text:
Judaism and Science
A Forum on Fact, Fiction and Faith
Book Comments
9/6/20 RABBI ARNOLD RACHLIS EXPLORES "WHEN JUDAISM MEETS SCIENCE"
8/9/20 RABBI GEOFFREY MITELMAN EXPLORES "WHEN JUDAISM MEETS SCIENCE"
4/23/20 THE WISE ONES OF COVID GUBERNIA AND THE WEARING OF MASKS
4/19/20 "WHEN JUDAISM MEETS SCIENCE" AT BETH EMET
3/30/20 CORONAVIRUS, THE HALAKHA, AND THE COUNCIL OF EXPERTS
3/2/20 JUDEOLOGY EXPLORES "WHEN JUDAISM MEETS SCIENCE"
2/17/20 JUDAISM AND REPRODUCTIVE SCIENCE: BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY. BUT HOW?
10/27/19 RABBI RICHARD ADDRESS EXPLORES "WHEN JUDAISM MEETS SCIENCE"
10/16/19 RABBI WAYNE DOSICK EXPLORES "WHEN JUDAISM MEETS SCIENCE"
2/8/19 BIOLOGY AND GENESIS: ARE THEY COMPATIBLE OR IRRECONCILABLE?
Most Viewed Content
Ginger Jews
A Nice Jewish Shot: Why Vaccinations are Kosher and Required
The Cosmos, Oneness and Judaism: Are Pantheism and Panentheism Kosher for Jews?
What if Cyrus Had Not Freed the Jews?
Science and Judaism: Biblical Numbers, Mathematics and Attributed Patriarchal Ages
Isaac Asimov, Two Foundations and the Jews
The Curious Consensus of Jews on Abortion
The Battle for Jerusalem and the Origin of Fake News — 2700 Years Ago
Albert Einstein anthropology archeology artificial intelligence astronomy B'reishit Bible Big Bang Christine Hayes Conservative cosmology creation Einstein evolution faith Genesis God Hebrew Bible homo sapiens Jerry Coyne Jewdroid Jewish People Jonathan Sacks Judaism Kabbalah Kaplan Maimonides mathematics Mordecai Kaplan Moses Nachmanides origin Orthodox physics Rambam Reform religion Schroeder science Slifkin Stenger Talmud theology Torah universe
Archives Select Month September 2020 (1) August 2020 (1) April 2020 (2) March 2020 (2) February 2020 (1) October 2019 (2) February 2019 (1) February 2018 (1) November 2017 (1) August 2017 (1) June 2017 (1) March 2017 (2) October 2016 (1) September 2016 (1) August 2016 (1) July 2016 (1) April 2016 (1) February 2016 (1) December 2015 (2) October 2015 (1) July 2015 (1) June 2015 (1) April 2015 (1) March 2015 (1) February 2015 (1) January 2015 (1) December 2014 (1) October 2014 (2) September 2014 (1) August 2014 (1) June 2014 (1) May 2014 (1) April 2014 (1) March 2014 (1) January 2014 (1) December 2013 (1) November 2013 (1) October 2013 (2) September 2013 (1) August 2013 (1) July 2013 (1) June 2013 (1) May 2013 (2) April 2013 (1) March 2013 (1) February 2013 (1) January 2013 (1) December 2012 (1) November 2012 (1) October 2012 (1) September 2012 (1) August 2012 (1) July 2012 (2) June 2012 (1) May 2012 (1) April 2012 (1) March 2012 (1) February 2012 (1) January 2012 (2) December 2011 (2) November 2011 (3) October 2011 (4) September 2011 (2) August 2011 (4) July 2011 (4)
Subscribe to receive new posts:
When Judaism Meets Science
"a rare masterpiece"
– Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, HUC
"careful research, passionate analysis, and good sense"
– Rabbi David Teutsch, RRC
"clear, engaging"
– Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman, Sinai and Synapses
"a tremendous tome"
– Rabbi Wayne Dosick, SpiritTalk Live!
"an absolutely fascinating book"
– Rabbi Richard Address, Jewish Sacred Aging
"scholarly, judicious, and fair–minded . . . and very 'readable'"
– Ronald W. Pies, MD
"a fresh way to explore Jewish topics . . . useful in teaching adults"
– Rabbi Gail Shuster–Bouskila
"A must read! . . . careful thought and such literary excellence"
– Rabbi Jack Riemer
JPL Space Images
Marilyn Price
Public Religion Research Institute
Sinai and Synapses
The Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood
The Pew Forum
TheTorah.com
<< Is This Really the Torah God Gave Moses at Sinai? (Part II)
Free Will vs. Deterministic Cause and Effect >>
Sagan, Stars and Grains of Sand
Monday, February 23, 2015 @ 02:02 PM
posted by Roger Price
Pandora's Cluster
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Who could look at the stars and yawn? Certainly not astronomer Carl Sagan. Sagan, a serious scientist, popularized a journey though the universe just over a third of a century ago with his award winning TV series, Cosmos. To impress upon his viewers how many stars existed, Sagan would enthusiastically assert that there were "billions and billions" of them, stressing and drawing out the first syllable each time.
As he acknowledged at the outset, however, the "size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding." So, to try to make such an enormous quantity understandable, he said that "the total number of stars in the universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth." (Watch here; see also, Sagan, Cosmos (Random House 1980) at 4, 196.) It was a wonderful reference.
We may sense that there are a lot of stars in the sky, but with the naked eye it is hard to pinpoint and count them, even or maybe especially on a clear night. Sand is somewhat different. We can take a fistful of it at a beach, survey the area, think about the coast lines of the various continents, and then factor in countless interior beaches. Sagan says that our hand will hold about 10,000 grains of sand. (Cosmos, at 196.) Without help, we may not be able to do the math or know the result of the equation, but we can understand that the beaches hold an enormous number of grains of sand.
What Sagan did not say is that his two subjects, stars and sand, were invoked long ago in the Hebrew Bible as metaphors for abundance. They appear first in the book of Genesis, each separately and once together.
In the very first instance, God is assuring Abram that although he is of advanced age and without heirs, he will, nevertheless, have many descendants. "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. . . . So shall your offspring be." (See Gen. 15:5.) Shortly later, we are told that Abram's concubine Hagar has borne him a son, Ishmael, and not long after that Abram, now called Abraham, and his wife Sarah become the parents of Isaac. (See Gen. 16:1-16, 21:1-3.)
The second reference — the joint reference — follows Abraham's test on the mountain where he goes with Isaac to present a burnt offering for God. According to the story, an angel of God calls to Abraham, stops the proceedings before the sacrifice of Isaac and relates God's declaration: "I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore . . . ." (See Gen. 22:17.)
The third mention in Genesis arises in the context of Jacob meeting with his estranged brother Esau after many years. Here Jacob expresses his fear that Esau may kill him and his family and prays that God remember his prior promise which Jacob casts as follows: "Yet You have said, 'I will deal bountifully with you and make your offspring as the sands of the sea, which are too numerous to count.'" (See Gen. 32:4-13.)
Of course, the authors of these biblical passages were exercising poetic license to make a point, partly social, partly political, partly theological. Each had seen the evening sky dotted with distant lights. Even if they could see no more than a few thousand points, such lights must have seemed to be beyond measure. The authors may even have been familiar with the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea along the north coast of Egypt or the western areas of Canaan. The numbers of grains of sand would also surely have seemed limitless. So the authors and the final editors of the text made sure to stress that each of the three prime patriarchs of the Jewish People was present to witness a divine promise of fertility and demographic strength.
Not surprisingly, the metaphors had rhetorical legs, especially at times of great social stress, as can be seen in other biblical invocations.
The setting for Hosea's prophecy — the dissolution of the Northern Kingdom of Israel due to internal corruption and external military forces — is among the earliest of preserved writings of its kind. After expressing God's disenchantment with the House of Israel, Hosea consoled with a prediction that the people of Israel and of the Southern Kingdom of Judah would be reunited: "The number of the people of Israel shall be like the sands of the sea, which cannot be measured and counted . . . ." (See Hos. 2:1-2.)
The Northern Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians around 722 BCE, and a number of northerners did migrate south. But a century plus afterwards, the Kingdom of Judah came under attack by the Babylonians. As he sat in prison contemplating the destruction of Judah, Jeremiah revived the ancient metaphors and conveyed God's assurance that the kingship of David's family and the centrality of the priests would continue. "Like the host of heaven which cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea which cannot be measured, so will I multiply the offspring of my servant David, and of the Levites who minister to Me." (See Jer. 33:1, 22.)
Still later, writing in the name of Isaiah, but centuries following the original prophet of that name, a second Isaiah chastised now exiled Judahites but also promised them that they will, through the success of God's servant Cyrus, be free. He urged them to return from Babylonia to Judea and heed God's commands. If they did, said Deutero-Isaiah in God's name, then "your prosperity would be like a river, your triumph like the waves of the sea. Your offspring would be as many as the sand, their issue as many as its grains." (See Is. 48:18-19.)
These words, must have been encouraging, as well as comforting, to those who first heard and later read them, and understood their roots in the tales of the patriarchs.
The authors of the Hebrew Bible would have be shocked to learn that today there are about six million Jews in modern Israel. To them, 6,000,000 would seem to fulfill the ancient promises. Imagine their surprise if they learned that there are almost six million more Jews in a place called the United States of America, across a sea even greater than the great sea with which they may have been somewhat familiar. Add to those communities other Jews in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe and you have a world population of Jews totaling just under 14,000,000.
Perspective is important, however, and those 14,000,000 collectively do not exceed two-tenths of one per-cent of the planet's more than 7,000,000,000 human inhabitants. Even if each and every person on Earth were Jewish, they still would not be as numerous as the stars in heaven or the grains of sand on the seashore.
The biblical authors did not know, and could not have known, how far their metaphor really reached. Nor could they reasonably have anticipated that even though those grains and stars are too numerous to count, there would be efforts later to estimate the numbers involved.
Let's start with sand. Conceptually, the problem is not too difficult, especially if you stick with the biblical formulation and exclude inland beaches. All you need to know is the volume of sand on the world's coastal beaches and divide that number by the volume of an average grain of sand.
Sand particles, like the quartz grains that permeate the Mediterranean coast of Israel today, range between 0.05 and 2mm in diameter. For purposes of our calculation, a cubic millimeter of sand will serve as the volume of an average grain of sand.
The volume of sand on the world's coastal beaches is a product of the length, width and depth of those beaches. The length of coasts can be determined reasonably well by modern technology, but not all coasts have beaches. Most estimates of the fraction of beach shore to coast range from about one-fifth to two-fifths. The length but especially the width of a beach varies throughout the day as tides ebb and flow. Naturally, the depth of the beach will then vary as well. One good effort to solve this problem was developed by physics professor Howard McAllister of the University of Hawaii, based on work done by Judaism and Science contributor Ludwik Kowalski. Prof. McAllister calculated the total length of the earth's beach shores at around 50,000 kilometers (about 31,000 miles) and set the average width at 30 meters (just under 100 feet) and the average depth at 5 meters (just over 16 feet).
If you accept these parameters, then the number of grains of sand on the beaches of the seashores of the world total 7.5 x 1018, or 7.5 billion billion. Vary the coastal length, the percentage of beach shore, or the average width or the average depth and the estimated volume of sand will change. Of course, while this is educated conjecture, it is still conjecture. Another approach puts the number of grains at 5 billion billion, including those on inland beaches. Either way, the result is more than a few sextillion (a billion billion) grains of sand.
Calculating the number of stars in the sky presents different challenges than counting the grains of sand on the Earth's seashores. Instead of having a reasonably fixed parameter with which to work, like the number of miles of seashore, the stars are set in a universe which is not only expanding, but expanding at an accelerated rate.
On the other hand, we are not concerned with the size of an average star, in the way we were with an average grain of sand. We will include the yellow stars like our Sun, but also all of the stars along the spectrum from red to blue, and even brown and white stars, too. And we will include stars smaller than our Sun, the dwarfs and the neutron stars, and stars larger, the giants, and much larger, the supergiants.
The practical problem is that we can only include stars that we can see and we can only see a star if the radiation it emits, in the form of visible light or other electromagnetic waves, reaches our measuring devices. Even with NASA's relatively new Hubble Space Telescope and the other, newer space observatories, our vision is limited to a discrete portion of the universe.
Moreover, some of what we do and do not detect presents a false picture. Our universe is about 13.7 billion years old. A few years ago, Hubble received light from a galaxy 13.2 billion light years way. We do not know, of course, and cannot know, if that star system has survived. We may be seeing stars that no longer exist. Conversely, stars are being born all the time. The light from some of these young stars may not have had time to reach us yet. If it takes 5 billion more years to get here, we will never see it as our Sun will die by then, and take us with it.
What we can say is that our Sun is one of over one hundred billion stars in its galaxy, the Milky Way. The star count is made by estimating the mass of the galaxy. Adjustments are then made to account for the fact that most of the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs, each of which is smaller than one solar mass, the mass of our Sun. Some estimate the total number of stars in our galaxy to be 400 billion. [Ed. update: For more on the Milky Way, see "What is the Milky Way"]
As Hubble and other observatories probe deeper and deeper into space, they see farther and farther back in time. Astronomers now believe that there may be 100 to 500 billion galaxies in the known universe. The majority of these galaxies, including the Andromeda galaxy located only 2.5 light years (15 trillion miles) from us, are shaped in a spiral like the Milky Way. But not all are. Some, like the much more distant M13 galaxy found in the constellation Hercules, are rounder and are known as globular clusters. The most massive galaxies, the largest known one of which is the IC 1101, may be flat or round but are more elliptical.
Similarly, the number of stars may vary greatly from galaxy to galaxy. For instance, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Andromeda may contain a trillion stars. It is far from the largest galaxy, however. IC 1101, a billion light years away, may hold a hundred trillion stars. Conversely, dwarf galaxy may hold just one to ten million stars. Consequently, a reasonable range of the possible number of stars in the known universe is quite large and extends from 10 billion billion to 200 billion billion.
Even at the low end of the estimated range, the number of stars seems to exceed the number of sands of grain on the seashores of the Earth, and the inland beaches, too. (For a different set of numbers, but with the same relative results, see here.) So Carl Sagan was right.
Now some folks may conclude from all of this that the Hebrew Bible has been proven, once again, to be a faulty guide. The reported promise from God that the number of descendants of the Jewish patriarchs would exceed the number of stars in heaven or grains of sand on the seashore has not come true. Moreover, science through Sagan and others has shown definitively that the promise will never be fulfilled.
The literalists would be literally correct, of course. But, as they often do, they miss the greater messages of biblical literature. First, the recorders of the patriarchal legends and the prophets cited above were not seeking to make a scientific point, or a mathematical statement about demography. They were, rather, expressing their faith in their social and political future. They were asserting, even as Americans echoed a similar assertion over two millennia later, a mixture of confidence and hope in a doctrine of manifest destiny, a conviction that the descendants of Abraham, as a people and a nation, had a mission to fulfill and would, in time, fulfill it. The belief was surely related to a belief in God, but it was grounded in quite natural human concerns and desires.
Second, in focusing on the number of stars or grains, the literalists would, to mix the metaphor, miss the forest for the trees. The biblical authors were not concerned with tallying the precise number of stars or grains. They did not care whether the sums were in the millions or billions or, as it turns out, the sextillions. Indeed, they had no concept of such numbers. What they thought, and correctly so at the time and to a considerable degree even today, was that the numbers were so huge as to be uncountable. And they were expressing their awe at the wonder of it all.
Here Sagan and the authors of biblical authors are on the same page. For all of his disdain at the mythology of religion, and especially in instances which he saw as the intrusion of religion on the turf of science, in 1990 Sagan joined in an open letter which acknowledged: "As scientists, many of us have had profound experiences of awe and reverence before the universe." Five years later, and just one year before he died, Sagan contended that "science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality." Summarizing Sagan's approach to the sacred, Dartmouth religion professor Nancy Frankenberry has written that he was "utterly imbued with . . . a marvelous sense of belonging to a planet, a galaxy, a cosmos that inspires devotion as much as discovery." (See Frankenberry, The Faith of Scientists (Princeton 2008), at 222-24.)
So we should not be surprised to learn that Sagan, like the author of the second creation story in Genesis, addressed the same, age old questions asking who we are, where we came from (and when) and what our place is in the universe. That biblical author described the first human as being fashioned out of the dust of the ground. In the Hebrew text, the connection of humanity to the soil is made starkly clear by the use of a pun: "ha-adam" (the human) is formed from "ha-adamah" (the ground). (See Gen. 2:7.)
What that author did not realize was that the dust of the Earth was stardust, forged in the furnaces of untold stars, spewed into space, moved along with intersteller winds and, ultimately, bound together on our home planet. Sagan, with such knowledge, wrote that humankind is "the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness." We are, he said, "starstuff pondering stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering he evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose." (See Cosmos, above, at 345.)
The late poet Aaron Zeitlin once wrote:
Praise Me, says God, and I will know that you love Me.
Curse Me, says God, and I will know that you love Me.
Praise Me or curse Me, and I will know that you love Me. . . .
But if you sit fenced off in your apathy, says God,
If you sit entrenched in, "I couldn't care less," says God,
If you look at the stars and yawn, . . .
Then I created you in vain, says God.
Both Carl Sagan and the authors of the Hebrew Bible would ask the same question: How can you look at the stars and yawn?
This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2015 at 2:19 pm	and is filed under astronomy, Bible, Cosmology, Faith, Physical Sciences, Spirituality, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to "Sagan, Stars and Grains of Sand"
Bob Magrisso says:
"What they thought, and correctly so at the time and to a considerable degree even today, was that the numbers were so huge as to be uncountable. And they were expressing their awe at the wonder of it all."
I really appreciate your bringing together the two world views of the Torah and modern science, in this blog post, and ending in "awe and wonder". I might add mystery as well.
The more we have learned through science, the greater, vaster and more magnificent Creation appears. The insights from the ancient sages expressed through these metaphors have even more power to move us when we look into what has been discovered in the intervening thousands of years.
At the heart of it all, is still the great Mystery. Science recognizes the Unknown and mystery and, at best, so does Judaism.
Daniel Shoe says:
A billion billion is a quintillion, not a sextillion. A quintillion is 10^18 and a sextillion is 10^21.
E-mail (not published, required)
Entries (RSS) • Comments (RSS) • User Agreement • Privacy Policy • Log in


