Links!

One week until the end of the semester. Well, two if we count finals. Two and a half if we count finals and graduation. But then I will have, for the first time in forever, a moderately long break, since I'm not teaching until Summer II.

I'ma spend the entire seven weeks writing and sleeping. Sleeping so hard.

Meanwhile, I've been working hard with my grammar class on Reed-Kellogg diagramming. If you never learned RKD, you might not enjoy this post as much as I did: Antoine Dodson Saves My Class.




Here, Libby Anne talks about how committing to parenting without punishment creates better families. The comment section is especially good here.


Over on Alas, a Blog, a Discussion Page about trans issues, called The Mint Garden. One thing I've noticed in several places around the blogosphere is people spewing forth their opinions about trans people when they know almost nothing about trans issues. Learn before you speak. Dunning-Kruger ain't a handgun, people.


This, published in the NYTimes, is a piece on how writing workshops privilege the experience of the middle-class white American male.

See also this, linked over at Historiann: What "Snowflakes' Get Right About Free Speech'  -- I've seen far too many bloggers, especially leftist bloggers who ought to know better, dismissing the protesters in simplistic terms. This is an interesting and difficult question. We should treat it that way.


Here's a tweet from the day New Orleans was taking down its Confederate monuments. Frequently when I'm teaching Douglass' Narrative of the Life, or anything else about the American South, here in the Fort I have students who have been taught revisionist bullshit about how the Civil War was not fought about slavery, but about "States Rights," or over tariffs, or something other self-serving propaganda. And when I give them the truth, they're wide-eyed with rage. "But my high school history teacher said..."

That monument being taken down in New Orleans? This is what it says on it. Context for when you see "traditionalists" freaking. pic.twitter.com/P7snb2Aae7

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) April 24, 2017

I point them to the original documents, the secession documents. Go look at what those said, I tell them. What they say is what this monument says -- we're doing this because we want to keep slaves, we're doing this because we believe in white supremacy, we're doing this because we'll tear this country apart and commit treason before we give up those things.

Finally!

Watch this video. Eight minutes long, but well worth it. You know we leftists love to slag on capitalism, but here's a capitalist doing good with his wealth: