Boots & Sabers

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Category: Culture

Test Scores for U.S. History and Civics Plummet

by | 1901, 7 May 23 | , | 1 Comment

This is a disaster.

A growing number of students are falling below even the basic standards set out on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a rigorous national exam administered by the Department of Education. About 40% of eighth graders scored “below basic” in U.S. history last year, compared with 34% in 2018 and 29% in 2014.

 

Just 13% of eighth graders were considered proficient — demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter — down from 18% nearly a decade ago.

 

[…]

 

The dip in civics performance was smaller but notable: It was the first decline since the test began being administered in the late 1990s. About 22% of students were proficient, down from 24% in 2018.

 

[…]

 

Instructional time for social studies declined after the implementation of No Child Left Behind, a pattern that was amplified during the pandemic, when schools had to triage academic losses, resulting in more of a focus on reading and math.

 

“It doesn’t bode well for the future of this country and for the future of democracy if we don’t start doing more instruction in social studies,” said Kristin Dutcher Mann, a history professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, who helps train middle and high school social studies teachers. At one point, she said, older elementary school students in her community received an hour of social studies each day. Now, she said, “they will be lucky if they get 30 minutes for social studies twice a week.”

 

Instruction has changed, too.

 

Students spend far less time memorizing state capitals or the preamble to the Constitution — information they could easily Google — and instead focus more on key skills, like distinguishing between primary and secondary source documents. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Dr. Dutcher Mann said. Students need to be taught to think critically.

 

But she said that emphasis can contribute to a troubling lack of background knowledge. Even in her college classes, she said, she has noticed a “rapid and very significant decline” in what students know about history and geography — like the fact that Africa is a continent, not a country.

I do think that the emphasis on “how to think” is useless without a base of knowledge. You can’t evaluate information if you lack the historical and factual context of the information. It’s not that we want to move away from teaching critical thinking. It’s that we have to teach a lot of rote facts first so that we CAN teach critical thinking.

Oregon to Make it Illegal to Harass Vagabond Campers

by | 1947, 28 Apr 23 | , , | 3 Comments

There was a time when a public space was supposed to be able to be enjoyed by all. In Oregon, you’ll need to feel comfortable dodging mentally ill people and needles to enjoy your public spaces. And don’t complain, because that might cost you. Of course, if you are accosted, that’s on you.

Democrats in the Oregon House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would decriminalize homeless encampments in public places and allow homeless people to sue for $1,000 if harassed or told to leave.

The bill, HB 3501, would allow unhoused people to use public spaces “without discrimination and time limitations” regarding their housing status, the text reads.

“Many persons in Oregon have experienced homelessness as a result of economic hardship, a shortage of safe and affordable housing, the inability to obtain gainful employment and a disintegrating social safety net system,” says the bill, sponsored by Rep. Farrah Chaichi, a Democrat whose district includes Beaverton, and Rep. Khanh Pham, from southeast Portland. “Decriminalization of rest allows local governments to redirect resources from local law enforcement activities to activities that address the root causes of homelessness and poverty.”

 

Teacher Activism

by | 0813, 26 Apr 23 | , , | 8 Comments

Bearing in mind that we only get one side of the story in this article and it’s from the aggrieved teacher, but this is the kind of stuff that parents are rightfully getting upset about. This is a 3rd grade teacher. 3rd grade. I don’t want her delving into queer theory any more than I want her to 2nd Amendment rights. I want her to teach the curriculum. Is that so hard? Just do the job. The classroom is not your personal activism space.

Sophie Marie (@soph4president), a third-grade teacher in Austin, Texas, recently came under fire for certain ways she conducts her class. Her attire was also a point of contention.

“you’d think I was teaching way out west but this is downtown Austin…,” she writes.

 

“OK, so today I got pulled into a ‘check-in meeting’ with my administrator at school, and she had this lovely list of concerns that she wanted to bring to my attention,” Sophie explains in the video.

 

Included in the list is the concern that Sophie is “intentionally” teaching her third-grade students about their rights.

 

“But my favorite amongst them is, ‘We’ve noticed an intentional attempt at teaching your students about their legal and constitutional rights.’ That’s the concern,” she reveals. “Why are you concerned? Why is that a concern? Why does that concern you?”

 

Sophie, who is “queer until proven straight,” is outspoken about human rights on her social media platforms. She covers a plethora of current events, including the Queer Capitol March and Texas legislation.

 

“I have no other choice but to be political. life is depending on it,” reads her Instagram bio. “unwilling to die for the dow. abortion advocate.”

Thomas Mansplains Feminism for Teammates

by | 2107, 25 Apr 23 | | 1 Comment

Lovely.

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas hit back at women who don’t want her to compete in women’s sports, claiming they were too scared to ‘fully manifest’ their ‘implicit bias’ and play it off as half-support.

 

The former University of Pennsylvania athlete joined first NCAA transgender swimmer Schuyler Bailar on his podcast Dear Schuyler on Monday to discuss the division over whether or not trans-female athletes should be on women’s sports teams.

 

Thomas, who received multitudes of criticism throughout the swim season, has called her former teammates and critics fake feminists who are pushing transphobic values under the disguise that they are ‘supporting women.’

 

[…]

 

‘They’re using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs. I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people, but don’t want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out. And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half-support.

 

Bailar agreed with the controversial athlete, saying:  ‘They’re coming from…this whole protect “protect women’s sports,” [which] has become a very big movement and that they do it under the guise of feminism. “Oh, we’re just feminists, we’re just fighting for women,” and whenever anybody says that I’m always [like]: ‘Okay, you’re fighting for women by excluding women so that’s not fighting for women.’

 

The athletes discussed how black women faced the same criticism that transgender women are facing now, saying that people ‘don’t want a woman who doesn’t look like you perhaps or who isn’t fitting your version of womanhood to win.’

 

Bailar went on to say that feminism has become ‘twisted’ and ‘turned into excluding women’ and reduced them to ‘reproductive capacity.’

 

‘At the end of the day, everybody’s trying to – under a true feminist  – is everybody trying to come together to sort of break down these patriarchal ideals of what a woman is and who can be a woman and sort of open that up to to the very broad range of possibilities that there are,’ Thomas said.

Underly undermines education

by | 0719, 25 Apr 23 | , , | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly has finally found something to get vocal about. It’s not about the fact that only about 9.1% of Milwaukee government schools kids are proficient or better at math. It’s not about the fact that only 5.1% of Kenosha government schools kids are proficient or better at language arts. No, those immoral and abysmal failures escape Underly’s notice. But the fact that some kids in the Waukesha government school district are not singing “Rainbowland” by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton has drawn her full wrath. Underly’s priorities are clear and wrong.

 

[…]

 

Understand that if those same teachers were infusing biblical teachings or gun rights into every day, then Underly’s stance would be different. But since those teachers want to indoctrinate kids with critical race theory, gender ideology, and Marxism, Underly wants to enforce unfettered access to kids under the banner of inclusivity. Leftist activists like Underly never seem to consider how ferociously exclusive they are to people with whom they disagree.

 

This is the trick by which leftists have been using our schools increasingly as indoctrination centers. Through activists posing as teachers and staff, they push the latest leftist ideology into our schools through every crevasse. With flags on the walls and off-topic rants, they program kids to accept their world view as the only normal. Then, when challenged by parents who disagree, they gaslight and accuse parents of being controversial and oppressive. It is a proven tactic by leftist cry-bullies.

 

In Waukesha, the citizenry, through their elected school board, has decided that they want their teachers to spend their time teaching. Their policy does not prohibit the discussion of controversial subjects but relegates them to the appropriate educational context. The district’s recently approved Parental Rights and Transparency policy reaffirms this commitment to education and inclusivity and leaves the teaching of values and religion to parents.

 

The good folks of Waukesha are making it clear that they want their government schools to spend their valuable time teaching core subjects and skills instead of wading into the latest cultural controversy. Government schools are only required to teach 1,137 hours per school year for grades seven through 12 — less for other grades. That’s less than 13% of a child’s time. Kids can spend the other 87% of their time engaging in cultural warfare, but for that 13%, Waukesha wants their kids to learn something.

 

Under Superintendent Underly’s watch, like that of her predecessor, the performance of government schools to educate kids has been in decline. Our kids are falling increasingly behind and are less equipped to be successful adults than their parents were. Despite this, Underly is choosing to spend her finite time and considerable resources bullying school districts to allow leftist teachers to use their classrooms to indoctrinate the next generation.