text:
What to Read After You've Seen (and Loved) A Wrinkle in Time
Alison Doherty 03-09-18
I have loved Meg Murray since my mom read A Wrinkle in Time out loud to me before bedtime. I loved her glasses. Her larger than life intelligence and unmanageable emotions. And I really loved when Calvin O'Keefe said she had "dreamboat eyes." It's a book I've returned to again and again. With each reread, I appreciate new levels and learn something new. So many Rioters love this book and have been eagerly awaiting the epic film adaptation. And it's finally here! Whether you are a Madeleine L'Engle superfan or this is your introduction to her work, here are books to read after A Wrinkle in Time. Basically, what to read after you watch—and inevitably love—the movie.
A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel Adapted by Hope Larson
Okay, so first things first…if you have not yet read the original A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, it's time. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Read that book! But if you have and you want to experience the magic again, or you want a refresher, read Hope Larson's graphic novel adaptation. The emotions and visual imaginations of faraway planets and worlds from the book come through in every illustrated page. From the opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night," onward I was hooked. And, perhaps best of all, Larson's own love and reverence for classic is saturated throughout the story.
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
Okay, I'm going to tell you all a secret. I love A Wrinkle in Time. But I love the sequel A Wind in the Door even more. In this one, Charles Wallace is seriously ill. Meg and Calvin travel into his body with the help of a cherubim named Progignoskes to try and save him. The message remains the same as the previous book: love is an incredible, life saving power. Meg really seems to grow up in this one, and this is a perfect read if you finish the movie and find yourself thinking okay, but what happens next?
The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle
There are a lot of books by Madeleine L'Engle to read next if you want to leave the Time Quintet. A Ring of Endless Light and Camilla are the two that come to mind, but L'Engle also wrote books for adults, poetry, nonfiction, and about her faith. Still, I think The Arm of the Starfish is a fun follow up. The story feels a little more modern and suspenseful than the Time books. It features Meg as a mother and grown-up scientist. The main character is one of her marine biology students helping with her research for the summer. He finds himself caught between two dangerous groups battling for the outcome of Dr. O'Keefe's discovery and must deal with the adoration of Meg's teenage daughter, Polly. Swoon!
Becoming Madeleine: A Biography of the Author of A WRinkle in Time by her Granddaughters by Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Léna Roy
This middle grade biography uses family archives to discuss the life and many works of Madeleine L'Engle. It covers the time from Madeleine's childhood to just after she published A Wrinkle in Time. The book includes photographs, poems, journal entries, letters, and family memories that help the reader understand what lead Madeleine L'Engle to eventually write such a beloved book. It is a story of turning loneliness, hardship, and rejection into storytelling. Aspiring writers, in particular, shouldn't skip this one!
When You Reach Me by rebecca stead
This Newberry award–winning middle grade book follows Miranda, a sixth grader living in New York City. She loves A Wrinkle in Time and carries the book with her everywhere. She even compares the people and events in her life to the characters and plot of the book. Miranda's normal life gets turned upside down, when she starts receiving anonymous notes that tell her things about the future that no one should be able to know. Now she has a mystery to uncover and a decision to make: is she going to write back or not?
Twelve-year-old Sunny was born in the United States but now lives in Nigeria. She's bullied at school for being albino and "akata," a Yoruba word used for Black Americans. Little does she know, she possesses deep hereditary magic from the Leopard world, where your flaws give you special powers. Now Sunny must deal with new friends, new abilities, and, most frighteningly, new dangers that she never could've imagined. This book is more fantasy to A Wrinkle in Time's sci-fi vibes. However, the narrative with three children saving the world from darkness and a main character who just can't fit in anywhere will feel very familiar to any Madeleine L'Engle fan!
Light Years by Emily Ziff Griffin
Like Meg Murray, Luisa is a teenage math and science genius who can't wait to move beyond school. When a deadly virus kills thousands of people and forces her infected father into quarantine, she knows she has to do something. Luisa receives a cryptic message from someone who might know how to stop the epidemic. So she hits the road with her brother, crush, and best friend to drive across the country to try to find the man with the key for curing the virus. She'll take some big risks, embraces her synesthesia, and use all her computer coding skills in order to save her father…and the world.
Dawn by Octavia Butler
For diverse, feminist science fiction, the master is Octavia Butler. Add in the fact that Ava Duvernay is adapting this book for television, and it's a must-see for people who love the A Wrinkle in Time movie. The book is the first in Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy. In it, a woman wakes up hundreds of years after being abducted (or saved, depending on your perspective) by aliens after a nuclear catastrophe on Earth. Now Lilith must merge her genetics with her alien saviors and return to help resettle her home planet with her not-quite-human children. It sounds a little spooky. But since the director of A Wrinkle in Time is making it, you better believe I'll be watching.
What books do you think you should read after A Wrinkle In Time? Want more bookish recommendations and news about the movie? We got you.
#Children's#Lists#A Wrinkle In Time
7 Literary-Themed Tarot Card Decks to Celebrate Pisces Season

