Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Tuesday's podcast: Biden in Ukraine but not Ohio, Nixon to China 1972 & more


Biden in Ukraine but not Ohio......Over $ 50 billion in remittances to Mexico from US....Nixon China 1972....and other stories.....

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Tuesday's video: School choice, Biden in Ukraine but not Ohio, Nixon to China 1972 & more


School choice, Biden in Ukraine but not Ohio......Over $ 50 billion in remittances to Mexico from US....Nixon China 1972....and other stories....

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Another reason for school choice

 


(My new American Thinker post)

The Texas legislature is debating school choice.  The arguments are not new.  The GOP wants to give parents choice and the Democrats say that it would destroy public schools.

School choice is gaining because the public schools are not performing, as we see in failing schools in Baltimore, and some teachers are out of control.  Here’s an example of what I'm talking about.  This is another example of a teacher more concerned with his "understanding" of history than consulting or respecting the parents. 

A Florida middle school teacher is now on administrative leave and likely to be terminated after making a series of videos involving his students -- one of which shows white students acting as black students’ servants.

Another of English teacher Ethan Hooper’s clips involves his class repeating after him a rhyme about how Florida (allegedly) is banning books, Florida’s Voice reports.

“I shall not read books,” Hooper (pictured) said, with his students immediately repeating the line. He follows up with “Books are bad” and “If I read, it’s approved by the feds.”   

In the clip, Hooper, garbed in a “Black Teachers Matter” T-shirt, also mockingly excoriates various Howard Middle School students for reading “Harry Potter” (because witchcraft), a book with a black boy playing basketball on the cover (“Hey hey hey! A black boy? No!” Hooper tells the kid) and “Holes” (“I’m gonna dig up a hole and bury this book in it,” Hooper says).

He also chides a student for reading… a dictionary.

What's this person doing in a classroom?  This is exactly why parents are in rebellion and going "home schooling" or demanding school choice.  They want this nonsense to stop and stop yesterday.  

I'm not opposed to telling students that black servants worked for white ranchers, say in the South in the U.S.  This is a fact, just like white servants worked for the British upper class or what we've seen in all those PBS shows.

Of course, this teacher is not interested in history.  This is more of the same "I hate the country" garbage killing public schools and driving parents away.

The Democrats keep saying in Austin that "choice" will kill public schools.  Actually, it's the school districts that disrespect parents doing the killing.  

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Nixon to China and many balloons later


On this day in 1972, President Richard M. Nixon made history, and showed some political flexibility, by landing Air Force One in China. It was the story of the year and one of the most interesting foreign policy decisions of the postwar period, especially because of Nixon’s political past.

By any account, Nixon seemed an unlikely candidate to improve relations with Red China, as it was known back then. We remember that during the 1940s and 1950s, Mr. Nixon was a vocal cold war warrior and had condemned the Truman administration for “losing” China to the communists in 1949. And we remember his comments in 1959 when VP Nixon expressed doubts about Fidel Castro.

President Nixon’s move paved the way for the China of today – in other words, cars instead of bicycles. Skyscrapers instead of simple buildings. It also contributed to the outsourcing of thousands of manufacturing jobs – i.e., “Made in China” is everywhere!

The jury is still out on just how much the U.S. got out of this arrangement. At the same, most Americans are not old enough to remember Mao or the China that some of us remember as kids. Back then, it seemed that all Chinese men and women wore the same outfits. Today, they are as fashionable as anyone in the West.

Was it the right thing to do? We are still debating that today. In retrospect, the trip to China was also about dividing the USSR from Red China. I just don’t remember anyone back then saying opening up China would turn it into a manufacturing powerhouse with a huge, and expanding, navy.

The debate will continue and Chinese ships will keep visiting places all over.

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