Friday, November 13, 2020
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Wear your shoes as there is glass everywhere. Message from the leader at The Ellis School!
Friday note from Macon - November 13, 2020
US Community Homeroom 11/11/20
Good morning students. I want to take a moment to
acknowledge and celebrate a remarkable moment in our
nation’s history - the naming of Kamala Harris this past
weekend as our country’s Vice President-elect.
Regardless of our political affiliations, I hope we can all
pause to recognize the significance of this moment for
women in our country, and especially for women of color.
We are witnessing some firsts that will go down in the
history books, as Kamala Harris is the first woman to be
elected to this office, the first Black person, and the first
South Asian person.
The sense of possibility Vice President-elect Harris’s
election represents is enormous. I want to be sure each of
you feels that same sense of possibility for yourselves - I
hope you hear it from your families, from your teachers,
from your friends and classmates. And I especially want
to be sure you hear it from me. Each of you is a gift to this
school community and to the world. Each of you is going
to make a real difference in your life, each in your own
unique way. Some of those will be highly visible, publicly
recognized contributions, like serving in public office or
leading a startup or doing groundbreaking research.
Others will be quieter, more locally impactful contributions,
like healing patients in a hospital, or creating exhibits in a
museum, or managing a team in an organization, or
writing for a local newspaper. You don’t need to know yet
how you will make your mark. But I want you to know that
you can, and you should, and that our goal at Ellis is to be
a community where each of you knows and feels that
about yourself and your future, in which we lift each other
up and work together to create only more possibilities for
all girls and women. My favorite social media quote this
weekend referenced the glass ceiling that has been
shattered by Kamala Harris, and goes like this: “For all the
girls coming behind us. Be sure to wear shoes...there's
glass everywhere.” You all are those girls. I want you to
hear me say “Go for it. When it’s your time, I hope you’ll
get out there and shake the world!"
Dancing in the streets for Biden now, but what about in 1 or 2 years?
John H posted:
Now that Joe Biden has been declared the victor by the media and people have been euphorically dancing in the streets in eager anticipation of the wonders of a return to normalcy in America, perhaps it is time to take a good look at just what a Biden/Harris administration will actually look like. It may well be that all of the dancing and celebrating may not be as happily remembered a year or two down the road – only time will tell. It may be that the new normal Biden is promising to bring to the nation and the world will be much too much like the old normal which gave us Donald Trump to begin with – and that could bring him back in 2024, or even something much worse.
John
“Organized Greed Always Defeats Organized Democracy." -- Matt Taibbi
Sunday, November 08, 2020
Fwd: Grab a friend and see who gets more matches!
From: pirates.com <info@mail.mlblists.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 9:11 AM
Subject: Grab a friend and see who gets more matches!
To: <mark.rauterkus@gmail.com>
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Saturday, November 07, 2020
Fwd: The election is over . . . well almost over
From: John H
Date: Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 9:46 PM
Subject: The election is over . . . well almost over
Now that the election is (almost) over it may be a good time to evaluate just what the American public has bought into this time around. If, as it appears at the moment, Joe Biden prevails and the Republicans hold onto control of the Senate we can probably expect essentially nothing but more corporate and financial profiteering and more wars and interventions around the world for the next four years. There will be almost no likelihood for any positive legislation benefitting Americans not so fortunate to reside within the lofty confines of the top 1%. At the same time, due to the pandemic and the utter failure of the powers that be to adequately address the economic and medical consequences we are very likely to see even more deaths and a prolonged economic depression for the majority of the nation – if not the world. Fortunately, for the corporate and financial elites, the Federal Reserve has already stated that it is prepared to use its full panoply of options to insure that the "economy" does not crash. This, of course, does not translate into jobs and income for most Americans only protection for financial institutions, Wall Street and mega-corporations. So be prepared, these will indeed be interesting times ahead – not that they aren't already.
I don't believe that there was ever going to be a beneficial outcome from this election regardless of the outcome, though I do concede that Biden is marginally better than Trump, but this almost guarantees that Biden will be nothing but an ineffectual placeholder and that economic conditions in the next two to four years will almost certainly lead to a Republican sweep of both the House and the Senate in 2022 and the Presidency in 2024. If the Democrats has simply bothered to put up a candidate and some policies addressing the very real needs of the American people in this election – jobs, healthcare, student debt, climate catastrophe, etc. I believe that they would have won in a landslide. As it turned out Trump almost won by appealing to people on the economy and, had the pandemic not occurred and had he not botched it so badly, he almost certainly would have won handily. Identity politics may make people feel good, but its not a winning appeal when people are struggling economically and unable to access healthcare reasonably.
I strongly urge you to read the attached articles. The first contains two excellent short pieces, the first by Chris Hedges and the second by Jonathan Cook. The second is a longer piece from Naked Capitalism which is also quite good.
John
"Organized Greed Always Defeats
Organized Democracy
Matt Taibbi
Thursday, November 05, 2020
Fwd: Carlow's St. Agnes - petition
From: Melissa McSwigan <mmcswigan@preservationpgh.org>
Date: Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 11:00 AM
Subject: Carlow's St. Agnes - petition
To: Melissa McSwigan <mmcswigan@preservationpgh.org>
A number of people have expressed their concern regarding the former St. Agnes Church that Carlow University is planning to demolish as part of their 5th Avenue development.
Below is one actions to take if you would like:
#1) Petition to Save St. Agnes
To sign:
http://chng.it/xCxtYsd7My
Carlow has released their Institutional Master Plan (IMP). The IMP is required by the City of Pittsburgh. Carlow stated that they will be approaching the Planning Commission in November regarding the plan.
We believe that options should be explored for incorporating St. Agnes Center (the former church) into Carlow's plans for their Lower Campus/5th Avenue Development. There is an adjacent parking lot that will be part of the development and a taller building could go there. We believe that it is possible to spare the church and use it as a historic and cultural anchor for the new development.
For more info on Carlow's Institutional Master Plan (IMP)
--
Fwd: Thought you’d be interested
From: Alyssa Mahramus <amahramus@everfi.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 10:45 AM
Subject: Thought you'd be interested
To: <mark@rauterkus.com>
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Saturday, October 31, 2020
Fwd: Zombies are coming for you and your rights
From: Jo Jorgensen <jo_jorgensen@jo20.com>
Date: Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 1:46 PM
Subject: Zombies are coming for you and your rights
To: <mark@rauterkus.com>
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Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Fwd: The Digital Divide and COVID-19 via Rand
Mental health support for college students, teachers' views on social and emotional learning, and more.
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