FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2023
Three cheers for Mississippi's black kids (if everything is as it seems): As readers nay know, we don't (do not) recommend holding contempt for other people.
That said:
If not for that wise admonition, it would be hard to have sufficient contempt for "cable news" bluebirds who function in the manner shown below.
We do allow feelings of contempt with respect to people's occasional actions. Keeping that in mind, we don't recommend contempt for the cable stars who produced the exchange shown below.
We don't recommend contempt for the people! We do allow you to feel contempt for what these bluebirds said:
SCARBOROUGH (5/18/23): I want to talk really quickly, before we go to break, about reading in Mississippi and Alabama.
I mean, you know, Mississippi—two states I love, two states I've lived in. Two states when I hear we're 49th in this, 50th in that, I roll my eyes.
Did you read about the "Mississippi miracle" yesterday? That Mississippi's reading scores have shot way up?
OFF-CAMERA GUEST: Yeah.
OFF-CAMERA GUEST: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: The Alabama miracle? It's so heartening, and maybe offers a road map for other areas in states that may be doing better but where there are pockets of illiteracy, to do better.
That was Joe Scarborough, and two willing guests, pretending that they knew about, and were heartened by, the so-called "Mississippi miracle."
One day before, this miracle had given headline status by the Associated Press. In a pseudo-discussion which lasted something like 90 seconds, everyone on the Morning Joe set pretended that they knew about, and cared about, the heartening matter at hand.
They did so "really quickly." Along the way, Scarborough even seemed to announce an Alabama miracle, along with the miracle occurring next door to that state.
As you may recall, the AP report dealt with one lone measure of academic progress. It dealt with statewide scores in Grade 4 reading on the 2022 administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Naep), the gold standard of American public school testing.
The AP report had dealt with Grade 4 reading on the Naep, and with nothing else. With that in mind, has an Alabama miracle occurred in recent years? Here are Alabama's actual scores on this important measure:
Average scores, Grade 4 teading, Alabama
Naep, 2011 - 2022
2011: 220.27
2013: 218.58
2015: 217.05
2017: 216.42
2019: 211.73
2022: 213.30
Based on this important measure, does it look an "Alabama miracle" has somehow taken place?
Stating the obvious, Scarborough had no idea what he was talking about when he declared this miracle. The other stars on the Morning Joe set were, of course, equally clueless.
(They did know how blue tribe pundits are expected to behave when such claims occur, as they periodically do.)
That said, there you see the actual scores which Scarborough described as a miracle. Alabama's fourth-graders had actually lost a substantial amount of ground in the decade which the AP report had used as a basic framework. Scarborough said this was a miracle, and his gushing guests agreed to agree with his claims.
It would be hard to have sufficient contempt for behavior of this type, except for the fact that this type of behavior has been so common down through the many long years.
In truth, no one in the upper-end press corps cares about the lower-income kids of those Gulf Coast states, and no one ever has.
Instead, our journalists have routinely enjoyed occasional bursts in which they go along with heart-warming claims about major academic progress in some lower-income locale. They never know what they're talking about and, quite plainly, they really don't actually care.
(According to experts with whom we consult, this doesn't mean that they're bad people. It means that they're people people.)
At any rate, this behavior has been very common within our horrific blue tribe. Our bluebirds pleasure us with such claims, and we bluebells return to our slumbers.
In this instance, we're talking about Scarbrough's absurd attempt to pretend that a miracle has occurred in Alabama. The AP report made no such claim. In fairness, we know of no reason to assume that Scarborough actually knew that.
In fact, no miracle has occurred in Alabama—not even within the limited world of the Grade 4 reading test. That said, has a miracle occurred in Mississippi? Just to put that claim in perspective, here are the scores for the three states at issue from last year's Grade 8 reading test:
Average scores, Grade 8 reading
Naep, 2022
U.S. public schools: 259.11
Mississippi: 252.93
Alabama: 250.90
Louisiana: 256.65
(The "Main Neap" tests reading and math in Grades 4, 8 and 12.)
Has a miracle taken place, even in Mississippi? If so, it doesn't seem to have reached students in the eighth grade, though it could always get there in the end.
It's hard to have sufficient contempt for the behavior of the Morning Joe gang, none of whom had the slightest idea what they were gushing about. For the record:
After their "really quick" pseudo-discussion, they hurried back to their favorite activity. They pleasured us with amazingly repetitive speculations about frog-marching Trump off to jail.