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The walls, shower and bath surround had an application of this special limebased polished plaster.
There are 2 coats of Tadelakt applied at about 2mm over a backing coat of Kreidezeit Lime Wall Finish (medium).
A protective coat of Kreidezeit Black moroccan polishing soap was applied to finish off.


Prepare the spice mix for the burritos at home. I like to wrap them up in some waxed paper but saran wrap or any kind of paper will do as long as the wrapping is secure. Put them in a ziplock bag with the rice, the garlic cloves and the recipe for the 3 components of the dinner.
Start the basmati rice to boil on a low setting on your cook stove.
Rice requires some watching but if you follow this advice you can have very lovely rice every time. Never take off the lid until it's cooked (I know everybody knows that but this is camping, right?). As soon as it's sending out a big plume of steam, take it off the stove and wait about a minute and put it back on. Repeat as necessary for 15 minutes. This isn't a hard thing to do, it just takes a glance every couple of minutes while you're chopping. No big deal. Leave the stove going while the rice pot is off and put it back on when it's stopped steaming. After 15 minutes, take it off the burner and wait for 5 minutes and fluff the rice or if you're too busy chopping, don't bother. Wait until it's serving time and fluff it then.
While the rice is cooking, prepare the burritos and the accompaniments: Add some oil to a frying pan, heat the contents of the can of refried beans (or, if you have used dehydrated refried beans, make sure you have rehydrated them in a ziplock as per the instructions on the package). While it's cooking, you may need to add some water to get it to the consistency that you want.
Meanwhile, prepare the salsa: In a bowl, dice the tomatoes, onion, garlic, Jalapeno and mince the cilantro on top. Cut the lime in half and use a fork as a reamer to get the juice out. Remind yourself that it's not a perfect world, this isn't your kitchen and you still have to grate the cheese and if you are fast you can heat up the burritos (no pressure of course).
Grate the cheese using the coarse holes. You may not want to grate the entire block of chesse. I have found it's difficult to find smaller pieces to buy and on a trip you'll just eat the leftovers anyway. Just grate as much as you think you need for dinner and rewrap the rest for lunch.
Slice or mash the avocados. Let everyone assemble their own burritos, two per person.
This entry was posted in trip planning and tagged food, vegetarian. Bookmark the permalink.


text:
Vote Against Teacher Pay Comes Back to Bite Six More Oklahoma Republicans As They Lose Primary Elections
Laura Clawson
Six more Oklahoma state House Republicans lost their primary run-offs on Tuesday after having voted against raising taxes to give teachers their first raise in a decade. That's after two others were defeated in June primaries. In fact:

Of the 19 House Republicans who voted against the tax hike, eight have now been defeated. Seven others decided not to run. Only four have advanced to the general election.

On top of that, two Democratic teachers flipped Oklahoma legislature seats from red to blue in 2017, and both Democratic and Republican teachers have won primaries this year—including a school administrator who won one of Tuesday's run-offs, defeating a six-year incumbent who voted against the teacher pay increase.

Once again we see that education funding and teacher pay are bipartisan issues among voters even if elected Republicans don't get that. Yet.

While No One Was Watching, Democrats Just Got A Massive Opening In Oklahoma
In the midst of the colossal upset that saw progressive African-American Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum win the Democratic nomination for the Florida governor race, another lesser-known but huge development unfolded in Oklahoma, giving Democrats a clear chance to win the governor's mansion there.

In the runoff elections on Tuesday night, pro-Trump Tulsa businessman Kevin Stitt defeated Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett to win the GOP nomination. He will now face off against former Democratic state attorney general Drew Edmondson, who already won the nomination in June — which is shaping up to be a truly competitive race.

Republicans blew a huge potential advantage by not nominating Cornett, who has campaign experience and is known for bringing the NBA to his state. Stitt, by contrast, has never held elected office, faces questions about his mortgage company's business practices, and said he opposes the badly-needed recent pay increases that ended the state's teacher walkouts.

Edmondson, meanwhile, is the Democrats' dream candidate — a Vietnam veteran who has already won statewide office multiple times and has decent name recognition. One poll released in July showed Edmondson leading the race by one point with Stitt as the nominee.

Oklahoma is one of the reddest states in America. It is one of only two states where President Donald Trump carried every single county. But Democrats have held the governor's mansion as recently as 2011.

Republicans in Oklahoma are also reeling from voter resentment amid the massive unpopularity of retiring Gov. Mary Fallin, who oversaw reckless tax cuts that collapsed the state's finances and crippled state agencies. The teacher strikes only scratch the surface — under Fallin's tenure, rural hospitals have shuttered, waiting lists for community help for the elderly and disabled have stretched to 10 years, and there is even a driving limit on state troopers to ration fuel.

In an ominous sign for Republicans, Tuesday night's runoffs also saw the defeat of half a dozen GOP state lawmakers who voted against the tax increase to fund teacher pay — which cannot inspire confidence for a gubernatorial nominee who claimed he would not have signed it.

The upshot is that Democrats now have a real chance to win in a heavily red state, and punch deep into Trump territory. They should heed the anger of voters hurt by GOP misrule, and fight for them.

This Family is Fleeing Oklahoma After Their 12-Year-Old Transgender Daughter Was Threatened for Using the Bathroom at School
Chris Sosa
The family of a 12-year-old transgender student in Oklahoma is preparing to leave the state entirely after their daughter's use of the restroom was met with violent threats.

Brandy Rose, the student's mother, made the statement on her personal Facebook profile. A GoFundMe page set up by a supporter has already raised $25,000 to help the family with expenses related to their relocation.

The family hopes to move to Houston.

Rose wrote that "while I know the school district here is doing everything they can to help keep Maddie safe at school, it's not just at school that I'm scared for her, and where we would like to move to is much more open to people like my daughter, she'd have more medical resources, and we'd be with loving, supportive family."

Maddie had previously used the faculty bathroom at school but used the girls' bathroom when she couldn't locate the faculty bathroom on her first day at a new campus.

The school canceled two days of classes last week after protest plans by transgender advocates were announced.

In a strange turn of events, one of the individuals accused of threatening Maddie was an airline pilot. Frontier Airlines announced that Kevin Bickerstaff was suspended amid an investigation.

"We have long-established standards of conduct, to which all employees must agree to adhere, that among other things require people to act in a professional manner and to treat each other with genuine respect and kindness," the company said in a written statement.

One of the Reddest States in America Just Passed a Progressive Medical Marijuana Initiative
Phillip Smith
One of the reddest of red states went green on Tuesday. Voters in Oklahoma approved a remarkably progressive medical marijuana initiative by a healthy margin of 56 percent to 43 percent.

The initiative, State Question 778, allows registered patients to possess up to three ounces of marijuana anywhere and up to eight ounces at home. Patients also have the right to grow up to six mature and six immature plants or have designated caregivers do it for them.

It also creates a system of licensed dispensaries, cultivation, and processing facilities and sets taxes at a relatively low 7 percent. The initiative also bars localities from using zoning laws to block dispensaries (although they wouldn't be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school).

