1984 is here (it's back)

Is double-speak okay? Sugar-coating? Using feel-good terms, so you don't offend someone?

Whatever happened to telling the truth?

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott may be about to find out.

Last week Pres. Biden's honchos laid out a new policy, giving them some P.C. language to use and some words to stop using.

"The Biden administration sent memos to immigration officials last week regarding their new far-left immigration policies, which included telling officials to no longer use terms like “illegal alien.”

"The memo orders immigration officials to make changes in rhetoric such as substituting “noncitizen or migrant” for “alien,” “undocumented” for “illegal,” and “integration” for “assimilation.' " (Source: www.republicandaily.net, April 28, 2021)

How does Chief Scott feel about that memo? His response was that "he can’t comply with the Biden administration’s softening of legal terms to refer to illegal aliens."

Chief Scott is exactly right. People who cross the border illegally are "illegal aliens"; not some other "soft", inoffensive term! I suspect Chief Scott will retire soon. Or be retired.

How minimum-wage (or higher) employees may act.

This was copied from a friend's Facebook post. It clearly shows that Walmart is over-paying that employee. Even minimum-wage would be too high for that employee.

THIS IS HOW BAD IT IS OUT THERE...So I am at Walmart scanning and bagging my almost $300 worth of groceries while the employee that wants $15 an hour "monitors" and then this happened.

Her - why are you double bagging all of your groceries?

Me - excuse me?

Her - you are wasting our bags!

Me - if you don't like the way I'm bagging the groceries, feel free to come on over here and bag them yourself.

Her - that's not my job!

Me - okay, then I will bag my groceries how I please if that's all right with you.

Her - why are you using two bags?!

Me - because the bags are weak and I don't want the handles to break or the bottoms to rip out.

Her - well that's because you are putting too much stuff in the bag. If you took half of that stuff out and put it in a different bag then you wouldn't need to double bag.

*10 seconds of me just staring at her.

Me - so you want me to split these items in half and put half of them in a different bag so that I don't have to double bag.

Her - exactly.

Me - so I would still be using two bags to hold the same number of items.

Her - no because you wouldn't be double bagging.

*me pressing two fingers to my left eye in an attempt to make it stop twitching.

Me - okay so here I have a jug of milk and a bottle of juice double bagged. If I take the milk out and remove the double bagging and just put the milk in the single bag and the juice in that single bag I'm still using two bags for these two items.

Her- no because you are not double bagging them so it's not the same number of bags.

*me looking around at about 10 other customers who at this point are enjoying the show.

Me- is this like that Common Core math stuff I keep hearing about?

Her- never mind you just don't get it.

And with that she went back to her little Podium so she could continue texting or playing games on her phone or whatever it was she was doing before she decided to come over and critique my bagging skills.

Pledge of Allegiance - said wrong at every meeting

You know the Pledge of Allegiance; right? At least, I hope you do.

You think you know it, but have you been saying it incorrectly for years?

At every school board meeting, and in many other places around the country, the Pledge is repeated incorrectly.

Here it is:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." (Source: U.S. Flag Code, ¶4)

Almost everyone has gotten into the habit of disconnecting "under God" from "one Nation. And so people say "... and to the Republic for which it (the Flag) stands, one Nation (pause) under God..." as if there is a comma after Nation. There is not.

The Pledge, said correctly, is "... and to the Republic for which it (the Flag) stands, one Nation (no pause) under God..."  It's "one Nation under God". 

"under God" was added to the Pledge in 1954.

Punctuation is important. 

Unfortunately, in schools today, punctuation may not be taught as "important".

The next time you say the Pledge, say it correctly. Notice that you will be standing and speaking alone, as you say "under God" immediately after "one Nation." If I'm there, you and I will be saying it correctly, and together.

Board time-waste on class action lawsuit

Several meetings ago the superintendent brought forward a proposal for Richland 2 to join in on a class-action lawsuit against vaping.

The Board that night was one member short, and a vote was taken on the Motion to join that lawsuit. The vote was 3-3, and someone had to remind the Chair that a tie-vote meant that the motion failed.

How did this issue ever get back on the agenda? Didn't the Board decide a while back that, when an issue was voted down, it wouldn't be brought back up?

Somehow, the issue made it back onto the Agenda for tonight's meeting. Actually, all it takes is a little pow-wow between the superintendent and the board chair, and an item appears on the agenda.

I am reminded of the definition of Nagging. Someone once defined nagging as being "nibbled to death by a duck."

The pitch tonight was to join a class action lawsuit. 

Mrs. Agostini attempted to ask Dr. Miley a question, and Chair Manning interrupted and answered it. He was completely out-of-order in doing so. Mr. Agostini is polite and did not call a Point-of-Order on Manning's move. 