TikTok to Enforce Climate Change Orthodoxy

by | 1217, 22 Apr 23 | , | 4 Comments

Look at them get in line when threated by a ban. And you’ll notice that TikTok still isn’t banned…

Controversial social media app TikTok announced Friday that it would begin removing “climate change misinformation” from its platform.

 

“On April 21, we will begin to ramp up enforcement of a new climate change misinformation policy which removes climate change misinformation that undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as content denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it,” the company said in a statement ahead of Earth Day on Saturday. “As we do for all misinformation policies, we will work with independent fact-checking partners when applying this policy to help assess the accuracy of content.”

32,000 More Living Babies In 6 Months After Dobbs

by | 2049, 18 Apr 23 | | 3 Comments

Excellent!

In the six months after the Supreme Court ruling that ended the federal right to an abortion, there were about 32,000 fewer abortions than expected in the United States, according to a new analysis.

There were about 5,000 fewer legal abortions each month, on average, than there were in the months before the ruling – a drop of about 6%.

I thought the most interesting thing about the report was the before/after chart by state starting on page 9. Look at the “before” column and notice that the number of abortions is nowhere near linear by population. The states had different restrictions prior to Dobbs, but abortions were still generally available for most of the time for all pregnancies. The difference in abortion rates seems to be indicative of the varying cultural preferences in each state more so than the legal restrictions. Of course, those differing legal restrictions in each state were also reflective of the cultural variances in each state.

I guess it just confirms what we knew… liberals just really like to abort their babies much more than conservatives.

Cardinal Stritch University to Close

by | 2058, 10 Apr 23 | , | 1 Comment

The demographic trends are undeniable. There will be more to fall. What are our taxpayer-supported universities doing to adjust to the new realities?

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — The president of Cardinal Stritch University announced Monday that the university will be closing, effective May 22.

 

In a video message, Dr. Dan Scholz said, in part:

“I would prefer that I shared good news with you, but my message is profoundly sad. I am here to report that the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi have accepted the recommendation of the University’s Board of Trustees to suspend and cancel all educational services, activities and programs, effective May 22, 2023 and begin the winddown process of the university operations after the current spring semester.” 

Dr. Scholz attributed the closure to “fiscal realities, downward enrollment trends, the pandemic, the need for more resources and the mounting operational and facility challenges.”

Dueling Drug Rulings

by | 0748, 8 Apr 23 | | 6 Comments

The contradictory federal court rulings about the abortion pill is going to have to be resolved by SCOTUS. I did think that this was… interesting, I guess. Infuriating?

Allison Whelan, assistant professor in Georgia State University College of Law who filed a legal brief in favour of keeping FDA approval, said the ruling – which refers throughout to “unborn humans”, not fetuses – was “inflammatory”.

“The politics and ideology motivating Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision could not be made any clearer by the inflammatory anti-abortion language used throughout the opinion,” she told the BBC.

While not the chosen language of the Left, “unborn humans” is a perfectly accurate description of an unborn human. How is that inflammatory? I suppose you could argue that it is anti-abortion, because it acknowledges the fact that fetuses are, in fact, unborn humans, but if anything, “unborn humans” is far more accurate description in common language.

Frankly, I appreciate the abortion supporters who are at least honest and admit that they want to kill the babies instead of hiding behind words to obfuscate the fact.

 

School choice is only the first step

by | 0729, 4 Apr 23 | , , | 1 Comment

Go out and vote today, but then come back and click through to read my column for the Washington County Daily News today. Here’s a piece.

With the April election behind us, we can turn our attention to some of the structural issues that underlie our nation’s decline. The number one reason that our nation is weaker than it was a generation ago — and yes, it is weaker — is because of the collapse of our education system.

 

Once the envy of the world, our education system has been debased by the destructive culture of low expectations.

 

Nationally, student performance has been declining for many years. There are spurts of exceptionalism, but even they are pulled down by the sticky morass of mediocrity that has become the celebrated standard of our government educational system.

 

The inevitable result of a dumbing down of our education system is that we end up with graduates who lack the basic knowledge and critical thinking skills to successfully navigate adulthood or effectively participate in their God-given right to self-governance. It is our collective moral failure that we have failed our kids this badly and for this long.