But what is most striking about Question 778 is that it does not restrict access to medical marijuana to a list of qualifying conditions. In fact, the initiative language explicitly states that "[T]here are no qualifying conditions" and that the only limitation on a doctor's recommending medical marijuana is that it must be done "according to the accepted standards a reasonable and prudent physician would follow when recommending or approving any medication."

That is the most wide-open language for a medical marijuana since California's groundbreaking Proposition 215 back in 1996. Prop 215 included a list of qualifying conditions, but also allowed recommendations for "any other chronic or persistent medical symptom…that may cause serious harm to the patient's health."

That Prop 215 language allowed medical marijuana to flourish in California and establish itself as something very near to actual legalization. Basically, anybody in the state who had the money to pay for a doctor's visit could get a medical marijuana card—and they did.

Oklahoma isn't likely to play out like California, but Oklahomans for Health, the folks behind the initiative ought to be feeling pretty good right about now. They have successfully passed a very enlightened medical marijuana law in the face of opposition from the state's Republican and religious establishment.

Conservative religious figures calling themselves Oklahoma for Faith teamed up with the likes of U.S. Sen. James Lankford in a last-ditch effort to derail the initiative. Lankford issued a press release early this month warning that the initiative would be "harmful to the social fabric of Oklahoma."

But the voters of Oklahoma weren't buying what he was selling.

This article was produced by Drug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Oklahoma Expected to Become Latest Medical Marijuana State by Month's End
One of the reddest of red states is set to go green later this month. Voters in Oklahoma will go to the polls on June 26 to decide whether to support the Question 778 medical marijuana initiative, and all indications are that it will win.

The state's Sooner Poll showed support for the initiative at 57.5 percent last month. That's down slightly from January when the same poll had support at 61 percent, but still enough to pull off a victory at the polls later this month, especially given the limited organized opposition to it so far.

One opposition group, Oklahomans Against 788, has a Facebook page, but according to state campaign finance reports, has only collected a paltry $755—and from only two donors. The two political action committees supporting the initiative, Oklahomans for Health and Yes on 778, on the other hand, have raised more than $31,000 and have more than $9,000 in the bank for media buys this month. (Oklahoma isn't a huge media market.)

Newly emerging opposition from conservative religious figures is probably too late to make a difference, but a group calling itself Oklahoma Faith Leaders, whose head is a former consultant to Oklahoma Republican U.S. Senator James Lankford, enlisted Lankford to issue a press release last week warning that the initiative would be "harmful to the social fabric of Oklahoma."

Lankford went on to blame outside agitators with hidden agendas: "This state question is being sold to Oklahomans as a compassionate medical marijuana bill by outside groups that actually want access to recreational marijuana," Lankford added. "Most of us have seen first-hand the damage done to families and our communities from recreational marijuana use."

It's unclear just what "damage done" Lankford was referring to, but the initiative does not legalize recreational marijuana, and if any "outside groups" are involved, it is certainly not evident from the campaign finance reports.

Instead of sending Oklahoma on the path to perdition, passing the initiative would bring the state up to speed with most of the rest of the country. Currently, 30 states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana, while another 15 states have laws allowing the use of CBD cannabis oil for medicinal purposes.

The Oklahoma initiative is a full-fledged medical marijuana measure, which would allow patients to grow their own medicine; create a system of licensed dispensaries, cultivation, and processing facilities; set taxes at a relatively low 7 percent; and bar localities from using zoning laws to block dispensaries (although they wouldn't be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school).

It's the culmination of a long, arduous effort to legalize medical marijuana in the Sooner state. For years, the Republican-dominated state legislature has refused to move on the issue, instead grudgingly approving only clinical trials of CBD cannabis oil for minors suffering from epilepsy in 2015. The following year the legislature removed the age cap and expanded the trials to include other diseases and conditions. But it has refused to go any further, including this year, when a much more limited medical marijuana bill, Senate Bill 1120, died in March for lack of support.

The initiative itself has faced a similarly arduous path. Originally aimed at the November 2016 ballot, the measure successfully gathered the required signatures in the summer of 2016, and they were verified in September 2016. But the date of signature submission, a rewrite of the ballot title required by state officials, and the court battle that followed meant the measure didn't make the 2016 ballot. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in favor of Oklahomans for Health in March 2017, and Gov. Mary Fallin (R) nine months later proclaimed that the initiative would appear on the June 2018 primary election ballot.

That's the first time since 2005 that an Oklahoma governor selected a date different from the general election for an initiative. Now, despite it being an off-year primary election, Oklahomans will finally have a chance to join the ranks of the medical marijuana states. But they're going to have to actually go out and vote to make it happen.

Oklahoma's Revolution Didn't End with Teacher Strikes - It's Going Much Further
Valerie Vande Panne
Oklahoma is in the midst of a revolution, with rolling teacher strikes statewide. Teachers have taken over the state capitol building, pressuring legislators to give them—and their fellow school employees—a raise. At the time of this writing, more state agencies, from Corrections to Mental Health to Transportation, are joining the teachers in their fight, and are getting louder about their budget shortfalls, too. While the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA—the primary teacher's membership organization) recently announced the strike is over, the teachers continue to strike and walk out, and, according to a leader of the teacher's strike, are seeking a new union that will actually represent their interests.

Meanwhile, legislators are seeking ways to punish the striking teachers, and have accused the teachers of bussing in protesters, and local police call the teachers "terrorists."

In other words, the current state of unrest in Oklahoma is far from over, and state workers are far from being done protesting.

Adding fuel to the fire is the 2018 gubernatorial election. The state primaries, along with a popular medical marijuana ballot question, are June 26. (The state currently has some of the toughest marijuana laws in the nation, with 55 people still serving life sentences for non-violent drug crimes, including marijuana offenses.)

There is a rallying cry rumbling in the state to replace every single elected official this year.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to miss the mark on what's happening on the ground locally. The state's demographics betray the media's portrayal of Oklahoma as Republican red and lily white: Most registered voters in Oklahoma are registered Democrat or are unaffiliated. Bernie won the primary easily, and got more votes in the primary than Trump did. A third of Oklahomans are African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and those of mixed race.

And still, the demographics of Oklahoma are changing: In Guymon, a small town in the Oklahoma panhandle, just north of the Texas border and hours from the nearest shopping mall, 37 languages are spoken in the public school system of just 3,000 students. Here, a teacher assistant's full-time salary starts at just over $12,000 a year.

The news has been teeming with tales of teachers selling their plasma or working five jobs to make ends meet, yet the truth is it's state workers who are impoverished, across the spectrum. While the poverty rate in the U.S. has fallen over the last 10 years, the poverty rate in Oklahoma has steadily risen.

And that's only scratching the surface of the reasons for Oklahoma's revolution. What's boiling underneath is the knowledge that the state should be exceedingly wealthy: Fossil fuels are kings here, and oil, gas, and coal are sucked from the earth, from the rural countryside to the state capitol building in Oklahoma City. Decades of sweetheart deals have left the state paying those industries more than those industries pay the state.

Fossil fuel industries have been polluting with impunity for as long as they've been mining or pumping the resources, leaving entire towns, like Bokoshe and Dover, poisoned. Former state attorney general and current EPA director Scott Pruitt eliminated the environmental unit of the OK-AG's office. Add in a slurry of corruption, cutbacks, and incompetence, and the state's biggest environmental offenders are free to continue to poison Oklahoma's citizens, air, land, and waterways.

The bottom line of what's happening here is that people are sick and tired of politics as usual—the good 'ol boy system, they say, must end.

But many are skeptical of both parties. Even most of the Democrats in Oklahoma are considered "Dixiecrats," and in the primaries, the Democratic Party favorite is former state attorney general Drew Edmondson, who oversaw <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/views-executions?exec_name_1=&exec_year%5B%5D=1994&exec_year%5B%5D=1995&exec_year%5B%5D=1996&exec_year%5B%5D=1997&exec_year%5B%5D=1998&exec_year%5B%5D=1999&exec_year%5B%5D=2000&exec_year%5B%5D=2001&exec_year%5B%5D=2002&exec_year%5B%5D=2003&exec_year%5B%5D=2004&exec_year%5B%5D=2006&exec_year%5B%5D=2007&exec_year%5B%5D=2008&exec_year%5B%5D=2009&exec_year%5B%5D=2010&sex=All&state%5B%5D=OK&sex_1=All&federal=All&foreigner=All&juvenile=All&volunteer=All">the death penalty execution of dozens of Oklahomans.

Meanwhile, Connie Johnson, the Our Revolution candidate, is the African-American former state senator who started the state's Our Revolution chapter. Johnson is in a strong position, but seems to currently be out-fundraised by Edmondson.

With replacing every elected official becoming a rallying cry, it'll be interesting to see who gets voted in to state offices—and how many continue business as usual—and how the revolution impacts the rest of the country.

Arizona Teachers Strike Is the Answer to Years of Tax Cuts and Neglect of Education
Ilana Novick
Arizona teachers are considering a strike, following the recent West Virginia and now Oklahoma and Kentucky examples, if they don't receive their requested 20 percent pay raise.

An official strike date hasn't been set, but the teachers, following the playbooks from West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, have staged multiple protests in individual districts and at the state capitol in Phoenix for the last five weeks, using the #RedforEd hashtag on Twitter to announce and document their protests. At the capitol this Wednesday, one group of teachers gave the legislature a progress report, and there are more "walk-ins," with teachers marching into their school buildings to demand better pay.

Teachers... what are you going to do if our Legislature doesn't give you the salary and respect you deserve?… https://t.co/jYovheuFk3
 — Steve Weichert (@Steve Weichert)1522286373.0

The organizing was fueled by a grassroots energy so strong, Thomas noted, it "caught everyone off guard." As in Oklahoma, West Virginia and Kentucky, they've been organizing through Facebook groups (which grew to 40,000 members in just three weeks, according to Thomas).

"We have the worst pay in the nation for our teachers," he continued, but pay is just the tip of the iceberg. Arizona teachers have been struggling with years of divestment from Republican governors who slashed education funding to pay for tax cuts.

