE)

“This class has been dancing together for at least two years,” she says. “So, I know that they’ll probably click.”

Even so, she records herself for students to watch and imitate. Then the dancers record themselves so she can make sure they’re not confusing one foot with the other.

“When you’re learning virtually, sometimes you reverse things,” Irving says. “It probably will happen because it’s difficult.”

Irving said when she learned APS would begin the year remotely, she changed her approach to teaching this class.

“I’ve kind of shifted this year to more of a production-based class, as opposed to a technique-based class,” she says. “There is only so much we can do and also trying to keep students motivated.”

Motivation seems to be key to successful online learning. At the same time, Irving says, it can be a challenge because she’s not physically in front of her students.

“It’s really hard for these kids to actually get out of bed to attend class,” she says.

Sing, Sing a Song

Elementary school students may have more energy than high schoolers, but keeping them engaged in class can also be challenging.

Emily Backus teaches music at Mary Lin Elementary School. Obviously, it would be easier for her to teach in a school building equipped with musical instruments and good acoustics. But Backus comes up with activities her students probably wouldn’t do if they were in a school building.

“We’re going to do a musical scavenger hunt today,” she tells a third-grade class. “The first thing I would like you to find is something blue.”

Her students run to find their items. Backus has them describe what they found through song. She sings:

“What do you have, Stella?”

Stella sings back, “I have a marker.”

“Traditional music teaching is all about communal music-making happening at the same time, and Zoom makes that pretty impossible. So I’ve started to lean into opportunities to share. They all get really excited about sharing their ideas.”

Emily Backus, Music Teacher at Mary Lin Elementary School

Backus sings back and forth with a few more students, then asks the class to find more items. They add yellow, red, and green objects to their collection. They make patterns with the colors, then add percussion. Backus calls on them to play the rhythms they’ve created. She has no shortage of volunteers.

Backus says the shift to online learning has changed the way she plans for classes.

“Traditional music teaching is all about communal music-making happening at the same time, and Zoom makes that pretty impossible,” she says. “So I’ve started to lean into opportunities to share. They all get really excited about sharing their ideas.”

APS teachers will continue to navigate remote learning until January, at least. The school district says the earliest it will resume in-person classes is January 5. (Nick Nesmith/WABE)

Backus says it has also been easier to get her students to sing out loud on Zoom than it might be in person.

“I’ve been really impressed by how willing and excited they are to sing by themselves,” she says. “Sometimes that’s difficult to get kids to do, especially as they get older. But I think on Zoom, because there’s not the self-consciousness of, ‘Everyone’s here, and they can see me.’ It’s been kind of a strange benefit of teaching online.”

A Figure Of Speech

One of the biggest challenges of virtual learning seems to be keeping kids interested in school while they’re in their homes.

Fifth-grade teacher Krystal Wells makes sure her kids participate in class by having them answer questions in Zoom’s chat feature. During a lesson on figurative language, she asks her reading class at Tuskegee Global Airmen Academy to identify similes and metaphors. (They compare two things. Similes use the words “like” or “as.”)

Wells, who has decorated her Zoom screen like her classroom, shows her students several examples from a book they’re reading in class called “One Crazy Summer” by Rita Williams-Garcia.

“Let’s look at [this] example,” Wells says to her class. “’The rain felt like small kisses on my face.’ Simile or metaphor?”

Krystal Wells teaches fifth grade at Tuskegee Global Airmen Academy. She uses Zoom’s chat feature to check her students’ comprehension. (Jonathon Kelso/ for WABE)

They type either ‘s’ for simile or ‘m’ for metaphor in the chat feature. As the answers come in, Wells responds.

“Yes! Simile! Yes,” she says.

The class goes over why the phrase is a simile: the rain is being compared to kisses, using the word ‘like.’

Wells says using the chat feature helps her check students’ comprehension.

“When you’re in a classroom, [students are] like, ‘Oh, pick me, pick me!’” she says. “Then you have the shy one…in the back, like, ‘Don’t pick me because I don’t want to get a wrong answer.’”