Trump may end up going to jail, but good, decent kids in those Deep South states will definitely be going to school if he actually does. That includes the many lower-income kids in those Deep South states, along with the many black kids in those states' public schools.
Within the realm of the upper-end press corps, no one actually cares about any such kids. No one has ever cared about such kids, and there is absolutely zero sign that anyone ever will.
That said, we're being a bit unfair to Mississippi (and to Alabama) when we offer the statistics we have offered above. If we're trying to assess the performance of those states' public schools, it must be noted that those states have a higher proportion of (typically) lower-scoring kids than many other states do.
Sadly, everyone but the high-end bluebirds understands a basic fact. Sadly but surely, to assess the performance of public schools, you have to "disaggregate" test scores in the manner we'll do below.
You have to see how well a given state is doing with its lower-income kids. Also, with its black kids—with a demographic group which has suffered from "achievement gaps," one more legacy of our nation's brutal racial history.
How well does Mississippi do when we disaggregate its Naep scores? Good golly! If everything is as it seems, the state does remarkably well!
Again, the AP report considered only one measure—Grade 4 reading on the Naep. With that in mind, here's how Mississippi scored on that measure last year with its lower-income kids, according to basic Naep data:
Average scores, Grade 4 reading, lower-income students
Naep, 2022
U.S. public schools: 202.67
Mississippi: 211.74
Alabama: 201.07
Louisiana: 204.26
For all Naep data, start here. (As is customary in these matters, "lower-income" refers to students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch within the federal lunch program.)
Yikes! When we review the performance of lower-income kids, Mississippi outpaced the national norm by almost a full academic year!
Louisiana slightly outscored the nation too. Alabama wasn't real far behind.
Assuming that everything is as it seems, Mississippi's performance does seem quite impressive. Also, here are the relevant data for the black kids in those states:
Average scores, Grade 4 reading, black students
Naep, 2022
U.S. public schools: 198.12
Mississippi: 204.41
Alabama: 197.13
Louisiana: 197.45
Yowza! Assuming everything is as it seems, Mississippi's black kids outperformed their counterparts across the nation by a significant margin.
For ourselves, we wouldn't say that those scores constitute a miracle. But assuming that everything is as it seems, those scores do seem impressive. That's especially true in these Deep South states, concerning which the worst has traditionally been expected.
Assuming everything is at it seems, we happily offer that assessment of Mississippi's performance. Just for the record, here are the average scores for some other states on this all-important measure:
Average scores, Grade 4 reading, black students
Naep, 2022
U.S. public schools: 198.12
Mississippi: 204.41
Florida: 206.82
Texas: 203.98
Georgia: 202.31
Massachusetts: 207.41
New Jersey: 203.42
New York: 194.38
California: 193.74
Illinois: 193.57
Minnesota: 193.29
Ohio: 190.12
Michigan: 187.93
Wisconsin: 185.76
Some of our favorite Yankee states scored relatively well. Absent further disaggregation, others scored rather poorly.
We'll note that three of our larger rebel states joined Mississippi in outperforming the national norm. So did the rebel state of South Carolina, though only by a single point, with North Carolina right at the national average.
Assuming that everything is as it seems, those data might seem surprising. Also, you might be struck by the low average scores from such well-known states as New York, California and Illinois, not to mention the woeful numbers in Michigan and Wisconsin.
You might be surprised by such scores! Almost surely, you've never seen any such data before, for the world's most obvious reason:
No one cares about any of this, and no one ever has! That said, is everything really as it seems with those scores from Mississippi?
Last week, the AP announced that a miracle had taken place in that state. In a clownish display of a common disorder, Scarborough quickly extended that happy talk to Alabama as well.
That said, is everything as it seems with those important Naep data? Again and again and again and again, miracle stories of this type have fallen apart, down through the years, within various state-run testing programs, though not on the federal Naep.
In the end, it fell to much-maligned USA Today and to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to blow the whistle on the most egregious circumstances in which impressive score gains had been produced by fraudulent conduct.
(The New York Times and the Washington Post would have to be marked absent.)