Slide #5 of the presentation to the board revealed the number of "Incidents of Vaping and Tobacco". In School Year 2020-21 there have been five (5) vaping incidents and three (3) tobacco incidents. If I do the arithmetic correctly, that's a total of eight (8). Eight incidents out of 28,000 students. 

Last school year, there were 63 in the whole year. Out of 28,000 students. That's 0.225%.

Mrs. Agostini is right. Why is the district wasting its time and money even considering the joining in the class-action lawsuit???

The superintendent said it might be 10-15 years in the courts. 

What damages will Richland 2 receive? None. Richland 2 is not being harmed in any way by 8 students who vape or smoke. 

Who gets rich on class-action lawsuits? The attorneys. 

April 27 Board Meeting - whew....

First of all, the Board meeting started late. After five minutes of staring at the screen, the District finally splashed an informational page that the board was still in executive session. The producer of the livestream should be prepared for a delay and ready to announce the delay, rather than hoping viewers will just stand by and twiddle their fingers.

At 6:08PM the livestream began, but the meeting had already been called to order. Chair Manning called on (trustee-elect) McKie to introduce the speaker for the inspirational moment. Once again, McKie was long-winded. All she really needed to say was, "Tonight's inspirational moment will be given by ______."

How long should an inspirational moment be? Two minutes? Maybe three, at the outside limit? Not the six minutes taken by the speaker and an additional person he introduced.

When it was time to deal with the disciplinary issues that had been discussed in executive session, Mrs. Agostini made a motion to send Student No. 1 to Blythewood Academy for the balance of the year. When the Chair called for a second, you could hear a pin drop. But the pin never did drop, and Agostini's motion failed for lack of a second. 

Then McKie moved for Student No. 1 to be granted "strict probations", whatever that means.

When the board moved on to Item 8.1, suspension of Board Policy BE, the world of formality and business procedure died. The motion was to suspend BE. BE is the policy that pertains to board meetings.

What Administration was trying to accomplish was to cancel the June 8th board meeting, because it falls on the same day as graduation.

The Motion, as proposed orally, was to suspend temporarily Policy BE (completely).

The Motion, shown on the monitor but not read by the person making the motion, was more detailed and explicit about applying to the June 8th board meeting.

On which motion did the board vote?

To avoid confusion, the Chair should have had the person making the motion read the exact motion.

It's really such a simple thing to follow established rules. But, with Richland 2, there are no consequences for carelessness.

Do teachers "teach" or indoctrinate?

Do teachers teach students how to think or do they teach students what to think?

You'll only know if you are in close contact with your children about what is happening in their classrooms. Listen to how they describe their classes and to the words they use. Are they coming home with "new" words? Are their explanations beginning to show bias?

This article, published in The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation, may open your eyes. The title, Keep Racist Critical Race Theory Ideology Out of K-12 Classrooms, will give you a heads-up.

Just attending a board meeting of the Richland 2 School District should put you on the edge of your chairs. Listen for words like discrimination, racism, injustice, equity, inclusion, cultural diversity. 

Pay attention to who is speaking and whether the speaker is making sense to you. Do some speakers use many words but don't really say anything?

More on CRT

Okay, so by now you probably know that CRT is short for Critical Race Theory?

Ever hear of Coach David Flynn?

Any idea where Dedham, Mass. is?  (15 mi. SW of Boston)

Does this headline get your attention?

Federal Court Hearing in Civil Lawsuit Challenging Firing of High School Coach for Objecting To BLM/Critical Race Theory

Check out this case, behind which is Judicial Watch. Coach Flynn, father of a daughter in seventh grade, got tossed from his coaching gig because he objected to subject matter in his daughter's ancient history class.

Federal Court hearing - Monday, April 26, 2021 3:15PM EDT

If you hurry, you might even be able to register to attend the court hearing online. See the link in the article.

If you're mad that that school district went after the parent, think what could be happening to the student's grade for that class.

Do you withhold criticism of Richland 2 policies out of fear of retaliation or retribution against yourself or one or more of your children?

If so, please comment below. If you don't want your name to appear, send me an email (gusphilpott@gmail.com) and I'll publish your comment without your name or email address. Include your phone number, so that I can verify the comment. Your privacy is guaranteed.

By the way, I'm still laughing about the day in Illinois that the Sheriff thought he could scare me into revealing the names of deputies who were leaking information to me. Under subpoena I appeared in Federal Court on my pro se Motion to Quash his subpoena. And the judge granted my Motion! He told the sheriff's attorney that she was "just on a fishing expedition" (his words).