 

The pandemic did not create the problems in our government schools, but it did lay them bare for all to see. As the schools deprioritized education in the face of a virus that posed negligible risk to children, parents were confronted with what their kids were being taught as they scrambled to fill the void. What parents saw was appalling. As the government schools have scaled back on rigorous core subjects in the name of equality, they have allowed activists to step into the void to indoctrinate kids into the latest leftist fads. Our kids may not be able to do math in their heads or name the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights anymore, but they can easily spout off on the perils of climate change. The government schools of today are not the same as the ones we attended a generation ago.

 

[…]

 

As these reforms are underway, it is imperative that we do not stop there. School Choice is only about the funding mechanism.

 

We cannot rely on our government — its policy makers or its unelected bureaucrats — to provide a quality education for our kids. They have already demonstrated their incapacity to do so.

 

In some cases, it is not for lack of good intentions, but government bureaucracies are not structured to deliver exceptionalism to individuals. Government bureaucracies are designed to deliver mediocrity to the masses, and that is exactly what they have done delivering education.

 

Since we have relied on our government to provide mass education, most areas lack enough private schools to provide the diversity of educational options to absorb true universal school choice. It is going to take a generation to fix this capacity problem. We have to start now by supporting the expansion of existing private schools and the creation of new ones. We must also support our friends and neighbors who choose to homeschool. Finally, we must be unforgiving in purging bad schools and the people who run them when they fail. Our children deserve better than a 5-year improvement plan.

 

WWE Merges with UFC

by | 2027, 3 Apr 23 | , | 0 Comments

This merger seems somehow appropriate with the Trump indictment.

World Wrestling Entertainment is merging with Endeavor Group, the parent company of competitor UFC, to form a new publicly traded company.

 

The deal values the newly combined company at over $21 billion: UFC is worth $12.1 billion and WWE is valued at $9.3 billion. Endeavor shareholders will own 51% of the newly combined company, while WWE shareholders are getting 49%.

 

“This is a rare opportunity to create a global live sports and entertainment pureplay built for where the industry is headed,” said Ariel Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor, in a statement. Emanuel, a Hollywood powerhouse agent, will be the CEO of the new company and retain his chief executive title at the agency.

 

Town Rejects Development to Preserve Heritage

by | 1155, 2 Apr 23 | , | 5 Comments

And we wonder why the housing stock struggles to keep up with demand. By all means… let’s reject an investment in the community, more homes, more business, and more growth to keep some dilapidated old buildings. There is a way to honor our past while still investing in our future.

EATONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A developer on Friday ended plans to purchase a 100-acre (39-hectare) property from the local school system in a historically Black town in Florida following a public outcry that the deal threatened the cultural heritage of the community made famous by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston.

 

Derek Bruce said in a letter to Orange County Public Schools in Orlando that he had terminated the deal to purchase the land where a former school for Black students stood in the town of Eatonville. The school system said in a statement that it wouldn’t consider any further bids for the land.

 

[…]

 

An association dedicated to preserving Eatonville’s cultural history last week sued to stop the $14.6 million deal, claiming it threatened the cultural heritage of the town. The developer had plans to build 350 homes, as well as business spaces, raising fears the project would increase traffic and price out longtime residents of the town.

Child Thrown Out of Tournament by Trans Activist Judge

by | 2135, 31 Mar 23 | | 0 Comments

Bully.

A teenage player was disqualified from a Pokémon Trading Card Game tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina, after an exchange with a judge regarding his preferred pronouns.

 

Makani Tran, who took time off school and spent $800 to participate in the tournament, was brought to tears when the head judge told him he was disqualified from the event due to allegedly violating their inclusion policy by making someone feel unsafe and uncomfortable.

 

He gave his side of the incident in a lengthy post shared from his Twitter account.

 

On our way over to the stream area, the judge asked us for our preferred pronouns. I said “Um he or him or uh” and I paused trying to think of the third pronoun (the third pronoun being his). As I just stood there looking stupid trying to think of the third pronoun, I felt embarrassed because I was failing to think of a simple word. Due to the nerves and me being embarrassed, I let out a little laugh just a normal nervous laugh. My response together ended up being “Um he or him or uhhhh haha his.” That’s it.