The leading authority on the Atlanta scandal offers this overview. You may see a newly famous name in this brief excerpt from a longer report:
In 2009, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published analyses of Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) results which showed statistically unlikely test scores, including extraordinary gains or losses in a single year. An investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) released in July 2011 indicated that 44 out of 56 schools cheated on the 2009 CRCT. One hundred and seventy-eight educators were implicated in correcting answers entered by students. Of these, 35 educators were indicted and all but 12 took plea deals; the remaining 12 went to trial. The size of the scandal has been described as one of the largest in United States education history.
[...]
The trial began on September 29, 2014, presided over by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter. It was the longest criminal trial in Georgia history, lasting eight months. The lead prosecutor was Fani Willis. Before the end of the trial, the superintendent at the center of the scandal, Beverly Hall, died of breast cancer, aged 68.
Fani Willis prosecuted the case! For the record, the late Beverly Hall had been named national Superintendent of the Year on the basis of the fraudulent scores achieved in Atlanta's schools during her tenure.
We know of exactly zero reason to believe that any fraudulent conduct is involved in Mississippi's Grade 4 reading scores on the Naep. Let us highlight that key fact:
In the case of Mississippi's Naep scores, we know of zero reason to suspect any fraudulent conduct.
Havin said that, we'll add this:
We do see one part of that AP report which makes us wonder if everything is really as it seems in the case of this alleged miracle. We'll walk you through that part of this topic next week.
In the meantime, we'll ask you this: Where were the "education experts" as those actual scandals were taking place down through the years?
For ourselves, we'd written about this sort of thing in the Baltimore Sun dating all the back to the late 1970s. Our assorted adventures in this realm continued on from there.
Where were the educational experts—where were the academics and the major journalists—as these scams went on and on? Our partial answer is this:
No one shows the slightest sign of caring about any of this! More specifically, no one seems to care about Mississippi's black kids, who are so good and so decent, or about their good, decent parents.
Joe Scarborough didn't know what he was talking about last week. Neither did his reliable chorus of echo-adjacent guests.
He did know that he wanted to speak "really quickly" about this heartening topic. This isn't the product his channel sells to us, its customers from our self-impressed blue tribe.
Down through the years, it's been like this within our blue tribe as the nation's black kids have gone undiscussed. Our major journalists don't seem to care about those deserving kids.
They may not realize that they don't care. But if you watch blue cable each day—if you watch "our favorite reporters and friends"—the evidence is blindingly clear, from Joe and Nicolle and Lawrence and Rachel all the way down to the echoes.
They simply don't care about any of this! Few things could be more clear.
Next week: Is everything as it seems?
A parting gift: Once again, some basic data which may seem surprising. On this occasion, we include a remarkable number from our Department of Defense schools:
Average scores, Grade 4 reading, black students
Naep, 2022
Florida: 206.82
Texas: 203.98
Georgia: 202.31U.S. public schools: 198.12
New York: 194.38
California: 193.74
Illinois: 193.57
Michigan: 187.93
Wisconsin: 185.76Department of Defense schools: 226.27
Assuming that everything is as it seems, black kids whose parents are in the military are doing remarkably well.
You've never seen data like these before. Why do we think that is?
What do they do to pretend?
ReplyDeleteTrolls like 11:33 AM pretend to be informed.
ReplyDelete“In the case of Mississippi's Naep scores, we know of zero reason to suspect any fraudulent conduct.”
ReplyDeleteExcept that there has been a history of cheating.
Obviously there was no cheating in Mississippi. Tate Reeves would never allow it.
Deletemh, you can easily google the fact that there were several incidents of school officials being indicted in Mississippi for cheating.
DeleteIf any of those claims turned out to bogus, I’d be delighted. My mother was from Mississippi. I have a lot of cousins I visited on summer vacations. It’s a great state.
That was long ago. Tate Reeves is a good, conservative, pro-life conservative. He does not tolerate cheating. He wants what’s best for good, decent kids of all “races.”
DeleteCheating … on the naep, Cecilia? Please link to an article about that.
DeleteI didn’t qualify it to just the naep. I mentioned a history of cheating on test (in general) which is something that’s been mentioned by Somerby several times before.
DeleteExcept your Somerby quote referred to the naep, which is a specific test. I know of no way to cheat on the naep.
DeleteThat's making a mountain out of a molehill.
DeleteI was replying to this statement from Bob, who referenced fraud.