 Wells says, for some kids, this can be an advantage of online learning.

“It’s almost like it gives an opportunity to kind of step out of that comfort zone and participate and share their voice and their opinions,” she says.

APS teachers will continue to navigate remote learning until January, at least. The school district says the earliest it will resume in-person classes is January 5.

Meanwhile, some nearby districts like Fulton, Cobb, and Gwinnett counties have resumed some form of face-to-face learning.

A note of disclosure: The Atlanta Board of Education holds WABE’s broadcast license.

Source: Atlanta Teachers Innovate To Keep Students Engaged Remotely | 90.1 FM WABE

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Election Rigging – Part 2

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Forget rigged polls: Internet voting is the real election threat | Reveal

“Election Rigging – Part 2”

By Henry W. Burke

11.16.20

To see “Election Rigging – Part 1,” please go to this link — https://www.educationviews.org/election-rigging/

Even though the Mainstream Media has called the election for Joe Biden, President Trump supporters should not be discouraged.  Because the election rigging was on such a massive scale, the evidence is overwhelming! Hundreds of Americans have filed affidavits certifying election fraud; and scores of attorneys are volunteering their services to aid Trump’s legal effort. 

Based on the precedence of previous rulings, the Supreme Court can consider statistical evidence of fraud and can correct election results.  The truth will prevail, and the Supreme Court will rule in President Trump’s favor! This will go down as the most corrupt election in American history!

1. Dominion Voting Systems – Machines and Software

Dominion voting machines are used in 2,000 jurisdictions in 30 states. The system is not safe from fraudulent manipulation; the software was specifically designed to rig elections.  Because of these problems, Texas rejected using Dominion three times. Millions of votes were shifted by this software.

Attorney Sidney Powell (part of the Trump legal team)  stated on Sunday, 11.15.20:

“I never say anything I can’t prove. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have stepped forward with their different instances of voter fraud. This is a massive voter fraud. The Dominion software was used by other election machines also. The software was the problem. Even the manual explains how votes can be wiped away. They also have an algorithm to calculate the votes they would need to flip, and they used the computers to flip those votes. When the votes are really audited and the real votes are counted, Trump will win. He is the President!” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi13x6_Ki3o&feature=youtu.be

2. Paper Ballot Fraud Supplemented with Electronic Fraud

When Nick Chase went to bed at 1:30 am. on November 4, President Trump was ahead in Wisconsin by 2 % and ahead in Michigan by 3 %.  When he woke up at 4:30 a.m., Trump’s lead had shrunk to 1 % in Wisconsin and 1.5 % in Michigan.  (Nick Chase is an active writer, editor, and webmaster.) He stated:

“But what really startled me was that Biden’s raw vote total had increased substantially in both states, and Trump’s raw vote total had not changed at all!  That is an enormous red flag for fraud being committed, and I knew right away that the Democrats, who had failed at dislodging Trump from office by impeachment, were now going to deny him victory by stealing the election.” — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/examining_the_code_internet_geeks_conclude_trumps_win_was_yuuuge.html

As Nick Chase describes it, the crooked Democrats thought they had created enough fraudulent paper ballots to win easily. With President Trump still leading in the upper Midwest, they had to switch or destroy enough votes electronically to give Biden enough votes to win.  However, with Trump pulling ahead, electronic fraud was shifted into “overdrive.”  The researchers (Trump team) concluded that huge numbers of votes were switched electronically from Trump to Biden!

Here is another election oddity. Six battleground states paused election counting on election night (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Nevada).  Quite likely, the Democrats needed some time to do their dirty deeds of “creating more Biden votes.” This was a coordinated effort by the Democrats to rig the voting machines and computers to switch votes from Trump to Biden. — https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/six-battleground-states-democrat-governors-pause-counting-election-night-coordinated/

There might not be enough time to crawl through every vote by hand (a recount); but experts in big data analysis are already documenting the massive fraud which took place in the 2020 Election, such as the same ballots being rescanned 4 or 5 times. 

