A Christmas Standard Reworked on the Eve of Trump

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In a recent post, Hank Reichman provided a post-election playlist that did a great deal to mitigate my post-election despondency. That playlist could not have included this just released video of Fiona Apple singing a Christmas standard reworked for this particular holiday season: Whether you enjoy the song or not, Fiona…

A Playlist for the Trump Presidency

BY HANK REICHMAN Music can be an indispensable solace, inspiration, and fortification.  Over the past several weeks I’ve needed all three, and I suspect others have as well.  So I’ve put together this playlist to help us through the next four years.  Thirty songs out of many. (Sadly, for a good number of them you’ll…

Where Do We, As Teachers, Go from Here?

BY AARON BARLOW President of the National Council of Teachers of English Doug Hesse posted on Facebook today that he is scrapping his upcoming presidential address “hoping I can find something to say to about the prospects of teaching reading and writing in a country where so much hatred abounds, where facts do not matter,…

Donald Trump's War on Education

BY JOHN K. WILSON Donald Trump spent most of the 2016 campaign saying almost nothing about education. But recently, Trump has made comments revealing that if he wins the presidency, it could have dramatic and alarming effects on public schools and universities. In his latest pronouncements about universities and in his “Contract with the American…

Donald Trump In Disguise

BY JOHN K. WILSON Here’s an important point to remember this Halloween: Trump is a narcissistic con man dressed up as a presidential candidate, as I reveal in my book Trump Unveiled: Exposing the Bigoted Billionaire. It’s the scariest costume anyone will ever wear. Inside, he’s as hollow as a Trump piñata that my cats Sunspot and…

How to Invite Satire That Hurts

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is from Brian Stetler’s Reliable Sources daily newsletter from CNN for Sunday, October 16: “Trump Turns on SNL “Sunday’s funniest (?) story is about SNL and specifically about Trump’s reaction to the show. On Sunday morning, after watching the skits, he tweeted, ‘Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me. Time to retire…

Dumbing Down “Genius”

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH   Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle   DaVinci   Galileo   Newton   Shakespeare   Franklin   Lincoln   Edison   Tesla   Freud   Einstein   Hawking   Trump _________________________ If you have not been following the news, here are the opening paragraphs of an article written by David A. Graham…