“In the case of Mississippi's Naep scores, we know of zero reason to suspect any fraudulent conduct.”
Mississippi’s naep scores, said Bob. Naep, Cecelia. You can’t cheat on naep, at least, not to my knowledge. If you know otherwise, please inform us. Otherwise, quit talking about tests that aren’t the naep.
DeleteI get your point, mh, but since you wish to labor your point over a statement I made about being leery of Mississippi, I googled this:
Deletehttps://www.edweek.org/education/atlanta-cheating-the-former-superintendent-responds/2011/07
Cecelia, that was about Georgia, not Mississippi, and it was about state-administered testing, not the naep , which is a National test. But other than that, spot on…
DeleteAs a matter of fact, that article says: “ Of course, the cheating on the state tests raises questions about whether there was cheating on the NAEP. Sean P. “Jack” Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, explained to me in an interview last week that it is very unlikely that could have happened.”
DeleteThanks for nothing.
mh, go back and read the whole piece rather than stopping at the part you like.
DeleteYou mean this part:
Delete“ First, compared to the state’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, or CRCT, the NAEP is low-stakes. It’s not used to determine adequate yearly progress, for example.
Then, the test is administered by federal officials, not school personnel. The students who take the tests are a sample of all the 4th-graders and 8th-graders in a school, and even the teachers and principals don’t know ahead of time who is going to be picked to take the test.
The questions in each test booklet are different, so that even if two students taking the reading portion of the test are sitting next to each other, they can’t copy off each other. After the text is over, the booklets and answer sheets are sealed and the NAEP officials take them away. The whole process starts in the morning and is over around noon, Buckley said.
It is possible for a school to shade the results by providing only a sample of their highest-performing students for the NAEP managers to pick from. But that doesn’t appear to be the case in Atlanta, Buckley said; the samples of students were randomly drawn from the school population of 4th and 8th graders as a whole. NCES is confident that the gains the district showed on the NAEP are legitimate, he said.”
Also, not Mississippi.
I’m actually agreeing with Bob, and you’re arguing with me.
mh you’re arguing with someone that pretends to be a woman, while castigating others for wanting to be their natural selves, while soliciting sexist and racist violence. This is a very wounded and disturbed person.
DeleteHe certainly deserves our pity, considering the traumatizing hell he’s been through; however, he does not care what point you make, he is stuck in survivor mode where reasonable persuasion has no effect.
mh, so my take wasn’t so uncommon that a report on school cheating thought it apples and oranges to address an understandable leeriness to elevated naep scores in a state that was embroiled in a cheating scandal.
DeleteAnd you’re still going to pretend otherwise.
The elevated naep scores did not result from cheating. Your point is garbage. You didn’t even show a link about cheating in Mississippi.
DeleteBob’s statement was accurate. Cheating on state or school administered tests is not relevant to the naep test. Your article showed that.
mh, I didn’t say that Bob was inaccurate, I voiced a “but” that it isn’t unreasonable to understand how anyone could be leery or suspicious of elevated test scores if a state had a history of cheating on progress exams.
DeleteThe article thought so too and addressed that sort of concern about that sort of history (and even went on to say that it COULD be possible to stack the deck by culling who takes the NEAP, but that there were was no evidence of that this had happened in Mississippi.
Let it’ll go.
Seems like mh has it accurate and Cecelia has it wrong and has decided to let it go.
DeleteWhat a disappointment, Anonymouse6:10am, I was sure I had your support.
DeleteLip service to wedge issues while operating an immoral empire building war machine.
ReplyDeleteThe second amendment is evil.
ReplyDeleteMorning Joe is supposed to delve into NAEP scores or he doesn’t care about kids? On what planet?
ReplyDeleteThey care only for the Donald.
Deletehttps://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2023/05/25/obsessed-cnn-and-msnbc-mention-trump-name-399-times-10-hours
Do they track how many times Fox says “Biden”, “Hunter Biden” and/or “Hunter/Biden/laptop?” Possibly their PC’s can’t count that high. What a doofus you are, Cecelia.
DeleteNo, anonymouse 4:11pm Einstein, it’s far and away more likely that the Fox News Trump quotient is on par with MSNBC and CNN.
DeleteAnonymouse 5;04pm, why would I have to address your throwing Biden into things when the initial comparison was about the media goldmine of Trump?
