astorminacup

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did you guys see yesterday that a whistleblower came forward and said that facebook knows how to remove the conspiracy theories and nazis but chooses not to because of the ad revenue those kinds of things bring in (and actively turned off the bare minimum safeguards they had when biden won the election), and now today, immediately following this whistleblower’s report: facebook, instagram, whatsapp, and all the sites owned by facebook are mysteriously down and have been down for over two hours now

#well well well #how uncanny #that's distraction 101 btw

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at this point how are you not anti-capitalist? don’t you think it’s messed up that people can work 2 jobs but are living paycheck to paycheck but are supposed to have thousands in savings, and be expected to pay for healthcare, food, and rent? how about the fact that you can probably never own a house in your lifetime, and if you want to live away from your family you will need to share a place with 6 roommates just to keep things afloat? does it make you angry that you’re dying for a living? don’t you think it’s mind boggling how the last time there was a technological space race it was between two super power countries but recently it has between the 2 richest men in the world? don’t you think the wealth gap between average person is far too wide? don’t you feel angry reading about “self made” success stories about how “hard” they worked when there is an obvious inequality in the opportunities they had in the first place? doesn’t it make you scared that the earth is being destroyed by exploitative capitalism? doesn’t it make you angry?

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A Twitter Thread from David Bowles:

[Text transcript at the end of the screenshots]

I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.

Most classroom practice is astrology.

Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.

We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.

Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.

Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.

What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.

Some definitions:

Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.

Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.

Things we (scholars) DO know:

-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.

-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.

Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.

Maintaining the status quo? Nope.

Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.

If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.

They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.

And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.

For what?

It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.

WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.

We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.

The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?

Education is all about capitalism.

"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.

THAT is why modern education is a failure.

Its basic premise is monstrous.

"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"

Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.

#education #learning

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when people make fun of balkan and specific eastern european countries for being broke and "not as good as western european countries" i.e. Britain, France, Germany, I just think to these maps:

do you notice a general correlation between those richer and "nicer" countries? and why they're such "pretty" and "ideal" and "go-to" destinations today?

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hard to put yourself out there during the plague ngl

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"Never forget that it only takes one political, economic or religious crisis for women's rights to be put in jeopardy. Those rights are never to be taken for granted; you must remain vigilant throughout your life."

Simone de Beauvoir

#texas #abortion

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Abortion rights are under attack, and it’s time to fight back.

If you think this is just about Texas or ‘red’ states, you’re wrong. Attacks on abortion anywhere are a threat to our rights everywhere. Today Texas’ SB8 takes effect. This dangerous and extreme law bans abortion as early as six weeks (way before most people even know they’re pregnant) and includes an unprecedent provision that allows private individuals - including anti-abortion protestors - to file lawsuits enforcing the bans. There’s even a monetary reward - up to $10,000 - for successful lawsuits. There have been over 90 abortion restrictions enacted this year alone - more than any year since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. It’s time to raise the alarm - keep #bansoffourbodies. What can you do? Follow and donate to: West Fund, @BuckleBunniesFundTX (Instagram & Twitter), Jane’s Due Process, The Bridge Collective ATX, Fund Texas Choice, @LaFronteraFund (on Twitter), Texas Equal Access Fund - TEA Fund, The Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, Clinic Access Support Network & The Afiya Center.Sending love and access to all Texans.

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#afghanistan

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i cannot describe the horror and heartbreak i feel. over the past several decades, afghani women and girls have gone through immense suffering. oppression, mass rapes, murders. by both the taliban pre and post 9/11, and the invading soldiers from other nations. even before that, particularly for the majority demographic of women that live in rural afghanistan. but they pushed through, expressing hope at one day living in a free nation. and now that’s gone. sharia law. forced marriage. forced pregnancies. zero rights. burkas. those are the plans of the taliban. never having freedom or rights is terrible, many women suffer from that. but i cannot imagine anything worse than gaining rights, getting a taste of freedom, of the world, and then getting it ripped away from you, all within the same lifetime, in just 20 years. post 9/11 had many terrors, but within the endless conflict, women were slowly pushing themselves forward with all their might. steps were being made. 

women in their prime, with endless potential, looking towards careers and progress and dreams, feeling like things were pushing forward, using their voices to push things forward. little girls born into a messy, violent conflict, but many of them being able to go to school and walk around with the wind blowing through their hair, a gift that wasn’t afforded to many of their mothers and foremothers. older women, having gained and lost rights themselves multiple times during the many 1900′s ruling and governmental conflicts, and gained small slivers of joy in their lives at the slowly but surely developing rights of their daughters and granddaughters. they probably thought “maybe this time. maybe not in our lifetimes, but perhaps in our daughters’ lifetime”. 