3. Voting Machine Manipulation

Most of the computers used for voting in America have a built-in mechanism that allows votes to be weighted in favor of a candidate.

If someone tells a computer to change the election outcome, the computer’s processes will create unnatural data trails that prove human intervention in the vote counts. That happened in three Michigan counties (Oakland, Macomb, and Kent counties).

Ballots going into the system can be fraudulent because of dead voters, fake voters, and faked ballots. The Democrats promoted mail-in voting, pushed for no voter ID,  and deliberately failed to check voter signatures.

4. Vote-counting Machine Irregularities 

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (MIT Ph.D. engineer) works with Bennie Smith (software engineer and election commissioner) and Phil Evans (engineer and inventor).  Dr.  Ayyadurai explained these systems in a video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztu5Y5obWPk&feature=emb_logo

1). Most vote counting computers are fraught with errors.

2). The computers take a snapshot of each ballot. By law, the snapshots must be saved for 22 months; but Democrat counties and states deleted them immediately.

3). Voters have no idea if the computer correctly read their ballot.

4). Almost all voting machines ( including the Dominion machines) are programmed with a “weighted race feature.”  This allows the computer to multiply a candidate’s actual votes.  For example, the computer could automatically multiply every Joe Biden vote by 1.5, 2.0, or whatever.

5). Dr. Ayyadurai analyzed four counties in Michigan.  In three of the four Michigan counties (Oakland, Macomb, and Kent Counties), the machines systematically took votes away from Trump and gave those votes to Biden. Those counties are heavily Republican.

6). In Oakland, Macomb, and Kent Counties, Trump’s margin was reduced by at least 138,000 votes.  (As if by “magic,” Trump’s total was decreased by 69,000 votes; and Biden’s total was amazingly increased by the same number — 69,000 votes.)  If this vote theft occurred for the other 80 counties in Michigan, the potential theft was huge!

7). Here is the kicker: In heavily Democrat Wayne County, the machine did not steal Trump votes; yet he overperformed there. Why? Because the Democrats did not need to switch votes in Wayne County to win…

8). Biden supposedly won by less than 3 % in Michigan.  Without the voting machine manipulation and illegal votes, President Trump would have easily taken Michigan!

5. Election Recommendations

Dr. Ayyadurai concluded and recommended the following — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztu5Y5obWPk&feature=emb_logo

Need for:

  • Verifiable inputs: e.g., Permanent Voter Registration Card
  • Open source software
  • Handmarked Paper Ballots
  • Save ballot images pursuant to Federal Law
  • Publish ballot images publicly (allows for public recount)
  • Automatic audits – audit every election
  • Publish precinct level data (“poll tapes”) on election night

6. Numerous Ballots with No Down Ballot Candidates

It is typical that most voters will completely fill out their ballots. Besides voting for President, they will typically vote at least for their Senators and Congressmen. Sidney Powell stated on Sunday, 11.8.20, that:

“They have identified at least 450,000 ballots in the key states that miraculously only have a mark for Joe Biden on them, and no other candidate. If you look at Florida where everything was done right, you can see how the rest of the country should have gone.”

*Conclusion: The fraudsters ran out of time and marked only Joe Biden on the ballots they manufactured for him:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi13x6_Ki3o&feature=youtu.be

7. President Trump’s Legal Challenges

President Trump announced on November 14 that Sidney Powell has been added to the President Trump re-election campaign’s legal team.  Scores of attorneys are volunteering to aid President Trump’s legal effort. —  https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-adds-sidney-powell-to-election-legal-effort_3579347.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-11-15-2

Sidney Powell says that they have enough evidence to launch a massive criminal investigation.  Clearly, Dominion Voting Systems will be a major target of the Trump legal team’s scrutiny.

More than likely, the Trump lawyers will press for a full election recount and audit. An audit will determine if the election was administered properly and that the equipment functioned correctly. Because an audit will resolve systemic issues, the Trump campaign team will probably pursue an audit rather than a simple recount.

*Message to Joe Biden:  “Instead of measuring the White House curtains, you might want to set aside some bail money for you and your Democrat buddies!”

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