DeleteDoes your rebuttal that Fox over focuses on Hunter make Bob’s statement about media concern about education less true, dumb bunny?
I assume you consider Fox to be media, Cecelia. No?
DeleteExchanging insults shows contempt for other commenters. It’s better to show contempt for their comments.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:29pm, I do find Fox to be media who has the same amount of interest in education as all the other outlets.
DeleteWhich is what I said.
Why did that “news busters” thing only mention CNN and msnbc then?
DeleteToday Somerby mimics a recent comment that disaggregated CA test scores and noted that non low income CA students rank 5th in the country, while overall CA scores are mid pack, suggesting that test scores aren’t especially useful or informative, as CA is the 5th largest economy in the world - the most successful and significant state by a million miles.
Deletemh, because it’s News Busters.
DeleteInterestingly, if NB had included Fox News in their count there could have been slightly fewer mentions of Trump.
Would that have more fair to MSNBC or CNN? Would it have been a meaningful point as to media priorities? Would the possible numerical difference be in any way relevant to Bob’s take on media priorities?
Nope, but *I* did immediately include Fox News as having poor media priories tho questioned with an irrelevant Hunter Biden comparison.
You’re welcome.
So your math is
DeleteCNN Trump mentions + MSNBC Trump mentions + Fox Trump mentions < CNN Trump mentions + MSNBC Trump mentions?
mh, that’s not what I said, but are you trying to help me make my point?
DeleteIf you want kids to learn to read, teach them phonics.
ReplyDeleteDoes phonics account for things like knight/night or blue/blew?
DeleteNo. Phonics is necessary but not sufficient.
DeleteK is silent in knight, knee, knife.
EW has several pronunciations, as in few, new, sew.
GH can be silent or sound like F.
And so on.
Reading English is complicated, but it begins with phonics.
Reading has its place; we’d be well advised to care more about preventing kids from experience the kind of trauma that leads them to become obsessed with dominance, which is the root of what impedes progress in our society.
DeleteRepublicans should support statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
ReplyDelete“no one seems to care about Mississippi's black kids, who are so good and so decent, or about their good, decent parents.”
ReplyDeleteSomerby, previously:
‘There's only one race—the human race. There are no other "races."’
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2022/03/gates-on-race-professors-tried-to.html?m=1
So, what are “black” kids, and why disaggregate their scores?
To your point, race is a function of racism.
DeleteSpeaking of caring about schools:
ReplyDelete“The COVID really brought it out how bad our schools are and how bad our teachers are, in the inner city. Most of them in the inner city, I don’t know how they got degrees,” [ U.S. Sen. Tommy ] Tuberville said.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/tuberville-on-inner-city-teachers-i-dont-know-whether-they-can-read-and-write.html?outputType=amp
But that Morning Joe…
Where are wedge issues?
ReplyDeleteBrowning. That’s one wedge issue I’ve encountered.
DeleteWhat are wedge issues?
ReplyDeleteRussia just bombed a hospital:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65720853.amp
Karen is innocent.
ReplyDeletePerhaps…but not Citi Bike Karen, who, as it turns out, lied, and harassed a kid over a bike.
DeleteHe was trying to maintain control over a bike while not paying for it. She did not lie.
DeleteShe did lie, and did harass a kid over a bike he was holding and about to rent.
DeleteHe was trying to maintain control over the bike while not paying for it. She didn’t lie.
DeleteThe kid was taking a momentary break in order to not get charged a higher rate, which is common among Citi Bike users, when he was approached by a grown woman, who attempted to bully him off the bike, even though there were other bikes available to rent.
DeleteComrie lied, and her behavior was abhorrent.
So, Bob teaches his readers to hate, daring them to muster “sufficient contempt.”
ReplyDeleteAnd in his quest for unity, he speaks of “Yankee States” (?!).
Unf@ckingbelievable.
Anonymouse1:51pm, Bob specifically said that he is not disposed to feel contempt for individuals. He does find certain actions to be contemptible.
DeleteLike, bombing a hospital is contemptible, but we don’t have contempt for the good, decent people who did it.
DeleteThe neocon warmongers should just let hospital bombings slide.
DeleteBob is lying, Cecelia.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:02pm, right, because bombing a hospital is just like a journo being disingenuous about any sustained media focus on education.