Thomas dates the worst of Arizona's tax cuts back to the reaction to the 2008 Great Recession. "Before the recession, we were spending $1,000 more a student on supplies, teacher salaries and staff hirings and building repair, all of the money that goes into that."

Instead of investing in infrastructure and social services to spur post-Great Recession economic activity, Arizona's Republican governor at the time, Jan Brewer, voted for a package of corporate tax cuts, which she admitted in 2017 may have been too severe. She told the Arizona Capitol Times,

"Of course, it was a little bit too aggressive." The result, Brewer said, has been a reduction in revenues needed for state services. "Sooner or later, you have to pay the fiddler," she said.

Current Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, also a Republican, doesn't agree. Just days ago he declined to give teachers the 20 percent raise they asked for, and also vowed, as the Arizona Daily Sun reported, "to reverse any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate tax cuts that have kicked in since he took office," some of which were signed when Brewer was still in office. "Each $100 million that was lost would translate to a 3 percent pay hike for teachers."

The strikes are contagious. It's been only a few weeks since West Virginia teachers went on strike, but earlier this week, Oklahoma teachers made good on the promises union organizers Alicia Priest and Mary Best explained to AlterNet in March—to strike if their request for an approximately $10,000 pay raise was not met. They did so following the passage of a bill that gave them only $6,000 of the $10,000 they demanded, after nearly a decade without any raises.

In Kentucky, too, teachers protested at the state capitol in Frankfort, against sweeping cuts to their pensions that put teachers' hopes for retirement in peril. Schools in at least 25 counties shut down last Friday, the Huffington Post reported, with teachers calling in sick or absent, and continued their walkout this week.

Writing about the red-state teacher revolt in the Washington Post, Paul Waldman explains that "Oklahoma is a particularly pure example of conservative philosophy." Since 1992, "state law mandates a 75 percent supermajority in both houses of the legislature to raise taxes." The rule was in response to a 1990 tax increase that was specifically for school funding. Waldman argues that this "has led them to where they are today, with four-day school weeks, cold buildings and decades-old textbooks."

When teachers bring these concerns to state legislatures, they're met with disdain. "Then [they] hold out empty pockets, saying, well, we can't fund education—when they deliberately, annually cut taxes," Thomas said. "That's going to make the next year's funding even harder."

Thomas fears a teacher exodus to surrounding, better-paying states is coming. He explained, "Teachers in Arizona can go to any surrounding state and get a significant raise... I believe both Utah and Colorado are about a $10,000 raise. New Mexico, on average, pays their teachers $15,000 more than Arizona teachers are paid."

"We need a billion-dollar reinvestment just to get back where we were 10 years ago," Thomas continued, explaining why teachers are asking for a 20 percent raise. "That's the part that the public struggles with because you almost can't believe a governor or a legislature would let... students and schools face such peril."

Strikes or walkouts in four states and counting might do something to change that.

Oklahoma Republicans Are Melting Down Over Statewide Teacher Protests
Sarah K. Burris
Oklahoma teachers have spent the past two days at the state capital demanding not only better pay, but more funding for schools that goes directly into the classroom.

Republican lawmakers in the state have been caught trying to pull a switcheroo on laws they passed to raise pay and taxes. GOP legislators have also taken to local news and the House and Senate floors to trash teachers and blame funding shortages on everbody but themselves.

Over the week, the legislature passed and the governor signed a measure that would increase teacher pay by $6,000 annually. Teachers denounced the measure because while the pay increase might be beneficial, it doesn't address the larger concern about adequately funding schools and money in classrooms for children. Immediately after Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed the law in a public ceremony, lawmakers began repealing pieces of it.

Fallin then said that she hoped teachers would come to the capital to say "thank you," according to one Journal Record reporter. When they didn't, Fallin told the Tulsa World that the educators were "acting like a teenage kid that wants a better car." She then tried to claim the teachers were Antifa protesters.

Republican lawmakers then spoke with local news outlets to denounce schools and the teachers.

In an interview with KWTV News 9, state Rep. Bobby Cleveland told teachers to get back to the classroom when the walkout began.

State Rep. Kevin McDugle told KJRH reporter Travis Guillory, "I'm not voting for another stinking measure when they're acting the way they're acting."

"I'm not voting for another stinking measure when they're acting the way they're acting." - Rep. Kevin McDugle. Vid… https://t.co/O2Hxll82TW
 — Travis Guillory (@Travis Guillory)1522776737.0

Two different teachers reported hearing state Sen. Wayne Shaw of Grove, Oklahoma trash the schools in his own district. "It's not like Westville is the brass ring of Oklahoma schools," he reportedly said.

Westville resident Vickie Hanvey railed against Shaw's statements, saying the only "brass rings" in Westville schools are the teachers, counselors and principals.

One solution state Sen. Marty Quinn of Claremore proposed was for teachers simply to take different jobs if they don't like their low pay. It's unclear how he thinks schools would continue without anyone working there. He also told student Ariel Grimes that she was "too young" to understand the school funding crisis. She told KOCO News she was then told to leave.

Quinn later told reporters he would have used different words but blamed Ariel, claiming she took him out of context. She noted that the local bank in Claremore pays for copy paper because the schools are too poor.

Rep. Dale Derby confessed to Fox23 that he told Owasso teachers in his district that the problem was "that Democrats owned this state for 100 years. Republicans have been in charge for 10 years and we've gradually picked it up."

Today, Rep. Dale Derby told Owasso teachers the problem was "that Democrats owned this state for 100 years. Republi… https://t.co/z3WcjrRLEY
 — 🔥 Amanda 🔥 (@🔥 Amanda 🔥)1522808075.0

According to the Oklahoma Policy Institute, school funding dropped significantly 10 years ago when the GOP took over the state legislature. Fallin was then elected in 2010 and the GOP held all state-wide offices. The number of students in each school has also gradually increased.

(Chart via the Oklahoma Policy Institute)

Derby later blamed the schools. "Oh, your local school districts squandered the money," he told Fox 23.

Derby the sequel: "Oh, your local school districts squandered the money." REALLY. Just millions and millions lost… https://t.co/SeyZavjiya
 — 🔥 Amanda 🔥 (@🔥 Amanda 🔥)1522809426.0

He then claimed that they didn't have the funds to distribute. Indeed, there is "not enough money in all of Oklahoma to fix education," Derby told teachers.

And of course, as franchises go on, they always get worse. Derby part III: Not enough money in ALL OF OKLAHOMA to f… https://t.co/yN7eARMwsY
 — 🔥 Amanda 🔥 (@🔥 Amanda 🔥)1522809561.0

State Rep. Josh Cockcroft of Tecumseh repeatedly cut off the microphone of House minority leader Scott Inman when he tried to speak out in support of the teachers, one educator reported.

In a 2016 poll, 65 percent of Oklahomans said that the state spends too little on students. Indeed, the state ranks 47th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to Census Bureau data. When it comes to teacher pay, Oklahoma ranks 49th in the nation, making $13,705 less than the national average. Teachers have reserved space in the capital through at least April 13.

'They knew better': Ex-Republican congressman says he's leaving the GOP in protest of what it's become - Alternet.org ›
Watch This Republican Lawmaker in Oklahoma Have a Meltdown Over Teacher Strike
Brad Reed
Teachers across Oklahoma are protesting this week for both improved salaries and more funding for their classrooms — and now one Republican state lawmaker has decided to put his foot down by having an angry tantrum against them on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

Tulsa World reports that Republican Rep. Kevin McDugle on Tuesday posted a video of himself on social media that showed him angrily attacking Oklahoma teachers for their behavior this week, and he vowed to vote against any more funding for education.

"I'm not voting for another stinking measure when they're acting the way they're acting," McDugle said while on the floor of the Oklahoma House in a video posted on Facebook live. "You're losing support of people who supported you all year long. Now you're going to come here and act like this after you got a raise?"

McDugle closed out the video by telling the teachers to "go right ahead, be pissed at me if you want to."

Even though the Oklahoma legislature agreed this year to give public school teachers a raise for the first time in a decade, teachers say the pay raise is only one part of their complaints, as many say schools themselves are woefully underfunded. Among other things, teachers are complaining that their schools can only afford to stay open for four days a week, and they say they are often burdened with outdated textbooks, broken furniture, and large class sizes.

Watch the video of McDugle below.

Watch a Striking Oklahoma Teacher Explain Exactly How Pathetic School Funding Has Become
Education funding levels are reaching disturbing lows in many states, and they're part of the reason teachers strikes are popping up across the country.

Oklahoma teacher Allyson Kubat explained to CNN on Monday why so many educators are taking to the streets.

"We've got to see the funding back in the classrooms," she said. "My public speaking textbooks talk about going to your librarian so they can talk to you about this new thing called 'the internet.' And how to look up information on 'microfiche.'"

She continued: "I need new textbooks; I'm not the only one. I know my English teacher friends are buying their own novels."

Kubat is absolutely right. Cuts to education have been drastic and pervasive.

"Most states cut school funding after the recession hit, and it took years for states to restore their funding to pre-recession levels," explains the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "In 2015, the latest year for which comprehensive spending data are available from the U.S. Census Bureau, 29 states were still providing less total school funding per student than they were in 2008."

Teachers in West Virginia already made big gains after they went on strike last month. Thousands protested at state capitals in Oklahoma and Kentucky on Monday. Last week, teachers in Arizona were marching, and educators and Alaska and New Mexico could be next, NPR reports.

Lawmakers—especially conservative legislatures in these mostly Republican-leaning states—should be worried about the growing demands of unions. As the economy has gotten stronger, more and more workers are realizing that they aren't seeing the gains. Incumbent politicians may feel their wrath.

"I would like to hear just messages of a support, I think, from all levels, including President Trump. Lip service, though, is not enough," said Kubat. "It's nice to hear words of support, and it's nice to hear that people are pro-teacher. But I think what we really need is action."

