Erika Cooke

Tell Congress: Stop Trump's War with Iran Trump's unauthorized war in Iran has already taken the lives of US servicemembers and at least 1,000 Iranian civilians. It has devolved into a larger regional conflict, with missile and drone strikes,...

Tell Congress: Stop Trump's War with Iran act.indivisible.org/sign/no-iran...

I can see the #HATM feed but I'm not seeing my posts come up. 🤷‍♀️

So I'm guessing the history between the adults is timed to be Civil Rights movement related, based on the year this is supposed to be set? #HATM

Ads! Oh no! 🙄 #HATM

A whiskey bottle in the teacher's desk? 😁 #HATM

Oh boy do I feel the not fitting in as a kid. #HATM

I'm seeing this as I'm finally watching Andor season 2. 🫤

And I need to remember the #HATM!

So happy to be able to join tonight! It's been a while.

1. @renatakeller.bsky.social @phdrachel.bsky.social and many are others that have already been mentioned
2. Leftover eggplant in garlic sauce and Picpoul Blanc

There has to be Pat Green on there too!

Share a TV show you never get tired of rewatching. 📺 📺 📺

. . fixing the issues when they're in power. The newspapers and other media use the narrative to find someone that captures an opposition story to the powerful and backs a new guy, or even a previous leader that becomes opposition to those that ousted him before. Cycle continues.

. leader to support. So the populist caudillo in charge in some ways loses control of the media that spread an opposition message to the next opposition populist leader that captures the grievance of the public. In the 19th and early 20th centuries caudillos get replaced when they show they're not .

There's some parallels here with the media state under caudillos in Latin America. The supporters of an opposition have a structure and narrative, but once they're in power the structure shifts to the next opposition and the cycle continues. Populist supporters want an opposition, not the actual . .

I mean I graded essays today, so I don't have any issue with this idea.

Like she doesn't get a creeper vibe?

Actually, probably not. She's too full of herself to get creeper vibes when it smacks her in the face.

*Destructo-kitty

A calico cat asleep on the top of a recliner.

I give you Desructo-kitty, at rest.

It's very cold across most of the country, so to counteract that, quote-post a favorite photo from a summertime baseball game.

Gotta go with a good AA minor league game. This was September when the RockHounds became the Amigos for Hispanic Heritage month.

Current weather in West Texas at 14*F with light snow and wind chill at -1*F.

Well I'm glad to wake up to see this and it's not a school day.

This is the only thing that will make it all make sense.

I ran a Speech and Debate tournament/Academics Invitational last weekend. One of the volunteer judge/graders subbed for the teacher next to me yesterday. Last period I got a beautiful handwritten note and a gourmet chocolate bar and boy did that make my day.

A little bit goes a long way y'all.

Max Edling, A Revolution in Favor of Government

youtu.be/svUyYzzv6VI?...

I know the answer to this question.

It's never. Not once in 20 years of teaching high school.

NEVER.

Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate: 1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest. 2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.

Cont’d: 3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling. And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze. The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.

Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.

Bluebooks. I teach AP in high school, but I have them handwrite just about everything in class. Most of my students tell me they prefer writing on paper to typing. Handwriting isn't really too bad or too difficult to decipher.

Really? Really? I live in West Texas where there are turbines everywhere because *waves at the flat land with no trees* and we have yet to see any radar interference.

There are Air Force bases out here.

Really Burgum?

Dude.

River found a fortress of solitude to hide from the other two cats in the house.

Oh yes this. 💯

What are those people doing? I just don't understand.