 

It appeared that the judge became uncomfortable after Tran had an awkward laugh upon being asked his pronouns.

 

“OK, I just wanted to check to be safe. I go by they/them so don’t be a jerk about it,” the judge apparently responded.

Godwin’s Law Has Been Invoked

by | 1220, 19 Mar 23 | , | 1 Comment

I’m not sure which is worse… that our educational system so bad that he actually thinks this is true or that he knows it isn’t true and is using the clumsy fake analogy anyway.

Adrien, who was born and raised in South Florida, is now an Orlando-based drag queen and said recent anti-LGBTQ political shifts make the state feel like it’s no longer home.

 

Specifically, Adrien said ongoing narratives about drag shows and minors, like the complaint against the Hyatt Regency Miami on Tuesday, are “trying to paint a picture that just isn’t real … It’s a fake narrative.”

 

They also cited recent and proposed legislation — including an education bill dubbed by critics as “Don’t Say Gay” that limits how topics like gender are discussed in classrooms — as examples of what they called dangerous power grabs.

 

“It’s exactly what we were taught about in schools about how the Nazis rose to power,” Adrien said. “Textbook, bullet point for bullet point.”

Marxists and Radicals Drive Out Traditional Democrats

by | 1042, 18 Mar 23 | , | 0 Comments

It’s a shame, really. The common ground has become difficult to find.

Thompson—who represents a largely rural area outside the north Louisiana city of Monroe—took pains to emphasize that record in his decision to switch.

“Let me clear—Nothing has changed,” Thompson said in a statement following the switch. “There are values and principles that I firmly hold onto that guide my decisions. My conservative voting record over my years in the Legislature speaks for itself.

“The push the past several years by Democratic leadership on both the national and state level to support certain issues does not align with those values and principles that are a part of my Christian life,” he added.

Homeowners blockaded in Vilas County

by | 0743, 7 Mar 23 | , , | 2 Comments

We have a hostage situation going on in Vilas County. I wrote a little about it for the Washington County Daily News. Here’s a part:

After years of wrangling through a convoluted mess of contracts, bad record keeping, broken promises, state, local, federal, and tribal laws, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has decided to blockade dozens of non-tribal families in the dead of winter. In a dramatic escalation, tribal officials are demanding $20 million in order to lift the blockade.

 

The root of the issue rests in the 19th-century Dawes Act when the federal government broke communal tribal lands into parcels to be allotted to tribal families as private property in exchange for U.S. citizenship. Some of those private parcels wound up in the hands of non-tribal people through sale, foreclosure, and other means by which private property changes hands. Now, more than a century later, those private parcels are owned by non-tribal families who are being blockaded.

 

[…]

 

On January 31, in a grotesque escalation, the tribe blockaded the four artery roads with concrete blocks and wire. About 60 homes are sealed off from the outside world except for emergencies. Even then, tribal authorities must be called to open to roadblocks ahead of time. Some residents have been forced to abandon their homes entirely while others are having to use snowmobiles and sleds to cross the frozen lakes to get supplies, medical care, work, and attend school. With the spring thaw looming, they are weeks away from losing that frozen lifeline.

 

To lift the blockade, the tribe is demanding $20 million for a 15-year easement. This is an exorbitant sum for a simple easement, but the tribe seems content to hold non-tribal homeowners hostage in order to extort the sum. For comparison, the most recent offer that the tribe rejected was for about $1.1 million plus all future state gas tax revenues from the town for perpetual access.

 

The most innocent party in this whole dispute is the one suffering the most — the homeowners. They bought their properties in good faith and have been dutifully paying their taxes to maintain the schools, emergency services, and, yes, roads. Yet their property values have been obliterated, their lives are being disrupted, and their safety is being endangered.

 

The situation has reached a crisis point and real leadership will be needed to resolve it. It is unacceptable that one group of Americans should be blockading another group of Americans as a negotiating tactic in a legal dispute. This is not about sovereignty or some noble cause. It is about cold, hard, cash. If the tribe will not immediately lift the blockade and return to the negotiating table, the governor must step in to protect the homeowners from being used as hostages.