Watch her remarks below:

Our textbooks are so outdated they "talk about going to your local librarian so they can talk to you about this new thing called the Internet," says Oklahoma teacher Allyson Kubat, who's rallying with thousands of educators for increased school funding https://t.co/pB0mGjPae3 pic.twitter.com/FD8Fd4ikiB
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) April 2, 2018

Teacher Strikes Shut Down Schools Across Oklahoma and Kentucky
DailyKos
The red-state teachers rebellion that started in West Virginia continues to grow, with teachers in Kentucky and Oklahoma walking out on Monday after the Kentucky teachers shut down schools in nearly two dozen counties on Friday. In Oklahoma, dozens of school districts have announced closures for Monday, and many Kentucky schools are closed as well.

The Kentucky teachers are protesting a sudden retirement overhaul, while Oklahoma teachers are fighting for increased investment in their schools even after lawmakers voted them a substantial pay increase.

This package does not overcome a shortfall that has caused four-day weeks and overcrowded classrooms that deprive kids of the one-on-one attention they need," Oklahoma Education Association President Alicia Priest said in a video posted on Facebook. "We must keep fighting for everything our students deserve."

Arizona teachers, too, are calling both for pay raises and for increased education funding—and planning to take action if they don't see improvements. Music teacher Noah Karvelis told NPR that he often has 40 students in a classroom with just seven pianos, and "The math just doesn't add up. There's no way to reach those kids. Every day you're going home and you're just feeling like, I failed. I failed these students. And that's honestly the worst possible feeling any teacher could ever have."

There's a simple explanation for the education underfunding:

Arizona cut personal income tax rates by 10 percent in 2006, cut corporate tax rates by 30 percent in 2011, reduced taxes on capital gains, and reduced taxes in other ways over the last couple of decades.

Oklahoma cut personal income tax rates starting in 2004. The top income tax rate fell from 6.65 percent to 5 percent, with the latest drop taking effect in 2016 even as the state faced a $1 billion shortfall. Oklahoma also substantially reduced its severance tax on oil and gas, increased tax exemptions for retirement and military income, exempted capital gains income from taxation, and abolished the estate tax.

Disrespect for teachers is certainly at play in Republican-controlled states that pay salaries that leave teachers working second, third, and even sixth jobs, but it's not just that. It's also disrespect for students combined with short-term thinking that will harm people and economies. But hey, rich people will have really low taxes.

And that's why teachers are fighting.

Devastating new DOJ report confirms Jeff Sessions refused to be interviewed on family separations


text:
The Friedel Chronicles
The Magic of Logic (4)
Entertain your kids with this kind of diversion. They will love it!
Yesterday I completed my second course in logic for talented students of a local school. They were ten to thirteen years old and after the final class had to give an evaluation. The result was hardly surprising: I had been able to feel it during classes. The students were delighted and urged the school to force me to do a continuation next year. None had switched off during the lessons, all 14 had worked hard on every problem I gave them, never losing attention or showing signs of boredom. Let me say this: it was not due to some superb skill that I possess, as an educator, it was the subject matter and the thinking process that captivated them.
Enders in the kitchen, enjoying a good think.
Kids basically love to think. It gives them unusual pleasure to work on logical problems. The brain produces dopamine when they think hard, and that gives a pleasurable feeling. I will research this theory further, but I think solving these problems somehow produces a "high" which they continue to seek. They are always ready for more.
As I have described in previous articles (see links at the bottom of this page) I started my grand-kids on logical puzzles when the older of the two boys, Enders, turned six. He is now seven and has developed an ability to solve logical puzzles at least as well as most adults. I have tried them on his brother Hennes, currently six. He is becoming equally adept, and enjoying the puzzles just like Enders has, for over a year now.
I want to give you an example, one that you can try on your kids. In the above picture Enders has just turned seven, while Hennes is still five years old. On the table are three marking dots, two red and one blue. The kids are waiting for the puzzle.
For this they had to close their eyes and I stuck a red dot on each forehead. I also concealed the blue dot. Now they could open their eyes and had the task of deducing the colour of the dot on their forehead.
Enders and Hennes spent the first minute trying to squint up and see their own dot. But they couldn't. Hennes wanted to rush to a mirror, but of course that was not allowed. He even tried to see a reflection on the table.
Okay, guys, tell me the colour of your dot. After a minute or so Hennes said: "Mine's blue!" I asked him how he knew, but he could not explain. "You are guessing?" I said, and he admitted that is what he had done. What else?
During this interaction I could see Enders thinking. And suddenly he burst out: "Mine is red!" — "Are you also guessing, Enders?" No, he was positive his must be red. I asked him to explain. You can watch him doing it (in German) in this video clip. What Enders says is: "If my dot were blue, Hennes would never have guessed that his was blue, since there was only one blue dot. So mine must be red!"
We all clapped at this perfect solution. I had one more question for Enders: "If Hennes had not tried to guess the colour of his dot, if he had said nothing, could you have told me the colour of your dot?" — "No, of course not," Enders replied, "then it would have been impossible for me to tell."
I left it at that, and the kids went on to play their regular boisterous games. But suddenly, in the middle of jumping and pushing, Enders suddenly stopped in his tracks and came running over to me. "Even if Hennes had said nothing I would have been able to tell you the colour of my dot!" he said, full of excitement. How that? "If Hennes had seen a blue dot he would have immediately known that his had to be red, because there was only one blue dot. But if he says nothing, if he can't figure it out, that means mine must be red!" There was great pleasure and pride on his face and voice.
A lady friend who saw this all transpire said to me: "This kid is a [expletive] genius!" No, he is just very smart. I called Enders and asked him about this. He explained: "I am very good at solving puzzles. That is because my grandpa has been giving them to me for a year now."
The Magic of Logic (10)
Related stories from my blog:
Piet Hein and the Soma Cube
Remembering Martin Gardner
Piazzi and the missing planet
Lie to your kids — it's good for them
The Café Wall Illusion
Prime number cicadas — really!
Money problems without decimals
IQ test: weighing the coins
Tricking the brain
Scamming programmers with Guess
The art of skepticism
He had a dream — a logical puzzle
More from The Friedel Chronicles
Frederic Alois Friedel, born in 1945, science journalist, co-founder of ChessBase, studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford.
Bekah Ware
Hi, my name is MOM and it's all my fault.
Ryan Link
How Time Outdoors has Helped me be a Better Dad
Suchi
Tale of Preggo — Eternal Pleasure!!
Pat Oates
laughstaff™
There are No Sick Days in Comedy
Jessie Liew SP
I was infected by COVID and my child was left alone on her own.
Vanessa Dueck
My Kid Is Pushing Me Away
Connected Mother/Connected Educator #CE12
Cassie Jean Wells
OYM Day 23 : Keep It Light


Stroma was a performance by the Eltractor collective, the first half of an audiovisual concert organized by Le Lieu at Caserne Dalhousie on November 5, 1999.
It combined multimedia intervention, images in movement, and computerized sounds in a passionate, untameable flight of creative energy.
Stroma was recorded by Société Radio-Canada's Chaîne culturelle for Le Navire Night with host Hélène Prévost. It was broadcast on November 21, 1999.


text:
Francis Anani Kofi Lodonu (* 19. November 1937 in Gbi Atabu bei Hohoe) ist ein ghanaischer römisch-katholischer Geistlicher und emeritierter Bischof von Ho.

Leben
Francis Anani Kofi Lodonu empfing am 18. Mai 1964 die Priesterweihe für das Bistum Keta.

Papst Paul VI. ernannte ihn am 17. Mai 1973 zum Weihbischof in Keta und Titularbischof von Mascula. Der Papst persönlich spendete ihn am 29. Juni desselben Jahres die Bischofsweihe; Mitkonsekratoren waren Agostino Casaroli, Untersekretär des Rates für die öffentlichen Angelegenheiten der Kirche, und Bernardin Gantin, Sekretär der Kongregation für die Evangelisierung der Völker.

Am 10. April 1976 wurde er zum Bischof von Keta-Ho ernannt. Mit der Teilung des Bistums Keta-Ho wurde er am 19. Februar 1994 zum ersten Bischof von Ho ernannt.

Papst Franziskus nahm am 14. Juli 2015 seinen altersbedingten Rücktritt an.

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Römisch-katholischer Bischof (21. Jahrhundert)
Römisch-katholischer Bischof (20. Jahrhundert)
Titularbischof
Weihbischof
Ghanaer
Geboren 1937
Mann
Person (Ho, Ghana)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Un periodo geologico è un'unità geocronologica utilizzata in geologia. È una delle suddivisioni della scala dei tempi geologici; solitamente tra un periodo e il successivo si registra un'estinzione in alcuni ordini del regno animale.

Un periodo rappresenta il tempo trascorso durante la formazione delle rocce che costituiscono il sistema corrispondente. Un periodo appartiene ad una determinata era geologica ed è diviso, al suo interno, in numerose epoche.

Elenco dei periodi geologici

Note

Voci correlate
Scala dei tempi geologici

Altri progetti


Section 1.	For purposes of this rule, "Cy Pres Funds" shall refer to all funds that remain after the payment of all approved class member claims, expenses, litigation costs, attorneys' fees and other court-approved disbursements to implement the relief granted. It shall not refer to any such remaining funds that are otherwise distributed by the parties through class settlement, including funds to be returned to one or more parties.
Section 2.	In matters where the claims process has been exhausted and Cy Pres Funds remain, such funds may be disbursed by the trial court to one or more non-profit or governmental entities which support projects that will benefit the class or similarly situated persons consistent with the objectives and purposes of the underlying causes of action on which relief was based, including the Louisiana Bar Foundation for use in its mission to support activities and programs that promote direct access to the justice system.
Section 3.	All disbursements of Cy Pres Funds made pursuant to this Rule shall be reported to the Office of the Judicial Administrator of the Louisiana Supreme Court.