DeleteHe finds certain actions contemptible, unless committed by deranged sociopaths like Donald Trump, or Tucker Carlson, whom he pities. You can’t make this stuff up.
Delete… or Kyle Rittenhouse or George Zimmerman.
DeleteBold faced lying, leading a riot on our own Capitol in an attempt to retain illegal power, trying to bully Governors in an attempt to manufacture election outcomes, etc. that’s all “disordered.” But MSNBC is “contemptible.”
DeleteMartin attacked Zimmerman.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:10pm, that Bob finds some actions to be contemptible, but people pitiable, is entirely consistent with what he said about himself.
DeleteYou accused him of teaching his readers to be contemptuous and to hate. He doesn’t do that and wouldn’t need to do it. Most of them already are people who hate their individual political contrarians.
He is quite selective with the actions he views as contemptible.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:37pm, that’s a goalpost move from saying he teaches his readers to hate and to be contemptuous.
DeleteThe emotion of contempt for people or actions should be meted with reserve and selectivity.
I see. Storming the Capitol, demanding votes from the GA officials, meh. Morning Joe not analyzing naep…that’s over the line.
DeleteSomerby, above all, attempts to manufacture ignorance. Perhaps arising from personal issues, likely at the behest of his minders.
DeleteHe expresses contempt for the blue tribe, and pity for the red tribe.
Few, if any, commenters express contempt for fellow commenters as that seen by Cecelia, someone who is easily triggered due to personal demons.
Leftists generally aren’t as concerned about individual behavior as they are over flaws in our systems and institutions.
There’s no evidence about who instigated a scuffle between Martin and Zimmerman, or if there even was one. All we know is that Zimmerman murdered Martin, seemingly without reasonably fearing for his safety, even though the jury found otherwise - a poor decision, not unlike that of the Emmitt Till murder.
Anonymouse 6:19pm, Somerby has talked about both of those things and the media coverage of them,
DeleteAnonymouse 7:05pm, please. You’ve called people liars, frauds, and traitors for the temerity of enjoying the blog and the blogger.
Delete7:23 that is false and misleading.
DeleteThe jury correctly found Zimmerman not guilty of murder.
DeleteHospitals are being bombed in Sudan and we're not sending them $75 billion. Why not?
DeleteAnonymouse 7:23pm, it’s not false and misleading. It’s what anonymices do.
Delete7:48: No, but we’re sending them hundreds of millions.
DeleteSimilar to other cases of miscarriages of justice, from Rittenhouse to Emmitt Till, Zimmerman clearly did not reasonably fear for his life, thus the jury’s finding was an injustice, made all the clearer by Zimmerman’s behavior after the verdict - calling himself an army of one, auctioning off the gun that murdered Martin, etc.
DeleteCecelia is unaware that his insults generate in their targets either amusement or concern for a wounded lost soul; Cecelia’s insults are frequent, as he is easily triggered by his personal demons.
If there is such a thing as “virtue signaling” it is Bob hiding his indifference to MAGA racism behind supposed interest in black kid’s test scores.
ReplyDeleteComment of the week
DeleteWe live in a barred spiral galaxy.
ReplyDeleteRenting a bike, docking it to avoid paying further rental, but blocking another customer from renting it — now that’s contemtible.
ReplyDeleteBut let’s have no contempt for the good, decent young man who does it.
The young man was the customer that was about to rent the bike.
DeleteWhat’s contemptible is how the woman harassed the kid over the bike he was already holding and about to rent, especially when there were other bikes available to rent.
He wasn't about to rent it. If he had been about to rent it, she wouldn't have been able to. In fact he was resting next to it. She rented it, and he forced it back into the dock, with her on it.
DeleteHe and his friends liked to ride forty-five minutes, dock, rest, and ride again. They held onto the bikes in the dock, even though they weren't paying then. Karen wanted to rent the bike, and the young man had no right to stop her.
It was not the young man's bike. He rented it. He had the right to use it only while paying for it. When he docked it, any other customer had the right to come and rent it.
Why would a grown woman pick a fight with teenagers over a bike when there were others available that she could have rented? This is her bad judgment and she brought this entire situation on herself by being uncooperative with other people.
DeleteWhy would a young man take a bike from a pregnant woman? There other bikes he could have rented.
DeleteThere were other bikes.
DeleteIt was a highly coveted, hard-to-find new e-bike.