Government Stewardship Programs Are Choking Wisconsin Communities

by | 1455, 5 Mar 23 | , , | 1 Comment

Again we find that, too often, environmental causes are used as the excuse to obliterate private property and individual rights – the underpinnings of a free society. This is a very good piece by Richard Moore about how government stewardship programs are choking the North Woods to death. Here’s a part:

The reason is pretty simple and straightforward: These purchases of land and easements have reached the point where they pose an existential threat to life in the Northwoods. This purchase alone would place more than 80 percent of the land in the town of Monico under government ownership and/or control, obliterating any chance the town would have to develop economically in the future. Just over 30 percent of all of Oneida County is owned by government—state, county, federal—and as the number of privately-held or controlled acres dwindles, so does any realistic chance to diversify and grow vibrant economies and robust, cohesive communities.

 

Speaking to the Oneida County board of supervisors this past week, Felzkowski put it this way:

 

The purchase of land north of Hwy. 64 has got to stop if we are ever going to see economic vitality up here. The towns can’t afford EMS services. Our schools have declining enrollment.

 

The senator offered up some shocking statistics to underscore how extensive and far-reaching these land control schemes have become. All totaled, Felzkowski said, about 5.9 million acres of land in Wisconsin are publicly held:

 

Those 5.9 million acres of land are larger than the state of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and is equal to the state of Vermont.

 

The counties of Forest, Florence, Langlade, Lincoln, Oneida and Vilas—some of the poorest counties in the state—have 1.3 million acres of public land, Felzkowski said:

 

Florence County is 45.7 percent publicly owned, or 32 acres per resident. Forest County is 59.7 percent publicly owned, or 42 acres per resident. Langlade County is 32.6 percent publicly owned, or 9 acres per resident. Oneida County is 30 percent publicly owned, which equates out to 6 acres per resident.

 

By contrast, Dane County is 3.8 percent public land, which is less than one half of 1 percent per resident, Felzkowski said.

 

[…]

 

When 80 percent of a town is owned by government, it’s effectively a government town. The private sector withers and dies, and the town withers and dies with it. The Northwoods would become a pristine but empty wilderness devoted entirely to wildlife and elite humans—the affluent bureaucrats and progressives who will, and have, used this as their private playgrounds.

 

For average families, there would be housing, no jobs, no schools, no room for them..

 

The Reverse Black Migration Continues

by | 1810, 4 Mar 23 | , , | 1 Comment

Huh… it’s almost as if black people like safe communities, good jobs, lower taxes, and a government that minds its own business. Who knew?

In a great reverse Black migration, Brookings data says four of the top five states for Black population gains since 2010 are Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. Black people are driving U-Hauls to Texas, Georgia and Florida despite voter restrictions. A new Republican majority on North Carolina’s supreme court is reconsidering redistricting and voting restrictions ruled illegal by the court’s prior Democratic majority. Florida banned an Advanced Placement African American studies course. Texas and Florida are ending diversity, equity and inclusion in state agencies, and limiting the teaching of race in schools.

 

[…]

 

While Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida have gained 1.3 million Black residents since 1995, according to Brookings, New York, Illinois, California, and New Jersey are the top four states for losing Black people, to the tune of at least 1.5 million Black people. Recent stories in the New York Times and Washington Post, feature the massive declines in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

 

In those cities, the cost of living on top of the grinding structural racism in housing, schools, jobs and entrepreneurship, chews at Black people more than red meat Southern politics. The Democrats can talk all the Black Lives Matter they want, but the nitty gritty of a roof over the head and bread on the table is more important than a ranting Ron DeSantis in Florida, a curmudgeonly Greg Abbott in Texas, or a combative Brian Kemp in Georgia.

 

What matters is that Black unemployment is higher in California, Illinois, and New York than in Florida, Georgia, or Texas. What matters is that of the 12 most segregated cities for Black people, as measured by Brookings, 11 of them are north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Cheesy Ruling

by | 1746, 4 Mar 23 | , | 0 Comments

First the Dairy industry takes a hit when the government rules that nut juice can be called “milk,” but then a court gives them this. As a consumer, I’m confused…

The name “gruyere” can now be used to label cheeses from outside of the Gruyère region of Switzerland and France, a US appeals court has ruled.

The Virginia court upheld a ruling stating that the US does not have the same strict rules as Europe on the designation of origin for foods.

 

It agreed that “gruyere” can legally be used to describe cheese regardless of where it was made.

The decision is seen as a victory for US dairy groups.

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