There are several instances of data breaches every day. The only way that companies can survive is to invest in protective data measures. There is no need to worry because there is a data recovery software available in the market today. In order to have an active recovery, you must make sure you invest in the best software in the market. Most people think of using the firewall but that is not always effective. There is consequently all reasons to make you invest on something that will provide the protection that you deserve.
The investment that you do should keep you retrieve your information when you need to do that. If you want to know more about data recovery, you can read more here for your information. There are many times when you can experience cyber accidents without knowing. Even though you may not be able to prevent accidents, you can ensure that you control them. There is a possibility of controlling the many damages that can be brought by crashes. Knowing how to manage them is the most critical thing in data protection.
Investing in a great recovery software is so that you can manage the implications and complications of cyber-attack. You can learn more about that by reading what cyber-attack problems can do to your data. Now that so much data is being stored online, criminals can get a lot from companies that are not protected. The criminals are mostly targeting small businesses who have not yet started investing in data protection. That is why if you are running a business whichever size, you need to think about investing in a protective software.
You will also need to spend in data recovery software because you will use it to protect your information from natural disaster. Many natural disasters like earthquake and hurricane among others can transform your business. That is the reason of spending a great software such that in case something happens you are assured to recovering your information.
The best thing with the software is that you can recover your business very fast even after a disaster strikes. If you have not thought of the data recovery software this is the time to do that. You have to keep in mind that the cybercriminals will want to strike as soon as they can. You should visit blogs that deal with information recovery software for more information. You should also look for a website that will give you more info about data recovery software. It is very important to ensure that your business is protected against any hackers of information.


Welcome to Daniel Boone Middle School in the 1970s, where teachers and coaches must hide who they are, and girls who like girls are forced to question their own choices. Presented in the voice of a premier storyteller, One True Way sheds exquisite light on what it means to be different, while at the same time being wholly true to oneself. Through the lives and influences of two girls, readers come to see that love is love is love. Set against the backdrop of history and politics that surrounded gay rights in the 1970s South, this novel is a thoughtful, eye-opening look at tolerance, acceptance, and change, and will widen the hearts of all readers.


text:
Q: Facebook link share - Something Went Wrong I checked probably half of results for this problem, and didn't find out any solution. We have page trainers4me.com, and we have problems with Facebook sharing. If we share link on FB and user with Firefox or Internet Explorer tries to click on link he get a message:

Something Went Wrong
  Sorry, there was a problem with this link: https://trainers4me.com/ You can now continue to this website, or go
  back to the page you were on before. Remember: Only follow links from
  sources you trust.

The problem is that only users with FF and IE gets this error message in Safari and Chrome works just fine.
Well I checked some solutions for this, and all of them are about redirects, CDN. We use www to non-www redirect, cloudfront (CDN), etc.
Checked page with Facebook debugger no errors.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
300K Recovery Agency Thief Gets Year In Prison
Home / Auto Delinquency • Classified • Legal • Repossession • Repossession News • Technology • Top News • Uncategorized / 300K Recovery Agency Thief Get …
Dec 8, 2018 DaveAuto Delinquency, Classified, Legal, Repossession, Repossession News, Technology, Top News, Uncategorized
An update to an article we linked to here.
A Billings woman was sentenced to a year in federal prison for stealing nearly $400,000 from her former employer.
Jennifer Anne Thaw was sentenced on four counts of wire fraud for a term of 12 months and one day in U.S. District Court in Billings on Friday. Judge Susan Watters also ordered Thaw to serve three years on probation after she is released from prison. She is to pay $392,930.71 in restitution.
Over the course of seven years, Thaw stole $390,000 from her former employer, repossession company J&S Recovery. While overseeing accounts receivable and accounts payable, Thaw had transferred money into her personal Wells Fargo checking account, court documents state.
But while her gambling addiction was a focal point in the case, Watters said initial information showed Thaw spent only $103,000 on gambling.
Watters said the defense offered no clear account of where the remaining stolen money went, but that there was evidence Thaw was trying to make payments on household bills that became a problem after her husband lost his job.
Penelope Strong, Thaw's defense attorney, said Thaw didn't spend the money on lavish vacations or other big purchases. She has since filed for and been discharged from bankruptcy.
Advertisement (1 of 1): 0:10
"She's not the gambling addict who got rich," Strong said.
Strong said Thaw betrayed her employers' trust, but that their business was still operating today, and that her "persistent, severe gambling disorder" had fueled her actions. She asked for a sentence of probation only.


Participate in the debriefing and review of the delivery of the assigned services.
Support the ERT Supervisor in planning and organizing services.
Experience in an emergency environment, an asset.
Potential for responding in disaster areas, as well as difficult and unstable conditions (environmental, physical, social, etc.) and uncomfortable conditions (noise, odours, smoke, humidity, vulnerable clients). These stressful rapidly changing environments with limited information to make decisions have the potential to affect the physical and psychological state of the responders on site.
Potential for basic or hardship living conditions/accommodations.
Ability to respond in local community (3 days minimum) and outside of their community (10 days minimum).


The Time Machine for .NET team traveled to Kiev to spend a schedule packed debugging style trip. Filled with business, coding, beer and good times, it was a trip which will not be forgotten anytime soon.
The Time Machine for .NET likes to work hard but they also like to play hard. This should not be a surprise to any developer who uses the Reverse Debugger, which goes back to the moment when errors occur in the code. Less time looking for bugs means more time to play. A trip to one of the hearts of the IT outsourcing world was in order, and as promised, they delivered good work and a good time.
Upon arriving in Kiev a big steak dinner was had with the guys from DevRain Solutions at Sam's Steak house in Kiev. DevRain Soltuions is led by two Microsoft MVPs from Ukraine, Alex Krakovetskiy and Mykhailo Galushko. They specialize in mobile, desktop and cloud development and were awarded "Lead in mobile scenarios implementation on Windows Phone 8 platform" in 2013 by Microsoft Ukraine.
A lot of wine and tasty food mixed with terrific company and lively conversation made the evening a great time. There is hope to visit Sam's Steak House again sometime and it's recommended it to anyone visiting Kiev.
Taking it easy in the morning, the Time Machine guys took their time getting over to California in Ukraine at the Kyiv National Library. California in Ukraine seeks to foster entrepreneurship and friendship between California in Ukraine, and they do so quite well. Also, partnering for the event with the very cool and talented InHacking in Kiev a workshop on Debugging was conducted by Time Machine's R&D director Kamil Kupcewicz.
After the workshop, the party began. Time Machine for .NET sponsored a free pizza and beer after party at Gorky Pub which didn't stop until two in the morning.
With new friends made, and an awesome adventure under the belt, the Time Machine team departed Kiev the next day. Kiev is truly a wonderful city, filled with great high tech, and innovative people that know how to have a good time. We will be back soon!
Signup now for early access.


text:
The worst argument for Trumpcare
Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review. - photo by File photo
Of all the arguments to make for repealing and replacing Obamacare, the very worst is that people don't need health insurance.
Yet this is a Trump administration talking point. White House press secretary Sean Spicer recently told reporters, "When we get asked the question, 'How many people are going to get covered?' that's not the question that should be asked."
Pressed on the merits of the bill by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney shot back, "You're worried about getting people covered?" As if that's a woeful mistake.
This is a strange rhetorical tack for officials in an administration led by a president who pledged to cover everyone. Nor is it substantively or political defensible. Repealing and replacing Obamacare will require every ounce of persuasiveness that Republicans can muster, especially with the Congressional Budget Office now estimating that under Trumpcare, 14 million fewer people will be insured in 2018. The early signs aren't encouraging.
It is true that health insurance isn't a panacea. There is an academic debate about whether having health insurance leads to longer lives, and all sorts of factors besides insurance affect health and the quality of medical care (geography, for instance, can have more of an impact on care than whether someone is insured).
Still, there is abundant evidence of the benefits of insurance. Research has found that Romneycare in Massachusetts improved measures of physical and mental health. A Rice University study of the Houston area found that people with insurance report being in better health than those who lack it.
If nothing else, insurance is protection against catastrophic health expenses and provides a sense of security.
Republicans obviously shouldn't accept the premises of their detractors. By all means, they should hit the dubious methodology of the CBO, which vastly overestimated how many people would be covered on the Obamacare exchanges in the first place. And they should point out Obamacare's manifest failings, including an overreliance on the deeply flawed Medicaid program and insurance exchanges that are shaky at best (the executive of Aetna recently said they are in a "death spiral").
But the best response to criticisms that Trumpcare doesn't cover enough people is simple and more fundamental - to get the coverage numbers up. If the headline-grabbing numbers from the CBO don't prompt the GOP to realize this, nothing will. Making the tax credit in the Republican plan more generous further down the income scale would be a start.
President Trump's promises about universal coverage aren't achievable, but to lurch in the other direction and dismiss the significance of health insurance is politically poisonous.
At its best, the Trump phenomenon pointed to a GOP more grounded in the economic realities of working-class life. It is remarkable, then, that the first major legislative priority out of the box is being sold, in part, in stereotypically Republican terms, and by Trump's own team.
Before going further down this road, they should think about why Trump, with his keen gut-level political instinct, never told audiences or interviewers that he'd be fine with fewer people having insurance, and adjust their rhetoric and their plan accordingly.