DeleteThe kid docked the bike momentarily in order to avoid being charged higher rates, he literally held on to the bike since he was about to re rent it. The kid is from a poor family.
DeleteThere were in fact other ebikes available to rent, indeed, when the well-off grown woman was unable to generate false victimhood, she merely choose a different bike that was available and rented that one.
Comrie and her defenders are motivated by racism to make the most moronic false narrative of this circumstance, which is sad and scary, since a few weeks earlier, a Black guy being loud, but non threatening, on a NYC subway, was held down and choked to death by a White former marine, something Comrie was well aware of.
It doesn't matter what color he is or what his economic status is. If he wants to rent a bike he has to rent it. If he doesn't rent it someone else can rent it. That's the end of the story. You snooze you lose. That applies to people of all colors and economic levels. I love how he is crying and all playing the victim and playing the race card too just because he got caught sleeping and someone rented a bike from under his nose. And of course people have low intellect are going to play the race card over it even when there's snow racial issue at all. It's just how some people work these days.
DeleteCecelia, are you Russophobic?
ReplyDeleteShould we stop sending weapons to Ukraine?
DeleteAnonymouse 7:03pm, no, too late now.
DeleteShould we support Ukraine's claim to Donbass and Crimea?
DeleteIf Trump is elected, he will prevent the US from supporting Ukraine, and allow Putin to take it over.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:29pm, or he’ll try to negotiate a deal where both parties give up something.
DeleteWhy should Ukraine give up anything? Is it your opinion that a country that is unlawfully invaded by another is required to give up something by virtue of being invaded?
Delete“Too late now?” Please explain…
Deletemh, absolutely.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:49pm, you don’t understand that there’s now a war going on and that we can’t unilaterally disarm Ukraine?
DeleteCecelia 10:36 — absolutely what? An illegally invaded country must give up its territory?
DeleteAnonymouse 10:42pm, I didn’t say that the Ukraine “must” do anything in particular.
DeleteI do know that it is overwhelmingly unlikely that there will be a unilateral surrender by Russia.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWe can devoutly hope (and encourage ) that Mr. Putin will be taken out of the world’s misery.
DeleteHere’s someone (a liberal, no less) who cares about public schools, and he’s talking about my state:
ReplyDelete“AR: Governor Sanders Has A Very Bad Plan For Education”
https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2023/02/ar-governor-sanders-plan-for-education.html?m=1
The bill was passed with a minimum of public debate.
Thanks for posting, mh. The law sounds better to me than it does to Curmudgication. I like that several aspects are tied to results. I like that it does not simply accept it when students are well behind grade level in reading or math. I like the idea of alternative schools.
DeleteBTW I didn't think much of Curmudgication's rhetoric. In several instances, s/he resorted to sarcasm, without making an actual argument.
Unlike Somerby, Curmudgucation has actual credentials for discussing education. And Somerby resorts to sarcasm without informing his readers that he is being sarcastic, and his fanboys follow right along taking him literally.
DeleteMillions of Americans despise Donald Trump and probably think it was justified or at least good clean fun when the Hillary Clinton campaign manufactured fake evidence of collusion with Russia, and the FBI and other branches of government used this information to trammel his presidency.
DeleteThe word "miracle" is obviously triggering for Somerby.
ReplyDeleteThink about the main subject being the media reporting of the test scores and the media members that write and give the reports.
ReplyDeleteYes, that would make sense except that Somerby doesn't have much to complain about there -- these are trivial nitpicks not real points of criticism. And more and more, Somerby has manufactured specious criticisms, not even found real problems with the reporting.
ReplyDeleteNo one takes the word "miracle" literally. It is hyperbole that no one is fooled by, so why rain on the parade when there is actual improvement to report on? And the complaint about the 8th graders, as he himself notes, is silly when it says right in the article that they were addressing problems in the early grades. Those 8th graders were in the early grades before they got their program going fully. It isn't a fair criticism.
And focusing on Scarborough and claiming he doesn't care about kids is ridiculous, given the type of show he hosts.
Hyperbole means hype which means disingenuousness - which has no place in journalism. Well, it used to not have a place in journalism. Now we have advocacy journalism where the truth isn't really important anymore. But you should concentrate on your own mental problems instead of projecting them on to other people in far corners of the web. Either way, wishing you a great weekend.
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