gone in the blink of an eye. the taliban took almost 100 years of progress away in the 90′s, women challenged that and made that 100 years’ worth of progress back in just 20 years, and the taliban is to take it again. the only silver lining is that it shows that no matter how many times you oppress and violate women, they will always push back, and never stop fighting for what they deserve. if women were meant to be at home, birthing sons and serving husbands, men wouldn’t have to work so hard to enforce it. 

#afghanistan

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ALL OF THIS👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼

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I found maybe the best satellite map site for fires, winds and rain. It is zoom.earth.

Here you can see in detail where and how big the fires are right now. Note the size of the fire in North Euboea and how many towns are threatened by the fires.

Here is the fire in Athens and Mount Parnitha. Note how close it is to the Wildlife Shelter of Parnitha (on the left). That is also where the grounds of the royal residences of Tatoi are.

The fire in Elis. Note how close it is to Ancient Olympia (left). This is from today and the fire was contained there eventually but the previous days the fire was even closer to the archaeological site.

And the fire in Mani. Note how close it is to the beautiful historical town of Gythion (Yithion) on the right.

But this in not just a matter of pretty towns and archaeological sites. Look at the number of towns where people had to abandon their homes. This is only what is burning right now, not what was burned all these days. And the winds are strong.

I also must say that no matter how bad a heatwave is and while climate change is definitely happening as we speak, this hellfire is not caused just by a heatwave. This is arson. The worst is that this is the deed of MANY arsonists. Right now, the police has caught or is chasing at least 4-5 arsonists. All sorts of dangerous equipment was found in the forests, magnifying glasses, oil, matches etc. Are all these people just crazy? Are they acting only on their own volition? Is there something bigger lurking behind? I hope time will tell. Time MUST tell.

The law needs to become a lot stricter with arson. Arson is knowing you will certainly kill flora, you will almost certainly kill animals and you will possibly kill humans, regardless if the firefighters manage to put out the fire before it causes any casualties. The intent is still there. Just saying.

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i think it is quite telling that how the wildfires in australia was trending for months and everyone around the world was screaming about how terrifying it is that climate change affects us. turkey and greece had been burning for days because of the extreme heatwaves and there are so little information about it going around, let alone trending or whatsoever.

this above, is a great map example of how the extreme heat changes are causing wildfires, because the entire agean sea and east mediterranean is on fire as we speak. turkey is around 46°C, and greece 43°C, with the approximate ground being 53°C. these fires are not in only forests, but they are in the city centres too. antalya and almost every district of muğla had been burnt to ground, and it keeps spreading to new districts, with athens, the capital city of greece facing extreme difficulties because the fires had reached there at last. also many of the small islands in greece were affected and electricity went off in athens, the biggest city of greece. our animals are suffering, and more of them are dying each day.

these photos i am putting below, are from istanbul and izmir. none of those two cities had experienced any kind of fires in these last week, but the entirety of the cities skies had been painted with these colours and even at almost 40°C, the sun is almost invisable because of the waves coming from greece& south coast of turkey causing an "ash rain". this is just the beginning of the end because every year the heat keeps getting worse and worse, meaning that the wildfires become more and more dangerous each year. climate change isn't just something special for america or australia, but small countries are suffering too and it is way much harder for us to fight these, as both countries struggle with stopping the fires. if it keeps going this way, next year will be much, much harder for us to stop the fires and more lives will be gone. this is no joke.

#wildfire #turkey #greece #climate change

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I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.

— Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

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the meaning of life is summed up in the story elmer bendiner tells about how when he was a pilot the second world war, his plane was hit with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the nazi forces but the crew survived. and how everyone was saying it was a miracle until they investigated the shells that got in the fuselage and found there was no explosive charges in any of them. in one they found a note scribbled in czech, written by the person who had been forced to manufacture the shells, and it just said ‘this is all we can do for you now’.

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The way black people have invented literally every modern music genre and still have no recognition or respect given outside of hip hop and rap is really all the evidence you need to understand how deep anti blackness sits in our cultural history, not even mentioning the way pioneering black artists had their lives and careers absolutely pillaged to enrich white producers, artists, and labels