Las Vegas, NV – Cooler Master, a leader in design and manufacturing computer components and peripherals showcases community activated concepts and a product line inspired by its innovation over the past 25 years. Cooler Master continues to propel toward a more modular and customizable future so no matter what you make or build, consumers are able to completely "make it yours" and fully express themselves throughout the process.
Cooler Master has engaged with a variety of PC using communities including VR, robotics, modding, and 3D design in order to better understand consumer needs and wants to take their "make it yours" initiatives to the next level. Cooler Master is highlighting a number of custom-made parts by the community at CES such as a mini-ITX case with a built-in tablet and HDMI ports in the front, an augmented reality (AR) app allowing consumers to explore the interior layout of cases, and a 3D printing station showing off custom designs. For the modding station, Cooler Master is showcasing a vintage, hand-crafted headset based on the MasterPulse design. To save space and make transportation convenient, a robotics team developed a one-of-a-kind aluminum mounting rack for the MasterCase 5 that attaches directly to a tool chest. These are just a few results of Cooler Master's engagement with the community.
To celebrate 25 years of continuous innovation, Cooler Master aimed at changing the way power supplies are designed, built, and made to develop the be-all and end-all of power supplies. Partnering with Murata, whose excellence in aerospace and robotics components are unmatched made this possible and the result was a quality redefined power supply: the MasterWatt Maker MIJ. Completely one-of-a-kind stacked transformer that cannot be found in any other power supply in the industry, the MIJ is 100% designed, manufactured, and assembled in Japan.
This year, Cooler Master brings more customization and lighting options to thermal solutions. Introducing liquid coolers with FlowOp technology and new patented dual-chamber pump design, Cooler Master puts in hands of consumers a comprehensive cooling machine that last longer, performs better, and requires virtually no maintenance. With the new MasterFan Pro RGB series and MasterLiquid Pro RGB series, consumers are able to light up their rig by switching between three color modes or choosing from the entire RGB color spectrum with optional RGB fan controller and software.
Cooler Master is focusing on allowing consumers to make their own gaming experiences by personalizing their headsets, keyboards, and mice. To accomplish this goal, they are introducing eco-system sets that will help you easily choose peripherals for specific purposes. At CES 2017, Cooler Master is highlighting customizable, professional, and ergonomic sets. The customizable set lives up to its name. Engravings, color variations, custom keycaps, vinyl wrappings, and different materials like titanium and carbon fiber are just some of the examples that will belong to the customizable sets. Their professional set includes straightforward, no frills gear that blends performance and style with focus on functionality. Ergonomics set will utilize smaller framed peripherals to keep your hands lined up with your shoulders, improving comfort and reducing fatigue.
The FreeForm Modular System for the MasterCase series was introduced in 2015. For their 25th anniversary, Cooler Master is coming out strong with numerous new editions to upgrade the exterior outlook and interior layout rather than having to replace your case entirely as needs change over time. Vertical, Horizontal, and Expanded PCI SSD trays, Vertical Graphics Card Holder, and LED strips as well as an LED partition panel for the MasterCase Pro 3 are some of the accessories debuting later this year. The ever-expanding FreeForm Modular System will bring longevity while still providing the option to switch up the looks and function.
Cooler Master is all about the things that make building PCs a rewarding experience and the joy of creating something uniquely yours. Through their dedication and commitment to developing community inspired products over the past 25 years, Cooler Master has proven that they are pioneers in the industry and will continue to provide cutting-edge solutions in the years to come.


I need to edit about 10,000 text fields by adding in a number zero in front of all of them.
Example: My text field is now saying 12345 and i need them to say 012345 instead.
Can this be done on the CMS itself or can anyone suggest a simple solution.
If you have experience with mySQL you could run a mySQL command to prepend the field to add 0.
Be sure to make a complete backup of your database first. And if you have a staging environment, that would be preferred.
I have ZERO experience with mySQL. Any step-by-step assistance with this will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Step-by-step mySQL instructions isn't something we can provide via support. And with no mySQL experience I would strongly recommend against running any mySQL updates on a live site.
We can help make the update through our consulting department. Email the site details to consulting@interactivetools.com and we can provide you a quote.
I just sent an email to consulting@interactivetools.com concerning this. Please let me know if it was received and the next step in getting this sorted out. Thank you.
This is Ross in consulting. Just wanted to let you know I haven't seen your email yet. Could you check on your end to see if it's stuck in an outgoing mail box or maybe just send another one?
Thanks for sending the email again. I got this one and replied to it already.
We can continue the conversation via that email thread.
Apparently some of my emails are not going through. I sent a response. Let me know if you got it. Thank you.
Thanks for the heads up. Looks like our emails are coming through fine. We can continue the conversation via email moving forward.


text:
Commentary :: Globalization : Human Rights : International : Labor : Organizing : Politics : Social Welfare : War and Militarism
Decisive times in Oaxaca: To fall back now is to give up the struggle
by LTS-CC
Email: laboraction (nospam) aim.com	 27 Oct 2006
In Oaxaca, between the attempts of sectors of the teachers union
leadership to betray the struggle and the government's repressive
blackmail, the barricades stay up and APPO's sit-in in the Mexican
capital continues. The struggle finds itself at a decisive point.
Declaration of the LTS-CC, of October 26, 2006
distributed at the Boston demonstration in solidarity with Oaxaca,
unofficial translation by Fred Bergen
Decisive times in Oaxaca
To fall back now is to give up the struggle
The workers and poor people of Oaxaca are giving us a great example of
how to fight against capitalist governments: with barricades and the
strike that is kept alive by the rank and file of the teachers against
the government's threats and the disinformation campaign in the media.
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, outside the Senate, they are maintaining a
militant sit-in, despite the cold and the rain, and twenty one heroic
comrades continue a hunger strike.
The militant struggle of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca
(APPO) is at a decisive point. The government, the PAN, the PRI, the
PRD, and the institutions want to stop the heroic Oaxaca commune in its
tracks, since it is a lesson in struggle for millions of workers,
peasants, and youth throughout the country. A lesson that shows the way
to build an alternative to the power of the bosses and their
politicians. They are betting that the APPO won't succeed in its
struggle. That's why up to now they have opposed the exit of the
governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO), like when the Senate
refused to pass a resolution to dissolve the state government, knowing
that his resignation could be an example for the Mexican masses. This is
why they maintain the threats of repression by means of the army and the
federal police (PFP), all while the paramilitaries linked to the police
and the PRI attack and assassinate comrades at the barricades, to
intimidate and force back this valiant struggle. If [Mexican President
Vicente] Fox and the Secretary of the Interior have not yet decided on
repression, it is because they know that they would meet heavy
resistance, which could awaken a real insurrection with repercussions in
Oaxaca and other states, and spark the resurgence of a nationwide
solidarity movement. They shall not pass!
In light of this, to propose a return to classes when URO hasn't even
left, as a sector of the CNTE teachers union headed by Rueda Pacheco is
suggesting, is an open betrayal of this heroic struggle.
Strengthen and extend the APPO's struggle to kick out URO
The militant rank and file of the teachers and poor people of Oaxaca
know that if they go back to classes under these conditions, they will
not have gained their basic unifying demand: the resignation of URO. The
teachers know quite well that the government's "promises" are nothing
more than that: "promises" to divide, and demobilize the struggle and
prevent it from radicalizing.
Likewise, proposing a "truce" in which the city would be provisionally
handed over to URO for one hundred days (as proposed by SERAPAZ, a human
rights organization), would only demobilize the thousands who have
maintained the barricades and the sit-in in the capital, and would leave
open the possibility for URO to return to government afterward. With
this resolution, Fox and the regime could also negotiate with the high
officials a change to another bourgeois politician who would continue
the same program against the workers and poor people of Oaxaca.
The rank and file teachers and those maintaining the barricades in
Oaxaca and the sit-in at the capital rightly rejected Rueda Pacheco's
proposal, considering it a betrayal of their struggle. This section of
the CNTE leadership first proposed a consultation outside of the
previous decisions [of the teachers], who made URO's resignation a
necessary condition for discussing a return to classes. This leadership
tried to divide the movement, accepting a proposal that would only have
resolved the sectoral demands of the teachers. And now they want to end
the strike, going over the heads of the rank and file of Section 22 [of
the CNTE], as their improper conduct at the consultation with the
government. The leadership of Rueda Pacheco, peace-making and
conciliatory towards the government, is working against the movement and
the mass resistance, the barricades and the sit-in, those who are
sustaining the struggle.
In light of this, it would be very important for the APPO and the
teachers to vote in a new leadership against Rueda Pacheco and his
maneuvers. We can't forget our imprisoned and assassinated comrades, or
the hunger strikers! The assemblies and their next congress should
discuss a program for the struggle to be strengthened and victorious
without letting down its guard, a program opposed to all sell-out attempts.
For a nationwide mobilization in solidarity
We of the LTS-CC (Socialist Workers' League and Against the Current)
think that it is most urgent to overcome the isolation of the APPO and
surround it with nationwide solidarity. The unions and the organizations
of the "Other Campaign" should call for a nationwide solidarity strike
and a huge mobilization. It is necessary to demand an end to the
repression, that the demands of the APPO be met, and to promote a
nationwide coordination of efforts in support of Oaxaca. The CNTE's
strike on October 27 is a good opportunity for this.
We must promote concrete measures of solidarity with the sit-in and the
hunger strike, setting up solidarity committees in every workplace,
school, and neighborhood. We must call for the establishment of a strike
fund for gathering provisions, strengthening the sit-in, and making
every effort to spread the struggle as well as calling for international
In Oaxaca, against the repressive threats, another mega-march that
demonstrates the people's will to defend their commune will be needed.
And the organization of a great general strike throughout Oaxaca state,
so that all the workers, along with the teachers, can be the cutting
edge of a death blow to the URO government. A victory for the APPO is a
victory for us all! We must reject all the maneuvers coming from the
negotiating table. The Senate revealed its true class character against
the Oaxacan masses, showing once more that all the institutions and
their politicians are against the demands of the workers: thus, we must
insist that URO step down and fight for a Provisional Government of the
APPO and the other worker, peasant, and poor people's organizations of
struggle, to meet the demands of all the poor people of Oaxaca, and in
which the workers and their allies in the city and the countryside would
strengthen and extend the power that they have held on to for the last
five months.
In Oaxaca, as everywhere in the country, either the power of the
capitalists is uprooted and the workers and poor people take power, or
the state power is left in the hands of our executioners. This workers
and poor people's government headed by the APPO could call together a
Revolutionary Constituent Assembly in the state, where the great
majority of the people could discuss their most important demands.
To achieve this, the APPO, which now unites various social and political
tendencies and organizations, should be transformed into an organization
based on delegates elected in the communities, neighborhoods, and
workplaces across the state, mandated and recallable at any time by
their electors, where the next steps to take are discussed and decided
democratically. An organization in which those who are on the front
lines that prevented the military-police occupation are represented with
voice and vote: the barricades and the self-defense units. Against the
new wave of assassinations, provocations and attacks, it becomes very
important for all of the tasks of self-defense to be centralized and
coordinated (such as the barricades, the workers guards, and the
teachers' police force), where the measures to be taken are
democratically agreed upon.
Against the traitorous behavior of sections of the leadership, we put
these proposals for consideration before the workers, youth, and
fighting women of the APPO and the Oaxaca teachers, to defend the
Commune against the attacks of the government and its institutions and
to ensure the triumph of this heroic struggle.
Long live the Oaxaca Commune!
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!
Labor Action discussion group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/labor_action/
Working Class Emancipation email newsletter:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/emancipation_news/
http://www.ft-ci.org/
http://www.geocities.com/ligamex/